Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Tlogmer subpages

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was keep. There is no consensus as to how long userfied copies of deleted articles may be kept - whilst it clearly isn't forever, a week doesn't seem to be agreed to be enough time. Individual nominations, allowing arguments individual to each page may have more success. At the moment, there seems to be a feeling that this contributor should be given the benefit of the doubt that they intend to work on these pages. WjBscribe 22:47, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tlogmer subpages

This was material the user did not want to see deleted and saved in user-space in defiance of WP:DELETE. Please delete per the third criterion of this of guideline, this guideline, and criterion 4 for CSD. While I agree with the administrators who in good faith userfied these articles, it has been over a week now and there is no indication that this user is intending to actually improve these articles.

  1. User:Tlogmer/The Peninsula Outlook‎
  2. User:Tlogmer/Sleaze rock list
  3. User:Tlogmer/Single serving sites
  4. User:Tlogmer/Chessckers
  5. User:Tlogmer/Astrosociobiology
  6. User:Tlogmer/Lemon
  7. User:Tlogmer/Quantum fiction
  8. User:Tlogmer/Monty Hell problem
  9. User:Tlogmer/SMB

ScienceApologist (talk) 22:06, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

  • Keep Monty Hell -- no opinion on the others; haven't looked at them. The Monty Hell article is a very nice piece of work that unfortunately can't be sourced to publications, because there really aren't any. That makes it not appropriate for mainspace. But it's too good to throw away, and userfication was an excellent compromise. --Trovatore (talk) 02:05, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Not sure that this is really anything more than WP:ILIKEIT. Wikipedia is not supposed to provide a space for articles that cannot be sourced. ScienceApologist (talk) 13:45, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Yeah, so first of all I don't agree with that essay. Please note that it's just an essay, not policy or even a guideline. It's what some people think, not including me, and it has no authority.
  • But more importantly recall that we're talking about user space here. I agree with you that the article doesn't belong in mainspace. In user space there is and should be much more tolerance -- the burden should be on the person arguing to delete to show how the content is hurting something. --Trovatore (talk) 17:57, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
  • I think you need to read WP:ENC and WP:USER again. If it isn't good enough for the encyclopedia, it should be excised from Wikipedia's site. User pages are not meant to store things that people think aren't good enough for the encyclopedia but they like anyway. Defying the WP:ILIKEIT essay isn't likely to get you far here. You are free to ignore its recommendation, but that you have simply flouted it without explanation should be taken into account by the closing admin. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:07, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
  • "Ignore all rules" doesn't apply, because it's not a rule. Let's get this straight: It's only an essay. It has no authority whatsoever in deletion discussions. You can use it as shorthand to say "this is what I think and why", but not as a rule, because it isn't one. --Trovatore (talk) 18:10, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
  • I was a little careless with my pronoun referents. What I meant to say is that WP:ILIKEIT is not a rule. It's part of an essay that some people like to quote as though it were authoritative; this is one of my peeves. Actually I think the essay itself even says not to do that, but somehow its partisans tend to skip that part. --Trovatore (talk) 20:37, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
  • lol, I think you yourself skipped this part of ILIKEIT: WP:ESSAY. Basically, ILIKEIT is linked because it's a well-written resume of why that argument is not valid, and not because it's a rule --Enric Naval (talk) 21:56, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
  • No, I read that part. What I'm saying is that people link to it in a way that suggests that they think it's a rule, or at least people other people see the link and think it's a rule. I disagree with the claim that the argument is never valid. Many deletion discussions come down to subjective evaluations (as is indeed inevitable) and the inherent value of the text can reasonably be at least a tiebreaker in that case. --Trovatore (talk) 22:15, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Well, ok, subjective valorations can be a tiebreaker, but only when the objective policies don't give a clear decision (of course, being irrational beings as we are, we can never take totally objective decisions). As the last paragraph of WP:ESSAY, since those are not disruptive pages and on user space I can see how there can be no breaking of the deletion decision on leaving you a pair of months for transwiking or improving before deleting them --Enric Naval (talk) 09:56, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Off-topic comment please people; criteria is exclusively plural; it's seriously jarring to see it used in the singular. The singular is criterion. --Trovatore (talk) 02:09, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom. Personal sandboxes are meant to be rough drafts for articles, not as places to avoid WP:DELETE. If an individual has legitimate concerns about article deletion, it should pass through deletion review. Djma12 (talk) 03:11, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment I voted to delete Monty Hell, and believe that was the correct decision, so I would not support deletion review. I don't see userfication as a way to evade the outcome of the debate. It's a way to respect the outcome of the debate, which was correct, while still preserving this nice work in some shape. This is different from the more usual "rough draft of article" user subpage, but not for that reason necessarily illegitimate. --Trovatore (talk) 03:27, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Weak Keep I originally nominated one of those userfied articles for deletion (and I think it should stay deleted), but I don't think this nom's first or third cited guideline really apply. It would be optimal for these pages to be transferred to another web host (per Wikipedia:User#Copies_of_other_pages - "Private copies of pages that are being used solely for long-term archival purposes"), but we should give Tlogmer some time to do that. Dreamyshade (talk) 04:37, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
  • How much time? I would be more inclined to allow this behavior if it actually looked like this user was actively trying to improve the articles up to WP standards. However, it looks to me like it is only a repository. ScienceApologist (talk) 13:45, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
  • I'd be fine with leaving it for a few weeks. Have we asked the user? (It doesn't seem like he's responded to any of this yet...) Dreamyshade (talk) 19:58, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom. Some of these look like they would be articles on possibly noteworthy things if they were appropriately sourced, but they're not. Nightscream (talk) 20:08, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep - I was going to say delete but I looked at the first three and they were only userfied within the past couple of days, which certainly doesn't suggest long term and, more importantly, these were done properly with the full history preserved - unlike the cut and paste to save my pet article we often see. This practice needs to be encouraged, or at least not punished. I didn't look at the substance, but to the extent these may be inappropriate for long term userspace material, hopefully this user will work on them or use the material elsewhere with the ability to attribute it.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 23:28, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
  • I think we need to come up with a policy: how long is too long? To me, what it looks like is that this user asked for article rescue and then fled the scene. That's dubious to me. I think that if a user requests an article to be saved in their user space, they should commit to some timeline for completing a transformation or at least making an edit that moves in the direction of transformation. Perhaps article rescue squadron didn't think about this issue carefully enough. I'm going to ask them for their input. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:53, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep we are here to build an encyclopedia not to delete one. If this user wants to work on improving potentially valuable material we should support them in doing so. Also, we are not a paper encyclopedia so I see little harm in letting a bit of room for editors to work on potential articles. If there is a guideline for a time limit then make that clear and known. I've had many projects on hold while I work on more urgent matters. If the content is a more serious violation that compromises the project then address that specifically; for instance a blatant BLP violation should be corrected immediately. Benjiboi 00:52, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
  • So are you saying that anyone who doesn't like a delete consensus seen in a deletion debate should be allowed to keep the deleted article in their userspace indefinitely? How does this not completely flout deletion policy? ScienceApologist (talk) 13:23, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
    • That's quite an interpretation but no, I would not support "anyone who doesn't like a delete consensus seen in a deletion debate should be allowed to keep the deleted article in their userspace indefinitely". I'm unaware of some nuance in deletion policy that asserts that usable content from an article deleted must be removed from the encyclopedia and indeed I think we are encouraged the save usable content. I would advocate for some helpful guidelines to assist in prevent abuse as well as giving some structure, for example, "Several months with no effort would suggest that material should be removed and the user can can off-wiki and re-introduce when it meets wikipedia standards." Benjiboi 00:30, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete I'm seeing pages in this list that have been sequestered here for three months, with no edits since the move other than to remove the AfD tag, and the edits involved in bringing them here, (including the botched CSD noms) Curiously, Tlogmer is not the person who is userifying all these pages, I'd be interested in talking to the people who actually moved the articles to his/her user space, and finding out the line of bull used on them. -- RoninBK T C 01:03, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
