Wikipedia talk:Article Rescue Squadron/Archive 1

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interested

I would like to register my interest for signing up to the ARS (Article Rescue Squadron). I have been a long time user of Wikipedia and various other Wikimedia Projects, but have just signed up for an account. To kick off my Wiki life, I would like to join the ARS to slowly ascend the Wikipedian hierarchial ladder.

I would just like to say that I personally stand for a complete Wikipedia, and am therefore vehemently opposed to misguided deletion of worthy articles.

I encourage any other dedicated Wikipedians to join the resistance against a plague that, left untreated, may prove itself to be Wikipedia's "Achilles' heel".

~Queer As Folk~


add Articles for Review to the mix?

I posted about this just now to wiki-en: I'd like to see a less bad-faith and more friendly review process as the first point of triage when someone sees something they don't like. Not like cleanup; with a clear timeout for a process and discussion; but focusing the conversation on "what do we do with this and how?" rather than "should we delete this and why?". One of the outcomes of AFR would be sending the article to AFD, which would figure out how much consideration to give the author, what to do with the resulting orphaned talk page and history and inbound links, whether to salt the earth or allow recreation, &c. Thoughts? +sj + 17:34, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I think this could be a good idea, but I worry about practical implementation. There is a lot of schlock on WP:AFD that really does need to be deleted, and this would have the effect of backing that up to hell. On the other hand, a culture change that switched the focus away from "fix or delete!" to "what do we do with this?" would be fantastic, and this would be a way of implementing that. Rebecca 23:35, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
Rebecca, I agree that most of what's on AfD should still be deleted. But I think just us checking in on AfD can make a big difference. Since you need an overwhelming consensus to delete, one Keep vote needs two or more Delete votes to negate. So even a few of use Keep'ing will help. Today's appalling examples include Conservapedia, Russophobia, Daniel DiLorenzo (winner of an MIT prize and founder of a company). Just us chiming in with our view on keep/delete will help. -- Fuzheado | Talk 02:43, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Oh, that's absolutely true. That's why I'm here (and like others, this was partly provoked by your blog post). I'm just not sure that Sj's solution would necessarily help things. Rebecca 02:51, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
yes, my friends, another step or another procedure would make things worse. Whether in deleting stuff that needs it, or keeping things from deletion, the existing procedure is cumbersome enough. What is needed is greater participation from interested people--greater intelligent and helpful participation. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DGG (talk • contribs).
I definitely think that Wikipedia has become more of a totalitarian community above all else, and I think this must end now. Andrew Lih's blog entry was curiously thought-provoking. I look forward to working with you to return Wikipedia to the state it was in a few years ago in its heyday, before civil unrest broke out among the community members, and unnecessary deletion became the norm. I concur that the AfD legislation has become over-the-top and is leading to confusion and unnecessary deletion. --Queer As Folk 12:18, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

General Suggestions

and let me make a suggestion that here is a difference between improving articles that can be improved, and a defense of the impossible. Nobody at AfD objects to improving articles. Those most eager to delete an apparently unjustified piece of self-advertisement are very glad to change their mind, and acknowledge a good article. But improve it right: read WP:RS. Learn to use google effectively and patiently--I have saved many articles by checking through hundreds of ghits until I found a really good one.
perhaps you will allow me to make some practical suggestions based on a certain amount of experience there (The people contributing here already know this, by and large, but it may help to put things together)
  1. one demonstrates one's good faith by objectivity. There have been a few people coming to afd and voting to keep almost everything, or to delete almost everything. They do not help things, and either learn how to contribute effectively, or soon leave. Don't try to contribute to everything--pick a few articles on things you know about, and read the article and the article history before you start.
    I'm implicated in that; I'll make some effort to argue for deletion when it's warranted. Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 05:11, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
    I must say that I am somewhat biased towards the whole deletion fiasco. I believe that so long as an article meets the minimum standards of Wikipedia, it should stay there for the sake of wholeness and completeness; who are we to say what or will not be useful? Of course, the content must be encyclopaedic yadda yadda yadda... but I take the "the more articles the better" approach, as it makes Wikipedia a more useful source, but reliability is of course a major factor, so I am completely and utterly for the imrovement of articles. --Queer As Folk 12:22, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
  2. One further demonstrates one's objectivity by participating in deletion. Many bad and unimprovable articles articles escape New Pages: go there and look not at just the latest, but at ones a few thousand pages back, and nominate for the appropriate process: Read, understand, and follow WP:Deletion policy.
  3. AfD really is not a pure vote--despite occasional aberrations, closing admins almost always do look at the arguments, not count. Arguments on either side without a basis in policy and a knowledge of the facts are generally ignored. There is no point in showing up and saying "me too." It does not impress anyone to say "per whoever". If you can say why, that is what makes a difference. It's necessary to know the policies, not just as written on the policy pages, but as currently discussed on their talk pages, and as actually applied at AfD. Learn WP:N in particular, and its subpages. See what arguments work, and which do not. Follow the existing policy; there's no point in acting in opposition to it. Rather, try to affect the way it is interpreted and applied, and learn enough about how things work to propose desirable changes.
  4. And please recognize that anyone who is literally a pure deletionist or inclusionist does not understand reality. Most of us have interests in different things, and we get by by accommodating each other. To work in a wiki needs a willingness to compromise.
  5. Whoever loses their temper first, will lose the argument. If an opponent is not acting in good faith, there is no need to say so--just concentrate on the article. The merits of the case will appear readily enough.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by DGG (talk • contribs).

Addendum: To reiterate my gripe (which I've posted about elsewhere) in new language, arguments for deletion ought to be as jargon-free as possible. We fought this battle a year or two ago, when the use/abuse of "N.N. Delete" (an abbreviation for "not notable. Delete") as the sole reason for nomination was at last seriously discredited as a reason for deletion. If you want to nominate an article for deletion, just stating that it violates policy $INSERT_YOUR_FAVORITE_ABBREVIATION_HERE doesn't cut it. Explain why the article is (for example) a hoax, a vanity listing, or obviously not notable. Otherwise, I may lose my temper for good, & seriously propose that anyone who does this should be indefinitely blocked from Wikipedia until that person writes a 5,000 word essay explaining that they actually understand the policy, & how it applies to the article in question. </rant> -- llywrch 18:09, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, this is but one example of how those who believe themselves to be "elite" abuse language in an effore to both make themselves seem superior and to confuse others so that they will not retaliate. --Queer As Folk 12:27, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Amen, llywrch. If only. Rebecca 23:09, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

An additional option

I will be happy to help out here when I have time -- I think this is a very good, level-headed approach to the occasional bout of trigger-happiness on AFD.

I just wanted to make sure editors here are aware of one new option that has become available for well-written text about to undergo the Notability axe. The Annex (http://annex.wikia.com/) is a place that accepts any Wikipedia text that is going to be lost in page histories due to deletion or redirecting. It's especially sensitive to the extensive work on fiction (books, tv, comics, gaming) articles that are being gutted by recent policy. Those policies aren't necessarily bad -- an encyclopedia doesn't need in-depth detail on every aspect of every TV character ever -- but it is a shame to throw away or bury a lot of painstakingly developed and freely licensed text when there are other more specialized wikis out there that would be delighted to have it. The Annex will accept copied or exported text, ensure that the source is properly attributed, remove template formatting that's not necessary outside of Wikipedia, and then make an effort to find a home for the material in one of Wikia's 3,000 wikis, or in other free content repositories on the web.

