Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 25

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G4, AfD, DRV, and recreated articles

I think there is a loop hole in our system. I'm noticing an increase of recreated articles previously deleted at AfD. The article have been recreated without going through WP:DRV. The reasoning given is that if CSD G4 does not apply, then it is OK to recreate the article. CSD G4 usually is taken literally - that if the recreated article does not substantially match the deleted article, then CSD G4 does not apply. The problem with this scheme is that recreated articles that do not meet CSD G4 are getting recreated even though they do not overcome the deficiencies listed at the prior AfD. A purpose of DRV is that DRV is to be used if significant new information has come to light since a deletion and the information in the deleted article would be useful to write a new article. If an article is recreated after AfD where the recreated article does not meet CSD G4 and the information in the deleted article would not be useful to write a new article, do we really allow recreation of an article prior to determining by consensus that the deficiencies listed at the prior AfD have been resolved? I think we need to broaden the scope of how CSD G4 is implemented and revise the DRV purposes to make it clearer that if CSD G4 does not apply, there still is a need to go through WP:DRV to recreate a deleted article. The present language in our policies do not seem to make this clear. -- Jreferee t/c 16:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I changed 'and' to 'in', making the substantially of the changes contingent on their addressing the issues in the AFD. I think that this is mere clarification; plainly, a change that does not address any of the issues raised in the AFD is not really substantial in any way that matters, no matter how many words it moves around. Hitting a page with a thesaurus does not prevent old AFDs from applying to it. I should add: Although this was just a quick fix to address what seems to be a common misunderstanding, it might be best to remove the "substantially identical" entirely, and instead say that to avoid A4 the new article must address the issues in the AFD or be changed significantly enough to render those concerns inapplicable. --Aquillion 16:27, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
This strikes me as an unnecessary layer of process. If the reviewing admin decides that an article can be delted under G4 and if anybody objects and thinks that G4 doesn't apply, then it can go to DRV. If the reviewing admin feels that the article is substantially different, then it can stay and anybody who objects to that ruling can take it to AfD. But if we do as you say, then we might as well salt every single article deleted at AfD, which strikes me as a bad idea. I don't see what's to be gained by instituting an approvals process for article creation. -Chunky Rice 16:32, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
I would oppose any strengthening of G4. It is already abused too often to attempt deletion of articles that have been deleted before. Quite a few articles are deleted improperly on A7 grounds, or because the first instance of the article was spam, context free, a real A7 violation, or simply unnoticed by anyone in time to save it from deletion. If a user in good faith recreates an article because they think it is worthy, it deserves a fresh hearing. No point forcing people to go through the hoops of DRV, which discourages recreation of good articles. Wikidemo 16:54, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
If AfD consensus concludes an article is not worthy, why should one editor be permitted to recreate an article after the AfD close merely because they think it is worthy? -- Jreferee t/c 17:00, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Because anyone can edit Wikipedia and there is a presumption that those edits are in good faith. If someone believes that a sujbect is worthy and notable they should be entitled to create that article, and not have it summarily deleted by people simply because they don't want to see the article there. Wikidemo 18:35, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
G4 is often abused for re-deleting articles that were previously deleted through CSD or PROD, while it doesn't apply to that (prodded articles may be recreated by anyone at any time, and speedied articles may be deleted under the same criterion as before (or another criterion), or they should go through an AFD discussion). The issue here is that the wording of G4 should perhaps be broadened because if there is an AFD consensus to delete the article on grounds of non-notability, and the article is recreated with slightly different content, the concerns in the AFD haven't been resolved, and it would be better to take it to DRV before recreating the article. Melsaran (talk) 14:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I think that's untrue as a simple matter of article mechanics. Most of an article is talk about its subject, not assertions of the subject's notability. The difference between a notable and non-notable thing is often a few words. Oh, and by the way, they won the Pulitzer Prize, or that book sold five million copies, or they won the election and are now Mayor of New York City. A single sentence can cure a 20K article. It can be even shorter if the flaw was one of verifiability -- e.g. we'll source that claim to the Wall Street Journal instead of a gossip blog. That's why the criterion requires that to be speedily deleted on the assumption that the new article has the same notability flaws as the old one, the new article be substantially the same. Moreover, the re-creating editor has not seen the old article necessarily, so they have no basis to know. This is simply a test to make sure they're not re-inserting the same discredited content that got deleted in the first place. If it's a new effort it deserves a new look. I've recreated a good number of deleted articles, some quite important (e.g. Mizoli's), and as far as I know they've all stood. If I had to go through deletion review I would not have. As someone who didn't participate in the original article or deletion debate, I simply don't have the tools to get into a deletion review debate. There is a high threshold of investigation for someone in that position - have to ask an admin for a copy, study the debate, etc. Wikidemo 02:08, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Aquillion's changes are moving along the right track. I agree that the "substantially identical" portion seems irrelevant since it only matters for G4 purposes whether the reasons for deletion have been overcome. If the reasons for deletion clearly have been overcome (e.g. footnoted sentences to reliable source material), G4 does not apply and DRV is not necessary. If the reasons for deletion have not been overcome, then G4 should apply even though the material is not substantially identical. The grey area is where DRV recreation approval might be appropriate. In practice, an admin can approve the recreation of deleted material without a need to go through DRV. -- Jreferee t/c 16:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
I think this change overbroadens G4. Often, it's unclear exactly why an article failed AfD, and settling on a reason would require excessive discretion on the part of the deleting administrator. Another problem is that AfDs often overlook important issues completely. Spacepotato 16:58, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, I think you have some good points. The "substantially identical" portion seems to protect against unclear AfDs (of which there are many). However, the change puts more control in the G4 speedy delete admins hands, since they may review the AfD for clarity as well. -- Jreferee t/c 17:01, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Are there some specific instances that you can point to where you feel the current system has failed? I'm just not seeing this "gray area" that you're concerned about. -Chunky Rice 17:05, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Please, let's not make WP:DRV a required gate to pass before creating an article where there has been an XfD previously. Let DRV review the G4 deletion after it occurs, if any occurs (or for salted pages, for reviewing a request to unsalt). The typical editor can't even see the prior article (although it might be available in an internet archive or cache somewhere). Leave DRV as it is intended to be - a forum of last resort for disputed deletion decisions. Creating encyclopedic content comes first, not process. Until an admin says that the new article should be deleted, we don't have a dispute. GRBerry 18:30, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
I think I agree with Wikidemo's revert here. The main purpose of G4 is to stop the creators of deleted articles from just pasting the content back in. If someone independently writes a new article on a topic that was previously deleted at AfD, it deserves a new review — even if the conclusion is just an unanimous "delete, still not notable". That said, I'd urge admins not to be too strict in interpreting the "substantially identical" requirement: "hitting the page with a thesaurus" (what a lovely figure of speech) should not be taken as sufficient to avoid deletion under G4. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:09, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to add that much of the problem indeed comes from vague AfDs. Ideally, they should not exist: every AfD closed as "delete" should explain why the article was deleted and what would have to be fixed before it may be recreated. This does not mean that all AfDs should be required to quote chapter and verse from specific policies, merely that those arguing in favor of deletion should explain what they feel is the problem with the article, and that the admins closing the nominations should summarize the arguments they consider relevant for their closure if it's not obvious. (Of course, often enough they do. It's only occasionally that the problems described by Jreferee occur.) On DRV, it's common to see arguments like "endorse deletion, without prejudice against recreation if X, Y and Z." I'd like to see this form of argument become more popular on AfD too, especially in closing comments. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Any admin who takes part in speedy deletions should be capable of evaluating an AfD consensus for themselves, regardless of what the closing admin did or did not say. -Chunky Rice 20:37, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Okay, let me take one of my messier closures as an example. Of course, that one was a "keep", so it's not directly relevant. Even so, do you really think the outcome of that debate was sufficiently obvious that I didn't really need to offer even as much explanation as I did? If the conclusion had been "delete" and the article had been recreated with, for example, improved sourcing, would you really want to read that entire debate, plus the talk pages referenced in it, to find out whether the changes have addressed the concerns it was deleted for? Or how about, say, this one (or the one that followed it)? —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 08:23, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

R4

Suggestion, perhaps we could have a speedy tag as a result of page move vandalism. Cheers,JetLover (Report a mistake) 23:59, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Redundant to G3 (vandalism); page move vandalism is still vandalism. Actually, G3 used to say "this includes redirects from page move vandalism", but this was removed as self-evident in order to make the descriptions more concise and less wordy. Melsaran (talk) 00:01, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

G6 also applies here. Mr.Z-man 00:19, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

"It was a valid A7"

Repeatedly I've seen the sentence above written in contexts where it seems clearly intended to terminate the discussion. "It was a valid A7". The idea seems to be that after I agree with that, I'm no longer entitled to criticize a decision to delete something, and common sense and a sense of responsibility should no longer inform the thinking of the person who deleted something after the conclusion that it's a valid A7 has been reaced. It's just as if the conclusion that it's a valid A7 is a license to stop thinking. That it is permissible to delete an article if it's a valid A7 is one thing. That every such article should be deleted rather than added to, taking five seconds or so, is another. "It's a valid A7 so shut up and stop all discussion of the matter" is just not a position that can be taken by any good-faith contributor to Wikipedia. People who say that should not be accorded the same respect that good-faith contributors should get. The stub article titled Ivor Wilks said he is a noted Africanist. The tiniest bit of common sense would tell anyone instantly that if you google that name, you would probably either find some reasons why he is notable or else conclude that he probably is not, in less than five seconds. Does it help Wikipedia to have people who not only won't do that, but who think they should not be criticized for deleting without doing at least that? Michael Hardy 15:23, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

An article such as that would never be a valid A7 anyway, as there's an assertion of notability. If there's any assertion of notability, it's not a valid A7, even if evidence suggests that they aren't notable. In that case, it's time for PROD or AfD. SamBC(talk) 15:41, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
If there's any assertion of notability, it isn't in fact a valid A7. And if there is no such assertion, then it's a perfectly reasonable assumption that Googling the subject won't do anything. -Amarkov moo! 15:50, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
This page is not for griping about WP policies and admins. Please ease up on the insulting insinuations ("the tiniest bit of commons sense", "not a position that can be taken by any good-faith contributor", "people who say that should not be accorded the same respect", etc.) and if you have a suggestion for improving the policy, express it. Thank you. -- But|seriously|folks  18:46, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I've said this before, you should not have to do research beyond reading the article to determine an assertion of notability or to establish context. Articles "go live" and should be able to stand on their own from the moment you click "Save page" the first time. The article must provide the necessary context; we should not require people do do extra research to determine what an article is about. Mr.Z-man 19:01, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Of course you should do a google search or the like before deciding to delete an article on grounds of assertion of notability. The casual reader shouldn't have to o more than check citations and wikilinks if they question an article, but a deleting admin should make sure their actions make sense. To do otherwise is weak. Wikidemo 19:38, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
We get hundreds of inappropriate articles created daily. Dozens of musicians post articles about their non-notable bands each day. There aren't enough admins to keep up with the flow as it is, as C:CSD is almost always backlogged. Our policies require the authors of certain limited categories of articles to explain why the subject is important or significant. It's not a high threshold, and it's certainly not too much to ask of an author. If an author can't even satisfy this low standard, why place the burden on the admins? A7 is vital as it is one of the things that keeps Wikipedia from becoming a glorified directory of anything and everything. It's also without prejudice; anybody can recreate the article, provided they address the deficiency. -- But|seriously|folks  19:49, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
It could be a matter of "I know it when I see it", then. I'm concerned because every once in a while I see a bad A7 nomination and some percentage (10-20%?) of the articles nominated for AFD on notability grounds are clearly notable if someone would do a few seconds of google searching, but maybe it's a skewed result because one normally doesn't notice all the articles that don't get speedily deleted.Wikidemo 19:53, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
An assertion of notability means the article must say why it is notable, it does not have to prove notability to avoid A7 speedy deletion, just say why it is notable. Admins don't have to do research before speedy deleting articles. There is a big difference between the WP:N definition of notability used at AFD and a simple assertion for A7. An assertion does not require sources, just a statement. If an article cannot stand on its own, its not really an article. Mr.Z-man 20:01, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
In the cases I describe articles are proposed for deletion for being non-notable or for not asserting notability, as the case may be, despite the subject being clearly notable. Nobody has to do anything on Wikipedia, but admins ought to be careful about what they delete. Oftentimes these are pretty good articles. It's not the norm but it's not uncommon either. One hopes people see the light and the results are for the most part to keep. Wikidemo 20:25, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
By proposed, I assume you mean nominated for speedy deletion, rather than WP:PROD. That said, I agree that an editor should not have to do any research in order to determine whether or not there is an assertion of notability. That is because the requirement for an assertion is very low. My practice is to evaluate each phrase in an article with the question "Has anyone (group, website, etc) every been made notable for a similiar claim?" If the answer is yes, then there is an assertion of notability. Published a book? Yes. Originated a theory? Yes. Starred in a movie or TV show? Yes. Released an album? Yes. Been the first, largest, last, best any thing? Yes. The list could be multiplied endlessly. If you ever reach a state of saying, "maybe I should check google on this one", then there is probably enough of an assertion to avoid A7. Dsmdgold 20:31, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Amen. (By which I mean "I concur." :)) --Moonriddengirl 20:35, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
(undent) Um, I could release an album or publish a book tonight if I wanted to. I agree that if someone has done so on an established label or through an established publisher, that's sufficient to avoid A7. But vanity presses do not assert significance or importance as required by A7. -- But|seriously|folks  20:46, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
That's also true. :) Album releases, too, are not necessarily notable, if self-published. But I agree whole-heartedly with Dsmdgold's statement that "If you ever reach a state of saying, "maybe I should check google on this one", then there is probably enough of an assertion to avoid A7", which I feel is completely consistent with my reading of Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Explanations, that says A7 is when there is "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." I've run into many A7s that make no claim of notability and that don't raise questions of it in me (even the kids who said they made a demo-album in their garage), but my own general rule of thumb is "when in doubt, check it out". After all, as non-criteria notes, "Articles that seem to have obviously non-notable subjects are not eligible for speedy deletion unless the article does not assert the importance or significance of its subject. If the article gives a claim that might be construed as making the subject notable, it should be taken to a wider forum". :) --Moonriddengirl 21:00, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Agreed that "when in doubt, check it out." The thing that bugs me as an admin is getting reamed for deleting an article that turned out to be on a notable subject, when the article gave absolutely no indication whatsoever that the subject was notable. Many admins have stopped newpage patrolling for that reason. If Wikipedia turns into little more than a glorified MySpace then presumably those people will be delighted. Raymond Arritt 21:26, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
"absolutely no indication whatsoever that the subject was notable" is just not true. Anyone with any common sense would have suspected the subject was notable because of what the article said. The article was not clear about why it was notable only because the person who wrote it either was not very articulate are (more likely in this case, considering who it was) was imperfectly familiar with Wikipedia's usages. There was plenty of reason to suspect notability. Michael Hardy 21:56, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm speaking in more general terms here, not about this specific article. Raymond Arritt 21:59, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Michael, I think you are wrong. Here is a link to the precisde version that I tagged: [1]. Is it really the case, so much so as to justify an entire thread here, that anyone with common sense would realise that a "noted British Africanist" was functionally different from a "well-known garage band" or any other vague, unsubstantiated claim of notability? Really? Absolutely anyone with common sense? Would instantly realise? I don't think so. Cruftbane 12:22, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
(After edit conflict) I agee that vanity press may not establish enough notability to survive PROD or AfD. However articles rarley actually state that the book in question was published by a vanity press. They usually just claim that the subject has published a book. If, after a little research, you determine that the book is published by a vanity press, i.e. the calim of notability is not sufficient to establish notability, the proper recourse is to send the article to PROD or AfD. I also think that self-recorded demo CDs are not an assertion of notability, and I have deleted articles in which the stongest claim to notability was the recording of demo-cd. Anything more seious than that, however would qualify as an assertion of notability in my mind. Dsmdgold 21:31, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

