Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 2

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Reposted content that was deleted according to Wikipedia deletion policy

I don't quite understand how to apply criterion 5 for speedy deletion, "Reposted content that was deleted according to Wikipedia deletion policy". I wanted to list an article that's recently been recreated, title-wise, after having been deleted in January 2004, but how can I know that the content was the same in January? I don't have access to the January text, because, well, the article's been deleted. The article as it now stands fulfills several criteria for non-speedy deletion, though, so should I forget about the recreation issue and just list it on VfD? Bishonen 02:38, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think you're describing a fairly infrequent example of when case 5 should be applied. Most times when the deleted content reappears, it's fairly quick (a few days) and we all still remember it. When in doubt, though, I think you are right to simply relist it on VfD. Add your suspicions, though, and perhaps someone with the right access can check on it. Rossami 23:56, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

To 142.177.x.x

Please explain to us the reason that our speedy deletion clause conflicts with the GFDL and we may consider removing it. I see no violation. —siroχo 02:28, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)

Discussion moved from Village pump

Hello. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but I think somebody's been speedy deleting my articles. I stubbed Christopher Street, Manhattan and East 8th Street, Manhattan last week, and both were gone the next day—I figured it was a bug in Wikipedia, so I rewrote them and they've been fine since then. This morning I stubbed Spaghetti strap, half-jokingly, and was gratified later on to see someone else come along and expand it into a decent article. But I checked again just now, and suddenly it's gone! What's going on? I don't think any of these were speedy deletion candidates... are these disappearances actually a bug? Am I seeing a conspiracy where there is none? T-bomb 17:23, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Replying to myself—after digging around on WP:SD, I found Wikipedia:Deletion_log, and it looks like all three of my articles were in fact deleted (by User:Jimfbleak). I disagree with the deletions (jeez, man, can't you at least let them sit for a day or two?) but at least now I know what was going on. Carry on... T-bomb 17:31, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I believe these are not speedy deletion candidates, and so the deleter is in fact violating policy. On the other hand, they may very well be candidates for the ordinary deletion process, due to the relative insignificance of the topics (we don't usually have articles on individual streets unless they have some wide significance, like Wall Street.) Derrick Coetzee 17:49, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
In Wikipedia:Deletion policy, the only rule for speedy deletions that might possibly have applied to these articles was: "Very short articles with little or no definition or context (e.g., "He is a funny man that has created Factory and the Hacienda. And, by the way, his wife is great."). Turning such pages into relevent redirects may sometimes be appropriate." Which, in fact, doesn't sound like all that great a match. So I agree that the deleter was a bit over-zealous. Elf | Talk 18:12, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The original Spaghetti strap that you created was probably a candidate for SD, I was considering adding the delete tag, or possibly putting it on VfD, until is was edited into a valid substub. I don't believe that the substub was a candidate for speedy deletion. Darksun 18:19, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

BTW, I would certainly argue that Christopher Street, Manhattan and East 8th Street, Manhattan are of sufficient significance to merit articles, for exactly the same reason we include Brick Lane. Each has been the defining center of a neighborhood and a subculture. Christopher Street is the center of the West Village gay community and East 8th, or more precisely St. Mark's Place, has been a countercultural center at least since hippie times. -- Jmabel 19:06, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for backing me up. I have to admit, though, even as the author of the stubs, I can understand why someone unfamiliar with the city could consider them candidates for deletion—they're “just” streets, after all, right? Anyway, I started these articles in the hope that others can develop them further... there's far more history to these streets than any single person can possibly know. I'm looking forward to learning more myself. T-bomb 19:18, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Well, Christopher Street is pretty darned famous, but I'd ask that a street be famous outside of the city. Christopher Street is. The Bowery is (both the lane and the district). Park Ave., Broadway, 7th Ave. as the Fashion District, 42nd St., 5th Ave., all famous to people outside the city. On the other hand, every street has some major history to it, so we've got to think long and hard about them. After all, 86th and 53rd have major historical persons associated with them, all the streets in Alphabet City have things associated with them, etc. I.e. I think E. 8th probably doesn't make it. It isn't just that it has historical claims, but that it is known by a potential user of the project. At least that's my stance. Geogre 00:57, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Some streets may be notable, but do we really need articles on every street in Manhattan, as this article's red-links seems to imply? 23rd_Street,_Manhattan#Intersections Niteowlneils 20:09, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In such cases a good idea to put all streets into a common article, kind of Manhattan streets, eventually separating streets wilh lots of info into separate articles. It is a common-sense approach in wikipedia for all "listable" topics. Mikkalai 20:27, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
That's a reasonable approach--don't make break-out articles until the parent gets too weighty. Niteowlneils 21:15, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Why not? Not like it's polluting the namespace, and it's not like it's self-promotion. --Golbez 20:14, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)
Huh? Thousands of cities have a Second Avenue. Some are one-way, some two-way. Who cares? Niteowlneils 21:15, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
That's nice of you; the only streets mentioned here are Christopher Street, Manhattan and East 8th Street, Manhattan. You notice the little ", Manhattan" bit there? Yet you then pull Second Avenue out of your hat, which I didn't know exists and I wasn't justifying its existence. Bravo. For the record, I think these should be redirects to a possible Streets of Manhattan article. Keep info there til it grows too big for its britches. --Golbez 00:25, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)
Sorry, I wasn't intentionally sandbagging you--Second Avenue is the second active link in the list at 23rd_Street,_Manhattan#Intersections that I cited, but I regret that the way I presented it came across like a set-up. Streets of Manhattan, until it needs to be split up sounds like a great solution/compromise/whatever. Niteowlneils 01:46, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In any case, all three of these articles should've been sent to WP:VFD, not WP:SD. • Benc • 20:34, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have no argument with that. Niteowlneils 21:15, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Could someone look into Jimfbleaks extreme deletionistism *wrings tongue*. A few days ago he deleted a perfectly valid article CMUCL which I have since replaced and expanded slightly. Ludraman 22:52, 8 Sep 2004 [signature originally omitted]
Huh. Ironically, the first one I've checked that I can't think of a speedy case for is content="Abuses of power occur whenever a postion of power created. Infringements can range from the petty, (stealing staples from the office) to the outrageous (waging war on a country in order to line your own pockets)." That said, there are quite a few admins that regularly delete things that I don't know what case applies. However, most of it isn't even worthy of VfD, so I see the problem more in the speedy definitions--too many are too vague, there should be more examples, and they even sometimes seem to contradict each other. I have been collecting samples to try and get this issue clarified. The ones I have so far are at User:Niteowlneils/csdornot/. Some are actual examples (with tweaks to obscure source) and some are facsimilies, but all represent articles I've seen get speedy deleted--most I think rightly, but most I don't know on what basis. As for your specific CMUCL, "CMUCL is a Common Lisp implementation" would probably be speedied by 1/3 to 1/2 of the admins, from what I've seen--it's awfully minimal. Some others would have made it a redir, as has happened. Niteowlneils 02:45, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Is there really a substantial amount of data on these two streets? Wouldn't they be better suited as a section in the city article? I question if even the more significant west coast counterparts to these subjects(Haight-Ashbury and The Castro)might be better served as sections in San Francisco.Cavebear42 23:05, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I agree. Putting small snippets of dicussion into a suitable large article is far nicer (and it won't get deleted as merely a piece of litter of interest to no-one). Then make redirect pages. I think the problem is that creating numerous small, annoying stubs is so much easier for some. You never have to worry about how to fit the material into another article or about about some other editor tromping on your work because they think it is messing up that editor's article. Maybe the answer to stub littering is indeed to speedy delete them when they don't tell you anything that anyone looking up the topic would care to know and just get in the way of the real information when someone is searching in Google and gets Wikipedia mirror after Wikipedia mirror of the same two-sentence non-information, supposed articles that on their own topic correspond to "Christopher Columbus was an explorer who discovered America in 1492." Articles of that kind normally do not help those searching for information and are usually worse than nothing for anyone searching on the web. Jallan 18:31, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