I hope that this project can do a lot to keep worthy material in Wikipedia, but when it's worthy but doesn't belong here, please remember to use or recommend The Annex instead. Thanks! — Catherine\talk 07:09, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that this is neither here nor there. I could care less about where content goes if it has to be deleted from Wikipedia, but the last thing I want to see is good content from Wikipedia being dumped because "oh, there's somewhere else we can put it". Rebecca 07:19, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
There is also a need for a place to preserve text that people do not have time to work on until such time as they do. This is somewhat different from the purposes of the project mentioned. It remains available of course in the various web archives, and it is also available to administrators. I and most admins are generally willing to restore and userify any potentially worthy article that people may in good faith want to work on. If it is not being worked on, it is not appropriate to userify it, but almost any material can be emailed. DGG (talk) 07:52, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with Rebecca -- sending content somewhere is infinitely better than deleting it. Even if deleted content is preserved on the server, for the average reader there is very little indication that it was ever there -- sometimes no indication at all. For all intents, the information has disappeared down a black hole.
We just have to make sure that things are transparent: that anyone who might have come across the deleted article instead comes across a notice pointing to where it has moved to, that the authors are notified so they know where to find their work. And there also needs to be some sort of standardized mechanism for moving worthy content back from the annex (or wherever) to Wikipedia. That's all a little beyond the scope of the Rescue Squadron as it currently stands, but this is as good a place to talk about it as any. (And anyway, the project is a wiki page: if you think it's scope should be broader, be bold.) Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 08:26, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't disagree with you there - my point is that I'd rather it not be moved off Wikipedia at all if it is notable, and I don't want to see the existence of some extremely low-traffic dumping ground being used as an argument to increase the amount of notable stuff we're alraedy losing. Rebecca 10:11, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Rebecca completely -- I don't want this to be an excuse or a lever for deleting more information. I would just like to be sure that the people who work on the Rescue Squadron -- people who are by definition concerned about the deletion of good content -- are aware of this option when the tide of deletion is going against hard work that should not be lost. First priority should absolutely be referencing, rewriting, copyediting, and whatever else it takes to ensure that information that belongs here is kept, as this project page describes. However, there are some good articles that are being merged, redirected and occasionally deleted outright because they don't meet Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) or other notability guidelines -- in other words, not because someone hasn't worked hard enough on it, but because people have decided it doesn't belong here. Most pages touched by this project won't fit that, because we will be working to save the ones that do belong, but if we're looking at AfD anyway it's good to let people know about The Annex where it's needed. — Catherine\talk 05:22, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
While transferring these articles to another place is "infinitely better" than deleting it, as you put it, I think that a lot of content is being deleted nowadays that should stay right here on Wikipedia. Afterall, surely a user would rather have too much rather than too little. No? --Queer As Folk 11:03, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough. I do think that there are specific reasons that places where wikipedia articles might go are extremely low traffic, and that those reasons can be fixed. Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 16:56, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Userfying or moving to a "rewrite area" of a WikiProject is usually the best option here. As long as you deactivate the categories and inline link fair-use images, and don't just forget about the article, then the material is usually fine. Once it has been rewritten and referenced, it can be moved back into main article space. If you don't have time to work on something and it is not yet suitable for public consumption, you can even blank the page to avoid search engines finding it. But obviously, working on something and getting it back out there will (a) improve it due to input from other Wikipedians and (b) allow our readers to read the article. It used to be that such improvement from even awful articles took place "out in the open", but now the culture at AfD seems to be "delete" instead of "improve". Carcharoth 12:24, 17 July 2007 (UTC)


The disincentives to working on articles at AfD

There are some disincentives to working on articles at AfD that I would like to see addressed before carrying out this kind of work. I like to be able to review my edits and look back at articles I've worked on and watch their progress. This is not possible once an article has been deleted. The edits I made vanish from my contributions history (they are still there, but not made public). The other disincentive is that sometimes I feel the best solution is to redirect an article, but that often disrupts the progress of an AfD. While an AfD is in progress, it is possible to carry out a rewrite to demonstrate progress with an article, but how can you demonstrate at AfD the potential of carrying out a merger and redirect? Carcharoth 12:16, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Maybe just do the merge, and hold off on the redirect? As far as disincentives -- yeah, that kind of sucks. But hence the rescue squadron metaphor: we're trying to change things by taking actions that are risky (for our edit counts) and inconvenient. (These disincentives are part of the reason I think it's not such a bad solution to move articles instead of deleting them, if it's done right.) Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 06:57, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

systemic bias

This is great. Just wondering if any of you guys also work on countering systemic bias. Any help is appreciated. Wl219 21:27, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about the rest of the folks here, but I have been known to type an article or two related to Ethiopia -- one of the items promoted by that project. But whether one of us are a part of that or not is mostly irrelevant to the goals of this project -- or almost any other WikiProject: we're here to expand free access to knowledge & learning, & what Tlogmer has proposed is Just Another Way to advance that goal. We all contribute in our own ways; remember that & respect that, & you'll understand the wiki way. -- llywrch 04:20, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Some thoughts on improving AfD process

I've long thought AfD was not the best way of reviewing borderline articles, especially the more technical or specialist ones. There seem to me to be several ways in which the process could be improved:

  • Somehow forcing AfD nominators to provide a decent rationale. "NN Delete" is still unfortunately in evidence.
  • More, quicker indexing to specialist subpages. The current efforts are extremely useful, but items tend to get included on a hit-or-miss basis, and often only after several days at AfD when previous commenters may have stopped watching the page.
  • Notifying relevant WikiProjects. In my experience, this often this results in an informed decision on what to do with the article.
  • More complete guidelines on what constitutes notability in some areas. For example, I've found WP:PROF is only any use in the most extreme cases.
  • Publicising other ways of dealing with problematic articles, such as tagging for referencing, notability, copy edit, merge &c&c. So many of the articles I see at AfD really shouldn't be there. Espresso Addict 03:56, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I would agree with the majority of those points, particularly on rationales. One thing I would like to see is an expansion and simplification of the things to do before nominating an AfD as it's just a little on the heavy side now. You could almost break it down into a check-list of items that could be used by less experienced editors to help reduce the afd flow. For example, have relevant cleanup tags been used and have they been place for a reasonable period of time? Was the creating user notified about the concerns? Has a relevant project been notified? Have you made a reasonable effort to look for sources to assist with notability, or worked with someone who can assist you in doing this? This might go some way to stem the problem at the very least. Thewinchester (talk) 04:17, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I'd agree with this. I get the impression some relatively inexperienced editors working on eg new page patrol don't really understand that deletion borderline enough to need AfD should be a last resort, not a first. Espresso Addict 04:45, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I also would agree with this. I have only ever participated in one AfD of an article - Out Now Consulting where certain users, like me, with little experience but interested in keeping it, also participated, but after what became a very heated set of arguments (I can certainly admit to getting really frustrated myself then) it was deleted. Some participants also wanting to keep did seem to me to be much more experienced than I was, but I was worried at the time it was against some policy to ask for help about trying to widen the scope of people looking at the article, and tried once at that time but got no response so thought better of it. What would have helped most was if there was some independent party who I could have got to help with the process of identifying what secondary sources were notable and how to include them to edit the article during the AfD. But i could not think how to do it. So tried myself and obviously failed. I also don't think all the things mentioned above were necessarily followed to the letter in that article's deletion. But there was lot of jargon flying around that was, for me, quite bewildering and isolating. I had an overwhelming feeling of helplessness as some people that were pushing for delete seemed much more experienced, and to know each other and the AfD process very well, and I really had wished there was somewhere that I could have turned to ask advice as I felt there was enough in that article to clean it up and make it notable. I tried but I just do not have enough editing experience to feel confident with it. Especially when the people pushing for delete were highly skilled at using policies and guidelines that I found myself trying to learn on the fly. The whole experience was draining and I have since had less appetite for WP as a result, but am trying to learn more and stick with it. Anything positive that happens here would be great if there was a way for more inexperienced users to seek advice in AfD discussions from more experienced users without falling foul of WP:CANVASS. I know too (now!) about the existence of a WP:DRV process but as a pretty unskilled WP user, the thought of going down that road is too much after how aggressive I thought the one AfD I participated in became - with what felt to me like a 'battle' between keep and delete sides breaking out, and I dread the thought of that happening again. "Be bold" yes, but I thought what happened there was beyond that. I like the idea of AfD being used only as a last resort and with the key *first* emphasis being to constructively try to improve an article, rather than being made an aggressive battleground from the very nomination, then degenerating almost immediately into two sides just fighting each other to 'win' over whether to delete or keep. It could be that other ways already exist on WP to seek input from experienced editors to help people like me trying to improve an article during such a difficult AfD process, but this WP:RESCUE group caught my eye, so maybe it could do so for other inexperienced editors too and provide some acceptable mechanism for people like me feeling all at sea during an WP:AFD. JeffStryker 10:16, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
to help with the process of identifying what secondary sources were notable - after some IRC chat, I've been looking at some ways to help fix that. Right now I'm thinking of just setting up a wiki on Wikia that will entirely be links; ie, you go there, you type in 'example.com', and it will cough back pros and cons people have had working with the site; is it reliable, do they move articles after to an archive after a period, does it appear to be neutral but it's actually funded by an oil cartel, etc. Secondary to that, there would be a link submission section - so that companies who want to avoid COI, but believe that they have information that Wikipedians could want but have no idea where it might be, because they don't quite 'get' how to use wikipedia, could submit a URL with a brief description and then just tag it with a subject or two. The submitted links could still be reviewed. Then when people are working on a page and they need more info on something, they could go to this Wikia, search for a subject or a site, and find out if other people have assessed the site as a reliable source or not. This is still in a really 'feeling it out' stage, and I'd love input. --Thespian 11:19, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't think noting the article is at AfD at relevant WikiProjects would count as canvassing, and would tend to accumulate experienced editors with a knowledge of policies and favourable in principle to the type of article. Espresso Addict 12:01, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

