Wikipedia talk:Deletion reform/Proposals/Uncontested deletions

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As the originator of this proposal (although it is far from original - Radiant! suggested something similar recently) can I ask that this be a discussion, not a poll at this stage. --Doc (?) 21:38, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] General Comments

Good idea. No code changes needed. Let's do it. JesseW, the juggling janitor 19:34, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes. This also avoids the problem with proposals for early AFD closing - that some people may not show up until late, or some good argument may not be made until too late. ~~ N (t/c) 20:16, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Sounds like a good way to make the process more efficient, while not causing any problems. Martin 21:19, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

A relatively small number of AfD articles are ever truly contested. Most are either overwhelmingly slated for deletion or overwhelmingly slated to be kept. I think we need a process to filter both kinds out quickly - this helps for those that are obvious (but not speedy) deletes, I'd also like to see a proposal for accelerated retention of obvious (but not speedy) keeps.  BD2412 talk 21:42, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
This does not solve quick 'keeps' - but most uncontested nominations are 'delete'. However, it may help the 'keep' cases, as if someone nominates for deletion under this system, if the tag is subsequently removed - and a good reason given on the talk page (i.e. 'yes he is notable, you've missed this ...' or verifying references are added) there is good chance that the nominator will not push the point and take the matter to afd/contested deletions. --Doc (?) 21:56, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Good point, I hope it works out exactly that way.  BD2412 talk 22:16, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm. I like it but - if there are articles on AfD that are overwhelmingly voted for one way or the other, it strikes me that it would be better for CSD to be expanded, instead of introducing another class of potentially deletable articles. By extension, we could have an unlimited number of "categories" for articles ranging from "speedy deleted within minutes of creation" to "kept after 7 months of arguing", each with varying rules and thresholds. Would you consider expanding on why the purpose of this proposal cannot be accomplished by a widening of CSD?--inksT 23:07, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

  • The problem with speedy deletion is that there is almost no double-checking. I have seen many articles nominated for AfD where the nominator seemed to believe that it was an obvious band vanity or dicdef or whatever, but to have someone jump up and point out how important the subject is (or better, improve the article to the point where it is a clear keep). The waiting period and central location for people to review the reasons and votes give an easy way to ensure that every article gets at least some second scrutiny before being deleted. — brighterorange (talk) 04:23, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Double/triple/quadruple checking would be easy enough to implement - e.g. A Speedy article needs to have the signatures of 2/3/4/N number of admins who agree it is a speedy candidate before it can be deleted. Perhaps more importantly, the current proposal only deals with articles that are clearly deletes, and if they are that clear, we should make it easier to delete them by making use of the systems already in place, instead of creating new ones if at all possible. Also note that expanding CSD does not eliminate AfD - something Speedied in error can always be undeleted and put on AfD instead. I'm just against the extra layer of procedures, because I think we can accomplish these objectives without them.--inksT 04:49, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
      • I actually considered 'scrutinised speedies' for a while, but I rejected it for three reasons. a) It is actually quite bureaucratic to implement when you think about it. b) It still gives too little scrutiny for possibly valid articles - three admins agree and it is gone - no chance for others to point out some value (they can go to AfU, but only if they know the article exists in the first place. c) Paradoxically, it is too much effort for bad articles (created in a click - but needing the form to be signed in triplicate to get rid of them). The proposal here has the merit of 'one tag and it's gone in a set number of days', yet still visible and several days for any user to halt the process - and by putting the article in a deletion category for those days drawing attention to it. --Doc (?) 08:11, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
        • Hmm. I note the concern regarding deleted articles that shouldn't have been. But how extensive is the problem? Are there any studies showing proportion of speedy deletes subsequently restored? (excepting "Oops, I hit the wrong button" type mistakes). Similar to MGM's comment below, I'm also concerned that the proposal as it stands makes it too easy to push it to AfD, and then we're back where we started. Alternatively, just have people note on the articles talk page if they disagree with the speedy, and the admin can check there before deletion.--inksT 21:15, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
          • Most proposals to futher broaden speedy categories were roundly defeated - your idea may make sense, but it unfortunately won't get a consensus --Doc (?) 21:29, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
            • If it doesn't make consensus, it just means it didn't make enough sense :)I'd also like to say that we are both working towards the same goals, we just differ on the methods. I appreciate your responses to my comments.--inksT 21:37, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
            • This proposal would be very helpful for pages that don't meet the criteria for speedy deletion, but no reasonable person would want to keep (hopefully, this proposal will also take care of those articles people don't want kept, but are too lazy to vote on). Some admins fudge the CSD criteria on the very worst of these, but sometimes even those articles undeleted for not technically being speedies, and it's not good practice to bend the rules for half the articles nominated. It may not be exactly how I, or other users, want it, but quibbling over details causes a lot of good proposals on Wikipedia to fail. It can always be modified, or even abandoned, later. Still, one thing I would change is that anyone can remove the tag, except the main author. New users/anons frequently remove the AfD tag without comment or a lame excuse. Or, even the author can remove it but he has to give reasonable explanation or the tag is replaced/it goes to AfD. However, I'll support it unchanged. -- Kjkolb 10:19, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

This seems like a good proposal to me :). One little change I would suggest is adding a "reason" field to the template.
If the articles tagged by this template were put into a category, using the date field to sort the category, anybody wanting to monitor the deletion process for one day could then just open the pages each in a new tab in firefox (one click each), and see the reasons for deletion immediately. Thue | talk 16:30, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

This will also make speedy deletions easier for admins. Right now there are a good deal of dubious speedies tagged. An admin could just retag with this tag in those cases. Thue | talk 17:20, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
I couldn't agree more....there are a lot of out-of-process speedy deletions and this would be a great alternative. Rx StrangeLove 20:39, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Changes

Excellent. I'd say we do this post haste, or at the very least give it a trial run for a couple of weeks; it would really help to alleviate AFD pressure (and associated wikistress).

Some ideas to consider...

  1. An objection to this proposal has been that vandals can abuse it. While that is true, it's hardly a reason to oppose this, since vandals can abuse just about anything else (including the present deletion system) and we have pretty good systems to deal with vandals. Surely nobody would oppose the page moving feature just because it's abusable.
  2. Another objection to this proposal has been that putting a deletion tag on an article is not very nice to the author of that article. Once more, while this is true, it's hardly a reason to oppose this, since the plain fact is that people write articles that do not belong in an encyclopedia. Unless we want to abolish deletion entirely, there will be some way of tagging articles, and this may be perceived as unfriendly. On that account, the present system is worse.
  3. I'd prefer a syntax of {{subst:pd|reason}} and getting a bot to modify the template each day at midnight to get the correct date in there. Otherwise, the category system may be hampered by various ways of spelling the date (03-20, 20-03, 20/3, March 20, etc).
  4. It would be best if the tag could not be added multiple times by the same user, but it could still be removed multiple times by the same user. It should be obvious that any revert warring regarding PD should immediately be cut short and superseded by AFD.
  5. To counteract the fact that "obvious keeps" sometimes end up on AFD, it may be useful to propose that if you PD an article, you cannot AFD it, but instead must get someone else to do it. This effectively means that any motion to delete an article must be seconded before the community will discuss it. According to Wikipedia:AFD_100_days, 5.7% of AFDs are "unanimous keeps" and thus wouldn't have had someone to second the nomination.
  6. The template should be worded so that it encourages people to edit - e.g. if an article is PD'ed because it lacks sources, people should, if they're editing it anyway to remove the tag, be encouraged (but not required) to add a source or two.