End moved discussion

Case 4

On 16 September, several users were bold and updated the wording of Case 4 to reflect their understanding of the current consensus interpretation of this case. (Presumably, this was based on an analysis of the precedents being establised on the VfD page.) Ambi challenged that decision as not yet supported by consensus. Please comment here about whether (and how) this case should be updated. Please refrain from "being bold" on the policy page until we've all had a reasonable chance to discuss it. Rossami 13:43, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

At the start of this discussion, Case 4 read:

Very short articles with little or no definition or context (e.g., "He is a funny man that has created Factory and the Hacienda. And, by the way, his wife is great."). Turning such pages into relevant redirects may sometimes be appropriate.

transcriptions from the edit history

  • Timwi proposed adding a clause explicitly preferring expansion of these articles.
  • Hemanshu proposed a clause explictly asking for a delay before speedying articles under this case.
  • Timwi proposed changing "little or no definition or context" to "absolutely no information or content".

end transcribed text

  • I believe that the speedy process would be better controlled and far less controversial if we restricted case 4 to "no" definition or context. The weasel wording of "little or no" has become a slippery slope and sparked more ill will and work than it saved. It opens us to accusations that the decision process is not transparent. If the article's a judgement call, it should go to the full VfD discussion (or perhaps to Geogre's proposed Managed Deletion process). Rossami 13:43, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • I oppose fiddling with this case. If Managed Deletion passes, it will address Hemanshu's proposal. "absolutely no information or content" is ridiculous: that would mean zero bytes and thus rule out all such articles. As to expansion: one can demand and expect some minimum standards from contributors. Posting sub-standard crap in the vein of the "hacienda and wife" example above is rude. And letting such crap sit around until some kind soul decides to turn it into a real stub or even article just increases the risk that the crap will be mirrored (because typically it takes quite some time until somebody comes along and turns it into something decent), and that will only reflect badly upon us. Therefore, I prefer to delete such sub-standard stuff. If somebody wants to write a real stub or article, he or she can still do so. Lupo 14:06, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • I oppose any change to this, for reasons which Lupo has stated far better than I could have. The current case allows us to only delete the most basic of rubbish. Ambi 07:56, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • I agree with both of you that the "hacienda and wife" kinds of articles should continue to be deleted under this case. But I have observed others who I believe are abusing the intent of the case and trying to use it as justification to speedy-delete articles that are not nearly so clear-cut. For example, some are using this case as justification to speedy-delete articles which are really just stubs. Stubs may ultimately be deletable but none of the discussion that led up to the speedy process implied any intent to use it that way. My concern is that the current wording of the case allows it to be stretched. I want to remove some of the ambiguity. By the way, I do not interprete "no information" to equal "zero bytes". Information is more than mere data. Rossami 16:29, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
My $0.02: Let me define "obvious delete" to mean "an article that obviously meets the criteria for the ordinary deletion policy, e.g. vanity." The problem is not that speedy deletes are poorly defined. The problem is that people are using the Wiki-technical-term "speedy delete" for obvious deletes. They may be doing this because they can't be bothered to familiarize themselves with the speedy deletion criteria, or they may be doing this because they feel that that the speedy-delete criteria should be expanded to include obvious deletes. Neither problem will be solved by refining the speedy-delete definitions.
I think many of the objections to listing things on VfD are straw men. If something that is an obvious delete is listed on VfD it does not waste much time. Personally, I glance at them. If they're obvious and few people have voted, I vote delete. Ten seconds; twenty seconds, tops, if Wikipedia is slow that day. If they're obvious and I see four or five delete votes in there already, I don't bother to vote. Four votes to delete, all for the same obviously valid reason, are consensus. There's no need to have twenty-two. If the article is hanging out there for five days and only four people vote, all for delete, well, there was plenty of time for any "keep" voters to have voted. A sysop will eventually have to do some fairly mechanical work to dispose of the VfD, but if the discussion is short and consists of four or five deletes, all for the same obviously valid reason, it won't take much time. So I think there is very little harm in erring on the side of listing.
And there is a great deal of harm if something is speedy-deleted that should not have been.
The current VfD process keeps things in the open. And there are a fair number of surprises. Quite a few things that honestly look deletable to the original lister turn out to be real or notable when brought to the attention of a large pool of Wikipedians.
I think all we need to do is keep reminding people about the definition of speedy.
I oppose narrowing the definition of speedy. It's very narrow already. We just need to get people to adhere to it.
Personally I have no problem with the new point 4, "Sub-stub articles which add no information beyond what was obvious from the title," which I think is just a special case of "no information or context." But given the idiotic controversy about things like substubs I think it is probably better not to speedy them, because listing them on VfD sometimes does result in their expansion, and because I want to tone down rather than escalate the friction between inclusionists and deletionists. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 17:04, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Disagreement with a speedy tag

This has come up in relation the the GAMPAC article, where an anon editor added] a speedy tag. This was removed here and here and here and here and here and (hopefully finaly!) here, with the anon adding it back each time. The anons point (as shown in the edit comments, on the articles talk page, and on the anons own) was that the tag specifically requests that editors do not remove it from pages, and that it should left up so that a sysop could see it and decide wether to delete it. This seems to me to be a legitamte interpretation of the current CSD policy, which doesnt detail a way for good faith disagreements with the tag (as opposed to your average vandaliseing author removeing the CFD tag from "thier" scumy little article about haciendas before a sysops gets there and deletes it) beyond asking people to discuss it on the talk page... My concern is that the current version of the policy implicitly suggests that only a sysop has the power to remove a CSD tag, which seems contrary to the concept of sysops haveing extra abilities, but not extra authority. The obvious thing would be to fix the policy... but giving a specific way to object to speedy tags would probabally get, err, "overused" by vandals protecting thier articles, while confirming the currently-implicit power of the sysops would seem to be contrary to the wiki-spirit. Perhaps keeping the status-quo, where this particular set of circumstances (revert wars over apparently good faith additions and removals of the tag) probabally happens only very rarely would be best... any thoughts? Iain 19:38, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

My own suggestion is a "Do not remove this tag from an article you created yourselves" policy. Aris Katsaris 19:52, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You already have given sysops greater authority than others by making them the ones who decide on whether an article should be deleted through the "speedy deletion" process; that is, without having to go through the torturous "community" deletion process. That means you have given sysops the authority to decide whether an article meets the formal requirements to be subject to speedy deletion, and then whether the article should actually be deleted or sent to the Vfd process. The tag is just a mechanism whereby anyone can ask the sysops to exercise this authority. If I ask for a page to be deleted by the sysops by putting the tag on the page, and someone deletes it, what are they doing? They are deleting my asking. But that doesn't make me want to stop asking, necessarily. And if I insist, then what. I can still put the request on a sysops Talk page instead, or communicate with him/her offline through email or any other channel. Is the person who disagrees with me going to delete my request from the sysops Talk page too? Are they going to try to intercept the sysops email? Allowing the delete tag to be removed by someone else simply makes a mockery of the process. If you don't want a speedy deletion process, or if you don't want sysops to be the deciders because its against "wiki spirit" -- fine, don't have it then. But as long as you have the process, nobody should be allowed to delete the tag except for a sysop in the course of disposing of the request.

That's not authority, that's *trust* that we are giving to the administrators when we make them such. Trust that they will follow the rules for speedy deletion. There's a difference. Aris Katsaris 20:38, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Nonsense. Your speedy deletion process is that the sysops decide, not the community, in certain cases. Implicit in that is that the sysops decide whether any particular case fits into the general cases described by the policy, and then whether they will delete the article in question or not. Giving somebody the ability to do that certainly involves trust. But there is no pretending that it does not also confer "authority" upon the sysops -- "wiki spirit" to the contrary notwithstanding. You may like to deceive yourself that it isn't authority, but anybody else coming new to the Wikipedia and not yet drinking the local Kool-Aid is only going to be confused. Letting people delete requests to the sysops to exercise their authority (i.e. the delete tag) doesn't change the sysops authority. It just means that people will have to find a different way to request the sysops to exercise their appointed role -- one that bystanders can't delete. For example, as I said, posting the request on a sysops User page. Or are you going to start patrolling the sysops' User pages also -- to ensure that nobody asks them to use their authority in a manner you don't approve of?

