Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 18

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

Contents

Clarification on CSD A5

CSD A5 for transwikied articles reads, in part "Any article that has been discussed at Articles for Deletion (et al),..." (emphasis added), while the "Used for" entry in the deletion templates table reads merely "Transwikification completed." I've been told that even dictdef-type articles must go through AfD first, but these entries can easily lead one to believe otherwise. I couldn't find anything in the archives, but can any "oldtimer" here clarify what the vague "et al" is meant to include? Askari Mark (Talk) 05:23, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Other *FD processes; probably MFD is the only relevant one. The original wording can be seen at Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal/10. —Cryptic 05:30, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, Cryptic. Think anyone would mind if I made the "et al" a little more explicit? Askari Mark (Talk) 18:36, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Maintenance categories

How to stop a maintenance category from being speedy deleted if it happens to be empty for more than four days? Jogers (talk) 10:08, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Note somewhere on the page that it is a maitenance category, and should not be speedy deleted just because it's empty. -Amarkov moo! 05:22, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Done. Thanks. Jogers (talk) 10:58, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Images with unknown copyright status

All the images in Category:Uploader unsure of copyright status have a very polite tag {{Don't know}} which states that an experienced editor should help the uploader. Does that actually happen? All the uploaders get a message from Orphanbot and the image gets deleted if nothing changes in 7 days. Which usually is good since it's almost all copied from some website anyway. Should the tag be changed since now perhaps some uploaders are waiting for help, which doesn't arrive. It seems impossible almost to help them all since there always so many images without a copyright status/source or license tag. Garion96 (talk) 13:13, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

In my experience, most people don't even notice. And in any case, if someone asked me to delete such a deleted image and help them sort out the copyright, I would. Deletion isn't that big a deal. But on the other hand, feel free to reword the tag if it bugs you. :) Mangojuicetalk 14:44, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately, (1) the template adds {{no source}} so the image gets deleted pretty quickly and (2) the category is not time sorted. When I've selected random images in that category, I mostly get old (uploaded in February) ones that have already been orphaned and I just get discouraged. If the category were date-sorted like Category:Orphaned fair use images, et. al., I would be much more inclined to work there.
I looked at MediaWiki:Licenses, but I don't know how date-sorting would work the current system. Can you subststitute a template in a substituted template? I'm not sure I know. I'll try. If anyone feels motivated to do it (you'll probably be faster than me) feel free to go ahead. --Iamunknown 05:46, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
If you type {{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>some_template}} in a template, then the some_template will be substed when the containing template is substed. --ais523 10:24, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

User Page Deletion

An anonymous IP nominated User:LymanSchool for deletion claiming that it is spam. Is this Legal? And if it is not can I (a non admin) remove the speedy deletion tag? -Mschel 22:51, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I removed the speedy deletion tags from both User:LymanSchool and User talk:LymanSchool. These tags clearly did not apply to those pages, and there was no edit summary explaining why they had been added. —Remember the dot (t) 23:06, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. But G11 can apply to user pages, if they are really advertisements. Mangojuicetalk 15:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Oh, okay. —Remember the dot (t) 16:40, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Qualify for G10?

This page was created as an attack page that would qualify for G10 (likely a recreation of Rooper after CSD G10) and there are still traces of it left. There were no additions that don't qualify for G10. Additionally, I can't find any references to this being an actual word. Should this be G10 or prod/AfD for neologism or whatever it is? Squids'and'Chips 00:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Template suggestion for G4

I have a request for someone who knows what they're doing with templates - is there any chance that the default G4 speedy template can automatically generate a link to the corresponding AfD that it's noting? --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:58, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

It could auto-link, but what if it wasn't a first listing? Or listed under a different name? ^demon[omg plz] 08:31, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


Problem with "db|reason" template

In the {{db|reason}} template, the "reason" is currently garbling some of the text in the deletion notice box.

There is a sentence which is supposed to say, "Administrators, remember to check what links here, the page history (last edit), the page log, and any revisions of CSD before deletion." However, the reason, or all but the first word of it, is being inserted between the words "before" and "deletion".

You can see this illustrated on a test page I created in my user space. The "reason" used on that page is "this is being used to test the "db" template, I don't actually want it deleted now".

This results in a sentence in the box reading as follows: "Administrators, remember to check what links here, the page history (last edit), the page log, and any revisions of CSD before is being used to test the "db" template, I don't actually want it deleted now&action=delete deletion."

The source of this problem is apparently in a template which (a) is edit-protected and (b) I don't understand well enough to fix even if it wasn't edit-protected. --Metropolitan90 03:15, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

This is interesting. I've checked everything, I know how to check well enough, and nothing is wrong. Except that it doesn't work. Maybe some database coding was tweaked? -Amarkov moo! 03:28, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Found the problem; fullurl doesn't like long wpReasons. I'll try to find an exact character limit. -Amarkov moo! 03:31, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Actually, so what it doesn't like is most punctuation. -Amarkov moo! 03:32, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Including spaces, apparently. It's got to be removed from the template now. -Amarkov moo! 03:34, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for R4

I've been working in requested moves, and I regularly delete redirecting talk pages attached to articles which are also redirect, provided they have no non-trivial history and no incoming links. The reason for this is that they are likely to be turned into double redirects by any subsequent page moves, and lots of people, when moving pages, don't check the "what links here" for the attendant talk page, even if they check it for the article itself.

Thus, I propose a CSD R4: "talk pages of redirects with no significant history, no incoming links, and no content other than a redirect to another talk page". What do people think? -GTBacchus(talk) 23:57, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

A double-redirect still points the reader to the right page even if it requires the reader make an extra click to get there. Deleting the redirect would leave the reader unable to find the final location of the page.
I have to ask, though... If the Talk page has only trivial history, why are you moving it in the first place? Leave it behind and let the moved article start fresh. Rossami (talk) 01:57, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I suspect you misunderstood what I said. I'm not moving talk pages with trivial histories. Let me make up an example. I move OldPage to NewPage, and then I check "what links here" to take care of the double redirects. Let's say there are three redirects that had been pointed at OldPage, Redirect1, Redirect2 and Redirect3. Those need to be fixed to point at NewPage. While doing that, I might notice that Redirect1 has a talk page, Talk:Redirect1, with no content or history other than a redirect to Talk:OldPage. This redirect is an artifact of a previous move from Redirect1 to OldPage, and it has no history still at that old location. It also has no incoming links, and nobody is going to type "Talk:Redirect1" into the search box. That talk page can be deleted without any chance of messing anyone up. Redirect1 remains, but it's talk page gets deleted, as useless.
Does this make sense now? I'm not talking about deleting anything out of article space, or deleting any redirect that has a chance of being used for anything. -GTBacchus(talk) 02:06, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Here's a concrete example: I just completed a move request, Parti libéral du Québec → Quebec Liberal Party. The article had been moved previously from Liberal Party of Quebec, and it already had a talk page at that time. When that move was completed, Talk:Liberal Party of Quebec was left as a redirect to Talk:Parti libéral du Québec. Now that Talk:Parti libéral du Québec has been moved to Talk:Quebec Liberal Party, all of the history is there, and Talk:Liberal Party of Quebec is left as a double redirect with no incoming links, no history, and no use to anyone. I could snap the double redirect and have Talk:Liberal Party of Quebec point at Talk:Quebec Liberal Party, or I could just delete Talk:Liberal Party of Quebec. I'm inclined to do the latter, because it's not a redirect that anybody's going to use. -GTBacchus(talk) 02:19, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Come to think of it, this might fall under G6 (housekeeping), so maybe there's no need for an R4. -GTBacchus(talk) 02:56, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, the scenario you laid out is certainly not what I thought you said. If I'm understanding correctly, I still have some concerns depending on the circumstances. Excuse me for a minute as I think "out loud". If Redirect1 existed for a significant period of time as an independent page (because, after all, it used to be a prior OldPage), discussion may have accumulated on Talk:Redirect1. Killing the redirect could make it incrementally harder for someone who had participated only in those earlier discussions to find the new location. Now, I consider it unlikely that a determined participant would bookmark a Talk page but not the article itself. And the search engine should still find ... No, retract that thought. The reliability of our search engine has been definitively shown to be insufficient when looking for specific discussion threads in the Talk space.
Running through a couple of different scenarios, I guess I don't see it as a problem. Delete them if you like under existing case G6. On the other hand, it seems like an extra housekeeping step that doesn't really add anything to the project either. Leaving them as double-redirects won't hurt anything. I wouldn't waste the time on that step, personally. Rossami (talk) 15:12, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, it takes me all of five seconds, since I've got all the redirects open in tabs anyway. Double redirects will eventually be detected and fixed by bots, so unneeded ones sitting around are a tiny resource drain, but not a significant one. I'm pretty sure it's impossible to watchlist a talk page and not the accompanying article - I think they come as a unit, otherwise I could see that being a problem, but I think it's ok.
It's not terribly important whether this is actually added as a CSD; it was sort of a whim that I mentioned it at all. -GTBacchus(talk) 19:15, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

CSD A7 again

CSD A7 is worded differently at two places on the CSD pages:

"Unremarkable people, groups, companies and web content. An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject. If the assertion is likely to be controversial or there has been a previous AfD, the article should be nominated for AfD instead."

from CSD but

No reason to think that the subject is remarkable and no claim that it is notable, to minimize the possibility of deleting articles on encyclopedic subjects., from CSWD Explanations
I suggest that the second wording is superior: the pages being listed for CSD7 are about 90% very short pages with very obviously "no reason to think the subject is re,markable" and a summary process is certainly both appropriate and necessary; the other 10% are ones where some indication of notability is given or implied, but which usually are inadequately soured to demonstrate it, and would probably be better suited to prod--perhaps one-third will be improvable, and improved during the prod. This is perhaps an easy solution for how to avoid discouraging the new editors who submit articles on probably encyclopedic subjects, but don't realize how it has to be done for WP. Changing it this was has the further advantage of not introducing new wording, just being consistent in the old. DGG 23:41, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Rework of A7

The requirement to “assert the importance or significance of its subject” is arbitrary, and has the effect of encouraging Guiness Book of Records like claims.

A7 was based heavily on WP:N, which is seriously disputed. I am thinking that all A7 candidates should be subject to {{prod}} with explanation, followed by AfD if prod is disputed without the article's problems being fixed.

Possibly, A7 should be replaced with the criterion along the lines: “All content is completely unsourced”. To my limited observation, this seems to cover most uncontestable A7s. SmokeyJoe 12:22, 18 March 2007 (UTC) Suggestions retracted. SmokeyJoe 03:58, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think A7 is that closely based on WP:N. It's based on the need to delete pointless vanity pages without going through a drawn-out process. Not meeting WP:N is not the same as qualifying for A7; for that reason, I think we should avoid the word "notable" in any wording of A7. Mangojuicetalk 14:58, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
A7 is not based on WP:N at all, and in fact predates it by about a full year. Speedy deletion for unsourced articles was discussed at rejected here. >Radiant< 15:08, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the link. SmokeyJoe 03:58, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
If I am reading these statements correctly, they more concerned with V than A. Is that accurate? The reason I ask is that every example I have seen of A7 (which I'm sure is a tiny sample, don't get me wrong) the reasons are N not V. I find this particularily worrying, because in many cases the article can be demonstrated to pass N with little effort.
I would really appreciate it if someone could make a clear statement about this. Maury 19:52, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
I would like to try to help, but what is V, A and N? SmokeyJoe 01:47, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

A7’s requirement to assert

Continuing my thoughts on disliking the encouragement to “assert”, how about, in A7, changing “does not assert” to “contains no evidence of”. I think that this doesn’t change the apparent intent, shouldn’t hinder its proper use, and properly emphasizes evidence, not assertion. Good articles contain evidence, not assertion. Also changing the second sentence (deleting “the assertion is likely to be”) The new text would read:

Unremarkable people, groups, companies and web content. An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that contains no evidence of the importance or significance of its subject. If controversial, or it there has been a previous AfD, the article should be nominated for AfD instead.

SmokeyJoe 04:15, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

So what is "evidence" in your mind? If "evidence" = "sources," that's been soundly rejected already. --badlydrawnjeff talk 04:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
  1. Firstly, is there any agreement that the wording, which effectively requires (encourages?) an assertion, is at all undesirable?
  2. “soundly”? I agree that lack of sources is not sufficient for speedy deletion.
  3. In my mind, “evidence” did not need a specific definition. Evidence can be strong or weak. Even a mere assertion can be considered to be evidence. My thinking is that “contains evidence” is a better pointer to better article writing than “asserts”.

I see that the basic text of CSD A7 has been stable since 17:31, 19 July 2005 [1]. It is really about “vanity”, the misused word “notable” was intertwined at the beginning, and it appears that CSD A7 was written following a majority vote: Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal/1. SmokeyJoe 06:26, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

  • It is the purpose of AFD to find evidence. It is the purpose of CSD to get rid of those pages for which it would be a waste of time to start looking for evidence. If an article on some person does not assert that person's significance (e.g. it says he's some twelve-year-old high schooler and that's it) then looking for evidence won't help (evidence of what, even?). >Radiant< 09:34, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Understood.

CSD A7 Sentence 1. How about inserting the word “even”, which to me avoids the implication the mere assertion might be good enough.

An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that does not even assert the importance or significance of its subject.

CSD A7 Sentence 2. There is a logical problem here. Sentence 1 establishes that there is no assertion. Sentence 2 assumes that there is one. I suggest deleting thruck-through words and inserting the bold word.

If the assertion is likely to be controversial or if there has been a previous AfD, the article should be nominated for AfD instead.

SmokeyJoe 05:16, 23 March 2007 (UTC)


The reason for that sentance is that assertions that are absurd on their face are still speedy deleted under A7. I have argued before that a better wording would be:

"An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that does not plausibly assert the importance or significance of its subject. If the issue is contraversial, or if there is doubt as to the plausibility of any asseertion made, the article should be nominated for AfD instead."

This more correctly describes what the original A7 proposal (and its extensions to bands, clubs etc) intended, IMO. DES (talk) 17:36, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds OK to me. I still like the insertion of "even", to avoid the implication that the mere (plausible) assertion is enough, where it is only enough to avoid speedy deletion. SmokeyJoe 01:47, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
ee further discussion below. DES (talk) 02:28, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Plausibility is not something that should be decided by one or two people. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:19, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

template for CSD A5?

I don't even know where to begin to make a template, and coding and other technical things aren't really my forte. So, can someone made a db template for A5 (transwikied articles)? Natalie 03:31, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Already done: {{db-a5}} Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 04:03, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Sweet. Could this go in the sidebar where a bunch of the other db tags are? Natalie 04:45, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
It already is there; it is also called {{transwiki}}, which is on the desired position. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 07:21, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Question about G4

The G4 criterion states: "This clause does not apply in user space". Does this cover articles that were moved to user space to "save" them from an AfD that resulted in a deletion? If not, does the copy have to go through its own MfD? In the past, I've had articles restored into user space through WP:DRV and was told I could not keep the article there indefinitely; this seems like a similar situation, except worse in my mind because the copying was done purposefully to circumvent the concensus to delete. Mike Dillon 17:18, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The advice you were given (that content can not stay in your userspace indefinitely) was correct. The userspace is a place to research and build articles when their appropriateness for the main article space is either unproven or has already been contested. If you stop working on it or if the space begins to be used in a deliberate attempt to impersonate the articlespace, the userspace version can be nominated for deletion via MfD. Speedy-deletion case G4 would not generally apply. Now, if the article were deleted from the userspace after an MfD discussion and someone reposted it, then I think that G4 would apply. But I don't think I've ever seen that happen except by one person who was indef-banned as a vandal shortly thereafter (for lots of other reasons, not merely for that edit). Rossami (talk) 01:27, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. This particular article, User:Salix alba/Cycle studies, hasn't been touched for almost a year. In my own case, it was actually just one article and I didn't end up doing anything with it; it was later incorporated into someone else's draft article for a parent topic and deleted. Mike Dillon 01:36, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Seeing as I was the one who removed the tag, I'd just like to clarify the criterion. Recreation within the same namespace is obvious. If an article is transferred to userspace to avoid deletion, it goes to MfD. If, after that, it is recreated again, it can use G4. Am I right? Harryboyles 05:26, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Only if it's recreated with substantially identical content, but yes. -- nae'blis 03:18, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
It's meant to make an exception for stuff that's been userfied after deletion, for an editor to continue working on the content to get it up to an includable standard. I've altered the wording to reflect that. --bainer (talk) 06:21, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Adding template names inline

Does anyone think that it would be a good idea to include the name of the respective deletion template, or at least a link to it, at the end of each criterion? This might be useful, although I can think of a very weak reason or two why it shouldn't done; mainly related to the function of WP:CSD. As an example of this, adding {{db-author}} next to G7, or perhaps <span style="font-size:80%;">[[Template:Db-author|t]]</span>. GracenotesT § 02:32, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Never mind about this, I think I have another idea. GracenotesT § 20:14, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Misunderstandings of A7

I recently had a conversation on IRC with someone who appears to have rather dramatically misunderstood A7. I'm reposting anonymously because I want to focus on clarification of the rule and not put down the specific person, who is not responsible for these misunderstandings.