Radiant_>|< 08:22, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How long should the time be?

  • I think the time time should be just as long as the regular AFD lag. You don't want material lying around for longer than absolutely neccesary when it's going to end up being deleted without being contested. Also, I think it may be effective at first, but when creators and vandals catch on they'll find a way to flood AFD with the nominations again. - 131.211.50.137 10:06, 11 October 2005 (UTC) (MacGyverMagic who's too lazy to sign in)
  • Yeah, I agree. In fact, something like 14 days means that linkspammers and advertisers can get their pages on wikipedia for 19 days (by moving to AfD on the last day before deletion). That's a lot of advertising on the 47th post popular site in the world for very little work. — brighterorange (talk) 13:28, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Admins just delete spam without going thru any process or any delay, which is fine with me. In fact, some admins delete valid articles without going thru AfD proceedure, which pisses people off. 14 days should be the minimum for a valid (non-spam) article. (preceding unsigned comment by 71.131.26.212 (talk • contribs) )
Great, but now define spam? --Doc (?) 21:42, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
I know of no CSD that allows for the deletion of spam (except if the article is only a link to an external site). I guess I am using spam broadly to mean the kind of vanity advertising that shows up on AfD all the time, but that can't be speedied. — brighterorange (talk) 18:24, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

The time to wait should be chosen to convenience good faith editors, not to inconvenience bad faith editors, linkspammers and advertisers. The solution to the latter is to edit the article, because even if you think it should be deleted, you can edit out the garbage.

Addressing the convenience of good faith editors, there are many editors who are only able to edit weekly, so I think that should be the very minimum. Since the garbage will be edited out of these articles, I don't see any problem with two weeks, or even thirty days. Unfocused 14:12, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

What is this obsession with speed? This is one article, presumably about something obscure, amongst how many? Why is it essential for deletion to be fast? How is it's existence for even a year going to materially damage wiki? The idea is to make the process straightforward, not fast. A new method needs to reduce the load on central checking. Any automatic deletion method leaves out the chance for other editors to check the view of just one. This has to be compensated by a reasonable notice period for someone to stumble across the article and object. A minimum period would be 1 month's wait. Three would be better. Sandpiper 07:52, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] One downside

I nominate a lot of stuff for AfD, so I'd like to see a way for that to become easier (even after memorizing the templates, it's still a lot of edits..). These category-based solutions are a nice way of getting the computers to do some of the mechanical work. One thing that bums me about this proposal, though, is that there is no way to record one's "vote to delete" when browsing the proposed deletion category. This means that if the discussion is moved to AfD, there's no record of that scrutiny. It's not a deal-breaker, but it does mean that the work for contested deletions becomes a bit more redundant. — brighterorange (talk) 13:38, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

There's an easy solution to that: set up a separate section on the talk page, perhaps called "Should we delete this article?" (or even "We should delete this article"), and leave your comment there. Since deletion discussions are about consensus and not voting, your comments could then by copied verbatim to the AfD subpage, if one is created, just as long as the timestamp was kept intact to indicate what version you viewed to form your opinion. Unfocused 16:25, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Opposed to this scheme

This will make it much harder to follow what is going on. It assumes that every article is seen by someone who knows about this process in any given period of a few days, which may often not be the case. Most new articles are probably seen by very few people so this system will expose them to bad faith nominations which may not be spotted. It will also take much more effort to review the category for inappropriate deletionist activity than to scan the articles for deletion page, as nothing but the titles will be visible at first glance. I don't accept that afd is overloaded in any case. There is still an adequate level of voting on the nominees, unlike on Categories for deletion, which is rather neglected. CalJW 19:05, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

  • For the record, I'll just note my agreement with Cal. AFD is certainly enormous, but doesn't seem overloaded; we have no urgent need for a new deletion process and changes should be made within the framework of the two existing deletion processes. For instance, this proposal includes a principle of silent consensus; if we want to endorse that principle, then to start let's tell the AFD closers to stop relisting articles with only a couple votes. Christopher Parham (talk) 01:41, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
We'll need to agree to disagree on the first point, but your observation about AfD closers is correct. I've relisted articles in the past, but from now on in the absense of any 'keep' vote I will delete. --Doc (?) 22:45, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, we might eventually see on VFU whether doing that is actually supported by the community, but I think changes like that are a much more moderate way to combat the supposed problems with the current system. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:32, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
  • The suggestion that items with few votes should be relisted even if they are all in agreement is relatively new and far from consensual - as for instance indicated on a recent WP:RFA vote. If you see such votes, feel free to close them immediately after the relisting.
  • Anyway. I understand Cal's concern, and it may be useful to have a centralized logging page that people can look at. In other words, we create a system that is entirely similar to AFD, except that no remarks, debate or discussion is allowed on the deletion page at all, and any such will be summarily moved to the relevant article's talk page. This will draw the focus back to improving said article, rather than arguing about it on a deletion discussion. The only response that may be made to a deletion nomination is a single objection (preferably with a short explanation), and one such objection in effect vetoes the nom. Hm, I like it already. Less debate, more productivity. Radiant_>|< 23:15, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

This all seems unnecessarily complicated, and categories have downsides. Why not simply create an Uncontentious Deletions page, for cases that seem very clearcut but don't meet speedy criteria. Divide the page into sections and link to a generic explanation and precedent at the top of each (eg vanity, advertising, lists are obvious sections). Allow anyone with > 100 edits to move a nomination to AfD (which just means cutting and pasting the transclusion ref). Comments from anyone can be taken into account, but only editors of some standing can ask wider community to debate - essentially to exclude newbie creators of clearly delete-worthy pages from moving a nom to AfD. If it stays for five days, delete it. This scheme would be easy to set up and fit easily into the current system - and be easily abandonable if it didn't work out. Rd232 talk 16:29, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree, this is a nice, clean way of streamlining a lot of deletions. It could be structured like AFD only it'd look much simpler. List a page and if it's still there in 5 days delete it. If an (>100edits) editor feels it needs more attention they can move it to AFD. Otherwise, no debate or comments....certainly no voting. It'll make a noticable impact on AFD...I really like this. Rx StrangeLove 21:42, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
I could go for this as a compromise. However, it isn't actualy clear that it is less complicated. Under my scheme, an obviously junk article gets tagged and if no-one objects, in x days it is deleted. Simple for most articles (other than disputed ones). With Rd232's scheme, you'd still need to tag it, and then list it on a special uncontested deletions page (not a lot less work than Afd)! --Doc (?) 21:51, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
You're right, I mis-read something above and in my haste to get on board I was too hasty. I could go either way I guess but using categories makes more sense, the uncontested deletions page would maintain itself and you do have to touch each article either way anyway. How do you suggest we go forward with this? Rx StrangeLove 22:46, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
The big advantage of a page is that it allows for comments and questions and requests for clarification and clarification - i.e. discussion. This is difficult in the category approach. In my initial thought I'd suggested using the same subpage approach as AfD - in which case yes, there's no less work for the nominator (but less for the community, as they don't need to support obviously-going-to-succeed nominations). A variation to save work for nominators would be to merely list the page and reason, and omit the subpage step unless either (a) the nomination is moved to AfD (moving any discussion to the subpage) or (b) the result is Delete, and there is discussion worth saving for future reference. (If Keep, just move any discussion worth saving to the article talk page.) Rd232 talk 15:04, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
I think this proposal works best when there is no discussion. It's meant for uncontested deletions, if there's something to talk it should happen on it's talk page or at AFD. If there's discussion allowed then it's just another layer to AFD and not useful. I think the real value here is funneling off deletions from AFD that are easy and obvious that don't need any discussion. I understand what you are saying for sure but I think the deletion canidates you are talking about would end up at AFD anyway. My understanding is that this is meant to work at the low levels of non-speedy terrain. Rx StrangeLove 20:34, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps there's room for both - the category approach for pretty clearcut cases, and my approach for grey areas where nominators aren't sure where it fits / whether it will be contentious and require discussion. Rd232 talk 22:25, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • In my view, any system should have checks and balances so that articles on potentially notable topics are'nt deleted arbitrarily. There must be some place for editors to check the articles that have been currently tagged for deletion if this system were to be adopted. Capitalistroadster 01:02, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Agreed, articles wouldn't be deleted until the 5 day period is up. Interested editors can look through the category and review them. Is that what you were concerned about? I think you're totally right about checks and balances, on slightly unrelated note I'd like to see a tag and bag system for speedies for that very reason. Rx StrangeLove 04:39, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Some safeguards could be: 1)List longer than 5 says - say 7-14, if swifter deletion is thought essential nominators can sull use afd. 2)Automatic right of retrospective contesting. Since it is deleted as 'uncontested deletion' any editor may retrospectively contest it and ask for it to be recreated and listed on afd. 3) (?possibly?) An explicate ban on 'notability' as a deletion criteria for this scheme - notability deletions must always go to afd (as the principle is always contested). --Doc (?) 15:33, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Oppose Strongly