You can ask as many administrators as you like to do something outside of the guidelines of Wikipedia, but they wouldn't have the *right* to do so, and any speedy deletion they did outside the guidelines would be up for undeletion in a sec. And if an administrator kept on speedy-deleting articles outside of policy, their own administrative abilities would eventually come into question.
Our deletion of the speedy notice in such a clear cut case was meant in order to lighten the administrave load from nonsensical requests and ofcourse clear the article itself of the intrusion. When I removed the delete notice, I tried to make you understand the article didn't qualify -- which you could have checked yourself. You could have understood the mistake you made, as I had hoped. But even after four other people agreed with me, you still wouldn't stand it, kept on seeing your tag as a rightful request to a person with extra authority. But that person *wouldn't* have the authority to violate the speedy deletion rules, and your request was therefore an intrusion to the article. We tried to make you understand that, but you kept on wanting to hear from an administrator. So you did, and you are still in the wrong. Aris Katsaris 21:19, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Well then, so your "process" for "speedy" deletion is that someone can request deletion, but then anyone else in the community can vero the request by reverting. If the person wanting the article deleted then has the temerity to make the request again, he is obviously a vandal, and guilty of engaging in editing wars, having refused to "get it" that his request is "inappropriate". Apparently, the "speedy" deletion process actually requires unanimity. In reading this article, I see that there is a large pool of people who think that only things that are literally nonsense should be deleted. It seems to me that this is formula for something never being in the "speedy" deletion process. How did the articles currently in the speedy deletion list ever get there? Most of those articles are not simple nonsense, and in fact I looked at several of the articles on the speedy deletion list before I marked the GAMPAC article for attention. Maybe you don't want to go so far as to say any one other person can veto the "speedy" deletion request, even if he isn't a sysop. So what is it going to be: 1, 2, 3, 4 people? I persisted because the policy stated that the sysop makes the decision, and none of the people deleting my request identified himself as a sysop. If the policy is that the sysop only deletes the page if it somehow survives being deleted by anyone, and the person making the request should relent immediately if anybody disagrees, then you should say so in the policy, or, better, make it impossible for anyone to add the delete tag more than once. The template certainly should not say "Don't delete the tag", when the fact is absolutely anyone can delete it, and the person making the request has to live with it.
You say "I see that there is a large pool of people who think that only things that are literally nonsense should be deleted" No, we think that only things that are patent nonsense or potentially slanderous or harmful to people (and so forth) should be put through the *speedy* deletion process. You can always use the Vfd process in order to delete any *other* pages including GAMPAC, but you have persistently refused to do so.
And you persisted *against* policy which clearly stated which kind of pages can be put through the speedy process. The administrators are the cops. They are given the guns and are authorized to use them when appropriate e.g. when criminals are hurting an innocent. But that doesn't mean that it's *sane* of you to go pester them to shoot criminals even when the crime isn't being committed at that time and noone is in physical danger. In that case "Due process" is for the cops to arrest the criminals, and the court to decide the sentence.
In Wikipedia due process is to put articles you want deleted in Vfd and only use speedy deletion for cases where speedy deletion is necessary (someone is being hurt by the existence of the page) or the question is utterly trivial (aka there's no dispute over the deletion). You can keep on pestering the cops to kill the people you want to execute but they wouldn't have the right, a court of law (Vfd) would. And the rest of us who see you trying to act out of line could still ask you to shut up and please stop bothering the nice people with the guns who wouldn't have the right to do as you wanted them either way. This isn't censorship. This is trying to make you understand the rules of the process. Aris Katsaris 22:24, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
One thing I agree with you however is that indeed the template shouldn't have said "Don't remove the notice". Indeed a mere week ago it didn't say it and now we have again changed it to say that the notice *should* be deleted if its existence is clearly inappropriate. Take a look at Template:Delete Aris Katsaris 23:04, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
You refuse to acknowledge that the policy is at least unclear and persist in accusing me of misbehaviour, rather than conceding that their might be some fault in the way this site describes it policies. You have only to scroll up a little in this very article to see that my interpretation of point 4 of the policy is not bizarre in the least. Indeed, there are people who are protesting that it is unclear, and potentially a "slippery slope". And again, you need only to look at the articles currently in the "speedy deletion" list. There are several that are not so different from the one to which I called attention. And even if you don't agree with me, and can construe some difference between the GAMPAC article and the articles that are on the list, I don't see how you can assert that these differences are so obvious that any right-thinking person would see them as you do.
I've looked at Category:Candidates_for_speedy_deletion and fail to see what pages you are referring to -- both Henry Chen and Marwat are nonsense. As for whether GAMPAC applied or not to point 4, you've still not been able to find a single person that agreed with you on this respect. Labelling stubs for speedy-deletion *because* they are stubs is still a clear abuse of speedy-deletion. Not to mention that your argument for the need of speedy deletion had nothing whatsoever to do with point 4 despite what you like to now pretend -- you instead used the argument of this being a *vanity* article. So you used a different argument for your reasons to delete, and a different argument to make your deletion fit into the guidelines. And you think you *weren't* abusing the system? Aris Katsaris 23:22, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Well, the current list is quite different than earlier. All of the ones from earlier that I remember have been deleted, apparently, or at least are no longer on the deletion list. It apparently is a "speedy" deletion list. I didn't label GAMPAC for deletion because it is a stub. I called for its speedy deletion because it is an ad for a web site, and Wikipedia isn't a web directory. It is one thing to add a stub for a prospective longer article about a topic that is referred to elsewhere in the Wikipedia. But what do you call it -- other than a "article with little or no context" -- when someone creates a stub that consists of one sentence and an external link for a political action committee founded in 2004 that doesn't seem to have done anything and is not mentioned elsewhere on the Wikipedia, other than in other external links? It seemed to me at the time that it must be a vanity article posted by people connected with the web site. You are entitled to disagree with me. Maybe I was even wrong, although I'm not conceding that yet. But there isn't any excuse or justification to keep accusing me of bad faith. It seems to me that you are the one acting in bad faith here.
It did have a definition as it clearly indicated that GAMPAC was a political action committee and what its aims were. It was a stub. And as I said: articles you believe to be vanity are for VfD (and I would have likely voted in favour of deletion there), not speedy deletes. That would have given time to people to check out whether GAMPAC is noteworthy enough for inclusion or not. Aris Katsaris 01:20, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, I missed most of the discussion as it happened, but here's something I mentioned over in Anonymous' talk page regarding this issue: I think removing a speedy-delete tag is pretty much the only option for those who don't think it should be there. The article could otherwise suddenly up and disappear in the middle of discussing it on talk: when some sysop comes along and deletes it without looking. This seems reasonable to me, since IMO there shouldn't be any lengthy debate over speedy-delete candidates that a sysop would have to dig up and review before deleting the article; that's the whole point of speedy-delete in the first place, that it's a self-evident thing not worth discussing. If someone sees fit to dispute a speedy-delete tag the issue should pretty much automatically become one for VfD to hash out instead. Bryan 08:41, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. If anyone other than the creator removes the tag, it's clear that there is disagreement. Hence, it's not uncontroversial and not suitable for speedy deletion. Jamesday 21:44, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I believe that anyone can delete a "speedy tag" if they feel doing so is appropriate. If the person requesting deletion wishes to do so, they can contact an admin via another method - eg user talk pages. I say this, because the alternate proposal would allow someone to vandalise wikipedia by dropping "speedy tags" on everything they see. Martin 03:56, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Anon IP talk pages

Following a worrying trend in anon user talk pages getting deleted speedily, I've added an extra half sentence to the notes section, stating that these aren't normally seen as speedy deletes. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 00:02, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This makes no sense since anon talk pages are CSDs:
Other. 4. User talk pages of non-logged in users where the message is no longer relevant (this is to avoid confusing new users who happen to edit with that same IP address).
Angela. 03:10, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

Text moved from project page, reasons

This text was on the project page as a sub-clause to reason 5. I'm removing it because it is a tautology. Case 5 only applies to reposted content, not new content posted under the same title. If that content is not a CSD for another reason, it would have to go through VfD anyways. —siroχo 01:21, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

  • (Proposed) Caution should be used if the only prior deletion was a speedy delete. Re-creation of the article may in some cases be evidence that the topic deserves the opportunity to expand for a short time, and later, the full VfD discussion.

