Wikipedia talk:Miscellany for deletion

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/Archive 1: August 2005 – December 2006

Contents 1 Users commeting on own MfDs 2 MfDs of policy/guideline/essay and organisation pages 2.1 Discussion 2.2 Update 3 CV 4 Portal:South Park 5 2nd nomination 6 MFD template 7 User:Groupe 71 8 Category:Miscellaneous pages for deletion 9 qtangel7772

[edit] Users commeting on own MfDs

Does anyone else feel that users should not be able to comment on debates regarding their subpages or user pages? I would like to know others opinions regarding this. JorcogaYell! 12:37, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I would rather have them participate in the discussion with well-reasoned and insightful comments than wage a revert war or something else WP:POINTish. I see no good reason to prevent them from participating. Slambo (Speak) 13:48, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. As long as the discussions are polite and fact-based, there is no reason to prohibit the user from participating and can be very good reasons to encourage them to participate. Incivility is a separate problem. Rossami (talk) 16:11, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MfDs of policy/guideline/essay and organisation pages

Looking at the discussions above, I see that Wikipedia_talk:Miscellany_for_deletion#Deleting_failed_policies showed support for the idea that deletion of policy pages and the pages of Wikipedia organisations with history should be deprecated in favour of a form of inactivation or historicalisation or archiving. I would add guidelines and essays in here as well. Organisations would mean WikiProjects and other Wikipedia namespace pages that have an active history. The idea is threefold: (1) That the history be preserved as a record; (2) That the history be preserved to avoid repetition of the same mistakes; (3) That policy pages be archived in case consensus changes in the future.

I am proposing that this be made much clearer on the MfD pages (where most of the deletions of this stuff is proposed). People should move away from voting delete to voting something like tag historical or inactivate or close down.

These considerations should apply to any Wikipedia namespace page. Outright deletion should be reserved for recent bad-faith ideas (this does not mean good-faith ideas gone wrong), patent nonsense, and the like. Anything with a history should be stuffed into an archive, instead of being deleted. Recent ideas that have potential can be userfied to allow development before returning to the Wikipedia namespace.

Please discuss this proposal below. Carcharoth 11:24, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

• My arguments are given above. Carcharoth 11:24, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

The problem is with the way we do debates in the first place. I nominated WP:PAIN for deletion via MfD. In truth, I don't care whether it is deleted or not. It doesn't matter. I want it deactivated, and that's really what the debate is about. Few will care what will happen after that (although some will). I suppose, technically, I should not have MfD'd but but sought a consensus to deactivate. But where? We needed mass participation in order to arrive at a definitive decision. A talk page discussion would have had a) limited involvement 2) probably skewed participation as it selects those already watching the page. Centralised discussions are slow and again a minority sport. I suppose MfD could encourage people to !vote delete/keep/archive etc. But the problem with multiple options is that they tend to result in a lack of clarity in the end. Perhaps we need Wikipedia:Processes and projects for closing? Or use common sense and say that if the MfD vote is to delete, then afterwards those who care can decide between outright deletion and historicising - without anyone quoting the deletion result at them.--Doc^g 12:06, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we need more infrastructure to implement this. Is there any reason that adding an explanatory section to MFD, noting that "longstanding essays, guidelines, policies, and projects are typically marked historical and deprecated in lieu of actually literal deletion" (or something like that...) wouldn't be enough? Serpent's Choice 12:27, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I suspect from the above discussion from 2005, that such text did at one time exist and got lost for whatever reason. Carcharoth 12:33, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the relevant bit of text was there all the time: "Also note that even if a policy fails to gain consensus, it is often useful to retain it as a historical record, for the benefit of future editors." - I'll highlight it so that people don't miss it. Carcharoth 12:41, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

A good example of how to organise historical stuff and delete unecessary stuff is at User:Kenb215/Projects/WP:COMMsubCle - a page documenting the clean-up of the subpages of Wikipedia:Community Portal. Carcharoth 12:33, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

