User:Doc glasgow/workshop/deletions

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

NB. This proposal has now been launched for discussion - see Wikipedia:Deletion reform/Proposals/Uncontested deletions

Contents 1 The Problems 2 Objectives of this proposal 3 The proposal 3.1 Safeguards against good articles being deleted. 3.2 Impact on notability 3.3 The Flaws (fatal?) 3.4 Comments

The Problems

• Afd overload - Afd is unable to cope with future expansion of wikipedia. It will not upscale.

Of course, one might say 'who cares'. It has often been (in my view correctly) noted that, in terms of inclusionist/deletionist wars, the inability of afd to stem the flow of 'low-notablity' articles means that the inclusionists win by default (see e.g. [1]). But leaving aside questions of notability, afd also weeds out unverifiable, hoax, near-nonsense, POV fork, and other unacceptable articles. For all its faults, afd serves a purpose. It seems to me simply a myth to dismiss its marginality as only a problem for deletionists. Leaving aside content dispute, the deletion process needs reformed. We need a process that will upscale to deal with increasing articles in the above categories even if notability were dismissed as a grounds for deletion.

Statistics from Wikipedia:AFD 100 days perhaps illuminate. In that period, 58.2% of articles were uncontested deletions. That is, for nearly 60% of articles, neither the originator (probably often an anon who had departed the scene), nor anyone else (including Kappa!) felt there was a reason to 'keep'.

It would be instructive to ascertain what percentage of debates or deletions involve questions of notability. On October 2nd, Snowspinner deleted 16 afd nominations on grounds of 'notability invalidity', at least 4 of which could have been nomnated under other headings. There were 130 nominations that day. Ergo, 80%+ of afd's work is not about notability (anecdotal, I admit).

• Deletion imbalance – Unencyclopaedic articles (which don't meet current WP:CSD) take a moment to create, but need to be tagged, nomination page created, listed, viewed, voted on, and then closed by an admin.

This problem can lead to unencyclopaedic articles (however defined) remaining (even leaving aside notability) because no-one can be bothered to afd them.

• Speedy creep The pressure is to expand CSD. A7 is already fairly (perhaps too) subjective, and more expansions are likely to be more so. But perhaps more worryingly, existing criteria are being pushed to catch ‘common sense’ deletions – which don’t fit careful rules. It is eaier to tag nonsense, which is not patent, or advertising, with {{d}} and hope an admin will be flexible, than to go through the afd process for junk.

Increasing speedies answers the ‘deletion imbalance’, but leaves subjective and unscrutinised deletions.

Objectives of this proposal

• Keep it simple
• Make it easier (lss time consuming) to delete uncontravertial articles
• Ensure proper scrutiny for deletions (avoiding need for speedy creep)
• Find a process that is 'impact neutral' on notability deletions (otherwise no consensus will be possible)

The proposal

Split off 'contested' from 'uncontested' deletion nominations, leaving afd to handle only those that require full scrutiny.

1) Any editor may tag an article with something like {{proposedelete|20 Oct 2005}} (preferably giving reasons on the talk page). If the tag remains on the article continuously for a specified number of days (14/21/30??) the article can be deleted by an admin.

2) Tagging will produce a boilerplate such as:

This article has been proposed for deletion on [date], and may be deleted after 14 days. Please see talk for reasons, and discuss it there. If you still dispute this deletion, you may remove this tag.

3) If any editor disagrees, they should discuss on the talk page, but ultimately (or immediately) they can simply remove the tag. If the anyone replaces the tag, the time is reset.

4) If the deletion becomes disputed, the article should be sent to afd (possible renamed 'disputed deletions').

Safeguards against good articles being deleted.

1. Any user, coming across the article during the specified period, or having it on a watchlist, can remove the tag.
2. Tagged articles will appear in the deletion category for that date - any editor may patrol this and remove tags (perhaps particularly those articles remaining in categories nearing deletion date).
3. Closing admins must check that tags have been continually on articles for the entire period, but may elect to send the article to 'contested deletion' if they see merit in the article.
4. Certain categories of articles (e.g. schools) could perhaps be agreed as being always ‘disputed’.
5. Articles that have previously survived an afd/'disputed deletion' should be immune from deletion by this method.
6. A strict 1RR for tagging articles (but not for untagging)??

   Actually, do we need this - anyone wishing to protect an article against persistant re-tagging should send it to afd as a 'disputed deletion'.

7. Perhaps, even once deleted by this method, any two editors could request that any article be revived and sent to afd.
8. Afd/'disputed deletions' would be limited to nominations of articles where tags had been removed, or were of a nature that was patently controversial, or where there was good cause to require a faster deletion.

Impact on notability

Should be nil. 'Inclusionists' would be able to check tagged articles in the categories and remove the tags. In practice, I would expect that those wishing to nominate on grounds of notability would send the article straight to 'disputed deletions' - as notability nominations will (almost) always be disputed.

The Flaws (fatal?)

• Anon creates near gibberish - sharp RC patroler tags it - anon removes tag - we are in 'disputed deletions' immediately.

Possible solution - leave tag off and retag from NP patrol an hour later - many anons will have departed the scene.

• Vandal goes through dated category and removes all tags - if reversed, date would be reset.

Poss solution, date is not reset if tag replaced (within a few hours)- to stop the clock you must send the article to 'disputed deletions'.

Comments

*My basic question is: is this draft proposal worthy of wider debate elsewhere?

• • Sure. Similar suggestions have been made elsewhere, but it's still a good idea to separate out the good from the bad. The only two changes I'd like to see to this version is shortening the time an article sits in limbo, and instead of allowing anyone to just remove the uncontested tag, make them replace it with a contested tag; there's obviously dispute over whether the article should be deleted, so let's put it up for discussion immediately. It also means you don't have to watchlist all the items you put up for deletion continually, which makes it easy to miss a detagging when you mark a lot of articles (I'm think of RC patrollers here). --fvw* 20:15, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes I really like this (with fvw's suggested changes). An automatic 50% workload reduction at AFD considering how many AFD nominations are pretty much uncontested. An uncontested tag goes on and after a while it goes away. If someone disagrees they have to replace the delete tag with subst:afd and off it goes to AFD or whatever replaces it. For starters I'd say keep AFD at the backend for now. An interesting difference is that the nominations are now keep nominations instead of delete nominations. Worth discussion for sure. Rx StrangeLove 04:16, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Me too - It's simple. That's good. Go to it. JesseW, the juggling janitor 07:06, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I think it's worth a try. I see every reason to eliminate the work involved in processing the majority of articles which arrive at AfD with foregone conclusions as to their fate. This proposal will handily deal with that issue. Denni☯ 03:01, 3 November 2005 (UTC)