If the article says "John Doe is a noted XYZologist", an admin can say it doesn't asserted notability (that's what happened with Ivor Wilks) and deleted it under A7 (that's what happened with Ivor Wilks), but when the claim is credible (as with Ivor Wilks) anyone who say "I shouldn't be required to google it before deleting" deserves only to be told that he was irresponsible when he deleted it. After you've determined it's a valid A7, that's when you should start thinking about whether it should be deleted, not when you should stop thinking about it. Michael Hardy 21:51, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be a big misunderstanding here about what A7 says. It says that an article qualifies if there is no assertion of notability. Full stop, no conditionals. "John Doe is a noted X" is an assertion of notability. Someone who deletes such an article under A7 is wrong, because it does not apply. But if someone just says "John Doe is an X", that is not an assertion of notability, unless all X are inherently notable. It's unreasonable to expect admins to pull up Google every time they see an article that says "This person is X". -Amarkov moo! 21:59, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Can you explain that to user:Cruftbane? He doesn't want to list to me. He insists that "John Doe is a noted X" is NOT an assertion of notability. Michael Hardy 00:01, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Given the hostile and abrasive tone you've used toward him (e.g., "(you, in particular) lack common sense"), it's hardly a surprise that he won't listen to you. It may make you feel good to belittle others but it's not an effective way to communicate. Raymond Arritt 04:00, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Vague and unsubstantiated assertions of notability are not credible assertions of notability. "John Doe is a noted academic", with no other content, is a valid A7 (and the article Michael Hardy is on about was deleted by an admin who clearly agreed with that). Articles on living individuals which have absolutely no sources whatsoever are also a problem. We really do not need completely unsourced half-sentence stubs making vague arm-waving claims of notability. If, on the other hand, people devoted the effort involved in defence of such articles to, say, sourcing them, or including some of the things they know about the subject that actually makes them notable, well, that would be good. "Wah! He's notable!" is much much less persuasive, in my view, than "oh, right, yes, let's add the reasons why he's important". And castigating other people for an article creator's failure to include any credible or substantiated claim of notability, any "hook", and sources, or indeed anything at all beyond "John Doe is a noted academic" - which is functionally identical to "GarageBand are a famous garage band" - is really not helping anyone at all. As usual in such cases, the meta debate is several orders of magnitude bigger than the article, even now. It might have been more helpful if Michael had backed me up in trying to tell the article creator what was needed to make a valid article, instead of pretending that the half-sentence substub was all that is needed. Fault on both sides? Perfectly possible. Fault on my side only? I think not. Additionally, I think that raising this here without mentioning it to me in any way was very rude. As it happens, comments on Michael's talk page lead me to believe he is pissed with someone (else) and is being rude and aggressive as a result. Remember, friends, that Wikipedia is not about process. It is about building a reliable, credible encyclopaedia. "John Doe is a noted academic" fails that aim; it is also counter-productive in that a redlink might actually prompt someone to write an actual article. There is an essay, Wikipedia:I wouldn't know him from a hole in the ground which precisely describes this problem, and how to fix it (i.e. tell people why the hell they should care). While Michael may not agree that it was a valid A7, the idea that it was is certainly defensible, in my view, and Michael's comments above indicate that in his view to call it an A7 is not only wrong, but also indefensible. I have no problem with the idea of being wrong - I make as many mistakes as anyone else, probably more - it is the fact that he asserts bad faith with absolutely no acknowledgement of any problem whatsoever with an essentially empty article, that bothers me here. That and the venue shopping - this has been to three separate user talk pages as well. Cruftbane 11:23, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
There you have it. Cruftbane says some assertions of notability are not really assertions of notability because he doesn't consider them credible. That's a slippery slope if there ever was one. Famousness, for a band, is notability and a claim to be famous is an assertion of notability. You might believe it's a peacock term, lacks a source, is wrong, etc., but that's not what speedy deletion is about. I also point out that the name "cruftbane" detracts from the credibility of the position. It creates the implication of aggressive POV editing for POV. Editors with that kind of name should not be biting newbies. Wikidemo 01:58, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
"John Smith is absolutely the best guitarist in history". There: an assertion of notability. Would you speedy it? Applying the policy strictly, as you seem to suggest, you may not do so. In practice many, probably most admins would. Now stop the ad-hominem argument, please; as I said all along, if there had been even a sniff of a credible claim to notability this argument would not be taking place, and the size of the argument vastly exceeds the size of the article, then or now. And I chose the username from WP:ATA. Sure, I hate cruft, but I also have a sense of humour - it's a whimsical name. Cruftbane 21:51, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

As an aside, the problem here doesn't exactly seem to be policy, but rather, people like this (the original deletion tagger of the Ivor Wilks article). With that kind of an attitude, it doesn't seem like any kind of a deletion policy is going to prevent people from applying it incorrectly and not caring. --W.marsh 22:14, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

A good rule won't stop a doggedly sloppy editor, but it will allow people to discuss reasonably whether the editor's actions are reasonable and if necessary overrule, warn, counsel, etc., the editor. I think the rules are pretty good, and this discussion is for the most part an appropriate one on how we do just that. Wikidemo 22:24, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I have a template I sometimes use when I run into editors who tag articles for A7 that do not deal with the A7 criteria—User:Moonriddengirl/A7. I haven't run into a lot of clear mistagging of notable A7 candidates, but maybe a similarly friendly template to let them know what an assertion of notability means would be helpful. --Moonriddengirl 23:18, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
A7 and G1 (nonsense) are, from my experience, the 2 most misused criteria. However, if a rule is not being applied correctly by some people, you educate those people about the correct way to apply the rule. You don't abandon or weaken the rule. Mr.Z-man 23:33, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
not weaken it--make it more precise. If people repeatedly misunderstand a rule or other communication, then the language may need clarifying or the rule itself may need greater precision--a unambiguous text is easier to teach.DGG (talk) 03:49, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Of course, clarifying it further is fine, but we should not require admins to do research before A7 deletions, that would weaken weaken it IMO. Mr.Z-man 04:05, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Googling made easy

I'd just like to hijack this discussion to plug my "Google link" user script (available here or here). I originally wrote it to make Newpages patrolling easier, and I've found it very convenient for that as well as for handling CAT:CSD, especially the A7 cases. I've also found it useful for locating copyvios, establishing missing context for borderline A1s, finding potential references and for evaluating the likelihood of a page being a G10. It can also be useful for locating existing (or previously deleted) duplicate articles, although it's not primarily designed for that (adding "-Wikipedia" to the query by default to rule out most mirrors). —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 04:38, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Nifty -- thanks! -- But|seriously|folks  04:42, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

New page redundant to preexisting page

Shurikenjitsu is a recently created page that is redundant to the previously existing Shurikenjutsu. They are the same term with (valid) alternate spellings. This does not seem to fit into any of the listed criteria for speedy deletion, yet intuitively seems to warrant speedy deletion. What is the proper course of action? Thank you, Bradford44 15:51, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

You can replace it with a redirect(Help:Redirect) and move over any useful content. 1 != 2 15:54, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Thank you, I'll do that. Bradford44 23:31, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

457_55_5462

07:57, 4 October 2007 Jayvdb (Talk | contribs) deleted "457 55 5462" ? (Speedy deleted per (CSD r3), was a redirect based on an implausible typo. using TW)

There is nothing implausible about 457_55_5462 ; it is one of the best known numbers in North America.

Recently created redirects from implausible typos or misnomers. However, redirects from common misspellings or misnomers are generally useful, as are redirects in other languages.

is one of several thousand policies, millions, that are ambiguous, best employed f/ vengeance, abuse, & other forms of assuming bad faith, games.

Is there one policy that is logical, consistent??

[[ hopiakuta Please do sign your signature on your message. ~~ Thank You. -]] 22:50, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Expansion of A7. One minor thing

A7 states that corporations can be speedily deleted, however products are not listed under A7. This seems weird; a corporation could be non-notable but its products could be? How does that make sense? It would seem to me that if an article about a non-notable coporation is speedily-deletable, then one about the products of a non-notable corporation is equally as speedily-deletable? Should non-notable products and services be added to A7? I only ask because several db-a7 tags I have added to articles about products have been removed. Any ideas? --Jayron32|talk|contribs 18:33, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

  • A problem with products is that claims of importance are much more subjective. Is it enough of a claim of notability to say a brand of toaster is made by Black & Decker, or that a new film has a score by John Williams? I mean, if those were the only claims of notability in a new article, I can imagine a lot of people wanting them to nominate the articles for speedy deletion. It's just tricky to get right, apparently. But people misapply A7 to people, corporations et al quite a bit. I'm not opposed or in favor of adding "products" to A7 just yet. --W.marsh 19:05, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, products with no claim of importance / significance made by companies with no claim of importance / significance should especially be speediable, as should albums with no claim of importance / significance made by artists with no claim of importance / significance. -- But|seriously|folks  19:10, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
  • 90% or more of such articles are easily tagged as spam anyway. Cruftbane 22:46, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
  • True, most db-corp articles could also be db-spam articles, but not always. It is entirely possible to write a WP:NPOV article which reads like a real wikipedia article, but which never asserts any real notability. And deleting admins should not be so officious as to refuse to speedy an article which carries a slightly differerent db tag (for example, tagging as db-spam an article which might be better served as db-corp). I have never run into an admin who has ever done that, though. However, while I would concede that apparently non-notable products by NOTABLE corporations (such as a specific model of Black and Decker staple gun or a specific, unreleased song by say the Rolling Stones) should probably get at least a prod and probably an AFD, that non-notable products by NON-NOTABLE corporations should be as speediable as the articles about the non-notable corporations themselves. If a company can't get an article into Wikipedia as itself for more than a few hours before getting speedied, why should it be able to game the system and get an article for a week about a plainly non-notable product it produces? This seems like an open loophole to the speedy process... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 01:22, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
  • There's an assumption (of bad faith) in all of this that this is all to battle companies setting out to promote themselves by illegitimate means. "Spam" and "advertisement" are way too often applied to articles that are merely attempts by good faith editors to expand the scope of coverage of Wikipedia. Users of products, people who follow the industry, etc., are probably the main source of product articles, not spammers. If one of them is going to take the trouble to write a full-fledged article that "looks good" they should have the benefit of the doubt as far as good faith - it's a serious attempt to write a real article and deserves a serious hearing at AFD, not speedy. Products are for a good deliberate reason left off the short list of article types speediable for lack of claims of notability. Notability claims are simply a lot more difficult to process for products than for organizations. With many short or stub product articles, it is often forced and artificial to include a claim of notability so obvious that even people who have no idea or interest in the product and what it does would be convinced that it's notable. Wikidemo 01:49, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
  • It's amazing how many of those followers of the industry turn out never to have edited anything else before, mind... Cruftbane 21:43, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Even if that's true all that proves is that the author's a newbie, not that it's spam. Newbies write weak articles on every subject.Wikidemo 10:14, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Products are like books or films--it is hard for one or two people to reliably judge. Speedy is only safe when the decisions can be made unequivocally. So putting products in A7 is not a good idea, because it will depend to much on what the one or two people happen to know about. Prod is much safer for this. Unfamiliarity is not unimportance. --and yes, we should rewrite G11, but--frankly--I cant think how to make it less a matter of judgment. Perhaps to say more clearly that this is an last resort when there is no factual information at all but only adjectives. For a company making one product, often A7 and G11 would both be correct. for the product of an established company, i suggest we need a discussion elsewhere in a more general way about what makes for notability. DGG (talk) 04:42, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I've A7'd products in clear-cut cases before, and not been challenged yet. Though realistically, most of them probably could just as easily have gone under G11, or in some cases A1 (they're not placed into any type of context, that's usually hand-in-hand with failure to assert significance). I've no problem with adding products to valid A7 targets, whether it's fans or marketers, the writing of glowing or unnecessary articles about everything a corporation makes should be discouraged. Of course, as always, genuinely notable products should have articles, provided said articles are not ads. Seraphimblade Talk to me 04:51, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I am not making any bad-faith assumptions at all about any articles; I am merely noting that articles about products that make NO assertions of notability should be equally speediable as articles about corporations that make NO assertions of notability. Again, A7 is not to be applied for contested claims of notability; such contested claims should be taken to AFD. A7 applies where no claims to notability are made AT ALL. Why products cannot be included in that guise where other random types of articles CAN seems random and arbitrary. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 06:51, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't around when it was set up, but I assume the A7 categories were chosen specifically because of the huge amount of nn coi articles we get in those areas. -- But|seriously|folks  07:27, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
I was around and you are correct. We used to have to vote at AfD (called VfD then) on all of the "Bob is a guy" articles. A7 as applied to persons predates PROD. If PROD had been inventented first, I doubt that A7 would have gained consensus. Dsmdgold 16:02, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
I suspect we would still have it. Waiting a week to delete an obviously unworthy vanity autobiography serves no useful purpose. Cruftbane 21:42, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Sadly, there are many who disagree with you. Raymond Arritt 21:49, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, the PROD system allows the article creator to remove the PROD (unlike speedy), and the only recourse at that point is AfD, so I'm not sure how well it would have stemmed the flow. -Chunky Rice 21:55, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't think very well at all. There's no reason to wait to delete "John Doe is the coolest kid at Somewhere High School". If you see something that's obviously garbage lying on your floor, you don't wait five days to see if anyone objects to throwing it in the garbage can, you just do. It's only if you're unsure if something is trash or not that you wait, maybe ask around to others who live there. Same applies here, no need to wait to take obvious garbage out. Seraphimblade Talk to me 07:29, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
You've hit on something but I'm not sure exactly how to say it. I doubt anyone who takes the time to read or comment on this page wants any "obvious garbage" here or would disagree with its deletion, whatever CSD category is cited. Conversely, anyone who adds utter junk articles is either unaware of or does not respect CSD or WP:N or any of the other rules. Once or twice for a newbie, understandable. Persistently? Must be a spammer. Some people think A7 or another category should be expanded to help fight the junk, yet some people feel A7 is too broad already because it permits deletion of material that should stay. That makes me wonder if A7 really effective or maybe it misses the point. What would happen if we replaced it with a different rule that was a better junk filter. Something like "articles about subjects nobody in their right would think are notable" (rhetorically, of course - it would need to be phrased better). We already rely a lot on nominators and closing/deleting admins having some good sense beyond what the rule says. Is the rule itself really helping them, or does it miss the mark so much that they're basically just relying on common sense? Wikidemo 09:42, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
I think you've hit on something there, as well. I think, in a lot of cases, both A7 and other categories get "stretched" to delete something which is very obviously not appropriate, but doesn't technically fit any established criterion. If someone writes an article about how their cat Mittens loves to chase a laser pointer, I'm going to delete it, even though technically there is no speedy category for non-notable cats. I'm not sure how we'd word such a criterion, though, any ideas? Seraphimblade Talk to me 07:18, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Patent nonsense? That category is overly narrow to discourage abuse, but I don't think anyone would object to calling a trivial non-article nonsense. I think the real answer is a WP:SNOWBALL-ish thing, patent rubbish, articles that no reasonable editor could possibly believe should be here. By definition, if any reasonable editor disagrees they can remove the tag.Wikidemo 16:24, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
We have exactly the procedure for the purpose: WP:PROD. If it cannot wait 5 days, then sure it fits into one or another of the existing speedies without having to stretch. What's more, it could be blanked as an editing decision. Speedy is already used too broadly. Once we solve that , we can think of ways to safely extend it. DGG (talk) 04:20, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Make It Easier for Editors to Nominate an Article for Speedy Deletion

For some unknown reason, this article turned up on my 'watch' page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Jackson

It appears to be complete, utter bunk...but I wonder if someone blanked an article and used it for something else? Why would this show up on my watchlist?Ryoung122 13:13, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

It was originally an unsourced bio with wild claims of criminal activities. After it had been deleted through PROD, you re-created the page with "This article was blatantly false vandalism.~~~~". Prolog 13:54, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps you clicked "watch this page" on accident when you edited the page (I sometimes do it on accident when I'm trying to click "save page", which is near the "watch this page" button)? The watchlist feature works such that you'll continue watching a page after it is deleted. --W.marsh 13:59, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Recommending notifying creators