Unremarkable people, groups, companies and web content.
(Me): You didn't read the whole thing.
that's the only part in bold, it's the only part i have to read
i figured "unremarkable" and "doesn't assert significance" were, as far as wikipedia is concerned, synonymous
And I figured "assert" meant "from a reputable source", as per WP:RS.

Suggested clarifications:

  • Clarify that the assertion of notability may be in the article itself. New, undeveloped articles are not required to be well-sourced.
  • Put does not assert the importance in bold text.
  • I would say clarify that merely unremarkable subjects can still have an assertion of notability, but I thought we already do this quite explicitly in several places. Perhaps this can be made more visible in some way.

Thanks for your consideration - and let's try not to get into a fight over repealing A7, as we'll never agree to do that. Dcoetzee 00:21, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

  • We definitely don't want to say that new articles aren't required to be well sourced. They are, it's just that failing that won't in itself get the article deleted. Jay32183 03:14, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I don't think a lot of folks who spend time reviewing new article creations would agree with you on the notion that failing the well-sourced criterion for a new article should not be translated into a justification for deletion. There are plenty of folks out there who would gleefully delete every stub article that lacks a citation on the basis that all unsourced material should be speedily deleted. I'm not among those who would do this, I'm just channeling. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 11:33, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

A thought that just occurred to me: It’s probably to be expected that people misunderstand things when they contain a logical confusion, as per CSD A7 2nd sentence, which I just altered. SmokeyJoe 04:40, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

  • This issue can be solved by looking up "assert" in a dictionary. >Radiant< 08:24, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

It's the use (or misuse) of A7 that is sometimes a problem. The wording itself is extremely clear. --- RockMFR 03:03, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

The misuse can be partially prevented by clearer criteria. " does not assert the importance or significance of its subject. " is no better, when there is not particularly clear indication of what importance or significance means. We will continue to get speedies when there is a two or three paragraph description of someone's career, and the question is whether or not it meets notability. Or, on the other hand: this is my elementary school. I assert it is important because it is the only school in town. . This technically meets the requirements. DGG 18:55, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Here's another, from the current list: Chris Churchill (born July 18, 1988)is the best up and coming cricketer in the U.K who will surely go on to represent his country in the fine sport." Obviously doesnt meet N, and speedied under A7, but certainly asserts notability, DGG 18:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Problem image uploaders removing warnings without correcting problems

I recently find some problem image uploaders removing warning notices (like no source or license) without ever correcting problems. Should the seven-day counting be from the original warnings or restarted from a new warning? As I am unsure I now give a courtresy warning rather than deleting them even though more than seven days have passed from the original warning.--Jusjih 09:09, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

  • I'd say use the original warning, because otherwise people can keep removing it forever. An exception can be made if a plausible reason is given for the removal. Generally such images are only used or watchlisted by their uploader, so if he chooses to ignore the warning that's his problem. >Radiant< 10:51, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I'll second that. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 11:27, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I'll support it as long as the tag is added back fairly quickly so subsequent editors have a reasonable chance to see and react to the tag. I would not support the interpretation that a tag on Monday at 12:01 that was removed an hour later and never replaced can justify a deletion the following Monday at 12:02. The spirit of the rule means we should make sure that the tag was visible for seven days plus or minus a bit. In my opinion, if the tag has been off for more than about a day, adjust the clock (but don't necessarily restart it). Rossami (talk) 16:49, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
      • If someone removes a warning, we can assume the warning was read. But if someone is repeatedly uploading images that generate warnings and constantly ignoring them, they need blocking: they may be acting in good faith but the amount of cleanup work they're necessitating is unacceptable. Mangojuicetalk 18:43, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
        • I'm sorry, I think I was unclear. Yes, you can assume that the removing editor (whether vandal or just clueless) read the warning. But the vandal may not have any incentive to actually fix the problem and may not be the only one using the image. The tag still needs to be in place for any good-faith third-party who is also working the page. That other person still needs a chance to be notified. Rossami (talk) 20:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
          • One assist in cases like this is the addition of the 'this image is going to be deleted' caption text to articles where the image appears. A templated caption text snippet is not included in all the deletion warning templates that are affixed to images, though. Further, actors like OrphanBot comment out the image rather than leaving it in place and adding a 'this image is going to be deleted' caption text snippet. The advantage of such an addition is that if there is some editor who feels that the image contributes substantially to the article, there is an incentive there for fixing or replacing the image in order for it to escape deletion. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:32, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

IMA

An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject.

Just what constitutes an assertion of notability is unclear when (as happened with Institute for Mathematics and its Applications) someone asserts that mention of a $19.5 million NSF grant constitutes an assertion of notability but the material that was in an earlier, now deleted, version is not an assertion of notability. Just what is and what is not an assertion of notability would therefore seem to depend extremely heavily on familiarity with the subject. No one familiar with the topic could have considered that article a valid candidate for speedy deletion. To treat it that way is the height of unreasonable behavior at best. The policy might as well say "If you lack an understanding of the subject so that you cannot understand the various assertions of notability that were already in the article before you saw it, then delete it without discussion and don't notify any of the people who have edited it and who do understand. Most especially, don't ask for their advice on what is considered notable in their field and what is not." Michael Hardy 23:16, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Michael, I wasn't involved in the deletion, but I'll say a bit about it. I wouldn't get too bent out of shape over this. There are many times when an "institute" within an establishment of higher learning is merely a handful of folks who have sufficient political clout within the institution to achieve name status. This might have been where the person who deleted the article was coming from. I can sympathize with the deleter, as most such "institutes" do not rise to the level of notability that one would desire of articles. However, it is very cavalier to delete out of hand without having proposed (or effected) merger into University of Minnesota and converted the potentially deletable article into a redirect labeled with Template:R from subtopic. Hence, though I can sympathize with the deleter in holding that the stub might not have withstood a notability test as originally created, I think the wrong action was taken, i.e. deletion wasn't warranted. It was the lazy way out, to delete the article. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:25, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

New proposal for Redirects for Speedy Deletion

I was patrolling special:newpages recently, and I found a redirect that linked to a page undergoing copyright violation study. Please can someone either tell me what criterion to use in this case, or create a new criterion that can be used in this case. Is it wise to wait until the copyright violation goes through, and then request a deletion to a non-existant page, because I wish to let others know this if I am not online, or tag it with something that can lead me to do it myself. Thanks in advance! -- Casmith_789 (talk) 13:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Tagging such a page is kind-of pointless, though, because the admin who deletes the copyvio will check its what-links-here and delete redirects to it too. There's not much point in adding something like this to the speedy criteria either, as it'll be covered by 'redirect to a nonexistent page' when its traget is deleted. And if it's target is despeedied (say it isn't a copyvio), the redirect probably shouldn't be deleted either. --ais523 14:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
So I should just leave it? Will do, if this ever comes up again. -- Casmith_789 (talk) 13:33, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I8 and "bit-for-bit"-ness

Ugh, I just had the wonderful realization that the last 100-or-so deprecated png-maps now on Commons as svg-maps are not eligible for speedy deletion per I8 because they are not bit-for-bit identical copies. I guess, then, that my only option is to list them in a mass nomination at IfD, no? Just asking for clarification. --Iamunknown 06:32, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Why bother? Rossami (talk) 06:43, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
My inner-wikignome. :-) I find tedious tasks and get them done. --Iamunknown 06:48, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
IFD is the correct venue for this lot, as conversion of png to svg is potentially contentious (it certainly is on a semi-regular basis on Commons). It might be worth tweaking CSD I8 though, to more closely match CSD I1. Specifically, a Wikipedia thumbnail version of a full-res image on Commons should be speediable.--Nilfanion (talk) 07:00, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
That's what I figured. They are county locator maps that were in png but are entirely unused and are superseded on Commons by svg maps. Hopefully no one will object at IfD. --Iamunknown 21:02, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
From this thread it's clear that I've deleted many dozens of images improperly. Is it true that the majority of images in Category:Images on Wikimedia Commons are not speedy deletion candidates but should, in fact, go through WP:IFD? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 22:21, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Inasmuch I understand, yes it is true. I am now going to go back through my contributions and revert all of the incorrect tags I applied to county locator maps. --Iamunknown 22:22, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
I just got through all the incorrect taggings of mine that I could find and all I have to say is, "Blargh." --Iamunknown 06:07, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Can I speedy this?

Hi. I don't usually use speedy deletion a lot, but I was wondering if I could speedy Template:Rise of Legends, since it has been superceded by Heroes in Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends. I was going to cite no content, or maybe housekeeping. Can I do this, or must I nominate it for deletion?--Clyde (talk) 14:49, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Speedy what? – Steel 15:23, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Very funny, Steel - you deleted it yourself (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Template:Rise_of_Legends). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 17:05, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Actually it kind of is. Anyway, what would I tag that with if this happens in the future?--Clyde (talk) 17:08, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
There is only one criterion applicable specifically to templates for speedy deletion - if they are divisive or inflammatory (WP:CSD#T1. All other templates should go to WP:TFD. Any of the general criteria that might apply are, such as WP:CSD#G7 (author requests deletion). It might well be that the template in question here was improperly speedied because simply being unused or orphaned is not a valid speedy criterion. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 17:32, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Superceded templates generally go to TfD, where they are usually but not always deleted (sometimes the template wasn't superceded after all). --ais523 17:36, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
(sigh) So I do have to go to TfD after all I guess. I thought this was maybe G6. No one mentioned that.--Clyde (talk) 17:40, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
No, you don't have to go to WP:TFD after the damage is done. Steel has chosen to ignore all rules on your behalf. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 18:57, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Regardless of what should happen generally, can we not process wonk over Template:Rise of Legends please. – Steel 18:21, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Well I'm aware this is a special situation and to let bygones be bygones, but in the future if I ever find a completely unused template (like this one) can I put a speedy tag with G6 or must it always go to TfD?--Clyde (talk) 19:55, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
In general, such cases should go to TfD. It sometimes happens that a template is actually being used, via subst, and so no uses show up via what links here. It soemtimes happens that a tempalte is a work in progress, or that pages which use it are underegoing re-edits. If the case is a clear-cut as the one above seems to have been, the cost of going through TfD will be minor, and the few days delay will cause no probelms. Unlike articles that might be seen by casual readers, unused tempaltes do no harm in the shrot time needed for TfD. DES (talk) 22:28, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Okay cool.--Clyde (talk) 04:09, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
  • There was an earlier proposal to allow for speedy deletion of redundant templates (assuming deletion of the newer of the two, of course). This would also let us get rid of such instances where people don't like the layout of a template and fork it rather than fixing it. $.2 >Radiant< 09:31, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to add a caution to A7

Since it is not infrequently impossible to tell whether something constitutes an assertion of notability without familiarity with the subject matter, I propose adding to this policy the statement that in such cases of unfamiliarity, one should not conclude on one's own that the article does not assert notability. Michael Hardy 01:06, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Is that not a general characteristic of good practice in editing? "Don't edit unless you have some notion of what you are doing." As such, maybe something not specifically against notability but against the entire speedy deletion process ... "when in doubt, don't delete - and when not in doubt, take a moment to doubt, then act". Folks generally believe that they act with best available knowledge and any deficit in a person being familiar with a subject will necessarily (and unfortunately) come as a realization after the fact, a recognition by others that something is amiss (except for those rare moments of introspection that lead to people retracting their actions). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:18, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps it is a general characteristic of good practice in editing, but it was certainly forgotten by recently by the person who deleted Institute for Mathematics and its Applications and cited this policy page. Michael Hardy 01:53, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

What prompts this concern

Someone nominated Institute for Mathematics and its Applications for speedy deletion, alleging that it contained no assertion of notability. User:Coredesat deleted it on A7 grounds. That looked to me like vandalism and I said so, and that offended him and he cited A7.

He should have realized that he was not competent to judge what is and what is not considered notable in that subject area. He could have asked those who had edited the article and communicated the concern. It could then have been edited in such a way as to make notability more apparent to a broad audience.

A7 led to an absurd result in this case. If someone blanks the page titled William Shakespeare, everyone will call it vandalism. If someone deletes Institute for Mathematics and its Applications, I'd have expected a similar reaction. A7 in its present form caused the problem. Michael Hardy 21:07, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

If someone deletes a page titled William Shakespeare that reads "William Shakespeare is an English playwright who wrote 'To be or not to be.' He was affiliated with the Globe Theater, where his plays were performed." and contains no other substantial history - more or less the state Institute for Mathematics and its Applications was in when it was deleted - he would be entirely correct to do so. Calling this vandalism is beyond the pale. —Cryptic 21:28, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

He would not be right to do it if he could have asked those knowledgeable in the subject who had edited the page whether something could be added to make the topic's notability comprehensible to a broad audience. Michael Hardy 17:25, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

  • This falls under the standard undeletion clause of "if an article was deleted for lack of content, and you wish to create an actual article on that title, you can be WP:BOLD and do so". >Radiant< 11:05, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Your quote is misleading at best; I do not see the words "if an article was deleted for lack of content, and you wish to create an actual article on that title, you can be WP:BOLD and do so" in this policy. What page are you quoting from? A problem with this is that if an article on your watchlist is deleted, your watchlist does not show the deletion. Michael Hardy 21:53, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Deletion policy. That was a paraphrase from memory; the full quote is "If an article was deleted for lacking content or for having inappropriate content (this applies to most speedy deletions) and you wish to create a better article about the same subject, you can simply go ahead and do". WP:DRV has similar text at the top. >Radiant< 09:03, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
    • One easy way to get the change to appear is to use the command to show the entire watchlist. The deleted item will now be in red. I check this daily. There are other devices, but this works fine for up to several hundred items. DGG 08:57, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

The Catch-22

When checking A7 by the standards laid out in the beginning of this talk page, A7 seems to fail the second criterion (bolds from me) Sjrsimac 21:19, 8 April 2007 (UTC):

The criterion should be uncontestable: it should be the case that almost all articles that can be deleted using the rule, should be deleted, according to general consensus. If a rule paves the path for deletions that will cause controversy, it probably needs to be restricted. In particular, don't propose a CSD in order to overrule keep votes that might otherwise occur in AfD. Don't forget that a rule may be used in a way you don't expect if not carefully worded.

