Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 42

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No automatic reason?

I notice that the reason for speedy deletion is no longer appearing automatically when I click "delete". Can anyone tell me why, or figure out how to get it back? --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:18, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Probably one of the updates to the software broke the related admin.js. You might want to ask the guys watching WP:VPT, they usually know how to fix such Script-related problems. Alternatively, you could use a script to handle speedy deletion for you, like CSDHelper or Twinkle. They still work fine. Regards SoWhy 06:11, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Works fine for me in Chrome. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 06:18, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Could be browser related as well, true. I had a problem with scripts not loading in Firefox 4b11 but a force-reload (Ctrl-Shift-R) solved that. Regards SoWhy 17:55, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Working as normal for me using Safari. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:33, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

On a related note, I'm using Twinkle and the pages aren't being marked as patrolled when I tag them. Am I the only one with this problem? (I use Firefox for editing) The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:43, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Which version of Firefox do you use? Regards SoWhy 13:53, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

3.6. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:55, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Ah, okay. I thought it might be related to the changed JS engine in Firefox 4. You could try using the Firefox 4 beta instead maybe. Or of course you can bug the folks at WT:TW. ;-) Regard SoWhy 21:17, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

• I don't know what the problem was or how it was fixed, but the problem does appear to have been fixed. Thanks to everyone who had suggestions. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 16:32, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

New speedy deletion criterion R4

I propose to implement a new criterion for the speedy deletion of certain redirects, namely orphaned redirects in the file namespace that match MediaWiki:Titleblacklist and that have at maximum one incoming link that is not a file link. I've seen a couple of administrators already trying to justify this criterion with one way or another, but I don't think that much of their deletion summaries are transparent enough to the rest of us or follow correct policy or process. For example, this file was deleted with the summary "unused redirect", a somewhat dubious criterion for speedy, and this one simply included a loose interpretation of criteria G6 (Housekeeping and non-controversial cleanup). Therefore, to ease this process and hopefully avoid any possible conflicts, we should simply add a new criterion to this page. I've requested a database report compiled here that lists possible candidates for such a criterion, should it be implemented. The reason these candidates are only regarded as possible is because they may have one file link, and speedy deletion would just mess up the formatting of the image placed on its respective article. I've also included the "at maximum one incoming link" clause because in the Special:WhatLinksHere for these files links may be introduced that are found in the database report itself or those compiled independently in user subpages, and do not need to be corrected.

Please share your thoughts on this new speedy deletion criterion proposal. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 06:15, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

I take it the intention is that these are files that were moved because of a bad title, and then have to be cleaned up? In that case, G6 is exactly right; there's no need for some hyperspecific criterion just to avoid it. — Gavia immer (talk) 06:19, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Agree, G6 covers this. Jclemens (talk) 06:22, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

This seems excessively specific; at best this could be done with a clarification to G6. Happy‑melon 14:10, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Based on the first example given, no new speedy-deletion criterion is necessary. The truly offensive ones (random long strings of characters, profanities, etc, that is, most of the redirects that would match MediaWiki:Titleblacklist) are either direct vandalism or cleanup of vandalism and speedy-deletable as such.
The second example, though, and some of the redirects at the front of the database report are more problematic. They appear to be good faith uploads of useful pictures and files which were simply uploaded with default filenames (probably numbers generated by the camera) and then moved to a correct location. Those redirects might not even be regular-deletable much less speedy candidates.
The "unused redirect" justification, however, was patently incorrect and is not and never should be a speedy-deletion criterion. Remember that in a perfect world, all redirects would be orphans yet they are still helpful to the project. Rossami (talk) 02:01, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Speedy Deletion Chemicals

How about making a Speedy deletion category about Chemicals?

~~Awsome EBE123~~(talk | Contribs) 14:08, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I highly doubt such a criterion would come up often enough to be relevant or be uncontroversial enough to ever have consensus. Cheers. lifebaka++ 14:45, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

But what would happen with an chemical that absolutely has no applications?

~~Awsome EBE123~~(talk | Contribs) 17:06, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Use articles for deletion? Remember, speedy deletion is the exception to the rule that deletions are the result of deletion discussions. Regards SoWhy 17:15, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I would say no to this, as the average new page patroller and admin will not have much in depth knowledge on chemicals to make a speedy decision. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:16, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

In any case, a WP:PROD is a viable alternative. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 19:42, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Why should a chemical "that absolutely has no applications" be necessarily excluded from an encyclopedia? Jclemens (talk) 20:17, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Nomen Nudum as a speedy deletion criteria

I'm a bit puzzled by a deletion. This deletion occurred over a month ago, and the article has since been restored, so certainly no harm done, but still. Since I don't want to turn this into a criticism of a specific admin, I won't link to the article itself.

The article was tagged {{delete}} with the reason "This article is about a taxon that has not yet been published, and so perpetuates a nomen nudum, to the possible detriment of the taxon authors. The journal was in error in posting the in-press article on its web-site as an accepted manuscript, and has now removed it. Please likewise remove this page. The paper will be properly published soon. (I am the lead author of the paper.)"

The useful online reference Wikipedia has a handy article on what Nomen nudum means, for ill-educated engineers like me.

I have to admit that if I came across such a speedy deletion candidate I'd very probably remove the tag, since it doesn't seem to match any of the actual criteria for speedy deletion, however broadly construed. At worst the article might be considered unsourced, which is no reason for speedy deletion. But I'm questioning my judgement a little. Maybe this was a valid application of WP:IAR? I'd love to hear some other opinions.

Thparkth (talk) 04:21, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Based on what you said it is not a valid speedy deletion, but if the person who nominated for deletion was the Wikipedia author then it would be a valid G7. But if the admin believed that the original writer of the journal article would be harmed by the Wikipedia article, then IAR could be invoked. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:41, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Sounds to me like a violation of WP:CRYSTALBALL which would be grounds for deletion but emphatically not for speedy-deletion. Graeme is correct that self-nomination might still be a valid grounds for speedy. Or a speedy could be justified if the creation was part of a pattern of vandalism. But if the page was created in good-faith, then it should have gone to XfD. As was recently discussed above, an appeal to WP:IAR is a sure sign that speedy-deletion is inappropriate. Rossami (talk) 05:13, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

SP:EF, SP:AF, and R2

These soft redirects from the article namespace to the Special: namespace violate the letter of R2. Are the soft redirects wrong or is the policy wrong? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 15:24, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Speedy deletion is only for clearly uncontroversial cases. I suggest taking these to XfD. Cheers. lifebaka++ 15:33, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

In that case, just talk to the creator and if necessary, use WP:RFD. As Lifebaka says, those are probably too controversial for speedy deletion but in general R2 applies to soft redirects as well, so where could anything be "wrong"? Regards SoWhy 16:22, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

The way R2 is worded as of right now, these soft redirects would be subject to speedy deletion because they're technically in mainspace albeit in a pseudo-namespace, and all redirects from mainspace to namespaces other than main, Category:, Template:, Wikipedia:, Help: and Portal: are subject to speedy deletion. I hereby propose adding the following clarification to R2: "However, an occasional soft redirect to special pages from a shortcut in a pseudo-namespace may be useful." --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 21:51, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that shortcuts from any pseudo-namespace title to any page not in the article namespace should be subject to R2, except where they are both clearly implausible and recently created. I say this because there are so many exceptions to any general rules about them that RfD seems the only appropriate venue. "Implausible" and "recently created" are already used in the R3 criterion so it isn't introducing any new standards. Thryduulf (talk) 23:44, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Another possible wording, a bit more general: "This criterion does not apply to shortcut redirects in a pseudo-namespace." So we agree that shortcuts are too controversial to speedy, but I just want to have the consensus and wording spot-on before I go edit the policy to reflect this understanding. --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 17:52, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

I've been mulling this over as well, and I think that keeping it simple is the way to go - make all shortcuts ineligible for R2 per your suggestion, and make recently created implausible ones speediable under a new R4, "Shortcut redirects in pseudo-namespaces that are both implausible and recently created.". Doing it this way also allows one to pass and the other to fail. Thryduulf (talk) 03:17, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Or like, you could take it to RFD for those five cases a year. We don't need instruction creep to deal with a non-issue. Yoenit (talk) 07:48, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

The "implausible" part of the existing wording of CSD#R3 is some of the most abused and misunderstood on the page. RfD discussions all too frequently start with an allegation that a redirect is implausible but then quickly discovered to be entirely plausible (though not in the way the nominator first thought). I would be extremely uncomfortable with expanding what I now consider to be failed wording. "Implausible" is too subjective a judgment to be a valid CSD criterion. Rossami (talk) 16:47, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

OK, but that's no reason to not implement the "shortcuts from pseudo-namespaces are not eligible for R2" suggestion. Do you have any opinions on that? Thryduulf (talk) 13:46, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

If it's too subjective, what could possibly be wrong with adding an example of what is not eligible for deletion under this criterion? Restricting criteria really isn't instruction creep. Nyttend (talk) 21:33, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

My comment about instruction creep referred to the proposed R4 criterium. I have no objections to adding that text to the R2 criterium. Yoenit (talk) 22:39, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

{{edit protected}} Can we get an administrator to sign off on the wording that I hereby propose in the subpage Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/R2 and shortcuts? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 16:34, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Okay there seems to be consensus for this change.  Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:19, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

F7 question

I have a question about criterion F7, which reads: "Non-free images or media from a commercial source (e.g., Associated Press, Getty), where the file itself is not the subject of sourced commentary, are considered an invalid claim of fair use and fail the strict requirements of WP:NFCC; and may be deleted immediately." How and why did we arrive at this? Nowhere does WP:NFCC require that the unfree content itself needs to be "the subject of sourced commentary".  Sandstein  21:40, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

The image use policy that lays out the foundation: Fair use - Unauthorized use of copyrighted material under an invalid claim of fair use constitutes copyright infringement and is illegal. Media which are mistagged as fair use or are a flagrant copyright violation can be removed on sight. The idea was further expanded upon at the Non-free content criteria, namely number two - Respect for commercial opportunities. Non-free content is not used in a manner that is likely to replace the original market role of the original copyrighted media. The guidelines lays out a very plain English examples at Unacepptable uses - Images - 7. A photo from a press agency (e.g., AP), unless the photo itself is the subject of sourced commentary in the article. It is also in tags such as {{Non-free historic image}} (must only be used in a transformative nature, when the image itself is the subject of commentary rather than the event it depicts (which is the original market role, and is not allowed per policy)) and was broken down in The Signpost. (Example that fails: An image of a current event authored by a press agency. Certain press agencies market photographs to media companies to facilitate illustration of relevant commentary. Hosting the image on Wikipedia would impair the market role (derivation of revenue), as publications (such as Wikipedia) would normally need to pay for the opportunity to utilize the image) Soundvisions1 (talk) 21:53, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, but that still does not explain how we get from NFCC to the requirement that content must itself be the subject of critical commentary. If the point is to protect commercial opportunities (as NFCC requires only to the limited extent that fair use content must not be "likely to replace the original market role"), then surely it does not matter whether critical commentary is present or not. And if the point is to prevent fair use content from replacing the original market role, then it also does not matter whether the work is from a press agency or elsewhere.  Sandstein  22:09, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

What part is not clear? Not being ironic - being serious. Wikipedia bases the Non-free content criteria policy on real world fair use however it is understood, and stated in various locations, that Wikipedia policy is far more stringent than real world use requirements. The "critical commentary" element is what drives the Wikipedia policy on non-free content and it *is* required for all non-free material. (Usually discussed in relation to criteria number 8: "Contextual significance" - would there be any need to use *any* non-free material in an article if there were no mention [sourced commentary", "critical commentary", et al.] of the non free content) For material taken from a commercial content provider Hosting the image on Wikipedia would impair the market role (derivation of revenue) because they are in the business of charging license fess for use of their material to websites such as Wikipedia. The only exception would be when the image itself is the subject of commentary rather than the event it depicts. See The Falling Man as one example. Not sure if that helps you more or not. Soundvisions1 (talk) 22:21, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Seriously, I still don't get it. Nowhere in WP:NFCC do the words "critical commentary" appear. So I don't see why you say that this is the element that "drives the Wikipedia policy on non-free content". In particular, the "contextual significance" requirement is worded without reference to any comemntary. And on that basis the F7 criterion appears to misstate the NFCC policy to the extent that it claims that the lack of critical commentary is an automatic NFCC violation.  Sandstein  22:34, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

It might help to read the guidelines that lay out a lot of plain English explanations at Non-free content - Guideline examples. If you read that you may get a better feeling for what the policy means. Reading The Signpost from September 22, 2008 might help as well. Soundvisions1 (talk) 22:47, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost essay does state "A "non-free" image is not expected to be contributing significantly to a reader's understanding in the absence of related commentary (i.e. an image should not be used as mere "eye candy")." But not only do we not find this assumption in the actual policy, I also believe it to be mistaken. Take for instance photographs of dead persons. An image is normally essential to the reader's understanding of the subject, because "a picture tells a thousand words"; being visual creatures, we instinctively feel that an image is part and parcel of a complete description of a person, and expect a serious reference work to provide an image. In that instance, any critical commentary about the image itself is completely immaterial to the understanding of the person (rather than the image) that the reader gains by way of the image. I still do not see, therefore, how one can make the claim, as criterion F7 does, that the absence of critical commentary automatically implies a WP:NFCC violation. If the requirement of critical commentary is indeed that essential, why is it not part of the policy itself?  Sandstein  00:12, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Maybe a tangible example would help. (Please correct this example if I've oversimplified.)

• Execution is an encyclopedic topic and belongs in Wikipedia.
• The photo of the execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém is connected to the general concept of executions and arguably belongs on the page.
• Unfortunately for us, the photo is copyrighted which means that publishers (and Wikipedia is a publisher in the legal sense) must pay the copyright owner to include that photo in their own work. Photographers have a right to earn a living off their work.
• Wikipedia is not set up to pay royalties. Now as a non-profit, we may not have to pay but we also release our work to be freely used by for-profit entities. (See GFDL and CC-BY-SA 3.0 for specifics.) Neither of those release rules allow the pass-through of copyrighted content because it puts too much burden on the subsequent user. (We might have a loophole if no free pictures of executions existed but that's not the case.) Therefore, we can not use that photo to illustrate the general concept of executions on Wikipedia.
• The photo itself, however, had a significant social impact, was discussed in other publications and became independently notable (all of which is a long-winded way of saying "critical commentary"). An article about the photo would be encyclopedic.
• The photo would be an appropriate illustration in an article that synopsizes that critical commentary and explains the social impact of the photo itself. This is said in different words in NFCC #5 and 8. Use of the photo in that specific context qualifies as Fair Use and is exempt from the requirement to pay royalties to the copyright holder. The specific wording in US law is "fair use ... for purposes such as criticism [or] comment ... is not an infringement of copyright". And, in fact, that photo is in the Nguyễn Ngọc Loan article in the section which discusses the impact of the photo on the general's career.
• If we did not have the specific and planned use of that photo in an allowable article about it's own social impact (and an unambiguous example of that would be when no such critical commentary exists) then merely holding the photo on our servers crosses the line to copyright violation - or at least gets so dangerously close that deletion is appropriate.

In other words, if there is no critical commentary about the photo in the outside world, then there is no realistic chance of qualifying for Fair Use and the project has determined that we are better off speedy-deleting the file than baiting new users to include it in inappropriate places. Hope that helps. Rossami (talk) 00:37, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Just a note - it isn't fully about "royalties", it is about actual usage payment. Most commercial content providers charge a usage fee, also know an a licensing fee. Royalties are more of a consideration for music, books, television and radio. It does relate to our policy if we are discussing things such as music use or if we were to use music videos and/or commercials (actors in commercial often get royalties based on spots and how often they air) the concept would come back into play as well. Even in the real world, one of the considerations for "fair use" is the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. Other than that you are pretty much on the mark. Soundvisions1 (talk)

RE to Sandstein - I am not 100% sure but it may be you are not really reading, or perhaps not understanding what you are reading. You said The Signpost essay does state "A "non-free" image is not expected to be contributing significantly to a reader's understanding in the absence of related commentary (i.e. an image should not be used as mere "eye candy")." But not only do we not find this assumption in the actual policy, I also believe it to be mistaken. and prior to that you have stated (and in a related discussion now as well) that there is nothing that implies any sort of "critical commentary" is needed for using non-free material in the policy. If you go back and re-read the Signpost I linked you will see plain English explanations of the policy wording. So do the Guideline examples. Beyond that the first thing to understand is that our NFCC are stricter than the requirements of the law so that Wikipedia's Mission can be pursued worldwide. The Signpost article is pretty explicit that "Respect for commercial opportunities" is part of the Wikipedia-wide criteria and (Bold added) These criteria are generally self-explanatory and typically not open to interpretation or subject to disagreement. Already addressed above but worth repeating because it is a "Wikipedia-wide criteria" that is "generally self-explanatory and typically not open to interpretation or subject to disagreement" - When content comes from a commercial content provider Hosting the image on Wikipedia would impair the market role (derivation of revenue), as publications (such as Wikipedia) would normally need to pay for the opportunity to utilize the image

Also note:

• 9. Restrictions on location. - In relation to criteria 8 ("contextual significance") (Bold added) this criterion has logical ties to Criterion 8. A "non-free" image is not expected to be able to make a significant contribution to a reader's understanding if it is not used in the context of critical commentary.

"Article-specific criteria", as *all* non-free content would be subject to -

• 8. Contextual significance. - Consideration - Pertinent discussion: (bold and underline added) A "non-free" image is not expected to be contributing significantly to a reader's understanding in the absence of related commentary (i.e. an image should not be used as mere "eye candy") Any image that *is* being used simply as "eye candy" will not likely be making a significant contribution in the absence of actual, critical discussion (i.e. not just a mere mention).

If you have an overall policy issue it needs to go, first, to a talk page discussion at the guiding policy - in this case Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria, and the related Guideline examples. If you truly feel there is no "commentary" requirement for any non-free content usage it needs to be changed at the source first. This policy, these deletion criteria, are in place to enforce existing policy - not to draft a new policy that is inconsistent with the guiding policy. Soundvisions1 (talk) 03:23, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

A Signpost article is not policy, it's only an essay, and an unconvincing one in this case. I agree that these deletion criteria are in place to enforce existing policy - not to draft a new policy that is inconsistent with the guiding policy. But that's what I believe what criterion F7 does by imposing a "critical commentary" requirement that does not exist in policy. That's why I am discussing it here: I don't have a problem with the NFCC policy, but with this deletion criterion that misrepresents it.  Sandstein  07:21, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

So Wikipedia:Non-free content also must "misrepresent" policy too - far greater than the Signpost article I would guess, but because it is not the actual policy you will see no need to discuss the issue there either. Soundvisions1 (talk) 11:56, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

The Wikipedia policy page does impose a "critical commentary" requirement in NFCC 5 and 8. It just uses slightly different words. If you think we're wrong, though, I'm going to ask for a counter-example. Can you point to a document whether inside or outside of Wikipedia that would meet the requirements of WP:NFCC but would still be speedy-deletable under the "critical commentary" wording of CSDF7? Rossami (talk) 14:12, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, two from today:

• File:Velupillai Prabhakaran.jpg, dead notable person, propaganda image distributed to (and then by) press agencies, nominated for speedy deletion per F7 solely on the basis that it was sourced to an agency without regard to the actual fair use case. This seemingly weird nomination alerted me to this issue.
• File:Zhao.jpg, image of a historic event made by an agency photographer, speedily deleted per F7 without regard to the arguments advanced that it meets NFCC.