While I doubt it will make a whole lot of difference in application, is there a reason not to strengthen this language—"Users nominating a page for speedy deletion should specify which criteria the page meets and consider notifying the page's creator"—into something more like "and are encouraged to notify the page's creator"? This is essential in G12 and a courtesy in all cases. Obviously notification can be useful in preventing confusion and panic when page creators return to find their pages gone and, when the templates specified on the deletion tag are used, are also very useful in pointing out policies they have overlooked. Stronger language might at least encourage new editors who join "new pages patrol" to take those extra seconds. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:05, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Personally I think that WikiProject notification (where possible and appropriate) would be superior to individual editor notification. About 10-30% of speedy-nominations I've looked at and/or dealt with in the past are not completely facetious additions to Wikipedia and were contributed with good intentions. Further, part of the panic that editors experience is based on the rather lengthy and not perfectly straightforward notification template ... though I say this without volunteering alternative text for inclusion, I realize. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 12:32, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
So don't extend the courtesy to the facetious additions. That's no reason it shouldn't be done for good faith additions. --bainer (talk) 13:14, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't see why not, but what's more important is to have a clear edit summary when attaching the AFD tag. Anyone who cares about the article, including the creator, should have it watch listed, so that's the widest possible notification. It would me useful to work with the projects that are willing, so that they would be notified and could have an automatic list somewhere every time an article within the scope of the project is nominated for deletion. Or heck, while we're at it, it would be nice if the projects could have an automated central section to tell their membership every time an image is tagged for deletion, an article gets a maintenance tag, is nominated for good or featured article status, etc. Wikidemo 14:23, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I use Twinkle to nominate pages, and now it automatically notifies the page's creator. J-ſtanTalkContribs 15:03, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, there's CSDWarnBot (talk · contribs). Is that not getting the job done? If notifications can be done by bot, there's no need to try to talk human editors into spending their time doing it. --W.marsh 15:10, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Apparently it's not. I find plenty of articles tagged for CSD where the editors have not been notified. Just looking at the batch up right now, 3 out of the first 5 on the list have no creator notifications: [2] (User talk:Iammaddux), [3] (User talk:Spc8), [4] (User talk:Rdbrady). --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:51, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Looking at its contributions, the bot seems to run every half-hour; the creator won't get notified for half an hour after the page is tagged, and if it gets deleted within that time, won't get notified at all. In any event I think that newbies who create bad articles in obvious good faith deserve at least a message from a real person rather than a bot - not least because when they return to find their page gone it may be the only explaination they get (newbies don't know about deletion logs, and even if they find it, they don't know what "db-bio" means). Vandals, spammers and people who write nonsense pages... well they're probably another matter. I agree with an alteration along the lines of Moonriddengirl's suggestion, though myself I'd probably phrase it along the lines of "and are encouraged to notify the page's creator, particularly if the page was created in apparent good faith", to stress the importance of doing so for this group of users. Iain99Balderdash and piffle 16:40, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I like your wording better than mine. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
The reason deletion logs say things incomprehensible to newbies like "db-bio" and "a7" is precisely because they're written by humans. A human editor rarely feels like writing a 200 character customized message to say basically the same thing every time... that's why deletion log entries get truncated down to jargon, and notifications would too. We don't really work in a perfect world... expecting a personalized notice that clears up any confusion is nice in theory, but as deletion logs show, it's just not realistic. A bot however, can provide a verbose and helpful notice if we configure it properly, and it will do it every time. The current bot probably just needs to run more than every hour, somehow or other. --W.marsh 18:06, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
But nobody has to write a customized message. All they need to do is copy & paste the template notification from the CSD notice on the page--for specific example, {{subst:nn-warn|Hooks n crooks|header=1}} ~~~~. It expands into a beautiful, specific message with pointers to policies, explanation of how to contest & even a built-in signature. :D Maybe the language of the notification recommendation should be tailored to point that out? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:13, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Still, it takes a lot of time when you add it all up. If the tagger forgets, the admin has to check... both have to memorize which template goes with which CSD tag... it's all stuff that can be automated without losing any quality. With tasks like CSD so perpetually backlogged, we need to automate every process we can so humans will be be able to spend more time on stuff bots will never be able to do. Creating unnecessary busy work for humans keeps us backlogged. --W.marsh 18:15, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree that as long as the work gets done, it doesn't really matter how it's done. If a bot can be configured properly for that, I'm all for it. Is that possible? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
(e/c)Why would a warning from a person be better than a bot? The CSD tags give a template to copy and paste to notify the creator; as far as I know, the bot uses the same or similar templates. If the bot could run more often, or even continuously, that would best. We can strengthen the language as much as we want short of requiring notification, whether or not it will make a difference is unknown. Mr.Z-man 18:18, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
A message from a person is better, because when the editor gets back to find their page missing, they have a person they can reply to and ask questions about why the article wasn't appropriate. You can't ask the bot questions - and I doubt that ST47 wants to deal with every enquiry from anyone who has a page speedied. Iain99Balderdash and piffle 19:11, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Anyone who deletes or tags an article should answer questions if asked. I don't need to spend my time pasting templates on people's talk pages to be able to answer their questions if they ask me; I already do that. --W.marsh 19:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Erm, yes, but how do they know it's you that tagged it if they find the page missing and no note of what happened? Iain99Balderdash and piffle 06:54, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Because the bot provides them with that notification. --W.marsh 13:06, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
(outdent) The bot doesn't provide the information I was thinking of (who tagged it and/or who deleted it), and while I don't know much about bot programming, I don't imagine it would be trivial to make it do so. However, having looked again at the bot's message, I see that it does at least provide a link to WP:WMD, which is a start. However, I still think that if I'm tagging an article by someone who is obviously taking time to try to improve Wikipedia (as opposed to a friend of gays), that it's just common courtesy for me to, at least, take the few seconds to cut and paste the appropriate notification template and a {{welcome}} onto their talk page, rather than let them get a message from an impersonal machine. But maybe that's just me. Iain99Balderdash and piffle 16:25, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, in my experience, most people who create non-vandalism articles will spend a few seconds figuring out who deleted it, and the link to WP:WMD (what a weird acronym, by the way...) is enough for them. It would still be optimal if the bot gave the name of the tagger if possible, but that's ST47's field, not mine. Ultimately, my point is that it's better that everyone get a decent automated message than some people get a great personal message. The automated message can always be improved. --W.marsh 17:03, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough - I certainly agree with improving the bot; I think everyone getting at least a passable message, and good faith contributors getting a more persobal one are both good things. Iain99Balderdash and piffle 18:49, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
(ec) I've asked ST47 (the bot operator who runs CSD notification bot) to join the discussion. I'm not a bot operator, and while I assume it's possible for the bot to run more frequently, there's probably some reason why it isn't. --W.marsh 18:20, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Oh, and to add that no memorizing is necessary, since the template is on the CSD notice put on the page—I just copied & pasted that one from Hooks n crooks. (And not because the creator wasn't notified; s/he was. It was completely random.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:19, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Hey folks - I'm the one that runs CSDWarnBot, and Wmarsh asked me to comment here. The reason the bot only runs every half hour is that I want to allow users a chance to leave their own message - I can change that time, if you want, it's really a simple change.
I'm not really sure what Moonriddengirl is saying here:
I agree that as long as the work gets done, it doesn't really matter how it's done. If a bot can be configured properly for that, I'm all for it. Is that possible?
Are you suggesting that I change something with the bot? --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹnoɟʇs 18:26, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
There may be consensus to have the bot notify more quickly, to ensure (nearly) everyone who creates a speedy deleted article gets a notification. I haven't seen any objections to that yet. --W.marsh 18:30, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
As W.marsh indicates, the speed of notification is what we were talking about there. :) I know nothing about bot-running, so my question was whether it was technically feasible to have the bot notify more quickly...or more often...or whichever needs to be done to help ensure that fewer creators go unnotified. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:53, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I would certainly like it to run faster. In the rare cases that I think the article I am tagging was made by a good faith user and I want to leave my own comment, I have no problem either adding to a bot message or replacing the bot message (which is what I do with CorenBot's copyright notices.Kww 18:55, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
If someone does want to leave a custom message, it can either be supplementary, or they can just write over bot's notice. So a faster bot wouldn't have to stop people who want to leave customized messages. --W.marsh 19:01, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm fine with having the bot run faster - I'll just add or overwrite with my own message when I think it's appropriate, and will keep encouraging others to do so. As with Kww, most of the articles I tag for speedy are complete rubbish and I'm quite happy to leave the default Twinkle message - but there are sometimes cases where I think the creator could make a good editor with a little TLC, and try to leave something more personal for them. Iain99Balderdash and piffle 19:20, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

On a related topic, note this current (almost expired) tfd on the issue of twinkle user notification of CDS tags. Currently the discussion seems to be on the track to get proper notification but some other input, yea or nay, recommendations, etc. would be valuable.--Fuhghettaboutit 03:27, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

IAR

In this AfD discussion, User:Smashville brought up that there should be a "duh" CSD. Would an admin be able to ignore the criteria in such an obvious case such as this? J-ſtanTalkContribs 18:24, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

That's the point of IAR. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹnoɟʇs 18:26, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

That's basically covered under WP:SNOW. It isn't an official CSD because a lot of admins already bend the official CSDs enough as it is. But yeah, as per WP:SNOW, you don't really have to wait around if a prod or AfD is painfully obvious. --Jaysweet 18:27, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
With these, it's important to realize that if someone without a COI makes a serious objection, it probably wasn't a very good application of WP:IAR. IAR is not about steamrolling opposition, it's about avoiding process for the sake of procession, in this case, deletion discussions where no one in their right mind would argue for keeping. --W.marsh 18:32, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
yes, and premature snow closings are the very sort of thing that frequently leads to overturn at Deletion Review. It is important to allow at least a day for some sort of evidence to appear, even when it seems obvious. We should be aware of the dynamics--the first few !votes are likely to be pile on deletes. in the rare case they aren't, they tend to be pile-on keeps; the balanced views tend to arrive later as the people not looking primarily at their favorite-- or their most disliked-- articles arrive. DGG (talk) 02:06, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
SNOW aside, if I had seen this article I would have deleted it under G10. (For non-admins, the article, titled "Todays television" started "The shows on television today are really ridiculous." and went from there in the same tone.) Sounds like "Page that serve no purpose but to disparage its subject" to me. Dsmdgold 02:44, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

There's always {{db}}, which lets you write a speedy reason freehand. If an article is obviously ridiculous and unsalvageable, I'll delete it under that, even if it doesn't technically fit one of the cookie-cutter reasons, and I know many others will as well. Seraphimblade Talk to me 03:30, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

New CSD category

It might be a good idea to add the CSD category, wrong namespace (ex. Wikipedia:Water should be just Water.) -- (Cocoaguy ここがいい contribstalk) 14:57, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

That would need to be moved to the correct namespace, and then the resulting redirect would probably qualify for R2. Even if it didn't, it would probably come under G6 (housekeeping). Hut 8.5 15:17, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
You also see weird typoes, like "Categori:" causing a page to be in the main namespace when it's meant to be a category. They're so rare and uncontroversial that they can just be dealt with as appropriate using G6, no need to create a specific rule for every plausible situation we'd ever speedy delete a page. --W.marsh 15:39, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, falls under housekeeping. Wikidemo 16:24, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Temporary suspension of I6 for legacy images

It looks like we have yet another person mass tagging old logos, e.g. General Electric UK, Rutgers University, etc. It looks like several hundred in one day today, nearly all old logos that belong on Wikipedia.[5]. 15 edits per minute sure looks like an automated tool. I've been looking but I don't see any sign of approval for such a bot. I hope I don't have to rehash that we are currently dealing with this over at WP:NFCC and that the major participants have agreed to hold off on mass tagging of legacy images until we straighten it out. We need to do something to keep people from trying this again and again, for the next couple months, while we get the new image data formats and fixing mechanisms in place. I think we need to formalize what we've all agreed to de facto, namely, that we'll clean up the post 1/1/07 images first to give the people working on the issue time to deal with the legacy images. I'm going to start a discussion at WP:NFCC and if necessary AN/I, but for now I'm just leaving this notice here to explain the change in policy. Wikidemo 21:26, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I've self-reverted for a few reasons. The user is merely has good Twinkle skills and has accepted my invitation to concentrate on the 2007 images while we try to get the 2006 and before images in shape. We may or may not want to institute a short term suspension to protect the old images but it's better if we take the time to think about it and talk about it calmly - I wasn't being calm, a bit of an alarmed reaction to seeing a whole bunch of old images tagged. Sorry if that alarmed anyone. Probably good I did it on a Sunday afternoon in the US and late night in Europe. Wikidemo 22:51, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Partly suspending I6 and I7 after all

Since raising the issue above, I have now learned that other large-scale efforts to tag and delete old images continue despite the consensus to try to save them first, and despite our project to put that in place. I will therefore re-propose (here and by instituting it on the policy page) a tempoarary and partial suspension of I6 and I7, as they apply to images uploaded before 1/1/07. My opinion on this changed after someone in this discussion (specifically here), pointed out this situation. Dozens to hundreds of images uploaded by a single editor more than two years ago were tagged and deleted in a short span on 2-7 days notice, after our proposal was made and accepted, and nobody was around to fix them (the editor in question is mostly inactive). This is just one editor's image. The actual size of the issue is probably tens or hundreds of times larger. We need the room and the time to fix these old images. The de facto informal agreement to tag and delete post-2007 images first while we try to save the pre-2007 images is not holding because there are too many people acting on their own, possibly unaware that they should start with the newer images. We need to formalize it.Wikidemo 20:58, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

For reference, the project / proposal to fix the old images and change the image data formats/requirements is here. Wikidemo 21:25, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks again for your initiative. Dr.K. 23:11, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't read the proposal you linked as implying this change at all - all I see is a proposal to create templated rationales to deal with common uses. Even if that was your intent with creating this page, I think it may be (unintentionally, I know) misleading to label that conversation as support for this move. I don't support the removal of this requirement for images uploaded before some given date; there have been more than enough grace periods and alternative processes. January 1 will just be the next arbitrary deadline where we allow a backlog to develop, no one does anything, and it gets cleaned up like before. We've been doing things this way for about a year now and nothing substantial ever really changes. (ESkog)(Talk) 03:17, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Are we going to allow people to continue the disruptive deletion of old Wikipedia's images or not? There has never been a reasonable or realistic approach to this. The deck was always stacked for massive image deletion, and never an attempt to save the images. Our proposal is the first attempt but it counts on some reasonable cooperation. If people are not going to deal with this constructively, might as well give up.Wikidemo 03:23, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

More input needed

Wikidemo, all I'm seeking is that you can show consensus for your changes to this page. As far as I can see, your first suggestion of actually making changes to this page is your post above, from the 28th. Noone else commented on that section before you made the change, which is ok (you were just being bold) but when you were reverted you should have come back here to make sure you actually had consensus for your changes. That's the "D" in WP:BRD. --bainer (talk) 03:22, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Bainer, thanks for the comment here. All I was asking for is for someone to actually say "I oppose this" rather than simply "this was not discussed" (which is a non-reason for reverting). I'm willing to accept ESkog's opposition as meeting that threshold, and I'm obviously not going to break 3RR over this. I believe this has been discussed over the course of two months, though not immediately prior to my changing CSD. This is meant as a short-term suspension of the rule to prevent ongoing deletion of valuable images. For goodness sakes, we're talking about the Fedex and Rutgers logos and such, likely most of the logos of most of the major companies and institutions we cover here, plus a good portion of the album covers and book covers. There is wide consensus because everybody in the NFCC modification project knew, and agreed that there would be no deletion of these old images. The major bot operators have agreed. We only have people acting on their own right now, but there are a lot of people doing that. This project is probably going nowhere if if people don't respect its efforts. Wikidemo 03:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Whereabouts was that consensus reached? You seem to be the first person on this page to mention altering the speedy deletion criteria. Also, where does the January 1 2007 date come from? Remember that these criteria originally had legacy dates in them, surely those would be more appropriate dates to reinsert if there were a consensus for some suspension? --bainer (talk) 03:48, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
There have been a number of discussions, mostly at NFCC I think. Not at this page really because this page is simply an implementation of NFCC rules. They've been diffuse because it has not been planned as a concrete change to CSD. We were letting this ride to see whether people would stick with the understanding of addressing the new images first. Anyway, now that the issue is raised and you guys reverted the thing we can wait for people to sound in on this. Unfortunately, every day this continues there are a lot of unfortunate image deletions.
January 1, 2007 arose as a discussion between me, Betacommand, and probably Kenosis and some others, and it's just been the date people stuck to ever since. We could have chosen other dates. I proposed June or July 2007 (as the date the mass image deletions started), March 2007 (the new Foundation resolution), or August 1 (as being more or less the time we were making the decision). Betacommand suggested January 1, and that sounded reasonable. It's not a matter of tying things to other events but rather workflow. There's no point considering fairness to the uploader or knowledge of the rules when you're talking about images uploaded many months ago. Those editors are often long gone, and the whole project has come to count on the articles. It's all about how we're going to get from here to full compliance, with reasonable effort and a minimum of disruption. If you push the date back long before January 1 2007 you will end up with a lot of images subject to deletion in a fairly random unpredictable schedule, and no effective way yet to fix them. Also, the older images tend to be more fundamental to the project, uploaded with care by solid editors - but simply missing required data. The newer noncompliant images tend to be by the newer editors and stragglers who didn't learn the policies. If you push it long after January 1, the people currently tagging and deleting might run out of work to do before we're ready. January 1 is a good middle ground because it allows us to save lots of useful old images, but gives everyone who's already at work plenty to do in the meanwhile. It doesn't reduce or increase the total number of images tagged or dealt with, it just focuses efforts on the newer ones. Those ones are more likely to have editors still on Wikipedia too. Also, it's very important to deal with brand new images as soon as they're uploaded. Before, a new editor or an uninformed old one could upload dozens of images over time and not hear back for months. Starting in July or August people have been patrolling the brand new images and letting people know almost immediately if the data was clearly deficient (no rationale or no article name).Wikidemo 04:12, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm not getting much comment here, and if consensus must be shown it's elsewhere, so I'm making the proposal at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content#Proposal - Wikidemo 02:50, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