A call for unreason?

See Wikipedia:Requests for verification ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:38, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I find this knee-jerk reaction to anything mentioning a possible deletion distasteful, and proves to me the "wild-eyed inclusionist" attitudes that members of this project seem to embody, despite the warnings of the founder. ARS and this proposed project are not opposites, they are partners. If RFV is a concentrated effort to bring attention and force the verification of articles, then it's doing a favor for those who don't want to see articles deleted for a lack of sources by making a handy list of articles for ARS to work on. And it should keep articles simply needing cleanup and sourcing from being brought before AFD at all. VanTucky (talk) 04:54, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Not a "knee-jerk" reaction, and I am not an "inclusionist". Check my deletion log. For the record. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:58, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
RFV cannot force verification of articles in a manner that is detrimental to the project. Putting a 30 day notice on articles and an automatic deletion is not the way to build an encyclopedia that is written by occasional contributors. Most of the content in Wikipedia is added by such people that do not know our policies. It is our responsibility as editors to find sources, not to summarily delete articles. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 05:01, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
As a highly inexperienced wikipedian, I could not agree more.JeffStryker 11:05, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Heck VanTucky, you've come across me in enough AfD debates. You know full well that I'm nowhere near an inclusionist, and lean more towards deletionist. This group seems to be encouraging more sensable application of the AfD processes and helping to provide clearer guidelines for what should be improved, avoiding (but still knowing when to nomination an article for) deletion. Thewinchester (talk) 06:37, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
all he cleanup projects should b moving towards the same goal. The only thing that should really remain undecided is where we want to set the bar for different types of articles--we may never settle that sort of question, but otherwise we should all be able to agree on what a good article is and work toward it. If the different projects start working in opposition to each other the result will be worse than when we started, & set back all ateempts to improve. DGG (talk) 07:08, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Copyvio speedies - remove content rather than delete?

Leeds Town Hall has had an interesting history: there obviously has to be an article about this architecturally-important grade 1 listed building, but over the years two separate texts have been copyvio-d to create it (timeline at Talk:Leeds Town Hall). It was nominated for Speedy deletion on 13 July 2007 and deleted a few hours later: article, history, talk... all gone, leaving no trace of what had happened except that it had been deleted for copyvio. The person who deleted it has now restored the history so we can see what has happened, and can also retrieve Categories etc from last week's version. But yesterday, anyone looking at the page would have seen a small newly-created article and no indication (even in the history) that an earlier article had ever existed. And a couple of days ago, there were a host of red links pointing to this non-existent article. This can't be right, surely? If an article is on a topic which merits an article (and especially when it has had a number of good faith edits, albeit working on a basically copyvio text, and Categories), then surely copyvio text should be deleted, leaving the article as a stub with a history, rather than wiping out the entire article. (A warning about the Speedy delete nomination was placed on the user talk page of the anonymous user who created the page in Dec 2004, and who has not been active since 2005).

Have gone into this at a bit of length as it seems a category of article rescue which might be considered: rescue/retain the existence of the article (and categories, links, lead sentence) as a stub even if the rest is deleted as copyvio. PamD 10:49, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

This would probably require rewriting or gutting WP:CSD G12, essentially taking copyvio out of the realm of speedy. What if when blatant non-fair-use copyvio is spotted, replace the text with a giant copyvio tag and semi-protect the article? This way no content is lost in the long term and established editors can go in through the history to separate out the free and non-free content. Wl219 11:17, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Random Essayage

I was just looking at the essay pages, and I came across WP:OSTRICH, aka 'Don't Be an Ostrich'. It has a good and concise set of rules that I often find people nominating things for deletion have not taken the time to do; about half of the AfDs I've voted on this last month (not counting the stuff DGG was straightening out) was stuff that was fixed in under 15 minutes by following these rules.

A mindset core that I think needs to be changed is to disabuse people of the idea that they need to 'defend' Wikipedia against bad additions, and instead re-introduce the basic idea that we're here to actually *build* an encyclopedia. While deletion is absolutely necessary, every page that gets removed is a small amount of damage to the body of Wikipedia. Now, sometimes, the damage needs to be done; I mean, removing an appendix is also no doubt damaging to the body of a person, but sometimes, that bad boy just has to go. But that doesn't mean that the damage shouldn't be minimized, as much as possible. Almost every single person who joins Wikipedia joins because they use it a couple times, and then they see something to add, and they do so. Everyone starts out adding, and I think stressing that part of why people came here, and what they can do now that they really have the skills will help.

I'd also like to suggest we offer a 'Baker's Dozen' challenge to people who we see are nominating a lot of deletions; and ask that for every dozen articles they nominate for deletion, they make an effort to save one; in other words, to commit to trying to save 1 out of every 13 articles. If, after an effort is clearly made, it's still not salvageable, that's perfectly fine; the idea is just to pull the reins up and keep people from getting too heavily into pasting delete tags. --Thespian 11:58, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

How ironic that this essay was nominated for deletion. Too many Wikipedians believe that when a policy or essay is no longer immediately relevant it should be deleted. Maybe history is bunk. -- llywrch 19:07, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
The various "historical" or "rejected" tags should be used instead. People seem to think that deletion is not deletion. In fact, the ability to undelete later should not be assumed, especially years later. I often quote what Brion Vibber said here: "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". That should always be borne in mind. Carcharoth 10:45, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I've got a mini-essay about "Deletion vs the construction of an encyclopedia" on my user page. Mathmo Talk 03:24, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

A Gift!