These cases illustrate that F7 has led to a de facto severe additional restriction – one not envisioned in NFCC – on the legitimate and necessary fair use of images in Wikipedia. We're not talking album covers or pop stars or toys or any such fluff here, but images of bona fide historic events and people that an encyclopedia is expected to illustrate.  Sandstein  18:44, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

In the case of File:Velupillai Prabhakaran.jpg, this was incorrectly attributed to a press agency. If the image had been created by such agency then using it on Wikipedia would not be fair use, but as it wasn't this is not relevant. This demonstrates nothing regarding how good or bad F7 is - cases where policies have been wrongly applied (or the wrong policy has been applied) do not mean the policy needs changing. I've not looked into File:Zhao.jpg so make no comment regarding it. Thryduulf (talk) 20:16, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

A5 question

Forgive me if this has been asked before ad nauseam, but I didn't see it on this page or the last two archives. A5 seems to apply only to articles created in the mainspace here, then transwikied. What about the case when an article on another Wiki is transwikied here? Can we use A5 here in that case (edit to add: when the article here is identical to that on the other wiki)? Thanks. --NellieBly (talk) 01:48, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

No. Articles are transwikied only when they are not suitable for the wiki they were created on and so once the transwiki has been verified it will be deleted or majorly edited as soon as the processes on the originating wiki allow. Articles are transwikied to here because the community on the originating wiki believed that it was an encyclopaedia article written in English. If it isn't suitable for the English Wikipeida then nominate it for deletion if it meets no speedy deletion criterion. Thryduulf (talk) 08:35, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. --NellieBlyMobile (talk) 17:34, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Files that are Commons duplicates

I undid a recent change by SlimVirgin (talk · contribs) that was completely undiscussed regarding local files that are redundant to Commons files. Kelly ^hi! 04:19, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Considering that SlimVirgin's edit summary comment was "these seem to have been removed", that would indicate that there once was a time when these were previously part of the policy. I looked back over revisions going as far back as two years ago, and I couldn't find anything. That would indicate to me that either an editor is trying to unilaterally make policy changes (not a good thing), or that the aforementioned clause, if it ever existed, was removed more than two years ago (which, to me, makes any discussion to initially include it quite stale). In any case, we would need to have new discussion and come to a new consensus on whether the wording change should be added to the policy or not, and I for one will strongly oppose the addition of such language as being contrary to the spirit of WP:OWN. SchuminWeb (Talk) 05:16, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Can someone please explain what's at issue here? I can't recall the subject ever being raised here in the past year, though it's entirely possible I may have missed it. A link to a past discussion would suffice. ScottyBerg (talk) 18:07, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

That's the idea - we are unable to locate one, and I researched back two years. We can't find one, which to me indicates that the person who recently added the passage did so unilaterally without discussion. Now we're kind of trying to have that discussion, to see if consensus would even exist to allow such a policy change. SchuminWeb (Talk) 18:21, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

OK, then there needs to be a discussion of this. There shouldn't be edit warring over policy. ScottyBerg (talk) 18:28, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

You are correct on both counts. SlimVirgin has been referred to this discussion, and they have not yet responded. SchuminWeb (Talk) 18:32, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Since CSD criteria are supposed to describe uncontroversial deletions, and {{Keeplocal}} indicates there might be some controversy, seems like it should be mentioned in the policy.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:36, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

It also goes against WP:OWN, as well as every other transwiki process we have. As User:Kelly said on my talk page, "If someone created an article about quotes of Mark Twain, and it was moved out to Wikiquote, would we keep a local copy because the author wanted to? If someone created an article on a neologism that was moved to Wiktionary, would we keep it here? If someone created a news article that was a duplicate of soemthing on Wikinews, would be keep it here?" If we move an image to Commons, why should we keep it here? SchuminWeb (Talk) 18:47, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikiquote and Wiktionary content does not show up as part of our articles: Commons content does. A deletion tag on Commons, though, will not show up here unless someone makes the effort to copy it over. Therefore, it makes sense for there to be some mechanism to tag content that might not be acceptable there, but is here. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:53, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

This was removed by Kelly in July 2008 after little discussion, though the templates were in use, and attempts to have them deleted had failed. So this looked like an attempt to bypass deletion debates. I first noticed the change to the policy at the beginning of this month, so I restored that where a free image is marked with KeepLocal or NoCommons it should not be speedied. [1]

Schuminweb nominated KeepLocal again for deletion on Feb 20, and the strong consensus was to keep it. When he saw the discussion hadn't gone his way, he tried today to close it as "withdrawn," rather than "keep," [2] reverting twice when challenged. [3] [4] At the same time Kelly and Schuminweb came here to remove reference to the templates from the policy. [5] [6] [7]

If these templates are being used, and if the consensus is to keep them, that means free images tagged with them should not be speedy deleted. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 18:48, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Schuminweb, you and Kelly are taking it upon yourselves to decide that the English Wikipedia is no longer allowed to host free images. You've tried to introduce this without discussion, edit warring when people challenge you, and arguably misusing the tools when these images are speedied. It's out of order when consensus is so clearly against what you're doing. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 19:01, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Kelly followed what is fairly standard practice, making a proposal, and then, seeing no negative response, changed it. You were trying to unilaterally change it without discussion. SchuminWeb (Talk) 21:16, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

• Evidently "keeplocal" is used on only rare occasions. I don't see any great issue with retaining this as an exception. ScottyBerg (talk) 19:32, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

• • According to this, the template is transcluded 815 times. This isn't "rare". SchuminWeb (Talk) 21:16, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Additionally, per this, similar template {{nocommons}} has been transcluded 806 times. This is also not "rare", especially when combined with the former. SchuminWeb (Talk) 21:21, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

• But the point is that consensus in these debates keeps going against you. People want to be allowed to use the templates, and want them to be respected. You can't keep creating these forest fires of discussions, ignoring them when they don't go your way, then starting another as though the previous one didn't happen. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 21:24, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Would you like to discuss policy, like how these changes may or may not be grounded in said policy, or would you just like to continue to make personal attacks against those who oppose your viewpoint? I am here to discuss policy, since the TFD was not the right venue to start in vs. a policy page (and then using the TFD as the final step to clean up after a policy change). SchuminWeb (Talk) 21:45, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

There are no personal attacks. The issue is that when a discussion goes against you, you say it doesn't count, and you continue as before. Or you start a discussion in a new place, hoping to get a different answer.

The only points that matters are these: (a) the templates are being used; (b) every attempt to have them deleted has failed; (c) as recently as yesterday people have continued to say they want the templates to remain and be respected; and therefore (d) you can't speedy free images that display these templates, because to do so would be contentious, and speedy deletion is for non-contentious deletion. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 22:18, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

This smacks of forum shopping to me. Having lost the debate at TFD (for the second time) a new debate is opened here. I would also point out that the debate that removed the contentious line, that SlimVirgin is trying to restore, had some opposers with only Kelly arguing for deletion. That makes it at least no consensus in my book, if not an outright keep. It is unlikely that many of the editors interested in using this procedure were aware that that debate was occuring since this page is mostly the concern of those interested in speedy deletion. On the grounds that there was no consensus to make this change in the first place, and that CSD is meant to be strictly non-contentious, and that the CSD talk page is an unsuitable backwater venue to make policy changes, I am going to restore SlimVirgin's edit. SpinningSpark 00:09, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

The latest attempt to delete the KeepLocal template has just been closed as keep, and there was no consensus to remove it from this policy in the first place. So if Kelly or Schuminweb want to remove it, please seek consensus by opening a neutrally worded RfC, and making sure people know about it. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 00:28, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm rather embarrassed to have to protect this. I can't believe that experienced admins are edit warring over a policy discussion. I have no opinion on the best place to sort it out, but I know for certain that it isn't by edit warring on the policy page itself. I've kept it a short protection as hopefully it can get sorted. GedUK  13:32, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it is embarassing. Personally I don't like the template but consensus per the recent TFD is quite clear. The template is kept and the sentence in this policy should be restored, try an RFC is you want to address it again. Garion96 (talk) 14:52, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

• Question - how long do these tags remain on the images? There's no policy covering their use. For example. Irpen (talk · contribs) and Redvers (talk · contribs) were prolific users of these templates. But they are now absent. Is it all right to just remove the templates from their images? What if an uploader appends the templates to the images and later changes their mind about Commons? Kelly ^hi! 01:27, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

• Did someone set up that RfC? I've had an issue with these templates before. The lack of any clear policy with community wide consensus on them is a little alarming. But the real reason I'm here is because I've had an issue with people (well bots too) moving fair use items to commons. Closing a CSD:F8 as keep with a do not move fair use images to commons template would be useful but none of the current templates seems to do that. I was thinking of creating one and updating the instructions, but wanted to get feedback first, especially with all the heated discussion going on here. Any objections? --Selket ^Talk 02:17, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

• No objection from me. I've noticed the same problem. You could either create a new template, or just modify the wording of {{Do not move to Commons}}. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 02:32, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Would it not be possible/better to add the note about not moving fair use files to Commons to the fair use licence templates that are already on the articles? This doesn't do anything for files that should not be on Commons for reasons other than fair use, but I'd be surprised if fair use images were not the vast majority of such images. Thryduulf (talk) 02:52, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, it's not just fair use images. It's anything that will permanently violate a commons rule. I think I'll probably tweak {{Do not move to Commons}} and update some documentation. --Selket ^Talk 03:19, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

It turns out I can't fix {{do not move to commons}} since that's really just {{pd-us}} now. I don't know why it was implemented like that, but I can solve this without walking off the end of that dock. I'm going to tweak {{Not moved to Commons}} instead. --Selket ^Talk 18:58, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Courtesy notice

Hello, this is a courtesy notice that {{db-a10}} has been nominated for deletion here. Reaper Eternal (talk) 18:56, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

• That's because if there is a duplicate, then the duplicating article can just simpily be merged/redirected to the existing article, therefore this template is not needed. Japanese knotweed (talk) 22:26, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Speedy kept, editor pointed here for further discussion. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:28, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
    • Looking at the discussion that has been provided by User:Soundvisions1 at the tfd supports that this is not needed and is harmfull, especially the 2009 discussion. Japanese knotweed (talk) 22:49, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

The point was that I searched for a discussion and there has been no recent discussion of that magnitude on the criteria. I also pointed out that in 2009 it was obvious that there is no consensus whatsoever to repeal A10 at this time; I therefore close this discussion as a formality to acknowledge the adoption of A10. The correct process would have been to open a discussion here before making an attempt to delete a policy template. Soundvisions1 (talk) 14:32, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Your nomination of the template made no sense at all. First of all, the template is just a methodology of applying the existing criterion which was put in place after discussion. The only way you could ever be successful in having the template deleted is if you started a broad discussion here and achieved consensus to deprecate the criterion first. This is plain to all of us here; the nomination was a non-starter and was speedy closed. You don't appear to have read the criterion or understood what it is for, which is seen from your rationale above based on that duplicated articles "can just simpily [sic] be merged/redirected to the existing article". If you read the criterion you'll see that it is explicitly not applicable "where the title is not a plausible redirect... or that contains referenced, mergeable material", so your stated basis is completely irrelevant.

I hope you will slow down a bit knotweed, explore less technical areas to gain some experience; participate in XfD discussions before jumping to many nominations. You are a very new user but you appear to be focusing on areas that require a lot of experience. In addition to this page, you nominated a userpage for deletion today at MfD that was snow closed (by me) after unanimous consensus it was totally off base and bitey; you took a page to MfD that should have instead been tagged as a blatant attack page using {{db-attack}}; you tagged Sergei Prokopovich and Halldór Guðmundsson for speedy deletion under CSD A7 when the criterion was patently inapplicable, and after the latter was declined, took the article to AfD without doing any WP:BEFORE due diligence, when a simple Google books or news search would have immediately shown the topic to be patently notable and therefore one that should not have taken up any community time with a nomination that could not succeed. The list is longer but I'll stop there. Please take a breath. The enthusiasm to jump in is great, but you skipped right over the shallow end of the pool. Learn how our processes work and our policies and guidelines are applied in application first.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 06:13, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

• But why is there a problem with whether a redirect is plausible or not, we're not on rations. Japanese knotweed (talk) 09:01, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

  Wow, did you read the comment immediately above yours? Is there some reason to think that ignoring that advice would lead to a good outcome? Johnuniq (talk) 09:10, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Fuhghettaboutit. Well said. Soundvisions1 (talk) 14:32, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

The reason why there is "a problem with whether a redirect is plausible or not" is that we want to keep plausible redirects as they are likely to be useful, and redirects are cheap so it is more efficient to tolerate all plausible redirects rather than workout how often they might be used. Implausible redirects are different, at best they are needless clutter, at worst an implausible redirect for one article could cause confusion by misdirecting people who are looking for something completely different. Your proposal to delete {{A10}} is in effect a proposal to keep implausible redirects, and I'm not sure why you want us to do that. ϢereSpielChequers 11:12, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Redirects

R2 is for redirects from the main namespace but what about redirects to the main namespace? McLerristarr | Mclay1 17:46, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you would want one, but I don't really see what the harm is either. --Selket ^Talk 19:11, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

And where would be the need to speedy delete them when you could just use WP:RFD? Regards SoWhy 20:19, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Not only are they explicitly not speedy-deletion candidates but many are not even regular deletion candidates. This CSD criterion was created in response to a specific problem. Briefly, we tolerate content in the userspace that we would not accept in the main article space. It may be a draft or an interim copy or just a user subpage. The problem came when malicious users began creating intentionally misleading content in their userspace then creating redirects which automatically shifted readers to those unpatrolled pages. If a reader wasn't watching the header of the page carefully, it was easy to be misled. For a while, it was happening with such regularity that a redirect from mainspace to userspace was presumed to be malicious and eligible for speedy-deletion. That logic does not apply to other redirects out of the mainspace (hence the exclusions about the Wikipedia-space, etc.) and it very definitely does not apply to redirects going the other way. There is not the same potential for confusion on the part of our readers. Rossami (talk) 20:39, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

NoCommons

I am proposing to merge {{NoCommons}} into {{keep local}}. I created a discussion at Template_talk:NoCommons#Misleading_Name. I am, in this proposal taking no position on whether either of these templates should serve as an exemption to F8, but there is no reason to have two templates. --Selket ^Talk 19:20, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

G12 and claims of permission

Wikipedia:Copyright_problems/Advice_for_admins#Checking_for_permission says that admins should wait 7 days before deleting an article based on a G12 tag if the page creator makes a credible claim of having permission to use the copyrighted material. Such a claim can be made on the article's talk page, in edit summaries, or on the user talk page or should be implied "if the contributor's username suggests an affiliation with the suspected source". I've seen many a case in which this delay did not happen even though there was a clear claim of permission made in response to the G12 tag. One way of implementing this would to be to add to G12 a sentence which repeats the foregoing requirement and which says that if there is a credible claim of permission that the article should not be deleted under the G12 nomination, but the instructions set out at Wikipedia:Copyright_problems#Suspected_or_complicated_infringement should be followed instead, since listings on that noticeboard are always there for 7 days. The current language about "dubious claims of permission" doesn't get us there even if it applies at all to this situation, which is not at all clear. Best regards, TRANSPORTERMAN (TALK) 21:34, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The AfA page is just a practical how to guide Moonriddengirl wrote up, not policy or something. Current system is fine, we can always undelete a page if permission arrives. (Also, in 9 out of 10 cases the page is also applicable for deletion under G11 and A7, so nothing is solved by obtaining permission.) Yoenit (talk) 22:41, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

A7 question

Does A7 cover those things that are fictional? For example, an article that only states "X is a fictional company from the book Y. It is really evil." I don't see why it shouldn't apply, but just thought I'd make sure. Swarm ^X 01:49, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

No, it does not. However, if you want to, there's nothing to stop you from redirecting the fictional element which doesn't assert notability to the work in which it appears. Jclemens (talk) 01:50, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Alright, thanks. Swarm ^X 02:08, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

But of course, if it meets another criteria (with those sorts of pages, I find G3, G10, and G12 sometimes apply) you can use that. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 05:41, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Another Q

Regarding G4, why does the wording explicitly refer to pages that were "deleted per a deletion discussion"? Doesn't/shouldn't it apply to speedy deletions also? If an article is deleted per a CSD, and it's recreated identically, surely G4 covers this. Why doesn't the wording reflect this? Now, the original CSD tag would still apply of course, but G4 would work all the same, wouldn't it? Swarm ^X 07:14, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

If it was A7 before, and is created identically, A7 still applies. G4 is only for things where a deletion discussion has established that community consensus is that the article doesn't belong, and it doesn't apply if the article's ever been kept at an XfD or if it's not substantially the same article as was deleted in the discussion. Again, anything that doesn't fit those narrow criteria can go through the normal AfD process, and it will be deleted again if there's nothing substantially different. I've seen G4's used as an excuse to inappropriately delete articles that were good faith efforts to address the issues in an XfD. Jclemens (talk) 07:20, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Got it, thanks for your replies. I've done a reasonable bit of NPP before but for some reason these questions are occurring to me now. The rule to live by is 'adhere strictly to the CSD wording', I guess. :P Swarm ^X 07:25, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

The reason the CSD criteria are so narrow is that enthusiastic NPP'ers (and I did a LOT of NPP/RCP'ing myself in 2008-09) can sometimes start seeing everything as vandalism. Automated tools make pouncing and BITEing a single-mouseclick operation, and Wikipedia has sometimes suffered the loss of good contributors because their first encounter with feedback was a big warning template. While there are plenty of returning vandals and sockpuppets, it's better to let some of their nonsense stew in the regular deletion process than to too-quickly alienate real yet inept attempts at actually improving the encyclopedia. Jclemens (talk) 07:28, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, that's perfectly reasonable. If you or someone wouldn't mind humoring me for one more question, I would appreciate it. What's the rule on non-admins reviewing and removing CSD tags? Is this allowed in any circumstance? The page says other editors should use the {{hangon}} tag, yet I've noticed a user has been removing CSD tags (see User talk:Porchcrop#Speedy deletions) Swarm ^X 09:07, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Any experienced editor can remove a speedy deletion tag that they think is not within policy and if they do, it's usually a sign that this specific article is not uncontroversial enough to be speedy deleted. Of course, when it's done without reasoning or in bad faith, one can replace the tag but usually a good faith, explained removal of a tag is okay even when done by a non-admin. The {{hangon}} template is only for the page creator, they are not allowed to remove the tag. Regards SoWhy 09:16, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I realize I misread, I tried to refactor my comment but I got an edit conflict. I still don't see how that's constructive, but whatever. A non-admin closes and AfD as 'no consensus' and everyone freaks out as if the world is ending, yet any non-admin is completely allowed to decline speedy deletion requests. It's beyond me. Swarm ^X 09:22, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I'll try to explain. Almost all of the criteria for speedy deletion are based on the assumption that the deletion will be uncontroversial, right? So if you, as a non-admin, come across a page you think does not fit the criteria and you remove the tag, it indicates that you do not agree that speedy deletion is the correct way to go. As such, you create a potential for controversy, by indicating that one of the main requirements ("uncontroversial") for speedy deleting articles is not met in this case. It's not a "decline" as such, since it does not create a decision that admins should respect (although, sadly, some admins will ignore even declines) but it usually will make an admin consider not to speedy delete an article if the reasoning you had for removing the tag makes sense. For example, if Barack Obama is tagged (in good faith) as {{db-person}}, you don't have to be an admin to remove the tagging as obviously incorrect, do you? Hope that made sense. Regards SoWhy 09:40, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I guess my problem with it is the potential for a single editor to create controversy by removing a CSD tag even if they're in the wrong. I guess in the grand scheme of things once it goes to the community the right decision will prevail (hopefully) and removing tags might be an inconvenience but it's really not a big deal. Swarm ^X 09:53, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

That potential exists everywhere of course but the benefits of having clearly incorrect tags reviewed by more people far outweigh the potential problems that might be caused by it. :-) I take it all your questions are answered now? ;-) Regards SoWhy 10:43, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Ha, yeah, I think my overly-excessive question spree has reached its end. Thanks for putting up with me. :P Best, Swarm ^X 11:50, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

You are of course welcome. :-) If you need anything else, you know where to find me / us. ;-) Regards SoWhy 15:02, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

On a related note; every once in a while, after I tag a page for speedy deletion, some user's first edit (not the creator, just some other user) is to remove the tag. Generally, I restore the tag because I find it highly improbable that it's coincidence; is this a problem? I know it says if anyone but the creator removes it, it should be PRODded or sent to AfD, but on the occasions this happens I retag it per IAR. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:37, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Depends on why the remove the tag really. If the tag was obviously incorrect, the removal is fine. If the tag was correct, it depends on why they removed the tag. If they specified a reason, it's usually better to PROD/AFD instead. If they did not provide any reasoning, re-tagging once is okay but you should notify the user and ask them to explain. That's just how I interpret it of course. Regards SoWhy 22:53, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

In every case so far, it's just been an unexplained removal of an A7 tag for a MySpace band or album. What you've said is basically what I've been doing; thanks. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 23:01, 5 March 2011 (UTC) The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 23:01, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

A7

Why is CSD A7 restricted to certain types of articles? It is logical that any article, regardless of subject matter, should be able to qualify under this criteria. Whats the logic behind this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sephiroth storm (talk • contribs)

CSDs are limited to known problem areas--if something is to be speedy deleted there has to be 1) strong consensus on what is or is not acceptable for an article, and 2) sufficient frequency that it's a benefit to the community to have those types of articles summarily executed. Jclemens (talk) 06:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Theres no known problem with other articles that are not notable, and have no claim of notability? How many articles outside of the A7 categories are successfully PROD'ed on the basis of notability? Any article that is not clearly notable, as established by policy and verified through multiple reliable sources, and makes no claim of such should be speedily deleted. Sephiroth storm (talk) 12:29, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