This proposal makes deletion the DEFAULT status. Thi is enitrely the wrong, non-inclusionist direction to be goin in. Thdre should be STRONG reasons to delete, rather than it being presme to be the natural, normal best thing to do, all things being equal. Trust in the editors and allow complete reversion. Eliminate Dletions special status. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Boldymumbles (talk • contribs) 28 October 2005.

This isn't, IMO, about being inclusionist or otherwise; it isn't "slap a delete tag on any page for any reason and if it isn't challenged it goes". The criteria and process should apply to a well-defined class of pages which won't survive AfD but can't be deleted under CSD; it's sort of a concretisation of policy, saving people's energy for the grey areas where it isn't clear what would happen on AfD. I see from your contributions you have (recently anyway) only participated in 1 AfD, in which case, you may not appreciate why this is needed. Rd232 talk 16:34, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm goign to say that while this is a nice proposal, I don't think it makes any serious improvment to AfD process, and therefore I vote oppose. Klonimus 05:36, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I thing I like about this is that it will reduce the workload at AFD quite a bit. To me that seems like a good reason to consider it anyway. There's an added bonus...it takes some pressure off of borderline speedies. If you see a new page that really doesn't fall under a CSD but would never survive at AFD this is a good place for it. Like I said somewhere above, this answers the need for a way to reduce the workload at AFD listing articles that don't need a lot of debate. Rx StrangeLove 07:04, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Also strongly oppose this proposal. I think the more effective solution is to stop so many articles from being created in the first place. The new policy of requiring users to be logged in to start articles should help in this regard. But each AFD nomination needs the chance to be noticed, and I'm pretty sure that if this proposal were adopted then there would end up being too many inapropriate deletions. Blackcats 10:02, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Purpose of Scheme

Someone above made a comment that the current deletion system is working, so why change? The current system arguably does work, but the writing is plainly on the wall as to how it can continue. The bigger wiki gets, then obviously the more deletion candidates there will be, and I saw some statistics suggesting this growth will be exponential. There is no way any centralised system can cope with this long-term.

I am against automatic unverified deletion, especially for an encyclopedia which is very big, especially the bigger it gets. Any new system has to to allow de-centralised, but still verified, deletion... and I can only see this being done on the actual article page. But more, I see no way this can be done in a hurry. The only way to allow debate on an obscure article is to allow enough time for a reasonable number of editors to have reason to read the page. The current quick centralised debates are very much too quick for this to happen. Perhaps some of you who have become accustomed to just a one week debate might consider the merits of a very much longer but more automatic system. 1-3 months seems reasonable.

This may seem the same question as another above, simply about the time limit. I created a separate section because I feel I am trying to make a subtly different point. That a fundamentally different outlook on the reasons for deletion, verification and speed is needed.

Oh, and given sufficient delay I am in favour, because I think that eventually there will be no alternative to this kind of schemeSandpiper 08:13, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

There will certainly be cases where longer debate may be appropriate. The difficulty is distinguishing those from cases which shouldn't be allowed to stay around vastly longer than necessary. Currently we have only speedy or AfD; if we had something viable inbetween, it would be easier to make AfD more flexible and allow borderline cases to go on for longer on an agreed ad hoc basis, eg at request of nominator or of voters. Rd232 talk 10:31, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Popped back to see how the debate was going. Noticed the introductory coment again, that 60% of deletions were uncontested, so might be hurried along this way, reducing the load by 2/3. Interesting argument, supportive of this kind of thing. But it also suggests this is really only a sticking plaster on a wound that keeps getting bigger. That still leaves the 1/3 of a growing big number.Sandpiper 08:54, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Support Strongly

"Cards on the table" department: The only people who could conceivably oppose this are those editors who appear to have taken it as their mission to flood WP with "articles" of dubious relevance, encyclopedic value, compositional skill, and (yes) readability.
Let's face facts. It is too *$#$%^&* hard to get rid of what is manifestly garbage on WP. Much of this garbage is generated by a very few editors with a great deal of time on their hands, editors who are quite consciously taking advantage of the comparative difficulty of deleting articles that would never, in a millennium, make it into any other encyclopedia.
Let's do this. BrandonYusufToropov 22:06, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
I would have only one request: that the creator of the article be notified on their talk page that the article is going to be deleted. I don't think BYT is including me in the above description, but see potential for problems if this isn't done... Tomer TALK 03:22, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
I hear what you're saying, but I'd be cautious, it may defeat the purpose. 1) If a busy RC partoller has to tag, and then check the history - and notify the 'creator' - that's two action - actually not much less than sending to AfD (and that's what we're trying to make easier). Does he really need to do that for obvious near-nonsense? It's an invitation for creators of rubbish to remove the tags and defeat the whole scheme. That just creates work, as after taging and notifying, then the non has to go through the afd process as well. However, taking some of this on board, I'd suggest that the closing/deleting admin should notify any 'substantive creator' (if a logged-in user) after deletion. The notification template can inform the creator that he/she still can retrospectively contest the deletion - and ask for the article to be sent for dicussion at AfD (bad faith creators will then seldom bother with the effort).Doc ask? 11:16, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Sometimes this will be worth doing, often not - if it's a recent creation by someone with few contributions they'll almost certainly check back to the article and see the notice there; and if it's a creation by someone with no recent contributions (or a shared IP) they probably won't see the talk page notice anyway. But if it helps get this off the ground then a guideline to notify the editor with greatest interest in the article who is likely to receive a message is fine by me. Rd232 talk 10:27, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
I'd be happy to give it a try. If it doesn't have the desired effect, or has horrible side-effects, the measure can always be reversed. Zora 03:25, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Let's try it - there's an obvious way of measuring (and overturning) horrible side-effects - Deletion Review. If that gets rapidly overrun then we abandon Uncontested Deletions (or suspend pending the possibility of figuring out how to fix it). Rd232 talk 10:27, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Actually it is easier than that. I proposed that all uncontested deletions can be retrospectively contested, ie. (unless they were speediable) on the request of any editor, an admin can restore and list of AfD. Also the 'closing' admin will have the option of sending an article to AfD instead - if he/she thinks that it ought to have been contested. All this means false possitives they are easily fixed. However, we can't try this without 1) proposing a set time for the process. (some want 5 days, some 3-4 weeks, so we might need to compromise at 10 or 14 days. 2) Some type of poll to test consensus? --Doc ask? 11:04, 10 November 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Example