It's not at all curious that I'm not the one userfying these articles, because I am not an administrator (a position, I might add, that is intended to be purely janitorial) and as such -- like 99.9% of wikipedia's readers -- cannot read or transwiki deleted articles myself, even though those articles are licensed under the GFDL and therefore owned by the public. If you're curious about the "line of bull" you're free to look at my contributions -- in every case I just left a message saying "please transfer this article to my userspace". Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 00:23, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep, and maybe because it was something that underwent an AfD it is qualitatively different... but User:Grenavitar/sura hasn't been touched for a long time but someday I will get back to it and improve sura. I'm also against touching userpages unless the circumstances are very very compelling. gren グレン 14:55, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't think you are in any risk for having that page disappear. That material is not a copy of an article put up for deletion and indeed could conceivably become a part of sura when you are ready to incorporate it. Also note that WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS isn't the best rationale. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:08, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom. This does appear to be nothing more than keeping deleted articles around. --Kbdank71 15:04, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep some of them have been there for only 8 days. This is not abusive. It depends on the article and the intentions. I do not consider 8 days as "indefinitely". If there is some particular page SA finds objectionable, let him first mention it to the user, and then nominate it separately,not all at once indiscriminately where some are clearly not in violation of any reasonable interpretation of policy. An admin userifying on request is, incidentally, justified in relying on a users good faith, if the page is not a copyright or blp violation. DGG (talk) 17:42, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep per WP:IAR. These are interesting possible articles, they might get sourced someday, they're certainly not disruptive, and they're not doing anyone anyone any harm in the meanwhile. I feel like putting up a "Please don't molest the editors" sign (maybe we should have a guideline to this effect). Policy has to be enforced with common sense. It's our job to ask if something is actually hurting the project and use leniency and discretion if it isn't. I don't think a user who keeps a relatively small amount of content on a user page which isn't disturbing anyone should be molested, period, even if there isn't a good policy reason to keep it. I just don't see it as our job to spy on people's user pages or keep tabs on their space for things that might violate policy in the absence of an actual problem. Yeah, it's Wikipedia's space, but why shove that down people's throats unnecessarily? Having a small amount of personal space is part of what makes a person feel comfortable, and uncomfortable people don't volunteer. Molesting editors over small and petty things like this simply hurts the project far more than it helps it. Calls like this are exactly what the WP:IAR policy is for. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 18:25, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Speedy Keep per WP:Userification. The nominator has not articulated a policy basis for deletion, which is required to avoid speedy keep. WP:Userification covers exactly this situation and permits moving content deleted from mainspace to userspace as a valid outcome of an AfD. Nobody has claimed that any of this material is a copyright violation, BLP problem, or objectionable in any of the ways that make userification prohibited under the guideline. It doesn't require that userified articles be improved or transfered back to mainspace at all or in any given time. Accordingly, the nom's desire that these things should happen has no basis in policy, no policy basis for deletion has been articulated, and the result should be Speedy Keep. --Shirahadasha (talk) 15:50, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
    I have seen cases in the past where users have kept an inordinate amount of material in their user space to circumvent Wikipedia policy. Not saying that this is happening here, but we might want to be more explicit in guidelines/policies about what an appropriate amount of time is to keep a bunch of articles under your user space. Obviously allowing for the indefinite archival of deleted pages is problematic (if we do that, why not simply get rid of all deletion debates?) ScienceApologist (talk) 19:07, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Deletion has not been circumvented. The articles are no longer in mainspace, which is (usually) the main point of deletion debates. Occasionally there is content that is problematic no matter where it occurs, such as copyright violations, libel, and attack pages, but I see none of that here. The "free webhost" problem is a bit of a gray area; certainly user space content cannot be permitted to grow without limit, but I think the present case is still within reasonable bounds. --Trovatore (talk) 21:51, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. There is no indication that this user is not intending to actually improve these articles. There's an (apocryphal?) story about how Thomas Edison would invite prospective employees to dinner and serve them soup. Anyone who added salt to the soup without tasting it first was not offered a job. Let's not be in such a rush to salt this soup.--Father Goose (talk) 23:48, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. Well, obviously that's what I think. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with these articles, but many of them are interesting. I've already gotten messages thanking me for "writing" articles that were restored to my userspace -- this, for example.