No consensus has been established for what you propose. The criteria for speedy deletion are cases where there is a clear consensus that the article can be deleted without discussion or delay. Because this bypasses "due process" almost entirely, it is a deliberately-small and tightly-defined list. Of course consensus can change, but there has historically been a lot of resistance to expanding the range of A7. Thparkth (talk) 13:10, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

simplying {{hangon}} tags

I have seen a lot of newbies who don't understand how {{hangon}} is supposed to work and end up posting the rationale on the page itself, no rationale at all, no hangon tag or making other mistakes. Can't we simplify this by simply making a big "Click here to contest this speedy deletion" button in the speedy deletion? I am no expert in templates, but I imagine it would be possible to have a link to a create a new preformatted section on the talkpage (containing only some hidden instructions, nothing which will break the template if it is removed) and than have the speedy template transclude this section if it exists? Yoenit (talk) 10:24, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm equally no template expert but this sounds like a good idea to me. It might be easier to detect the existence or otherwise of a talk subpage (e.g. Talk:Example/Hangon) for transclusion purposes - at the very least a human can tell the difference between a red link and a blue link if nothing more sophisticated is possible. Thryduulf (talk) 13:17, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like a great idea! Now if someone more skilled than the three of us would support the idea...Nyttend (talk) 21:31, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

I have posted over at {{hang on}}, hoping we can get some more people here and at least one tech savvy editor who can actually make a test template. Yoenit (talk) 22:52, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

I thought this was a great idea and it's done. If you want to test it out, here's the link as it now appears in {{Hangon}}: Click here to contest this speedy deletion. Figuring out the URL coding had me tearing out my hair for a while. Here's the code:

<span class=plainlinks>'''[{{fullurl:{{TALKPAGENAME}}|action=edit&section=new&preload=Template:Hangon_preload&preloadtitle=This+article+should+not+be+speedy+deleted+because...+}} Click here to contest this speedy deletion]'''.</span>

If you want to edit this, there are two parts to know. First, the new section headline comes directly from the URL above (the parts with plus signs in between) that was added to hangon. If you want to change the preloaded explanatory text that's placed in the edit box however, you need to edit {{Hangon preload}}. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:24, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! What I was thinking about was placing this link directly in {{db}}, so the whole hang on template could be retired. Would this be possible? Yoenit (talk) 08:26, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I played around a bit with {{db-meta}} in the sandbox and got the transclusion working. You can play with it here It is very rough, but seems to be functional. I did notice one problem: The idea behind Hangon tags is that people are given time to write a rationale, which is lost with this template. Do admins encounter hangon tags where the editor takes a long time (say >2 minutes) to write his rationale after he tagged it with Hang on? Yoenit (talk) 10:02, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

to illustrate why hang on needs some work, I just went through contested speedies category (16 articles) and found the following:

• 3 pages where hangon was properly used
• 1 page where hangon was added after the rationale
• 3 pages with hangon tags which were not being speedy deleted.
• 1 page with hangon tags on both article and talkpage
• 4 pages with hangon but no rationale (for several hours)
• 2 pages with the rationale in the article itself
• 1 page with 2 hangon tags
• 1 page where hangon was placed on the talkpage~

I did notice it took around 5-10 minutes to a rationale for some editors, but I wonder how much time could be saved with a simpler system. Yoenit (talk) 10:24, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree on the merits of a clear way to do this properly, but I think all admins take cognizance of a hangon tag wherever it appears, or a message indicate opposition regardless of how it is expressed, and, even if there is no argument given, take it to mean we should be extra careful that there might be a justification for keeping the article. It should also be seen as ensuring we explain further to any good faith ed. if we do delete the article. DGG ( talk ) 00:00, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

That only 3 out of 16 users managed to contest a speedy completely according to procedure shows the procedure is too complicated. How many users tried to contest a speedy deletion but never managed to place the hangon tag itself? 1? 5? 10? 20? Nobody knows. Yoenit (talk) 21:35, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

This really does come under WP:Competence is required. The instructions for including a hangon tag are painfully simple. There just isn't anything complicated about them. Admins tend to be pretty tolerant of misplaced hangons because we know we are dealing with newbies, but if an editor can't even get the tag someplace, there isn't much to be done. All told, the tag is pretty useless in the first place: the admin still has to review the article and determine whether it meets the criteria. The presence or absence of a hangon tag doesn't factor heavily in that decision.—Kww(talk) 16:59, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Kww is right; the hangon tag should have no actual impact on the admin's decision. All it does it give the creator (or whoever) a chance to say they're going to argue the case on the talk page (or wherever, if it's in the article, I'll just clean it up if I decline), but they can use the talk page without a hangon. The hangon should just highlight that for the patrolling admin. GedUK  17:14, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

To clarify, are you opposed to integrating hangon with the db templates as shown here? I was thinking of launching an RFC on this, but I would like some more opinions before I do so. Yoenit (talk) 17:27, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Lukewarm. I know the changes to "simplify edit semi-protected" that worked similarly didn't do much but make me deal with more edit semi-protected requests that I declined anyway. I doubt that an increase in the number of correctly placed hangon tags would actually impact the number of speedy deletions one way or the other.—Kww(talk) 20:04, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to it, just not sure it's worth the effort, but it's not my effort, so I'm not going to complain. GedUK  20:49, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

There's little effort left to do. The work's already been done with the code and template I put together and Yoenit's testing of its transclusion in Db-meta/sandbox. At this point I can't really think of any good reason not to deprecate Hangon tags. They are an unnecessary complicator that forces users into a two step process of placement and protesting on the talk page when the first step is superflous. All admins know or should know to check the talk page before deleting so a direct link to the talk page in the db- tags, with a preformatted header and instructions, just gets rid of a level of complexity and increases the likelihood of users posting in the right place. Competence is certainly necessary but this is far from a targeted method for its testing. Sure, most speedy deletion protests are inapposite and therefore ineffective but there are occasional successes. I've seen the equivalent of "I forgot to mention he won the Nobel Prize; here's a reference" on tagged articles' talk pages, though I'm exaggerating a bit with that example. Many users get the false impression from the hangon placement hurdle that the act of placing the hangon tag itself has some ability to stop speedy deletion. Placing this button in the db tag, with the preformatted text, tells users directly that they will have to provide a proper basis in order to avoid deletion. If nothing else, it will avoid drama (and thus time wasted) on the "I couldn't-figure-it-out" front, even if it will only avoid deletion in one out of a thousand cases.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:05, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

My intentions behind this proposal were not to affect the number of succesful contested deletions, they were to simplify an unnecessarily complicated process so new users have a better idea of whats going on. Given nobody seems to object to this proposal I will start an RFC and list it at {{cent}} later today. Yoenit (talk) 10:03, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

It's going to be quite a technical challenge to have one link that both adds a template to the article and adds text to the talk page. I'm not sure that's possible without adding some global javascript. --Selket ^Talk 07:40, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

There is no reason to add a template to the article. The way the sandbox version works now is by checking for the existence of talk:Foo/hang on and if it exists it will show the speedy as contested. The worst that can happen is false positives when succesfully contested speedies are later renominated, but I think that would actually be a net positive. Yoenit (talk) 09:49, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment-I'm not sure that hangon (or contesting) is acuually needed, who would want their article deleted anyway, the administrater who deletes the page should check the talk page and any other place before they delete it anyway. Lavalamp from Mars (talk) 08:18, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Although I do thing simplifying them would be a good idea for the reasons given above. Lavalamp from Mars (talk) 08:20, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Addition to T3

Although this may be obvious to some, I would like to make it very clear. Therefore, I propose the following sentence be added to criterion T3:

This excludes situations where there was a cut-and-paste move performed on the templates (see G6).

Thanks. Zzyzx11 (talk) 18:44, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Because this seems non-controversial, since it is a corollary of cut-and-paste move policy, I'll be bold and add it in. Feel free to copyedit it. Thanks. Zzyzx11 (talk) 23:44, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

In response to this edit summary, my main concern is that admins may not be checking the page histories of the tagged templates to verify that no cut and paste move was made, because I have made that mistake a few times. State the obvious as a reminder! Also, I was using the same basic exception wording that is used on criterion G2 regarding "pages that were created in error (see G6)". Zzyzx11 (talk) 00:23, 7 March 2011 (UTC)was

Another proposed wording could be: "This excludes situations where the other template was the result of a cut-and-paste move". Zzyzx11 (talk) 01:08, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

There are many obvious caveats to the CSD criteria, and many not-so-obvious ones; WP:OBVIOUS is of dubious relevance here, this is not an article. That admins should be alert for cut-and-paste moves and should handle them properly is a caveat of all CSD criteria, especially G2, G4, G12, A7, A10, F1; I hope you agree that putting the exact same caveat on all of them individually is not the right way to proceed. If anything, this needs an entry in the "Procedure for administrators" section. Yes, I know that that is not the high-profile message that you want, but that is not the level of warning that it needs. Adding more and more caveats, warnings and instructions is process creep; instead keep is simple, and have faith that admins will try and do the right thing. Happy‑melon 10:04, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I'll add it to the "Procedure for administrators" section instead. Thanks. Zzyzx11 (talk) 04:25, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I forget what this is

Let's say I copy the entire contents of Solar system and put it on a page like "John Smith." What's the appropriate tag here? I think it should be included under test pages. It's not a duplicate (because the title is unrelated to the existing article). Thoughts — Timneu22 · talk 00:36, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Assuming the person has not attributed the edit to the article is came from (which I've never seen), it is technically a blatant copyright violation, but tagging it as a G12 is not what I think you should do here, and I agree that A10, while having a surface appearance of fitting, isn't quite a right fit. It's not obviously a test page either (in my opinion way overused for pages where people have no clue whether a person is testing or not). There's two reasons these happen in my experience (usually which one is clear by context): A person wants to use the other page as an example article that they're now going to tailor to the topic, or a person who is attempting to make what I call a homemade redirect (with obviously no understanding of page histories). Were I to tag this, I would always use {{db | g6 with contextual explanation}} and then a tailored note on the user's talk page. I'm not sure you were suggesting we add anything to address these, but if you were, I don't think they come up often enough to warrant a change or addition to the criteria.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:45, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I have seen this with some frequency, like once a week. In most instances, it's a copy of something that's mildly related, but yesterday it was the exact example I discuss here: solar system being copied to an article with a person's name as the title. I have to go with G2; we can't claim copyright problems within the same encyclopedia, can we? I guess G6 could be right, too. — Timneu22 · talk 10:54, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Again, I don't think it's the right action to take in this situation at all, but we can indeed claim "copyright problems". If me and you collaborate on an article, we own the copyright, not Wikipedia. Where that content is used without compliance with the attribution requirements of its licenses, there is no legal difference between that content being posted under a new title here violating our copyright, or the infringement occurring at some other site. Anyway, back to the topic. Why would you use G2? What makes you think the person's intent was to test? Unless there's something inherent in posting an article in this manner, tagging it as a test is a stab in the dark as to whether it's correct. As I said above, I've typically seen where a person is using another article as a template for a new one, or making a homemade redirect, neither of which are test actions at all. We shouldn't use G2 as a catchall even when we have no idea whether it actually fits.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:35, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

It might be templating but in my experience it's more often forking and is generally (though not always) evidence of bad-faith. If it's a POV-fork, that is, a fork with the intent to create a variant article pushing a particular point of view, it's definitely bad faith but speedy-deletion rarely stops the problem. Redirecting the new page back to the original article, however, does tend to nip that behavior in the bud. If it's a fork to a truly frivilous new title (like a person's name), I'd consider that probably vandalism and speedy-deletable as such (G3) but I'd want to cross-check the user's other contributions to confirm the pattern. I've seen some apparently silly changes that turned out to be true but either obscure, historical or related to some fictional context that I didn't know about. And, of course, sometimes forking is good-faith if, for example, it's the first step to splitting an overly-long article or drafting a drill-down page.
Copyright would not be an actionable cause for forking since the attribution requirement of GFDL is met at the project level and not necessarily required at the page-level. You do not, for example, have to copy an entire page's history when moving a paragraph from one page to another and while it's courteous to note the content move in the edit summary, it is not required. I also agree that G2 would be a poor choice unless there was something specific in the edit summary or the user's other contribution history to support that hypothesis. Rossami (talk) 02:04, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

According to WP:Copying within Wikipedia, best practices require that descriptive edit summary and recommend the use of {{Copied}}. Flatscan (talk) 05:05, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Best practices are by definition not requirements, merely (strong) recommendations. And let's be honest - it would be a major coup if we could get everyone making any edit summary at all. The detailed and descriptive edit summary is something we only see from experienced editors (and often not even them). Rossami (talk) 05:20, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Point taken. My impression is that experienced editors' familiarity with copying procedures is rising, which is a start. Flatscan (talk) 05:02, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Usually what I see is not quite so extreme a mis-titling, but an intention to fork, or use one article as a template for another. Deleting via copyright in any case is absurd, since the copyright violation can be immediately cured by a suitable reference on the bottom of the article with a link to the original. The relevant rule is NOT BURO, and we should try to figure out the intent & proceed accordingly. (But when I think it's playing around, but not malicious enough to be called vandalism, I do use G2, test page interpreting it as an attempt to test what we do here. Most vandals don't deserve the satisfaction, & I generally try to use the mildest reason possible as a way of squelching them--I think they generally get the point . ) DGG ( talk ) 06:17, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I used a G12 tag recently to clean up a case where a user copied another user's draft – without permission or attribution – into article space. See Talk:List of cricket grounds in New Zealand and WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive666#Copying content from userspace. I think that deletion produced the cleanest result, giving the original author full credit. Flatscan (talk) 05:05, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

An hour or 2

Would it not be a good idea to wait for an hour or 2 before deleting a page, if it is not an attack, so that that would give users time to see if the article is actually notable or not because an article may be notable but it may just not have the sauces or other infomation that makes it notabile, but that may not be there to prove this. Lavalamp from Mars (talk) 08:34, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Admins are encouraged to not delete the page of a subject with questionable importance when they notice the creator is still working on it or when their own research casts reasonable doubt on the non-importance claim but there is no point in a rule for something like this, for example, we need not to wait 2 hours for a page like "John Doe is my bestest friend in the whol wild world!!". And of course, neither such an encouragement nor any written rule can stop admins determined to delete such pages... Regards SoWhy 09:33, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

This has come up on this page soooo many times I think it is time for an entry at WP:PEREN. SoWhy seems to have hit the main points that have repeatedly sunk this idea. While there is no hurry to delete articles with potential, there is no reason to wait to delete obvious junk. Of course that's where we run into problems, one man's trash is another man's treasure. Beeblebrox (talk) 06:01, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I think it is really important that we do something along these lines, we need to make New page patrol less bitey for new contributors, we should try to to avoid bad press like this and most importantly we need to avoid losing new articles where the first save didn't include the assertion of importance. Getting consensus for this is not going to be easy, partly because it could be complicated, as well as the G10, G3, G7 and I would think G11 and G12 articles where we don't want any pause, there are some A7 articles which effectively assert non-notability - "**** is our high school prom queen and is brill" "**** are the next big thing to hit the Surbiton grunge scene, we'll be holding our first rehearsal next Tuesday if we can find a drummer" and can be deleted immediately; Whilst other articles "**** is an actor born in 1983" would benefit from being left for a few hours to see if they gain that critical second sentence that makes them worth keeping. There is also the practical issue that we have a patrol at special Newpages that looks at the newest articles as they come in, and any pause needs to include a mechanism to bring the articles back to that team. That said I think we could achieve this with something along the lines of Strategy:Proposal:Speedy deletion - 24 hour pause for some articles. ϢereSpielChequers 14:30, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Template:Speedy-Warn and Template:Speedy-decline

Does anybody use these talk warning messages? Looks like they were created in 2007 but never used on a regular basis. If not, I'd rather delete them as a "G6/WP:IAR/Policy or guideline template" per a consensus here rather than go through WP:TFD. Thanks. Zzyzx11 (talk) 04:57, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

The templates explicitly say that they should be substituted only, so any measure based on whatlinkshere will be inaccurate. Even if they are completely unused, is there a reason why they need to be deleted in a hurry? As has been discussed on here several times recently WP:IAR is never an appropriate reason to speedily delete anything. G6 definitely doesn't fit either, and they do not appear to be misrepresenting policy so T2 doesn't fit either. So I strongly oppose the attempt to bypass a TfD for these pages. Thryduulf (talk) 11:02, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Never seen those before, but I might starting using them now I know about them! They certainly aren't suitable for deletion under any speedy deletion criteria that I can see. Thparkth (talk) 11:26, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Note the template has been used - see these search results. Thparkth (talk) 11:29, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I think we should advertise their use a bit more, I plan to use the speedy decline one now I have heard about it. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:49, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Covering similar ground, there's {{sdd}}, {{sdd2}}, {{sdd3}} and {{Declinedsd}} which I think are better worded. Agree that these should go through TfD if deletion is pursued (though I strongly disagree with the statement above that "WP:IAR is never an appropriate reason to speedily delete anything").--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:13, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

When do you feel that it is acceptable to use WP:IAR to speedy delete something?

• Speedy deletion and IAR should only be used for non-controversial actions.
• There is a consensus that speedy deleting something the meets the narrowly interpreted CSD criteria is not controversial.
• If there is a discussion that comes to a consensus that something should be deleted, it isn't speedy deletion.
• If something meets the CSD criteria then you do not need to use IAR (remember that G9 covers office actions).
• Therefore if you need to use IAR to speedy delete something it isn't covered by the speedy deletion criteria.
• Speedy deleting anything that does not meet the CSD criteria is automatically means there is no consensus to delete it.

• You are Denying the antecedent here. Just because there are clouds when it rains does not mean there are no clouds when it is dry. As explained at the top of the page there are more requirements for a CSD criteria then just having consensus. Yoenit (talk) 14:31, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

• From the top of the CSD page: "The criteria for speedy deletion specify the only cases in which administrators have broad consensus support to, at their discretion, bypass deletion discussion and immediately delete Wikipedia pages or media." If these are the only cases where there is consensus, and consensus is a binary state (there is either consensus or there isn't), then anything that is not covered by these cases cannot have consensus. Thryduulf (talk) 21:13, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

• Deleting something when there is no consensus to delete it is always controversial.
• Therefore using IAR to justify a speedy deletion is always deleting something for which there is no consensus to delete, and it is therefore always controversial and therefore never an acceptable use of IAR. Thryduulf (talk) 13:48, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I think there may very occasionally be grounds to IAR speedy a page for 'protection of the project'. I'm thinking of a page that say described paedophile activities, or that might be illegal for some other very, very clear reason - these are circumstances where the WMF might even ask for the page to be taken down to protect the servers. But I can't think it would be anything other than an extremely rare occurrence. As for those templates, they certainly don't qualify for IAR deletion, even if they were not being used, which it appears that they are. It is a concern of mine that NPPers - who do a sterling job - are always a bit keen to extend the scope of CSD. For the most part, it is of no detriment to the project for material to remain around for the timescale of the longer deletion processes. Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:14, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Surely the WMF wanting something taken down for the protection of the servers comes under WP:OFFICE? If there is anything posted that is that illegal everywhere that it must be shot on sight then it's going to have been uploaded in the knowledge that it is illegal and so it will be a deliberate attempt to harm the project. Deliberate attempts to harm the project seem to fall well within the definition of Vandalism, and so can be speedily deleted already under criterion G3. If you disagree then I think we need to get consensus to include "material that is unquestionably illegal for the WMF to host" and "deliberate attempts to harm the project" under one ore more new or existing criteria. Thryduulf (talk) 21:09, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I concur. Obvious vandalism is already speedy-deletable. Anything truly dangerous that's not already covered under the existing criteria should be handled by OFFICE. Rossami (talk) 22:38, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

You want an example of IAR deletions in practice? Go check the last 50 articles deleted under G1. I would be surprised if even half of them actually meet the criteria. G1 (and also G3) are used to get rid of a variety of crappy articles which would otherwise have to pass through prod/afd. Not saying I approve of this practice, but I have observed it. Yoenit (talk) 23:20, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

@Thryduulf - good point. Hadn't looked at it that way. Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:16, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

By attempting to square the circle on a syllogism of inside and outside consensus you're ignoring the whole purpose of IAR which itself has foundational consensus, as does that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy with hidebound statutes. It is fundamental to Wikipedia that people operate with good judgment and do not treat our guidelines and policies as laws from on high. Policies and guidelines should always be applied using reason and common sense. Every day pages are deleted under WP:IAR, and for the most part properly, i.e., to delete the sorts of things that do not arise often enough justify a dedicated criterion, but which are so unquestionably ripe for deletion that to use prod or AfD would be pure bureaucracy (I am specifically not talking about a few users I could name who are always off the reservation, constantly making questionable deletion decisions and who pretty much ignore the criteria entirely). IAR is not a license to do whatever one pleases but to ignore rules when they are not sensible in a particular context, keeping Wikipedia's improvement in mind.