• The explanation has been there for awhile and it's also on WP:CSK. In general we don't delete proposals or old policy, but there have been a few notable exceptions. >Radiant< 13:14, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • That's strange. CSK says: "The page is a policy or guideline, or an active Wikipedia process. The deletion processes are not a forum for revoking policy." - wasn't PAIN an active Wikipedia process? I suppose Esperanza and WikiProjects can be considered active processes as well, though 'organisation' would be a better word. Bureaucracy/community could describe all such pages. I am beginning to agree that MfD is not the best location for such discussions, because policy, guidelines, essays, community pages, process pages, organisation pages, should all be archived when shut down (or declared outdated or wrong), not deleted. Essays, as I said before, are generally userfied if not considered good enough for Wikipedia namespace. Carcharoth 14:07, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
    • The answer to that is that WP:NOT a bureaucracy. The clause exists to prevent people from making WP:POINTy nominations of policy or process that they do not like. The discussion of PAIN started on ANI, and had it stayed there it would also have shut the board down. >Radiant< 15:19, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I support the notion of keeping things around so we can review what was done before and not repeat old mistakes. So this idea seems sound to me. Whether it is new, whether we need elaborate process, whether we need policy modifications is not as clear but I certainly support the sentiment, and support its application to (at least) the two recent policy/process/project deletion proposals we've seen... ESP and PAIN. Is MfD too blunt an instrument, as Doc says? Perhaps. But it's what we have, and another process (Policy for Deletion, anyone) seems a bit overkill for now. ++Lar: t/c 14:30, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

• Note that these are two rare and extreme cases. I do not recall an earlier succesful deletion of policy or process. Hence I doubt we need a new process or rule to deal with this. >Radiant< 15:19, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Some time ago someone tried nominating Wikipedia:Deletion Review for deletion, a nomination which actually garnered support from arbitrators, both former and current. I'm not sure, but I think that was a motivation for adding the "active policy/process clause to the speedy keep guideline. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:33, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I've always considered that MfD should be renamed "Miscellany for discussion", but I think the problem with that name is obvious. —Centrx→talk • 17:37, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Wasn't CfD renamed this way recently? Carcharoth 21:36, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Right, the only problem with the name is that, in a way, it means "discuss anything you want". —Centrx→talk • 07:22, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Now, here comes the tricky bit. Is it possible to get a list of all deleted pages from the Wikipedia namespace? ie. Anything starting "Wikipedia:". A partial list could be generated by looking through the archives of MfD, but I wonder if there is any simpler, more authoratitive way? Another possibility is to use the deletion log to obtain a list of all the pages ever deleted (undoubtedly a horrendously large number), and pick out the "Wikipedia:" ones from that. These are actually rather simple requests that don't seem to be available because no-one's ever asked for them. In case anyone is interested, or remembers, failed Wikipedia proposals have been deleted in the past, and one of the reasons I assumed that it was done rather blithely was because of the immense discussion I had to endure to get Wikipedia:Numbers need citations undeleted at WP:DRV to be put through the proper process of marking as rejected. The debate was here (the following MfD was relatively painless in comparison). This is what leads me to wonder how much policy debate has been speedy deleted without being archived instead. Not something I lie awake at night worrying about, but something to consider. Carcharoth 21:36, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

While I was over at the WP:DRV archives, I looked up Wikipedia: pages that were listed there. I looked through October-December 2006. Here are the results (the first one is particularly interesting, referring to "recordkeeping purposes"):

• October 2006 [1]
  • Talk:Lazy K - Several relevant revisions moved to Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Lazy K, for recordkeeping purposes.
  • Wikipedia:Numbers need citations - Deletion narrowly overturned. Listed on MfD
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Serbia/countering anti-Serb bias - Deletion endorsed.
  • Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Willy on Wheels - Deletion endorsed.
• November 2006 [2]
  • Wikipedia:Eleventy-billion pool et al. - Deletion endorsed.
  • Wikipedia:Blocked users with bizarre usernames - Deletion endorsed.
  • Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Willy on Wheels - Deletion endorsed once in October, again now.
  • Wikipedia:Long term abuse/HeadleyDown - Restored, nomination at MfD optional.
  • Wikipedia:Esperanza/Coffee Lounge - Deletion endorsed.
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject University of Virginia - Userfication overturned, back in Wikipedia namespace. Move to Wikipedia:WikiProject Virginia is an editorial decision.
  • Wikipedia:Long term abuse/The Airport Vandal - Deletion endorsed.
  • Wikipedia Mailing lists redirects - Deletions endorsed, but editorially redirected to Mailing list for clarity.
• December 2006
  • Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Kitten Vandal – Deletion endorsed [3]