I have been part of discussions where admins have speedy-deleted articles, even though the content was changed. This happens usually with VfD items, that have been re-created with new/changed content. Without a clause explicitly stating this as a problem, an article can be trapped between being re-deleted each time it's placed there, and the fact the VfU is only a process to recover the deleted older article (which was probably the problem version). There seems to be no clear definition as to how much "content" must change in order for it to stay. See the discussion around Talk:General Mayhem for one example of this. Myself, I would actually expand the sub-clause (beyond just applying to previous speedy-deletions) with some firmer guidelines. -- Netoholic @ 04:50, 2004 Oct 4 (UTC)

The proposal does apply to reposted content. Please consider the following. User A contributes an article. Admin B speedy deletes it. A (who may or may not realize what happened) re-contributes it. Admin C finds it. From here, there can be several scenarios:

  1. A's article clearly met one of the criteria for CSD in which case C can speedy delete it (again) under the same case. The "reposted content" rule need not apply.
  2. A's article did not clearly meet a criteria for CSD but C decides that A's article should be deleted per general policy. In this case, B's prior decision to speedy should not be considered as justification all by itself to re-speedy. The article should be nominated on VfD.
  3. The content of A's article justifies keeping it. We don't know why B deleted it but in C's judgement, B was wrong. In this case, again B's prior decision to speedy should not be used to justify a re-speedy. (I'd hope that this occurs very, very rarely.)

If my first scenario were the only one that applied, Siroxo would be right and the sub-clause would be unnecessary. We've recently seen several come up that were closer to the second scenario, though. This deserves clarification. Rossami 14:26, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ok I see your points. I just don't want any clause to become too complicated. Maybe the deletion policy just needs to be fixed in general, instead of patching it like this. I'm not against adding this "quick-fix", more I wish it wasn't needed. (: —siroχo
Agreed. I've put it back (still tagged as Proposed) while we research where the policy should be clarified more generally. Thanks. Rossami

case 7

Case 7 currently reads "Foreign language articles that already exist on another Wikimedia project, as a result of having been copied and pasted in to Wikipedia after their creation elsewhere, or as a result of having been moved via the transwiki system." I believe this case was drafted before Wikibooks, Wikiquotes, etc became popular. In order to be able to speedy delete the other leftovers of the transwiki process, I propose the following update. Builds and corrections requested. Rossami 16:35, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"Articles that already exist on another Wikimedia project which have been copied and pasted into Wikipedia after their creation elsewhere or as a result of having been moved via the transwiki system."
  • Unfortunately, that wording allows a lot of vagueness. Many Help: pages, for example, are copied from meta:. Personally, I would rather see a short stub description and a link to the other project page, rather than deletion – especially of the speedy kind. Is this case even needed? Does anyone have examples of where this is a problem? -- Netoholic @ 16:56, 2004 Oct 5 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Fried meatballs. I see your point though. As a sidenote, I've since found that m:Transwiki says simply "The original page may be deleted as soon as it has been moved to the transwiki area." No equivalent comment or cross-reference is in the speedy list. Perhaps that's the page that should be clarified because your recommendation about Help: pages makes a great deal of sense. Rossami
      • This is just a bad idea to plain delete pages if this type. If people come to Wikipedia, and search for meatball, they must find the information. Even if you (wrongly imho) decided to move the information to wikibooks, then DELETE the article, then it may be that the information is saved, but it is unusable, because the link to the recipee disapeared. You might have preserved the information, but an information which cant be found is just useless. Now, if you succeed to prove me that wikibooks is as well known as Wikipedia, and that the reader who do not find the information on wikipedia will have the idea to go and look in wikibooks to find the missing information, then I will not complain of deletionist behavior. But ihmo, you will not succeed to do so, hence link to information must be preserved. To do so, either keep the article, or at least save the information is another (probably more generalist) article. This is what I did in including the fried meatball information (and link to recipee) in the meatball article. Again, information hidden and impossible to find is just worthless. Do not hide information. Classifying does not make sense if it results in information being hidden. SweetLittleFluffyThing 12:52, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

New cases

I strongly support case 9 as a valid reason for speedy deletions. I also think it would be useful to add two more reasons for speedy deletion:

  • 10) Any article that is only an external link, see also section, book reference, category, or template.
  • 11) Extremely blatant vanity articles. E.g. bands that have never released an album and contain no members that are famous for reasons other than being in the band; or high school kids where the article makes no claim of notability and the person gets virtually no Google hits.

For the first case these articles are often speedy deleted already without much objections, but also without any formal permission. The third is a common occurrence on VfD, and without exception they receive unanimous consent for deletion, or are objected to only by those who disagree with current Wikipedia policies. Going through the VfD process for these articles wastes the nominator's time, the voters' time, and the time of the person who has to delete the page and then archive the debate. - SimonP 04:20, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

I strongly agree. Ambi 09:09, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
disagree on principle to expansion of speedy and hence sysop powers. Specifically, the example of Case 9 is a substub which might well be expanded, Case 10 is either already covered under patent nonsense or (if on a legitamte subject) worthy for expansion, and as for Case 11! I think there have been several instances when "non-notable" subjects have been put up on Vfd and after discusion it has been found that it was, in fact, notable... Iain 09:55, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Case 10 is simply clarifying what is already practice. It is a sub-sub-stub. Substubs are disputable, but these are worse than nothing. As for Case 11, I'm inclined to wonder whether you actually read Simon's comment before answering, Iain. He specifically stated that it would apply to only those that made no claim of notability - only the most obvious form of vanity, which almost always receive unanimous votes on VFD - not all articles of questionable notability. Ambi 11:31, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Case 10 doesn't seem to me to be adding anything new. As for Case 11, I'm not convinced that "making no claim of notability" is such a powerful criterion. To give a somewhat extreme example, suppose we had no entry for Bertrand Russell, and someone submitted the following: Bertrand Russell (May 18, 1872 - February 2, 1970) disliked nuclear weapons. He married his third wife in 1936. Assuming that an administrator unfamiliar with Russell came across this, then under the guidelines above, it could be speedy deleted as a vanity article, since it makes no claim of notability. VfD allows for a discussion period to make sure everyone has their facts straight. This is, in my opinion, essential when dealing with borderline vanity pages. Factitious 20:18, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)
It wouldn't be a great loss if the very poor article on Bertrand Russell in your example was deleted and the potential harm of false positives is not great. Also Case 11 is not for borderline vanity articles, but for blatant ones. It is assumed that any sysop would do a Google search or look at what links to confirm the unimportance of a subject before deleting an article. - SimonP 20:29, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)
I obviously agree that the example is a poor article that could be deleted. The point is that it's not a vanity page, and that with the criterion proposed above, it could easily be deleted for being a vanity page. You have to admit that that wouldn't be just. You say it's assumed that administrators would thoroughly research the subject before deleting an article, but I don't have that kind of faith in them, especially since the case as outlined above makes no such requirement. Furthermore, I have reservations against relying solely on Google as a research tool — at most, it's a useful starting point. Factitious 03:01, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps we should have a poll on Cases 9 through 11? - SimonP 20:30, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)
No poll yet... I think we need to work out combining all of the "really short articles" reasons into one section, and then insert it in. Otherwise, it feels like too many little corner cases, rather than something simple to remember. -- Netoholic @ 21:14, 2004 Oct 8 (UTC)
Another question about Case 11: would it apply to an entry saying something like "John Smith is the coolest person ever, and everyone likes him"? This is almost certainly a blatant vanity page, but it doesn't fit the requirement that the article can't be making a claim of notability. Should Case 11 be restructured to cover this? Factitious 06:35, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)
And would Case 11 also cover obvious advertisements, as well as just plain vanity? --Aponar Kestrel (talk) 01:50, 2004 Oct 12 (UTC)
That sounds like it should be a separate case, but I'd support it, as long as it's clear that the page has to be an extremely obvious ad. I think it's good for borderline cases to have to go through VfD. Factitious 02:32, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

I believe cases 9 and 10 are already covered by case 4. If desired, they might be mentioned under that case as examples. --Michael Snow 18:55, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Proposed case 10 would allow category articles to be deleted, when their intended purpose is to hold the description for the category. The book reference would inevitably be misused to delete of short articles about books, so it needs to be modified to make it clear that it is only when it is an external book link. That makes is just a duplicate of the external link one. The following is less open to misuse:

  • 10) Any article in the main namespace (no namespace: prefix) which contains only an external link, see also section or template. The presence of any other content, however insignificant, precludes a speedy deletion for this reason.