The criteria you view as invariable creatures of consensus arose not in a vacuum but from what people were already speedy deleting because it made sense—that is, people codified what was already being done by experienced and thoughtful users in application, which is probably the most powerful source of consensus on Wikipedia. We rarely see blatant, self-proving WP:NFT stuff at AfD because when someone writes "foo is a drinking game that my classmate and I made up yesterday while in homeroom" it is almost always speedily deleted either explicitly or implicitly under IAR. In that regard, many users use IAR without invoking it, which I think is a terrible practice. Instead of a good edit summary e.g., "WP:IAR deletion to not elevate process over substance; Wikipedia is not for things made up one day and there is no possibility of this not being deleted through a more formal process.", I see an attempt to shoehorn the deletion into a criterion that does not apply by its plain terms, such as G3 (the example is not vandalism) or the much overused G2 (no reason whatever to think this was a test page).

You asked when do I feel that it is acceptable to use WP:IAR to speedy delete something? If you want specifics I can provide some but the real answer is when it is appropriate, which is not often but which policies and guidelines cannot possibly anticipate. Almost always when it is used the basis is an extension of a principal already enshrined in policy or guideline. One example would be the NFT page I gave. Another would be a number of pages I tagged long ago with {{db|because...}}, that today would be delectable under G10's language for BLPs, but weren't when it was A6; an article about a person's pet rabbit that they bought yesterday and what they should name it (before individual animals were added to A7); pages that scream every hallmark of a blatant copyvio by a user whose only other creations have been copyvios, but where the actual source of copying cannot be found; a public domain upload of an adolescent girl with the uploader asking people at the help desk how he can find out her name (these are all, of course, real examples). Use IAR. Use it wisely and with the rarity is deserves. Say you are using it and always provide an explanation. By the way, I think you might find Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Simplify policy RfC illuminating. It seems a large portion of the community would not agree with your absolutist statement regarding WP:IAR and the CSD. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:02, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

i see almost no need to use IAR for speedies--there is essentially always a reason. A3, vandalism covers anything that would harm the project, (OFFICE should only be used when it actually IS an office action, and is being placed by them or at their request--individual admins should not be using it of their own accord). If it does not fit into the speedy classes, and does not immediately harm the project, there is no actual need for speedy. It might be a convenience, but doing things because they are convenient is the way criteria get illegitimately expanded into "anything I think should be deleted" But I would not want to say that a case cannot be found, for that's the key purpose of IAR--to provide for unanticipated cases--of anything. I think I used it once, once out of my 12,000 speedies. DGG ( talk ) 02:31, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

If there are things that are regularly being speedily deleted which do not fall under the CSD criteria then we need to discuss whether there is consensus for adding a new CSD criteria for it - but without evidence of the problem (that IAR speedy doesn't give) you will unlikely get it. Either there will be consensus and we can do thing the proper way without resorting to IAR. If there isn't consensus for it then there is no way you should be deleting it IAR. The examples you give of past cases where criteria didn't exist but now do show the proper way to do things - find a problem, discuss it and if others agree it will become part of CSD. I don't have time to detail a reply to your other points now, but I will later. Thryduulf (talk) 12:18, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

On the initial topic; early in my NPP career, it took me a few tries to fully grasp A9, and Template:Speedy-decline is a template that gets the reader's attention without being harsh or condescending. I've used it at least once myself, and I intend to start using it a bit more often when I find the obvious misfires everyone has every once in a while, whether it be accidentally tagging the wrong page or completely missing some obvious claim of existence/importance (for G3 and A7/A9 respectively). Template:uw-csd is better for most, but the speedy-decline one is best for really egregious mistakes or accidental tags. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:34, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Non-notable article in template space

Today I discovered Template:Battle of the Stars, a word-for-word copy of the A7 tagged article Battle of the Stars. I get the feeling that it should be speedied, but under what criteria? A7 and A10 don't apply as it isn't in article space, and nothing else seems to cover it. Any ideas? Alzarian16 (talk) 19:26, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Under normal circumstances, you could just move the page into the mainspace and tag the leftover redirect with a G7 tag or a G6 with a rationale. In this specific case I went ahead and deleted the template under G6 as a misplaced article, separate from also deleting Battle of the Stars under A7. Cheers. lifebaka++ 19:30, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Based on the timing and contribution history in the two pages, I would have considered the creation of the page in the template space as a new-user test (deletable under G2), though I can see the arguement for uncontroversial user error (G6). Rossami (talk) 22:34, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks guys. On a side note, would it be worth adding templates to the list of places where G tags apply? It might help avoid understandable confusion like this. Alzarian16 (talk) 09:00, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

The general criteria already do apply everywhere. The confusion stems from the language (and not reading Help:Namespace). Cheers. lifebaka++ 09:05, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Oops, I didn't make myself clear... what I was trying to say was, should we mention templates in the bracketed list of namespaces at the top of the general criteria? Alzarian16 (talk) 10:39, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Do we actually need that list? Surely "applies to all namespaces" requires no clarification? Thryduulf (talk) 20:02, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Why does A7 only apply to a real person, individual animal, organisation and web content?

I'm sure there's a valid rationale behind this one, but, for example, I see no reason why the article now at afd should not be deleted because it does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. Under the current policy, it would not fall into this criterion, since this criterion applies only to articles about web content and to articles about people, organizations, and individual animals themselves, not to articles about their books, albums, software, or other creative work. Any thoughts? Jay _{Σεβαστός}^discuss 12:51, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

One reason is because those we have identified as within A7's ambit come up with regularity. If you read the banner at the top of this page you'll see a section that says "Read this before proposing new criteria". 3 says: Frequent: speedy deletion is intended primarily as a means of reducing load on other deletion methods such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion and Wikipedia:Proposed deletion. These processes are more discriminating because they treat articles case-by-case, and involve many points of view; CSD sacrifices these advantages in favor of speed and efficiency. If a situation arises only rarely, it's probably easier, simpler, and fairer to delete it with one of the other methods instead. This also keeps CSD as simple and easy to remember as possible, and avoids instruction creep.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:03, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I realize this doesn't directly address your question. In the particular case you cite, at least one editor (the one who declined the prod, not the article creator) believes there are sufficient sources to demonstrate notability. That's a textbook example of a scenario where speedy deletion under A7 would have been inappropriate. Thparkth (talk) 13:17, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply guys. In reply to Fuhghettaboutit, I am pretty sure that articles which are about the products of the various companies, software, books, etc are very plentiful themselves (I'm not sure of the exact statistics on Wikipedia, so I'm not going to try and claim that there are slightly more, or slightly less). So surely this is not necessarily a reason why real people, individual animals, organisations and web content can be CSDed and other things can't be per A7. If they take up the same workload, or at least a significant amount, and when they are of no significance are taking time up at AfD, surely CSD is going to be a better option? As for Thparkth, I can understand that in this particular case CSD would not have been appropriate because another editor disputes the fact that the article is significant. However, surely this could have happened just as easily with a person, organisation, or some web content? Besides, we do have system with dealing with CSDs which people dispute: use the {{hang on}} template. Jay _{Σεβαστός}^discuss 14:01, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Really the only reason other classes of article aren't covered by A7 is that nobody has gained a consensus for including them. I think most people are opposed to expanding A7 because it already covers the most common scenarios, and even with its current narrow scope it is quite often misused. As far as disputing CSDs goes, the proper procedure for an editor (other than the article creator) who disagrees with a CSD tag is not to use {{hangon}} but rather to simply remove the CSD tag. That's easy enough, but by the nature of speedy deletion they may only have minutes to do so before some admin deletes the page. Thparkth (talk) 14:09, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant to include the fact that users other than the creator of the article can simply remove the tag - a fact which I am aware of. I can see your problem with CSDing things, the counterargument being on that front that the admin in question would check to see if the CSD was legitimate, and so if an editor was about to remove the template but then did not have time even though his side of the story was the right one, then the admin would probably make the same decision and not CSD the page anyhow. But surely if the issue is that CSD doesn't give responsible editors enough time to remove the template correctly, then the whole of A7 should be scrapped? Either that, or why should articles which are not organisations, people, and web content not fall into the category? As you said, it's probably quite simply because a consensus hasn't been reached. But why not? Jay _{Σεβαστός}^discuss 14:24, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) When removing a CSD tag it is best to include the reason why in your edit summary or on the talk page (and noting so in your edit summary). If you want to contest he speedy deletion of something that has already been deleted, then the first step is to put a note about it on the talk page of the admin who deleted it explaining why you think the deletion was in error. Thryduulf (talk) 14:26, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

And that sort of sums up why A7 is legitimate. It does still beg the question, however, why only for orgs, people, and web content? There are many, many other types of articles which certainly increase the work load at AfD: why do these not feature? Jay _{Σεβαστός}^discuss 14:34, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Because they are simply not frequent enough so that PROD and AFD cannot handle it. Remember, speedy deletion is not a way to decrease the workload to AFD, it's a way to keep AFD from breaking completely and that exception was made narrow because deletions should be made by consensus, not by administrative decisions. Speedy deletion is thus not a regular process, is an exception and because of that, it's as narrow as possible. Also, for some subjects (like products, software etc.) there were additional concerns that it's impossible to include them in an objective way, since it's hard for admin's to know everything that might constitute a claim to importance. If you do a search in the archives of this talk page, you will find countless discussions about it. Regards SoWhy 15:01, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, SoWhy . That makes a lot of sense. Essentially the category of articles which are the most numerous and the easiest for admins to make deletion decisions, have been selected in A7 so that AFD doesn't break. Got it. Cheers. Jay _{Σεβαστός}^discuss 15:56, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I've seen a number of similar articles about products (the most recent being ByYuByMe) deleted under A7. Since products are not covered by the current criteria, it may be prudent to discourage such deletions by a footnote in A7. As it stands, the current wording is being interpreted too broadly, and this exposes deleting administrators to accusations of acting outside policy. Feezo (Talk) 04:00, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

If you see any deletion under a criterion that does not apply, then the first step is to talk to the person deleting it on their talk page (a note on the taggers page would be good too). If they persist in doing it then it's time to get wider involvement so they know that it is not acceptable. Thryduulf (talk) 10:56, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

If it's going to be resolved, it will be through an announcement or global clarification. I have little inclination to engage a dozen or more administrators about the criteria they use to delete pages that should be deleted. Feezo (Talk) 12:13, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Why do you say it should be deleted? Only consensus (or consensus that consensus is not required - i.e. the CSD criteria) can determine what should and should not be deleted. Otherwise why have any deletion discussions at all? Thryduulf (talk) 18:09, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

By "should" I'm referring to cases where the outcome of AfD would almost certainly be deletion. Since this has the same effect, per WP:SNOW there's no reason to run it through AfD. The problem is that SNOW is not policy, and since such deletions are not supported by WP:CSD, the administrators are vulnerable to accusations of ignoring deletion guidelines. In practice, many administrators do use an "expanded" A7 criteria. Thus the page should either make it explicit that A7 applies only to the given categories, or A7 should be widened to include its "common law" use. Since the latter would be considerably more difficult to reach consensus for, I am in favor of the former. Feezo (Talk) 20:42, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

A7 already says "This criterion applies only to articles about web content and to articles about people, organizations, and individual animals themselves, not to articles about their books, albums, software, or other creative works." (bolding in the original) and the preamble to the CSD says "The criteria for speedy deletion specify the only cases in which administrators have broad consensus support to, at their discretion, bypass deletion discussion and immediately delete Wikipedia pages or media. They cover only the cases specified in the rules below." What else needs to be said to make it clear that A7 applies only to the cases listed and not to whatever else the admin happens to feel should be deleted? WP:SNOW explicitly applies only when lots of people have expressed the same opinion, so how can it be of any relevance to speedy deletions where nobody gets a chance to express an opinion? If these articles were reliably (WP:SNOW) deleted at AfD then there would be the evidence required to add them to CSD, if they were not reliably deleted then there would be evidence that they should not be being speedily deleted. Every article, etc that someone wants deleted requires an XfD discussion to establish consensus that it should be deleted, except in the small number of tightly defined cases (the CSD criteria) where there is consensus that the discussion can be bypassed. Speedy deletion is the exception, not the norm. Thryduulf (talk) 21:50, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, there's also PROD. That doesn't require discussion. You're right though, this page is already quite explicit. The question is, how seriously do we take violations? Feezo (Talk) 06:29, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Prod doesn't require discussion as such, but as soon as somebody objects in good faith then it's not deleted/undeleted. As for violations, we apparently don't take them anywhere near seriously enough for my liking. If I had my way (and I haven't proposed this anywhere so I have no idea how widely my view is shared) a first offence would lead to a warning for the deleting administrator (with automatic undeletion and opening of an AfD), subsequent offences would lead to short term temporary desysopings (24 hours for end offence, 48 hours for third, etc) with a 5th temporary desysopping leading to an automatic RfC on whether the community still has faith in the user retaining their admin privs. Yes this is very, very hardline but in my view deleting something when there is no consensus at XfD, no PROD and no permission from the CSD criteria is one of the most harmful and disruptive things an administrator can do. Thryduulf (talk) 10:44, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Your view is apparently not the majority view among admins. This discussion may be of interest. Yoenit (talk) 13:59, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

A7 was originally for "vanity articles". Somewhere along the line, it was decided that "vanity articles" was a rude term to use and the wording evolved into something similar to what it currently is. I would think that, in many cases, articles about things other than people, web content, etc, could be speedied under G11 as advertising. --B (talk) 22:20, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

As I read that discussion it was principally about providing menaningful summaries in deletion logs, something I heartily agree with, rather than out of process deletions per se. Although there was some discussion of that, I don't see that any firm statement regarding the community's opinion of this subject can be gleaned from that particular discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 14:39, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wiki Guides/Change CSD to userspace drafts

Just saw this linked in {{cent}}. Cross-posting a notification as it's of interest to (probably) most people here. Cheers, everyone. lifebaka++ 22:55, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Inappropriate speedy deletions

I have recently noticed two articles that were speedy deleted. Both had significant editing history; one even had sources and previous AFD noted on the talk page. In both cases, the state when tagged was rather damaged. I think it needs reiterating that admins are expected to look at the page history and the talk page for relevant info, and not speedy delete topics simply based on a cursory review of the present state of the article. Speedy-deleted articles can be missed for a long time. Gimmetoo (talk) 21:47, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder (I'm not an admin, but thanks). Keep 'em on their toes! Do you have links? Let's not make a case of this, just ask them politely to undelete or send you the article, and thank them. - Wikidemon (talk) 22:49, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Regarding your comment at my talk page about [8], this was a PROD, not a speedy deletion. Prior to my deletion, a user had stubbified the article to remove lots of unsourced content. After my deletion, someone recreated it as this, which was speedied. Then someone else recreated it as this, which was speedied. There is nothing whatsoever inappropriate about any of these three deletions. You have restored a lot of content to the article that at least lacks inline citations - the entire #Other collaborations section, for instance. I'm a little leery about having things like, "He once joined bluesman Nick Gravenitas on the back of a flat bed truck, to drive down Market Street in San Francisco, playing the blues in support of nuclear disarmament, and protesting the US backed injustices in Central America." in there without appropriate sourcing. --B (talk) 00:14, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, some users had "stubbified" the article to remove lots of "unsourced content", like that he played with Starship for over a decade and worked on albums with Rod Stewart. Two of three users who gutted the article have no other edits, and the third only edited one other article (which makes this look suspiciously like some sort of experiment). Gimmetoo (talk) 05:34, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

This isn't my usual subject, but looking at the present article on Sears & the edit history, the speedy deletions of it were about as wrong as any speedy deletion can be. (I admit I am myself guilty of sometimes not looking at the article history, & I too could have made such an error--it's an error, not a crime.) I do not see how the deletion can be defended as appropriate, and if B thinks they can be defended under existing rules, we need to change the rule to say that an article may never be deleted without checking the history. Even if the material appears an emergency, decent articles have been replaced by trash at times--at the very least, one must check after the deletion in order to make sure. DGG ( talk ) 23:46, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

This sort of thing seems to happen a lot with school articles in particular; on the rare occasion I tag one (usually G12 or G3), I always check the history to make sure someone hasn't messed with it. Early in my NPP career there were two times I tagged a school for G3 because someone had written "... school is full of slags and hoes" on the article, but I was tagging a vandalized version. There's actually a section in WP:WIHSD that says more or less this. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:53, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Exactly what part of deleting an expired PROD do you find inappropriate? And what is going to be solved by checking the history (which I always do when deleting PRODs, to see if there was a previous prodding or AFD)? That someone had previously stubbified an unsourced article is NOT a reason to automatically reject the PROD. --B (talk) 14:40, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

On a tangent is there a group of people who regularly review the deleted pages to find if valuable articles have been speedy deleted in error? Perhaps we need a demised page patrol. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:18, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, there is no such group. We probably need one but I don't know of any tools to make that review feasible. I did an ad hoc analysis several years ago that was excruciatingly painful. It was a spot-check of the deletions that occurred during a few hours of a single day. Took weeks to compile the results if I remember correctly.
My results did confirm that most speedy-deletions were appropriate but there were still many, many inappropriate deletions (some fraction of which were self-reverted, directly restored by another admin or overturned through a more formal process such as DRV) and a much larger number that were almost certainly deletable but not speedy-deletable under the deliberately narrow wording of the CSD clauses. Rossami (talk) 22:07, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

This is consistent with my own observations during new page patrol — while the majority (I would estimate 70-80%) of speedy deletions are appropriate, a substantial minority of articles are deleted outside policy. I mentioned this in the discussion about A7; there doesn't seem to be a consensus for how to deal with it. Feezo (Talk) 01:48, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Redirects, apart from shortcuts, from the main namespace to any other namespace except the Category:, Template:, Wikipedia:, Help: and Portal: namespaces.