The issue is still the misapplication. If an article does not claim any notability, then no reasonable person would say that it should be kept, and an admin would ignore them in an AfD closure anyway. But when it starts being applied as "this is not enough of an assertion of notability", you do run into that. -Amarkov moo! 23:57, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Because it is difficult to differentiate between any assertion of notability and little assertion of notability, why should the article's assertion of notability be a requirement? I know we are trying to avoid Wikipedia's transition from an encyclopedia to a forum, but as long as the information is credible and clearly marked for what it is, then there is no reason to prevent different kinds of knowledge from becoming a part of Wikipedia. Sjrsimac 04:55, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
  • But it shouldn't be whether the article claims it,it is whether the3 article shows it. An article from someone listing a number of published works demonstrates some claim to notability, but can nonetheless get A7 if the ed.who wrote the article didnt say so particularly. We cannot assume that people know how to write effectively, or penalize them if they have not yet learned. There are any number of possible phrases that eliminate the real junk: "no evidence of notability" "nothing that can reasonably indicate notability" Or we don;t even need it; in particular Nonsense, empty, and no context among them cover the worst of it. DGG 05:10, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Over use of A7

This version of Jen Banbury was recently deleted. It was a very new page. It also includeed what seems to me a clear claim of notability: "(including 3/3/07 story Guantanamo on Steroids which was first story in print about abuse at Abu Ghraib Prison)." True, the article at that moment provided no references or sources (except implicitly by giving the title, author, date and venue of publication of a news story).

I restored the page (which I had been in the process of editing when it was deleted) and have since edited it to make the notability much clearer and to give sources. So the specific case of this article is over. But I want to use it as an example.

Do most here agree that the above is enough of a "claim of notability" that a deleting admin should think twice, and either not delete, move to WP:PROD or AfD, or do a little research and see if the claim can be quickly verified (all the sources I added to the article came from the first two pages of a single google search)?

If you agree with me that in such a case "delete" is not the proper resposne, what can we do to clarify this criterion and good practice under it? DES (talk) 04:15, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Are there two issues here?
  • are articles lacking sources deletable on sight?
  • does being a published novelist and the author of a significant investigative news article constitute notability?
--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 13:44, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
  • It was certainly not the consensus when A7 was adopted that articles lacking sources are deletable at sight. There was a proposal to add such a criteria, and it was firmly rejected. I can dig up a link if you want.
  • Neither being a published novelist nor the author of a significant news story clearly establishes notability IMO, i could imagine a bio of a person who is either or both possibly being deleted at AfD -- but i can't imagine such a decsions being overwhelming, and speedy is supposed to be for stuf that is clear-cut. I think that either of those, and surely both together, clearly constitute the kind of "claim of notability" that A7 says debars a speddy for non-notability. In a case like that debate, and probably investigation, are needed -- a single quick look is not good enough. Do you disagree?
That's why I think this instance indicates a problem with the way some are applying A7 in practice. DES (talk) 18:23, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree with both of the responses. I just wanted to boil down the concern to its essential elements so that they might be addressable through specific changes or additions to the guidance text. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 18:35, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
I see. good. Now A7 currently reads: An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject. If controversial, or if there has been a previous AfD, the article should be nominated for AfD instead. The wording of the second sentance was cahnged recently, It used to say "If the assertion is likely to be controversial or...". The change was made in this diff. From the discussion the editor did not correctly understand the point of the previous wording. I would propose revised wording: An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject. If an assertion is present but is controversial or doubtful, or if there has been a previous AfD, the article should not be speedy-deleted, but may be nominated for AfD instead. Howver, patently absurd assertions need not block a speedy delete. What do you think of that suggestion. I don't think it changes any actual policy, merely clarifies what the best practice has long been. DES (talk) 18:45, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
"Patently absurd" is a good phrase. Some of the contested speedies lately have been kids who read the instructions, write "He is a notable high school freshman" and then contest the speedy.
Yes I had that kind of stuff in mind, alng with "John Doe is the smartest person in the world." which would be notable if supported by a relaibel source, but is obvious nonsense. Obvious hoaxes are another simailr case, although one has to be careful there -- thinngs that look like hoaxes are occasionally odd but true. DES (talk) 16:07, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
What do you think about this as yet another arrangement: An article about a real person or group of people (including for instance a band, club or company) or web content that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject. The assertion should be readily apparent (not implied), verifiable (not in doubt), generally accepted (not controversial) and reasonable (not patently absurd). If such an assertion is present — do not speedy-delete (but it can be subjected to PROD or AfD). Furthermore, if an assertion meeting these criteria is present and the article has previously been deleted via AfD, the article can be nominated for a second round at AfD — but do not speedy-delete. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:30, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Interesting. A few comments. 1) this seems rather wordy, compared to either the current version or my suggested revision above. 2) "Not in doubt" could be read that if there is doubt about the accuracy or sourcability of the content, it should be speedy-deleteable. The policy has long been that in any case of doubt, speedy is not used -- A7 is supposed to be only for clear-cut cases. 3) Similarly "generally accepted (not controversial)" would seem to imply that controversial cases should be speedy deleted, the current wording and the underlying policy say exactly the opposite -- if there is controversy, the matter must be discussed, so speedy is not appropriate. 4) "not implied": please look at This version of an article, and tell me if you think the claim of notability there is apprent, or mrely implied, or not present at all. 5) If there has been a previous AfD resulting in a keep or a no consensus than i think speedy is clearly off the table -- that shows that a significant number of editors have felt it notable in the past, so it cannot be clear-cut enough for a speedy. Do you agree with these comments? DES (talk) 04:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Condensing all speedy deletion criteria

I don't know if this is a good idea, but maybe it would be a good idea to condense all of the speedy deletion criteria into about 6 templates:

  • General - Mixing A1, A3 and G1 - articles that should obviously be deleted - it is also possible to include G11 in there, if it is blatant advertising.
  • Redundancy - Talk pages of non existing pages (excluding user talk pages), redirects that do not point anywhere, general pages that should not exist because there is no reason to.
  • Notability - A7
  • Moving - Something needs to be moved, and temporarily deleted, or moved to another wiki.
  • Attack - Attack page (G10)
  • Copyright violation - Copyright violation an article or template, or a redirect to a copyrighted page.

What do you think? -- Casmith_789 (talk) 14:15, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Although some merges might make sense, doing it this much is kind of pointless. Besides, not everything you've mentioned is a speedy criterion. It is interesting to observe the common patterns available in some criteria; for instance, G8, A1, A3, R1, I2, C1, U2, and P2 all have the common theme of "pages that are meant to refer to something but don't"; however, it's useful to keep the criteria split, because it allows for more specific templates and saves the need for hugely complicated wording in the criteria themselves. (By the way, does anyone know why A4 was merged into A3?) --ais523 14:25, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
The resulting criteria would all end up something like this:
  1. Pages with no referent. Articles and portals which are short and contain little or no context, or nothing but links, rephrasings of the title, and attempts to contact their subject (except disambiguation pages), Talk pages without a corresponding content page (except subpages, User talk pages, Image talk pages of Commons images and pages that contain unlogged deletion discussion), redirects to non-existent pages, image description pages for nonexistent or corrupted images, categories that have been empty for at least 4 days (apart from ones on deletion discussion and disambiguation categories; investigate first if the category isn't relatively new), userpages of a nonexistent user, and portals for which there isn't a header article and three appropriate other articles, none of which are stubs.
The problem is that the exceptions needed make the whole thing far too complex. One possibility might be this:
  1. Pages with no referent. Articles and portals with no context, talk pages with no content page, redirects with no target, image description pages with no valid image, categories with no contents, user and usertalk pages with no corresponding user, and portals with fewer than 4 subject articles.
    Exceptions: Articles with enough content and context to expand, usertalk pages with a corresponding user, talk pages that contain deletion discussion, talk subpages, disambiguation pages, talk pages of images on Commons, categories under deletion discussion, disambiguation categories, and reasonably old categories (unless the matter has been looked into first).
If some of the exceptions were removed as unnecessary, or as IAR-able, then this idea might be more appropriate. I still think it's a bad idea, however, because information and examples have necessarily been removed from the criterion (which now doesn't have exactly the same meaning as it did before), and {{db-referent}} would look highly complex and probably bite new users (and {{subst:referent-warn}} would be even worse). --ais523 14:43, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
I think this would be a very bad idea. Even the text above does not capture all the curent restrictions, and i think that IAR has no place in speedy-delete decisions. (See WP:PI for my reasons.) DES (talk) 18:47, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
Gah. While the policy-condensing spirit is an interesting creature, I'd prefer if we kept it away from CSD. If before the policy had:
1. A is not allowed.
2. B is not allowed.
Template 1: Violates A, delete.
Template 2: Violates B, delete.
and after:
1. A and B are not allowed.
Template: Violates A or B, delete.
Then all we're doing is an ideological merge that has no benefit to Wikipedia. GracenotesT § 15:11, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
I suppose the point is that we should merge if there's overlap (but all such merges have already been done) to make the CSD easier to remember; but if the reasons are distinct, merging simply creates extra confusion for no benefit. --ais523 15:22, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
After thinking about it, I thought it was a bad idea too. I was ust wondering about community consensus, with the polls going on at Wikipedia:Attribution. -- Casmith_789 (talk) 14:55, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Alerting criterion R2

Currently, criterion R2 states that:

Redirects to the Talk:, User: or User_talk: space from the main article space. If this was the result of a page move, consider waiting a day or two before deleting the redirect.

I would like to provide an exception clause for pages in the so-called "article space" that are shortcuts; i.e., pages that begin with WP:. I think that, if we use common sense, this criterion was meant for redirection of regular article names to user pages. For example, page about person Foo Bar, written by User:Foo Bar, gets deleted, so User:Foo Bar recreates the content at the page User:Foo Bar, then redirects from Foo Bar, a page in the article space.

However, it is pointless to delete redirects like WP:VPRF, since those pages are actually accessed and otherwise treated like a page in the project namespace—except they aren't. In my opinion, we should establish that redirects, from shortcuts, to pages of utility in the user namespace, are okay. Whether or not this is instruction creep, we still have the problems of these redirects, which all apparently violate policy:

If you thought, upon viewing this list, "Ah, here's a neat resource I can use to unilaterally delete these shortcuts, because they clearly violate policy, duh", you're missing the point by a couple of football fields (either type). I think that, using common sense, this policy is not serving us well, and should be altered. Granted, we don't want WP:GRACENOTES redirecting to my userpage, but that can be RFD'd and snowballed. GracenotesT § 04:22, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

You found all that but didn't find the most important one: WP:JIMBO? In all seriousness, I concur with the change - WP shouldn't strictly be for just WP, but for things that aren't in the mainspace, like Jimbo's talk page. Hbdragon88 05:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Heh. The script that I wrote only checked for the user namespace, not the user talk :) GracenotesT § 05:55, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
I thought R2 was there to clean up after userfication? Anyway, the WP: 'namespace' should be treated as a separate namespace (either using WP:IAR, which would seem reasonable, or by writing it into policy somewhere); in fact, the equivalent is a separate namespace on some Wikimedia projects (wikt:Special:Prefixindex/WT:, for instance). --ais523 15:26, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Interestingly, there's a thread a bit similar to this one: Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 8#R2 clarification, started by Interiot. I guess I missed a few. I'd suggest writing this into policy, though. (Note: the reason I brought this topic up was because of WP:WPMOVIE; so there's a little conflict of interest, but objectively this clarification seems like a good idea.) GracenotesT § 15:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree tht such a policy clarification would be a very good idea. DES (talk) 16:08, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, clarification is definitely needed. In the previous discussion, it was stated that "policy-wise, these are treated as being part of the Wikipedia space" (not direct quote). I don't think this is written in policy anywhere, so CSD would be as good a place as any to put it. --- RockMFR 17:55, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Eh, while I have yet to be told why this is a "hopeless case" for an "unneeded changes to this policy", but that's hardly actionable, so I'm implementing it. GracenotesT § 16:36, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Talk namespace redirects

(cur) (last) 11:36, April 6, 2007 Grandmasterka (Talk | contribs) (No, he means deleting a talk page that only serves as a redirect, which often happens with page moves.)

This is indeed what I meant. Yonatan talk 10:19, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand. Why is a redirect from one Talk page to another Talk page a bad thing? And specifically, why is it such a bad thing that it should be speedy-deleted?
Yes, those redirects are automatically created when the article's page is moved to another title. That's intentional. People often link to discussions on the Talk page as they work out differences on the article. The redirect keeps those links live and consolidates the discussions. We ought not to be deleting those redirects at all, much less speedy-deleting them. Rossami (talk) 17:22, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Okay then how about the following phrasing, "Talk namespace redirects which aren't linked to with the exception of user talk pages from similarly named user names." This means User talk:Jimbo wales will be kept and User talk:Yonatanh (I usurped this account) will be kept. Yonatan talk 09:42, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

A7 & Schools

There seems to be not so clear if not notable schools falls or not under the A7, as groups/companies. In my opinion, we should add schools to the a7 criteria. They aren't different in any way from companies or groups. Snowolf (talk) CON COI - 22:38, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

They don't. Is there a pressing need? --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:53, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
I think the general rule suffices:if the deletion is likely to be controversial, Speedy is inappropriate. All deletions regarding schools are in fact controversial, and all are contested to AfD. The attempt to speedy something to get it deleted before another ed. has a chance to comment is an abuse of process. At various times the feeling has changed for various types of schools, but it is clear that there has never been a sufficient consensus to judge any opinions unreasonable. Such proposals have been uniformly rejected. DGG 07:02, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
While my personal belief is that private schools are businesses and should be subject to WP:ORG, there's no way there will ever be consensus to include or exclude schools from A7, so one should avoid tagging schools with any of the A7 tags. If there's a school article that you think should be deleted, {{prod}} it or send it to AFD unless it happens to meet one of the other criteria. --Coredesat 12:52, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
I have to agreee with Coredesat. I have often suggested deleting school articles at AfD, and I do not at all accept the "all schools are notable" arguement. But a significant number of editors do, so it is unlikely that any school article deletion will ever be non-controversial enough for a speedy (except perhaps db-repost in proper cases). Furthermore, while I dont agree that all schools are notable, a good many are, and we do not suffer the kind of plague of vanity school articles that we do on bands, individuals, clubs, and companies, IMO. So I don't think there is a need for A7 to cover schools, and it would be riskier than for those other categories of arts. In shoet, do not try to extend A7 to cover school articels. DES (talk) 14:30, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

For reference, I believe this thread to have arisen from conversations related to User talk:Splash#St. mary school massillon ohio. Splash - tk 17:28, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

  • This should probably be discussed at WP:SCH. Traditionally, school-related discussions have inflamed a lot of tempers, and people have so far been unwilling to reach a compromise over the matter. Rather than arguing over speedy deletion, I would suggest merging or prodding school articles one considers lacking. >Radiant< 09:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Executing I8

Having just spent ~20 minutes deleting 8 (eight) items from Category:Images on Wikimedia Commons I have concluded two things:

  1. The categories are dangerously populated;
  2. The process is massively time consuming;
  3. The process is essentially unsuited to shoot-on-sight;
  4. The process is therefore a time sink with minimal return.

I offer as evidence the following:

  1. I found 1/8 images (that's nearly 13%) correctly tagged, but explicitly forbidden from speedy deletion Image:HongKongfilm.jpg. It's got a different format on Commons, so is not bit-for-bit identical. ##How many images get nuked here because of an overlooking of the requirement?
  2. I found 1/8 images (so 25% so far wrong) that did not have the proper uploading of all prior version to Commons. In fact, it was PD-Gov, so it didn't matter. But if Commons ethusiasts are not going to do the job properly, even when using tools, then really I'd prefer they not bother.
    1. Is the requirement meaningful if I just redirect the usages to the newer version in the first place?
  3. It took me >2 minutes per image; and these require no content evaluation, unlike article speedies. It requires so damn much second-checking of tags, formats, licenses, redirects, copypastes, edit summaries, minor-edit-ticking blah blah yadda...
  4. Per the 4 above points, it's not suited to a speedy criterion in any way other than "may be deleted at any time".
  5. It does little for us. Let's us import-down the tags from Commons. Whoopee. We can manage without the time sinking it takes to get them. It saves no server space. It provides essentially zero benefit to readers.

