User:James086/CSD

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WP:CSD is a pretty daunting list of criteria which at first appear to cover everything but when you've sorted through CAT:CSD become very limiting. This is intentional, the criteria are specific so that almost everyone interprets them the same way (i.e. I will only delete the things that others would also delete). I'll provide a run through of each of the criteria and how I apply it, hopefully it won't be to different to how you would apply it and if it is note that somewhere (the talk page of this subpage or my talk page).

Contents

[edit] General criteria

These apply to all namespaces, not just articles or user space etc.

G1 Patent nonsense - This is first and most incorrectly applied criterion. If the page has no meaning to anyone but the author (or perhaps not even them), then it comes under this. Seemingly random words (not code although that would be G2) and keyboard mashing are the only real applications of this. These pages aren't too common but other nonsense (in the traditional sense) are very frequently tagged. In your RFA the G1 was noted about the article Gunnar Doyle (wrestling wannabe). Yes it was nonsense but not G1 nonsense. If I had come across this article I would have deleted it. It was actually deleted twice as A7 but strictly that's not correct either. The correct deletion reason for that article would be G3.

G2 Test pages - These are usually a mix of code, or something like "Hello, can this be edited?". G2 pages are usually pretty simple, the only ones to think about are articles which appear incomplete. Also testing is fine in a user's own subpages which are occasionally tagged.

G3 Vandalism - Surprisingly few pages are tagged with this although many G1 taggings are actually deleted via this; the admin will often just click delete on the tag so their deletion summary says G1 instead of bothering to say G3. An article that is pure crap like Gunnar Doyle or virtually anything related to "poop".

G4 Recreation - Sometimes people just don't get the idea that their article isn't welcome. If the article is pretty much the same (doesn't have to be a word for word copy, just similar content). While it doesn't apply to speedy deletions, if the content is virtually the same it can be deleted using the same criterion as before. If you delete this check if it's been deleted repeatedly and if so protect it.

G5 Banned users - Just like all edits by banned users should be reverted (except in the case of topic bans where it's only edits to a certain subject), all articles started by a banned user are deleted. If it was a decent article worth keeping you can delete it then start the article yourself. Although if others have contributed to it quite a bit then it can be left.

G6 Housekeeping - This is the most open to interpretation criterion I think. Basically if there's something that was left over from a move, change of policy, Wikiproject who stopped using a page or something useless (usually left over from a depricated process) that isn't going to cause a fuss you can delete it using this.

G7 Author request - The author wants to get rid of it and nobody else put much effort into it (so tagging for cleanup and AWB sweeps don't count). Also if the author blanks the page it can be assumed to be an attempt at deletion by them.

G8 Talk pages - If the article doesn't exist, or you just deleted it you can delete the talk page too. But watch out for old deletion discussions which, before VFD which was before AFD, used to be held on talk pages. If there's a deletion discussion then the talk page stays so that it can be easily viewed.

G9 Office actions - When someone is threatening legal action or similar. This will probably be used only by office personnel but it basically means don't undo it because there's some important reason for deletion. Very hush hush and the sort of thing that leads to conspiracy theories but it's necessary and not used that often.

G10 Attack pages - Often these are articles which start with a neutral lead section but toward the end become aggressive or negative. Note that it says "disparage the subject" so it doesn't have to be blatent, subtle but persistent negative comments are enough and the subject doesn't have to be a person although it most often is.

G11 Advertising - Some words to look for; we, our, objective, industry leading, solutions. Articles which are quite informative about the product or service provided by a company are often advertising. The articles are usually more subtle than a tv ad but are definitely there to sell something. Also a large number of non-profit organisations advertise with Wikipedia. They also claim that "we're not trying to sell anything though" but that doesn't mean it's not advertising, they're probably looking for more participants, recognition or donations.

G12 Copyvios - If it's clearly a copyvio then check the history and look for allowable content (sometimes only half the article is a violation so there might be some content in the article already). Then delete it. If there is anything that can be kept then restore the ok revisions of the article. The article should be deleted to remove the offending revisions however. Also the content is sometimes copied from mirrors like answers.com but that means it's either old content since removed or that the article was deleted.

[edit] Articles

A1 Context - Something that doesn't have any context. An article that provides so very little information that it is useless.

A2 Not-english - If the article already exists on another language Wikipedia then it can be deleted. If not perhaps it should be translated.

A3 No content - Something that is like a directory with just links (internal or external), empty or something like a chat room. It's basically an article that is not even an attempt at an encyclopedia entry.

A5 Transwikied - An article that has already been moved to Wiktionary (usually) or any other Wikimedia project.

A7 Notability - An article that does indicate importance when the article is about:

  • A person
  • A group of people (such as a club, company, non-profit organisation)
  • A band or musician
  • Web content (website, blog, forum, podcast, online game or anything else online)

This is probably the most common tag placed. It's not actually deleting something because it's not notable, it's because it doesn't indicate why it's notable. Different admins will judge that differently for example I wouldn't say being headmaster of a school (provided it's not a globally known school like Eton) is a claim of notability but others might. Also remember that it only applies to people, groups and web content. That means books, software (often tagged but A7 doesn't apply), demos and other crap that isn't notable and doesn't claim notability either still can't be deleted using these. However it quite often will be spam as well. This is the most disputed and probably controversial one and yet it is very commonly used (lots of nobodies out there who want an article).