New: user warning templates for every CSD criteria

Until yesterday there were only user warning templates for the high traffic CSD bases. Azatoth (the creator of Twinkle) and I are collaborating to get rid of Twinkle's usage of the generic Template:Db-csd-notice, in favor of automatic placement of tailored user warning templates for each criteria upon tagging (the result of this tfd). As of today the drafting of these templates is complete and is catalogued at Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Templates. If you're not using Twinkle, I wouldn't think there would be any reason to use these for CSD criteria that already have warning templates (such as nn-warn empty-warn spam-warn) but there are 13 new templates there for 13 CSD criteria which heretofore had no corresponding user warning template. I thought some of you might find them useful outside of Twinkle.--Fuhghettaboutit 03:30, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Sweet! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:06, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Wow, thanks. I was contemplating ditching Twinkle for CSD cases because the generic warning template was so uninformative, so this is a much-appreciated improvement. JavaTenor 20:42, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Who's responsible for adding that templated message to the image file on the article pages? Is that part of your efforts? That's a great idea. May I also request that you find some way to insert a "thumb" parameter in there too? Would that work? As things stand, images that have no caption to begin with don't show up. Adding the "thumb" would make sure you can see it just by looking at the page. Sure, it changes the format. But we're talking about images that are about to be deleted if nobody fixes them, so no great harm. Wikidemo 03:32, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't understand what you are referring to. As far as I know, there is no template that alerts anyone who looks at an article a media file is in use in that the image is being considered for deletion. Do you mean templates like {{di-orphaned fair use}} which are placed on image files themselves? Can you clarify—maybe give an example?--Fuhghettaboutit 10:43, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
He's talking about {{Deletable image-caption}}. —Cryptic 11:28, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Aha! Since I didn't even know that that existed, you can guess that I have no informed input on the issue Wikidemo. Thanks Cryptic.--Fuhghettaboutit 22:10, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Userboxes of indef-blocked user

I've encountered a situation where an indef-blocked user (sockpuppetry), who also stated his intention to retire from editing, has approximately 100 userbox subpages in his userspace. Many of the userboxes are controversial, a good number are potentially divisive or inflammatory, and a few would qualify for speedy deletion per CSD T1 if they were in the template namespace. None of the userboxes have seem to have any incoming links, except from one of the user's subpages.

Would their deletion fall under uncontroversial housekeeping (CSD G6)? I ask mainly due to the sheer number of pages involved. – Black Falcon (Talk) 04:16, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think G6 would apply at all. I don't see a need to speedily delete them; just toss them into a single MfD so that the community can properly decide their fate. Just because something is created by a now-blocked editor doesn't mean it gets purged. EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:20, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
The thought occurred to me, but mass nominations have a tendency to crash and burn (or result in a procedural 'no consensus; renominate separately' outcome), mostly since people can't or won't actually evaluate the merit of nearly 100 pages. – Black Falcon (Talk) 04:27, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Eh, that's not a bad concern over mass-running them, and hadn't considered that when I made my suggestion. What user are we talking about? I'm kind of gun-shy only because I don't know what they actually are. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Oops ... I guess that would be an important detail, wouldn't it? :) The user is User:Politics rule and the subpages in question are listed here. A lot of the userboxes are perfectly fine (e.g. this), some seem to have been copy-pasted and repurposed from more general userboxes (e.g. this), and some may be controversial (e.g. this, this, and this). Of course, the main reason for any deletion would be that they are all unused (and often redundant to more general userboxes). Still, I have no strong interest in pursuing the matter if it proves to be a source of controversy ... – Black Falcon (Talk) 04:59, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Ah... yeah, I'd say that most of those could be G6'ed, as they appear to have been created specifically for his own userpage. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:00, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, I would think so. Can't quote the policy that allows it, but simple sense seems to suggest it is okay. You can go with an MfD if you want to "follow all rules". 1 != 2 04:21, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
You could just delete those pages per WP:NOT#WEBHOST. If the user is both blocked and retired, I don't think they'll object: if they do, easier to just describe the issue on WP:DRV for a debate. Mangojuicetalk 19:50, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you all for your comments. I'll start shortly and will try to use informative deletion summaries to avoid any possible confusion. – Black Falcon (Talk) 21:37, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Expansion of A7

  • I propose that A7 be amended to include literary works (books, poems, etc.), and films. I propose they be added because articles like this should be speediable as A7. SashaCall (Sign!)/(Talk!) 01:35, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Songs and Albums should also be considered in this proposal.
I would think that {{db-nocontext}} would have applied there. That said, things as obvious at that should be speediable. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 01:43, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the proposal and for placing notices about it, but I oppose it for the same two reasons many people oppose various proposed additions to A7: 1) determining the notability of literary works is fairly subtle (and thus better suited for AFD). People shouldn't have to add a strained claim of notability just to make it obvious to people, because that often ends up as a peacock term, and 2) in snowball cases most admins will bend the rules anyway - no need to institutionalize that with a rule. Is there a widespread issue with too many non-notable literary works lingering in Wikipedia? Is there an undue clog or backup in the system for getting rid of them? Unless it's a widespread problem that the current rule doesn't address I think we can leave it as is and simply nominate them for speedy or AFD on a case by case basis. Wikidemo 01:50, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
No widespread issue, but I find it odd that I can make an article about myself and one about a book I wrote or a movie I made or I song I wrote, and only the article on myself can be speedied under A7. SashaCall (Sign!)/(Talk!) 02:16, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
We do get a lot of articles that do little more than state that a book exists, with a nifty infobox, non-free image of the book cover and copyvio plot summary from the back cover. Same with CD's and TV show episodes . . . -- But|seriously|folks  02:21, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
A lot of these articles can be speedy deleted per G12 (copyvio) or A1 (no context), or simply redirected to the author, album, or TV series. – Black Falcon (Talk) 02:26, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
I try to avoid deleting them outright because it makes people yell at me. I usually just remove the plot summary, but I like the redirect method. I'll have to try that. -- But|seriously|folks  02:31, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
I oppose it for essentially the same reasons as Wikidemo (especially the first reason). In particular, I think that the expansion of A7 in this manner will result in an increased number of cases where articles are speedily deleted because the admin fails to understand the claim of significance. – Black Falcon (Talk) 02:26, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
I would opose this suggestion as well. Except for the criteria with legal ramifications (copyrights and attack pages), the speedy criteria were designed to alleviate the pressure on the other processes. If a particualr type of article is not clogging AfD or PROD, then it does not need to be a speedy. I also feel that judging whether or not a literary work has an assertion of notability can be a tough call. Real quick, does a stub that reads "The Aunt's Story is a novel by Patrick White." have an assertion of notability? (Australians and English majors aren't allowed to answer.) These sorts of things need more than one or two people looking at them. Dsmdgold 02:53, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
I dunno, that's true of music as well. Does "Madeup Name is a side project of singer Paul Hewson." assert importance / significance? -- But|seriously|folks  03:06, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Having looked up Hewson, I see your point, which is why I don't think that A7 should be expanded to works of literature, film or music. There is no way that anyone can be current enough on all branches of these things to make these sorts of judgements. There is an enourmous difference between "X is an un-published novel by Ernest Hemingway" and "Y is an un-published novel by David Stapleton." But, if you don't know who Ernest is, a work by him might seem as non-notable as the work by David. Dsmdgold 05:11, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
I understand the opposes, but there are many cases when these things can and should be speedy deleted. Now, we have the situation that we speedy delete a band, but should not speedy delete their self produced CD (or tape) as well (disclaimer: in such cases, I do it anyway). People should use common sense. If an article is created that X is an unpublished book by Y, check if we have an article on Y. If author Y doesn't even have an article, an article on his or her unpublished book (without other claims to notability of course) should be zapped on sight, even if it has "context" (a plot summary, character description, ...). Taking this through AfD is a waste of everybodys time. Fram 07:55, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that this proposal includes that which isn't technicly covered by any CSD, but is within the WP:IAR range of CSD#A7. I also think that any clearly defined WP:IAR situation which is likely to occur should explicitly be put down in the rules - relying too much on WP:IAR is a bad thing. Od Mishehu 08:39, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
(ec)I think common sense can be applied without changing the criteria; if you delete an article on a non-notable band, then deleting the one on their self-produced album as well obviously falls within the spirit of db-band. I don't think published authors should generally be speedy candidates, (though they get tagged as such with alarming regularity), but if a spa account called User:JoeBloggs creates a page which says "Joe Bloggs is an author. His first novel, Tolkein Rip Off was published by Vanity Press Ltd last week", and then creates a page on "Tolkein Rip Off" then an admin can use the spirit of A7 to delete both pages. So I think what Fram proposes is already done fairly uncontroversially anyway. I fear that formalising it into policy would just encourage over-enthusiastic new page patrollers to tag any article on a book which doesn't include a peacock phrase like "bestselling" for speedy withing a few seconds of it's creation. This happens enough wiht other types of article as it is. Iain99Balderdash and piffle 09:03, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
(By a strange coincidence, exactly this sort of article is currently on DRV. —Cryptic 10:03, 25 October 2007 (UTC))
That's a really good point. Maybe "showing your work" there would be: Step 1 - Merge Tolkein Rip Off into Joe Bloggs. Step 2 - Delete Joe Bloggs. -- But|seriously|folks  09:44, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
...and then delete "Tolkein Rip Off" as a redirect to nowhere. Yes, that's what I was thinking as well. Iain99Balderdash and piffle 10:13, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Interesting thing, the author of the book brought up by Cryptic, should not, in my opinion, have been speedy deleted. The article asserted that the author had published a book. That is an assertion of notability. The assumption that the book was published by a vanity press, is just that, an assumption. Whether or not the publisher of a work is a vanity press is way beyond the scope of A7. Dsmdgold 15:25, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Strictly speaking you're right, of course; in practice however it's usually trivial to check whether a publisher is a vanity press by going to their website and looking for the bit that says "turned down by mainstream publishers? Let us publish your book for just $xxx", and I wouldn't want to insist that an article spends five days at AfD for the sake of such an obviously invalid claim of notability. However, I do agree that having a book published by an even remotely credible publisher should be regarded as at least an assertion of importance, and therefore that speedy deletions of nn-authors (and thus their books) should be a rare occurance. I don't see that we're exactly swamped with them, in the way that we are with garage bands. Iain99Balderdash and piffle 16:12, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
The press in question was Avari Press website. Seems to me to be a legitimate, if small publisher. No $ for publishing statement that I can find. Dsmdgold 16:22, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
You're right (see my own comment in that DRV as well); I was speaking in general terms, not about that specific example. Iain99Balderdash and piffle 17:37, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
I would support this. If we can speedy an nn-band and an nn-author it makes little or no sense that their nn works should not be speediable too. (Note that I am using "nn" in the more narrow definition of failing to assert notability here.) Stifle (talk) 11:42, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
  • I see some valid concerns here, but some support for expanding A7 to include at least blatantly non-notable media. So why not write a caveat to A7 saying "Administrators may use A7 to delete any blatantly non-notable media (books, films, songs, albums, magazines, etc.)". This would mainly apply to "vanity" articles (such as, The Williams Brothers is a movie by me and my brother. Folowed by a plot summary). SashaCall (Sign!)/(Talk!) 16:25, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Because there is already too much abuse of A7 as is. A7 was meant to apply only to blatently non-notable people or groups to begin with. Now we see people arguing that an assertion of notability must be sourced, which is not required, or that, because they believe the assertion is false A7 applies, even though the criteria clearly state that hoaxes are not covered, or that the article must meet WP:V, WP:N, or WP:MUSIC. Adding another category will just invite more abuse. Dsmdgold 16:41, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
  • I just use procedural deletion for these things; I'm not really comfortable expanding A7 to cover these sorts of things. A7 is already a hard call, and I don't want to see books deleted because they don't say "critically acclaimed" somewhere in the article. --Haemo 16:57, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
    • I believe the basic notability that books need to establish is that they are published. SashaCall (Sign!)/(Talk!) 17:07, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
  • I think it's a bad idea to extend A7 to music or literary works. Ref. "peacock terms", risk of abuse, etc, mentioned by other commentators above. Further comments: The term "blatantly non-notable" is very subjective, and opens up the possibility to "get rid of" material somebody simply doesn't like (censorship). Even claiming that an article should state that the work in question is "published", is not a good idea. Not every published work is notable, anyway! And also non-published work may be notable. (Famous composers may not have published all their music. Writers may have finished manuscripts that were not published. Collectors of folklore may have written down a lot more than is published in their books, and the material may be available to researchers. There are non-published diaries written by notable persons.) Oceanh 19:41, 25 October 2007 (UTC).
  • I think it reading A7 as exclusive in an anachronism, when we were desparate for any crap articles. Now, there are differences of opinion so making this explicit is probably the better approach and consistent with practice - to delete a nn band, but keeing its album, songs, etc. is mindless; to delete a nn author's bio, but keeping his/her books, musings, etc. is mindless; to delete a slew of nn people who made a nn film, but retain the nn film is also mindless and most admins will readily admit to deleting them any way - G11, A3, A1, G1 or some other criterion is broadened to encompass the deletion - let's just call it like it is. Two films I went through the afd with just today: Sands of Oblivion and Chicken and Duck Talk. Carlossuarez46 00:27, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Agree that both articles Sands of Oblivion and Chicken and Duck Talk are badly written, but I still think AFD is the best way to handle them. Both Sands of Oblivion and Chicken and Duck Talk (Gai tung aap gong) are films found in the IMDB. During an AFD-process it will be possible (for film enthusiasts) to eventually improve the articles and argue for notability. For instance Gai tung aap gong had two nominations for the 1989 Hong Kong Film Awards ("the most prestigious film awards in Hong Kong and among the most respected in East Asia.", according to Wikipedia.) Whether such a film should be in Wikipedia or not, is not a 'speedy deletion' decision. Oceanh 01:08, 26 October 2007 (UTC).
    • With the pending re-enabling of page creation by IPs, I think this needs to be accellerated. Stifle (talk) 10:54, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
      • Since it has not been demonstrated that banning IP articel creation actually lowered the rate of bad article creation, I see know reason to accelerate this, especially since it doesn't seem to have a consensus in favor of it. Dsmdgold 12:35, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment I too think the bias towards keeping songs vs albums, and novels vs authors, and so on is a little absurd. The obvious unit if the notability is not very great is the larger unit. for authors in particular, they are likely to create more books & not the other way round. This however is a question for the notability talk pages. But that is no the reason for the current limitation--it is that individual books, etc. are hard to judge by one or two people. Remember that t speedy is not a question of notability, but with there being a claim or indication or evidence of some notability. I'd do better to use books as the example-- It is not that easy to tell if a particular book is notable without actually doing a full search on it--especially for an older book. A surprising number of articles about books neglect to mention their best seller status, or their awards--people just write an article describing a favorite book. sometimes they are notable, sometimes not. If I do not recognize in some way the title, I am unlikely to look further. When a book is listed on Prod or AfD, a great many people have a chance, and if there is any real notability, somebody will find it. Yes, this could be dealt with by spending more time on checking each individual speedy nomination as one is really supposed to, yet in practice there are so many hopelessly inadequate articles that I too delete if it appears to me obvious on the face of the article. For people, it is relatively easy to tell if nothing is being asserted that has any chance at all of being considered notable by any reasonable editor. For books, it isn't as easy. Speedy to be truly speedy needs to be things that can be immediately recognized as unquestionably non-notable. It's the unquestionably part that is the key. something which might merely be unfamiliar is not suitable for this sort of very rapid process. People sometimes say I'm an inclusionist--even I do -- but I've realised I delete many more articles than I try to save. The key to getting the opportunity for WP editors to improve possibly valuable articles is to get rid of the impossible ones. We have three separate levels of screening, and Speedy is just the first. DGG (talk) 20:40, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Unless there's been some clear ongoing problem, it certainly seems that AFD is the proper tool; speedy delete is appropriate only when there is essentially zero chance that someone can make an argument for notability..Geoffrey.landis 01:54, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Lunatics

Why do I keep finding things listed for speedy deletion by people who are plainly unqualified to judge because of lack of professional expertise in the subject matter, who preach to me in condescending tones about matters of which they are ignorant and I know something? Is it completely impossible for this page to warn against doing that? Some lunatic today listed MathWorld for speedy deletion on the grounds that it is "blatant advertising". This notwithstanding the facts that

  • The article was created long before Wikipedia was well-known enough to be a place where anyone would want to advertise;
  • Nearly 1500 Wikipedia articles link to MathWorld (the Wikipedia article);
  • Thousands of Wikipedia articles link to MathWorld (the external site);
    • Those links were created by many many people like me who have no interest in advertising Wolfram; they were put there by people with professional expertise in the subject matter;
  • MathWorld is financially supported by the National Science Foundation;
  • MathWorld is one of the most prestigious web sites that exist.