Would anyone care to tell me why we should continue flagging these categories as backlogs worthy of administrator attention? Splash - tk 20:01, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree. I used to be be a big proponent of clearing out that backlog, but given the sorry state the majority of movies are in (failure to copy relevant history, and sometimes even source info resulting in image deletion from Commons) I don't rely see the need for the dated subcats and stuff. Just keep everyting in one big category and amend the criteria to allow admins to delete at any time at theyr leasure once they have verified that everything actualy checks out ok on Commons. I still think we should be moving our free licensed images to Commons, but we rely need a way to make the process easier to do properly. Idealy a "copy to Commons" button that guided people though the process with some kind of "Wizard" system that also automated the tedious bits of copying history and such. Well I can dream can't I. --Sherool (talk) 21:52, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
There is already a tool that does it for you. See Wikipedia:Moving images to the Commons, or, for a direct link, http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/commonshelper.php. This tool copies the image, the history, and if possible, adds commons categories. Sometimes, you need to help it out. For example, if it doesn't recognize one of the Wikipedia tags as being an "I, the creator of this image" tag, it will incorrectly attribute the commons image to you as opposed to the original uploader. So you may have to help it out a bit, but it makes the work EXTREMELY simple. You can even use it to correct incorrectly uploaded Commons images. Just run it, but then don't perform the upload - copy and paste the generated text into the existing image page. --BigDT 23:08, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

New Criterion - In Jokes

I think the nonsense tag is overused (it should only be used for stuff like keyboard mashing). However, there are a lot of articles that clearly are CSD, but don't quite fit into a criteria. These are usually in jokes, such as made up languages or games. I'd use the nocontext tag, but that's really only for short (one or two line) articles, and sometimes some of the pages are more elaborate. --Darksun 22:26, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I've seen some in-joke articles that were quite clearly nonsense. I don't think creating a new criteria is warranted at this time. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:31, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Why must you say "a criteria" instead of "a criterion". Write "This criterion is..." or "These criteria are...". Michael Hardy 02:15, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
If nonsense or context doesn't fit these, why not use WP:PROD instead? DES (talk) 22:32, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
'Joke-articles' are, by definition, nonsense. HalfShadow 22:33, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
...but not always patent nonsense, which is what is necessary. No need to expand the criteria, I rarely come across in-jokes in my CSD patrolling. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:40, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
I patrol CAT:NSD frequently and there are frequently pages in there that don't meet the letter of the law but obviously need to be done away with. For example, if you have an article that talks about Bob Johnson, the king of Earth and inventor of the plasma torpedo. (The plasma torpedo was the main weapon he used when he conquered Earth late last year.) It asserts the importance of Bob Johnson, so it meets A7. It uses complete sentences and is quite understandable so it isn't nonsense. But I don't think anyone would have a problem deleting it. --BigDT 23:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
The Bob Johnson example would definitely be deletable but might not be speedy-deletable. It might, for example, be a case of a poorly written stub about a piece of established fiction. The standard for patent nonsense needs to be strictly followed. "Joke" articles are not the kind of immediately identifiable content that we want for a new speedy-deletion criterion.
On the other hand, if you find a piece like that and look at the contributor's history, you can often demonstrate a pattern of vandalism, making a speedy-deletion under case G3 entirely reasonable. Rossami (talk) 13:27, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I have a problem with you speedy deleting it, as it's moving the bar without gaining consensus in what's a highly volatile policy to begin with. Actions have consequences. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:47, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Rossami: cases like this can easily fall under CSD G3, also, A1 can apply (and would, IMO, to the Bob Johnson example). But I have actually run across, on occasion, some CSD G1-tagged articles that were about fictional characters; in one case, I could only discover that by checking what linked to the article. Mangojuicetalk 13:52, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
  • For such articles, it goes like this. Step one: remove all original research from the page. Step two: hey, the page is now empty. Delete as lacking in context. This would be appropriate for e.g. Bob Johnson as mentioned above. But as Jeff says, this kind of articles aren't nearly as common as e.g. band vanity. >Radiant< 13:56, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Wait, what's the problem in speedily deleting an obviously bogus article? (question largely directed at badlydrawnjeff) Perhaps I'm gripping my snowball a bit too tightly, but I fail to see a reason why we should give articles like Bob Johnson any more time on here than necessary. EVula // talk // ☯ // 14:45, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I have several times found an article tagged "db|Hoax" or soemthing of the sort, and it turned out that it was in fact a strange-bu-true situation, or an article about a piece of fiction written from an in-universe PoV. No one person can be expected to get these judgemetns right all the time, so it is bettr that these things go through AfD or at least Prod, so that there is a chance for more eyse to see them, and for valid references and context to eb found if they exist, and a clear-cut deletion decision made if they don't. I would authomatically remove a speedy tag in such a case, and if I happened to notice an article speedy-deleted on such grounds, I would automatically restore (and list on AfD if I couldn't validate). Mind you, most often an apparent hoax is in fact a haox, but it is better to be sure. DES (talk) 20:33, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I too often come across pages whilst newpage patrolling which just look like the author's confusing wikipedia with urbandictionary. And when they're not attack pages (G10) or full of obscene references (G3), I never quite know where to put them except the nonsense category. I would support the introduction of a new criteria to include these kinds of articles, surely it wouldn't take more than one admin to decide whether they should be deleted or not. The "remove all original research, then the page is empty" method could work on any other kinds of speedy deletable pages, you could do that to attack pages and most A7 pages as well, but they have their own criteria, so why shouldn't general nonsense? - Zeibura S. Kathau (Info | Talk) 17:56, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Sigh......... At least three people above wrote "a criteria". Why don't we just burn all dictionaries? Michael Hardy 02:18, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we should have a "criteria=>criterion" bot if it bothers you so much (just kidding...) 68.4.3.209 04:21, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Goes to show that prescriptive grammar doesn't always describe evolving conventional usage. Dcoetzee 17:39, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Template for "no-derivative" images ?

This image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attributions-NoDerivs 2.0 license (see [2]) which does not allow derivative works to be created, and not under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license as claimed on the image page. As such it should be speedy deleted under CSD I3. However currently there is no appropriate template to mark the image page, since Db-noncom template talks only about non-commercial use and not about the problem with "no derivatives licences". Can someone point me to the correct template for this purpose, and/or update the text on the Db-noncom template ? Thanks. Abecedare 22:47, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

You could mark it with db-noncom and just add to the description page "Please see the flickr page where the image is licensed only under a no-derivs license". HOWEVER, it may be worthwhile to attempt to contact the flickr user. I have had some success contacting flickr users and asking them to re-license their images. Frank Beamer has an image thanks to a flickr user who allowed me to use a crop of his photo. You may want to contact the user and ask if he/she would relicense the image for us. --BigDT 22:50, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the suggestion. Searching on wikipedia I found that the Cc-by-nd-2.0 served my purpose perfectly (and perhaps should be mentioned on the CSD page). I'll leave a message for the user who uploaded the image and suggest that he can request the photographer to re-license it. Aside: the image in question is pretty generic and has only incidental and minimal encyclopedic value IMO; so its deletion should not be a big loss in any case. Regards. Abecedare 23:00, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for new T2

This situation commonly arises on TFD in which we have a template that is wholly redundant to another. It has the exact same information and yet is not being used. Someone mentioned today that a CSD for this would help decrease the workload at TFD. I propose the following:

T2: Any template that is redundant with an older template and is not being transcluded at all.

Thoughts? Concerns? Rewordings? ^demon[omg plz] 08:44, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Not bad, but it should be "redundant with an older template". Redundancies come in pairs :) >Radiant< 09:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
    Reworded per your suggestion. ^demon[omg plz] 10:02, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Uh, no. The newer template might be better. What's 'redundant' getting at? Splash - tk 12:32, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
    • If the newer template would be better, the solution would have been to edit the old template, not fork it. Template forks come up quite frequently on TFD and are, to my knowledge, deleted (or redirected, same result) without exception. >Radiant< 12:37, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
      • Is there some kind of harm in simply redirecting such templates? Then it wouldn't require admin action, and it would have the added benefit that any users who didn't realize the old template was removed could still use the old template as a shortcut. Mangojuicetalk 13:46, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
        • Yes, in that the people who create template forks generally object to their removal. Because, you know, it's their template and it's useful. Unfortunately this comes up quite often. >Radiant< 15:19, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
  • While I agree with Radiant that most template forks should be fixed by editing rather than forking, once consensus emerges about which is the final version the cleanup should involve redirecting, not deleting (and never speedy-deleting). Remember that many templates are used via substitution. It may appear out-of-use but actually be in use in many places. The redirect guides subsequent editors to the correct version of the template and prevents re-forking. Rossami (talk) 15:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Yes. I believe the issue here is getting rid of new forks before they cause further confusion. >Radiant< 15:37, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I can't support this; all too frequently templates that have a subtle but important distinction from a more widely-used template come under attack from people who don't use them. This is resolved now by discussions on TFD or the "redundant" template's talk page; with this criterion in place, an administrator would be strongly tempted to just mass-replace the current uses and speedy the template. In the case of two fairly recent examples, we'd suddenly be left with large swathes of articles that used to be correctly tagged {{primarysources}} or {{not verified}} and are now incorrectly tagged {{unreferenced}} instead, which is quickly removed (because, hey, there's a link to the Official Site! Who cares if it doesn't verify the claims in the article?). —Cryptic 15:52, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't support this. Unless the template is a word-for-word and byte-for-byte fork of another, it may not be redundant in all cases. And since tempaltes may be used with subst, you can't always tell usage from transcusion numbers. If the tempalte is really redundant then a TfD will be smooth and quick. Or any edsitor can always be bold and change the tempalte to a redirect to the more favoted version -- that doesan't require a CSD nor a TfD debate. DES (talk) 17:30, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Personally, I think that proposing deletions is better than a CSD criterion. GracenotesT § 17:20, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

A7, yet again

It seems discussion of this issue has died down a little, but it also seems no change has taken place.

It seems many of the comments are suggesting that the problem with A7 is notability. I think this is the crux of the problem. Perhaps we can re-word to include some sort of linkage to AD and V that uses N as an additional qualifier. For instance, I've seen articles about bands deleted for N, but in fact they're really being deleted for V. The same is true for many other articles I've looked at that were deleted for A7.

The concern is when N is the only criterion that is used. For instance, Ungana-Afrika was A7'ed for failing N, which is what led me here. Although this article may indeed fail N, it nevertheless clearly isn't V or AD. So if there was some sort of "and" qualifier this article would not be SD, but AfD as is now the case. I think this is the major concern expressed here?

Additionally, there have been many comments that the requirement puts too much of a burden on new authors. I agree with this; just because someone doesn't know how to assert doesn't really mean anything. So I think the burden should be inverted, the article should not have to assert N to avoid being SD'ed, it should be SD'ed only if the article asserts non-V. This might seem odd, but it seems extremely common, many articles being SD'ed clearly indicate they are non-notable.

I believe that making A7 clear will not place an undue burden on admins. A minimum would be that they have to change their criterion from N to V or AD in the SD log. A maximum is that they have to replace a speedy tag with AfD or prod. Neither of these would appear to cause the disastrous backlogs that some have expressed concern about.

So, for discussion:

Unremarkable people, groups, companies and web content. An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that appears to be an obvious example of vanity or advertising and contains no evidence of the importance or significance of its subject. If controversial, not patently obvious, or it there has been a previous AfD, the article should be nominated for AfD instead.

Maury 16:36, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

None of those guidelines/policies should be used as A7 criteria. The wording is "does not assert importance or significance". That doesn't require content to be verified, not does it require it to be accurate, nor does it even require it to be notable. Lack of those things is not a criterion for speedy deletion. -Amarkov moo! 16:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm a bit confused by the wording, but I believe you are suggesting it should read:

Unremarkable people, groups, companies and web content. An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that appears to be an obvious example of vanity or advertising and does not assert importance or significance of its subject. If controversial, not patently obvious, or it there has been a previous AfD, the article should be nominated for AfD instead.

Is that correct? Have I parsed your comment correctly? Maury 19:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh boy, I just realized I've been using the wrong short form through my posts. Please parse the "V"'s above as "vanity", not "verifyable". My bad. Maury 19:03, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

The problem is, advertising is already covered in G11, and COI can't even be a reason for deletion by itself, much less a speedy criterion. There would be no point to A7 if those were required. -Amarkov moo! 18:32, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, then, what is the point of A7? Maury 21:00, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
The main point of A7 is to catch vanity articles, mostly about students, clubs, and bands, and truibute articles. it also catches some joke pages, some hoaxes, and some thinngs that are borderline spam. The reason why A7 uses the "assert" or "claim" standard is that whether a claim is made or not can be determiend (and usually fairly unambigiously determined) from the article itself, with no research, and whether the claim is a "claim of notability" is usually also obvious, and rarely takes more than very brief research. ("John Doe is the best singer on his block" is a claim, but not a claim of notability because it wouldn't be notable even if true.) To make speedy deletable under A7 anythign that is "not notable" is to have a standard that can not be reliably evaluated by one or two sets of eyes. To determine whether soemthign is actually notable may require searchign for sources, and will often require a judgement call. A very similar issue applies to imposing a verifiablity criterion. There have been proposals to make speedy-deletable any unsourced article: these have failed. that is too high a burden to impose on the page creator, and does not allow the collaberative process to work. I thus oppose any proposal to change A7 as suggested above. DES (talk) 21:25, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
That said, i would propose slightly revised wording for A7, as follows: An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject. If an assertion is present but is controversial or doubtful, or if there has been a previous AfD, the article should not be speedy-deleted, but may be nominated for AfD instead. Howver, patently absurd assertions need not block a speedy delete. What do people think of this suggestion? DES (talk) 21:29, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
See this is really interesting to me, because the way I've been reading A7 while discussing things in DRV is that even assertions of notability within the DRV discussion technically fulfill this requirement needed to send to AfD from DRV, but now I'm not so sure if that interpretation is correct. --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 12:06, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I have no objection to making an exception for patently absurd assertions (indeed I believe that in practice we already do). However, please do not incorporate the word "vanity" as it is a loaded term and can be (and has been) taken as offensive by the subjects of articles. >Radiant< 09:16, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Oh, and to answer Maury's question - articles on non-notable subjects generally go via WP:PROD or AFD if necessary. The point of A7 is to clean out the really obvious cases. Yes, we really do get articles like "Jimmy is this kid in my high school class and his nose is big". >Radiant< 09:16, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree that the word "vanity" should not be used in the CSD wording itself, i was using it as shorthand for various obvious cases, including ones such as your example above. The A& tempalte used to link to WP:VAN, I am glad that it no longer does so. My proposal was only for the italizied text above. DES (talk) 19:41, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that A7 also gets "Gerry Minor was a professional ice hockey player who played his NHL career with the Vancouver Canucks. He played 5 NHL seasons with the Canucks," when it is generally accepted that all players in a fully professional league are N. Playing in such a league is an implicit assertion of N. If someone wants to claim otherwise, there will obviously be an argument about it. We also get "Ronlad Squibbs is a music theorist know for his unique published articles about analyzing modern compositions and his unprecedented recorded interpretations of the piano compositions of Joji Yuasa and Dane Rudhyar. Currently an assistant professor of music theory at the University of Connecticut, is arguably one of forerunners in the combination with advanced music education and humor." [and so on for a few more paragraphs] . Now, i am not sure he's N, because the article is unsourced. But it certainly asserts N implicitly, and would probably have better been sent to AfD directly.
I tried 8 personal names just now, and found these two. If people are misusing it to this extent something must be wrong with the wording, for people are obviously misunderstanding it. If one writes something, and people misunderstand, the fault is with the writer,because it is the writers responsibility to be understood by his proper audience.
the way to more efficient processing of the 6 out of 8 really NN A7s in that sample is to not have to deal with things which are clearly unsuited. If all our efforts can't teach people, we should eliminate A7 and do the speedies under another criterion. The one on Jimmy could just as well have been called db-empty. or db-test. If we think A7 is worth savings, we must find a wording. (And then think of some way to effectively teach it to the people who still misuse it.
"articles that unquestionably do not indicate notability " is my preferenceDGG 07:13, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
That overzealous new-pages patrollers tag articles that don't meet the criteria for speedy deletion isn't an argument against those criteria; it's the reason why we don't give delete buttons to non-administrators. While I won't try to argue that there aren't admins who'd speedy the two articles you pointed out, I submit they'd do so no matter how you tried to reword A7. —Cryptic 07:58, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

addition to I3 or I7?