I just spent a hour or so manually copying and searching the New pages article to find all articles created by one problem user during the last three days and part of today. Here's the list:

  1. 02:02, 11 November 2005 Battle of Hunayn (144 bytes) . . Striver
  2. 00:18, 11 November 2005 Furu al-Kafi (232 bytes) . . Striver
  3. 15:58, 10 November 2005 History of the Caliphs (book) (286 bytes) . . Striver
  4. 15:21, 10 November 2005 The Concise History of Humanity or Chronicles (book) (1,386 bytes) . . Striver
  5. 15:09, 10 November 2005 Abul Fida Ismail Ibn Hamwi (1,887 bytes) . . Striver
  6. 14:42, 10 November 2005 History of the Prophets and Kings (book) (869 bytes) . . Striver
  7. 14:39, 10 November 2005 The commentary on the Qur'an (book) (1,150 bytes) . . Striver
  8. 03:07, 10 November 2005 The Khalifas who took the right way (book) (488 bytes) . . Striver
  9. 00:42, 10 November 2005 Ahmad ibn A'tham (288 bytes) . . Striver
  10. 00:35, 10 November 2005 Articles containing fatwas by Suyuti (107 bytes) . . Striver
  11. 18:21, 9 November 2005 Khilafat wa Mulukiyyat (book) (322 bytes) . . Striver
  12. 18:09, 9 November 2005 Khutabat: Fundamentals of Islam (book) (315 bytes) . . Striver
  13. 18:07, 9 November 2005 Islamic Way of Life (book) (224 bytes) . . Striver
  14. 18:02, 9 November 2005 The Meaning of the Qur'an (book) (346 bytes) . . Striver
  15. 16:21, 9 November 2005 Al Bidayah wa-Nihayah (1,570 bytes) . . Striver
  16. 16:04, 9 November 2005 Abu Turab (93 bytes) . . Striver
  17. 15:59, 9 November 2005 Ibn Hajar Asqalani (279 bytes) . . Striver
  18. 15:34, 9 November 2005 Umar ibn Sa'ad (519 bytes) . . Striver
  19. 14:29, 9 November 2005 History of the Crusades for the Recovery and Possession of the Holy Land (657 bytes) . . Striver
  20. 14:26, 9 November 2005 Charles Mills (1788) (397 bytes) . . Striver
  21. 12:29, 9 November 2005 History of the Arabs (367 bytes) . . Striver
  22. 12:26, 9 November 2005 Philip Khuri Hitti (163 bytes) . . Striver
  23. 13:26, 8 November 2005 History of the Saracens (241 bytes) . . Striver
  24. 13:15, 8 November 2005 A Life of Mahomet and History of Islam to the Era of the Hegira (277 bytes) . . Striver
  25. 03:06, 8 November 2005 The Holy Qur'an: Text, Translation and Commentary (143 bytes) . . Striver
  26. 02:57, 8 November 2005 The meaning of the Holy Qur'an (365 bytes) . . Striver
  27. 23:04, 7 November 2005 The Origins and Early Development of Shi`a Islam (779 bytes) . . Striver
  28. 22:22, 7 November 2005 Tafsir al-Mizan (448 bytes) . . Striver

This is typical for this user. He creates badly-spelled, barely literate stubs with abandon. Recently he has started creating pages for individual books. If he references a book, he creates a page for that book and then links to it. He has been asked not to do this, and persists. He makes approximately 100 edits a day, so that it is very difficult to track what he's doing. He is creating approximately 10 articles a day, all of which will have to be cleaned up or deleted.

This is why I support some changes in the VfD policies. I don't think I have the time and energy to find all his new articles, vet them, and put the worst up for deletion. I am open to any and all solutions. Zora 04:27, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

  • I'm not familiar with the user, but many of these seem like perfectly good stubs, and looking at their history I see no evidence that they've had to be cleaned up. For instance The Meaning of the Qur'an (book) -- an adequate stub ripe for expansion. Striver was the only editor. Christopher Parham (talk) 16:49, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I had the same reaction, they may not be perfectly formed stubs, but they don't appear to me to be canidates for this type of deletion. I think as a whole they'd do pretty well at AFD but you never can tell... Rx StrangeLove 17:36, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Are you guys actually saying that every book cited as a reference should have its own page? REALLY? Zora 18:53, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

  • I'm not sure how you got that impression. Anyway what I'm saying is that they don't appear to be deletions that would be uncontested and that at AFD they would get keep "votes" because they are verifiable. Whether they would survive a AFD debate is anyone's guess. Rx StrangeLove 19:11, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm just saying that books often (usually?) survive AFD, especially when it's clear that they are not vanity entries, which these clearly are not. It would be nice if Striver added more content to his entries (e.g. what the book is about) but the external links provided would probably be helpful for later editors in expanding the article. There may be other issues with Striver, but if you're calling him a problem user for creating this sort of article, you are rather terribly in error. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:36, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

None of you folks work on the Islam-related articles (I don't recognize any of you), so you're not seeing the scope of the problem. We have an incredibly prolific editor who has a strong Shi'a POV, no academic training, and who writes garbled English. He seems to get a charge out of creating articles -- he does about ten a day. He feels that it's the job of OTHER editors to clean up his prose. He resists NPOVing. Any attempt to remove the Shi'a POV ends up in a revert war. There are not enough editors working on these topics to clean up after him. He's filling up Wikipedia with articles like:

  • Being the enemy of God, Muhammad and Ahl al-Bayt (since deleted)
  • Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf's contribution to the battle of Badr
  • Abu Jahl's contribution to the battle of Badr
  • Ali ibn Abu Talib's contribution to the battle of Badr
  • Uprightness of all Sahaba
  • Narrators of hadith

Now if he's doing ten a day, that's 3650 new articles a year -- just from one editor. Most of which will never be edited or seen by anyone else.

I got that far writing and then stopped to think about it. I'm sure all this fits into the deletionist/inclusionist wars business, about which I've never bothered till now. So perhaps someone has already said everything that follows. If I bore you, sorry.

I think there must be some demonstrable computer science limits to the number of articles you can store in a database and the size of the search space you can handle without getting unacceptable lag. Seems to me that if you let people create articles with abandon and make deleting those articles very difficult you are going to be bumping the limits at some predictable time (looking at article growth curve). I can also see why people worry about keeping the freedom to create, and preventing attempts to remove or censor info.

How about automating the process, so it doesn't have to be a political one? Start keeping track of page views and edits for each article. That is, track how often a particular article is viewed, how many editors have worked on it, how many edits have been made -- and then come up with metrics to identify articles along two axes, viewing and participation. If articles score high on both or one of the axes, clearly they deserve to be kept. But if a bored teenager creates an article on, say, What I had for lunch today, which is never again edited or viewed, then it can be put on a noticeboard as up for automatic deletion. If no one pulls it for human consideration, it is yanked and say, stored in a separate DB for yanked articles which will doubtless be of intense interest to social scientists.

In fact, scores on both metrics could be displayed at the top of the article and might be useful to readers. If an article has had only one editor, frex, you might want to be careful about trusting that article.