Wouldn't this be phrased more effectively as "Redirects from the main namespace to the Book:, File:, Talk: or User: namespaces."? —Ruud 23:16, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd support that. I think "You can delete only X" is better than "You can delete everything but X, Y, Z" in all cases where there are more exceptions than cases covered and this is one of them. It might be helpful to aid both admins and users to quickly see what that criterion is for and what not. Regards SoWhy 00:00, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I support the idea, but we need to quibble over the actual change a bit more. "any other namespace except the Category:, Template:, Wikipedia:, Help: and Portal: namespaces" does not include their associated talk namespaces, allowing them to be deleted, while your proposed change would seem to stop the deletion of any talk namespace redirect except those to the Talk: namespace. How about "Redirects from the main namespace to the Book:, File:, or User: namespaces, or any talk namespace."? Cheers. lifebaka++ 00:08, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

The point of R2 is that redirects from the reader-focused main namespace to other reader-focused namespaces are fine, while those from a reader-focused namespace to an editor-focused are not. To that end I think we should make it clearer what is and isn't reader focused. So Id propose something like "redirects, other than shortcuts, from the main, template, category, portal, help or book namespaces to any page not in one of these namespaces, including to a page in any talk namespace." Note that I have deliberately omitted the Wikipedia namespace from the list, as the only redirects to that editor-focused namespace from reader-focused ones should be shortcuts, which are no longer included in this criterion (although we may with to separately exempt Help to Wikipedia redirects). This proposal would have the effect of making more things speediable, e.g. a redirect from the Portal: to the Portal talk: namespace, and Template: to Category talk: Thryduulf (talk) 01:42, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

"The point of R2 is that redirects from the reader-focused main namespace to other reader-focused namespaces are fine, while those from a reader-focused namespace to an editor-focused are not." That used to be the case, but clearly currently is not. Redirects to Wikipedia: (editor-focused) are apparently fine, while redirects to Book: (reader-focused) are not. There is no deeper logic behind which cross-namespace redirects can be speedied and which cannot, so trying to word the policy in such a way would only make it more confusing. —Ruud 02:11, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I also like the idea of switching from those that are not speedy-candidates to those that explicitly are. It gives us more opportunity to discuss and formally decide the issue when new namespaces such as Book are added. However, I think we need to return the criterion to its original, narrow purpose. The criterion was created to eliminate the practice of users who deceptively created non-notable, hoax or other inappropriate content in their userspace knowing that the userspace is less well patrolled, then created redirects in the mainspace to their userspace in a deliberate attempt to trick readers. By that reasoning:

• Mainspace → User - definitely bad and speedy-deletable
• Mainspace → File - also bad and speedy-deletable
• any non-Talk → Talk:anything - I can't think of a situation where that would be legitimate
• User → Mainspace - usually the result of promoting a draft out of userspace, a practice we encourage and that the redirect helps document
• Mainspace → Wikipedia, Help, etc - usually acceptable and sometimes required, especially for old pages that were created before the separation of the namespaces
• Mainspace → Book - I don't see anything wrong with that, especially when it's a book that pre-dated the creation of the new Book space

Rossami (talk) 03:05, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Regarding User → Mainspace, I think redirects from user subpages are fine but that redirects from a userpage to an encyclopaedia article is a bad idea, particularly if the target is a biography (e.g. user:Example/Article → Article is fine, User:Example → Example is not). Thryduulf (talk) 08:36, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Redirecting the user's main page about him/herself would certainly be suspicious but I see no similar concerns with a subpage such as User:Example/DraftBiography → NotableBiography. Rossami (talk) 12:12, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

":* any non-Talk → Talk:anything - I can't think of a situation where that would be legitimate": Many people redirect their user page to their user talk page, so that at least is one exception to that rule. Fram (talk) 12:17, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Unless we're planning to change R3R2 to apply to redirects from namespaces other than the mainspace, this problem doesn't exist. lifebaka++ 15:51, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

This discussion is about R2 rather than R3, but changing it to include other namespaces is under discussion. For example, I don't see how a (main) to User redirect is differently good or bad to a Portal to User redirect. Thryduulf (talk) 17:11, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. Sometimes I don't brain so good. lifebaka++ 18:13, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I think I've seen non-Talk: to Talk: redirects been used on WikiProject pages, to prevent discussion becoming accidentally fragmented. —Ruud 17:42, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I've not seen those non-talk to talk redirects much but agree that neither example is especially problematic. Maybe strike that and let RfD handle the bad ones. Rossami (talk) 20:16, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Notifying the auther

Would it not be good if when you add a speedy tag onto a page, if when you could click on where is reads ("Please consider placing the template ...... on the talk page of the author"), if it automatically added the template to the auther's talk page, rather that having to coppy and paste the template if you don't use Twinkle. Lavalamp from Mars (talk) 08:27, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

There is no way to do so automatically as far as I know and unlike for the editor of the current revision, there is no WP:MAGICWORD to create a customized link with. Regards SoWhy 09:30, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Surely it can be done by a bot? DGG ( talk ) 00:46, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I think we have had a bot doing this, but there is a problem doing this with speedy deletion tags as the bot looked for articles with a speedy tag, and if they got deleted first then their authors didn't get notified. If the bot had an admin flag it could also look at deleted contributions which makes it technically possible but more complex. Also I like the idea of the tagger taking responsibility for their tags by communicating with the author. ϢereSpielChequers 00:59, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I like the idea of the tagger taking responsibility also, and therefore we need to deal with the taggers who do not take responsibility. One non-punitive way is to prevent them from making the error. Another is to make the notification required, so that people who failed to notify could be given an adequate warning proportional to the damage they might be doing. DGG ( talk ) 23:52, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Twinkle and other scripts do this automatically, and use should be encouraged. As with everything else, making the notification hard-mandatory is probably not a good idea. Stifle (talk) 16:37, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

In what circumstances is notifying the author(s) not a good idea? If the author is banned then I can see it as probably pointless, but still hardly harmful. Thryduulf (talk) 18:22, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

IMO, notifying the author isn't as important with an established article. EG I have articles I wrote 4 years ago that if they were deleted, I wouldn't care. I'm no longer invested in those subjects. What I would like to see, is a bot that notified wikiprojects if an article they've tagged is nomed for CSD/AFD/PROD/etc. If a wikiproject has declared that they are going to try to uphold certain standards on an article, then they should be notified so that they can either say "get rid of this" or "let us try to salvage it." While I might not care about the articles that I wrote 4 years ago, there are others who do. Notifying authors of CSD's within the first 24 hours of the article being written should be mandatory.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 18:53, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Notification of the author raises an important philosophical point about wikis. In the pure sense, none of us own any article in the project. If no one owns the page, then how can there be a single "author" who should be notified? Granted, for very new pages there may only be one contributor but 1) every reader who sees the page and makes a positive decision not to change it has just as much responsibility for the page as the person who did hit the edit button (how are you going to even find them, much less notify them) and 2) if you acknowledge an "ownership" right even for the extremely simple case, you create a precedent of ownership for pages with more complex history. That is a slope that we do not want to slide down.
In my opinion, the current consensus - voluntary notification of authors of new pages with very simple history - is tolerated because the goal is educational. It's a courtesy that we may offer to good-faith editors so they can see what they did wrong and become better contributors in the future. If we switch the standard to an absolute policy requirement, it will tip the balance too far, implying ownership rights that the project has no intention of allowing. Rossami (talk) 19:31, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

copyvio

I happened to see the Spanish Wikipedia criterion for db-copyvio, which reads::

"Violaciones de derechos de autor. Si existe la posibilidad de que el usuario que subió el texto sea el dueño de los derechos de autor, se colocará {{opyvio}} y se dará un mes para probar la autoría antes de borrar. Si procede de páginas en las que sea un evidente caso de plagio (de la Encarta por ejemplo), se colocará {{plagio}} y se borrará inmediatamente."
(Violations of copyright. If there is a possibility that the user who uploaded the text is the owner of copyright, place copyvio } and there will be allowed one month to prove the authorship before deleting. If a page is a clear case of plagiarism (from Encarta for example), place db-copyvio and it will be deleted immediately.)

I think this is a clearer and fairer wording than ours, and will prevent the deletion of pages about an organization that were added in good faith (of course, there is still the problem of G-11, promotionalism. DGG ( talk ) 00:40, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't like the language, "if there is a possibility ...". There is a "possibility" that they are any one of 6.9 billion or so people topside of this Earth. Unless they actually claim to be the copyright holder, I don't think we should leave the article there just in case. I really don't see a real problem with delete first, ask questions later. In sports-related articles, I frequently see users that copy someone's official bio from the school or team website into the person's article. I don't think waiting a month before deleting it is a very useful endeavor. --B (talk) 01:09, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

We already do this, if permission is plausible it should be blanked and listed at Wikipedia:Copyright problems to await OTRS confirmation (if not, the content is deleted in 7 days). MER-C 03:24, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Since that is what we do, perhaps we should change the language here accordingly. I agree that "possible" is too weak, and "plausible" is better. DGG ( talk ) 18:12, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

There's already wording to that effect: "For equivocal cases (such as where there is a dubious assertion of permission, or where free-content edits overlie the infringement), please consult Wikipedia:Copyright violations." Stifle (talk) 16:35, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Clarify A1

What's the threshold for the insufficient context criteria A1? Does it mean that the editor who tags or deletes it couldn't identify the subject from the article "as is" — or does it mean they still aren't able to, given, say, five minutes and a search engine? Feezo (Talk) 09:27, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd say that it means there is not enough context for the tagger and deleter to be able to identify the subject, such that they are not able be certain that any sources they might find relate to the subject. For example, if the entire article is, "Michael is the most successful businessman in my town.", it just isn't going to be possible to find sources that are definitely about this Michael as we don't have enough to go on.

If there was more context, "Michael is the most successful businessman in my town. He won an award last week from the Queen." then this is borderline - it might or might not be possible, but I'd move it to userspace explaining why and that we need more context (and reliable sources) before we can be sure whether they should be included or not.

"Michael is the most successful businessman in my town." with an external link to a local newspaper article about his receiving an award, would almost certainly give sufficient context (full name, location, which award, etc).

In summary, if the article gives us enough information that we can be certain that any search engine results we might find are about the same subject, then it is not speediable under A1 in my view. Thryduulf (talk) 09:56, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I think Thryduulf pretty much nailed it, and I'd also say that A1 articles aren't always short. At least twice I've tagged 7 paragraph articles for A1, and they were deleted. It's not necessarily about length- in those two cases no one could tell whether the thing in question was a book, a movie, a game, or what the hell it was, and searches turned up nothing meeting the description. Don't judge it based on length, judge it on whether you can tell what it is. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 14:54, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Here is another example. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:48, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually that's a very bad example. The title plus a Google search on that title makes it clear that this was a "translation" into standard English of the lyrics of a Snoop Dogg song "Editing Ain't No Fun (If The Homies Can't Have None)". I didn't have time to check whether this was original research or could be converted into a standard encyclopaedia article about the song. It was not speediable under any criterion. Thryduulf (talk) 18:17, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

The "plot summaries" have been brought up before at ANI - I believe they are generally removed from the article or deleted as original research. Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 18:25, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

That maybe so, but original research has been explicitly rejected as a reason to speedily delete something on more than one occasion. Thryduulf (talk) 18:31, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Clarification: in my edit summary I noted they were eligible for PROD or AfD as original research, I should have clarified in my note above as well. --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 19:11, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, someone agreed with me. Besides, it was probably a copyvio of something anyways; don't tell me that wasn't copied from somewhere. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:03, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Whether someone agreed with you or not, it was still a bad speedy deletion, particularly given the discussion in this thread - all I did to find the context was put the title of the article into google and look at the first hit. AfD or Prod was the correct course of action if you didn't think it belonged in the encyclopaedia (and I honestly cannot fault you for thinking that), but these processes are not speedy deletion and give time for other users to look them over and see whether they can be improved or not (as is required by policy for all deletions that do not have explicit consensus otherwise - i.e. matching the deliberately narrow CSD criteria). As for being a copyright violation, if it is one it is not copied from an online source that Google knows about. Assumption of good faith is not optional, and speedily deleting something as a copyright violation without at least proof beyond reasonable doubt hardly counts as a good faith action. Thryduulf (talk) 01:25, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd agree with you in any other context, but I don't screw around with copyvios; if I could do that one over again, I'd have put a copypaste template on it. Noted for moving forward. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:12, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

If you suspect a copyright infringement, but cannot find proof of it then the correct course of action is that detailed at Wikipedia:Copyright problems, not speedy deletion. Remember WP:CSD#G12 is only for unambiguous copyright infringement. If there is no obvious source it is not unambiguous. 22:00, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Note that I said a copypaste tag, not a G12 tag. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:43, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Clarification of A9

The description of the template for A9 states that it applies to cases where the article "does not indicate why its subject is important or significant and where the artist's article does not exist (both conditions must be true)." But on the other hand the warning on the user's talk page says that A9 applies "where the artist's article has never existed, has been deleted or is eligible for deletion itself". That makes a lot of sense - there are plenty of cases where someone creates an article about a non-notable musician (often themselves) and then goes on to create articles on their equally non-notable works. Under a strict interpretation of the current template, deleting this should be a two stage process. andy (talk) 14:57, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

That userwarning needs changing. What is eligible for deletion even supposed to mean in this context? Nominated for speedy? What if the speedy is declined? Yoenit (talk) 15:25, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

• Good point. I suppose it means "is also non-notable" - in other words, an editor has asserted that the musician is "eligible" for speedying and therefore their music is too. So if the musician goes the music goes and if not, not. andy (talk) 15:31, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
  • I think that's a case of the templates failing to catch up with a change to the criteria. A9 did at one point have the wording in the user talk warning. Stifle (talk) 16:33, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Question about A7

What exactly is meant by No indication of importance? That is to say, what counts as a claim of significance or importance? Significance is usually assessed on Wikipedia by coverage in reliable, secondary sources, and of course if there is just that about the subject in the article, then that in itself is an indication of importance. So what I am asking, is what other indications of importance are being referred to here? It seems quite unclear. If anything I think there should be a footnote explaining what is meant by a claim of significance or importance. Is this simply a reference to the all information at all of the different subsections of WP:N like the information at WP:NMUSIC, WP:ATHLETE etc? Are there any general guidelines for what a claim of significance or importance is? An example would be the article Robert Mayer (political scientist) where the article was declined for CSD by an admin on the grounds that Assertions of significance include being a proffessor and being a published author (See User talk:TYelliot). However, this does not seem to fit with the criteria at WP:PROFESSOR, so I assume that a credible claim of significance is not merely these particular criteria, but includes other statements as well. But which other statements? Jay _{Σεβαστός}^discuss 18:08, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Mostly administratorial judgement. A7 is meant to get rid garage bands and unpublished poets no-one but their next-door neighbour has ever heard of. The rest, e.g. borderline notable academics, should go to AFD. Notability is much to tricky to be judged by a single person. —Ruud 20:48, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Basically if the article gives a credible claim that the subject might be important then it is not speedily deletable. It is explicitly possible to claim importance for a subject that is not notable. Thryduulf (talk) 21:55, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, although if it's a completely implausible claim (a claim of a 13 year old being "the next President of the United States" or something ridiculous like that) that doesn't count. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:36, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

In this specific case there are two assertions of importance, being a professor and being a published author. Neither guarantees that the article would survive AFD as not all professors and published authors are notable. If you make a good faith attempt to source it and come up empty handed then you could prod it or if appropriate tag it as a hoax, but if it is unclear whether reliable sources can be found for an article it is best taken to AFD. ϢereSpielChequers 17:17, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Although in no way policy or guideline, I compiled a list of common indications of importance at WP:A7M, i.e. cases in which most admins will decline an A7 tagging as far as I was able to determine. Maybe that helps. Regards SoWhy 07:12, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

We've had several discussions on this page about Profs, and the overwhelming (as I recall) consensus is that Prof are an indication of notability. It's critical to remember with A7 particularly, that it is intentionally a lower threshold than the general notability guidelines and specific ones. GedUK  08:04, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to replace CSD A7 and A9

There is a discussion underway at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposal to convert CSD A7 and A9 to a PROD about a proposal to eliminate the A7 and A9 speedy deletion criteria (both of which relate to "no indication of importance") and replace them with a new form of proposed deletion. Editors interested in this talk page may want to participate in that discussion. --RL0919 (talk) 14:18, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Quarterly policy update

Any suggestions on how to put together a more concise version of this quarter's policy update for next week's Signpost? - Dank (push to talk) 19:20, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Change G2 deletion template

Hi, I would like to propose changing the image in {{Db-test-notice}} from the red exclamation point to the blue i like the one on {{Uw-csd-a10}}. My reason is that both are supposed to assume good faith, as the message shows: "Thank you for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your test worked, and the page that you created has been or soon will be deleted. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia." Additionally, most users are likely to equate an exclamation point with a "you broke something", whereas a blue i would tend to be equated with information. Furthermore, I have only once seen a user create more than one test page. Reaper Eternal (talk) 20:59, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

This makes sense. Given it is already used for A10 and the usernotice clearly assumes good faith, I see no objections to using a less BITEY image. Yoenit (talk) 22:35, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, I've gone ahead and changed it. Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky) 06:47, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Reaper Eternal (talk) 14:59, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Trouble tagging redirects

Disregard

 – working now – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 22:25, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I've posted this elsewhere, but I really don't know the correct place to mention this. Sometimes I can tag redirects for deletion, sometimes it doesn't work. I'm pretty sure the people who need to know are aware of it, but I simply wanted to add that it's still happening, that's all. E.g., [9]. Thanks! – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 22:10, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Speedy deletion plus do not remove tag

I edited an article that has a speedy deletion notice on it. The sign says that if the article does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion or if you intent to fix it then "please remove this notice." I removed the notice, and someone keeps putting it back, interfering with my editing the article.

If the sign doesn't mean "please remove this notice" if you intend to fix the article, it shouldn't say that. --ConcealMyIPAddress (talk) 18:39, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I challenged the CSD on that article before seeing your message here, I agree it does not meet the criteria. Any editor other then the creator of an article may challenge a CSD by removing it, so either the tagger did not understand the CSD process, or they concluded you were actually the author. While I admit it looks a bit suspicious, WP:AGF requires that assume you are not the creator, and so respect your removal, not withstanding the fact that I also agree with it. Monty₈₄₅ 18:58, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. I don't think I'll edit the article any more. I tried to add the references nicely formatted like other articles, but he put back the requesting speedy deletion sign, while I was editing. The sign says on it that if you are not the article writer you can remove the sign, but then he added the sign back and a comment not to remove the speedy deletion sign, while I was again trying to format the references. Forget it. --ConcealMyIPAddress (talk) 19:05, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I can find no fault in your actions. Tagger screwed up and violated "Do not bite the newcomers". Yoenit (talk) 19:13, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to consolidate and reorganise criteria

Please see my proposal and comment. Thanks! AD 15:33, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it is the way to go, the current system requires that a very specific reason be provided before an article is subject to Speedy. If someone deleted my article for "Highly inappropriate content" I would have no idea if someone thought it was copyvio, or maybe a hoax, or was it an attack page? Same for A1 and A3, those are pretty clear, but are very different from an A7 or A9, was my article deleted because it lacked context or because the assertion of importance was insufficient? Sure we could count on every who tags an article or deletes one to leave a detailed rationale to support it, but we don't get those now, and merging them all together would just encourage use of CSD as a delete this quickly option, rather then focusing on the very specific criteria. Monty₈₄₅ 17:43, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

It wouldn't be deleted for "Highly inappropriate content", it would be deleted for one of the reasons laid out below. Merging some of the criteria, and making it more concise and easier to understand simply makes the page less cumbersome for admins and NPP editors. AD 18:44, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose for several reasons:

• The more general the wording, the much likelier mis-taggings and mis-deletions are.
• There is no need for changing the current criteria, there might be many of them but so far I have not seen any real complaints from admins or users about this.
• There are good reasons to have criteria based on namespaces after all. For example:

• A7 shouldn't apply to pages outside the article name.
• F9 is not the same as G12, it has different requirements. Merging those was already suggested and rejected before.

• Merging them into meta-criteria just changes where the strict requirements are noted. For example, it's still needed to describe what A7 is for, but under this proposal you can't say "read A7", you would have to say "Read Criterion 2, sub-section 4, sub-criterion X"
• The categories are not really correct. G1 is not always a "good-faith" contribution, it can be a bad-faith contribution as well. And someone who has their testpage deleted does not want to be told that test pages are the same patent nonsense.
• "Highly inappropriate" is very subjective and combines categories that are clearly inappropriate like attack pages and vandalism with categories of pages that can be rescued, like G11 or G12 taggings.

I could go on but I think I have made my concerns clear. TLDR: This proposal just changes the way the criteria are categorized but since speedy deletion has to be strict, it does not change them itself. It just makes them harder to understand and refer to. Regards SoWhy 18:11, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I could very well argue that a TL;DR page such as CSD is right now is the cause of mistagging and misdeletions. It's so long and unwieldy that people easily miss important information. The wording is not made more general, rather it is made more concise and easier to read and understand, unlike it is now. No wonder people keep making mistakes, having done so for years. Perhaps it's this archaic and confusing way of presenting the criteria that's the cause of it?

I never said F9 is the same as G12, only that they cover copyvios. Instead of spreading out deletions of copyvios along more than one criteria, it is simpler to merge them into one.

The proposed arrangements are only proposed, so if it is your belief that nonsense pages are sometimes done in bad faith, this can be altered. This is also the same for the names of the deletion types. It's interesting you mention that "Highly inappropriate" can be subjective. I agree, but then again, "important" and "significant" is also subjective, and this is wording used on one of the most misused criteria there (A7). The names can be changed; those are the highest priority pages. It is more important to remove a copyvio than to delete an empty category, for example.

Finally, I disagree it makes them harder to understand. On the contrary, presenting in a concise, easier to read way makes it easier to understand. It's not difficult to refer to them if they were given numbers. As I say, it's only a proposal, and it's simple enough to alter proposals based on suggestions and objections made. AD 18:42, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that CSD has to be long to be able to be as strict as necessary. Even in your proposal, the text will have to be much longer with explanations and examples. A list of headwords is good for veterans but new users need more explanations. But the current list already has headwords. If you just read the bold headings of the criteria, the list is not longer than your proposal. As I said above, re-organizing the criteria into meta-criteria will not remove their requirements or explanations, it will just move them to a new layer. C2-3 instead of A7, C1-4 instead of G10 etc.

The subjective nature of "highly inappropriate" is a problem mainly because it tempts people to delete pages they think are inappropriate instead of using the definition of inappropriate you created (just look for prior discussions about having a criterion for "non-encyclopedic content" for concerns about this in the past). A7s wording seems subjective but it's quite fleshed out by now, so the comparison is incorrect.