I recently tagged too images for speedy deletion because they were claiming to be public domain due to age (life of the author plus 100 years, according to the tag) and were obviously not that old (one had a computer in it, another had many cars). I was surprised to find that obviously incorrect copyright assertions were not a speedy criteria - what do people think about adding that? I though I3 or I7 might be an appropriate place, or a new criteria, if there's a reason for I3 and I7 for being as specific as they are. Natalie 18:43, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

As I understand it, they need to be investigated along with any other alleged copyright claims. As many images and media can fall into the public domain even though they wouldn't under normal circumstances, they should get more eyes. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:11, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
I understand that images can fall in the public domain for a variety of reasons, but there are also various reasons images can be fair use. Yet we still have a speedy deletion criteria for a "clearly invalid fair-use tag". I my mind this is in the same vein. Natalie 19:20, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, the invalid fair use is when we know that the image isn't free. You're talking about issues where the image may, in fact, be free. --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:28, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Grandfathered images

Hi. I thought it was worth pointing out to editors here that there has been some preliminary discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Fair_use#WF_Licensing_policy_and_grandfathered_images about taking a look at the grandfathering clause here. The initial conversation seems to have died down, so it may make sense to widen the discussion. Jkelly 00:25, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Templates

I'm not sure if this is worth codifying here, but I should point out that with some regularity templates are speedily deleted because they misrepresent policy. For instance, any "speedy delete" template that does not match a speedy deletion criterion, or any "stop doing this or you'll be blocked" template for anything that isn't actually vandalism or disruption. >Radiant< 10:27, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I have memories of TfD being used for the deletion of such templates. When they're speediable, it's usually due to G3; otherwise, a TfD discussion is normally worthwhile (although there are probably some cases here in which IAR would be needed, but they wouldn't come up too often). --ais523 14:41, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Exactly, which is why I'm not sure if it's worth codifying. >Radiant< 14:47, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
As it was brought up above, what about just prod'ing them? ^demon[omg plz] 18:20, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Wouldn't that, um, misrepresent policy?  :) Prod is not supposed to be used for templates. Mangojuicetalk 19:41, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
I didn't realize that til about 10 minutes ago...might want to revise policy *hops over to WT:PROD* ^demon[omg plz] 00:36, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


Field guide to CSD

I've spent a significant more time than usual with CSD for my own purposes recently, and was inspired to write something for it. What it can be used for, I'm not entirely certain yet, but it's my attempt to explain the CSD criteria in a simpler way, as well as provide better explanations as to when a CSD is inappropriate: User:Badlydrawnjeff/Field guide to proper speedy deletion.

If people have any input, either on the essay itself or on good ways to use it, please share. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:03, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Try the virtual classroom of User:The Transhumanist. YechielMan 20:16, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

G7

Somewhere, while I wasn't watching, the word "mistaken" slipped out of G7. The problem with not having it in is that some people will try to tag all their contributions for speedy deletion when they leave, which isn't intended to be allowed. Requiring good faith does nominally cover that, but in reality, no CSD cleaning admin is going to analyze good faith. -Amarkov moo! 03:25, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, it does say "in good faith." I think someone leaving the project tagging everything with G7 would not be in good faith. Mangojuicetalk 18:34, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't think its much of a probem. G7 isn't made out if others have substantially edited the page anyway and admins won't deleted pages that are beneficial to the encyclopedia simply because of a G7 request. Also, its a far more useful tag for people who want to delete images they have uploaded (e.g. because they are now on Commons) than others available. The upload wasn't a "mistake", but its much quicker if these are dealt with as G7s rather than being added to other backlogged image deletion cats. WjBscribe 15:16, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Autobiographies

Some created articles are clear autobios... can those be deleted under CSD? If so what template do I use? W1k13rh3nry 20:37, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

If no claim of notability is made, A7, using {{db-bio}} otherwise this is for Prod or AfD, there is no absolute rule agaist autobio, although WP:COI strongly discourages it. DES (talk) 22:40, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

"governs"

This edit and this one changed (without discussion) the long established wording in the lead. I'm not going to revert war over this, but I strongly disagree. This was justifed as "Nothing is "governed" on Wikipedia; this page does not rule your actions as some sovereign document." Howver I would say that this document does goveren the speedy-delete procedure in the sense that a deletion not included in one of the criteria described here is not authorized or justifed by this policy. I also think this wording is important to emphasize that the speedy delete criteria should be interpreted strictly and narrowly -- if somethign is not clearly covered, it should not be speedy deleted, rather Prod or XfD should be used. So I ask for agreement to restore the previous wording. DES (talk) 02:24, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't like the word "governed" (Wikipedia doesn't have a government) but that doesn't mean the wording should imply that this document doesn't describe how things can be speedily deleted. TBH, I don't see a big difference in meaning from the change. Mangojuicetalk 15:22, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
My concerns is that the change weakens the idea that the CSD are narrow and limnited, and to be applied strictly, and implies that new criteria can derive from practice. I have substitued the word "specifies". DES (talk) 05:27, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not Myspace

It is undeniable that the number of articles being created as myspace-style personal webhosting pages have increased incrementally in relation to the rise of Facebook and Myspace.

I think it is fairly obvious that administrators should officially, by CSD policy, delete such articles on sight. They are obvious to sight, and very unlikely to be abused as a CSD reason. Frankly, I'm tired of ignoring all rules for these entries. They are in no way contestable or encyclopedic. This does not apply to bands or celebrities. Teke 05:30, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Addendum: I know that these entries fall under A7. But frankly, that just doesn't cut it for leaving a talk message to the creator. Having this as policy would eliminate the entirety of A7 to one specific reason. It happens hundreds of times a day. Teke 05:34, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
You've not provided any examples - which would be useful. Shouldn't such content be userfied rather than speedy-deleted? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 06:34, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Are you suggesting that active, productive editors commonly create MySpace-like pages in the main namespace? —Cryptic 07:03, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
That depends on your definition of 'productive'. If I look at the authors indicated in the examples provided below, one editor has ~75 edits spanning Aug 2006 to the present against only a couple of articles (newbie-like editing behavior), while the other two don't have any surviving edits (i.e. all articles they might have contributed to have been deleted). So one could stretch and call one of the actions a very mild case of newbie biting. I can sympathize with (but not 100% agree with) the notion that blanket treatment of all such cases by deletion rather than userfication doesn't do much harm to "newbie relations". I can also sympathize with (but not 100% agree with) the notion that tolerating juveniles isn't in the best interests of building an encyclopedia, that they should learn appropriate editing behavior before coming here rather than learn it here step by mistake-prone step. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 21:07, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Diffs of three articles I deleted last night [3], [4], [5] (requires Undelete access). The pages are unencyclopedic, always will be and no they do not really fit userfication as they don't have anything to do with Wikipedia and we also don't know that the subject is the author for certain. Teke 13:54, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Uh, sounds like your complaint is that the standard A7 warning doesn't sufficiently warn against creating MySpace/Facebook-esque vanity pages. In that case, I'd suggest... uh, not using the standard A7 warning...
Sorry, I'm failing to see the problem here. As Cryptic pointed out, these aren't regular editors making these pages; they're just silly kids who don't know any better. Pretty much any warning will likely get them to stop, as they probably just make the page for shits and giggles and then don't pay attention to it after that. EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:10, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Agree with EVula. What is needed here is, perhaps, a better warning template. And WP:NOT covers the issue pretty well, too. Mangojuicetalk 15:19, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Exactly, I don't like to coverage in the warning. A7 does cover it, as they are absolutely not notable and there won't be assertation to follow, but slapping (A7 no notability) as the deletion reason just doesn't quite sum it up well to communicate with the demographic making these pages. Strictly speaking, WP:NOT is not a valid criterion for speedy deletion. It's the type of common sense deletion that we don't seem to cover well (such as hoaxes not being the same as nonsense, so it doesn't fit under G1). Teke 19:38, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
So slap it with an A7 (because that's what it is), and leave a note with the creator about non-notable articles and that we're not a social networking site. Problem solved. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:44, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
I never really considered it a problem, just seeing if there is a way of handling the communication of that sort of speedy deletion without tossing a bunch of links and acronyms at the users. I also started this thread late last night after working through the CSD backlog and getting some rather impolite emails so consider this topic dead unless someone has additional thoughts. Teke 19:55, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Do they ever write back? I wouldn't stress out too much over what to say to people who make such contributions: most of the time they vanish right afterwards and never return. Mangojuicetalk 20:23, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
I emailed the users back and explained my rationale. It was based on my deletion summary of "Wikipedia is not Myspace" as not being a valid criterion for speedy deletion. I didn't cite A7 in my summary, should the single purpose accounts come back and want a simple reason without wading through policy. No big deal in regards to the emails, I certainly feel the deletions were within my discretion. Happy editing to all. Teke 21:06, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) there is no need to create a new CSD -- A7 covers the examples cited fine. What you need is a varient warning template for this specific sub-case of A7, and perhaps a varient db- tempalte as well. There is no rule or sugestion that varient warnign tempaltes, as long as they point to WP:CSD can't be developed and used. Full steam ahead. DES (talk) 05:13, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Recreation of categories

G4 - Recreation of deleted material.

Since Consensus can change, this should be clarified in the text. This comes up on CfD periodically, and typically if it's a recent recreation, then it gets speedied, if not, it gets discussed.

So the first sentence should be modified to: "A copy, by any title, of a page that was recently deleted..."

Merely adding the word "recently", still gives the Speedily deleting admin subjective adjucation, but still reflects that consensus can change, allowing for discussion, and also not suppressing WP:BOLD. - jc37 07:48, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I readily admit my unfamiliarity with CFD; it's an aspect of Wikipedia with which I've never taken the time to become acquainted. If this is how things work there, all power to you, then your change is harmless and accurate with respect to categories.
This change, however, is extremely harmful in the much more common case of articles. It removes the motivation to address the reasons an article was deleted, instead encouraging a war of attrition and wikilawyering: "You can't g4 that! It's been a week since two dozen editors agreed to delete!" "Now it's been a month!" "A month and a half!"
Deletions almost never get reversed or pages unsalted because of changing consensus; rather, change of circumstances external to Wikipedia (Digg is an article that springs immediately to mind) or change of content (which would keep it from being a speedyable re-creation anyway) are the typical, nonprocedural avenues of re-creation. —Cryptic 08:14, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Typically several months go by, for what I was describing, and often it's a case where it's not being "recreated" by the same person (as far as we know, anyway).
That aside, the real problem is that G4 specifically deals in content. Which is a useless reference when dealing with categories, which often only have the name of the category and the parent categories as "content". (The categoriy system could almost be described as de facto "self-reference".
Perhaps the best way to deal with this would be to say G4 doesn't apply specifically to categories, and create a C4 which is more specific to this issue? Else, we can just add a couple sentences to G4 explaining how it applies to categories. - jc37 08:30, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Either of these is acceptable. (I'd prefer the former, if only to keep the length of individual criteria down.) —Cryptic 08:38, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Ok, done, though I'm not certain if it conveys it well enough. What do you think? - jc37 09:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I fail to see what this extended wording is intended to solve. It seems an added complexity to little or no gain, based on various definitions of the word "content". Yes, we speedily delete recreated categories just like recreated articles. >Radiant< 09:38, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we do, but apparently not in the same tenor as AfD, according to User:Cryptic? (Presuming I am understanding his thoughts correctly.)

Part of the issue is that recreating categories is merely a case of adding a bunch of articles to a category. There may be no content whatsoever to the category page. So the only thing to go by is the "sense" of the category. Consider that often there is a question of whether the population of a category is the "intent", or if the name is the intent. However, the "name" is what is deleted. This is quite different than other situations in which the "content" of a page may be compared. I'll try to better clarify this. - jc37 09:58, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

  • I did not find a related thread on Cryptic's talk. But what you are suggesting here appears to be a theoretical difference rather than a practical one. Categories are generally assumed to be defined by their name (i.e. a category like "English playwrights" is expected to contain all of those, even if they don't yet). If this gets deleted, then any similarly defined category ("Playwriters from the U.K.") qualifies as a recreation. We only rarely require lengthy explanations on a cat page; if such is needed, arguably the cat should become a list instead. >Radiant< 10:57, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

First, bad linking on my part, I was referring to the user, not the talk page.

Second, you and I are talking about the same thing. The trouble is that WP:CSD doesn't reflect that entirely. The confusion of "content" vs category population vs "naming conventions", is another issue as well. - jc37 12:57, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Suggest new criterion for chat pages

I'd like to suggest a CSD U4, a criterion for deleting user and user talk pages. I don't have a formal wording, but the idea is to delete any page used exclusively for conversation with other people, which is obviously totally unrelated to Wikipedia. I've already seen three of these in my user page patrolling, and I know that there are more. Regarding the conventions for making a new CSD, it's clearly worth deleting, and it can be worded to be unambiguous. It's not so common, but I don't think that's a particularly serious objection. Any takers? YechielMan 23:05, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Saying "exclusively unrelated to Wikipedia" could be too easily interpreted. Not to mention, people would probably try to throw those autograph books into that. While I think they're dumb and serve no purpose, there seems to be a developing precedence for keeping them. ^demon[omg plz] 23:30, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps. Regarding the specific example of autograph books, those do have a clear and obvious relationship with Wikipedia because they collect signatures of Wikipedia users. We can debate their usefulness, but they would not be included in CSD U4 for that reason. I'm also not saying any user page unrelated to Wikipedia. I'm saying, any user page that appears to be in conversation with one or more specific individuals, as opposed to a general personal page or diary. Many legitimate user pages look like MySpace pages in the sense of being personal collections of miscellaneous paraphernalia and userboxes. What they all have in common is the basic premise that these are created primarily for the user in his role as a user. There are a few pages I have seen which are not like that. They are clearly meant to be rudimentary discussion forums, chat rooms, email, whatever. That's what I'm trying to deal with. YechielMan 00:50, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Here's an example: [6]. It's vandalism, so I reverted it, but otherwise it would be CSD U4 according to my proposal. Perhaps CSD G1 covers it, but if not, it would not be speediable as of now. YechielMan 02:09, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Ultimately, how does that page's existence harm Wikipedia? It doesn't, and that's a lot more important to keep in mind than "I don't like seeing overly personal pages". For all intents and purposes, User:EVula/sidebar/personal is largely unrelated to my Wikipedia work; according to you, it can be speedily deleted.
Long and short: if it isn't harming anything, just leave it alone. If a user is doing nothing but work on their userpage, drop them a line to remind them that they are here to work on Wikipedia, not their userpage (that is when the "This isn't MySpace" line is relevant). If they've got a bit too much personal stuff on there for your liking, there's an easy way to ignore that. EVula // talk // ☯ // 02:15, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
The problem isn't userpages that only involve "chat," it's users who don't contribute to anything but chat. This doesn't make any distinction between the two, and there's no way anyone in good faith could make that distinction, nor could a possible speedy criterion be handled properly regardless of how it's worded. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:19, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't see a reason to delete the pages, in all honest, though I do hate them so much. Deletion would be in order should they become attack pages, but the effort of administrative need to these kinds of pages is of little value. The odds are that the user(s) are being unencyclopedic and so will probably meet a friendly administrator in the near future to clean up the other problems. These problems tend to take care of themselves without a bit more policy. Teke 04:55, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps "User and User talk pages whose content is limited to non-Wikipedia-related discussion, and the user has little to none contributions to other namespaces besides User and User talk". --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 10:38, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