If you do decide to delete them, please provide me first with a full edit history for each so I can transwiki them without violating the terms of the GFDL. Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 00:23, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

  • Commemt I do share the concern that some readers would not know the difference and would assume they are at a regular page so would support an appropriate template "This page is on a subpage of {{User so-and-so}} and is not an official article on Wikipedia and may not meet the standards for verifiability," etc "this article is likely under construction and may be removed according to wikipedia's policies on deletion." Benjiboi 00:32, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete all The only legitimate purpose of userfying a deleted article I can see is: a) to provide the content to a user to take it and use it elsewhere, which should be very shortly followed by redeletion once time has been given to copy the content (better done through emailing the content, if enabled); and b) to allow improvement so that the the problems raised at the AfD may be properly addressed so that the reason for deletion is obviated. This is by no means a mandate to keep deleted content in a different namespace for purposes of keeping it. An article that has questionable verifiability is a good subject for this if a user indicates they believe it can be verified and intends to make the effort. Some deleted articles should never be userfied because there's no chance of ever meeting our requirements. For example, an article that is determined to be unverifiable original research. If the AfD reasons can be addressed, once userfied, the article needs to be moved toward a responsive version wihout undue delay, or the courtesy of userfication becomes what this has, deleted content simply existing in the userspace, with some of the pages on material that could never be made to conform because it is appears to be unverifiable original research on made up words and disciplines.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:42, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete giving history to Tlogmer, or Keep 2 weeksmonths more and then Delete unsourced articles that have been stuck at user space. I understand that we already voted to have them deleted? Provide history to Tlogmer so he can transwiki --Enric Naval (talk) 19:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep in absence of other policy, it's not doing any harm. And before anyone jumps in with WP:NOHARM, I invite you to read the last paragraph of that. -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 01:23, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Procedural keep - Putting aside the policy-based arguments from both sides, I agree with DGG in that the bundling done here makes it extremely difficult to sort the good from the bad. Tlogmer is a member of WikiProject Rescue, as noted on his userpage, and so it's much more likely that the userfication was done with the intent of rescuing the articles rather than keeping them. That being said, some of the articles (e.g. Quantum Fiction) are in a much more rescuable state than others (e.g. Lemon)--likewise, some of the articles were userfied only days ago, while others were userfied in December. Given the mix of these different variables, it seems impossible to determine conclusively if the whole group should stay or go, and so I'm defaulting to keep for now, with no prejudice against deletion of some following individual discussions. --jonny-mt 03:47, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I would support voting them one by one instad of this bundle --Enric Naval (talk) 09:56, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
  • I would find such an approach even more objectionable than the absurd nomination which is currently before us. -- Visviva (talk) 05:29, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep - Jeez, give the guy some breathing room. Tlogmer indicated (unsurprisingly) above that he's considering what to do with them; there's nothing wrong with taking a bit of time. There should be no rush to get userfied content deleted. — xDanielx T/C\R 08:03, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong keep, userfication is a perfectly valid course to take with content that does not include serious policy violations, and need include no implied contract to "improve" such content. If any serious violations do exist in the nominated articles, they have not been mentioned here. It should go without saying that libelous, fraudulent, or highly inflammatory material has no place anywhere on the project. However, userfication is an excellent course to take with material that just happens not be "up to code" for mainspace, even if it may well never be up to code. IMO this way of using deletion (to prevent work from even beginning) is extremely harmful to the project, and should never be tolerated. -- Visviva (talk) 05:29, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Uh, are you sure that keeping bad articles forever is a good thing? --Enric Naval (talk) 10:05, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Items in user space are not articles and shouldn't be described as articles. They're just elements of a user's workshop. I agree that "userify" has historically been an accepted outcome of an AfD that has been considered valid by community consensus, and what's being argued here is that this consensus-based practice be abolished. I'd agree an MfD for an individual user's recently userified articles is not the place to make such an argument. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 15:56, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, I read Wikipedia:Userfication and you are right, it is actually acceptable to move deleted articles into userspace. However, I think I remember that the user agreed at least on one of the deletions that the purpose was improving or transwiking. If the deletion was done on this condition, then it would be acceptable deleting after a period of time. A deletion review can also forbid userfication in some cases as here on April 2006 [1] (I mean the Switchtrack Alley deletion review, not the other ones) when the article was simply too awful to be kept, that's why I asked to consider each article by separate. Most of tlogner's articles can probably be left alone on userspace, except for the Monty Hell article. As an example, in this ongoing nomination on a barnstar that I raised, the nomination is drifting towards deleting from wikipedia including userspace, and preventing userfication, due to the barnstar going against WP:SOCIAL, which would mean that it goes against wikipedia policy Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2008_March_19#Template:The_Guestbook_Barnstar --Enric Naval (talk) 17:36, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
I did agree that I'd transwiki them if they were deleted from my userspace, but I didn't give transwiki-ing as a reason for them to be moved to the userspace to begin with. Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 03:51, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, in that case, if you weren't given any time limit for keeping the pages at user space, this nomination is a bit botched, since not all articles were moved to userspace at the same time, and some were moved only a few days ago. If the nomination is positive, then you can probably go to deletion review and get the decision overturned, and ask that every article is nominated by separate --Enric Naval (talk) 11:27, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep and move to the encyclopedia those articles look decent, pretty suitable for the "main" encyclopedia. Move it there outright, no need of wrangling. Chimeric Glider (talk) 21:52, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
They are on the userspace because they were deleted from the main space. Since the articles have not changed since them, they should not be restored without a deletion review --Enric Naval (talk) 22:16, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: A couple weeks ago, an admin speedied a few other articles I'd had userfied (without notifying me); I'd like them restored at least long enough to copy their content somewhere else.

Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 03:03, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I just started a "deletion review" on one of the articles on this page. Don't know if this is the "deletion review" you talked about. But I think quantum fiction was one of the articles that should not have been deleted. Chimeric Glider (talk) 03:33, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Tlogmer, suggest starting a deletion review for the miscellaneous pages that were speedy-deleted on grounds e.g. that they were compliant with WP:userification and that all speedy-delete criteria for articles (anything beginning with 'A') do not apply to content on userspace. Once pages have been deleted by an admin, a deletion review is the correct course for restoring them. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 17:06, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Will do; thanks. Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 22:20, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
  • at Deletion Review the feeling seems to be at present that such review should wait upon the decision here, at that if the pages are kept here, then that will be a guide to what should e done with the appealed ones. I hope we do not get into a deadlock between the two processes. My own view is that editors in good faith should be given a full opportunity to improve articles if they appear capable of improvement; further, that if any do no are not being worked on, and do not seem likely, the ed. involved be asked to reconsider whether he really wants them kept, before proceeding here. I would expect people to be reasonable. But it would be counterproductive to the goals of the encyclopedia to discourage good editors willing to work on difficult articles. I consider this ed. a good one, and if he has been overambitious about how many he can rescue, I urge him to farm them out among others who can help with them. I would not support him if iI thought it was a matter of his trying to make a POINT. But to expect things to be done in only a week, as the nom here did, seems very unrealistic in another direction. DGG (talk) 15:33, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment A closer look at WP:Userfication indicates it was never formally adapted, so I've added a proposal tag, and modify my policy argument accordingly. Because userfication is a common and accepted practice even though the community hasn't yet reached agreement on precisely what the rules for it should be, my basic argument that userfication is supported by WP:CONSENSUS still applies. Likewise, I continue to believe that we should not be too quick to delete non-disruptive material in user space, because too high-handed an approach to user space hurts good relations with our volunteers without providing the project with any tangible benefit. I believe WP:IAR, which is policy, requires us to consider the project's benefit and avoid interpreting policy strictly where a strict interpretation would be more harmful than beneficial. --Shirahadasha (talk) 22:28, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep all. There are probably a zillion unnotable bios that were userfied over the years, and those are basically vanity or spam. These are topic articles that are unrelated to the editor, who should be permitted to work on them or wait for sources. I would not object to indefinitely, personally, unless they were in some way harming the project. If we must we could alwys come up with a disclaimer template along the lines of {{userpage}} (although that has a slightly different purpose). There are other avenues to consider: I'm not so sure DGG's idea of giving them ot other editors is something that will magically scare up reliable sources, for example, but it's worth considering on a case-by-case basis. Ideally AFD will not delete articles that merely need some tuckpointing. We could also consider whether any Wikia project could provide a home for certain material, again on a case-by-case basis. Tlogmer has asked that this material be kept around so that an article need not start from scratch if it can ever be improved, and I'm not sure what alternatives we have for that reasonable request. Hide them from Google? Is that supported by MediaWiki? --Dhartung | Talk 10:06, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep all user appears to be a reasonable contributer to WP and does good work. I'll assume good faith when he indicates that having them (and their history) around is a good and useful thing. If he can rescue the articles, that's great! Hobit (talk) 21:30, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Relist separately. Some of these articles are sufficiently 'rescueable' that they could one day pass a deletion review and get restored to Wikipedia, but others are on topics that will simply never be notable. Some have also gone a very long time without being improved in any way, which suggests they probably never will be and should be deleted; but others were only userfied very recently. I think the only acceptable option is to consider them separately, rather than as a group like this. Terraxos (talk) 04:14, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Hear the man, he's right. The articles are too different between them to make a blanket decision covering all of them. I myself would raise a deletion review just on these grounds. --Enric Naval (talk) 14:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.