Why don't we speedily delete Oxford University because, well gee, I never heard of it, I don't know where England is on the map and I never heard of that either, and is obviously not notable and it's blatant self-promotion by some chick named Elizabeth that no one would ever have heard of otherwise? Michael Hardy 23:15, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Blatant advertising is one of the more misunderstood criteria... no argument there. But in the case of MathWorld, the CSD tag was reverted, and the AFD speedy closed as a keep after an avalanche of keep votes. What more do you really want? It's the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Unfortunately, there's no way to get around the fact that some of those edits can be poorly thought out deletion taggings. All we can aim for is that those taggings are flatly rejected, and that is what happened here. --W.marsh 23:27, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
G11 is too subjective, and this is compelling (albeit anecdotal) evidence of that. Another famous error was Chips Ahoy!, which actually got deleted. I'd like to see G11 repealed, as judging how important a commercial website is is difficult and requires input from people of many backgrounds (at the very least, the people who wrote the article should be able to weigh in on the decision). Dcoetzee 09:00, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
If G11 gets repealed, it'll still get used. Sorry to be that blunt, but you can't "repeal" something that's widely used and accepted in practice. We do get tons of spam, we'll only get more if we're required to wait around five days to get rid of it. Shooting on sight sends a clear message—"We will not tolerate this." A few errors (including one which didn't even result in deletion, which is why I can't really understand Michael's yowling here) is not grounds to overturn something that's overall badly needed and well applied. Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:02, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
But it did result in deletion, in the case of ScienceWorld. A less noted site, but more than 50 articles link to it. Even the fact that it's maintained by the same organization that does MathWorld could be considered a claim to notability. Michael Hardy 18:39, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
I expect what people are finding spammy is the way the external links are set up, with unrelated, under development sites included, plus the developer's name in big letters. That's unusual and a bit spammy. -- But|seriously|folks  19:16, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, ScienceWorld is written rather spammishly. MathWorld really isn't. Quite simply, ScieneWorld reads like advertising copy. SamBC(talk) 19:25, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
G11 just needs to be applied carefully, and in line with the original intent. Perhaps someone can dig up where I think it was me who defined that intent about a year ago, but it comes down from a comment by Brad Patrick (then foundation council) that we need to delete stuff people are adding just to promote their own business interests, and serves no encyclopedic value. G11 does get misconstrued occasionally to justify deleting anything on commercial products, but that's not what G11 was ever meant to be. If an article contains information we might use in a hypothetical good article on the subject, we shouldn't delete the article. But if it's all "We provide you with a consumer-imagined product-driven solution paradigm"... i.e. just promotional language with no factual information, that's where speedy deletion comes in.
But again we come back to the idea that no rule can ever be written such that some people won't apply it incorrectly. A lot of people's complaints on this page perinially seem to be about people who misapply CSD, rather than CSD itself. --W.marsh 15:46, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
It says right in the description for G11 that it does not apply to non-notable commercial entities, but only to article about NN commercial entities that are blatant advertisements. So if I started a non-notable company and wrote a Wikipedia article about it, as long as I used encyclopedic language and was relatively NPOV, in theory it should not qualify under G11.
Is this a persistent problem? If so, maybe the language needs to be strengthened... I almost always prod NN commercial entities because, as Michael Hardy points out, I don't frikkin' know... --Jaysweet 19:30, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
G11 is not a problem because it's misapplied, it's a problem because it's subjective, particularly the part requiring that the article need to be "rewritten to become encyclopedic". The word "encyclopedic" is highly subjective, what constitutes a "rewrite", much less a "fundamental rewrite", is poorly defined, and frequently I've seen the worst of articles stripped down to a core of useful facts with little effort. We don't delete articles to "send a message", we delete them to improve the encyclopedia, and once an advertisement has been edited for style, it's never clear-cut anymore whether it belongs or not. Dcoetzee 19:33, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Proposed remedy

It is said above that this is an isolated mistake, and did not even result in a deletion. It did result in deletion of ScienceWorld, but more importantly, it's not just an isolated mistake; it's part of a pattern. And many of you know that I've pointed out that pattern here repeatedly before.

The pattern is this: people are deleting things they cannot reasonably judge because they are unfamiliar with the subject matter, and consequently coming up with loony things like the claim that the MathWorld article were put there only for advertising.

The community that inhabits this talk page has repeatedly rebuffed suggestions that there be a guideline saying that if you can't understand a page because of lack of familiarity with a particular scholarly field or area of endeavor, you should leave it alone. No guideline in this list of criteria should tell you to treat the fact that you've never heard of hearts or of surgery as a reason to hesitate when speedily deleting an article on open heart surgery.

OK, so we can't have that guideline. There's too much opposition to it here.

But I propose a different guideline:

Look at how many Wikipedia articles link to an article that you don't understand because you've never heard of geography or literature or science, etc., and take that as at least a preliminary hint (I still haven't counted precisely in the case that brought up this latest discussion---was it around 1300 or 1400 or so?). And if you find that hundreds of people editing thousands of Wikipedia articles have put in links to the article you're considering speedily deleting, and most of them are experts in that field that you've never heard of, and have Nobel Prizes and Pulitzer Prizes, and published books, and are professors at Harvard, then hesitate and consider gathering more information before speedily deleting. Is that outrageously burdensome? Michael Hardy 00:56, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

While I absolutely agree with you, I think attempting to make that a guideline effectively is an attempt at legislating common sense. In the case of MathWorld, the reviewing admin evidently exercised common sense and saw that the article was not an appropriate candidate to be speedied. If that hadn't happened, I have no doubt that the decision would have been rapidly and decisively overturned at DRV. Your suggestions, overall, are good guidelines, but I'm hesitant to make them policies. For example, presume I come across a G11-tagged article with no previous history, which states "XYZ Finance Corp is the premiere financing corporation in the world. Satisfied customers of XYZ Corp receive custom-tailored solutions every day..." (and yes, this is based on actual examples I've seen). I might know little about finance corporations, but I know damn well that's spam. Unfortunately, the reality of the issue is, mistakes will happen. We're equipped to deal with that through having review processes. If I knew how to reduce the error rate to zero, I'd sure set it up in a moment, but the best we can do is try to keep it low. Given that thousands of articles a day must be speedied, only a handful are challenged, and only a small number of those challenged successfully, I don't think we're doing too badly. Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:46, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Is it not possible to have brief guidelines that are not absolutely compulsory nor necessarily rigidly applicable in all cases? Can we have some terse sentence like "In considering whether an article's topic is notable, it is sometimes a good idea to see which articles, or how many articles, link to it and consider what the reasons for those links might be"? Michael Hardy 14:36, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to object to that, sounds quite reasonable to me. Where would you suggest putting it? Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:19, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't like the wording, because it suggests that G11 or A7 are intended to allow deletion of non-notable articles (although that's how everyone seems to interpret and abuse them, that's not what they say). I think it's useful to say in the introductory prose though that deletions of articles with lots of incoming links (under any CSD) should be considered more carefully as they're more likely to be legitimate. Dcoetzee 19:48, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

G8

I have a question about CSD G8. It says that talkpage of images that where deleted because the image is on Commons cannot be deleted under the rule. Why? Maxim(talk) (contributions) 17:40, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

What comes first to my mind is that the local talk page is an appropriate venue for discussion about use on en.Wikipedia of the image. Such discussion would be unhelpful on Commons - especially due to the risk of multiple projects in multiple languages using the same image and having reason to discuss it. GRBerry 17:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Proposed new criterion

To be used only with care and a supporting rationale, but it is the case that articles occasionally are (and must be) deleted due to violation of WP:BLP. At present, people usually put WP:BLP in the deletion summary, and that's probably OK, but I'd say we should have a specific CSD category for it just to satisfy those who have tidy minds and like to have these things "just so". That's not a bad mindset, given the enormous number of editors and articles on enWP these days. Guy (Help!) 20:24, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I think it is ok to leave this out of the criterion. Let continue to do as we have in the past, and place BLP or the respective OTRS ticket in the reason field, whichever may be the case, and that be that. If someone has a contest, then we will deal with it then. Mercury 21:51, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
In addition, unsourced negative biographies are already covered by G10. Hut 8.5 20:57, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
G10 had an old meaning and coverage area before BLP became policy. The current version of G10 is a hybrid of both the old - "Pages that serve no purpose but to disparage their subject or some other entity" and the new - "a biography of a living person that is entirely negative in tone and unsourced, where there is no neutral version in the history to revert to." I'm not sure we need to separate criteria labels for them; we aren't really going to treat the two types of deleted page differently in later review. GRBerry 23:11, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
I have added a new A9 criterion for this. Mercury 19:04, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
A very similar proposal was considered here only a few months ago and rejected. Hut 8.5 19:19, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
This criteria is mirrored from the BLP policy. No changes to our current practice, this is a housekeeping addition. Mercury 19:22, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
I reverted for now. BLP policy currently uses that wording (though it's fluid) to allow deletion of content. But this page is about deleting entire articles, not content. There's no real point in bringing in content deletion policies from elsewhere that allow deletion of content X, and then say that the article may be deleted if removing X would leave nothing left. Usually there's enough in an article that's uncontroversial, at a bare minimum the statement of context and notability in the lead. I'm also afraid this would create more contention by seeming to endorse deletion of articles on BLP grounds, when they could merely be excised or even stubbified. Aggressive blanking and deletion of articles claiming BLP has been the subject of a lot of fighting, sockpuppetry, arbcom cases, etc., and I wouldn't want to do anything that seems to legitimize it. Wikidemo 19:31, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to wait and see Guy expand on this a little. Mercury 19:41, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
I'd have to somewhat agree with Wikidemo here, I can't think of very many situations where deletion is the best option and it does not meet any other speedy criteria. If a person is notable but most of the article is negative and unsourced, stubbifying is probably the best option. Reduce the article to the most important basic fact or two: "X is a Y." The only situation I can think of where there might be nothing to keep would be where the person is notable for something negative, like a serial killer. Mr.Z-man 19:50, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
I also agree. If the goal is to have a speedy criterion for BLPs that are "entirely negative in tone and unsourced", and which cannot be fixed by blanking content (i.e. converting to a stub) or reverting to a previous version, then G10 suffices. – Black Falcon (Talk) 20:28, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Or add the BLP explanation to G10, for the sake of clarity. J-ſtanTalkContribs 22:58, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
G10 already includes a clause for BLPs that meet certain criteria: "This includes a biography of a living person that is entirely negative in tone and unsourced, where there is no neutral version in the history to revert to." That's what I was referring to when I wrote that "G10 suffices". – Black Falcon (Talk) 22:44, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Right. Well, then I guess we don't need this criterion. J-ſtanTalkContribs 04:22, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
No, because this will be misused in a microsecond, and abused in five microseconds. Moreover, a fairly small cadre of admins will use this so extensively and brutally and repeatedly that they quickly construct it into a psuedo-OFFICE action, something that should not be tolerated. The situations where the standing CSD do not apply to such a degree that this new 'nuclear' CSD should be instituted are so small as possibly to vanish. Whatever happened to editing it to a stub, and considering whether that ought to be kept and worked on, or deleted? Splash - tk 22:34, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps expanding A7 to cover works isn't the correct solution?

I'm thinking:

A9. Articles which are subtopics of a speedily deleted article, and that have no indication of importance/significance beyond that which could have been asserted by the deleted article.

The wording, of course, sucks (that's not my forte) but it would allow us to avoid expanding A7 but correct the nonsensical result of songs by a NN garage band not being speediable after the band itself was speedied? — Coren (talk) 00:59, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Fixed wording to allow for the "main" article to not have any assertions of notability either. — Coren (talk) 01:01, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
This might be workable, but I think if it is done it should be explicitly limited to articles that are sub-topics of articles deleted for A7 reasons. As written, if an article on a notable author or band is speedied for copyright violation, then sub-topics could be deleted even if they aren't copyright violations. Dsmdgold 02:13, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
I suppose they could, but oftentimes NN band pages are cut-and-paste of some myspace blurb, and are deleted because of that. I think that's why if the notability of the subtopic depended on a speedied article pretty much regardless of why it was speedied it would still be adequate. Otherwise, what about subtopics of A1s? Or or attack pages? Etc. — Coren (talk) 02:40, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
If the only source available on a band is a myspace page, then the article can be deleted for A7 reasons, regardless of the copyright issue. If someone writes a good article about a notable book, that we don't happen to have an article about the author, and somebody else comes along and writes an article about the author calling him a drunken whore-monger, the good article could be deleted under this proposal. Not acceptable. I cannot conceive of a situation where a valid A1 deletion could have an identifiable sub-topic. Dsmdgold 02:56, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
I suppose. I guess I thought of G12 because CSBot made it far easier to ferret out such cut-and-paste and many vanispamcruftizement articles are now deleted offhand that way. I would have no objection to restricting to A7. — Coren (talk) 03:00, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

How's:

A9. Articles which are subtopics of an article speedily deleted by criterion A7, and that have no indication of importance/significance beyond that which could have been asserted by that article.

— Coren (talk) 12:15, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Not quite right. Let's change the last clause to "no indication of importance/significance that, if they had been merged to that article, would have kept it from being speedy deleted." Or something similar; again, wording isn't my forte. I can envision a sub-article which contains a real assertion of significance (and which could have been made in the parent, but wasn't) such that if this assertion was in the parent article, it would not have been eligible for speedy deletion under WP:CSD#A7. For example, an article on a best selling book, but the "parent" article on the author doesn't say that the book was a best seller. The author article could have said that - but it didn't so it died under A7. The book article shouldn't be killed on this basis; had that claim actually been in the author article it wouldn't have been speedy deleted under A7. I'm not sure this is a good idea yet, but lets fix the obvious flaws and then consider it. GRBerry 13:25, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, I would say that being a best seller is an assertion of importance— so that A9 couldn't apply (... and that have no indication ...). It does in my mind, anyways; mayhaps the wording is all wrong. — Coren (talk) 13:57, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Of course I consider the assertion that the subject has published any book to be an assertion of notability. Later processes may find otherwise, but that is not a matter for speedy deletion. (I would make an exception for an article that explicitly states that the book is published by a vanity press, or is self published.) Dsmdgold 14:41, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Is there some reason not to simply say, "Articles which are subtopics of an article speedily deleted by criterion A7 and that have no indication of importance/significance"? Although for convenience, if such a criterion were to be included, it would probably need to be worded so that it could be placed on a subtopic at the same time as the parent article is tagged with an indication that administrators should verify before deleting that the parent article has been deleted or qualifies under A7. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:15, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, my current wording was to avoid "this is the Xth demo tape from Papa Joe and the Red Links, and their most important work to date" to count as an assertion of notability if the parent article is speediable. — Coren (talk) 14:49, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Ah, I see. Hmmm. Yes, tricky wording that. :) What about something along the lines of "Articles which are subtopics of an article speedily deleted or marked for speedy deletion by criterion A7 and that have no indication of importance/significance such that, if it were asserted in the parent article, would keep it from being speedily deleted"? A more substantial explanation could be provided at Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Explanations. I personally do think something along these lines would be a good criterion to add, although I recognize that more long-term editors might haul out some previously made good arguments why not (or, indeed, simply make some new ones). Again, I do think it would be a good idea to make this usable simultaneously with A7 to save unnecessary legwork down the line, although I also think it should be essential for admins to verify the A7 on the parent prior to applying it. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:55, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Somtimes, simple is good. How about:

A9. Articles which are subtopics of an article speedily deleted or marked for speedy deletion by criterion A7 and that have no indication of importance/significance that are independent from the parent article.