48 hours

Can we change I7 so that it's 7 days for everything? It's needlessly complicated to handle this exception for all the templates. We're always backlogged anyway, nothing gets deleted in 48 hours. That or make it a speedy. :\ - cohesion 01:31, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I see no reason why we can't make it 7 days, it's overly complicated this way, and necessitates two different sets of backlogged categories. Mangojuicetalk 01:38, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't do image deletions, but I agree - why not? There is no deadline. YechielMan 02:11, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm for it as long as it doesn't cause ay undue legal issues. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:17, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree with jeff; as long as there's no legal reason for it to be 48 hours, let's go ahead and make it 7 days. Like you said, it's not like we're hitting the target as it is... EVula // talk // ☯ // 02:26, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't have time to look through the archives at the moment to be sure, but it was my understanding that the 48-hour clause was to expedite deletion of the very worst of unfair use - AP press photos grabbed and posted on Wikipedia immediately after they appear on cnn.com and the like. —Cryptic 02:31, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
But nothing gets deleted that fast. We've got 15 day backlogs... – Riana ऋ 02:32, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Right, if it's a clear copyvio it can be deleted sooner (under G12), this 48 hours right now is being used almost exclusively for images that get auto-tagged at upload as being replaceable. - cohesion 03:42, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Things do get deleted that fast — I think the fastest I've seen something speedily deleted was <15 minutes (I'm talking generally, not specifically a CSD:I) without a planned set-spike; I couldn't point at the example of that right now, but the point is that the actual time between tagging and deletion can vary wildly and as far as I know we don't have any good statistical analysis of the flow - not that we really need one, just making an observation that in the absence of a FIFO stack, you'll see this kind of variance. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:44, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I think the main thing we have to rule out is the legal aspect - a 7 day window will certainly give better context within an obviously copyrighted image's "historical value," too, which is important to consider. It's probably sound policy to extend it if possible. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:47, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
When I say nothing gets deleted in 48 hours I mean the cases where a more specific tag is used, such as {{Replaceable fair use 2}}, obviously if someone uses one of the speedy tags it could happen sooner. (under G12) - cohesion 03:45, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
No way, the 48 hours is set by policy in WP:FUC. This is not something we should remove. This isn't saying it has to be deleted in 48 hours, it's saying it can be deleted in 48 hours, so who cares about the backlog. -- Ned Scott 02:57, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Ok, so can we change the templates so that we treat them all the same? My only issue is having to treat these groups differently from a workflow point of view. - cohesion 03:42, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't follow.. -- Ned Scott 04:36, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Is the inconvenience that great? I'm concerned that changing the template in a manner that doesn't reflect the policy, even if it reflects how it might practically play out, is only going to spawn confusion. TewfikTalk 04:45, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I would actually be for reducing the time for all to 48 hours. It would cause a larger backlog in the expiatory sense, but the workload would ultimately stay the same. Text is typed and logged, it's much easier to track sourcing. Images are an entirely different animal so a broader discretion to err on the safe side would be nice. Teke 04:59, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I would oppose this change. The 7-day delay was essential to getting I4, I5, and I6, passed, because that give the uplaoder or other interest editors time to cure these pages. Particualrly I4 & I6 can have valid info as soon as the uplaoder notices the issue, and a week is not too long to wait for this. Not everyone logs in every day. Backlogs vary, and not everyone works through the categories from oldest to newest. This is not a change to make without at elast as broad a consensus as that which originally adopted these criteria, meaning at least multiple pump announcemntes and a poll. DES (talk) 05:23, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
there is no point in setting unrealistic deadlines that the admins can not keep up with. They just get people angry and they dont actually help the workflow. DGG 06:49, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't see the point in changing one admittedly arbitrary value to another equally arbitrary value. Let's not do that. >Radiant< 07:54, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
  • This has been solved another way, so no worries :) Uploaders will still get 2 timeframes, but it will be handled by the templates now, the deletion queue will not obviously reflect this difference (there will be one combined queue). This seems like an ok solution to me. Sorry for stirring everyone up. :) - cohesion 12:18, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

A bit puzzled by the wording in A7, in regards to G4

The explanations for A7 states:

“ If controversial, or if there has been a previous AfD, the article should be nominated for AfD instead. ”

Which seems to be in direct contradiction with G4

“ A copy, by any title, of a page that was deleted via Articles for deletion or another XfD process ”

I must be missing something, could someone enlighten me? -- lucasbfr talk 08:24, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

  • A7 applies to articles, which are discussed on AFD. G4 applies to general cases, including articles (AFD) and other things (TFD, CFD, etc). >Radiant< 08:43, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Oh you're right... Which means you can't nominate a recreation of a deleted under AfD article with G4? (I'm asking, since that's quite a common practice and it's the first time I remark that the wording of A7 forbids that) -- lucasbfr talk 08:49, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
      • If an article was deleted via AFD, then recreations can be speedied (G4). If an article was discussed and not deleted via AFD, then it should not be speedied as A7. >Radiant< 09:00, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
      • Exactly. Radiant has this one right on the nose. Because a previosu Keep or No Consensus result demonstrates that there is not a clear consensus to delete, so a speedy, particualrly under A7, is not right. (A newly deiscovered external source that proves soemthing to be a blatent copyvio is about the only reason I can see for a speedy after an AfD that did not delete -- oh or a houskeeping delete as part of a complex move or some such.) DES (talk) 17:03, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
        • I updated the description to reflect this. --Selket Talk 09:01, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Copy and paste of an existing page

What should be done in the case of a copy-and-paste of an existing page, not as an attempt at a cut-and-paste move? I have tagged them as test or vandalism pages before, but that really doesn't seem right. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 21:20, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I guess that would fall under criterion G6, non-controversial housekeeping tasks. You could also consider simply turning one article into a redirect. - Zeibura S. Kathau (Info | Talk) 21:28, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
If an attempt at a fork, I'd probalby make it a redir, or possibly delete under G6 as suggested above. I would probaly look hard for evidence of an attempt at a C&P move. But placing a copy of say George W. Bush at Son of the Devil is obvious vandalism and should be dealt with as such. DES (talk) 23:19, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
The most recent example I can think of was copying Kobe Bryant into something like Kob Bryant, obviously not an attempt at a move, but not necessarily bad faith either. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 23:26, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
If I saw that I'd just turn Kob Bryant into a redirect, despite what the intent of the creator may have been. It's probably not an implausible spelling error, and like you say it's not really possible to assume bad faith there. - Zeibura S. Kathau (Info | Talk) 04:39, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

These are some of the odder pages you'll find out there... I've seen people copy Wikipedia pages into new articles under inexplicable titles. It's sometimes so crude that the text "[edit]" appears in the article, because they copied the formatted page. I have no idea why people do this, other than that they don't know about redirects or think having a lot of copies of a page sitting around accomplishes something. I've never gotten any flak for deleting these as basically G6. --W.marsh 13:17, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

G10 question

I had an admin reject a G10 tag that I placed on a Category. The admin asserted that it was inappropriate to tag categories for G10, only articles could be tagged. My assertion is that the General criteria apply to all namespaces. If this applied only to articles, then it (G10) wouldn't have been created and superseded A6. Comments? --After Midnight 0001 18:54, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Interesting point. I think you would be correct if WP:CSD#G10 weren't specifically focused on Wikipedia:Attack pages. That restriction scopes G10 to "article, page or image"; I don't think a category could qualify as a 'page', though the text associated with the category could. It's not a bad idea to consider expanding to the scope of what an 'attack page' is to accommodate all namespaces, or to expand the scope of G10 to cover all modes of attack that are admin-deletable. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:18, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
for clarity You are referring to Category:Victims of Islam, correct? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:22, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
That is the category that started this discussion, but I am not trying to force that category's closure. I am more trying to remove any ambiguity that may exist here. I know that I have seen redirects speedied for G10, and I think that I have seen categories as well. I would have to go through the archives to find some. --After Midnight 0001 01:57, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Where did the admin tell you categories can't be nominated under G10? The only thing I found that was close was the edit summary of that revert, where he said "speedy deletion requests are inappropriate when a CFD is ongoing", which isn't saying you couldn't have speedied a category, but while there's an ongoing discussion which hasn't reached a conclusion yet the category can't be deleted until the discussion is closed. Categories certainly can be nominated under general criteria, I've never seen any tagged as attack pages but I've seen a few nonsense categories so tagged. - Zeibura S. Kathau (Info | Talk) 02:11, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
That discussion is here. --After Midnight 0001 10:57, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Ah, fair play. Well I agree with you, surely a category is a page.. - Zeibura S. Kathau (Info | Talk) 16:49, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

If someone created Category:Schools that are really, really shit, I would hope that would be speedied under G10. Likewise if someone created a category with the text "Such and such is gay". The current working which talks solely of attack pages really ought to be changed. – Steel 13:02, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Categories consist of two distinct parts: The auto-included membership of the catgory, and the category page. The category page can be edited, just like any other page, and falls under the "G" rules. miscategorisation of a member of the category (listing Mahatma Gandhi under Category:Women, for example) should be considered a disruption or vandalism, or even just qualify for a request for cleanup of the category, but is not usually a reason for deletion. I hope this clarifies. - jc37 13:11, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Images with generic non descriptive names

Many users upload images with the original name (like 000102012.jpg or IMG001.jpg) and don't rename them to something easier to understand. They also disregard overwriting warnings (thus they overwrite existing images with such names with their own images, sometimes several times (in example, Image:Aaa.jpg had three different images). Is there a criteria for speedy deleting them? What people would think about speedy deleting them, leaving a note in the user talk page about using generic names? -- ReyBrujo 16:47, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

No, there is no such CSD. The image CSDs all boil down to redundancy (either an other image at Wikipedia, or at the Wikicommons), corrupt (I2) and copyright problems (no tag, invalid fair use claim etc.). Any image which doesn't fall into those criteria, or the general criteria, it isn't currently CSD material. Od Mishehu 09:16, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
If it's a free image, then move it to Commons under a better name. Use Commons Helper to make sure that the necessary information is moved. You may want to let the user know so that (1) they can find it and (2) they won't make the same mistake again. Once the waiting period expires, the WP image can be deleted. --BigDT (416) 13:01, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
I think there's no need. If someone uploads a useful image to a generic name, anyone can re-upload it with a specific name and put up a CSD I1 for the other image. If someone uploads a useless image to a generic name, it doesn't much matter if it gets overwritten. Mangojuicetalk 14:51, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
If an image title is so generic it gets overwritten by accident, just upload some irrelevant content and protect it from further uploads. See Image:Logo.png for example. — CharlotteWebb 09:37, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Anyone know if any thought have been put into a "rename image" feature? I mean it can't use the regular page move code, but it would not be rocket sience either. --Sherool (talk) 13:28, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
  • That would be a reasonable feature request. Please go to bugzilla and tell the devs :) >Radiant< 13:34, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
  • A quick search reveals that they already know, and have for some time: bugzilla:709. Aparently they are brewing on some major changes to the image backend and don't want to work on things like this untill that's done. --Sherool (talk) 14:17, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Why the waiting period for images moved to Commons?

There is a gigantic backlog of images that have been moved to Commons. They basically fall into three categories: (1) the same contributor personally uploaded the image both to Wikipedia and to Commons, (2) Someone moved a Wikipedia image to Commons using Commons Helper, or (3) someone did a manual move.

There is already an exception allowing images from case #1 to be speedied instantly.

What would everyone think about allowing instant deletions of images moved with Commons Helper? When you use Commons Helper, you are guaranteed that the file history is going to be copied. In the case of an admin moving the image using CH, is there any real reason not to simply delete the Wikipedia image immediately? That would save the trouble of someone else having to check over your work in a month.

Images in case #3 need to be checked over, or, in most cases, simply re-run with Commons Helper. But even then, there is no need for a waiting period - if that backlog ever gets cleared out, we could re-run them immediately - they need to live in their own separate queue, though, so we aren't blindly deleting them at CAT:CSD.

But the biggest thing would be to add an exception for images moved with Commons Helper. If we could simply delete images that we ourselves move, that would take a huge load off of the backlogs. Any thoughts? --BigDT (416) 12:58, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Any thoughts? Anyone? Are there any objections to adding text to the effect of "images properly migrated with Commons Helper may be deleted immediately"? --BigDT (416) 23:53, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, seems fine to me, I'd take out the waiting time all together. Why is it even there? The deleting admin needs to check to make sure the file is there on commons, as long as they do that then who cares if a week has gone by? I don't think we should blindly delete any moves to commons, they aren't right a lot, but I don't care when people check. - cohesion 00:52, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
With regards to someone checking over the image, if I move 20 images to Commons using Commons Helper, is there any reason for me to not just delete them right then? I think we need to use the category for non-admins who move images to commons so that we don't flood CAT:CSD with them, but I think as long as the move is done correctly, anyone should be able to delete them immediately, including the person who moved them. --BigDT (416) 01:08, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Agree, this policy was probably written before image undelete. If the move is done badly we can always restore it. In my experience most moves are done ok though, sometimes the NCT tag gets places on images that weren't moved at all, but that's another issue. - cohesion 11:43, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Oh, that is a good point. We no longer need so many safeguards before deleting an image because it can now be undone. >Radiant< 11:52, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree that the one week delay is a little pointles for these images. I guess there is a microscopic chance that the uploader will object to having an image moved to Commons for whatever reason, but again if it's a legitemate concern we can always undelete. --Sherool (talk) 13:24, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok ... so let's make a formal proposal here. I propose that we remove the 4th and 5th bullet points from I8 and replace them with:

  • For images migrated using Commons Helper that use the same name locally, the image should be deleted as soon as the move is complete.
  • For images that are moved to a different filename, or which were not moved using Commons Helper, the image should be tagged with {{NowCommons}}. Any administrator may delete the image after verifying that the necessary data has been copied and all internal links have been updated.

Any thoughts? --BigDT 20:04, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

You shouldn't delete images you yourself have moved. It is better to have at least two pairs of eyes. A backlog is not a problem as there is no urgency. Plus, it is already annoying enough sorting through images people inappropriately move to commons and even CommonsHelper is not enough as the history of the image description page is useful. Kotepho 20:35, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Admins delete plenty of things without a second pair of eyes examining the issue ... so I don't really understand why the benefit of a second pair of eyes would outweigh the cost in admin time. If the history of the description page is needed, maybe Commons Helper can be modified, but that's not a reason for a waiting period or for the admin to not delete the image themselves - that's a separate issue. --BigDT 21:24, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
People using Commons helper are not always infallable. It may always ensure proper copying of file history, but we do still need to veriyf that the license makes sence. I've seen several copyvios moved to Commons via Commons helper so we still need to do some sanity checking regardles of method used to move the image. Let's just say something to the effect that once all the criteria have been verified to an admins satisfaction (list all the things that must be checked) the image can be delted.--Sherool (talk) 09:07, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes, remember also not everyone using commons helper is an admin, the wording should reflect that. Rather than "the image should be deleted as soon as the move is complete." something like "the image may be deleted". I don't have any objection to any other part of this though. If the image can be moved to commons it's freely licensed, so the uploaders objections aren't relevant. Also, if it is licensed incorrectly and people on commons notice and delete it, well, it probably should have been deleted on enwiki anyway. You're almost always going to have a few eyes looking at it, here and on commons, with image undelete one person making a mistake isn't the end of the world. Consistent mistakes are worse of course, and we don't want to shove off a ton of work on commons. I like Sherool's idea of listing the things that have to happen rather than any timeline. Say something like, the image can be deleted from enwiki after it has been moved correctly, where correctly means: 1) the image is actually on commons 2) the license makes sense 3) the history is maintained 4) inbound links have been redirected (if not the same name). Anything else? - cohesion 00:22, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Maybe... all the points listed already listed directly above that point? Seriously, why list them again? -- grm_wnr Esc 01:41, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I just removed the waiting period. I don't really like the idea of tying the policy in with any particular tool (i.e. commons helper). As long as the admin does the move correctly it shouldn't matter when. There is no reason to think they will do it more correctly after 7 days has gone by. Anyway, feel free to give this change more nuance of course if people think it needs more (I don't really) :) - cohesion 20:02, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I am opposed to removing the waiting period. I didn't see this discussion to just now since I've been away. (And still plan to be away, but I'll comment now anyway.) The waiting period has several useful functions:

  1. It gives people both here and on Commons a chance to check that material was moved correctly (since not everyone is an admin, if the page were immediately deleted this would be substantially more difficult). In my experience, probably >50% of moves to Commons are initially deficient in some way, ranging from major problems like incorrect licensing and incorrect/missing attribution, to minor problems like broken links.
  2. It gives content contributors (like me) the chance to object to deleting the local copy of files. The lack of watchlist integration is a big loss with moving to Commons. My global warming related images draw several acts of vandalism/talkpage comments per week, and having local copies makes these much easier to watch and maintain.
  3. By encouraging the person who moves the image to also delete it, it amplifies the chances that mistakes will be made by reducing the number of eyes involved, which is problematic since mistakes are already quite common, in my experience.