[edit] Redirects

R1 No target - Sometimes left over as a result of an AFD (or you need to clean them up when you close an RFD), it's pretty simple when the target is a redlink. The only time you might have to think about it is when there could be a better target but that's very uncommon.

R2 cross namespace - Redirects to User: User talk: or Talk:. Again fairly obvious. If in doubt though list it at WP:RFD.

R3 implausible redirects - Silly usually and quite obvious. Occasionally there might be something like a nickname of a person but don't sweat, redirects are really easy to make again.

[edit] Images and media

Note the "and media" which means videos, music samples and other (usually pdf documents for some reason) files uploaded although they are all in the "Image:" namespace.

I1 Redundant - An identical image (same format) exists or a lower quality version but not counting images on Commons.

I2 Corrupt - Check using a sandbox or preview that the image can't be shown by the MediaWiki software. If not then delete. Also empty images fall under this.

I3 Bad license - A license that is clearly stated but incompatible with Wikipedia. The most common are non-commercial and educational use only which come from the drop-down box on the upload form.

I4 No info - No source, no copyright tag or unknown copyright status (all 3 categories are listed at the top of CAT:CSD which have been in there a week (the categories are sorted by date so that bit is easy) and haven't been corrected. Note that you should always check each image before deleting it just in case it has been fixed or there was no problem originally.

I5 Orphaned FU - A fair use image that hasn't been used in an article for 7 days. Pretty simple but if it seems unlikely the image might have been removed by accident or vandalism so if in doubt check.

I6 No FUR - A fair use image with no fair use rationale after being tagged for 7 days.

I7 Invalid FUR - A fair use image with an improper FUR 2 days after the uploader is notified. If any part of the FUR is invalid it can be deleted but at the moment there is a long backlog because time is being allowed to fix the thousands of images that this applies to.

I8 On commons - The same image is on commons if:

  • The license is good on commons (so no fair use)
  • All versions of the image have also been uploaded to commons
  • The upload log has been copied across with links to the Wikipedia user pages
  • There is nothing along the lines of "please don't copy to commons" on the image page
  • The image has had {{NowCommons}} for a week (again dated categories to make it easier)
  • If the commons image has a different name the links have been changed to the commons one
  • A final note, if the image is a featured pic then you should delete it, then undelete just the description page (which will have the FP tag) while the image file itself is on commons.

I9 Copyvio - Obviously not a free image (eg videogame/movie/tv/software screenshots) that doesn't claim fair use. Also a non-free image that claims it is free only using a tag (if someone has typed a description then it's worth leaving for WP:IFD where the likelyhood of it being valid can be discussed). This is only for obvious cases but there's still quite a lot of them.

[edit] Categories

C1 Empty - A category that has been empty for 4 days. I'm not quite sure how to tell if it has been empty for that long but if it's not empty it quite obviously doesn't apply. I've deleted a fair few with this and never had any complaints (related to the categories).

C2 Speedy renaming - Any of the following (I copied this across because I think it's pretty straight-forward)

C3 Template - A category to which articles are added and the template that adds them is deleted.

[edit] User pages

U1 User request - Quite common and simple. Only in rare cases should the pages be kept. Also this doesn't apply to User talk pages and talk archives. They are often retained but in some circumstances (such as the user wants to disappear and there's nothing very controversial in the archives) they are deleted. Discussion would generally take place before they are deleted unless it's a very new user with little archived.

U2 No user - A userpage or subpage of a user that doesn't exist. You can check if the account has been created using Special:Listusers but this is often a mistake as a result of a typo.

U3 FU galleries - A userpage that is mostly or all a gallery of non-free images. If there's just a few images they should be removed but if it's the main portion of the page it can be deleted.

[edit] Templates

With templates it is especially important to check the Special:Whatlinkshere as it may be transcluded onto other pages, in which case you should remove it from them.

T1 Divisive - A template (usually a userbox in my experience) that is bound to cause trouble. Often along the lines of racism or discrimination of some sort the users who make them sometimes put up a fight but if the template was bad other admins (i.e. those who can view the deleted template) will back you and if not there is always deletion review.

T2 Policy vios - A template that is promoting something against policy or tries to present something as a policy when it's not. An example given is a new speedy template for something that isn't a speedy criterion. I have never seen one of these.

T3 deprecated templates - Something superseded or redundant that has been tagged for 7 days. Usually they will turn up in groups after someone has tagged a great number of them. If the template appears to be in use but there is also a suitable replacement I would list at WP:TFD

[edit] Portals

P1 Articles - Basically means you can apply the criteria for articles to the portal namespace as well.

P2 Underpopulated portal - A portal that doesn't have a header article plus 3 other articles better than stub status. Pretty simple and uncommon because a portals are likely to have larger scopes than a subject like that.