My apologies if I've just reinvented the wheel, that is, one of the perennial proposals that is always getting voted down for good reasons of which I am currently oblivious. Zora 07:58, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Hi, Zora. I don't know enough about the AfD reforms or the inclusion/exclusion debate to have strong opinions. But I thought I'd mention that, as somebody who builds software fore a living, I don't think the big technical barriers involve just articles in large number. I'd expect number-of-articles issues to show up first more in usability and in managability. --William Pietri 09:14, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I looked at this guys talk page. right at the top is this "it is very useful to have a Shia going over the Islam articles looking for bias. Thank you. Zora". Later, Zora seems less enthusiastic about his contributions. Some other comments there criticise him, some support him, some ask for help. 5000 edits. he was even requested by someone to create more articles rather than placing so much material in one heading. It sounds as though he is quite determined at fighting his corner, but so are many people. Finally, it is not obvious that the articles above are useless (albeit stubs). So is this a problem or an enthusiastic contributor? Sandpiper 09:18, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I initially welcomed Striver, since we had no Shi'a Muslims involved in the Islam-related articles and I felt that there was a strong Sunni bias in many articles. However, Striver has since grown giddy with the power to create. He creates a whole new article rather than just adding a section to an article that may still be a stub. He writes sub-standard English when he isn't commiting copyvio.

Substandard English, from Curses in Islam:

While some Shia have been cursing due to tabarra, it has sometimes been meet with distaste by Sunnis; they do not believe there are any rewards for cursing.
Shia disagree and belive it to be rewards for dissassociating from oppresors. They further belive that the curse is a prayer: God is entitled to not accept the prayer and abstain from invoking the curse. further, cursing is a Sunnah established by God himself in the Quran, Sunnat Allah. Shia also present hadith where the Shia Imams invoked the curse of Allah upon humans.
Sunnis are known to have cursed upon Ubaid-Allah ibn Ziyad:

"May Allah curse the son of Ibn Sumiyya (Ibn Ziyad, la’natullahi ‘alayh)!"

Note also strong Shi'a bias. The whole article is an essay on the rectitude of the Shi'a position.

For copyvio, see his recently created Leone Caetani which is a straight copy of [1]. (I just now found that -- I was looking for an example of sub-standard prose and that was so smooth that I googled it.)

But these are just a few of the many many articles he is creating -- no one can keep up with him. He has been asked many times not to create so many articles, as they are substandard and in many cases not necessary, and he continues.

I wouldn't mind all this so much if we did have an automatic deletion process, since his articles have such unexpected and often bizarre titles that no one is ever going to view them. He could create them and after a while they would go away. I could relax then. Right now I feel like Canute trying to stop the tide. Zora 10:16, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

He created one article that was called something along the lines of Enemies of God and the Prophet Muhammmad; I called him on it as being surrealistically unencyclopedic, and he nominated it for speedy deletion. But the question is, how much of one's day is one willing to devote to keeping up with him; he generates waves of debris. Not long ago, he tried to create separate articles for individual anecdotes concerning Muhammad, each a paragraph long or so. There would have been (and for all I know may yet be) hundreds of these. BrandonYusufToropov 12:54, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

This seems to be getting away from a discussion on improving the deletion process to one on how to curtail people editing. So far this is not exactly an advertisement for the suggested mechanism. His articles (on a very small sample) are not bad enough for a non-expert to automatically consign to oblivion. I do not exactly see how this would help to curtail his efforts as a very determined editor. (assuming that is desireable). As you have described it, he will have absolutely no trouble creating new articles as fast as you delete them. Though that process does sound to be in keeping with the anarchic spirit of wiki. Sandpiper 17:49, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Re: not bad enough for a non-expert to automatically consign to oblivion -- with respect, I feel the following articles are quite bad enough to merit this fate, and I hope he's reading this so we can discuss it here or elsewhere. See if you don't agree.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Then_i_was_Guided
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest_for_the_Historical_Muhammed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uprightness_of_all_Sahaba
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikah_urfi
BrandonYusufToropov 18:47, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
The first two of those articles I would probably vote to keep and expand, as both books appear to be notable enough to stay on Wikipedia. The third should probably be merged (the title at least is bad); and the last could be merged, or expanded if possible. Again, NONE of these four articles should be deleted, unless there's some hoax/inaccuracy at work that I as an expert can't see. Thus I don't really see your point. Christopher Parham [[User_talk:Christopherparham|(talk)]] 20:14, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Christopher, you seem to be a strong inclusionist AND you don't seem to know anything about this subject. The books are non-notable. The articles are pointless. What use is an "encyclopedia" that is 99% junk? It's hard to argue in public for Wikipedia as a useful information source when our policies encourage the generation of garbage? Zora 23:17, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Okay -- I hear what you're saying; you have a different perspective on this content, and I may well be overreacting. It's possible, however, that the reason I'm so eager to find ways to get rid of, say, Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf's contribution to the battle of Badr, is that a) the articles are usually very poorly written, b) they almost always represent something that should simply be a paragraph or a sentence in a larger article, and c) the only way things like what you're suggesting could possibly happen is if someone like me or Zora takes responsibility for cleaning up the mess that gets dumped in our laps ten or twelve times a day. Sure, these articles could be repurposed and beaten into shape -- but the sheer volume suggests strongly that, in fact, they won't be. Are you quite sure the default setting should be that 200 or so "contributions" to the Battle of Badr rocket around WP in perpetuity? BrandonYusufToropov 21:17, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Hi! Could I suggest that although this could well be a problem worth discussing, that this isn't the clear example for "Uncontested deletions" that was hoped for and that the discussion might be better conducted elsewhere? Thanks, --William Pietri 22:15, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
That's an excellent idea, and one I meant to make earlier. This is interesting but I don't think that very many of the examples here are very relevant to Uncontested Deletions. Rx StrangeLove 04:04, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Enter: Striver

Hi. What you see is a editor that more or less hates me (or what i do). She see it as a huge problem that i created a article for "and then i was guided". Zora says:

" The books are non-notable. The articles are pointless. What use is an "encyclopedia" that is 99% junk?"

Lets see what other say about the book:


You tell me, a book that makes people change world view and makes its enemies to write entire article to refute it, is that a non-notable book? That book is online in most big Shia sites: al-islam.org, Balagha.net. You tell me, if three sites bother to make three refutations to the same book, and the book is baned in many sunni countries, is it a non-notable book? I have heard that 20 000 people in one country became Shia after reading that book.

The ones calling it non-notable and bringing the article i wrote about it here, the ones doing so trying to convince you that i fill WP with 99% shit is either ignorant of the issue or driven by malice. The other articles i created are more or less the same. I mean, c'mon, they included Tafsir al-Mizan and Ibn Hajar Asqalani to the list of shity stubs! Anyone that knows what they are talking about knows that those are realy realy realy prominent books and authours


Curses in Islam is a totaly legit article, problem is, they dont like the information it contains. And that is the case with most of the articles they dont like.

The other article they mentioned, i speeded it myself to make them happy, although i still belive it was a legit article.

"X contribution to the Battle of Z" is a format i like, but i didnt work on it, since people didnt like it. (peole as in not only Zora.) The naratives articles where the same, i stoped doing them, since people didnt like them.

In both cases, i belived i was drawing benefir from the medium: To be able to link to short articles relevant to one person in events with multiple participants. If i want to get familiar with one person, then i might settle with reading the things he did in the battles he joined, and not read about the entire battle. But people did not agree, so i skiped it.

Now they think i am nuts since im creating article for each book that is used in references in Shia-Sunni polemics. Well, would the books be used in refereces if they where non-notable? Of course not.

BrandonYusufToropov is a person i like. We have ideological diffrences, and he does not like my edits, but i respect him anyway, since he is sincer and reasonable (most of the times).