Personally, I'm strongly in favor of keeping the wating period. I don't think there is any rush when dealing with Commons, since there is really no harm caused by these delays. Removing the wait doesn't decrease the amount of work that needs to be done, it merely encourages that work to be done less carefully. Dragons flight 20:27, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Apparent hoaxes created by vandal accounts

Articles that are apparent hoaxes are not speediable, but when a vandalism-only account creates what looks like a hoax I tag it with {{db|hoax from a vandal account}} and that almost always convinces an admin to speedy it. So I was sort of surprised that there was resistance to speedying an article like this at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Delta Bombing Division. I wonder if we could make explicit that an apparent hoax from a vandal account should be speedied. We could add it to wp:csd#g3 as something like:

Pure vandalism, including redirects created during cleanup of page move vandalism and apparent hoaxes created by vandal accounts. Pan Dan 15:41, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Some hoaxes can be considered simple vandalism already, if they're pretty blatantly false. If there's any doubt, even if it was created by a vandal, PROD/AFD is better. But sometimes there's just no doubt that it's vandalism. --W.marsh 15:48, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
If the hoax itself is "pure vandalism" then it is already covered under G3. If it is not obviously pure vandalism, then it is aan apparent hoax, and there are good reasons for not allowing these to be speedy-deleted. This change would only encourage the misperception among many that hoaxes obvious top the tagger or deleting admin should be subject to speedy delete. I see only harm coming from this change. DES (talk) 15:59, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
hoaxes obvious top the tagger or deleting admin should be subject to speedy delete -- pardon? My brain is not succeeding at parsing that. Pan Dan 16:15, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Oh, "top" should be "to." Got it. Pan Dan 18:51, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, because nobody in their right mind would call their child Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116, so that just has to be a hoax. >Radiant< 16:05, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm not questioning the policy on apparent hoaxes in general, just apparent hoaxes created by vandal accounts. Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 was not created by a vandal account, so it's not really relevant to the proposed change. Pan Dan 16:15, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
  • It was, however, created by an account less than a week old, so how exactly would you propose to tell the difference? >Radiant< 16:21, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Identifying whether the creator of a suspected hoax article is a vandal account should be done by looking not at the suspected hoax article, but at the creator's other contributions. The Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 creator's other contributions were not vandalism edits, so he would not have been identified as a vandal account. Pan Dan 18:51, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Surprised to see resistance here too, so let me try again. According to Wikipedia:Vandalism, Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia. Any article that is an apparent hoax, that is created by a vandal account, can be assumed to have been created in bad faith, in a deliberate attempt to comprise the integrity of Wikipedia, with virtual certainty. Are there any examples of apparent hoaxes created by vandal accounts that have turned out not to be hoaxes? Pan Dan 16:15, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Not necessarily, but there are plenty of so-called vandal accounts that have also made positive contributions. It's not a black-and-white issue. The problem is you're trying to base policy on two vaguely defined terms ("apparent hoax" and "vandal account"). >Radiant< 16:21, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with User:Radiant here. Just how would you define "a vandal account" What percentage or absolute number of the account's contributions would need to be reverted as vandalism to call soemthing a vandal account. Note part 1 of the test for new or revised criteria: "The criterion should be objective: an article that a reasonable person judges as fitting or not fitting the criterion should be similarly judged by other reasonable people. Often this requires making the rule very specific." Judging who is or is not a vandal is often quite controversial (I see these terms flung about a lot in content disputes, for example), and it is precisely because judging whether something is an actual hoax or not can be tricky that hoaxes are not grounds for speedy delete. In any case, "pure vandalism" is already speedyable. What articel would you have been able to speedy delete under your proposal that you couldn't under the curretn criteria? Are there many such articles? Note that a reare case is not a good case for a CSD. I still oppose this strongly. DES (talk) 16:32, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
    • "Vandal account" = Account whose contributions other than the suspected hoax article are vandal edits. I don't think a percentage cutoff is needed to identify what's a vandal account. A7 is also vague; most people know an A7 when they see it but there are borderline A7's too. As I said above, I have come across articles like this before and have tagged them with {{db|hoax from a vandal account}}. The example that brought me here was Delta Bombing Division created by Special:Contributions/HonestPerson. Pan Dan 18:51, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
      • By that definition, an account who has only contributed to a single article, if that article is suspected by someone to be a hoax, is a vandal account. >Radiant< 07:40, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
        • No. I guess I'm not being clear. Take the example I gave. Special:Contributions/HonestPerson should clearly be labelled a "vandal account" based on his/her contributions other than the hoax article s/he created. Now, take a look at Delta Bombing Division. My point is that Delta Bombing Division is not obvious vandalism, but the creator's other contributions strongly strongly suggest that s/he was not acting in good faith when creating that article. So, even though hoaxes are not generally speediable, articles like Delta Bombing Division should be speedied. Pan Dan 14:46, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
  • There's also the matter of WP:AGF. Changes should be not suspect based on who made them, but rather on their own merits. i kan reed 19:20, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Well, that sounds good on paper, but if someone uploads 10 blatant copyvio images, I'm not going to hesitate on deletion too terribly long just because I can't find the source for #11. --BigDT (416) 19:27, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
    • This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary. —WP:AGF. Pan Dan 19:36, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
      • Just because something can be a good idea doesn't mean we have to codify it into policy. >Radiant< 07:40, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
        • Agree, in general. As I said, what brought me here was not just that I was noticing some of these cases during newpage patrol, but that there was resistance to the idea at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Delta Bombing Division. I couldn't tell whether the resistance was due to a dislike of IAR, or to a genuine belief that the article might not be a hoax despite being created by a vandal account (by which I mean, again, an account whose other contributions are obvious vandalism). If the resistance was due to a dislike of IAR, then that's a reason to add this case to the speedy criteria. If the resistance was due to a genuine belief that apparent hoax articles created by vandal accounts might not be hoaxes--I don't know, I just can't take that possibility seriously. Pan Dan 14:46, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I do think a good idea re: hoaxes is speedy closing of AFDs. In a suspected hoax AFD, if no one but the creator and likely sock/meatpuppets make an argument that the article is not a hoax, it can be closed early after 48 hours or so. The main idea here is to avoid the hoax getting picked up by Google, Wikipedia mirrors, etc. which can greatly increase it's lifespan. But this is only really an issue with new articles. It can also be done with IAR instead of a new rule... I've done it a few times to no controversy. --W.marsh 15:11, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree - especially if a google search does not return any relevant results. → Aktar (talk • contribs) — 16:39, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Delta Bombing Division is IMO,precisely the kinds of articel that should not be speedy deleted, and can not be under the curent criteria. I have therefore restored it, and re-opened the AfD. DES (talk) 16:52, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Your edit summary was "example shows why this [proposed addition to CSD] is bad". Why does the example show this? What would you say are the chances that Delta Bombing Division is legit, given the creator's contribution history? Pan Dan 17:25, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
      • I didn't look at the history. I don't think it is highly relevant here. (If you had specifically cmaimed a history of hoaxes, that might be a different matter.) What I see is an article that is clearly not patent nonsense, that is quite probably a hoax, but may be something else. Several times, for example i have found articles that seemed to be hoaxes but that turned out to be descriptions of fictional events from an in-universe PoV. Some of these were from accounts with short or dubious histories, containing at least some vandalism -- that is exactly the kind of thing a borderline vandal might do that is not vandalism and can possibly help the project. In any case it is my contention that this kind of thing belongs at AfD and not speedy-deleted, and that if this is the kind of page your proposal would authorize the speedy deletion of, that shows me that the proposal is not a good one. DES (talk) 17:32, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
        • Let's assume that a certain percentage of the category of articles we're discussing here--apparent hoaxes created by vandal accounts (remember the qualification)--are not hoaxes, but are in fact legit. I still fail to see why it's worth investigating every one. Take A7's. There's no doubt that a certain percentage of A7 articles are, in fact, about notable people (or bands, etc.), but are speedy deleted via A7 because they fail to assert notability. Despite this loss, there is consensus that bio articles with no assertion of notability should be speedy deleted because Wikipedia has limited resources (contributors and time) to locate sources that might demonstrate the notability of every bio. With your reasoning, it could be argued that we should dispense with A7 speedies because some articles that fail to assert notability are in fact about notable people. Or do you think the fraction of apparent hoaxes created by vandal accounts that are in fact legit is significantly greater than the fraction of A7's that are in fact about notable people? Pan Dan 19:50, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
          • The main difference, IMO, is that there is a huge problem with articels of the A7 type, so that we must accept the speedy route, flawed as it is, or have AfD go under. That is really whay A7 passed,a dn why it was expanded to cover bands, clubs, and web sites. I don't see the kind of hoaxes you are addressing here to be the same level of problem. Others may have other views. DES (talk) 21:24, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
            • Fair point. Pan Dan 16:26, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Comparisons to A7 will gain you few friends, as it is a deeply flawed and subjective criterion itself. Trying to introduce more along its model ("I don't know if it's a hoax, but I know it's vandalism!" is unlikely to gain traction. If the article is a hoax that harms living people, it can be blanked during the AFD, with the article present in history for AFD reviewers. Otherwise, 2-7 days is not going to cause the encylopedia to crash and burn. db-nonsense is widely misunderstood by taggers, and used as a shortcut for "delete this thing I don't believe is real". -- nae'blis 20:02, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
    • (1) Agree as to the frequent abuse of db-nonsense. (2) Agree the idea in this thread is unlikely to get consensus as it's got no supporters yet besides me :). (3) Surprised that A7 is controversial. Pan Dan 20:09, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
      • 3) Oh boy, you stuck your hand in the hornet's nest there. :) But for starters, compare the originally submitted Proposed "unremarkable people" criterion with the current A7. The proposed criterion was the lowest of the proposed criteria to pass that day in mid-2005 with just 74% support, and several that did not pass are now included in its rubric. While Consensus Can Change, the expansion and improper use ("well, it asserted notability, but didn't source it!") has been fought tooth and nail, as can be seen in the archives of this page. It's one of the least well-defined CSD criteria we have, which leads to a lot of needless acrimony. Remember, these are supposed to be uncontestable deletions designed to reduce workload. How many times do you see G8 contested, or I1? -- nae'blis 20:17, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
        • To be fair, usually when you see an A7 contested is because the subject was important but the article didn't say so. Our deletion policy is quite clear on the concept that if an article was deleted for lack of content, recreating it with actual content is an endorsed action with no need for further process. >Radiant< 07:39, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
          • I don't know that I'd say that. i remove a good many A7 CSD tags from articles that pretty clearly do claim notability, but in ways or fields the taggers aren't as aware of, or when the tagger doesn't thenk the degree of signifigence claimed is enough. Look are Hippolyte Mège-Mouriés for example, I removed an A7 tag from that yesterday, and the articel asserted (and asserts) that this is the man who invented and patented margerine! Because it was unsourced and not readily sourcable via google, the tagger felt it was not notable. It is now on AfD, and so far the nominator is the only person to suggest deletion. DES (talk) 12:54, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
            • Ah, you were referring to articles tagged as A7, while I was referring to articles deleted as A7. I believe that the average admin has more knowledge of how A7 works than the average user. >Radiant< 13:11, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
              • Marginally. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:18, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
              • (after EC) I would hope so, but I have also undeleted stuff that was pretty clearly invalid A7s, and the sample is baised because I frequently go through tagged articles to celar out the CSD category, but rarely patrol the deletion log, so most of the invalid deeltions werre when the art had already come to my notice in soem way, and a link wen red, or soemtimes I was working on improving a tagged art and it was deleted out from under me. DES (talk) 13:24, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
        • Thanks for the info Naeblis. Good to see some familiar names at that long-ago vote :) Pan Dan 16:26, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

CSD AutoReason

(crossposted from WP:AN) After *quite* a bit of work, I am proud to announce CSD AutoReason. After installing, it gives you a drop down box of all the CSD criteria when deleting a page. Also, it links to them, so it provides a link for those not sure was csd g1 means. Hope you all enjoy ^demon[omg plz] 21:26, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Request for a template

Can we have a speedy delete because the page is a duplicate template? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ajuk (talk • contribs) 18:19, 25 April 2007 (UTC).

There's no need for that. You can either (1) just do {{db|duplicate of Template:Whatever}} or (2) redirect it to the other template. howcheng {chat} 18:43, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
You're usually better off redirecting duplicate templates, because redirects work (so {{spoon}} will still display the content of its redirect target), and if it's been made/used once, it's likely to be so again. Redirects are cheap. -- nae'blis 19:07, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Slightly confused about T1

Just to clarify, under what circumstances should a template be tagged with T1, and not G10? "Templates that are divisive and inflammatory" just sounds like attack pages to me, so perhaps I'm missing the point with T1 slightly... - Zeibura S. Kathau (Info | Talk) 00:32, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

An attack page is directed toward someone or something. A divisive template may not. In example, a "This user is a rapist" template is not an attack template, unless it is applied to others; if the user himself puts the template in his user page, it is not an attack against himself. However, it is of bad taste, and creates more tension than any advantage it may provide. -- ReyBrujo 00:41, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Ah, I understand now. Cheers! - Zeibura S. Kathau (Info | Talk) 00:51, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Images in speedily deleted pages

What is the policy (or established practice) on images which were uploaded for articles that were speedily deleted, and are not used anywhere else? (Mainly, this refers to A7 articles making no claim of notability of their subject; vandalism, attack pages, patent nonsense, spam, and copyright violations are general criteria.) Personally, I speedily delete them if they lack copyright information (the category is cluttered enough even without such pictures), and nominate them for regular deletion otherwise. Perhaps an addition to the criteria is in order? - Mike Rosoft 10:24, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any reason for such a criterion. if such images lack source or copyright info, tag them properly and move on, they will be gotten to in turn. if you want to help out, jsut start with the oldest items in the relvant backlogs, ther is no particular advantage in doing these first just because the article happened to be speedy-deleted. And it is possible (although i hope rare) for a speedy to be overturned, and parhaps more likely for a very recent speedy. So I don't see a reason to rush. There is no policy Ikn ow of that treats such images any differntly from other orphaned images. DES (talk) 12:50, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
I speedy delete the images that were obviously just uploaded as part of a vanity or vandalism article... which are quite a few really. It's not technically in CSD but I've never gotten any complaints. I just don't see the point of adding more work for other people when there's really no need, especially as image deletions can be reversed. --W.marsh 13:19, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Whatever you do, don't leave them there. If there's no other use for them (photo of the guy whose A7 bio is deleted, nonsense image, etc), I usually delete them. It's important one way or the other not to leave them out there. Whether you delete them outright or nominate them for future deletion, adding to the ever-growing pile of orphaned images is a bad thing. Any time you remove an image from a page, the best practice is to move it to Commons if it is potentially useful somewhere (just not right here, right now) or take it to IFD or another deletion process (if it is non-free or not at all useful). --BigDT 14:34, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I normally wouldn't just delete them, but nearly 100% of the time, there's something wrong with the image upload: no source, no license, no copyright, or if it's fair use, it's probably orphaned. So I'll tag the image with the appropriate delete-next-week tag and move on. Mangojuicetalk 14:43, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Moving A3 -> GX

May seem like common sense to some, but it can't hurt to codify it here - should A3 (empty article), apply across all non-talk spaces? --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:53, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Codifying would be difficult; many templates that look empty or very short do have a use and should not be deleted. Better to apply common sense in the instances where an empty non-article page should be deleted than trying to figure out what exactly the conditions are when a template should be deleted and when not. Kusma (talk) 15:03, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
An example, perhaps? --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:14, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
See, for example, the history of Template:Hbralef. Kusma (talk) 15:33, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure I follow, since it's not empty. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:46, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Okay, it's not empty. It's almost empty. Truly empty templates can probably be deleted, but how often do we get those? Most that look empty do something complex like Template:WPMILHIST/Task force categories. Most really empty templates probably fall under G2. Kusma (talk) 15:50, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
I follow you now. I see... --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:07, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  • For categories, it depends if you mean "category with no members" (C1) or "category with no text in the cat page" (bad idea). >Radiant< 15:17, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Several userpages and usertalkpages are intentionally blank, Talk pages are often blanked rather than deleting them, categories sometimes don't need to contain anything but their members, some templates are empty for technical reasons, and some MediaWiki pages contain just - (to explicitly remove the message rather than using the default). --ais523 15:19, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  • He did say "non-talk". Note that empty images, portals, and categories are already speediable. Templates that don't actually do anything (and yes, we've had templates to display e.g. a question mark) really are pretty pointless. An empty Wikispace page is arguably a user test. So it may indeed seem like common sense to some. Question is, does it really come up that often? >Radiant< 15:23, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure, which is why I proposed it here. If it's unnecessary, great, but if not, I'd rather us be doing the right thing in these cases. I came across it today while looking at some templates which prompted it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:24, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Holy &*%$##, did Jeff just propose expanding a CSD? Someone nominate this man for RFA! ;)
Okay seriously, I don't have much of a problem with the change (except that it needs broader advertisement on the Village Pump of course), but the 'template that only shows a question mark' is sort of a red herring here. Some templates like the IPA tags do things that aren't really obvious, so I'd want a global criterion to ONLY include actually empty/pointless pages. But defining that is very tough, and I have to wonder if most wouldn't fall under G6 housekeeping chores, so long as there's no meaningful history to the page? Maybe that's the place to fold some of this in... -- nae'blis 17:52, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Can we clarify...