It's completely possible to present the current criteria in a concise way as well. I don't think we have to re-categorize them in order to reach this goal, especially since it would make years of knowledge and skills learned by a huge percentage of senior editors useless without any significant gain in terms of usability. Imho that's a classic case of throwing out the baby with the bath water. Regards SoWhy 19:15, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

• While I appreciate the intent behind this idea I do not see any actual benefit from it and it may actually be even more confusing for the user whose page has been deleted. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:24, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose - I don't feel this change is necessary, and will only lead to further troubles down the road. It's not broken, so why fix it?   ArcAngel   (talk) ) 00:40, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose this is a whole batch of changes wrapped up in one rewrite, and whilst I might support some of the individual changes if proposed separately the overall intent seems to be to make things easier for the tagger, at the price of reducing clarity for the person being tagged and possibly even broadening speedy deletion to things that should not be speedied. I think there is a case for a rewrite, but with a completely different approach. Currently we expect patrollers to decide whether an article merits AFD, Prod, CSD, improvement tags or just marking as patrolled, then within some of those broad decisions we have multiple choices depending on whether it is a BLP, hoax, promotional etc. I think we need an integrated set of instructions which flows from decisions about the article. So for example if you think the information is untrue there are a range of options from correcting the bit you believe is wrong, tagging it with {{fact}}, if you suspect the whole article is a hoax add a {{hoax}} tag and if you are certain that the article is a blatant hoax then tag it s {{db-hoax}}. This might actually result in a longer document but a clearer simpler to follow process. So no to consolidation but yes to a different sort of reorganisation. ϢereSpielChequers 06:46, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
• Whilst I appreciate that simplifying the speedy deletion criteria would be a good thing I don't think this proposal would help. It doesn't reduce the number of things that you need to know in order to fully understand the process, since all the criteria are still there. The four general criteria can't be used as speedy deletion criteria themselves, as any attempt to do so would be problematic (not everything that is a good-faith unsuitable article is appropriate for speedy deletion, for instance, and some things listed as "uncontroversial deletions" could actually be highly controversial). To be fair I doubt it is possible to significantly simplify the process without adjusting the range of things that can be speedily deleted. Hut 8.5 20:54, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose, causes more confusion than help IMO. Stifle (talk) 11:09, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Getting rid of hangon tags

Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Replacing the {{Hang on}} tag process--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:55, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Commons fair use upload bot

To deal with the problem of content being deleted on Commons and being unavailable for projects who wish to continue to use it under local non-free content policies, I recently implemented commons:User:Commons fair use upload bot which will re-upload deleted files that are in use on En to En in the category Category:Fair use candidates from Commons. I am proposing a new speedy deletion criterion under which files which have been in this category for more than some number of days (7?) would be deleted. The purpose of this is to avoid overwhelming the project's standard file deletion mechanisms with fair use images that no one has any interest in preserving. In all likelihood, some fancy templates will be needed to facilitate this similar to those for existing file CSDs. Dcoetzee 00:28, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Would the existing F5 not be applicable and sufficient? Thryduulf (talk) 07:10, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

None of these images are unused, so F5 does not apply - F6 is closer, but when these images are initially copied over they come with an (invalid) license tag indicating that it's a free work. I think I can just have the bot add {{db-f6}} and that'll do. I'll give that a shot. Dcoetzee 21:07, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Remove db-histmerge from CSD

Of all the {{db-g6}} derivative templates, {{db-histmerge}} stands out for not representing a deletion that a regular user requests of an admin so they can perform the remaining maintenance work themselves (e.g. moving a page). Instead, the whole history merge process needs to be performed by an administrator, which makes this a maintenance template more akin to {{merge}} rather than a speedy deletion template. There was a proposed refactoring of that template which received some support but never got implemented. I'm looking into doing this and moving Category:Candidates for history merging from Category:Speedy deletion to Category:Wikipedia requests related to admins. Are there any objections? --Waldir ^talk 15:59, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

After ten days without any objections, I completed this. I must add that the template redesign had in fact been made at the time, but the rest of the process (rename to histmerge, change category) was left pending. Note also that this had been agreed in the template talk page and on this talk page, see archive. --Waldir ^talk 23:33, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Remove Db-copypaste from CSD

The same logic can be applied to {{Db-copypaste}}. The only difference in the situations is that {{db-histmerge}} is used if there have been subsequent edits made since the c&p move, whereas {{Db-copypaste}} is used if the last edit to the page was the actual c&p move. Both situations would not require a {{hangon}} or other "speedy" actions as they are both housecleaning. As an IP, I cannot carry out the page move. --64.85.215.156 (talk) 15:22, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but autoconfirmed users can move pages, so they only need to request speedy deletion of the page by an admin, and later perform the move themselves. --Waldir ^talk 13:56, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

declined speedy deletion nominations

I've noticed that the templates that notify various people of declined speedy deletion nominations are a complete mess. We currently have all of the following that are all intended to note to a user that the page they nominated for speedy deletion has been declined:

• Template:Speedy-Warn
  • (with Template:Speedy-decline as a redirect to it)
• Template:Sdd
• Template:Sdd2
• Template:Sdd3
• Template:Notg4
• Template:Uw-csd

and possibly others.

They are of varying names and styles, take different parameters in different orders, etc. I think there would be a significant benefit in creating a standard template or set of templates to cover this. What do others think? Thryduulf (talk) 14:56, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I usually just write a note myself. I don't think I've ever used one of these. Syrthiss (talk) 14:59, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that in most cases if you are going to leave a message you probably want to be specific. Just saying you don't think it meets the criteria isn't really helpful for the commonly disputed criteria. Much more useful to say, this article does not meet the criteria for A7 because "claim from the article" indicates why the article is important, or it is not one of the types of articles eligible. Pretty much exactly what WP:DTR is about. If there is to be consolidation, make sure there is a non-admin CSD rejection variant or that the language used makes sense if it comes from a non-admin. Monty₈₄₅ 16:14, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm with Syrthiss, I don't use these at all. Usually a more specific message is required. However I suppose it would be possible for someone with the coding knowledge to make them work like {{uw-block}} where you can fill in a specific reason with Twinkle. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:34, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

A personalized message is probably always better but having a template is surely a good idea nonetheless. I'd vote for using {{uw-csd}} for that, not only because I created it but because it's already integrated into Twinkle. Regards SoWhy 19:04, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

G10 - attack pages

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Seems like consensus is pointing to its addition. Obviously it is up to individual administrator judgement a to what falls under the (intentionally vague) "harassment" but this is a small issue and is certainly outweighed but the positives.  狐 Dhéanamh ar rolla bairille!  22:49, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

---

We just had a case of an apparent stalker/harasser. No overt threats, but within scope for WP:HARASS and probably intimidating. I was surprised that G10 doesn't cover this - "attack" and "threat" imply actual personal attacks and direct threats only, not harassment. I'd like to fix this to make it unambiguous so that IAR isn't needed in future cases:

G10. Pages that disparage, threaten, intimidate or harass their subject or some other entity, and serve no other purpose.

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 16:53, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

No objections from me for treating such as G10, I'm not sure whether we need a change of policy for this as I'm inclined to treat stalking as an attack. Haven't looked at the case in hand though. ϢereSpielChequers 17:01, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Seems like a good addition to me. --KFP (contact | edits) 17:04, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

No objection from me. Thryduulf (talk) 20:33, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Seems like a reasonable addition to me; I'm not sure why we didn't add this in after the BravoRio fiasco almost a year ago (not quite the same thing, but it's obvious where I'm going with that), but now is as good as any time. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:34, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Agree with adding it, no downside that I can see. Feezo (Talk) 03:50, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

The downside is scope-creep - the gradual interpretation of the clause to mean more than was originally intended. "Threaten" is a fairly objective word with a bright-line definition. "Harass" is more subjective and more easily abused. Use of the clause will have to be carefully watched and inappropriate use promptly undone. That's no different than some of the other speedy-criteria, though. Rossami (talk) 03:55, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

A page created to intimidate or harass is by definition vandalism and can already be deleted for that reason. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:21, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

The same logic would dictate that the entire G10 can be removed because pages created to attack or threaten are by definition vandalism. We don't rely on all attack pages being covered by G3 as vandalism. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 10:04, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Beeblebrox. Although "attack" and "harass" seem to be similar, there is a difference between something that is obviously an attack and something that might harass someone. G3 can handle pages created for the latter purposes already anyway, so there is no need to mix it into G10. Regards SoWhy 07:08, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I support this, because of an incident that came to ArbCom's attention, which prompted me to note the paucity of description at WP:Attack page. I'd further support clarification on that page that harassment of an editor is essentially an attack. Jclemens (talk) 08:21, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Suggestion - include the past AFD check in the A7 Template

I would like to suggest including the warning that occurs when you prod a page that has already been to AFD, into the CSD A7 templates. In most cases, a previous deletion discussion should either result in a G4, or protect the article from A7 depending, on the outcome of the AFD discussion. As such a visible warning on the page when there is a past AFD would be useful both to the nominator and anyone subsequently reviewing the page, and would be unlikely to result in many false alerts. May also be useful for A9, as there are several templates that would need to be changed, I thought this would be a good place to discuss it. Monty₈₄₅ 19:14, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Shouldn't be too hard to include but is this really a problem? I can't remember many cases of such taggings. Regards SoWhy 19:20, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I've come across two in the last week, (A7 that could/should have been G4, not any that shouldn't have been speedy for having a past AFD) but I have no idea how common a problem it is. Monty₈₄₅ 19:32, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I'd actually support having the template flag up the existence of an AfD for all the A and G CSD criteria. Even if in many circumstances the AfD would not invalidate the CSD, the tagger and reviewing admin should always check to see if there was anything relevant discussed. Thryduulf (talk) 21:57, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Jclemens (talk) 22:10, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, we had one recently where an admin deleted per A7 when it had previously been kept at AFD, hopefully this change would make such mistakes less likely. However we do need to consider what the tagger should do in the situation where there is a previous AFD that deleted a different person of the same name. ϢereSpielChequers 06:51, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Well if a tagger sees a previous discussion there are three possibilities. 1. they replace the tag with a G4, in which case the reviewing admin will check that the previous discussion was about the same topic and whether the current page is substantially identical (as they should with any G4). 2. They leave the non-G4 tag as it is, in which case the reviewing admin would look at the discussion themselves, determine that it is not relevant and evaluate the page on its merits. 3. They leave the non-G4 tag on the page, but update the reasoning to note that the previous discussion was for a different subject. In this case the reviewing admin would quickly check to see if they agree, if they do then they would evaluate the page on its own merits. Noting that a previous discussion was not relevant when it was (especially if the previous discussion was to keep) might be an indicator of bad faith and, in many (but probably not all) cases, would warrant a note on the tagger's talk page. It might be entirely innocent (e.g. a misreading) of course so care would need to be taken. Thryduulf (talk) 11:06, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I see no reason to restrict this to A & G criteria, Discussions at MFD, FFD or RFD could also be relevant. I am not sure how the check in the PROD template works (does it simply check for the existence of wp:AFD/FOO?), but we could probably implement it directly into {{db-meta}}, so there is no reason to update every template. Yoenit (talk) 07:50, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Good point re MFD, etc. I'm no template expert, but it appears from the code of Template:Proposed deletion/dated that it is a simple check for the existence of the AfD page - {{#ifexist:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/{{PAGENAME}}. This will need to be extended if any other XfD pages are being checked for, but I have no idea how to do that (there isn't obviously either "or" or "ifany" parser functions, although it might be possible to do namespace checks, pages in the main namespace could have been discussed at AfD, RfD or both). Also RfD and TfD don't use "WP:XfD/Foo" discussion pages, instead using sections on dated subpages (e.g. Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/log/20011 April 8#Shamika Brown) that a simple ifexist wouldn't find. More thought needed I think! Thryduulf (talk) 11:06, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

If possible it should check to see if there was more than one nomination, for example Djent was deleted at its first AfD but kept at its second, subsequently a user then tried to nominate it again, saw the first AfD and marked it for G4 without spotting the existence of the second AfD (the reviewing admin did spot it though). Thryduulf (talk) 11:06, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

If an article has ever been kept at AfD, not just kept at its most recent AfD, it's not G4-eligible. While some folks don't like this straightforward interpretation of the CSD intro, it's not been found to be against consensus. Jclemens (talk) 20:54, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

With the addendum that if the article just happens to have the same title as a previously deleted article and is about a completely different subject (see Canadian Dream for what I'm getting at), it's still eligible for PROD/CSD. And of course, the copyvio exception remains as well. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:21, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely. Copyvio, attack, and promotional always remain on the table at any point that any of the relevant criteria apply to the page. Jclemens (talk) 04:28, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I have posted this idea to Village pump (proposals) with the change to apply it to at least all article space CSD templates. Monty₈₄₅ 17:42, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Though I agree that passing AfD is a bar to speedy for the same reason, If it needs more explicit statement as policy it should be so stated. But I think it would be wrong to change the templates. The templates should be as short and uncomplicated as possible, giving only the common situations. DGG ( talk ) 07:48, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Request for Admins who focus on CSD

We have a backlog at editor review, a worrying level of incorrect speedy deletion tags and a perennial problem with newpage patrollers who don't discover their error rate in CSD tagging until they file a request for adminship. I think we might be able to reduce all three of those problems by getting more eyes at editor review so that newpage patrollers can improve their tagging at an earlier stage in their career, and discuss things in a more measured less confrontational way than at RFA. I've created a page for admins to volunteer to review deleted edits so that newpage patrollers can more easily solicit reviews from admins. Feedback and volunteers would be appreciated. ϢereSpielChequers 19:09, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

We could put up a New Page Patrolling tutorial to help with it and for NPP in general. User:Physics is all gnomes is doing one for me here. Also I am starting one for others here. ~~EBE123~~ ^talk_Contribs 18:41, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Clarifying G2 (test pages)

I just removed {{db-test}} from two articles that were not test pages. But the mistagging is understandable, when the criterion is defined as vaguely as simply "This excludes the sandbox and the users' own user space, as well as pages that were created in error (see G6)."

This has been brought up before but no action was taken. This time I'd like to actually reword the description to prevent future misuse of the criterion. Below are some pointers raised in the past:

• «If I am new page patrolling and come across a page that says, "Can I really make a wikipedia page?" with no content or context, I think it's fair to tag it G2.»
• «Tests should be blatantly obvious, and will often include the example text, images, and links.»
• «I (...) use it when I think the test is to see that editing is possible»
• «Pages with "Hi!!" on them are usually likely G2 candidates»
• «Maybe a hard definition like "A page outside of the official Sandbox or userspace intended to be a good faith attempt at testing Wikipedia's editing functions" could help.»

(from Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 36#Definition of "test page" G2)

• «in general, it seems G2's wording is a little vague right now.»

(from Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 38#Is it G2 or G6?)

• «The wording of G2 doesn't say exactly what a "test page" is; it provides no guidance at all. Twinkle's popup tip uses the example "Can I really create a page here?"»
• «Seeing "test page" in the deletion log does not help a creator or contributor to understand why the deletion took place - the template was not a "test" in their mind, it was a good-faith contribution (albeit a useless one in the long run)»

(from Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 41#"Useless" templates and the G2 criterion)

As such, I propose changing the wording of G2 to:

G2. Test pages.

A page, outside of the official Sandbox or the users' own user space, that was created as a good faith attempt at testing Wikipedia's editing functions.

• {{db-g2}}, {{db-test}}

What do you think? --Waldir ^talk 12:55, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I'll second this proposal. Given the fact that the criteria for speedy deletion are supposed to be interpreted narrowly, it's a good idea to define G2 by describing what it includes, not just naming what it excludes. I suspect that G2 has remained so loosely defined for such a long time in large part because admins like to use G2 to delete articles that don't quite fit other criteria. The same is somewhat true of G6 ("housekeeping" is a large umbrella). In any case, I like this wording. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 23:19, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Two things:

• "Good faith" is probably not a safe thing to use in a CSD criterion. An edit may appear "in good faith" to some users and not to others. And besides, from the point of view of test pages, the faith of the edit doesn't matter: '''Bold text'''''Italic text''--~~~~[[File:Example.jpg]] is G2 fodder, whether created by an innocent little old lady who accidentally clicked a redlink, or a bunch of kids fooling around.
• It seems a touch too narrow. The de facto interpretation of G2 at the moment, in my view, includes totally broken and useless templates that were intended for testing something - perhaps not editing functions, but transclusion functions, or magic words, etc., or even as a test of an idea or layout. Tests of ideas, etc., particularly if they're broken and totally incoherent, are just as useless as intentional editing tests. I cannot think of better wording to replace "editing functions"... perhaps just "functionality"?

Also, it needs the grammar cleaned up a bit: "Sandbox" would be better as "Wikipedia sandbox", and "the users' own user space" should be "a user's own userspace". But aside from that, it's good. — This, that, and the other (talk) 10:36, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Not sure we really need this change, I think most users understand what it means, but if we're going to do it I agree that "good faith" should not be used as a qualifier. Sometimes we delete things that look like test pages but could actually be inept or incomplete vandalism or attack pages. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:25, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Good points were raised. Following the suggestions, I propose a slightly changed definition:

G2. Test pages.

A page, outside of the Wikipedia sandbox or a user's own userspace, that was created as an attempt at testing MediaWiki functionality.

• {{db-g2}}, {{db-test}}

I changed "Wikipedia's editing functions" to "MediaWiki functionality". This should include both "Can I really edit?" pages, and test templates, playing with markup, etc. Thoughts? --Waldir ^talk 19:54, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree that removing "good faith" was a good idea, but I'm not sure about "MediaWiki functionality." That just sounds a bit too jargon-like for my taste. I'm not sure how to express that more clearly, though. "Wikipedia's editing and other functions," perhaps? A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 02:08, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

The wording "outside of the Wikipedia sandbox" suggests that subpages of the sandbox are ineligible for G2. Many such subpages (sandbox, foo, t, test) have in fact been speedily deleted under G2, so this is probably not the intended meaning. Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky) 02:37, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Taking on board these comments, how about:

G2. Test pages

A page that was created as a test of editing or other Wikipedia or MediaWiki functions (for example template transclusion or substitution). This does not apply to pages in a user's own userspace, nor to the Wikipedia:Sandbox page (but does include subpages of the sandbox created as tests). Templates created in good faith, but which do not have any uses or which duplicate existing templates are not eligible under this criterion (but criterion T3 may apply).

I think the first two sentences are good, but I think the third sentence could be improved upon. Thryduulf (talk) 08:23, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I think the current short wording is correct & should not be changed. Rather than try to cover all eventualities it explains the principle. I doubt that 90% of the users have the least idea what Mediawiki is, and it is not necessary to go into that kind of detail. I have very rarely seen a page deleted as G2 that should not have been deleted via that or another speedy criterion. DGG ( talk ) 07:45, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't have time to find examples at the moment but your experience differs markedly from mine - I find that G2 is one of the most misused criteria (often because it doesn't actually fit under any other criterion, and so shouldn't be deleted in the first place). Don't forget that speedy deleting something as a test when it wasn't a test does nothing to explain anything to the creating user and is all part of the problem that Wikipedia is currently way too bitey towards new users. Thryduulf (talk) 08:55, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I can provide the two pages that led me to propose this clarification: 1 (admins only), 2. I don't usually work on CSD, so I find it hard to believe that finding two examples on a row precisely when I decided to look at the G2 pages was a coincidence. However, regardless of the number of times this criterion has been actually misused, it's a fact that it's poorly worded, as the many posts I quoted in my original message show. Therefore I think it's worth clarifying.

That said, I do agree with DGG and A Stop at Willoughby that mentioning MediaWiki might be too jargon-ish. I tweaked Thryduulf's version into:

G2. Test pages.

A page that was created as a test of editing or other Wikipedia functions. Subpages of the Wikipedia Sandbox created as tests are included, but not the Sandbox itself. This criterion does not apply to pages in a user's own userspace, nor does it apply to valid but unused or duplicate templates (although criterion T3 may apply).

How about now? --Waldir ^talk 00:31, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

I can't see anything wrong with this version. It's longer and clearer than the present version, but it's also not too long and difficult for the average user to understand. (Waldir, I hope you don't mind: I made a few small changes to the wording, but the substance is entirely the same.) A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 02:25, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

I like this version too for the same reasons as A Stop at Willoughby - it's clearer than my version while saying everything I intended to. I think we'll want to link "T3" to the T3 anchor when it's made live but other than that I don't think anything needs changing. Thryduulf (talk) 09:36, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

I like it. — This, that, and the other (talk) 11:00, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Try this (same but simpler wording):

G2. Test pages.

A page created to test editing or other Wikipedia functions, including Wikipedia Sandbox subpages. This criterion does not apply to the Sandbox itself, pages in a user's own userspace, or valid but unused or duplicate templates (although criterion T3 may apply).

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 08:43, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Thryduulf (talk) 09:09, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I like the fragment "A page created to test editing or other Wikipedia functions" better than the previous version, but I don't think the other changes increase clarity. I'd prefer the previous proposal with the beginning changed to what you suggest. But I'm not picky; either of these would be an improvement to the current version, so I'll support this one too if more people back it up. --Waldir ^talk 10:21, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

So would you prefer:

G2. Test pages.

A page created to test editing or other Wikipedia functions. Subpages of the Wikipedia Sandbox created as tests are included, but not the Sandbox itself. This criterion does not apply to pages in a user's own userspace, nor does it apply to valid but unused or duplicate templates (although criterion T3 may apply).