Zora, i hate her actions. Each day without her deleting my contributions is a day i dont get uppset. Unfortunatly, she is online every day. Whenever she gets to a article, the first thing she does is delet everyting i wrote, and motivate it by saying one line was pov or my grammar sucks. She belives its better to not creat a article and not contribute if one does not have her SUPERIOR MASTERSHIP IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR. Ie, only people with her superior grammar skills should be allowed to edit, also, if one with "sub-standard" english does edit, the appropriate solution is to delet the entire contribution.

Zora, i hope you take this as a lesson: People dont agree with you: They dont think i just make shity stubs, they dont think i suck. And yes, i am working on my RFC on you.

Zora: Her is my tip: You dont like my stubs? Dont look at them. Stop wastin my and the other peoples time.

I wonder why not a single Shia editor has complained about anything i have done, ever. --Striver 03:48, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I also don't think this is the proper place to continue this discussion (despite now doing it), but this feels to me more to do with this being a gaping hole in wiki coverage, and a shortage of knowledgeable people to help.Sandpiper 21:32, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

But I do think that some of the examples given highlight the problem we are trying to deal with. May I suggest that this and the above discussion-in-detail is moved to something like Deletion reform/Examples to keep the temperature down in here? I found it illuminating and while not entirely agrreing with the style, I can sympathise with the level of exasperation (I have a somewhat similar problem of linguistics in another context). - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 23:49, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pros and Cons

There seems to be some continuing discussion about this, both for and against. I thought I'd try and lay out some of the points culled from the talk and project page, maybe bring some focus and get a sense if there's enough potential for good. It seems like there's at least enough support to try a live test. Please add anything I left out as there are sure to be things I neglected, and of course discuss/debate. Rx StrangeLove 03:59, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I moved this section down to get it out from under that last discussion, maybe refocus the topic. Feel free to move it back if anyone disagrees. Rx StrangeLove 04:13, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Pros

  • Take a significant (up to 60%) load of off AFD by deverting articles to uncontested deletions with a template that would have no keep support at AFD
  • Less time consuming to delete uncontroversial articles
  • Lessens the temptation to stretch WP:CSD criteria by providing an easy alternative that still provides for scrutiny
  • Provides for an easy resolution to speedy keeps


Cons

  • AFD is certainly busy but not to the point where another process needs to be put into place
  • Reverses a fundimental Wikipedia default keep status. Articles are deleted if no further actions is taken.
  • Danger of "stealth" deletions if pages aren't viewed enough to give the articles proper scrutiny
  • Shifts the burden of AFD listing from the original lister to an editor that thinks the deletion needs to be discussed.


The proposa would be good if there was a risk for overload in the VFD section. As i have understand it, it is not. Further, i dont think that "delet" should be a default status. --Striver 04:21, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
That is not really true: it depends on your tedium level. I find looking through lists of things which I know nothing about, and which apparently no one cares about anyway, as very tedious. For this reason I read VFD infrequently--as frankly doing so is mostly a waste of time--. I would presume many other people think this too, including people who are serious enough to spend lots of time reading these lists. So the system IS already broken, because it discourages participation. This can only get worse.Sandpiper 21:42, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
I am cautiously in favour with the safeguard that the person deleting should not be the person nominating. When you click a red link and there is dleeted content you get "view x deleted edits" - how would an original author faced with this situation on one of their articles go about getting it undeleted or properly reviewed? If that were easy, I'd be a bit happier. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 23:53, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Have a section in 'Deletion Review' for appealing uncontested deletions. My suggestion would be that any article deleted under this criteria, and later contested, MUST be automatically restored and put on AfD (unless it would have been speediable). THat should oversome most of the objections to this as likely to delete good material.--Doc ask? 00:07, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Uncontested deletions vs. Pure wiki deletions

Posting here because of traffic only. Discussion should likely be one level up at Wikipedia talk:Deletion reform

Having debated in support of Pure wiki deletion system, I find most of the discussion under uncontested deletions to be similarly beaurocratic and minimally more efficient to existing AfD system. I'd like to distill the real differences between the two proposals and rally toward implementation of something better.

Pure wiki deletions differences from Uncontested deletions

  1. Delay
    • Pages are blanked immediately, not after x days.
  2. Deleted edit histories are viewable, thus revertable.
  3. Special: page for page blankings (deletions) and unblankings (undeletions) (new)
    • This also allows an automatic log of recently deleted/recreated pages for consideration
    • possible escalation to AfD-ish forum.
    • proper edit summaries help combat vandalism
  • nothing else. (please add to this list if incorrect)

The whole point of this discussion is to reduce load on the time of concerned editors.... just delete it! If contested, so be it, and back to AfD. Pages vandalized but worthy will receive visitors and brought back to life, just as with improper edits.

The only remaining argument I see is that of the code changes necessary to display blanked pages as red links and create the new Special: page for page blankings/unblankings (see bugzilla 3843). In the meantime, I recommend using WP:XD to delete pages. This is an interesting middle groung between the two, and should expose difficulties in using our hopeful strategies. ∴ here…♠ 08:18, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I am neutral on the bulk of the above comment, but note that WP:XD is experimental, and should not be used for production. Kim Bruning 08:30, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Let's see... these are some problems with Deletion By Page Blanking (DBPB):

  1. Do not assume that the devs will implement something. In fact, since they're generally busy with performance and protection, assume they will not. A proposal that requires code changes to work properly is therefore not a very good idea.
  2. DBPB feels like sweeping dust under the carpet, rather than throwing it out. Okay, that may not qualify as a good reason, but I'm sure some people feel that way.
  3. Some people want a centralized list of deletions so they can look at them and detect inappropriate ones - a list like AFD has been called for at UD. Otherwise, anything that isn't heavily watchlisted can be deleted without anybody noticing.
  4. DBPB makes is more difficult to see what a deletion actually was about. For AFD/CSD tagging, you can go to the page and see its text (until it's actually deleted, of course). For DBPB, you'll have to go into the history, which rules out casual editors (you'd be surprised as to how many editors don't know how to use the history)
  5. Anything supported by sockpuppets cannot be deleted by DBPB.
  1. Don't assume devs will do it -- I don't assume the devs will do anything. Requiring code changes may mean that we use Uncontested in the meantime, but isn't an argument against the Pure wiki proposal.
  2. sweeping dust under the carpet -- Indeed. In my opinion, throwing it out is rarely the correct approach. The main reason I still support Pure wiki over Uncontested is the availability of deleted edits for the general public, not just admins. Eventual perm deletion of uncontested material after a specified time is worth discussion.
  3. need centralized list -- With Pure wiki, AfD stays for contested deletions and the new Special: page lists blankings and unblankings. Did I misunderstand?
  4. need to see deletion reasons -- If contested, it still goes to AfD. If not, the reason is listed in edit summary, which shows up in centralized list.
  5. sockpuppets rule the world -- contested deletions still go to AfD. problem pages fall under Wikipedia:Protected_page.
∴ here…♠ 23:26, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pointed here from PWDS discussion

I would support this proposal as a second choice to the pure wiki deletion system. It at least addresses some of the same problems in what seems to me like a less elegant way. Also, it can be implemented sooner because it does not require code changes.

I would be wary of adding a new AfD-like page for uncontested deletions. That seems like too much bureaucracy and ceremony. Deletion once again becomes a multi-step process that people don't do because they think they'll screw it up. And it adds yet another step if the article needs to be moved to AfD.