For proposed case 11 I see no way to stop it being applied by those who do poor research or who simply don't know much about the subject, so I oppose it. The full VfD process is needed to give at least some chance for those who know the field to say more. Jamesday 23:19, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Regarding Case 11, I agree that its current form would be misused in practice, but there may still be a way of rewording it so that it would be acceptable. How do you feel about:
  • 11) Extremely blatant vanity articles which make no claim of notability and which are not notable. To speedy delete an article for this reason, its topic must be something that you have studied at length. (For example, an article about a band could be speedy deleted by an administrator familiar with that band, who has seen them perform and is knowledgable with regard to their style of music.)
This requirement seems to me to be the only way of preventing people from unknowingly deleting useful information simply because they don't know about the topic. Factitious 00:20, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

As for the "Vanity page" case proposal, I think the main problem is that right now, the Wikipedia:Deletion policy says that vanity pages must go to VFD (under "Problems that may require deletion"). Therefore, they can't ever be speedy deleted. -- Netoholic @ 04:50, 2004 Oct 23 (UTC)

"Tag and bag" proposal

I have some pretty well-formed ideas about this proposal, but I want to throw it out to the interested readers here. I think there is one take-away from the Managed Deletion failure - that most everyone wants fast deletion w/ at least some verification. I want to propose that all speedy deletion requests must be a two-person job, with some obvious exceptions, like combatting vandalism in progress.

The first person to encounter a page that seems to meet the speedy deletion criteria must tag it with {{delete}} or {{deletebecause|reason}}. This can be done by admins and non-admins, even now. Next, anyone watching the deletion category will take a look at the article and make a decision. They might change the tag over to {{VFD}}, remove the {{delete}} tag altogether, or (if an admin) delete straight away (posting the content in the summary). Similarly, this gives the author or another editor the opportunity to handle the article. Again, this is something that people already do.

The change comes in the fact that no longer can an admin directly delete a non-harmful (if questionable) article by themselves. If an admin comes along and sees something they believe should be deleted right away, they just tag it and someone else will take care of it (fix the article, move it to VfD, delete it). I think this extra verification should be quite welcome by admins; and non-admins would know that at least two people independantly interpretted the speedy deletion guidelines and found the article lacking. Non-admins (including the originator of the article) can "save" an article by removing the tag, but will have to improve it or face VfD. The delete templates could be re-worded to explain this. Thoughts? -- Netoholic @ 21:38, 2004 Oct 8 (UTC)

There were a lot of responses along the lines of "expand speedy criteria", not, indeed, "make speedying harder". That's a huge mischaracterisation of responses there. Ambi 22:12, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Well, perhaps it was misphrased, but I see the work being done up above in other sections of this page as addressing the "expand speedy deletions". My idea with the "tag and bag" approach will make any speedy deletion expansions far less scary, for some. -- Netoholic @ 22:29, 2004 Oct 8 (UTC)
But then it wouldn't be speedy. Managed deletion was aimed to supplement this, not replace it. Keeping the most obvious garbage around for any length of time is a bad thing. Ambi 22:34, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
This "Tag and bag" idea is a good one, but only if it used to increase what can be speedy deleted. All the current cases, except perhaps for Case 4, should still be speedy deleted. Case 4, my proposal for Case 11, and perhaps other cases, such as blatant copyvios, would all need {{deletewithapproval}} before it could then be deleted by another user. If we want to make the process more rigorous it could also need a {{deletionseconded}} by a second user before a third could then delete it. Any objection to delete and the page would be moved to VfD. - SimonP 22:40, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)
I disagree - making speedy deletion not speedy is unnecessary, and based on the results of the Managed Deletion poll, I would argue unwanted. It clearly shows that people want to be able to quickly get rid of that which would never survive VFD - not make it more difficult to do so. There will always be the paranoid few who think that all sysops are malicious and evil, but appealing specifically to them at the expense of everyone else is a recipe for disaster. Ambi 22:43, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
What about people who think that some sysops may be mailicious, while recognizing that the vast majority are not? Do you consider them to be paranoid? Factitious 23:11, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)
That's what Votes for Undeletion is for. Considering that such requests rarely achieve consensus, this doesn't seem like a good reason to break the speedy system. Ambi 01:12, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I have to admit that I've also been thinking about a nominate and delete model would be better for many speedys (especially case 4). Two-person control would add a minor "cost" to the process of deleting but it would add oversight and would allow me (and I believe many others) to feel much more comfortable expanding the cases and relying on the judgement of the deleting admins. It will still be "speedy" even if it is no longer "instant". To Ambi's point, it's not that all sysops are malicious - just that we need some minimal controls to catch the few who are so tempted. And, unfortunately, I have not seen evidence that Votes for Undeletion is an effective control. Rossami 01:35, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Let's keep in mind that the vast majority of speedy deletions that are done currently are totally uncontroversial. The problems all arise from borderline cases. And for such, the above proposal only states my current practice: if I'm unsure, but leaning towards "delete", I tag the article with {{delete}}, but don't delete it myself. Someone else either disagrees and removes the tag, or another admin sees it, agrees, and deletes the article. Problem solved; I get a second opinion. And in the rare case where somebody re-tags an article as a speedy deletion after someone had removed the tag, I don't delete but put the article on VfD (before deleting, one should always check the history—I've even seen cases where a short but valid article was vandalized and subsequently tagged for deletion: that's a case for rollback, not deletion). Other than that, I'm strongly opposed on cutting down the speedy deletion criteria or making speedy deletion more complicated or less speedy for a number of reasons:
  • We do get a lot of junk.
  • An admin is supposed to be a trusted member of the community; an admin has the ability to delete articles precisely because the community thought the admin would wield that power responsibly. Admins deserve some leeway in making decisions. It is plain impossible to come up with a completely unambiguous checklist that would make the decision a purely mechanical one. Some judgement will always be involved.
  • If some paranoid user thinks an article was wrongly deleted, he or she can take it to VfU.
  • If some user thinks an admin was repeatedly deleting articles that shouldn't be deleted, he or she can (a) talk to the admin to hash it out, or (b) failing that, open an RfC.
Let's not get entangled in red tape here! Lupo 07:51, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
The problem is there are admins who misapply them and have even gone so far as to block a non-admin who listed an article on VfU after a 3-3 split over whether an article qualified as a speedy delete at all. That's the sort of lack of self-restraint and prudence which the speedy deletion policy now has to address. Thanks for your own prudence.:) Jamesday 00:48, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Let's not be ambigious here. That particular user (Anthony) has a history of making provactive edits on VFD and related pages, as the arbcom found in a finding a fact. That user volutarily gave up his rights to prior-warnings in order to avoid *A SECOND* case before the arbcom. So using him as an example of why we should restrict speedy deletion (when, in fact, the vast majority of people support expanding it) is disingenious at best. →Raul654 01:52, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)
Oh my God, I've made thought provoking edits on Wikipedia. Call the arbcom. anthony 警告 20:25, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
There was discussion of that blocking with the admin concerned prior to it happening. During that discussion it transpired that three people viewed the speedy deletion as not meeting the speedy deletion criteria and three (if I recall correctly, counting the original deletor) thought it did or might have. Blocking a user for a VfU listing when those who have expressed a view are split 50-50 over whether that deletion was contrary to deletion policy is not a prudent admin decision. That level of disagreement makes it clear that there is merit to the VfU listing. Jamesday 00:26, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
If anything, this proposal is nearly as bad as Managed Deletion. Managed Deletion required three admins; this proposal requires two people, admin or not. If we don't even trust three admins, who are elected by community consensus, I don't see how we could trust two people who may not even be admins. Expanding the speedy deletion criteria as some have suggested is even worse — we don't trust three admins to delete an article, so instead we put it in the hands of one admin to make the call? Johnleemk | Talk 06:44, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Both your Preliminary Deletion and Managed Deletion were bloated instruction creep. I don't really care what the criteria for speedy deletion become, so long as two people (one admin and one other editor) concur that a page meets the criteria. If they both knew they'd be held responsible, then this would prevent "knee-jerk" deletions (like when a new editor makes both good and bad articles). This isn't a mechanism to expand deletion, but just a double-check that is fairly easy to implement (and in reality already done by anyone that adds {{delete}} to a questionable page). -- Netoholic @ 05:41, 2004 Dec 9 (UTC)
Then your proposal isn't solving the problem preliminary deletion is supposed to address. Johnleemk | Talk 13:31, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It is arguable whether there is even a problem that Preliminary Deletion needs to address. To clarify my statement... "tag 'n' bag" in itself isn't a mechanism to expand deletion – but the protection it offers makes expansion less scary for some people. -- Netoholic @ 18:14, 2004 Dec 20 (UTC)
We'll wait a year or two and let Wikipedia grow some more, then. It's kind of obvious that as our contributors grow, so will the size of everything — the pump, VFD, etc. And tag-n-bag doesn't make the prospect of expanding speedy criteria any less scary for me. It's probably as bad as Managed Deletion considering both restrict the number of people who decide on what to delete. I bet a lot of folks don't fancy letting only two people, one of whom isn't even an admin, decide on the deletion of an article that isn't an obvious test/vandalism/etc. Johnleemk | Talk 05:23, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Case 4 addition