I'm actually slightly happier with this one, as it removes the (very slight) potential ambiguity that T3 might apply to the sandbox or other users' userspace. That's not enough to make me withdraw my support from the preceding version though. Thryduulf (talk) 10:56, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I think it's perfect now. Let's do this! :D --Waldir ^talk 22:57, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I've now implemented the version above as there were no objections to it in over 36 hours, and it consists only of wording explicitly supported by all commentators. Thryduulf (talk) 13:37, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

nonsense in user space

I recently declined a nomination of a user page as patent nonsense. The exact page doesn't matter because it did not meet that criterion regardless, but I note that no exception for user space is mentioned there. There are in fact quite a number of user pages that consist of nonsense, and I don't believe this criterion was intended to be used to delete a user page that is just some harmless goofing around. I realize it's in the "general" criteria because of course we don't allow nonsense in any of the other namespaces, but would anyone object if I added a brief note mentioning that this does not apply to user pages? Beeblebrox (talk) 22:04, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think a general exception of user pages is correct since that would include pages someone just created there. I think G2's exception is probably the one G1 should feature as well. Per WP:UPAGE a user can pretty much do whatever they like in their userspace (short of abusing it) but they can't do it in another user's userspace. Regards SoWhy 22:14, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

That's a good way of doing it, I hadn't thought about users making a page in another user's space but now that you mention it I have seen that before. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:00, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think we need more WP:CREEP here. Sure, there's more latitude in userspace, but patent nonsense isn't useful to the project wherever it exists. If some user creates a lot of nonsense user pages and then departs there ought not to be forms to fill in before an admin gets rid of them. Remember, you can't prod a userpage, so if we restrict speedies here, we are forcing such pages to MFD. Personally, I'd rather allow prodding with a three month grace period.--Scott Mac 20:23, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Why? I mean what is accomplished by deleting them at all? Nothing. They disappear from public view but are still stored on the servers. Looking for harmless nonsense to delete from someone's userspace is a complete waste of time. If I want my userpage to say "cold chicken biscuit yellow mailman circular saw" and nothing else I think that's ok. We allow people to do stupid stuff like create reams of pages with nothing but userboxes so that we know they like to eat bananas or enjoy some stupid sitcom. That's not useful to the project either, but we don't automatically delete those if it becomes clear a user has left. That's garbage as far as I'm concerned, but who cares if it just sits in someone's userspace? Beeblebrox (talk) 01:29, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I notice no one has replied to this. I do not believe this criterion was intended to be used to delete someone's own user page and propose re-instating this edit [10]. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:37, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

There is plenty of stuff that bothers me in userspace, but the patent nonsense isn't part of that, and is hard to define, one person's patent nonsense being another persons mnemonic, mindmap or random thoughts about an article they might write. If you want to patrol userspace deleting stuff, pick a rude word or phrase and trawl through userspace for it. ϢereSpielChequers 10:50, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Some newer editors are perhaps using their main userpage as a "sandbox" so one might expect "gibberish" there. Deleting those as "patent nonsense" might look "bitey". A good idea in such cases is to encourage them to either use Wikipedia:Sandbox or to create User:Username/Sandbox. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 15:02, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Create a new CSD - G:13 Unsalvageable WP:NOT Violations

I believe that we should be able to speedy delete certain types of articles that are unsalvageable WP:NOT vioilations, specifically articles that violate the sections "Wikipedia is not a dictionary", "Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files", "Wikipedia is not a blog, webspace provider, social network, or memorial site", "Wikipedia is not a directory", and "Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal". In order for an article to qualify for this CSD, it must be something that cannot be rewritten into such a form that it is not a violation of WP:NOT. Recent articles that come to mind for me are Revert to older minecraft versions, a guide, and Sloon, a dictionary definition which was speedied as a copyvio, but were it not a copyvio, getting rid of it would be a stretch (although one not likely to raise objections) of any current criteria.

Thoughts? Sven Manguard Wha? 06:41, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

It's a good idea, but I think a better name of sorts would be "G:13 WP:NOT." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ktr101 (talk • contribs)

It would be G13. Not G:13. ~~EBE123~~ ^talk_Contribs 18:43, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

There's always WP:PROD for this kind of things. When deletion isn't urgent, it doesn't have to be speedy. Unless we have too many of these pages cluttering WP:AFD or WP:PROD, we don't really need new criteria. Also, WP:BALL is an example that is part of WP:NOT where it may be difficult to decide whether something is "unsalvageable. Furthermore, good pages can meet WP:NOT but merit transwikification instead of speedy deletion. —Кузьма^討論 08:05, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

In any case, crystal ball deletions should not be done in userspace. Drafts that are currently not acceptable in article space may be okay to keep. So as a G criterion, this reaches a lot too far. —Кузьма^討論 08:31, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think its a good idea, many of the clear cut cases fit into existing CSD categories, of the remaining cases, many are far from clear. There will be differences of opinions about the applicability of many NOT criteria. CSD is good when there is very little subjective about the decision, for everything else it should be the subject of a discussion, which an XfD can provide, and delete as needed. Wikipedia is not a dictionary, but we have articles about some words; Wikipedia is not a Memorial, except when it is (memorial activity attracts notability); Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, except when the predictions get enough press to be notable (and then the AfD fight starts over it); Wikipedia is not Plot-only description of fictional works, except for all the articles that do just that for individual episodes with nothing but plot coverage, or fictional species (Star Wars related articles amongst others). Again, CSD is just not a good way to sort through potentially contentious issues that often arise around WP:NOT. Better to take the week and provide an opportunity for discussion if the article isn't really hurting anyone. Monty₈₄₅ 08:07, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

To provide an example of a WP:NOT that has been to AFD twice, and not deleted, List of Star Wars creatures.(There are separate lists (5) for the 'sentient species in the fiction) Monty₈₄₅ 08:20, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose my impression is that speedy deletion is overused as it is - which discourages new editors. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:12, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
• Again with this proposal? First of all, could you please add such proposals to WT:CSD where they belong? [now moved there] Second, this has been proposed multiple times at WT:CSD and has been rejected every time for multiple good reasons. As said above, there is neither need to speedy delete such articles which WP:PROD and WP:AFD can handle just fine nor is it possible to codify this into a criterion that is both objective and uncontestable. If you search the archives, you will find a number of discussions about such a criterion (sometimes only for parts of WP:NOT). I think the arguments mentioned against it then are still valid today. Regards SoWhy 08:41, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose, per above - the highly-subjective word "unsalvageable" would lead to misuse, even as an article space only criterion. It doesn't even make sense to apply WP:NOT outside article space. Dcoetzee 08:59, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
• Strong opppose per just about everyone else. WP:NOT is explicitly not a CSD criterion for many good reasons, the principal one being that they are not objective. CSD is already overused for things that it shouldn't be, we don't need anything like this adding more subjectivity to what should have none. Thryduulf (talk) 09:18, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
• Flawed Proposal - any proposal for expanding speedy deletion needs to justify the "speedy" part. In this case, no particular reason is given for wanting the deletion to be speedy as opposed to using PROD. Guy Macon (talk) 09:23, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
• In addition to all the above, I'd like to note that having NOT as a general category would be terribly flawed. The vast majority of NOT only applies to the mainspace, so using it to delete templates, categories, or userpages would be silly at best. Cheers. lifebaka++ 14:30, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose again. As has been said (many times) before, it's just too subjective a criterion and far too open to abuse. Rossami (talk) 17:19, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose Deciding if an article violates WP:NOT in very general terms (like NOT a dicdef, etc) requires a careful analysis of the article subject and open discussion, so is something much better suited for AFD, where careful deliberation can occur. --Jayron32 19:02, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
• I wish we could use our common sense to take out these sorts of pages, but my experience has been that the only ones deleted with any consistency are the NFT pages we periodically get. If there was some way to target those alone (see Beer tac toe for the sort of thing I'm referring to), I'd be all in favor of it; however, I'm not sure how such a criterion could possibly be worded. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:32, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

• AFD usually does a good job of getting rid of subjects that are completely unverifiable but just fall short of CSD G3. Most of these AFDs are closed early per WP:NOYOUDONTGETTOKEEPYOURINJOKEONWIKIPEDIAFORSEVENDAYSJUSTBECAUSETHATSWHATTHERULESSAY as soon as other !voters say they can't verify the subject either but there's always the chance that such an AFD will get no attention from !voters requiring multiple relistings. There are several ways to address this. One would be a "verifiability" noticeboard where one could report possible hoaxes or things that may be real but still unverifiable such as local kids games played in one school, street etc. and not written about or covered anywhere such as sand frizzle. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 21:15, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
• What about something like "article which asserts that the subject is insignificant", borrowing the idea from A7? Hut 8.5 20:11, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

• • • A7 already applies to specific categories of articles that don't assert importance, which obviously includes those that assert their insignificance. If you want to expand A7 to other categories of articles, then you will need to propose this explicitly (I recommend as a new section) and specifically indicate what additional category/ies you want included, why they need to be speedily deleted (as opposed to regular deletion), how they can be objectively defined, that there is a significant number that fall within this definition and that every one of those is deleted at AfD. If this is not what you're suggesting you'll have to explain again what you are suggesting. Thryduulf (talk) 22:23, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

• Expanding A7 to include other subjects has been rejected again and again, every time for very good reasons, so I don't think that will work. Hut, can you name any articles that really assert the subject's insignificance that are created in sufficient numbers to require speedy deletion? Usually articles like that claim that the subject is significant, even if the claim is nonsense. But the current A7 and G3 can usually handle those pages already. Regards SoWhy 22:30, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

• That's what I meant about not knowing how to word something that could take out blatant NFT stuff without being overly broad. If I have some revelation, I'll share it, but don't hold your breath. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:49, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
• There are about 30-50 deletions per month where the deletion summary explicitly invokes WP:MADEUP or something like it, and in February 2011 there were 48. The real figure of pages deleted for this reason will be higher because some are deleted through A7, G3 or AfD (Blade's example of Beer tac toe isn't included in this figure, for instance). A speedy deletion criterion targeting these pages would get more use than A5, about the same as A2, and possibly as much as A9. A7 doesn't apply to most of these pages because they are about things that don't qualify such as games or phrases, and G3 doesn't really apply either because the problem is one of verifiability/notability rather than one of vandalism. Hut 8.5 13:07, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

The only thing I can think of would be something like, "Articles stating that the subject was made/invented less than a month ago and assert no notability", but I'm not sure even that would be workable. It would have taken out the Beer tac toe example, but I'm not sure it would be able to handle some of the other NFT stuff we get; most of it, for sure, but with a few it just implies that it was made up two days ago. Like A9, both conditions above would have to be true; but frankly, that stuff gets shoehorned into G3 a lot, so I'm not convinced we need it (you may not like the fact that people use G3 to delete it, but I'm pointing out reality; don't shoot the messenger here). The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:51, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose I might be able to support a watered down and very tightly worded version of this, but as it stands it is out of the question. Articles written as a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal will all too often be on an actually notable subject and are often easily copyeditable into an acceptable article. They are therefore not suitable for deletion at all, let alone speedy deletion. I do not think that speedy deleters can be trusted to make the fine distinction between a truly irredeemable article and one just badly written in their haste to clear the rubbish out of Wikipedia. Many of the other categories in WP:NOT are equally ambiguous: a memorial article might become a biography of a notable person; a repository of links might become a featured list; a dictionary definition might be the start of a majot article; images and files already have specific CSD criteria and don't need an additional WP:NOT criterion. SpinningSpark 23:05, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

  Just a small note; a collection of nothing but external links can be deleted under A3. Internal links, though, have to be PRODded or CSDed if they meet some other criteria (e.g. G3, G5, etc.). The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:51, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

  If some other criterion can already be applied to the problem articles, then there is doubly no good reason for this one. SpinningSpark 14:55, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. CSD was, is and needs to stay entirely objective based on general categories of topics which are clearly and blatantly not acceptable. WP:NOT is not an inclusion guideline, it's a content guideline - many existing pages on topics worthy of inclusion contain content which isn't consistent with WP:NOT, which simply needs to be rewritten, and if an article contains nothing but such content then it goes to AfD. Sending poorly written articles to AfD helps to find sources and get them rewritten by experienced editors, and perhaps initiate inexperienced editors into how to do things in accordance with policy. I know there are extreme cases whose AfDs get snowballed, which is fine, but we need to be very conservative about expanding the CSD criteria, since admins and taggers alike get really reckless and there's real potential for abuse. - filelakeshoe 15:16, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose – I think it's a little too far-reaching and too subjective. –MuZemike 20:15, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I Challenge A7 in Respect To Musicians

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Header

A7. is a reason given time and time again for deleetion. This should not apply to musicians. Todays modern music scene (not the pop, main stream, mtv stuff) is live shows. These people dont sell albums they let people recornd there music and give it away for free they dont write books, I work in the music festival scene in the North East and have seen LOTS of pages of acts, bands, performers. These people are playing the sumer music festivals that draw 30,0000 people or bonanroo whats that 80,0000 http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Talk:Big_Gigantic&action=edit&redlink=1 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr Head Case (talk • contribs) 01:36, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Do you have a suggestion as to how a Wikipedia editor can tell the difference between these musicians and a garage band that has played two coffeehouse gigs with ten-person audiences? Guy Macon (talk) 11:47, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

If an article about a band claims that they have played at a notable festival, then A7 should not be applied anyway, so the exception you request is not necessary. Regards SoWhy 12:49, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

As anyone who has spent a little time at Special:NewPages quickly learns the first four steps to start a band are 1) gather a group of friends, 2) select a name, 3) create your Wikipedia page, and 4) learn to play musical instruments. A7 was originally created with bands that will never have a paying gig and autobiographies of bored school kiddies in mind because of the very large volume of new articles created about such topics that will never be able to comply with Wikipedia's verifiability requirement. The ¼% or so of new band articles that reach the meteoric levels described by Head Case are clear exceptions to the typical new band articles and ,as pointed out by SoWhy, are already protected from speedy deletion by existing policy. --Allen3 ^talk 13:42, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps he means that A7 is applied even when assertions of notability are made. Which is true. I've been working on-and-off in CSD and newpage patrol for 4 years and only about 40% of what's tagged as A7 (and also G1) actually meet the CSD. - filelakeshoe 15:19, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I find the same when I do CSD patrol. The way to correct misuse of policy is not to change policy but educate those misusing it. Thryduulf (talk) 16:00, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

A 60% error rate? I don't think we're doing that bad a job. I personally don't get a lot of declined A7s, and I don't think my error rate is astoundingly low. And there are also instances where someone is able to improve the article after we tag it, even if we wait 15 minutes. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:11, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

The only times I speedy anything less than about an hour old are (1) 2nd and 3rd reposts, etc and (2) copyvios. Normally I work through oldest to newest, and some can have been tagged for 15 hours occasionally more. Thryduulf (talk) 18:38, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Something I'll keep in mind; I've started to work more from the back of the log anyways. Of course, I tag vandalism, attack pages, copyvios and total nonsense on sight (same with BLPPRODs), but I've been trying to go a little easier on the A7 trigger finger of late. I also tend to tag G11s quickly if they're created from corporate accounts, because I try to nip spam at the bud. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:14, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not pointing the finger at any particular editors on NP patrol (I barely look at who tags stuff) but you might fall into the category of more sensible ones. There is and always has been a grave misunderstanding of A7, G1 and G11. "Not notable" isn't the same as "doesn't assert notability". "Blatant advertising" has to be really blatant for me to speedy it (I mean what is this?!) and G1 is overused for anything that makes people flinch but doesn't fit another criterion. - filelakeshoe 23:41, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

That example would definitely be a bad tag; I'd have put a refimprove tag on it myself, because it does need additional references. I've been trying to give G11s more time unless they're 1. also copyvios and/or 2. there's a blatantly obvious COI evident in the username, and if applicable I report it to UAA. Spammers are spammers, and I will do everything I can to discourage them (which includes quick tagging), but I try to be more careful with users who simply seem misguided; advertising is still advertising, but I try to tell those users how they could make contributions that won't be deleted. Just my take, though. Hall of Jade (お話しになります) 00:07, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

The problem is too many editors, including administrators (even on ANI) defend their incorrect speedy deletion tags or actions by saying the article fails WP:N. CSD is only supposed to capture a subset of that, but that's a detail that never bothered anyone who wants to get rid of an article quickly. Tijfo098 (talk) 20:08, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

If that is the case the admins in question are not doing their jobs properly since A7 is clearly stated to be a lower standard than Notibailty.--76.66.182.228 (talk) 22:39, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Correct. A7 is a summary judgment issue: if the article makes no claim that, if substantiated, would lead to encyclopedic inclusion, it may be summarily deleted. Evidence is assumed to be available for any claim made, for CSD purposes. Jclemens (talk) 22:47, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

There is some wriggle room here for the deleting admin - it has to be a "credible claim" which to some extent is a matter of judgement. SpinningSpark 00:41, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, I was specifically responding a scenario based on the statement that some Admins at ANI were defending A7 Deletions on the ground that they did not find the article notable. The issue there would be an appereance that the Admin in question is does not have a good understanding of the policy. A deletion of an article with a clearly non credible claim (ie, John Smith became the Emperor of Mars) is a completely different case which I have no issues with nor would it imply any misunderstanding of policy. In fact it would probably show that they have a good grasp of it.--76.66.182.228 (talk) 01:17, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Of course that's not credible - John Smith was emperor of Saturn, not Mars. SpinningSpark 06:24, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

As fgar as I understand, speedily deleted pages may be recreated without much fuss; by adding proof of notability. If noody wants to recreate it, then it reasonable to assume it is not for wikipedia yet. Muslim lo Juheu (talk) 01:54, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

G9: Office actions

Could someone please explain the rationale for including this criterion? It's not really a speedy deletion, isn't it? Above it mentions office actions as a different form of deletion: a "rare, urgent and important deletion usually involving legal issues, done by foundation officials". Lanthanum-138 (talk) 13:47, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

It is, speedy deletion means "immediately and without discussion". If there's a legal problem then the foundation can delete any article without discussion. - filelakeshoe 14:07, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

The criterion here only exists to make sure we've got all out t's dotted and i's crossed. The office can delete whatever it needs to without this page existing, but having G9 on this page makes us wonks feel better. Cheers. lifebaka++ 14:44, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

He has a point though, the criteria named g9 is out of place. It is the only criteria on this page a regular user could never use to nominate a page, nor a regular admin delete. Calling it O1 or just treating it as exception (they way we currently do speedy deletion prior to oversighting) would make more sense. Yoenit (talk) 15:02, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Is there any real problem that removing G9 will fix? It's just there to indicate that this is a kind of speedy deletion that can and will happen. To discuss whether we call it "G9" or "O1" or "green jello with custard" is not a productive use of our time imho. Regards SoWhy 15:13, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

I've been searching deletion logs and I've come to the conclusion that G9 is literally never used. There's only [example] of an article being deleted under G9 where the criterion was explicitly cited, and that's really enforcement of an arbitration decision rather than an office action. When the Foundation wants to delete something as an office action they never bother to explicitly cite it, they just either link to WP:OFFICE or note that the deletion is being performed under a takedown notice. I can see three arguments for removing it from here:

• There are a number of cases where an admin entered G9 into a deletion summary by accident. Because of the different circumstances surrounding G9 deletions this has the potential to cause serious confusion.
• As noted above G9 is completely different from all the other criteria on this page and this has the potential to cause confusion as well.
• It's generally a good idea to remove clutter from policy pages and removing it would have no effect whatsoever on the encyclopedia.

Hut 8.5 21:31, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Agreeing with Hut 8.5 completely! Lanthanum-138 (talk) 09:33, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

We do need this criterion on this page, otherwise our policy pages will contradict oneanother - always a Bad Thing. The CSD are explicitly stated to list the only occasions when a page may be deleted without discussion. The WP:OFFICE policy allows for pages to be deleted without discussion, thus it must be listed on this page. Will calling it "O1" rather than "G9" make it less likely to be selected by accident? Logic would place it at the bottom of the "Other" section of the list right after the Expired BLPPROD reason, so I doubt it. Therefore what is the point? Thryduulf (talk) 12:00, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

So, why is speedy deletion of "Removal of non-public personal information" prior to oversight not on this page? That seems to be working fine without having a criteria (some of it falls under G10, but not all). I know oversight prefers to use non-descriptive deletion summaries to avoid attracting attention, but apparently the WMF does not refer to G9 either. There is no contradiction as this page describes "the only cases in which administrators have broad consensus support to ... immediately delete Wikipedia pages or media." Office =/= administrators and Office actions are already separatly mentioned in the lead. Yoenit (talk) 12:15, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify I'm not suggesting relabelling it as O1 or anything like that, I'm suggesting removing it altogether. The mention in the lead should suffice. Hut 8.5 13:48, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

That is also what I would prefer. Yoenit (talk) 14:18, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

I strongly disagree, indeed I think the deletion prior to oversight should be mentioned on this page, although most is already covered by G10 and the WP:REVDEL policy. Thryduulf (talk) 15:26, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

It should be mentioned in the criteria but we should not draw attention to it with a special code. I am thinking of revelation of personal detail deletes. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:22, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

We could I suppose add "deletion prior to oversighting" to G6. My thinking on this is that it is not controversial to delete something that requires oversighting (although the need to oversight a page may be controversial that is a separate issue), and (if I'm understanding it correctly) the need to delete before oversighting is simply a technical restriction. Thryduulf (talk) 19:15, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

And labeling such things as a generic G6 would also solve the problem of creating the Streisand effect; sounds like a good idea to me. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 23:25, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Typo

There is a typo in the section quoted below. I have bolded the typo.