Better? — Coren (talk) 18:09, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it could work. Other opinions? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:13, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Nothing glariously obviously wrong in terms of the basic wording. So, can we have some recent examples of articles deleted via PROD or AFD where this criteria would have been applicable. (Even better, articles currently under PROD or at AFD.) This question is intended to test point 3 of #Read this before proposing new criteria above. GRBerry 20:05, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't think there would be that many of them, although I could dig around a bit. The thing is, those tend to be deleted anyways under flimsy interpretations of A7, A1, G12 or even G11. It's more a matter of codifying what is a common practice (and which I would tend to support) so that actual use of A7 especially can be reined in. — Coren (talk) 21:42, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Without expressing any opinion on the desirability of such a criterion, I'd like to offer a copyedit:

A9. Articles on subtopics of an article that is eligible for speedy deletion under criterion A7, or has been deleted as such, which give no indication of independent importance or significance.

A possible alternative would be extending A7 by adding something like the following sentence:

If an article is eligible for speedy deletion under this criterion, or has been deleted as such, articles on its subtopics may also be deleted if they do not indicate independent importance or significance.

As Coren said: Better? —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 18:21, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I think this would be okay, but I would like some sort definition of "subtopic", maybe a statement along the lines of "examples of subtopics include albums or songs by musicians, works by authors, or products by companies deleted via this criterion". I would not intend for this list to be comprehensive. (I do think that the main list in A7 is comprehensive.) Dsmdgold 19:12, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
I would really prefer if this was a criterion separate from A7. A7 is already interpreted overly broadly in many cases, and the last thing we need is put an even wider net in it.

As for a definition of subtopic, I agree; but don't examples and detailed explanations traditionally go outside the actual text of the criteria? — Coren (talk) 22:05, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

As Coren says, this really does have be separate to avoid confusion. But there have ben multiple instances at AfD where an author is notable only for having written a single book, and the article on the author has been merged into that for the book. I imagine this may be true in other fields. So the definition needs to be refined a little. personally, I can see changing the practice and always using author insuch cases, but that's a bigger question.DGG (talk) 16:26, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understood you perfectly, but if I did I don't think it's relevant: A9 would only apply to the subtopics of speedy deleted articles, not articles deleted by AfD. — Coren (talk) 17:57, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Bold is good?

It does not appear as if anyone has an objection to the general principle, and worries about the general wording seem to have been addressed. How about we try it on for size? If it gets abused, or if there are further tweaks to be done, we can fix it or remove it entirely— but I doubt we'll get a better idea of how well it would work than by seeing how well id does work in practice. — Coren (talk) 17:57, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I have two objections. First, how do we define what constitutes a "subtopic"? Second, at minimum, this criterion should exclude books and should be restricted a specific set of articles (e.g. songs and albums). Given our policies, especially WP:BLP, it's quite possible for a book to be notable and the author to be non-notable. Most academic literature, including such things as book reviews, rarely divulge biographical information about the author or discuss him beyond identifying him as the author. – Black Falcon (Talk) 18:56, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I realise that the proposed criterion for deletion is the lack of an assertion of importance or significance, not the lack of proof of notability, this is something that cannot always be easily determined for books and such. I think an unrestricted criterion would result in deletions due to failure to understand the assertion of significance. – Black Falcon (Talk) 19:00, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, we can enumerate (that's the easiest). Personally, I'm in favor of being restrictive at first. Iff thing work well, we can revisit the issue and see if more should be added. I was thinking:
  • Musician/Band (WP:BAND) -> Album/Demo/Song
  • Organization/Business (WP:CORP) -> Products
  • Web contents (WP:WEB) ... don't see anything offhand.
  • Cinematographer (WP:BIO) -> Movie/Video
I think that covers almost all that was intended. I would have added "author -> work", but I can understand why you are worried about books (and, possibly, poetry). — Coren (talk) 19:10, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree that enumeration and a cautious approach are best. So, then, should it be something like this:

A9. An article about a subtopic of an article that is eligible for speedy deletion or has been deleted under criterion A7, and whose subject is a real song, record album, product, or motion picture, that gives no indication of the subject's independent importance or significance.

Since it is unclear what a subtopic of "web contents" would be, it is not listed in the above version. Also, I added the word "real" to prevent deletion of articles about fictional objects or concepts, which are presently excluded from criterion A7. Finally, I used the slightly awkward but less ambiguous terms record album and motion picture instead of album and film, respectively. I think this may be useful, since there are various things both album and film coud be confused with: see Album (disambiguation) and Film (disambiguation). A similar issue may exist with product (see Product), but I'm not sure what alternative term could be used. Is that version acceptable in your opinion?
I see no reasonable alternative to "product", but I would change to "product or service"? It'll include professionals hawking services, and help disambiguate product by giving it context? — Coren (talk) 20:04, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
The addition of "service" might help to disambiguate "product", but services are generally not limited to a single company ... they are concepts (such as Delivery (commerce) or Life insurance) rather than objects. Is there any way to further specify that? – Black Falcon (Talk) 20:28, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't think it's unclear that we are talking still talking about subtopics. Certainly, Life insurance contains plenty of assertions of notability to protect it? — Coren (talk) 20:34, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Also, since this criterion was proposed less than 3 days ago, perhaps we should wait a while before adding it... While no one has really objected (and my concerns are largely addressed by enumeration of the type above), only Moonriddengirl has so far expressed actual support. – Black Falcon (Talk) 19:58, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I've noticed here that people tend to react quickly when they are opposed to something, and not so quickly (if at all) when they don't mind. ("Consensus by apathy"?)  :-) I'm going to make up the suitable templates and examples (with DGG's suggested wording above, possibly ammended to "products or service" if nobody objects) and put it up later tonight. It's either going to attract attention to the discussion or be generally left alone, and we'll be able to see how things go from there. — Coren (talk) 20:11, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Edited 20:20, 31 October 2007 (UTC) to fix attribution. Why did I think that was DGG's? — Coren (talk)
I don't think it's going to fly. If the parent is already deleted, how can the comparison even be made? Speedy deletion is for the obvious cases that nobody would contest or misunderstand. This criterion seems irreducibly complex. Subtopics are often more notable than their parent topic - for example, a song may be far more notable than the band that recorded it. The only way this works logically, is by saying that the child has no notability apart from or beyond the parent. But sometimes the child article is well written, whereas the parent simply doesn't assert notability or have sources. If the parent article is deleted, we can't even do the analysis. My suggestion is if there's a subtopic, that should be deleted on its own merits. It's best to do a group nomination in the first place, in which case one wouldn't need this new criterion. It's not apathy, by the way. It's wait-and-see. We get so many criteria proposed all the time it's not worth the effort to jump in immediately on each one. Wikidemo 20:19, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Goodie! Discussion! So, threat of boldness also works.

Seriously, though, I think there are two things this proposal aims to achieve:

  • Alleviate the need for a group AfD nom for the common band-and-its-demo-tapes group; when the band itself is obviously A7 (but we can't take the music along with it); and
  • provide a proper frame for existing practice.
Surely you've noticed that if, say, random youtube wanabe celebrity makes and article, that one goes away via A7, but we often manage to stretch another criterion to its breaking point to cover the video itself.

I think it's better to explicitely allow a small subset of such deletions within CSD than get into an habit of letting the other critera stretch so far. — Coren (talk) 20:25, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

If the subarticle is more notable than a parent, it will give an "indication of the subject's independent importance or significance." The analysis of A9 deletion ends at that point, as the article won't qualify. The second thing to test is whether the parent was/is being deleted under A7. For a currently nominated A7, it is easy for any editor to look at both articles. For an already deleted A7, they can look at the deletion log - if it says A7 (or equivalent tag is visible) where the A7 was contemporary to the sub-article creation it is good enough for tagging the sub for A9 and the processing admin can check the deleted article more fully to make sure it was a legitimate A7.
On the other hand, I do believe, as one of those who helped write the guidelines at the top, that we shouldn't create new criteria unless they will be frequently used. So I really do want to see evidence that there is a significant volume of AFDs or PRODs to avoid with this criteria. If we can't show that, I think this is just a solution seeking a problem, and shouldn't be added. GRBerry 20:41, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I'll see what I can dig up tomorrow when I'll have a little more time to dig in the past; but I can remember a number of cases in recent history of NN bands accompanied with songs; or a YouTube wannabes accompanied by videos. Given that I encounter them often enough to notice, I expect there are quite a number in general. — Coren (talk) 22:59, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict)I do support the general idea, but I'm not sure if it's a workable wording yet, and before putting it into the guidelines, I would consider pumping it and possibly even RFCing it. But, then, bold is not my style, Wikipedia's exhortations notwithstanding. :) A new speedy criteria will have sweeping impact, and the more eyes to pick out potential problems, the better. As far as a book exclusion is concerned, isn't that covered by "gives no indication of the subject's independent importance or significance"? And if books are to be excluded just in case, should products not be so as well, since products can have similar issues? Trikke has an article, but Trikke Tech does not. Pet Rock has an article, but Pet Rock Productions does not. Films can have exceptions, too: Sizzle Beach, U.S.A. has an article, while the director does not; so does Def by Temptation. Again, "that gives no indication" should cover this, but I'm not sure why we make a specific exception for one subtype, but not others. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:48, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't expecting to put the criterion up this soon, actually. I was hoping that my saying I would would spur a bit of discussion (which it has). If it didn't I would have put it up— if only because that was certain to get reactions. :-) But I also thing the best way to test a criterion (at least one that's relatively uncontroversial) is to actually test it out; see if it gets used; what that it doesn't get misused. That will still happen regardless, no matter what we guess/evaluate will happen. — Coren (talk) 23:04, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

(Unindented) I'm not dead, I'm just pinin'.  :-) I'll be back in a day or two. Because of my increased RL workload, what little 'pedia time I can spare is being consumed by the ArbCom mess on Sadi Carnot.

I'll be back. Muahaha! — Coren (talk) 13:44, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Please, for the love of all that is holy, allow albums and songs to be speedily deleted. If there is the faintest hint that the album or song is notable, don't you think the kids would have put that on the page? Speedy deletion is not done by a bot, it's done by a human, who can always decline the speedy, and then it can be taken to AfD. I mean, they're creating pages for their demo albums, doncha see? SolidPlaid 09:33, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Extend the waiting period for some non-free images

It seems to me that the two-day waiting period for images that fail non-free content criteria #10 should be extended to seven days. Unlike the other nine criteria, there's nothing fundamentally unusable about images that fail #10: it's just that someone hasn't crossed all the 'i's and dotted all the 't's. There's no reason why we shouldn't give people some extra time to deal with these problems. --Carnildo 05:45, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I think standard practice is to wait 7 days. βcommand 02:01, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Titled people, notability as a member of a larger group

I am having a problem with speedy deletes for non-notable individuals being closed as "princess asserts notability" and the like. I think it is wrong to assume that a person is notable on the basis that they belong to a group that may be notable, but are not notable individually. For instance, Princess Marie of Hanover is certainly not a notable person. Yes, she has a member of a notable family and notable house, the House of Hanover, but as a person she is not notable. The argument used for these princesses, etc, is one used for British peers, etc (title = notable). While I don't think all barons and baronets in the United Kingdom are notable, at least they hold a unique position in that they hold substantive titles.

A cadet member of a royal family with no notable personal achievements or the like is not unique though. The argument that royalty automatically equals notability is leading to hundreds and hundreds of genealogical/trivia stubs about obscure and non-notable individuals with no hope of expansion. Please also note very recently this: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Prince Jean of Nassau. These articles contained the same type of data as that of Princess Marie of Hanover and a few other voters on the matter are very involved in royal articles. I think that if those who deal with royalty extensively can spot non-notable royals then royalty = notability needs to be seriously reconsidered. It simply is not true all of the time. In such cases, all a title is is part of a name. An article about Jane Smith who is the non-notable daughter of John Smith would be deleted pretty fast. The criteria for notability should note that famous relations, memberships in famous families and titles do not assert notability. Charles 06:49, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree, and I wish you luck with this thread, but apparently princesses are like state highways and episodes of television shows. -- But|seriously|folks  07:00, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps merging and redirecting would be a less controversial approach than tagging for speedy deletion. e.g. perhaps Princess Marie of Hanover could be redirected to George V of Hanover#Issue? --Stormie 07:53, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
If a person cannot be deleted as being non-notable, how would one deal with the few die-hard inclusionists who would insist upon reverting from a redirect? Charles 08:07, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Take it to AfD. But, pragmatically speaking: I think it's a lot less likely that anyone would notice and object, than it is that someone would object to your speedy delete tagging. --Stormie 02:07, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
(ec)The fact that a person or a group of people is/are non-notable does not necessarily make them an A7 candidate, and the current policy specifically distinguishes between "indications of importance or significance" and notability. "Princess" is undoubtedly an assertion of significance. These ought to go through AfD or PROD, especially if you need specific knowledge of the subject to spot if they are notable or not. Hut 8.5 07:55, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I think the content of the articles speak for themselves, specifically the fact that it is essentially a genealogical entry. "Princess" is, in effect, part of a person's name as much as a conduit through which one may become notable. All princesses, however, do not become notable and the patently obvious examples of such should be allowed to be speedily deleted. Charles 08:07, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Non-notability is never a sufficient reason for speedy deletion. The question is only whether "princess" makes an implicit claim of notability, which is a difficult question - I'd say in combination with another implied claim it would be sufficient, but perhaps not by itself. Dcoetzee 08:35, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I would say that a pure genealogical entry which, in effect, creates a genealogical database (which Wikipedia is not), in combination with the lack of any other notable information, facts, criteria, etc, renders someone speedily deletable OR at least renders the argument of "no" on the basis of the title "princess" insufficient for denying a speedy deletion. A7 is applicable because princesses are not always important or significant and familial ties do not automatically confer importance or significance. Like I said, the House of Hanover is notable. It is significant and it is important. But it is composed of both important/significant/notable AND unimportant/insignificant/non-notable members. As for just notability, I think I've shown (and articles like Princess Marie of Hanover illustrate) just how the title of princess does not automatically make someone notable. Charles 08:43, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Given that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Princess Frederica of Hanover has already gathered two keep !votes, it should be obvious that it was not a good candidate for speedy deletion. Speedy is supposed to be a tool to use quickly in uncontroversial cases, not a steamroller to override good-faith objections to a deletion. If you want to discuss whether minor royals have inherent notability you're in the worng forum; you might well be right, but lacking notability is not the same as being a speedy candidate. Iain99Balderdash and piffle 09:41, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

It seems to be a case of WP:ILIKEIT do to monarchism for one editor and a misunderstanding (and the reason for this thread) for the other. Perhaps I should have introduced the situation and differently and chosen my words to reflect it, but a title does not imply individual significance and importance. As for the place, an administrator dealing with speedy deletes directed me here. Charles 09:49, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Agreed, this is a notability question, not a speedy deletion question. Being a member of some groups conveys notability, e.g. a starting player on a world championship team, a United States member of Congress or appeals court judge. It does not automatically convey automatic notability in others (e.g. being a faculty member at a major research university). Any time things are not clearcut, they should not be speedied. Speedy is for no credible assertion of importance; it is not for assertions of importance that one may argue are not reliable indications of notability.Wikidemo 10:47, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Wikidemo here: you're confusing an indication of importance with cast-iron proof of notability. A7 was introduced mainly to deal with "vanity" articles from obviously non-notable entities. "Joe Bloggs is a teenager at Somewhere High School. He supports Manchester United" - that sort of thing. An article on a princess obviously doesn't fall into this category. You are probably right that we have too many stubs on minor royals which contain no more than geneological information, and they could at least be redirected to a more general page on the royal family in question; however it's far from obvious, to the non-specialist at least, which of these are truly hopeless cases which can never be expanded, and which can reasonably be expanded and sourced. Therefore speedy deletion without discussion isn't a good way to deal with them. As for the general question of what makes a royal notable, a better forum would be Wikipedia:Notability (people) or Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Royalty. Iain99Balderdash and piffle 11:51, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
and it is not necessarily a deletion question at all, for the simplest course for many of them is a merge. DGG (talk) 16:39, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree with others on this thread - this discussion should properly be held over here, as being a princess appears to me to be sufficient assertion of notability not to qualify for A7. I also agree, however, that there are some "automatic inclusion" categories that may need to be reconsidered, as I'm unsure of the encyclopedic value or expandability of an article on this three-year-old boy, for example. JavaTenor 17:19, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I've copied this discussion over to WT:BIO#Titled people, notability as a member of a larger group. Charles 00:19, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Is a 'redirect' a "corresponding article" for the purposes of G8?