Daily categories would work just fine for keeping track; that would convey the same information to everyone, except people who check deletions more than once per day (which I believe represents a harmful obsession with deletion). rspeer 15:08, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

The proposal is for a category for these, there wouldn't be a page created. That's one of the nice features about this, it'd be pretty easy to maintain. Editors would tag the article with something like {{proposedelete|20 Oct 2005}} and if it stays on the page for a certain number of days it's deleted. One of the things I like about this is how few "moving parts" it has. Rx StrangeLove 15:33, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
If there is no remaining record, how is someone supposed to restore the article postumously and have it listed for a deletion debate, which is part of the procedure if you discover too late what has happened? I favour easy deletion, but only if accompanied by sufficient notice, and equally easy redress. This is really supposed to cover cases where NO ONE objects. I would also have a second time limit after which the right to resuscitaion would have lapsed. Sandpiper 22:13, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
Why not just blank the page after x days, thus retaining the history for all to see, reference, and revert if warrented? See WP:XD #5. ∴ here…♠ 04:17, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
The current process uses WP:DRV for reviewing deletions and this would also. You're right, this covers deletions where no one objects, but would still have the same notice as AFD does. Articles in this category would stay for a period of time before being deleted. Once that time elapsed and the article was deleted, redress would come in the same manner as any other deletion. The code changes involved in WP:XD might make a test of Uncontested deletions a decent idea as a first step, I don't really see these two proposals as competing.
This procedure would be easy to try out, easy to roll out and easy to roll back if it didn't work out. Rx StrangeLove 05:20, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
The more I play with deletion reform and xd pages, the more I agree that WP:PWDS and Uncontested_deltions are slight variations on a theme. Both ultimately working toward not only the same goal, but likely using the same technique.. Currently, I think xd5 is closest to uncontested, and xd4 or xd6 closest to pwds. It may even be warrented to use xd6 (blank immediately) in speedy cases, and xd5 (uncontested warning for x days, with category) used in normal AfD nomination cases. ( WP:XD ) ∴ here…♠ 06:04, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
As I was writing the above I started coming to the same conclusion, maybe we start with UC and see where it takes us? As I read X5, it's pretty much the same thing, no? Are the articles that X5 are aimed at the same as UC? The third bullet point on X5 makes it seem so... Rx StrangeLove 06:31, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wonderful idea in theory, but...

I think this is a great idea. I see in votes whenever either a) the author(s) don't write anything to protest the Vfd, b) the author says "okay then delete it" or otherwise admit it doesn't belong, c) its an obvious vandalism, d) there is 100% consensus very early on that its a bad article, or any of a number of other reasons.

BUT -

Just because a Vfd is uncontested doesn't mean that its necessarily bad. I've seen a lot of examples where there were 6 (or more) deletes with no keeps on articles that had a lot of merit. So we have to be careful with that kind of thing. Sometimes people on here, as with anywhere else, act like sheep. So we have to be wary of that kind of thing.

Even still, with a bit of tweaking, this could really work wonders. Great idea! Zordrac • (talk) Wishy Washy • Darwikinian • Eventualist 04:28, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] So why don't we try it?

This proposal is basically ready to be used. We've been trying it out on XD for months now without problems. We can make "Uncontested deletions" categories that work just like the XD5 categories do. All we need is an admin to delete things after, say, 7 days. I know that Kim Bruning and Bunchofgrapes are interested in deletion reform in general, so we may be able to get their help.

Specifically, we should propose this as an optional alternative to AfD. I don't think huge numbers of people will have a reason to oppose that; if you love AfD, you probably want to reduce the load on it so that more informed discussion can take place there, and if you hate AfD, you want to reduce the load on it so its influence isn't as widespread.

What we need to do:

  • Pick a time span for uncontested deletions. I suggest 7 days.
  • Get an admin on board to do the deletions.
  • Get some support (from Village Pump?) for making this semi-policy (it's "semi-" because you don't have to use it).

The things I'm afraid of: inclusionists and deletionists. Yeah, both groups. I don't see this optional process being objectionable to ordinary AfDers, but the people who are using AfD to push an agenda instead of to discuss things will probably not like this proposal. Inclusionists will complain that articles are getting deleted without discussion, and deletionists will complain that articles may be around for up to 12 days before getting deleted. But if we're waiting for deletion culture to change before we implement this proposal, we're going to be waiting a loooooong time. We might as well try.

rspeer 20:16, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Until deletions are more easily reversible by anyone (public and revertable histories, unless illegal), I think the possibility of perm deleting a number of salvageable articles is still too much of a problem. See User:Here/delete for further thoughts on transparent deletion histories. Nonetheless, I am generally in favor. ∴ here…♠ 20:25, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, yes, I like the PWDS better too. (If deletion is reversible, it's basically PWDS, and includes the problems like "general fear of the unknown" and "has to be coded"). I wish we could get behind one proposal that can happen now, instead of waiting for some glorious day when it becomes completely obvious to everyone what needs to be done about deletion. If the wrong things get deleted, there's always deletion review. rspeer 20:33, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I forgot this had categories by day. That should be enough to pull out contested cases and send them to AfD. Go for it! ∴ here…♠ 22:22, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I oppose starting any experiment with this at the moment -- let's see how the experiment with blocking anons from creating articles goes first, and what impact that has on AFD. Even in the future though, this proposal seems to me to be a bad idea and heading in the wrong direction, especially in adding yet another level of complexity to the deletion process. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:31, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Well this would be in addition to AFD right? since an article can always be put up on RFA right away right? JtkieferT | C | @ ---- 02:55, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Right, if someone has an issue with a deletion here, they put it on AFD. This is meant to funnel articles away from AFD. One of the numbers cited on the project page is that 58% of articles on AFD are uncontested deletions. It should be easier to delete those while still having some checks on the process. Rx StrangeLove 03:06, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hell yeah, I love it

This reminds me a lot of Wikipedia:Preliminary Deletion, my pet proposal (and the only major non-CSD deletion reform to ever receive a majority of support votes). Obviously I'm going to support this proposal. It does worry me that there's no centralised place to see the basic argument(s) for deletion, though (which is why PD had such a structure). Johnleemk | Talk 18:51, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

One of the principals at work here is that people don't make arguments about deletion, the point is that it should be so clear why the article should go that arguments aren't needed. The articles appear in the category in which they can be browsed, if someone does have an argument it should go to AFD. Does that ease the concern....or did I misunderstand your point? It's not really meant as a RFD replacement but more of a way to reduce the workload there. Rx StrangeLove 01:50, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Okay, rationale would have been a better word to use instead of argument. Even when you speedy delete, the delete log at least offers a chance for a one-sentence summary. When you propose to delete something, your rationale should be easily viewable from some centralised page. It would at least make tracking down rogue nominations easier. Johnleemk | Talk 01:54, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Is this really going to be less work

I'm not sure that this proposal is going to substantially reduce the amount of work spent on deleting bad articles, compared to AFD. It takes 3 edits to nominate an article for AFD; it will take one (actually two according to the current project page) to make a good nomination for deletion under this scheme. But when deletions are contested, we then have to go through the whole process of AFD as usual; a deletion nomation that went through both step would end up taking 4-5 edits. So if a substantial portion of the nomations at UD are disputed, this could end up being more work than the current system. Certainly, I don't think it represents a dramatic reduction in the workload. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:50, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