Image:Rescuesquad.png

hope people like it. I have an urge to do one like an old-style 70s cop show promo ad, too.--Thespian 13:31, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

What is the meaning of the rope? how about without the rope.:Dc76\talk 18:04, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Aren't all life preservers equipped with a rope? The standard/stereotype image of a life preserver is often adorned with one. Maybe it's a US/UK thing... -- llywrch 19:03, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
indeed; search for life preservers on Google Images, and you won't find one *without* rope. When I did it without rope, it looked like a deranged wikipedian Saturn, not a life preserver. (in other words, the life preserver is improved by retaining all the information possible to it, including the rope ;-) ) --Thespian 22:06, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
ok-ok. Deranged Saturn did cross my mind. Ok, I just thought you gave to the rope some additional meaning. Anyway, forget it. I do like the logo. Except where is the word "article"? Are we rescuing everyone and everywhere? :-) Even inside WP it is still a lot other stuff to rescue. For example, to add "article" just above "...ue squ...."  :Dc76\talk 13:02, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Since we are having some fun here, let me share a thought that just crossed my mind. :-) I'm pretty sure you'll have fun. We can make a hymn for the "Resque Party" :-) :-) "Battle Hymn of the Resque Squadron":
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Resque:
They are trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath aren't few;
They hath loosed the fateful lightning on deletionist askew
The truth is marching on.
I've seen articles deleted by a hundred AfD [eif-dee] stamps,
They have builded their altar in the darkest dews and damps;
They destory the righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
Yet the truth is marching on.
We have sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
We are sifting out the garbage to allow good content fit:
Oh, be swift, my pen, to answer forth! be jubilant, my feet!
The tuth is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies article was born across the sea,
With a glory in its bosom that transfigures you and me:
As it died to make men ponder, let us live to make it free,
Article is marching on.
 :-) :-) :-) have a nice day! :Dc76\talk 13:45, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


The Wikipedia cannot be used without official license from the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikimedia has given permission (or at least turned a blind eye) to the vandalism brigade, because there's a universal agreement they're useful. ARS? Not a universally-likable organization, unlikely to get the papal blessing. -- Zanimum 18:56, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
While I didn't know that, by way of 'turning a blind eye', they lose their ability to say it can't be used in this fashion. It's all or nothing. So they can stop everyone, or they can allow respectful use as above. Since they can't stop parody and satire of the logo, and since they allow it for other project organizations (and in point, the vandalism brigade is not universally-likable, either), they (meaning you, since you brought it up), are free to hunt down all usage of the logo and end it, or understand that this is in fact a allowable work (low res, all the goodies from WP:LOGOS) that does not harm the copyright holder. If Wikipedia goes after its own users for this sort of work, it's also likely to give legal opening to every logo and logo usage being removed from the site if the copyright holders decide to request it. --Thespian 19:29, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


Wikipedia:Requests for verification

Please see: Wikipedia:Requests for verification

A proposal designed as a process similar to {{prod}} to delete articles without sources if no sources are provided in 30 days.

It reads:

This page has been listed in Category:Requests for verification.
It has been suggested that this article might not meet Wikipedia's core content policies Verifiability and/or No original research. If references are not cited within a month, the disputed information will be removed.

If you can address this concern by sourcing please edit this page and do so. You may remove this message if you reference the article.

The article may be deleted if this message remains in place for 30 days. (This message was added: 12 June 2008.)

If you created the article, please don't take offense. Instead, improve the article so that it is acceptable according to Verifiability and/or No original research.


Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)

Some editors see this as necessary to improve Wikipedia as a whole and assert that this idea is supported by policy, and others see this as a negative thing for the project with the potential of loss of articles that could be easily sourced.

I would encourage your comments in that page's talk or Mailing list thread on this proposal WikiEN-l: Proposed "prod" for articles with no sources

Signed Jeepday (talk) 14:05, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Idea: have it be checked every 10 days or so by an admin, and they decided if the tag is taken off or not. You could use a succession of tags, like {{RfV1}}, {{RfV2}}, and {{RfV3}}. The reason I'm saying this is because I don't want it to be like prod where anyone can just nuke the tag and possibly stop someone from seeing the fact it needs sources. Kwsn(Ni!) 15:58, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

    • I have elsewhere stated my opposition to this proposal. It is easy for one person to challenge in a few minutes dozens of articles, which would then take much more than 30 days to all get improved. I work regularly at sourcing such articles-- it takes me about an hour to do a simple sourcing, or but to do it properly on a difficult article on a subject not covered in the web takes at least several hours with both electronic and print access to a good library (I use Princeton and NYU). I can do about one a week that way, RW permitting.
There are two types of material that really needs sourcing--the many unsourced bios containing negative BLP that are still left from previous times, and the even larger number of articles that contain unsourced material that appears on its face to be POV or otherwise inaccurate. If a sourcing project uses proper priorities, and if it establishes the principle that an unsourced tag should not be placed unless the person actually tries to source it, and fails, and documents where he looked to facilitate the subsequent work of others then it would be useful. Even then, I am altogether opposed to fixed times. People do not do work well when under the pressure of a deadline--and it arouses resentment.
Personally, I think the way to go is to bring all articles under a subject-oriented project, where there are people who know the appropriate sources, and to work by project. DGG (talk) 00:50, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I've long suggested something along these lines (and I'm an inclusionist). The problem with this particular suggestion - as with the abuse of PROD and AfD for similar ends - is that it's completely arbitrary. The article gets nominated when some random who wants the article deleted nominates it, and anyone who wants the article kept has to drop what they're doing and fight it. It breeds nastiness, and it wastes time. Moreover, its pretty ineffective as a means of getting articles referenced - people are forced to focus on finding sources with some suitably glamorous "claim of notability", whether or not that has anything to do with the reasons the subject is actually notable, so as to convince people with no clue either way not to delete the article. A more sensible process would encourage people to get the articles properly sourced in full.

What would be a much more effective process is to treat unsourced articles similarly to the way we used to treat images back when copyright was just beginning to be enforced properly. We could have a bot tag a certain number of articles a month, and give people say, a three month window to actually get them sourced. You'd still have the time window before deletion to put pressure on people to actually source their work, but you'd be giving them more than enough time to do it - actually giving people time to get to libraries if necessary, and without forcing people to immediately drop any other projects on someone else's whim. Rebecca 06:34, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

WP:PROD is dangerous

Surprised no one mentioned it here!