I am offering this expansion to "Very short articles with little or no context, such that further research and expansion is not possible." I think it captures the main intent for this item, since articles with no context cannot be easily improved. In general, I think this case can now, with this addition, cover many forms of personal vanity pages - but only those that do not offer any verifiable details. -- Netoholic @ 01:04, 2004 Oct 4 (UTC)

  • It's just another weakening of the speedy deletion criteria. No. Expand them, don't reduce them. Ambi 01:13, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • I agree wholeheartedly with Ambi. →Raul654 21:44, Oct 18, 2004 (UTC)
    • I think the goal is to define them more clearly, not just to weaken or expand. -- Netoholic @ 06:16, 2004 Oct 4 (UTC)
      • "Defining" = "Narrowing" = "Weakening". Ambi 06:18, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
        • Well, offer some ideas for expanding then. -- Netoholic @ 06:48, 2004 Oct 4 (UTC)
    • Case 4 is being used as the justification to speedy delete articles well beyond the intent that was clear from the discussion above (now archived). Case 4 needs to be narrowed (yes, = weakened) to bring us back to the original intent. Oddly, to me that also means expanding the list of cases - more but also more specific so that we can get rid of the ambiguity now in case 4. Rossami 13:40, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Agreed. Speedy deletions are supposed to be uncontroversial and obvious cases only and this is one case which is being significantly misapplied. Jamesday 21:38, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, I recently tried to implement this, since there is a majority support for it, and no opposition since Oct 4th. Unfortunately, Raul reverted every attempt, so I guess we need more discussion on it. I think this clarifies the scope of Case #4 very nicely, and means we can more clearly tell which deletions fall under this. Need a few more voices of support. -- Netoholic @ 06:00, 2004 Oct 23 (UTC)

Three supports and two opposes, on a poll which was not advertised, for a major policy change, is not consensus. Nice try, pal. Ambi 06:28, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I would like to say that I am OK with either keeping the proposal in proposal form (IE, the stable version) pending further discussion or removing it for lack of consensus. →Raul654 06:47, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)
Take a look at the deletion policy from Feb 2002 for example "Do not delete anything that might in the future become an encyclopedia topic" (Speedy was split out of deletion policy). Or you might compare the revision before first speedy list "If the page contains no useful content or history" with the first list. Then the first presence of case 4 "Very short pages with no definition or context (eg "This guy is great!")" and also "Don't list on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion page titles of stubs that at least have a decent definition and might in the future become articles. There's no reason to delete those". And the discussion referenced in that edit comment which makes it clear just how little content is supposed to be in articles covered by case 4 and that we're not supposed to be speedily deleting things which just need expansion. VfD is the place for something which just needs expansion (if you think it needs deleting at all, rather than simply patience).Jamesday 01:24, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I oppose the proposed addition that Netoholic continues to insert. older≠wiser 19:35, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)
So do I. And, Jamesday, your history is interesting, but what are you trying to say? That this policy is not allowed to change, or what? I've said it above, and I'll say it again: As to expansion: one can demand and expect some minimum standards from contributors. Posting sub-standard crap in the vein of the "hacienda and wife" example above is rude. And letting such crap sit around until some kind soul decides to turn it into a real stub or even article just increases the risk that the crap will be mirrored (because typically it takes quite some time until somebody comes along and turns it into something decent), and that will only reflect badly upon us. It'll even be detrimental to our reputation if it isn't mirrored but available only on Wikipedia itself. Therefore, I prefer to delete such sub-standard stuff. If somebody wants to write a real stub or article, he or she can still do so. If the policy once said that such things should not be deleted, then that policy was, in my opinion, broken. Lupo 10:59, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Lupo, the proposal here is to clarify the current Case #4, which has changed wording over time to remove the intent behind it – leaving it's intepretation a bit too subjective. The proposed wording does not affect the "hacienda and wife" example, that would still be deleted. Pages with content like "LEGEND" and "Joe Smith is kewl!" would still qualify, since there is no context with which to expand the article. This case needs to be clarified, as do more cases need to be clarified, expanded, or created. Unfortunately, recent battles about whether articles were speedy-deleted against policy all seem to point to this case as the main justification - a result of its lack of clarity. -- Netoholic @ 14:22, 2004 Oct 25 (UTC)
As I read it, it does affect the "hacienda and wife"-type "articles". With the proposed wording, any article with a reasonable title would no longer be a speedy deletion candidate, even if it contained only crap, because in such cases "further research and expansion" are possible. The problem is that the article would have to be rewritten from scratch: such lousy drivel should just be deleted. It's better to have a red link showing that there is a hole in the Wikipedia (and incidentally not exposing the crappy text to the world) than to have a blue link that just disguises the fact that the text is poorer than poor (and furthermore showing the world what kind of lousy things we keep). I fear that we'll end up keeping things like, say, an article on the Vitascope with the only contents "The Vitascope is a sweet camera thing!'". (This is factually incorrect, it was a movie projector, not a camera, but research and expansion certainly are possible.) The only other options I see for such cases (besides deletion) are
  • Improve it yourself as soon as you see it: that's the ideal, but feasible only rarely, because whoever sees it first typically has other things on his or her mind and just doesn't have the time to fix another's rudeness.
  • Put it on Cleanup, but cleanup is already heavily overloaded without having to deal with such cases.
  • Let it pass by and hope somebody will eventually fix the article, which means it may remain unimproved for quite some time.
However, in all three possibilities, nothing is gained by keeping it: whoever eventually rewrites the article will have to start anew. Until then, this kind of crap is distributed by Wikipedia to the world. I do believe that disseminating such "articles" is detrimental to the purpose of Wikipedia. If we do this for some time, we'll have damaged our reputation beyond repair. Therefore, I wholeheartedly support the deletion of such articles, and therefore, I am opposed to the proposed wording change. Lupo 09:19, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I agree completely with Lupo regarding this proposed change. older≠wiser 11:41, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)
Dito - Cleanup doesn't work as can be clearly seen by its huge backlog, improving usually isn't possible, and keeping a very bad version is IMHO much worse than a red link. andy 11:44, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
If your only concern is that the title itself may come into play, perhaps we could use something like "Article content has little or no context, such that further research and expansion is not possible." To be honest though, if the article title itself is a valid subject, why not redirect it or expand to minimal stub level? -- Netoholic @ 00:26, 2004 Oct 28 (UTC)
Still the same problem. Even with the change to "article content", any such article that happened to repeat the article title in its content would still not be a speedy deletion candidate. Redirecting is not always possible and also hides the fact that Wikipedia is missing an article on a topic, and as for expansion: see above. The point is that you don't gain anything by keeping such articles. Netoholic, could you give an example or two of articles you'd want to keep, but which are treated as speedy deletion candidates under the current rule? Lupo 07:07, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Yes, on Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion, I listed a few just yesterday. Upon seeing the deleted content, I think that Lone Star (movie) and Stop Lights Go especially were speedy-deleted improperly. -- Netoholic @ 07:40, 2004 Oct 28 (UTC)
So, the problem is B-Movie Bandit-like articles? While I personally wouldn't have deleted either, I have no problem with them having been deleted. I don't think the first falls under case 4, even with the current wording without your proposed addition, but it is very poor... The second example appears to give context, but it seems unverifiable to me. We're all human, and judgement is required, and different people judge differently. Restricting case 4 such that we'd also have to keep a lot of clear junk is not the answer, VfU is. Lupo 08:38, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I think speedy-deletion of very short stubs has been done in the name of the current case #4, and that is not it's intent, which is to handle total non-sequitors. I am not opposed to "limiting" this one item, and expanding or creating others, but the status quo is bad because there is so much room for interpretation. Let's write these so that every bad article can clearly be binned. VfU has an inherent flaw in that non-admins have a very difficult time nominating articles, since the full text is of course not available. -- Netoholic @ 14:12, 2004 Oct 28 (UTC)
Hm, I doubt we'll ever have a set of rules that would make the decision a purely mechanical one. Some judgement will always be involved. But I think I understand your concerns better now. One idea that I had mentioned above is the fact that we don't want to keep crappy substubs that basically would have to be rewritten from scratch (like the Vitascope example). You, on the other hand, fear that with the current wording substubs that do add at least one verifiable fact are deleted under this case. How about: "Case 4a: Very short articles with little or no context such that to improve them they have to be rewritten essentially from scratch." and "Case 4b: Very short articles that contain no verifiable facts." If I'm not mistaken, that would make "hacienda and wife" and "vitascope"-type articles speedy deletion candidates. It would also allow speedy deletion of "stop lights go" (unverifiable), but it would make clear that Lone Star (movie) was not a deletion candidate because it contained verifiable facts. Note, however, that somebody might still decide that the "lone star" type fell under this case 4a and be subjectively right in his judgement (after all, the current stub isn't much better, and in fact reads like there was only one movie with this title, which is wrong: there were (so far) three of them—move it to Lone Star (1996 movie), so somebody could honestly argue that it had to be rewritten from scratch). So these formulations still allow some ambiguity. Which is fine by me—I believe the vast majority of speedy deletions to be totally uncontroversial. We shouldn't overdo the rule writing just because of the few controversial cases. Lupo 18:46, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I like Lupo's attempt, although I wouldn't try and split it into separate cases. How about:

Case 4: Very short articles that effectively contain no concrete facts. In other words:

  • There is no information in the article that anyone could attempt to verify.
  • Anyone attempting to improve the article would basically have to rewrite it from scratch.

Would that work? --Michael Snow 23:55, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Here is my version:

  1. Case 4: Very short (one or two sentence) articles that contain little or no factual elements, such that either:
    1. The content adds no information beyond what is obvious from the article's title itself. (e.g. Swazi embassy to Mozambique which said "The Embassy of Swaziland is the home of Swaziland's representative to Mozambique.")
    2. The content does not give sufficient context, and further verification and expansion is not possible. (e.g., "He is a funny man that has created Factory and the Hacienda. And, by the way, his wife is great.")
    • Turning such pages into relevant redirects may sometimes be appropriate if any potential context can be found.
    • Be aware that some articles are contributed from other Wikipedias, and non-fluent English speakers, which may lead to the misunderstanding of the content.

I think that the distinction of anyone having to "rewrite it from scratch" is too open to interpretation. I'd rather see clear and open guidelines that 90%+ of editors would agree with. Anything less concrete should go through the longer process. -- Netoholic @ 17:18, 2004 Oct 30 (UTC)

I do not see this as much of an improvement over the current proposed phrasing. The problem is precisely the phrase "and further verification and expansion is not possible." older≠wiser 17:28, Oct 30, 2004 (UTC)
How is that phrase a problem? If verification and expansion is possible, then that is what should be done. If someone feels that the effort is not worth it, then it is because the article subject's inclusion is the issue, not its present stub-ish content, and debate on the inclusion should happen on VFD. -- Netoholic @ 17:45, 2004 Oct 30 (UTC)
It is a problem because deciding whether verification and expansion is possible is either very subjective or it is more time-consuming than it is worth. With that phrase, virtually any article, so long as it does not otherwise qualify for speedy deletion, would have to be kept because expansion is always possible. There are very few cases where one could easily and conclusively demonstrate that it was not possible to expand it. That phrasing asks one to prove the negative before it can be deleted, which is a nearly impossible task. My contention is that there is nothing lost by the deletion of substub articles which do not contain any information that is not easily recreated and that the presence of such articles does nothing to enhance Wikipedia and may in fact make Wikipedia appear rather foolish. older≠wiser 18:08, Oct 30, 2004 (UTC)
Exactly. I will not re-iterate my reasoning from above: it applies to this formulation as well. Lupo 19:20, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I am not trying to make a case here as to whether really bad "sub-stubs" should be included... my point is that they should not be immediately deleted. Unfortunately , that is what happens now, and it is a major complaint. Speedy deletion should only cover something which is immediately obvious – everything else should go through VFD (or some cleanup mechanism). I am not saying that if you find one of these bad articles, you should just ignore them and let them bring down the Wikipedia's overall quality - just find an avenue other than speedy deletion. -- Netoholic @ 19:43, 2004 Oct 30 (UTC)
Lupo, it only hurts the reputation of those tiny, insignificant pages which get little traffic and so can't be rewritten quickly and well, not of Wikipedia. Netoholic, don't misspell its and sequitur. lysdexia 01:26, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I find the idea that individual articles had a "reputation" pretty strange. Not my experience. Wikipedia as a whole has a reputation (whether a good one or a bad one is open to discussion :-), but single articles don't have one of their own. They do add to the overall reputation of Wikipedia, though. Some in positive ways, some in negative ways. Lupo 13:30, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Quarantine

Some time ago at some policy page I proposed to introduce the notion of quarantined pages. The idea was quickly drowned down the other talk. I guess, here people are more intersted.

This idea comes from my understanding that the urge for speedy deletion comes from the desire to keep garbage away from wikipedia. At the same time, the primary opposition is that the notion of "garbage" is well-defined only in extreme cases. Other cases must have a fair share of benefit of doubt, if only because of limited experience of any of us. Even "no google hits" criterion is not always valid, e.g., for notable persons from non-notable countries that are still far behind on the road to computerization.

Hence the suggestion: The articles that may be reasonably classified as garbage must be moved into some space away from normal article space (I am not familiar with technical details and have no idea whether and how it can work) so that only logged in editors may see them and deliberate whether they are garbage or not, without rush.

Is this idea worth further elaboration? Mikkalai 18:01, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The problem, Mikkalai, is that one of the big things about Wikipedia is that anyone can edit a page. Your solution would be a good one if that weren't true. Dr Zen 01:01, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
That's not true. Protected pages may be edited only by admins. Therefore I guess the mechanism to limit access exists. Moreover, if I don't log in, I simply don't see certain functions in menu. So there are no technical problems. Mikkalai 07:47, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
You rather missed my point, which was not that it's technically impossible to exclude some would-be editors, but that it is entirely contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia. Dr Zen 02:26, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I don't see anything contrary do the spirit. Registered editors can edit anything they want. Admins can block users and protect articles. Vandals can be banned. There is no such thing as total freedom to do what anyone wants. IMO it is much more in the spirit of wikipedia to keep an article for a while than a desire to immediately and single-handedly delete an article that looks suspicious. Mikkalai 00:14, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Actually to make it happen I think we need nothing more than a new namespace, like, oh, "Quarantine:" or maybe "Evaluation:" or something. Just that is enough to appropriately suggest the text is not yet an article. Good idea, Mikkalai. Wile E. Heresiarch 14:44, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I am surprised at lack of interest to this proposal. Let me elaborate a bit. AFAIK, wikipedia has a means to exclude certain pages from search engines. These are the thingies which make nonsense propagate, not the articles themselves. The quarantined articles must be made non-searchable and listed at a special page for evaluation for, say 2 weeks. All keep/delete discussion is to be at their talk page. Once a reasonable number of non-anons vote to keep, it is moved into a regular VfD. etc....Mikkalai 03:35, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

(Proposed) Obvious joke, prank, hoax, or fabrication.