  • It's not just about the number of edits. It's about introducing fewer well-intentioned newbies to the hostile culture of AfD, and making it more possible for ordinary users to participate in AfD discussions (because there wouldn't be so many). rspeer 22:31, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
    • How is it going to accomplish the first goal? Do a large number of new editors begin their career by adding their voice to the chorus of unanimous deletes? It seems to me that far more new users begin their career on AFD with a keep vote, most likely on an article they've created or contributed to. Also, whether the second rationale will really work is questionable -- AFD is still going to be enormous (70+ articles per day) and is going to be probably something like 75% of its current length, since you're only removing the discussions that few people were participating in.
    • Generally, my concern is that this policy will substantially expand the complexity of the deletion process (creating an entire new process page and a third "level" at which deletion occurs) for very low benefit. One of the main problems with deletion, in the mind of many, is that the current system is too thoroughly complex and rules oriented. The fact that this proposal does not simplify our current processes, but complicates them, is a major reason why it is very unlikely to meet with general approval. (The added complexity is also likely to drive away far more users than the smaller size of AFD will attract; increasing the number of rules will drive away those who don't have the time to learn them.) Christopher Parham (talk) 01:12, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
      • I'd like to think that an incremental change to AfD would help somewhat, although of course its problems would still remain. I find the pure Wiki deletion system to be an even better change, but it's too radical for most people to accept. But I'd say that you're looking at this proposal from the perspective of the 40% or so of AfDs that are contested. For the 60% that are uncontested, the process becomes much simpler and no longer has any unnecessary ceremony, and I believe that will be a benefit. rspeer 01:26, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I think your point would be valid if a fair number of nominations here went on to AFD, but I don't think that will happen. Most of the deletions this is aimed at don't draw any keep votes at all at AFD. Which means that a deletion nomination here would never go to AFD (otherwise there would be keep votes there). That is to say, a nomination at AFD that gets no support would not get any support here either (and thus never make it to AFD). I think this will save time/edits. If we just use general rounded numbers, AFD gets a hundred nominations daily, half of them are uncontested (more, according to the sample) if you assume that each uncontested nomination draws between 2 and 3 votes we end up saving 100-150 edits a day, upwards of a thousand a week. So on that raw level, we save time and effort on articles that no one wants to keep. AFD is reduced in size by half, that alone makes this worthwhile. On the objection that this complicates deletion more, I guess that's true to a certain extent but the rules here are pretty simple and the added complication will be limited. Each article that is nominated under this proposal would have a template on it pointing editors here. As I said, the rules here are pretty simple and I don't think that people ending up here from an article would have much trouble working it out.

Bottom line I think is that we spend less time deleting articles that no one wants, AFD is greatly reduced in size and we have a open and simple process that preserves the checks that everyone wants to keep in the deletion process. Is this a lock to work? No, but I think it's worth a live try. Why not a limited live trial? Say for a week or a couple hundred articles with a built in sunset provision? Rx StrangeLove 05:46, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Short on time but support the proposal

Reasoned, reasonable, and efficient. All for it. And I say that as someone who lost a page important to me because I created it and lost it in an uncontested deletion when I was still figuring out Wiki and not checking often enough to even know that an AfD was happening until months later. Airumel 04:14, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Nice proposal

When can we expect a formal proposal? -- Dalbury(Talk) 01:40, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree. This proposal seems to be very useful, even if it doesn't solve every problem. The only problem I can see with it is if someone takes down the pd tag...if you tag 30 pages for pd in a day, you may end up have far too many pages on your watch list. Sort of a minor thing...but at least with AfD, it only requires one page visit to get the deletion process going. Pd requires constant vigilance (of the watchlist). JHMM13 (T | C) 15:40, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I don't like it

I don't like it because while you can see that nobody contests the deletion, you can't tell how many people agree with the deletion. I would suggest instead, that AFD discussions can be closed after 3 or 4 days if all the votes are "delete" (and there is a quorum of, say, 5 votes). That way, people interested in serious debate can go to the oldest few days (where uncontested deletions have already been carried out), and people interested in just weeding crap out vote on the latest few days. r3m0t talk 15:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Hm..I agree that there can be a lot done to the AfD process to make it smoother, but right now, we have about 3+ votes on average per AfD, and you're not going to get more unless you find users interested in doing it. Perhaps we can do a tier system for AfDs that are more than a day old where the least-voted-on ones get rushed to the top by some bot every 15 minutes or so. I also think we should really make the AfD "Current day" page actually everything from the previous 24 hours. Articles that get put on AfD minutes before midnight have a tough time getting enough votes because people are already voting on the next day's AfDs. I'm sure this sort of thing can be worked out. JHMM13 (T | C) 04:34, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Is there a difference between not contesting a deletion and agreeing with a deletion? I think the assumption here is that the stakeholders in the deletion (however you define them, or they define themselves) are agreeing by default because the deletion is uncontested, that is, no one is disagreeing with it. That's one of the reasons this makes sense is that it's much less work. Articles that would normally take AFD time and space sit at uncontested for a time and then deleted. No further work need be done....whereas at AFD editors are needed to enter a "vote" and comment. This streamlines part of the deletion process that as it stands right now takes up nearly half of all AFD entries.
We don't need to push AFD nominations that no one contests to the top of the AFD listings, it's not a matter of not getting enough people to vote, it's a matter of no one disagreeing with the proposed deletion, and when that's the case then why waste time on it? Rx StrangeLove 06:21, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Precisely. People aren't voting after 3 delete votes because (WP:AFD section 1.1) "You don't have to make a recommendation on every nomination; consider not participating if: [...] you agree with what has already been formed." If 4 or 5 delete votes were required for the uncontested deletion then people would vote more to fill that void; if 10 votes were required, everybody would regard it as a waste of time. But I am seriously worried that this proposal requires only 2 votes (the nominator and the deleting admin) and we will never have a guarantee that an article was considered by anybody else. It also gives us no guarantee that anybody is looking at any of the articles at all. I prefer my proposal, after a bit of discussion on what the necessary quorum of delete votes will be (possibly endig in a straw poll ;). r3m0t talk 15:33, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
If the new system incorporates a way to have users look at a list of "uncontested deletions," to decide whether they want to contest it or not, isn't that like monitoring the AfD page, but without voting? Then if one person nominates, you have to go through the process of removing it from the UD page and moving it to AfD where those same people will have to write down why they support either a delete or keep. This might save a small amount of time, but I don't think it will be like spending spending 8 days writing a computer program that saves 10 seconds, as they say in the software business. JHMM13 (T | C) 21:50, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is this proposal dead in the water?

As the original proposer, I still think this is a good and workable idea. I think that the commentary above shows that it has a lot of support, and with some tweeking could overcome many of the objections. However, looking at those opposed, I am concluding that a formal proposal would have little chnace of obtaining the required 70% rough consensus at this time. Thus, there is little point in formally moving this for adoption.

Do folk agree? Please this is not a place to discuss the mertis of the proposal, but to assess the conclusions of the debate, and whether there is any point in proceeding.--Doc ask? 15:35, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I would unfortunately agree. We either have to accept that major deletion process reform can never hope to achieve a 70% majority and lower the bar (probably unacceptable to many) or move on. Johnleemk | Talk 15:45, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree, maybe with some adjusting we can ease some concerns as time goes by. I've been trying to answer the objections as they come on this page and it doesn't seem that anyone has any deep seated objections, at least to the point where they care enough to keep the dialog going. I don't think there's any need to shut it down at this point but it's probably not the time to do anything formal. You're right, major deletion reform is hard to get consensus on. Rx StrangeLove 17:27, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
People don't keep the dialog going because it doesn't look like anybody is pushing this towards {{policy}}. Also, it is under WP:AFD "recently concluded". If this one fails, I hope my one will achieve a bit more agreement (although there is really very little chance!) r3m0t talk 18:04, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
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