Not really, something is less likely to get deleted via prod than CSD. However, removing a prod tag usually results in an AfD. Kwsn(Ni!) 18:47, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Removing a PROD tag without improvement is what results in AfDs, as it should. Incidentally, PRODs are not mechanically deleted--the admin who deletes it is supposed to evaluate the article and delete, send to Afd, or keep as appropriate. At present, we have no automatic mechanism to ensure proper follow-up of removal of PROD tags, so those placing PRODs should watchlist the article. Many PRODs do get improved, and personally I think a non-template comment to the author helps in that. DGG (talk) 00:37, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
This shouldn't be the case with PRODs, and that wasn't what I had in mind when I supported its introduction back in the day. The PROD process was established as a means of deleting stuff that no one actually was likely to want kept, but didn't meet the strict speedy deletion criteria. It being used incorrectly in this way creates the same problem this was set up to address - good articles are being deleted not because they're not notable, but because they haven't been referenced in a completely random and arbitrary period which may not suit the people who have access to the references. That's just socially clueless - it's a means not to get many articles referenced, but to piss off as many people as possible. Rebecca 06:24, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Deletionist

I'm sort of a deletionist, but I see what you guys mean. If you want any views from the other side of the fence, just drop me a line :). Kwsn(Ni!) 15:54, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, we want you to tear down that fence, Mr Gorbachov Kwsn. :-) :Dc76\talk 18:06, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Heh, well, I personally prefer merging than deleting if something has a little notability, but not enough to have a whole article, but if you want to know how we think, just ask away. Kwsn(Ni!) 18:46, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that not you are deciding every article to merge or to delete: maybe if it were done all through you, there would be no problem. Personally, I think "Articles for Resque" could work as a revue process after "Articles for Deletion". In AfD, there are many who say "until you improve it, we delete it". Often they do not even allow the article to be placed on some kind of probation for a period to be worked upon. This does have its own merrits: there are a lot of proposed articles that do merit deletion - advertising, political opinion, etc. But the Deletionist Party is on its own ground in AfD - they are congregating there, while those in favour of double-triple reading only come there ocasionally. AfR would be then where one places and appeal. After an initial overview if the original article was not advertising or plain vandalism, some from the Resque Party would recover the article in some project-space, where it can be improved. When it reaches some better level, it can be moved in mainspace. At that point, it can be placed in AfD and deleted again, then in AfR again - the result will undoubtably be that the quality will improve (or an alternative merging solution would be found), b/c no sane person is going to aprove the return to mainspace of something that has not been improved. :Dc76\talk 13:16, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and something you may like of mine

An essay on how to change WP:WEB. Personally, even I think that's too strict. Kwsn(Ni!) 18:51, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Some comments

"One person can't outvote a dozen." - AfD isn't a vote, so you don't need to "outvote" anybody. If someone brings up proof of notability, and it's valid, people often take notice.

"extensive article that's been edited over 800 times since July 2005." - This is not a valid argument to keep an article. Theoretically, you can have one very prolific, Preview-phobic editor who makes hundreds of tiny edits to an article on his garage band over several months, adding an extensive record of every time they play another show. For a less extreme example, you can have an article that is a hoax, but a very good one that many editors take for granted.

"Look at what was speedy deleted the fourth time." - I looked. At a casual glance, I can see why a reader would believe it didn't assert notability. It reads just like any other of the thousands of band articles that hover just above the WP:MUSIC line. While the band was probably notable, the article sure didn't get that across very well.

That's generally my point. If your subject is notable, tell the reader; don't expect him or her to imply it. This almost always requires more than one sentence. I can think of very few notable subjects for which there is only one sentence's worth of information out there. Crystallina 20:03, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I've taken your comments into consideration and made a couple of rewording edits to the project page. I disagree with you about the Christian band though. New, stubby articles often need work to bring them into point by point compliance with WP:NOTE, especially if they were created by newbie contributors who've never seen the policy page before. Remember WP:AGF and WP:BITE. Wl219 21:26, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I think the easiest way to salvage an article is to provide reliable sourcing on the subject. It really only takes a few minutes of googling on all but the most obscure topics (or a trip to the various language portals for a topic in another language) and really does improve the article. Integrating DGG's ideas into the project would be nice. One of the biggest problems with AfD currently is that people think WP:N seems subjective. But WP:V isn't. ColourBurst 23:53, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
This just isn't true, and that's part of what's so harmful about the current situation. If you're dealing with an article about a band or a living person, then yes, sources are generally easy to come by. If you're not dealing with that, however - something that generally doesn't make good newspaper copy - then you may need to have access to a good library, perhaps one in a particular geographical location. This often means that you just can't get sources in a random seven-day period. Alternatively, it can lead to some very stupid discussions - just a few days ago, we had people running round trying to quantify the notability of the country's largest and most well known cat food brand to satisfy the nomic metric. Rebecca 06:21, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

More comments from the Deletionist

First, I think a link to Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions would be nice, as it outlines weak arguments for both keep an delete (and guess what WP:RUBBISH links to).

Examples

  • Russophobia deletion entry - PROPOSED July 13, clearly a widely used term and an extensive article that's had over 800 non-trivial edits by multiple editors since July 2005. Trending to keep, thankfully. Bizarre arguments for deletion:
    • "Original essay, a collection of arbitrary facts from newspapers, internet sites and similar sources to prove the existence of a particular prejudice." Yes, egads, those pesky facts. Sources clearly point to existence of the term used during the Cold War.
    • "We have already had Anti-Hellenism (deleted), Anti-Bosniak sentiment(deleted), recreated Bosniakophobia (and deleted again), Anti-Hungarian sentiment(deleted), etc. compiled in exact same way." The method is not the question. Do the sources backup the claim that this is a well used and accepted term? Yes it does. Seems Russophobia got caught up in a crusade against multiple pages with -phobia. Thse sweeping en masse deletion are dangerous because one often uses the worst of the bunch as a justification to delete others that may be entirely different. See Estophobia for the spark that ignited much of this.
    • "Delete This topic is not backed by verification in reliable sources, and most of its contents seem to be original research. And while this may be more a cleanup rather than a deletion issue, it also is extremely POV." Someone admits this should be a cleanup and not a deletion, and what do they do? Vote delete.
  • ATV News deletion entry - PROPOSED July 13, deletion voter shows a fundamental misunderstanding about what Wikipedia is.
    • "Chinese-language version of ATV News has a much larger potential audience - about 60 times the size, and might be notable, but if so, should be in Wikipedia-Chinese, not English" Er, no, English language Wikipedia can and should have articles about things in other languages.
(votes overwhelmingly to keep--the international nature of WP is well understood--this is not one of the current problems)DGG (talk) 03:56, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Many "... in popular culture" articles are being deleted at a quick rate. Charles Manson in popular culture, Carl Jung in popular culture, Gilgamesh in popular culture, The Chronicles of Narnia in popular culture, Harpsichord in popular culture, Casey Jones in popular culture. While I'm not a fan of all of these, the reasoning behind deleting these shows a disturbing trend.

(this will take widespread community involvement to reverse)DGG (talk) 03:56, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

    • I agree. Middle-earth in popular culture wasn't in great shape, but there is no doubt there should be an article of some sort at many of these pages. The arguments often given for deletion are ones that could be rebutted if someone actually edited the pages concerned. Carcharoth 12:08, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
  • List of songs about masturbation - DELETED July 15, 2007. While I'm no personal fan of this page, it does show the shifting line in the sand. This page has been around since March 2005, had over 1,000 edits. It survived VfD in April, October, November of 2005, but finally in July 2007, it's been flushed.
  • This Beautiful Republic was speedy deleted around 4 times without discussion. The last time is was marked as part of WikiProject Contemporary Christian Music, and was being edited by WikiProject members. It had several elements that met WP:MUSIC (or were close enough to require discussion), including a national tour, signed to a major Christian label, and a reference from a reliable source (although there was only one reference). Look at what was speedy deleted the fourth time. The last time was as the artist was hitting the national charts in the U.S., and receiving significant rotation. Their single hit #5 on some national charts shortly after the deletion. I had the article restored to my sandbox, and strongly referenced the article before taking it to mainspace. The speedy deletion process failed in this case. Royalbroil 21:24, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

About the examples

Regarding Russophobia, seems like a case of WP:ALLORNOTHING to me.

Regarding the "Popular culture" articles: half WP:ALLORNOTHING, half WP:TRIVIA.

Regarding This Beautiful Republic, not even I would tag that for speedy deletion without checking the label if one is linked (half the time, one isn't given however).

Regarding song lists: WP:NOT#INFO. That, and a category would work just as well (and would prevent some person dropping a random song into it).