...that articles are not speediable once they have gone through XfD and been kept? People seem to like to do that a lot, and it's not good. -Amarkov moo! 20:49, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Depends. If an article turns out later to be a blatant copyright violation it should be speediable. Garion96 (talk) 21:00, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
I knew that someone was going to come up with a case where that shouldn't apply, and I still didn't see it. G12 would have to be an exception to this, of course. But copyright violation supercedes every other rule anyway, since it is illegal, so I don't think that's a big issue. -Amarkov moo! 21:07, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Barring the G12 exception noted (and future cases of equal validity), I think this is a valid extension of protection against unwarranted speedy deletion. However, the same question that arises around repeated AfD—namely "how long after an AfD do I have to wait before re-nominating"—apply to this post-XfD protection-from-Speedy period. This reminds me of a thought I had a while back that Wikipedia would benefit from an article life cycle management framework, not a major revision of any of the policies, but placement of all of them in a framework that allows them to better mesh, so that the article and its life cycle become the focus rather than application and refinement of the individual policies. (Part of my day-job is dealing with software application life cycle management in a corporate research environment and there are similarities in the shape of the problems between that domain and here.) --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:59, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure why that question applies. A new AfD is valid because consensus may have changed. But speedy deletion is not meant to overrule dissenting opinions, much less a consensus, so an article which passed an AfD ever should be immune from speedies. -Amarkov moo! 04:31, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
No article with an unspeediable revision in its history is speediable (just revert it instead). As such, the only way an article passing AfD can be later deleted is via renomination. Dcoetzee 17:26, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
I think that an article which passes an XfD isn't a blatant copyright - and if it's a copyvio it should be processed under the {{copyvio}} process. Od Mishehu 07:13, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
That process is broken. An article could be a blatant copyvio from a book source and go undetected virtually forever. If you become aware of such a page either revert to a non-copyvio version, or edit the page to remove the plagiarized portions, or tag it for speedy deletion, regardless of whether it survived AFD in the same condition. — CharlotteWebb 10:53, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Per deletion policy, copyrights trump everything and can be deleted regardless of other circumstances. >Radiant< 10:58, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

How to nominate for Speedy Deletion

Resolved.

I'm trying to nominate the article Shammi sampat for speedy deletion (as patent nonsense). The how to instuctions in the side-bar only appear to refer to normal deletion. So far I've have substituded in the appropiate template. What else do I need to do to follow up this nomination. -- Rehnn83 Talk 08:23, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Just wait for an admin to come by and delete the article. You don't have to do anything anymore. Errabee 08:32, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Cheers -- Rehnn83 Talk 08:33, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Boing! >Radiant< 08:48, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Thank You :-) -- Rehnn83 Talk 08:54, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

A7 for non-notable products

I would like to propose adding articles that do not assert the notability of products to the A7 criteria. Products are quite similar to corporations; if a corporation isn't notable, neither are its products. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:41, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm strongly against this. "Product" is too broad, would need caveats for valid sub-articles (such as books and albums, for instance), and assumes too much. Anything blatantly promotional is already covered by G11, so this would be an unnecessary shift. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:48, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
I think it's untenable to add this because the notion of significance would be too ambiguous. Take, for instance, books. Why should an article about a book have to make claims about importance in order to escape speedy deletion? If a book exists and is really published, it probably needs debate. If someone thinks it's a vanity-published book, it probably still deserves a PROD tag. And then albums would make a whole other class of articles. And software. And then you'll get someone deleting an article like Pulsar 590. CSD G11 will take care of the serious problems, here, no need to expand it. Mangojuicetalk 20:26, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Mangojuice above. This would be a bad idea, we alrady get too many dubiuous A7s, this would just make the problem worse. DES (talk) 22:34, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
As to Mangojuice's comment about software, why could non-notable web software (doesn't necessarily have to be advertising) be speedily deleted while other types of software have to wait the entire length of PROD or AFD? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:34, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, we should probably remove "web content" as well. It's very vague, and anything vague in the CSD will be pushed as far as it can be pushed. It used to be "websites," I thougt - that was at least well-defined and limited. Mangojuicetalk 05:32, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I have always understood the web portion of A7 to mean "web sites". That is clear cut, and also we do get a lot of would-be articels about non-notable web sites. Web softweare is a far smaller problem, adn has all the same isues as other products. i would favor changing "web content" back to "web sites". DES (talk) 06:05, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't paying attention when the wording was changed, but I'm guessing it's meant to include single-page content like web games, youtube videos, and the like. It's not a 'site' per se, because it's only a part of some larger site. -- nae'blis 17:47, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
Then it should say "site or page" -- "content" is too vague. DES (talk) 05:03, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
I changed it back to "site." If you look at {{db-web}} you'll see a list of other things this criterion is supposed to refer to, including blogs, podcasts, webcomics, et cetera. We should probably make sure it's line with A7. And in response to Nae'blis, I think web pages can be considered web sites, people aren't going to be too semantic about that. Mangojuicetalk 12:32, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I think just saying "website" will lead to a lot of lawyering... people arguing a blog, a forum, a video on youtube or whatever is not a "website". 'web content' never meant downloadable software, at least I never thought it did. If it says other things in db-web, we should mention that in A7. --W.marsh 12:32, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
But... we just ignore that kind of lawyering, don't we? A blog or a forum is a kind of website. A video on youtube isn't, and frankly does probably need wider evaluation. Most internet memes like that end up deleted for lack of sources, but it could stand for debate. The wording in {{db-web}}, in my view, just explains what is meant by "web site" a little more. (And looking over it, I do think it's in line. All those things can be clearly thought of as websites of some type.) Mangojuicetalk 13:30, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I think it's kind of a stretch to call a podcast a website, personally. But all of those fit under web content. I guess it's semantics, but I think the db-web template should closely match A7 just so to reduce confusion. --W.marsh 13:45, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
It's my general philosophy with the CSD rules, though, that admins will push these rules as far as they can be pushed. Hence, we should stick with "website" and let that be pushed to include podcasts, rather than "web content" which could be pushed into areas A7 isn't appropriate for. It might be worth taking "podcast" out of db-web if you think it's confusing. Mangojuicetalk 15:04, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
  • "Web content" is better. Not really because of wikilawyering but because people might misunderstand. A flash animation is not, strictly speaking, a website. Yet it is precisely the kind of stuff that people add unencyclopedic and unverifiable articles on. >Radiant< 08:54, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Red link template

{{db-list}} should be removed under CSD A7. Purgatory Fubar Converse or Snafu 23:54, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Removed it. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 05:15, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. Purgatory Fubar Converse or Snafu 17:04, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
Er, just for the record, templates can't be removed under A7; the "a" in that stands for "article". I'm not saying it shouldn't have been deleted (it failed its TfD, after all), I'm merely pointing it out. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:09, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure he was referring to the fact that it was a speedy template that misrepresented A7. Either that or he just meant "under the section A7". -Amarkov moo! 17:11, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Both. Purgatory Fubar Converse or Snafu 17:43, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Notify authors about speedy deletion?

I think that speedy deletion warnings may be trolls' food under certain circumstances (such as blatant vandalism, obviously blatant nonsense, etc) because it attract them back to the questioned article, and they may realize about a deletion and repost it under a different name. What is the consensus about this? (Of course, I am for WP:AGF and WP:DONTBITE, but these are not absolute requirements). Rjgodoy 04:55, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I will not delete a page unless a notice has been placed on the creator's page (if the creator was logged in). Sometimes I place the notice and then delete. I also never place a db tag without placing a notice. If I see that a particualr editor has a habit of taggign withotu placing notices, i will usually ask that editor to do so. If the habit persists, i will noramlly not delete anything tagged by that editor. I would favor making notification mandatory. If the creator is a troll or a vandal s/he eill probably notice anyway, and a talk page full of notices helps establish this for otehr editors. And in the very common case of a good faith creation of a very poor article, a notice is a very good teaching tool. DES (talk) 05:01, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Good point!! So I will... Rjgodoy 09:12, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree with DES. It's an act of courtesy, as well as a way of introducing new editors to the way we operate around here. – Riana ऋ 09:22, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree as well - it is a courtesy to people who create article in good faith, and a visible indication of bad behavior for those who create articles in bad faith (attack and vandalism). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 10:52, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree too; it's a courtesy to good-faith editors, and it's a record of behaviour for vandal editors. Mr Stephen 11:34, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with a hard requirement to inform users. I don't think it's necessary, really: polite, helpful, welcoming, yes, but it's not important. And I wouldn't want to discourage someone from page patrolling by making a big deal out of their not informing users. I personally never place the warnings or check for them, it's too many steps for me and there's always such a huge backlog. Users should be encouraged to leave the notes, and that's as far as it should go. Admittedly, there are times when I'm checking into a user's bad behavior and I wish there was some record of what their deleted article edits were, but that's not a strong enough reason (see WP:PPP). Mangojuicetalk 20:10, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
I confess I have sometimes not done it with obvious trolls and test pages, but I have been convinced by the arguments above that it makes sense --if only for the record if they ed. comes back. The way for make it easier is to do it automagically; usually the first editor is the key one for a speedy--there's often nobody else, and this can be selected by a program. We need procedures for doing good speedies with less work. do we need a developer, or can in be done with templates? (I like the prod template as a starting point for this, though it isnt automatic)DGG 10:18, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
If you want to notify the first editor to every speedy-tagged article, I suggest that a bot would be the best route forwards; you can request one at WP:BOTREQ. (If I remember correctly, there's already a bot doing something like this at AfD.) --ais523 10:21, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I have requested such a bot, and I understand that one is being created. DES (talk) 21:50, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea to notify, but shouldn't be required. When an article disappears, a new user probably will have no idea... and not know to check the deletion log. Notifying is a common sense way to explain what happened. But it's also a task that could be much more automated than it currently is... a bot is a good idea. NPWatcher lets you notify automatically, but you have to load the whole program so it's not practical just to nuke a single article you run into that meets a CSD. Some script to add a "notify (reason)" option to the deletion screen would be very good. --W.marsh 15:07, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Add, unfortunately, NPWatcher remains windows only.DGG 06:44, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
I think that notifying the author is something which should usually be done, but should be left up to the tagger - and if someone tags it and doesn't notify the author, other users (including the deleting admin) may do so themselves (but are not required to do so). There are situations where a user may reasonably decide not to inform the user, or he may choose to`do so in some other method than using the standard messages (including as part of some other message). Od Mishehu 07:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
  • WP:PEREN issue. Yes, it's nice to do it, and yes, mandating it would be instruction creep. >Radiant< 08:55, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with article WP:OWNership. People should watchlist articles they are interested in. --Kim Bruning 22:24, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, ideally people should. But newcomers often do not know how to watchlist articles, and experienced users with large watchlists can have things slip through. (my own watch list has several thousand entries) I feel that notification serves several very useful purposes. 1) It helps avoid biting the newbies when new editors have invalid articles suddenly deleted, and it can help educate those same new editors in wikipedia standards; 2) The creator of an article, particularly a very new article, may often have information that is relevant to whether it should be deleted or not. On a number of occasions i have seen editors, clearly attracted by notification tags, add info that makes a probable speedy into a valid stub or article, to the benefit of the project as a whole; If an editor makes a habit of creating articles that are speedy deleted, notifications leave a record on the editors user page, which can be very helpful to others dealing with the user; 4) It helps avoid the feeling that deletion is an impersonal, mysterious process. In no way do I suggest that the creator owns the article, but the creator is responsible for the edit that creates an article, just as any editor is responsible for his or her edits, and being informed is both useful and polite. DES (talk) 22:46, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
The deletion of an article won't show in a watchlist, so watchlisting will do you no good here. It's not that people have a right to notification, it just that it leads to less confusion and wheel-spinning if a clear notification is made. --W.marsh 23:49, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I've had that issue a couple of times too. Perhaps article deletion should show in watchlists? --Kim Bruning 15:38, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
That's one of the more popular feature requests, which developers haven't gotten round to yet. See bugzilla:5546 (to stop people filing yet another duplicate bug on the subject). --ais523 15:55, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Note that even if code changes are made so that deletion shows in watchlists, notification would still be valuable for several reasons: 1) new editors often do not know about watchlists and how to sue them, and new editors disproportionately create invalid articles in good faith; 2) the educative function of a notice is lost or much reduced with a simple line in a watchlsit; 3) If the crator ha information relavant to whther an article actually should be speedy deleted, that info is more useful before the deletion happens (although undeletion is possible), and a notice is far more likely to elicit it in that timeframe. DES (talk) 16:18, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
The only problem being that doing so grants recognition to article WP:OWNers. Is it possible to sidestep that issue? --Kim Bruning 16:50, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't see notification as granting or implying that the creator (person who made the in ital edit) in any way WP:OWNs the article, and i agree that no such recognition should be given or implied. The reasons for notification is that, in effect, a question has arisen about the quality of an edit, and the best person to ask is the editor who made the edit. If there is a good reason why the article should not be deleted, but that reason is not yet apparent, the creator is particularly likely to know it and be able to edit it into the article. if the article was in fact invalid, and should not have been created, the person who created it is the person who needs to be educated, or if acting willfully, warned. perhaps the wording of such notification templates can be changed to make it clear that their use in no way implies that the in inital creator in any way owns the article, has veto power over its deletion or future course, or is in any way privileged over any other good-faith editor. Would such changes serve to ally this concern on your part, do you think? Please not that while not mandatory, notification of article creators has been recommended and customary for at least 2 years, and i think longer. Please also note that IMO at least, it applies (or should apply) far more strongly to relatively new articles which are likely to be on fewer watchlists, and to be considerably more likely to tagged for speedy deletion. DES (talk) 17:16, 8 May 2007 (UTC)