Hello. I've added "(Proposed) Obvious joke, prank, hoax, or fabrication." Comments? Wile E. Heresiarch 14:38, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

People have different sense of humor. I've seen at least two cases (I don't track VfD carefully, though) when a stub on an unknown subject was thought to behoax. So yours is a candidate for quarantine (let other people enjoy the prankll :-) Mikkalai 16:09, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Pranks and joke articles already fall under "Silly vandalism". Hoaxes and fabrications must have verification, since it can be a matter of personal opinion and we may lose good articles. There are some that still say the moon landings were an obvious hoax. Also, many articles first posted here as a hoax have turned into great articles about the hoax. I know your intent is good with this one, but the extra safeguard of VFD is needed for now. -- Netoholic @ 16:45, 2004 Oct 30 (UTC)
  • Of all the proposed additions to the Speedy criteria, this is the only one I am really uncomfortable with. We have had many VfD nominations which were initially thought to be hoaxes but were ultimately kept. Some were turned into very solid articles about the hoax. A few turned out to be real (though obscure) topics. Speedys are supposed to be immediately identifiable and uncontroversial. I'm not convinced that our own history shows that we can all reliably identify the "obvious" hoaxes. I'd prefer not to grant this authority to any single admin no matter how well intentioned. Rossami (talk) 22:55, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • Hear, hear. I can also add several cases when a known vandal wrote an intentional hoax, which unsuspecting editors gradually converted into a plausible article. In fact, for quite some time I have an idea to make a cetegory, kind of "Articles that thiumphantly survived VfD" or smth. Mikkalai 00:19, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It should be noted that a very strict reading of the current CSD policy allows for speedy deleting hoaxes as long as they contain no factual information, because Wikipedia:Vandalism lists "...Adding misinformation...". Personally I'd like to see this (probably unintended) group of articles be clearly marked as not CSD material, as some editors/admins still use it as a justification for speedying them. Opinions? --fvw*† 02:27, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

Asside: When I first came across the article on the Common Palm Civet, it looked like this. I was sure it was a hoax. First off, the info about the Chinese eating them, and contracting SARS that way, seemed mildly suspicious. Then the Latin name – Paradoxurus hermaphroditus – looked like someone's idea of a joke. Finally the sentence "The feces of Palm Civets are used in some types of coffee preparation." looked impossible to be real. But I did some research, and every fact turned out to be true. Others have thought Project Bluebird was a hoax. So it isn't always obvious.

On the other hand, listing a joke article on AFD for a week just gives the jokester attention, and possibly encourages them. So I'm of two minds. – Quadell (talk) (help)[[]] 03:49, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I see your problem. But I think (as long as we nowiki links against search-engine optimisation) the burder caused by the odd troll who enjoys seeing his name on vfd for a few weeks won't be too bad. Either way, having clarity on whether hoaxes are CSDs on the CSD page is important, whether to state they are or they are not. --fvw*† 05:40, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)
So state that they can be deleted, but that the deleting admin should make sure that it isn't real first. On the rare occasion that the "hoax" is actually real and is also deleted, it could then be a straightforward undeletion. Ambi 05:44, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
That brings up the question of how much research is necessary. I can easily imagine someone less diligent than Quade reading the civet article above and assuming it was so obvious a prank that they wouldn't check. So the policy should specify some amount of research to be done before deleting for the "Obvious joke, prank, hoax, or fabrication" reason. But how much? Clearly, just searching on Google isn't very rigorous, but going beyond that is overkill in some cases. It occurs to me that we already have an established method for checking things that you think may be delete-worthy. List them on VfD. That way, the Wikipedia community has a chance to weigh in and make sure that it isn't just a case of the nominator missing some important piece of information. Factitious 10:04, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)
I think there's two ways to go about this. One is to specifically demand that a bit of research (and usually, in these cases, a good Google should be enough) be done beforehand, in every case, under pain of death. A case that comes to mind was Pornocracy, which looked like a hoax, but a quick Google proved that it wasn't. The other method which wouldn't be too bad is to send them to VFD, but remove them as soon as it's ascertained that this is indeed a hoax. I'm very uncomfortable with having clear and obvious fabrications hanging around for any longer than they have to be. Ambi 10:08, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What about "blanked by author?"

I thought that when a page has a) a single author, who b) has blanked the page, and c) nominated it for speedy, that under normal circumstances it should be speedy deleted.

Oddly enough, I do not see this anywhere on Wikipedia:Candidates for speedy deletion. Was it once there? Did it get inadvertently removed? Or was this never explicitly stated?

Should it be added? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 21:25, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If memory serves, that was the example of clear evidence that the page was a newbie test page (case 2). I don't remember it being in the main list. I thought that scenario was described here (and has probably been archived). I can't find it, though, so maybe my memory's wrong. Rossami (talk)

Seems that examples a + b above would be sufficient to declare it a "newbie test". Many newbies don't know how to mark them for speedy deletion. I think that so long as admins check the page history to ensure there is no usable content, it can be speedy deleted. Do we need to state this explicitely? Case 2 isn't too large where we couldn't add words to this effect. -- Netoholic @ 22:34, 2004 Nov 29 (UTC)

Yes, this has also been a case of speedy deletions even if it's not a newbie test. Dori | Talk 01:17, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

Auto ban

Pages accepted for quick deletion are, must be, obviously worthless. I feel that for an article deleted under cases 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 the creator should be penalised. By incompetence or mischief they are degrading the value of Wikipedia and wasting the time of serious contributors. It has taken far too long to get SD set up and the rate of worthless article creation is increasing - every fifty article list on New Pages usually contains at least one suitable candidate, and if they were not regularly deleted I believe there would be more than just 2%.

So I feel an automatic 48(?) hour ban from article creation (and access?) should accompany the article deletion. The length of the ban is based on the only real weakness of the idea - time. If SD articles are not identified and removed quickly it becomes futile. The 48 hour ban is based on the probable presence of the culprit. The ban has to catch them on the site in order for them to realise their actions are unacceptable, so if they "hit-and-run" it can catch them if they return the following day.

I am aware that most speedy deletion articles are created by 'anonymous' IPs. But if an article is deleted quickly a serial "bad creator" can be halted before they create more junk and the expanding use of broadband results in relatively long IP address leases. The catching 'innocents' is regretable but not damaging.

The introduction of a ban would be a clear indicator of Wikipedia's disapproval of junk articles and may have a detering value. 62.252.64.12 00:07, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Catching innocents is damaging, because the bad experience may deter them from contributing to Wikipedia. Factitious 03:03, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)
The Wikipedia core contributors are dedicated. If you are determined to contribute you will not be put off by an inadvertent IP ban. You will respect the the determination to halt vandalism and then release and renew your IP lease. If you are put off by the very lowest of barriers... well 62.252.64.12 12:07, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I didn't mean people who are already core contributors. I'm talking about people new to Wikipedia, who happen across it and decide to try editing something. If they're told that we've banned their IP, it's a bad experience, and will discourage them from becoming major contributors. Since we want them to contribute to Wikipedia, losing them would be damaging to us. Factitious 21:55, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)
  • I feel that people that create joke articles should be banned temporarily as 62.252.64.12 suggests. The volume of frivolous articles created by anonymous IPs at the moment is alarming - it seems 80% of articles created by an anon IP are deleted. Steps should be taken to reduce this. Deus Ex 22:35, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Proposed changes

User:Sverdrup added the following comment on the main page. Rossami (talk)

So why are they listed here and not on the talk page? Yep, this invites sysops to expand the application of Speedy Deletion.