I'm open to comments. Kwsn(Ni!) 00:15, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

    • I do not think the general discussion of example belongs on a project page like this; on most clean up projects, just the title of the article is mentioned. Kwsn has the right idea, and I have BOLDly transferred the section here, just above his comment. Further--it really isnt necessary to reproduce the discussion from the AfD--just to link to it. Unlike articles, AfDs do not get deleted. DGG (talk) 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Follow Ups

Something else I'd like to ask any of you about is Follow Ups; I have frequently hit AfDs out there where the item was nommed by someone who didn't even bother to really look, they just went for the 'I haven't heard of it' argument. Often because the original editor 'knows' it to be notable, they don't understand why someone is saying it's not, and can't fix it. Now, I don't have the time or energy to fix any more articles that I'm not interested in than I already am (there is *surely* a reason why I seem to be the main contributor to Adam Sandler, but I don't understand how it happened). But I frequently will argue, 'It's notable, here's some stuff, here's some other stuff, and a bit over here, too. I'll fight to keep your article for you, but I can't do this work for you.'

Often after I do that, there will be a flurry of 'Keep per Thespian' comments, and the article will be saved. Now, I don't want to spend time on the article. Until I get paid to do this, that is not for me. But having 'saved' it, I'm trying to come up with a way of keeping track of making sure that people do take the info I dig for them and fix the articles, and also, ways to nudge people who said, 'sure, I'll fix this!' and then never do.

Are any of you doing this? How do you do it? Would that fall within the scope of this project? --Thespian 07:35, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I have the same experiences at my end and have found no other way than to keep checking in with the article and nudging those who offered to contribute, whilst continuing to fend off trouble. Luckily the articles that interest me attract only small numbers, but still the occasional fly drops in and slams the article without having read past the first sentence, sometimes just fired by a phrase and then they place tags on it, which I later remove. Follow up seems within the scope of this squadron. --Ziji Image:Baby_tao.jpg (talk email) 09:37, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Listcruft deletion gone wild...

Need your opinions on articles that have been around since 2005, and are now on the chopping block as "listcruft." I'm of no strong feeling one way or the other right now, but do see it as a shame to see such things as:Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2007_July_18#List_of_cultural_references_to_A_Clockwork_Orange, as simply rehashing debates and challenging norms by newbies. -- Fuzheado | Talk 14:01, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I suspect that this is an outgrowth of a comment Jimbo made to the WikiEN-l maillist many moons ago. He was showing off Wikipedia to some people, happened to click on an article where there was a list of "X in popular culture" which detailed every mention of this subject on The Simpsons. A collective rolling of eyes followed, with the usual crumudgeonly observations about Wikipedia going to hell in a handbasket, film at 11. This dislike for listcruft filtered out to the general community where it was heard not as "let's try to improve the content of these lists" but as "death to all lists about high-culture subjects appearing in popular culture". In other words, complain about something passionately enough & a few months down the road a progrom will be launched to eliminate every occurance of it. -- llywrch 16:39, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
If they do it too much, they should be told not to do it at all... We're not the only place with that problem. Circeus 16:56, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

relevant debate

The Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paternal bond seems like something this project would interested in. VanTucky (talk) 18:42, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


The Bat-Signal

I've created a template -- Template:Rescue -- for people to add to pages that need the Rescue Squadron's attention. As you can see, it only contains a category. People could just add the category to the page directly, but doing it this way offers more flexibility.

One caveat: I don't code templates, so I have no idea whether the one I've made works (or whether it's acceptable, policy-wise).

Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 02:47, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Greetings, I have enhanced the template. Please let me know your thoughts. Fosnez 11:16, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Cool. Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 10:20, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Merging to save content

What do people here think of the idea that merging can often save stubs until enough verifiable and notable information has been found to spin an article back out again? In many cases, merging is the true solution, and in some the suggested merge destination is 'full' already. But merging can be a good idea, particularly because the edit history of the old article gets preserved at the redirect (it is rare for a redirect with extensive edit history to be deleted, though you still have to watch for that sort of thing). Carcharoth 11:00, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

It depends on the type of merge you're talking about. If you mean a simple cut and paste, I think that for the most part degrades other articles with rambling lists and trivia. But if you mean the type of action that User:Chubbles1212 and myself just carried out with Cultural references to guinea pigs, then yes. Shifting the content of articles likely to be up for deletion into a good prose format and merging them with main articles seems to be a positive thing. VanTucky (talk) 17:47, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
I think merging is rarely a good option. The information from the original article in many cases does not fit easily into the target article, which means that it must be mostly deleted to be of any use there. Moreover, it substantially reduces the prospect of getting an actual useful article on the original topic, seeing as breaking it back out requires a bit of wiki knowledge that a lot of newers users will not have. Rebecca 04:14, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
If the information is unsourced merging only ends up with it subsequently being deleted from there as well. Gnangarra 04:31, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Which is why using the deletion processes as a means of getting stuff sourced (at least on its own) is a completely stupid way of attempting to get articles referenced. Rebecca 04:55, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, merging sounds good, until you look at the way it is often applied in WP . At least in contentious situations. it tends to be a way of eliminating content without exactly saying so. It should be seen as a modified version of deletion" sometimes necessary, but to be carefully watched and not done without good reason. It has places, especially when it can be generalized for a type of articles: for a group of minor gentry, important, but where articles on each are impractical for lack of secondary sources; for schools with only directory information into an article about the school district. for individual episodes of a TV serial. But it is not a panacea, and like all processes which delete content, needs to be used cautiously. DGG (talk) 05:05, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Some points that may counter some of the concerns expressed above include: (a) merging preserves the edit history of the original article, making it possible for ordinary editors to see the version before merging (when an article is deleted, only admins can see it); (b) using the Category:Redirects with possibilities template to label the redirect and listing it somewhere (like here), with a link to the version before merging, to bring it to the attention of people who might want to resurrect it at some point after working to find the references.

I agree that this is not ideal, as in an ideal wiki world the article would be worked on 'in the open' with maximum input from lots of editors. However, in practice, especially in the current AfD climate, articles are nominated for deletion before they get worked on. Of course we must work to change the culture of "delete instead of working on an article" that affects some nominations at AfD, but in parallel, this is one technique for 'saving' articles.

Another 'rescue' technique' I mentioned above is moving pages to a "rewrite" area, rewriting them, and then bringing them back. I will expand this below. Carcharoth 22:44, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I have been rummaging through the "redirects with possibilities" category I mentioned above, and the majority are redirects that were never expanded upon, or have sections on the topic being redirected. What is really needed is a tool to detect the redirects with possibilities that have an extensive edit history. Anyone know how to do that? Carcharoth 22:58, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Rewrite areas

What do people here think of the idea of rewrite areas? This sort of idea already exists in that for some articles some admins are quite happy to restore copies to a user's userspace and allow them to work on it, with the complete edit history, and then move it back into main article space when it is ready. My idea here would be simply to extend this to Wikipedia space, where people can collaborate on such rewrites. I'm sure this already happens in various formal and informal ways, and I am surprised it is not mentioned here (as far as I can see). What I am proposing is that in addition to the "keep", "delete", "merge", "redirect" and other options mentioned and !voted on at AfD, we try and make the option of "rewrite" more prominent. The idea is that some articles are: (a) in such a bad state and (b) don't have many editors available to work on them - that they should be shunted off to a rewrite area until they are ready to be moved back to main article space. Of course, the AfD should give some idea of what is needed in a rewrite, but this would be far less destructive than deletion. You could have the option of "rewrite in userspace"; "rewrite in WikiProject X space" and "rewrite in Article Rescue Squadron space" (for any unclaimed articles that shouldn't be deleted).