Where an article has been merged and turned into a redirect, is it still considered to 'exist' for purposes of G8: "Talk pages whose corresponding article does not exist"? Are talkpages of such redirects eligible for speedy deletion? The extreme case is where the talkpage has never contained any substantive content, just templates, bot-messages, etc. Thanks, and my apologies if this question has been dealt with previously. HrafnTalkStalk 12:32, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

If an article has been merged, its talk page should probably be preserved. Merging is something that can always be undone; for example if the coverage of the subject is expanded to the point where it merits its own article again, and the old discussions may be helpful in such a case. Additionally, the talkpage may contain discussion of why the merge was carried out in the first place - useful if someone suggests reversing the merge. Of course if there's little substantive content on the talk page then there's less of a reason to keep it; on the other hand I don't see a pressing reason why it would need to be deleted either. Iain99Balderdash and piffle 12:51, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

A question concerning CSD#G5

Here's the situation: Suppose someone creates a sockpuppet to evade a block. He makes some of the same edits as before, but he also uploads several useful, unrelated free content images with that sock account. Now if I block the sockpuppet, and revert his edits, should I also delete the images he uploaded under CSD G5? Zzyzx11 (Talk) 22:50, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there's a clear consensus on this question; some people argue that banned means banned, and that deleting all a banned user's contributions is important if they're to get the message that they're not welcome; others take a more pragmatic line and say we shouldn't reject obviously good content regardless of its provenance. As far as I can see, at the moment it's decided on a case by case basis, depending on just how obnoxious the banned user was, and just how good the content is. Iain99Balderdash and piffle 23:37, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

WP: pseudo-namespace

There is a request for comments regarding the WP: pseudo-namespace here. --MZMcBride 00:25, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

And we know this... how?

Something that's always bugged me about C1... "Empty categories that have been empty for four days". How do we know how long something's been empty? Is there a category log or something? I've never had to deal with these before, so I've never bothered finding out, but I am rather curious... EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:40, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Ignore the 4 days part I imagine. Prodego talk 17:49, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Tag the empty category for deletion and wait four days. --Tony Sidaway 17:56, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Which means that it won't 'reset' if something is added then removed. But I suppose that doesn't matter. Prodego talk 18:00, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
It's the best we can do, given the limitations of the interface. --Tony Sidaway 18:04, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
I only raise the question because I was asked to delete a category with a single page in it, I <includeonly>ed the category tag, and then someone else deleted the category as being empty for four days (I did this yesterday). I'm not going to reverse it, since the chances of it being populated are crazy slim, but I was just curious. EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:10, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
I usually do two or more of the following: check the date of creation (it should be at least four days old), check the creator's contributions immediately before and after they created the category (did they add any pages to the category), and bookmark the category to check back after four days. In the case of categories tagged as empty by another editor, I also check their edits to see whether they emptied the category. When an empty category is a clear deletion candidate, I sometimes speedy it under CSD G6, noting the fact of its emptiness and other particular circumstances (e.g. redundant, blatantly subjective, and so on). – Black Falcon (Talk) 19:06, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Question regarding A7

It has been asserted by User:trialsanderrors here that A7 doesn't apply to mountains, highways and buildings. I suppose this is possible.

I gather that notability doesn't apply to all categories of knowledge. For example, nobody argues about whether a species is notable or not. If it's a species, it warrants an article, right? Mountains? I suppose all mountains above a certain height warrant an article just because of their height. Might not be much to say but I gather that we would include them "just because".

So... how about buildings? Please consider this [deletion review] and offer your opinion as to whether the speedy deletion was justified or not.

Also, I'd like to hear if you have an opinion regarding the encyclopedicity of building lists such as [[6]] and articles on the buildings listed in that article.

--Richard 08:44, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

trialsanderrors is right in that A7 does not cover buildings. A7 only applies to "person, group of people, band, club, company, organisation, or web content". I would support the deletion of the article if it were a PROD or AFD but speedy deletion doesn't apply. James086Talk | Email 09:35, 14 November 2007 (UTC)


It doesn't apply to mountains, highways or buildings; it applies to real people, groups of people, bands, clubs, companies, organisations and web content. It's occasionally stretched to other clearly non-notable topics, such as drinking games obviously made up at a party last night, but not to buildings. (Well, I suppose if someone wrote an article about their house the spirit of A7 might be applied, but that's fairly different from a skyscraper.) Also note that an indication of importance is distinct from notability; an article doesn't have to establish beyond doubt that its subject is notable, just give some reasonable indication of why it might be worth including. A7 was introduced prmarily to deal with vanity articles for obviously non-notable people [7] (John Smith is a teenager who likes football etc), and was subsequently extended to other things which people commonly write vanity articles for, such as garage bands, as these deletions are typically uncontroversial. It wasn't intended, and shouldn't be used, as a catch-all for anything which individual editors don't think are notable; particularly things which are likely to be controversial. Iain99Balderdash and piffle 09:42, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
To echo the previous two people, A7 is limited to those things in the list. If someone wrote an article abou their ordinary house, and it was speedied under A7, I would send it to PROD. That said, I think it an almost certainity that a building of this size has enough sources to pass WP:N and WP:V. Dsmdgold 13:20, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
For the actual articles about buildings, etc., that are put in WP, there are no clear separating lines between those buildings that might or might not be notable that it is better to use Prod, so more than one or two people will have a chance to look at it. The idea behind the sort of things in A7 is that there are a significant number of them which are clearly and absolutely of no possible claim to notability. (For buildings, it often turns out that ann otherwise non-notable building is on an historic register, & the one or two people--however careful we admin are--might miss that. A garage band that has never made a recording is unequivocal, as is the usual article about a high school student. PROD works for all sorts of non-notable things, and using it more would save contested speedies on the one hand, and unnecessary AfDs on the other. And it is not open to perceptions of being unfair--if people remember to notify the author or we get a bot working again. DGG (talk) 18:32, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

G1 and G3

G1 covers patent nonsense, and G3 covers pure vandalism. I understand they aren't the same thing, but do we really need separate criteria for each? J-ſtanTalkContribs 18:59, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

G1 is more for things like when somebody creates a page like vhndfgbvrejgbt which is randomly typed characters, however vandalism is more for pages which have content like: I hate Wikipedia and don't like it. I think the difference in the criteria is one of high importance, so I think its best how it is. Qst 19:03, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
But what I think is that creating patent nonsense pages is a form of vandalism. I see that there is a difference, I just don't think that there is enough of one to merit separate criteria. G1 could easily be folded into G3. J-ſtanTalkContribs 19:19, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, someone who creates a nonsense page ("ghthgh") might just be testing, whereas a vandalism page must have been created maliciously. I agree there isn't much difference. Hut 8.5 19:30, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Test pages would fall under G2, so discretion would have to be used as to whether the user is testing or just making nonsense. Maybe G1 should fold into G2 by adding to G2 that it includes patent nonsense. It could fold into G3 in addition by adding that G3 includes apparent bad faith patent nonsense. J-ſtanTalkContribs 19:40, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
G1 is kind of a relic from the early days, when it was really only meant to apply to stuff like "blibbbhjkl" - CSD used to be really narrowly defined and truly just cover uncontestably useless articles. Pages that are truly "patent nonsense" are rare compared to the more modern CSDs... I suppose we could merge G1 with G3 but the placeholder would seemingly be there forever, so what would it really accomplish? --W.marsh 23:09, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
That's interesting. I think that with vandalism we must initially assume good faith, and what may appear patent nonsense may actually be a good-faith attempt to improve the encyclopedia. In fact, in my POV we can never be 100% certain that any edit is vandalism, although we can make judgements within reason (i.e. a page with "WIKIPEDIA IS SO FUCKING GAY YOU RETARDS" is 99.99% likely to be vandalism in the author's head).-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 23:25, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't think we use them, or need to use them, in a standardized way. I think of them as messages. As I see it, zxcvb is a test-page. Playing a little, or accident or not realizing--no harm done, just remove it quietly, no need to warn. However, something foolish and perhaps even imaginative, but not harmful, is total-nonsense. It looks stupid having it here, but if we get rid of it, the game is over. If I warn I don't usually usually use a form--I just say. "Don't do it again". I've never had to block-it's always stopped. Something potentially cruel or pointlessly obscene of violation of privacy or trolling, that's vandalism. Remove, and decide between deny recognition and warn. A second time, block of course. But sometime I translate deny-recognition as just saying non-notable--especially if it's sometime proud of being obscene. And I've once or twice tried deny-recognition on what's meant as attack pages by just saying nonsense or empty. It doesnt matter, as long as there is nothing readable in the edit summary and it gets removed fast, and there's nothing to encourage the person trying it again. DGG (talk) 00:28, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I guess so, and merging them wouldn't risk being more permissive of balderdash. Nobody is going to show up to defend a vandalism or nonsense page against deletion. But we don't save a whole lot by combining categories. For place-keeping reasons we still have to keep the category number, so it doesn't really clean anything up.Wikidemo 02:18, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
It's not about cleanliness, it's about whether we need G1. I don't see the harm in keeping it as a place holder, but the criteria seems redundant. J-ſtanTalkContribs 03:32, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I guess the difference is that nonsense and test pages are created in good faith, while vandalism isn't. I think we could pretty safely merge nonsense and test pages... since often times they might be the same thing really (the "fjdaskldka can I really edit?" page). But we have this placeholder tradition with CSD... G1 or G2 would forever be a placeholder if we merged the two. On the upside, it might cut down on people trying to delete any page they happen to not like as "patent nonsense", even if it makes perfect sense. --W.marsh 03:45, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Why are placeholders bad things? Did I not get a memo? Did a placeholder sleep with someone's girlfriend? J-ſtanTalkContribs 04:42, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

This may sound ridiculous, but...

...and I'm not suggesting that I would support implementing this at all as it goes against a lot of Wikipedia thought, but just consider the mere idea and please comment on the possible negatives and positives of it.

This would hugely violate WP:BITE, but how about if when new users sign up, before they try to create new pages, they should be clearly informed that if they do not include links or references as to why third parties care about the subject matter of the article, they will be banned?

Yes, it would make Wikipedia a lot harsher, but when I do new page patrolling it really depresses me and makes me believe that human stupidity, selfishness and ignorance is widespread. Wikipedia is not a soapbox, but likewise I am not going to restrain myself from venting the true feelings that I sometimes have. Note that I don't always feel like this - it's only when I do newpage patrolling that it gets to me like this.

I just wonder how much of what is on Wikipedia right now is crap - non-notable, uncategorised, typical stuff that new users create.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 22:54, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

There's no real precedent for banning people for not providing "enough" references, only for actually adding content that could never have references, because it's a hoax. A less harsh method may just be to develop some technical way to require references before a new article can be created, or at least bring up a screen suggesting them if they aren't present. It's surprising how many seemingly spammy articles turn out to be legit once the newbie editor realizes we want references, and comes up with 5-10 newspaper, magazine etc. articles. That's not always the case... but it's hardly rare. The problem is we often just don't get the message to newpage creators. --W.marsh 23:06, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I like that less harsh method you've suggested. Has this been suggested anywhere else before? Do you think it would be possible? It'd save so much time on CSDs.-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 23:11, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
The worst CSDs are the juvenile ones that are constantly created - the ones that say something like "he is the coolest dude ever who gets all the ladies" or "he is an ugly fat nerd with no friends" and nothing else. There would be much less of these articles if citations or at least a link to an external source were a requirement. Sure, they could provide inappropriate sources, but how about if there was some system of verifying that the source mentioned the subject of the article (and even that's not necessarily enough for notability)? We could do this for the first four days of new users creating pages, after which they'd be trusted, similar to semi-protection.-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 23:20, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
There was a proposal a year ago or so, but it went nowhere (I wish I knew the link... hopefully someone will dig it up). I've suggested it other places but it's gone nowhere. It would help if we got a developer interested in it... it's kind of hard even for good ideas to get implemented if no one wants to write the code. --W.marsh 23:23, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
There to no need to totally reverse long standing WP policy permitting stubs in order to get rid of such articles. Nor is there reason to end the equally long-standing policy that sources need not be ones that are parsable online, or even online at all. Such a policy would require both. It's not that such policy suggestions have gone nowhere, but that they have been soundly rejected every time. There is nothing easier or faster for an new page patroller to do than mark such articles, or for an admin to do than to delete them. DGG (talk)
No, that's not what I said... I just suggested a way of asking for references. I've once cited a newspaper article from 1905 so believe me I'm familiar with offline references. I also am not sure that we'd need to make this mandatory, but an automated way of asking "are you sure you want to create without any references?" would really help good-faith, but inexperienced, article creators. I'm not proposing anything as drastic as you seem to have assumed. --W.marsh 02:16, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Sorry if I misunderstood (and I hardly would have thought it was you who was suggesting it, but a comment from several stages back--this has gotten to be a rather confused discussion by now.) Your suggestion is indeed another matter, and additional guidance to new users is a good idea. What can be done in a practical way is I think unfortunately a bit doubtful, as I can think of very little way to get anyone to read any online help. DGG (talk) 03:20, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Getting people to read some distant documentation page, I agree, is not very practical. But a warning screen of some sort seems a bit harder to ignore... oh well, it's probably never going to happen. It just seems like a better idea than outright banning people for creating unreferenced articles. We do see most "Wikipedia alternatives" try to hang their hat on reliability... it seems as though if we want to stay relevant we should at least think about ways to encourage more accurate articles. Better referencing doesn't always equate to higher accuracy though. I'm just throwing out some ideas. --W.marsh 03:30, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I like the idea, and I think it just might be possible. Perhaps combine that with a special flag on Special:Newpages if the person does click "Yes, create this article without references" and an easy wizardlike interface for people to add a couple references without being familiar with the <ref> tag format, and I think this could make a significant difference. Seraphimblade Talk to me 04:50, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't believe the original author should necessarily be responsible for references. That's nice, but part of what makes wiki work is people can specialise and create different parts of the article. Besides that, they might need more time to find good references. There's a reason we don't have a CSD for "articles without references". I'm all for automatic suggestions for how the article can be improved, but threats of deletion that couldn't actually be conducted under policy are just demoralizing. Dcoetzee 05:38, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
So conduct the threats. Quality over quantity any day for me, there's no reason to leave unsourced material hanging around. WP:V already states it can be challenged and removed at any time, so the logical conclusion there is "If the article's totally unsourced, let's let people challenge and remove it, and well, like V says, put it back after you source it." Sourcing should be a requirement, not a nicety, not something you kinda get around to. Seraphimblade Talk to me 07:06, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
If we excluded all content that isn't currently sourced, I'd wager as much as 80% of our currently sourced content would not be around. Some people are much better at adding content than sources, people can work together to achieve more. I'd much rather people add content that I and others can find sources for, than see that content never appear because it was deleted - or not added in the first place, because the contributor felt they had no impact. Dcoetzee 07:43, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
It takes us years to find references for a lot of these articles... obviously we aren't doing a very good job of referencing other people's articles. If someone's creating an article in good faith, they could tell us what their sources are very easily... the problem is don't communicate the need to them very clearly right now. I'm not saying deletion of unreferenced articles is the answer, but the current system has issues too. --W.marsh 13:13, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Not really - many experts write directly "from their heads", based on an internalized mixture of many sources, some of which may be difficult to verify (like lectures) but have verifiable counterparts (like papers). The sources are every bit as difficult for the original author to find as a later editor knowledgable in the same general area. Dcoetzee 13:11, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Userbox migration

Maybe per Userbox migration their should be a new CSD category. Cocoaguy ここがいいcontribstalk Review Me! 16:49, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean for the template namespace redirects that are left over as a result of migration? If so, they can be deleted under CSD G6 (uncontroversial housekeeping). – Black Falcon (Talk) 17:08, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

How much crap slips through Special:Newpages unnoticed?