Obviously the individual reviews would have to be looked at, but I wonder how many of these deletions would have been rejected under the proposal to strengthen the "archive policy/organisation/community stuff" proposal above? Carcharoth 22:01, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I think you are mixing issues here. The general argument made for deleting a failed policy page is "it's useless but if properly tagged as {{rejected}}, not actively harmful". The general argument against the long-term abuse pages has been "it's actively harmful" for any of several reasons. Failed or obsoleted policy proposals generally are kept so we can learn from them and not have the same good-faith discussions over and over. We have traditionally held them to a fairly low standard in deletion discussions (first VfD, now MFD). The Long-term Abuse pages, forgotten WikiProject pages and the others in your example list were not policy proposals and were evaluated against a different standard. I think that's appropriate. Simply being in the Wikipedia-space does not automatically trigger the tradition that we generally follow for good-faith policy proposals. Rossami (talk) 00:46, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I agree with most of the DRVs up there. I'm not suggesting that the deleted ones should have been kept, I'm just giving some examples for discussion. I'm rather pleased to find that the mass deletion of relevant (even if out-of-date) Wikipedia: pages hasn't happened according to the people posting here. I just got the impression in the WP:ESP and WP:PAIN MfDs that some people were rabidly arguing for deletion because they wanted to destroy with fire and wipe out all reference to the pages from history. I generally think that Wikipedia:Pure wiki deletion system would work quite well, but that never really seemed to take off. Carcharoth 01:29, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Update

As an addendum to this, I am still worried that some people voting delete have the impression that things can be retrieved from deleted pages indefinitely (ie. 5 years later) for historical purposes, rather than just temporarily (if the deletion was a mistake, or is overturned). I asked about this on the technical area at the Village Pump, and I got a response from Brion Vibber:

Deletion means deletion. The deleted page archives ARE TEMPORARY TO FACILITATE UNDELETION OF PAGES WHICH SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DELETED and are subject to being cleared or removed AT ANY TIME WITHOUT WARNING. (Brion Vibber, 19 January 2007) [4]

Hopefully this will help clear up any confusion in future MfDs, and people will be clear that if there is any chance that something might be needed for future reference, then it should be archived, not deleted (remembering that I brought this up specifically in relation to project space, not article space). I've seen lots of people say (when debating archiving versus deletion) "deletion is not really deletion", and "if you need to look at it later, you can always get an admin to undelete it". Can we make it clearer on the relevant pages that these are not acceptable arguments in MfDs? Carcharoth 11:22, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] CV

Do I bring a user talk page that consists of nothing but copyvio material here, or to WP:CP? Thanks, delldot | talk 05:46, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

If you want it deleted, you can list it here. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:11, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Portal:South Park

I have just nominated this portal for deletion. Is there any way that the current discussion can be separated from the previous discussion the previous time the portal was deleted? Atomic1609 22:15, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Just make a seperate disucssion page, MFD/Page 2 for the translusion. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 2nd nomination

What is the proper method for listing an MFD item that has been listed before? Regards, Navou ^banter 14:03, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Just make a new Mfd page [[WP:MFD/Page 2]]]. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MFD template

This is the current {{md}}/{{mfd}} template:

but what do you think of my new version below:

I made the colour slightly better, and it should look better than the current peppermint-green shade. --sunstar net^talk 12:49, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

If you're going to change it, I'd add something like "If you are nominating a user page or subpage, as a courtesy you are requested to notify the user of this" or something. 68.39.174.238 20:05, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I like the green better; the new color makes this too close to the speedy deletion tags, and the two are wide apart in function. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:07, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I do like the green better, as a personal preference. Gracenotes^T § 23:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I like the green better above, but there may be other colors I like better that have yet to be shown! — xaosflux ^Talk 01:55, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Groupe 71

This page was once considered for deletion but everybody forgot about it since the discussion was... deleted. I would please ask someone to delete the page without delay because, anyway, it is now useless. Thank you.

--Scroteau96 00:28, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Done. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:17, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Miscellaneous pages for deletion

I see three active disscussions yet there are 51 pages in this category. Any clues?--BirgitteSB 16:55, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Sort of. An example, User:Corbinb8 is linked to (through a userbox) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:MiraLuka/Userboxes/User onemanonewoman. Garion96 (talk) 17:00, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

That might be it.--BirgitteSB 17:12, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• There were actually some old malformed MFD's in there, some kept pages that never got unlisted, and some pages that should have been deleted that never were. I've cleaned out this entire categor now, and it reflects only the current mfds or things related to mfd.

— xaosflux ^Talk 02:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] qtangel7772

i understand that my page is being considered for deletion- but i also want to let you know that i have stopped using my page for messaging, and i have told everyone else on my page to not message anymore either, so i would request my page not being deleted, but to remain for veiwing purpouses only please, thank you —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Special:Contributions/qtangel7772 (talk) 05:06, 22 February 2007