If this was considered a viable option, then the article would be moved, complete with edit history, to the rewrite location. Editing would proceed there, and then it would be moved back to the location it had come from when it was ready. There would have to be limits set on this. You don't want a user or WikiProject ending up with 100 rewrites and not doing any of them. Maybe some sort of time limit of a month (or more if requested). Plus other details I'm not sure of. Plus the rewrite location should be subject to future AfDs, rather than MfDs (Miscellany for deletion). There is also the thorny problem of what to do with what are probably lots of "never done" rewrites moldering away in people's userspaces.

One big problem with this is that you are left with a mainspace redirect to a Wikipedia namespace location (ie. a cross-namespace redirect). If you delete this, then lots of redlinks get created which may then get delinked (which would be disastrous), and also someone may (on seeing a redlink) write a new article. Keeping the redirect means that people still get directed from the links in articles to the rewrite that is in progresss, and get very confused that they have been taken out of the main article space (if they are just an ordinary reader). This combination of problems may be insurmountable, but maybe others have thoughts on this. Carcharoth 23:15, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Great idea. I wish AfD participants would entertain this option more often. As for implementation issues, I think we can have an inverse time limit for relisting back to AfD. If there are lots of people in the original nom that say they'll help rewrite/fix the article, then it should take less time for the collaboration to put together something that will at least survive a PROD. Also forces those people to keep their commitments to fix. If it's just a few editors, naturally they might need more time. What if we start it at 1 month time limit to rewrite if there's 1 editor willing to do it, and subtract 2 days for each additional editor willing to help out, until we reach 7 days. Participants will thus have between 7-30 days to make good on their commitment to rewrite. It'll be up to the admin who closes the original AfD nom to police the time limit.
As for the redirect confusion, I think we can solve that by having the restoring admin semi-protect it and mark it with a big tag up top that says "this article is in draft form and is actively being edited to bring it into compliance with WP standards, as such it should not be considered an official part of WP." I think that's idiot-proof enough for most (reasonable) casual readers. Wl219 07:27, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we need a system for content deletion which leaves the article in existence as a kind of stub. Particularly useful in cases where the reason for deletion is related to the article (copyvio, unsourced, etc) rather than the topic (not notable etc), and/or where "What links here" shows multiple links and/or redirects from elsewhere. Delete the central block of content, leaving whatever is unobjectionable: likely to be any dab statement, categories, stub categories, perhaps "external links", any "see also" links to other WP articles, possibly any infobox or other similar (depends why the page is being considered for deletion). The lead sentence if it's uncontroversial: if not, create a new one where possible. Then stick a big template on to say that the content of the article is under review and can be seen/edited "here". That way no-one finds red links and starts to re-create the article or delink, and the infrastructure and history of the article remains. Sure, it would take a little longer than just deleting the whole page - but Wikipedia would be the better for it! PamD 08:59, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

It's still going for the idea of "shoot first, ask questions later", which is just unnecessary. If there is anything dubious or which raises any BLP issues, it should be shot on sight as a preventative measure. There's no reason, however, to go about removing all unreferenced content - you're just creating a morass of far less useful articles. We need to redirect this energy away from trying to delete unreferenced content to sourcing it - at the moment, I and others who would spend more time referencing articles are trying to waste a whole lot of time and energy fending off pointless deletion bids for good articles and good content. Rebecca 09:54, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm still wincing from the total disappearance of Leeds Town Hall for "copyvio" when it was long-established and had useful content and tags apart from the very long-established coypvio text, as well as many links pointing to it! PamD 10:16, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
That was a speedy deletion that wasn't carefully considered enough. That sort of thing generally gets fixed if someone notices it. That's not really what article rescue is for. Carcharoth 19:36, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

It looks like the solution is for those with 'clue' to hang out at AfD and actively reference articles for those who are too lazy to do so, or who aren't able to search for said references. Anything that people think is notable but they need more time to find references for, should be listed here and taken to deletion review when the references are found. The culture won't swing back overnight, and it will take hard work, but that is what this project is part of organising, it seems. First up would be to get someone to give a lesson in saving an article at AfD. Anyone? Carcharoth 19:36, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

See the AfD debate for Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Law Practice managment software. A little self-promoting of me maybe, but I take pride in saying I helped save it from deletion. Not only was consensus to keep but the nom was withdrawn. Compare what it was when first nominated [1] with the way it is now. Wl219 03:20, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Article links

Despite AfD being changed sometime ago to use the {{la}} template that gives links to an article's talk page, links, history, and page logs, I wonder whether people make as good use of these as they should?

  • The article history link should be used to check whether a better version of the article existed previously, and to see how long the article has existed for and how many edits has been made to it. The number of different contributors and the type of contributions can sometimes indicate how many other people have taken the time to edit the article previous to the AfD.
  • The talk page should be checked for previous AfD discussions, and those discussions should be linked from the current AfD.
  • The "what links here" links should be checked to see how many other articles link to this one. A large number of links from other articles can be evidence that the article title is needed, regardless of the current content.
  • Finally, the page log should be checked to see if the article previously existed. If the article previously existed, the current article might just be a recreation. But equally this can be a sign that the previous deletion was faulty and there is a need for an article if people are independently recreating an article.

Failure to check some or all of the above four points can be a sign of a poorly-thought out nomination. Maybe checking things like this could be something this project does? Carcharoth 12:31, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Everyone interested in solving this problem should help in the way they can best contribute. We all agree that current practices at AfD is a problem -- misuse of the deletion process to solve issues like insufficient citations, bad writing, various other manifestations of laziness, & the usual polemical campaigns. No one solution will fix this; just because the people causing this problem think of AfD as a hammer is no reason for us to. -- llywrch 17:23, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
of course people should watch afd, and these hints are a useful checklist. Nobody can watch them all, and attention should be paid in particular to the ones that get few comments. DGG (talk) 03:48, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Flawed-rationale attacks on glossary lists

Please be on the lookout for any attempts to delete glossary articles on the basis of WP:DICT/WP:NOT. The reasoning is flawed (a glossary is not a dicdef), and glossaries are expressly, by name, mentioned as a valid variety of list-style article in the Manual of Style (at Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists)#Format of the lists).

For more background argument on this topic, see my comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Australian and New Zealand punting glossary (which survived AfD) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2000 AD glossary (which did not survive AfD, but on grounds of WP:V and WP:C), as well as a Village Pump thread which can be found here, under "Glossaries" (I'm using a history link here because VP archives are dumped very quickly).

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:54, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

The WP:NOT#DICT policy once had a specific exemption for glossaries which was removed and led to this discussion, which clearly represents no consensus for removing the exemption (and while it might appear from that discussion that there is no consensus for including it, the mere continued existence of List of glossaries and the pages listed there seems to demonstrate otherwise). Unfortunately, at least on policy pages, WP:CONSENSUS seems to have been de facto superseded by WP:TENACITY (red link intentional), which is why (IMHO) the explicit glossary exemption continues to be missing. DHowell 23:10, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
WP:TENACITY -- I described this phenomena to someone last week, & his response was "Oh, you mean reaching a decision by being an asshole?" Sigh. There are times when one should kick & scream, & times when one should be silent & accept the consensus for the good of the project. -- llywrch 20:33, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Please refrain from using profain language. Thank you. --Queer As Folk 22:58, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia maintenance

Should we consider becomming part of the afore mentioned category ? ARE we part of the 'maintenance' process ? or are we a wholly different set of 'gnomes' ? This opens into the discussion on how well do we wish to be advertised? The more we are advertised...IMHO... the thinner we will be spread amongst needy articles, at least in the beginning phase and not helpful to our original cause. I bring this up here after looking at the Category for quite a while ... not being able to decide and wanting consensus. (Of course there is THIS category if we wish to keep a covert profile :P )

And on a seperate note... Will we be getting a Shortcut to the namespace page ? eg. WP:Rescue to go along with the {{Rescue}} template

Exit2DOS2000•T•C• 02:17, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Reading for today

SMcCandlish has been asking the following question of candidates over at WP:RfA -- which for therecord I think is a good one:

Selecting one item listed at Category:Candidates for speedy deletion that arguably does not belong there, that arguably does not belong there, explain (citing WP:CSD and/or WP:DP in detail) why it should not be speedily deleted. (If all of them appear to be appropriate candidates, say so and I'll think of replacement test of admin judgement.) Your personal, subjective opinion of the value of the item (how well written it is, the importance of the topic beyond satisfying WP:CSD's notability requirements, and so forth) should not be a factor.