Can anyone provide me with any indication as to what level of articles that should meet the criteria for speedy deletion slip through newpages unnoticed? What about prods that get their prod tags removed and remain crap, unnoticed? How much of Wikipedia, right now, would meet WP:CSD instantly because it's just slipped through?--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 20:07, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Quite a bit, more than there should be. ;-) Maxim 20:18, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, a lot of it seeps into Special:Lonelypages (orphan pages) and Special:Deadendpages. Not all pages on those lists are crap, but a higher % than you'll find just looking at random pages. It seems like we do better nowadays... lonelypages used to be much more backlogged, even with me working on it pretty heavilly. No one really patrols it now like I did, but less stuff seems to get added to it. Another indication of how much is missed by NP patrol can be seen at User:Eagle 101/potential crap 2. --W.marsh 20:19, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Just as a note, Special:Deadendpages doesn't seem to be updated anymore - if you're interested in those pages, WP:DEP is the place to go nowadays. -- JavaTenor (talk) 20:27, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
It's probably impossible to measure. (Rule of thumb: lack of backlog on CAT:CSD is more likely to indicate a backlog on NPP than industrious CSD-clearing admins.) Anecdotally, I've speedied articles more than a year old before. —Cryptic 20:26, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
FYI, I believe a page can avoid being orphaned just by putting itself in a Category. If the category is large and esoteric, it will escape detection. Of course, this only really matters for people who are maliciously putting in crap, but I'm just saying, if someone wanted to put a hoax on Wikipedia, if done right the odds of it getting detected are very small. ---- Jaysweet (talk) 20:28, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
those "crap" lists are very useful--about half is indeed junk--but about half of them are articles where the wiki links simply need adding, or the external links are relevant to the type of article--or sometimes just need conversion to proper references. How do you suggest we go about purging them from the lists? DGG (talk) 05:26, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Pictures as content

Should we edit A3 to apply to articles containing nothing but pictures? Josh (talk | contribs) 23:09, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I have no objections, although A1 may apply to those anyway. JavaTenor (talk) 23:20, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
(e/c) It already does apply; article content means text, as this is a prose encyclopedia. But an article with no text is also deletable under A1, and also A7 depending on the title. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:22, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
A3 is about no context, so that would be the most fitting in all these cases. J-ſtanTalkContribs 02:42, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Context

The whole concept of "context" seems to be inadequately described: "No context. Very short articles with little or no context for their statements. Example: 'He is a funny man with a red car and makes people laugh.' Context is different than content, treated in A3, below." Maybe we can put some examples of good context? StrengthOfNations 01:34, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I think of A1 as covering articles where there's not enough context for it to be meaningful. As in, a reasonable reader would not really know what the article was talking about. At any rate, here's some articles tagged with db-nocontext that I've declined to delete in the past few days: [8], [9], [10], [11]. I guess these are okay examples of articles with enough context... they're about a band, a bridge, a friend of Jane Austen and a beach, respectively. While they are all relatively short articles and might have some issues, there's still enough context that we know what they're talking about, they certainly aren't vague and confusing like the "He is a funny man with a red car and makes people laugh" example. You're right though, the description for A1 does seem to be a bit lacking... as my examples show, people do tend to misapply it a lot. --W.marsh 01:45, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I see they were all nominated by different people. Do you think the confusion over the rule is bad enough that we should reword? It's hard to imagine it being much clearer than it is.Wikidemo 02:15, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, I personally am finding it a bit confusing, or at least hard to put into words. It's something like "If adding context would require a total rewrite of the article, then we don't have anything useful towards a decent article anyway, so deletion is called for". At least that's what I think I apply when I'm doing CSD. --W.marsh 02:22, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

That said, this CSD has been around forever, relatively speaking... even the "funny man" example only modified very slightly in the last 3 years.[12] I don't think any drastic action is needed here... but it can't hurt to discuss. --W.marsh 02:27, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow, a three year old core policy and I'm the one who changed the simulated nonsense! I just thought the part about his wife being great was slightly sexist and vaguely suggestive. I guess that makes me the most PC person on all of wikipedia :) Wikidemo 03:02, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Maybe we should undo that, just for tradition's sake :-) --W.marsh 03:47, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Interestingly, the speedy deletion criteria often overlap. A page created with "He is a funny man with a red car and makes people laugh" could match G1 nonsense, possibly G3 vandalism, possibly G10 attack, A1 no context, and A7 non-notable biography. That's potentially five different speedy deletion criteria alone to pick from! We should have a competition to see who can think of a piece of text under imagined circumstances that meets the most criteria for speedy deletion possible...--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 04:37, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I'll give you an example of a "no context": I once encountered an article entitled CNTM 9 which was nothing more than a chart with a bunch of people I had never heard of. It definitely wasn't gibberish or nonsense (and in fact I later figured out that it was a record of who won and lost in Canada's Next Top Model Cycle 9), but it gave absolutely no context about what it was presenting... so little context, one couldn't even tell if it was notable or encyclopedic (it ultimately wasn't, but I couldn't even make that determination, hence the "no context" critera) --Jaysweet 21:49, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
OH DEAR GOD and it has since been recreated. I was totally expecting that link to be red. *sigh* Sometimes I just don't know. heh... --Jaysweet 21:50, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I tagged it A1. I haven't the faintest idea what it could possibly refer to. J-ſtanTalkContribs 04:16, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Like I said, it appears to be a summary of the results of Canada's Next Top Model. Takes some searching to figure that out, heh, but that appears to be the case. That's why I say: this is a rare example of something which is notable and coherent, but has so little context as to make it nigh impossible to determine that. --Jaysweet 14:14, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

What about Legality of the Vietnam War? That was speedied due to lack of context. Unfortunately, I don't have the original text since it's been deleted but it was a stub relying mainly on links to pertinent, sourced wikipedia articles to establish verifiability and context. Running "define:context" on google gives us the following: 'the set of facts or circumstances that surround a situation or event; "the historical context"' Moreover, the context is self-evident from the article name. Anyway, I would think that internal links could in some cases be sufficient to establish enough context to survive CSD1 because the reader can follow the link and see what it's about. Stayman Apple (talk) 14:23, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I too have been seeing more and more misapplications of A1. I have a feeling that people read the "short article" part and completely skip the no context part. So my question is, why is the shortness of the article important? Wouldn't a long article with absolutely no context be just as speediable? For example, if the table Jaysweet mentions was a table of thirty or forty people, that no longer meets the definition of short. But it's still contextless and should be deleted. Natalie (talk) 20:26, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Scope of G4? Time limit?

It has been suggested that WP:CSD#G4 applies to any creation of a new article on the same subject within a short time after the deletion. Is this the intent of the criterion or does it only apply to "substantially identical" articles? If we want some sort of 'time limit' I'd suggest updating the description of G4 or creating a new speedy deletion criteria. --CBD 23:00, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

G4 was never meant to permanently and irreversibly deny articles on a given topic just because of one AFD somewhere. "Consensus can change" is one of our long-standing principles. Originally G4 did just apply to duplicate articles, and may have been more of a copyright thing actually (to prevent people from just recreated deleted articles by pasting the Google cache). At any rate, an important clause crept in at some point, allowing for G4 deletions of any article where "changes in the recreated page do not address the reasons for which the material was deleted [at AFD]". This was not an original part of G4 as far as I know.
At any rate, what might be the case here is that an admin simply mis-applied the CSD rule. It does seem like an awfully complicated judgment to make, the two articles looked very little alike so it boiled down to a careful analysis of the references being needed to determine if your new version addressed "reasons for which the material was deleted".
I'm not sure there's an easy solution here. A time limit could be needlessly bureaucratic - I've seen many articles totally rewritten a few days after a "Delete" AFD and no one objects to the new version, since it truly addresses the problems that got the article deleted. We might just need to apply what G4 says more carefully... in this case you've already taken it to DRV, so that will run its course. As is often said here, there's no way we can write the rules so that someone somewhere doesn't apply them incorrectly. --W.marsh 23:15, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
I think it's gotten a lot worse lately, though. Speedy is being overused, when an AfD would allow time to address objections to the article. A lot of articles such as barefoot and pregnant which were improved during the AfD process would probably get speedied today. Stayman Apple (talk) 15:20, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

G8 question

How are we to discuss splits/merges if the talk pages get deleted? See Talk:Omaha "one city, one school district" controversy, Pages that link to Talk:Omaha "one city, one school district" controversy. ⇔ ChristTrekker 04:45, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Splits should be discussed at the talk page of the article to be split, not at the proposed new article. If the issue is splitting of sections from two different pages and merging them to a third, not yet existant page, then discuss at one of the pages that has a section. GRBerry (talk) 14:20, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
So is {{mergeto}} not the right template to use here? What can I do so that all the discussion links point to the same discussion on a talk page that won't get deleted? ⇔ ChristTrekker 15:33, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Use this pattern: {{Merge | Article 2 | Talk:Article 1#Merge proposal |date=November 2007 }} GRBerry 15:45, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

A3: attempts to correspond

I restored "attempts to correspond with the person or group named by its title" to the "No content" criterion at A3. That phrase had been removed in edit [13] in favor of the phrase "chat-like comments", but the edit summary said that "this is not an attempt to make any change in the meaning". However, there are "attempts to correspond" that don't resemble "chat-like comments"; for example, someone created the article Cairo Opera Company as a letter to the opera company complaining about the directing of a certain production. Such an "article" should be considered subject to speedy deletion. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:13, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I think your wording is better... "chat-like comments" is not as clear. --W.marsh 02:24, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I also find "chat-like comments" too broad. Some legitimate article content may seem "chat-like". Dcoetzee 02:53, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Patent Nonsense

There are a lot of people confusing patent nonsense with complete bollocks and with things made up in school one day. I can't provide examples because they're deleted now, but people tag perfectly intelligible pages with {{db-nonsense}} and admins delete them despite G1 being only for unintelligble gibberish. Can we remove "patent nonsense" from the G1 criterion description and just leave it "gibberish"? Too many people are forgetting the "patent" and just thinking it applies to "nonsense", which means too many pages are being speedily deleted. Powers T 20:51, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd only consider supporting that if you could point to an example of a page that was inappropriately deleted (or at least marked for deletion) as "patent nonsense" and it turned out to be a worthy article. --Jaysweet 20:54, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
That's kinda hard to do, isn't it? =) Powers T 21:42, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Not if this is a problem... if this is a problem, then there should be some articles where the revision history will show application of a CSD#G1 to the top of the page, but the template later being removed and the article kept...
I dunno, I mean, I see your point, but I am just having trouble thinking of an article that was once in a state where it didn't even make sense and eventually became a good article... But maybe I am wrong. --Jaysweet 21:46, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I assume he means pages which actually were deleted... however, if they were any good, at least some of them should have been undeleted after the author protested. Obviously anybody can misapply a criterion and incorrectly tag an article, but that's often a sign of the cluelessness of the editor rather than a fault with the policy itself. Iain99Balderdash and piffle 21:50, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

It's true that G1 is sometimes stretched beyond its strictly defined meaning, but I don't have much of a problem with this because, in my own experience, the articles so tagged are nearly always unsalvageable rubbish which would not have a snowball's chance in hell of surviving AfD anyway, and the ones which aren't usually have their speedies declined. For example, I regard myself as being quite conservative with my speedy tagging, but if I do see an article along the lines of "he was born in 1386, died in 1942 and once climbed Everest using only his mother's curling tongs" (believe me, we do get articles like that), then I'll to tag it as nonsense, regardless of the fact that it is technically grammatical prose. The alternative would be tagging it as vandalism as a blatant addition of untrue facts, but I prefer to at least look like I'm assuming good faith sometimes, so usually prefer the nonsense tag. I agree with Jaysweet here; unless you have some specific examples of good articles which were deleted under this criterion and were subsequently undeleted (they should have been, if they were any good), I'm not convinced that it's a real problem.

In addition, the change you made to the policy ("if you can understand the words, it isn't patent nonsense") isn't correct even by the strict definition of patent nonsense, which can also include "content that, while apparently meaningful after a fashion, is so completely and irredeemably confused that no reasonable person can be expected to make any sense of it whatsoever"... or in other words content where the words make sense but the sentences don't. Iain99Balderdash and piffle 21:48, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Right; as far as I am concerned, "he was born in 1386, died in 1942 and once climbed Everest using only his mother's curling tongs" is so completely and irredeemably confused that no reasonable person can be expected to make sense of it. Deletion as patent nonsense would meet the legalistic definition. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:00, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I have just one link to state. Time Cube. (Not the article— the illucid pap to which it refers). This is a good example of what "readable" nonsense also means. — Coren (talk) 23:55, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
There's a difference among semantic sense, syntactic sense, and logical sense. The quotation Carl uses above makes both semantic and syntactic sense; it is only logical sense that it fails. Time Cube is, I think, more along the lines of the intent of the second item in WP:NONSENSE. I will acknowledge that my edit to the criterion here was a little too broad, encompassing (or rather, not including within the criterion) as it would the likes of Time Cube, but I still worry that the criterion is being overused. The truth is, we don't have a speedy criterion for "silly but intelligible nonsense," probably for the same reason hoaxes are not speediable. It's not even vandalism if it was created in good faith. I don't think we should be blurring that line. Powers T 03:37, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
"If you can understand the words article, it's not patent nonsense." would have been closer. Silly but intelligible nonsense such as the five-hundred-year-old mountaineer example can be speedied as vandalism if you're uncomfortable considering it a G1. In practice, no one will call you on it. —Cryptic 05:12, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, such an example probably would have to have been made in bad faith, and thus vandalism. My issue would be with something similar made in good faith, like a neologism for which someone posts a definition or a new game someone made up in school one day. These things are not speediable because they're made in good faith and aren't unintelligible. Powers T 13:15, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Things like "Charles Witworth the Third was the seventh president of Canada and could fly over 300 miles on a single cruton" can be deleted via ignore all rules if nothing else applies. However I don't see any need of invoking G1. I do think the spirit of G1 is content that cannot be understood. The above example is clearly untrue because they use kilometers in Canada, not miles, however it can be understood. Common sense can be applied. 1 != 2 05:36, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm... I'm trying and failing to visualise the president of Canada flying 300 miles on a cruton (yes, I am very bored right now), so maybe my imagination just isn't vivid enough, but for me it's probably in the realm of things which can't be understood. In practice I don't see that it makes a huge difference whether we invoke G1, G3 or WP:IAR; few if any people would argue that something like that needs to be kept.
How about Colorless green ideas sleep furiously? The sentence, not the article of course. Iain99Balderdash and piffle 10:27, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
I would consider that something of which sense cannot be made and thus eligible for G1. Flying on a crouton is different; it makes semantic sense and thus, IMHO does not qualify for G1. Blatant vandalism, probably. Powers T 13:15, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

(undent) Do you have an expample of an article deleted by G1 that shouldn't have been? Perhaps if we see the kind of abuse you feel must be prevented we'll be in a better position to determine what can be done to fix it? — Coren (talk) 16:02, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the example of [TimeCube.com], I am of the opinion that, were such content to appear in an article in Wikipedia, it should be speedy-deleted, not as patent nonsense, but as a threat to public health. Gene Ray makes the world a worse place, and if even one person were to read his crap on Wikipedia and say, "Gee, maybe negative numbers are the result of a conspiracy theory," then Wikipedia would be a detriment to society and should be disbanded.
Okay, maybe I'm a little extreme. heh... (Note that I have argued on the Time Cube article to remove anything that might give the slightest air of credibility to this yahoo... I even objected to mentioning that some people maybe might pretend to agree with him. heh...) --Jaysweet 16:33, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think G1 should be merged with G3, as an aside. "Vandalism" assumes bad faith, whilst "patent nonsense" makes no faith assumption. You see what I mean?-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 02:17, 23 November 2007 (UTC)