However, one person who does not seem to get the point is arguing with him over the need to ask this question, leading SMcCandlish to write this explaination -- which I recommend to one & all to read.

I don't think there is any violation of WP:POINT here; one candidate answered that he couldn't find any articles that fit the criteria, & that was an acceptable answer. It's just that with all of the shoot-on-sight material that streams in, odds are always pretty good that there will be several mislabelled articles there. -- llywrch 04:38, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the qy was not necessarily confrontational and that most candidates gave reasonable answers, but there was strong objection from the supporters of some other candidates, & the current sentiment seems to think it was unduly POINTy & I wouldnt want to oppose that. The usual way of asking about this topic is to examine edit histories and ask about specific edits--this seems universally accepted. 06:21, 29 July 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by DGG (talk • contribs)

Sometimes it may be difficult to find candidates for speedy deletion that don't belong on the list, because an admin with a trigger finger may have been patrolling the list recently. I was astonished by the speed with which The Webb Schools (an article with a nearly-two-year history of editing by many different users) was deleted, apparently on grounds that the then-current version read like a brochure. See User talk:Maxim/Archives#Your deletion of The Webb Schools. I had removed several speedy-delete templates (placed by an IP user who clearly dislikes the school) in the days before the deletion, so I was watching the article fairly closely (I noticed the deletion after the red link appeared on my watchlist), but I imagine that many other articles have disappeared without a trace.--orlady 21:06, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

It took me a while to think of a useful response to this important comment, but now I have it: articles that have been around for a long time and/or with more than the average number of edits should not be marked as Candidates for Speedy Deletes. This does not mean they should not be nominated for deletion -- or the discussion closed under WP:SNOW. Speedy Deletes are supposed to be no-brainer obvious choices that any experienced editor would immediately agree should be guillotined; any article with that much edit history requires some investigation, some amount of thought -- not a quick hatchet job. This is something that probably should be discussed in Wikipedia:Village Pump. -- llywrch 19:18, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
I would say that have been substantially edited by more than one person over a period of time. There s a good deal of junk fro 2006 and before that has never gotten deleted--the wording will be a little tricky. "For more than 6 months with significant contributions by more than two different editors over a period of time" (And exceptions must always be made for copyvio and BLP) I agree this would be a good change, but I think there may be trouble getting it accepted. DGG (talk) 06:19, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Good suggestions. I don't think any rigid mechanistic rule will do the trick (but then again i don't like rigid mechanistic rules). However, if the main message (whether from a mechanistic rule or a vague guideline) is "review the edit history before doing a speedy delete," it might go a long way toward preventing unduly speedy deletes.--orlady 01:32, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I could live with Orlady's suggestion, but I still think that CSD's ought to be limited to obvious, no research needed, shoot-on-sight candidates. The presence of an edit history which needs to be reviewed before acted on contradicts that. And even if the edit history has nothing in it which redeems the article, even that simple explaination means that someone has to write up an argument for deletion -- which means it should be referred to WP:AfD. -- llywrch 02:01, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Member Numbers

You may notice that I numbered the Members List (as a consequence Tlogmer's comment had to be moved down because the list would start at 1 after the comment). The reason I have numbered us is twofold: 1) People viewing the page can see just how much we have grown and the size of our group and 2) it may sometimes be easier to refer to ourselves as member number...of the ARS. PS I am not an expert Wikipedian so maybe someone can help me out: is there a way we can prevent new members from putting themselves as Member no. 1 or 3 or 5 when they should be no. 50, for example? I feel that when the ARS has grown to hundreds, it would be nice that we get recognised as the people who were there at the start. Just a thought. --Queer As Folk 15:41, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Putting dates after names is always a good idea, butI think you're worrying about something that's not all that important. Someone would only do that if they're desperate for attention, & either do not know that this is not the best way to gain it -- frankly, I consider that almost as sad as lying about one's Wikiholic score -- or are trolling -- in which case they'll get in trouble for more serius actions. -- llywrch 19:26, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
I had the list bulleted to show a sort of egalitarian doesn't-matter-when-you-joined spirit. (But then I kept moving new entries to the bottom because, of course, I do care about being member #1 :p ). In general, focusing on join-date status tends to be unhealthy for groups. (And hopefully the rescue squadron will stop being needed before membership rises to the hundreds.) Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 10:13, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Template:Rescue

Wouldn't it make more sense just to use the category that this template categorizes articles into, and delete the template? IronGargoyle 22:05, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Another surprise

Some well-meaning soul has decided to add a template that questions the notability of each episode of The Office (UK). I'm speechless. -- llywrch 03:32, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

A similar project that may interest you

I just found out about this project. I just formed a project called Wikipedia Intensive Care Unit that may have similar goals, though I come at it from more of a deletionist point of view. Comments and suggestions are welcomed at WP:ICU. Thanks ! Realkyhick 15:54, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Zerg up for deletion

Apparently it is not noteable (by the gods I hate that term). The article is in need of a rewrite, but I don't think the argument for deletion is very strong. I just joined the Rescue Squadron, and I can't quote policy to save it myself, so I have added it to the Category. I though I would just pop it here too and introduce myself. Fosnez 11:45, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Is this project for improving articles or just an excuse to vote stack? MartinDK 08:41, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Please read the project page and have a nice day. - Fosnez 08:42, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Quoting policy is the last refuge of the scoundrel. ;) "Notability" is the concept that articles about your lover of the appropriate sex, your pet, & your favorite bit of trivia are not worth an article in Wikipedia because of their value to you. However, if you can make a plausible argument that someone else would be actually want to read an article about any of these -- or other -- things, no matter how obscure, esoteric or rooted in popular culture, then they are notable. The Devil is in the details, & some people are better skilled at explaining notability than others. -- llywrch 07:11, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
all sensible inclusion-oriented people with experience at AfD know that improving a challenged article is the best way to keep it. Vote stacking rarely works, whereas real improvement will certainly have an effect on the fair-minded. I 'm not about to use this project to comment on what I wouldn't otherwise comment on--I do intend to use it to improve what I otherwise might not get to. DGG (talk) 19:57, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

TDVision up for deletion

  • TDVision - about to be deleted per WP:CORP because of writing style. Notable, needs editing. User:Krator (t c) 08:24, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The above comment was moved from the front page - Fosnez 06:18, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Republican National Committee

Someone from an ip address put a speedy tag on this for spam, and then added our banner--I've removed them both. Perhaps it was just a test. DGG (talk) 21:18, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Userbox

This user rescues articles for the Article Rescue Squadron.



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. Greetings, I have created a userbox for the project. I think the associated category would be a better way of keeping an up to date member list. Any comments? Fosnez 01:01, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I like it! Ichormosquito 05:52, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
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