G7. Author requests deletion. Categories where the original author requests deletion. Usually the author will make the request by adding the tag, but there are times when such deletions will be done without the suthor doing so, such as making the request on some other page, or by blanking and orphaning the category.

—D'Ranged 1 ^talk 04:06, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Now fixed. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 04:18, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

T4: Unused template

• (i) A template that is intended for use in the Article namespace.
• (ii) NOT used in an administrative capability.
• (iii) That is not currently used in Article namespace.
• (iv) which has not been edited for over 1 month.
• (v) which after tagging remains unused for 7 days
• (vi) May be speedy deleted under this criteria.

Sfan00 IMG (talk) 11:52, 4 May 2011 (UTC) Amended Sfan00 IMG (talk) 13:13, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

• Not happy about this. Historical templates do not much harm, and if they were heavily used in the past, it makes old page versions much easier to understand if unused templates are not deleted. Even if TFD often deletes them, it may still be worth a discussion. —Кузьма^討論 11:55, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Oppose. As currently written this could be used to delete Template:Article_for_deletion, Template:Dab song etc. I believe there needs to be a specific check for use by subst (which is relatively difficult). In addition I'm uncomfortable with considering a template abandoned after only one month... how about one year? But even then... what is the urgency to delete these unused templates that justifies bypassing the usual deletion process? Thparkth (talk) 12:14, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Kusma. Historical templates serve us better if kept and if a certain template won't, TFD can decide that. T3 is sufficient for template cleanup but I don't think there is (or should) be any consensus for such wide-scale cleanup, especially when there is no harm in keeping them. If the proposing editor tells us why they want this criterion to be created, I might change my mind but currently I see no reason for that. Regards SoWhy 16:51, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Oppose as well. It could have made some sense if there were an easy way to check that the template was never used in the past. Also, unused templates do no harm. Of course, they create clutter and possible confusion. But clutter deletion is not that urgent and TFD, was was mentioned, will do. As for confusion, they may be labelled as deprecated. Muslim lo Juheu (talk) 18:32, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

While I am generally of the opinion that unused templates can and should be deleted, they certainly don't meet the criteria at the top of this page for doing so speedily. CSD is only for cases which either need urgent action, or where the volume is large enough to overwhelm our standard processes; neither applies here. Happy‑melon 18:35, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Oppose. A few of these would be G8, but not all. Also agreeing with Muslim lo Juheu. Lanthanum-138 (talk) 09:40, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

U1: User request

Isn't this just a special case of G7? Why does it need its own criterion (similar to what happened with G8 and R1)? Lanthanum-138 (talk) 09:41, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

It's not exactly the same. G7 doesn't apply if another editor has made significant edits to a page, U1 does. Hut 8.5 09:43, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, OK. Thanks for clarifying! Lanthanum-138 (talk) 13:40, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually, Hut's statement is partially incorrect. U1 is only for a user's own user page/subpage where the user in question requests deletion. U1 cannot be used on articles. However, Hut is right in that "G7 doesn't apply if another editor has made significant edits to a page," as such deletion could be more controversial than if the creator of the page was the sole major editor. Logan _Talk ^{Contributions} 01:10, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

U1 cannot be used on articles: I think you've missed the point. Lanthanum proposed getting rid of U1 and using G7 to tag pages eligible for U1 instead. The fact that G7 can be used in all namespaces whereas U1 can't doesn't affect the proposal. Hut 8.5 08:53, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

G8 on redirects to pages tagged for speedy deletion

{{db-g8}} says, "This template may meet Wikipedia’s criteria for speedy deletion as a dependent page of a page which does not exist, has been deleted, or is itself currently tagged for speedy deletion." The italicized language is not supported by the current text of G8. Has consensus been established that it can be used for that purpose? If so, shouldn't it be mentioned in the text of G8? My opinion: it ought to be allowed and mentioned in G8. Regards, TRANSPORTERMAN (TALK) 18:24, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I think it's just a common-sense thing. The dependent page will typically be deleted only after the main page is deleted, so at the time the deletion is carried out, everything is still conformant to the CSD as written, even if the tagging happens at a time when the CSD is not literally met yet. The tagging is just a look-ahead piece of information to the administrator, saying: when you delete this main page, don't forget to delete this dependent page too. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:00, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Also, it says "may meet", so the text in the template was added exactly to address such cases that Fut Perf describes, i.e. allowing users to tag a dependent page as G8 even when the original page has not yet been deleted itself, so that they don't have to wait for the deletion first until they can tag the dependent page. Regards SoWhy 19:19, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not objecting to its use in the way described by FP; indeed, I think it's beneficial, but having been scalded for pushing the scope of some of the CSD criteria (see here, especially Opposes 1, 12, and, SoWhy, 22), I'm a little loath to nominate without there being some fairly explicit justification for it in the CSD criteria. All db templates, including {{db-a7}}, say "may meet," so if that is justification for tagging without adequate authority in the CSD criteria, then perhaps I should feel bitter about having had my hat handed to me. Regards, TRANSPORTERMAN (TALK) 20:49, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I understand your frustration but in this case it's really not "pushing the scope" because so far there is broad consensus for applying G8 this way, which is a maintenance criterion unlike A7 for example. But since that is already uncontroversial, I added a note to G8 about it. Regards SoWhy 08:09, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Your addition just fits the bill, thanks. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 16:56, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

"The creator of a page may not remove a Speedy Delete tag from it"

Today I saw an user reverted repeatedly and warned (4im) for replacing a (valid) {{db-blanked}} with content. There is no need to mention which article as I'm not here to name-and-shame. Sometime earlier, I witnessed a similar incident with a G6, though I can't recall which type. While common sense would imply that (in the case of G7 and U1) if an user wishes to change their mind about a deletion self-request, they should be allowed to, and (in the case of G6) if a deletion is objected to by anyone at all, it is not "uncontroversial" after all, it would seem that the rules here may need to state so explicitly. I would propose changing:

The creator of a page may not remove a Speedy Delete tag from it. Only an editor who is not the creator of a page may do so.

to

The creator of a page may not remove a Speedy Delete tag from it, except in cases G6, G7, and U1. Otherwise, only an editor who is not the creator of a page may do so.

I am a big fan of WP:IAR, but in practice people aren't "getting it". I think it should be spelled out here, as policy. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 03:36, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

It is sad if that is necessary. Can this be prevented by adding exception code to Twinkle/Huggle so people don't do this semiautomatically? If people do this on purpose, they probably need a reminder or block, not just even more rules. —Кузьма^討論 05:56, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't know about Huggle, but issuing the warning with Twinkle requires manually selecting the {{uw-speedy1}} template from a menu. There is no way Twinkle could distinguish a valid warning from an invalid one. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 06:38, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I doubt it will help (making the change), some of the RC and NPP are not very well versed on the deletion procedures. I recently ran into a case where someone got 2 template warnings for removing a prod... of course there is no template warning for removing a prod, so the first patroller gave them a CSD removal warning, and the second an AfD removal warning. I think it is just a case of some editors needing cluebats. The templates don't have the warning about removing them anyway... Monty₈₄₅ 06:04, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I have a question: Why is G6 included with G7 and U1? — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 22:43, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Because G6 is supposed to be for "technical" deletions that nobody could conceivably object to. If the creator objects, then further discussion is warranted. There's also no "click here to contest this deletion" button inside the template, nor is there a user talk template for warning the creator of the impending deletion. Thus, if the creator doesn't know how to object to the deletion, the natural thing for them to do is remove the {{db}} tag. This should not lead to drama.

Remember, the rule is there to prevent senseless edit wars with users trying to preserve their precious MySpace band articles, not to give db-taggers some kind of authority over article creators. Any re-insertion of db-tags only because "that's what the rules say" is misguided. I must admit, however, that Monty is probably correct in that most (not all) new patrollers do not actually read this page, and that some (not all) will always find creative ways to be stupid. Still, I think that my suggested change only takes up a few words, and may help in some cases. Common sense cannot be taught, but sometimes it can be partially made up for with clear rules. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:48, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Ahhh I understand. Thanks! — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 00:12, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

• I don't think this is necessary; WP:UCS covers the situation. Stifle (talk) 11:17, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

When does the original creator of a page become irrelevant?

When does the original creator of a page become irrelevant?

The reason I ask is because a few months back, I was in the process of going through my watchlist, and saw that someone had added a speedy deletion tag to an article maliciously (I don't remember what article it was). I removed the speedy deletion tag, and was reverted by a bot, and reminded by said bot that I was the original creator of the article, and that I am not allowed to remove a tag. This then escalated to a small edit war with the bot and a couple of more bot warnings, until I finally made the determination that I wasn't going to get pushed around by a bot, invoked WP:IAR and temporarily blocked the bot. Whether you agree with the administrative action made against the bot in this case is immaterial here, as the bot owner and I smoothed things out with the bot within 30 minutes.

But the fundamental issue that the incident raised is not one that a bot can solve. In the case of the article in question, I may have been the first one to hit the "save" button and create a stub article on the title, but since then, a number of years had passed, many editors had edited, and the result was that I had written none of the content on the page. For that matter, I didn't even remember that I was the original creator until being unceremoniously reverted and warned by the bot while reverting obvious vandalism. But the point is that (A) I had written none of the content, and (B) the article was well-established and several years old.

What I'm looking for is for us to review the hard-and-fast rule that the page creator is not allowed to touch a speedy deletion tag under any circumstances. While the rule is intended to prevent people who wrote an article about their dog from removing the A7 tag that was placed on an article shortly after its creation to allow someone a chance to review it, it would seem that a point comes somewhere along the way with a well-established article where the person who first "pushed the button" becomes irrelevant, and other concerns like fighting vandalism, including vandalism by deletion tag, take precedent. Thus it seems that it may be time to write a more nuanced version of this rule in order to account for deletion-tag vandalism on well-established articles, either by time passed (counting in years), or by number of editors.

Thoughts? SchuminWeb (Talk) 09:00, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

The bot should not be allowed to edit war. The bot should be made incapable of editwarring. It can post a note elsewhere instead. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:10, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not so worried about the bot, but rather about writing practice into policy, though the fact that the bot edit-warred is also troubling. The bot was written to follow the letter of the policy, and the bot owner's reaction was basically "don't look at me, I'm just following the policy", which seemed reasonable enough, since it is more a policy issue, and not really a bot issue. SchuminWeb (Talk) 09:16, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I am not convinced the situation you describe occurs often enough to add an exception to the policy. Seems like a very rare occurence to me. Yoenit (talk) 09:48, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I know this is not about the bot but as said above, a bot shouldn't edit-war and should not edit as such in the first place. I don't think there is need to change the policy since that would just encourage people to claim special circumstances exist where they do not. Situations where the tag has clearly been added maliciously constitute vandalism anyway, so the restriction in the policy against removal by the creator does not apply imho. Regards SoWhy 09:58, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Removal of ridiculous speedy deletion templates can and must be done by anyone, anytime, including the original author. That has always been policy, no matter what is written on any page. —Кузьма^討論 09:54, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Then let's put that in writing in the policy. SchuminWeb (Talk) 10:14, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

My opinion is that the rule against page creators removing speedy deletion tags should stay. The rule is aimed at the 99.9% of cases where the article is new, and entirely contributed by one author who is already presumed to disagree with the speedy deletion tag.

I realize this is a royal pain in the ass if you're one of the 0.1% cases, as happened here, but really it's still quite easy to deal with. Just ask literally any other editor to review the tag and remove it if they agree that it's obviously invalid. Even if you don't do this, the chances are that the reviewing admin will decline the deletion, and even if by some disaster they fail to do so, it would be a speedy restore at DRV. So all in all, the harm from preventing you from removing the tag is actually pretty small (albeit with an enormous annoyance factor!).

On the other hand, specifying in writing that "obviously invalid tags may be removed by the page author" (or words to that effect) would seriously gum up the works of the speedy deletion process. It might be intended for people whose disambiguation page has just been tagged with F7 (or other similar nonsense), but it would be used by every 12-year-old who just thought of a name for their band and want a Wikipedia article about it. "'Obviously invalid tags may be removed'? This thing about my band not being important is obviously invalid so I'll delete it."

To summarize, the harm from allowing article creators to delete tags vastly outweighs the harm from disallowing them, so no change is necessary IMHO.

Thparkth (talk) 12:40, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

This is a wiki, so if I can fix vandalism by removing a speedy tag I will do it and ask for nobody's permission, and anybody re-adding the tag should start a dialogue and justify the tag. Usually people will not edit war about tags when you talk to them (i.e., write a message to them instead of pasting templates on their talk pages). —Кузьма^討論 12:49, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

As a general rule, creators removing tags is a bad thing, and should be disallowed. Now, there are common sense exceptions, like here. It may be tempting to write those exceptions into policy. However, there need for them to be legitimately invoked will be very occasional, and is outweighed by the danger that they will be gamed - and the resulting instruction creep. In short, leave the rule as it is, and remember that WP:IAR was written for exceptional cases like this. (If there's a means of preventing bots EVER edit waring, that would be good. Humans are much better at using common sense and knowing to leave the rule-book aside on occassions.)--Scott Mac 12:52, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Okay, fair enough. I pretty much got the confirmations that I was looking for, that in the case of obvious vandalism/malicious tagging, that rule can be ignored as a correct invocation of IAR, and that bots shouldn't edit war. And yes, for 99.99% of cases it is the case that it's someone with their myspace band trying to advertise via Wikipedia, so I'm fine in not codifying it into policy to prevent the system from being gamed. SchuminWeb (Talk) 19:59, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

The article in question was SpinnWebe. An IP user added a G1 tag to it. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 04:48, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Clarification to A7

I think a clarification is needed for A7's exception to "all schools". High schools have inherent notability but primary schools do not and are currently routinely redirected, with some AfDs and PRODs going through. The common rule to either redirecting or deleting is that primary schools do not have inherent notability. Most other orgs, groups, businesses, etc... with similar levels of non-notability would be speedily deleted quickly. Primary schools, such as pre-schools, elementary schools, and middle schools generally do not have independent verifiable sources and are rarely notable for articles. In addition, there are so many of them and most are very localized they fit into Wikipedia:Run-of-the-mill . Although it is common to redirect the stubs of primary schools to the school district, there are many that are in need of redirect (over 450 on Category:School articles to be merged). Other times articles that are redirected are later undone by users with close connections to those primary schools, creating more work to patrol links. Even pages that are essentially vandalism pages but happen to have a school title get redirected, such as "I hate xyz middle school. The teachers are boring!". A7 should read "except secondary schools" clarifying the inherent notability for secondary schools while allowing for non-notable primary schools to be speedily deleted, reducing future work to redirect as well as patrol and maintain existing redirects. Bhockey10 (talk) 02:20, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Oppose. This would not be a clarification, it would be a change to the intent of the policy. All schools, including primary schools, are currently excluded from speedy deletion as the deliberate expression of the outcome of many discussions over many years. As I understand it, the main reasons are that 1. their deletion is frequently controversial and 2. they are, per WP:SCH, generally not deleted anyway but merged. Obviously, speedy deleting is not merging. I would also add that in my opinion, there isn't such a flood of obviously-deletable primary school articles as to require an extension of speedy deletion policy. Thparkth (talk) 02:43, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Merging is a bit different from redirects, generally now primary school stubs are simply redirected. My proposal isn't a change of intent of A7 at all because the current way primary schools are treated by redirecting is contradictory to the other subjects covered in A7. For example a local franchise of McDonalds isn't redirected to the main company article, a boy scout or church group aren't redirected to the articles on those main subjects, etc... There's usually is usually little to nothing to merge into parent school district articles. Eample- Garfield Elementary School (Medina, Ohio) was a typical primary school stub, until redirected the other day by myself. It went largely unchanged since it was created in 2008. The body of the article read: "Garfield Elementary School is a public primary school in Medina, Ohio. An old school in Medina Square that has grades K-5. This school was once Medina High School. This school is the oldest in the district." If that was the text of another club, organization, business, person, etc... other than a school it would have most likely been speedily deleted. Bhockey10 (talk) 06:01, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. Redirecting isn't deletion either, let alone speedy deletion. Your proposal is for a change to the CSD criteria, specifically adding primary schools to the list of topics that it covers, rather than clarifying the wording regarding what is currently included. Additional topics can of course be included by consensus, but your are not going to get consensus that all primary school articles that don't claim significance should be deleted. Even if there was consensus that they should all be redirected (which wouldn't be A7) it is not always obvious where they should be redirected to. You'd also need to define what makes a primary school and what makes it a school of the next level up, which is potentially going to be different for every education system and even within the same education system will be blurry. For example I started my education in a system that had schools for ages 5-11 (primary), 11-16 (high) and 16-18 (sixth form), but aged 11 changed to a system that was ages 5-9 (first), 9-13 (middle) and 13-18 (upper). Is the middle school covered by this criterion or not? What about a school that covers ages 8-16 (I've seen a private school with this split)? Thryduulf (talk) 08:29, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

It's not that complicated. Only secondary schools have inhernent notability, yet we have an exemption that covers all. The current ways of redirecting with an occasional AdD or Prod shows that in general they are not notable. The criterion for the current way is to redirect primary schools (anything below high schools) to the parent school district. One thing you mentioned that is flawed about the current way is that "it is not always obvious where they should be redirected"- the current way is messy, removing the speedy deletion exemption simplifies things. By having an exemption for all schools we are contredicting policy that states only secondary schools and above have inherent notability and essentially giving it to all. Bhockey10 (talk) 17:19, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Where did you get the idea that secondary schools have inherent notability? Nothing has inherent notability.—Kww(talk) 17:42, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

You must have missed the many discussion about schools and notability. Inherent notability was a common argument. The current keep secondary and merge lower level schools to the district or town articles is basically a compromise that keeps some level of peace in this area. Vegaswikian (talk) 17:48, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

That was bad wording/info I received, you're correct that nothing has inherent notability. However, it is a common accepted practice Wikipedia:Notability (high schools). Bhockey10 (talk) 17:57, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose I'm unsure why you want to change A7 when you yourself admin that such articles should not be deleted but redirected or merged. If there is no clear target for merging or redirecting, the correct solution is to discuss it somewhere, not to delete it without discussion. So A7 is simply the wrong tool for handling such articles and thus changing it is not warranted. If you want to get A7 changed, you first need to explain why such articles should be deleted. You have so far failed to do so. Even if you explain why they should be deleted, you would need to explain why such deletions would be uncontroversial, frequent and uncontestable (as required for a new criterion per the top of this talk page). Since school articles are frequently redirected and merged, changing A7 to fit those articles fails those requirements. Regards SoWhy 17:51, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

You may have misunderstood. I don't support redirecting non-notable primary school articles. A practice that rarely occurs outside of the primary schools. The reasoning behind the common practice of redirecting the primary schools to parent school districts is because it is generally accepted that they are not notable. The current way of redirecting non notable primary school articles while we have Speedy Deletion/Deletion exception by passes the reasons for Speedy Deletion. Speedy deletion of articles about small, localized, common place, organization, with no independent, verifiable resources is uncontroversial. Bhockey10 (talk) 18:05, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

You misunderstood me as well apparently. Redirecting such articles is consensus and we should not change A7 to contradict this consensus. First you need to make a convincing argument and get consensus to change, then we can discuss changing A7 to reflect this. As long as consensus is clearly in favor of handling those articles not by deletion, your proposed change cannot work. Considering the fact that we have had dozens of heated discussions about how to handle school articles, I'm pretty sure we cannot declare such deletions "uncontroversial" as required by this special policy. And since many school articles should be merged, such deletions would often be contestable. Regards SoWhy 18:51, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, I understand a bit more now. Looking over school related Afds, most comments are for either: 1) redirect (following current consensus, or 2) delete (following my reasoning in this discussion- that they fall into non-notable org category). My reasoning for the A7 change is because the central point of the consensus to redirect or the delete comments is the idea that primary school stubs are not notable for stand-alone articles, an idea that doesn't contradict A7. I'm fairly busy but I'll work on getting some consensus to change the redirect idea first. Thanks. Bhockey10 (talk) 20:38, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Which also means that in most cases it's likely that several people will contest the idea that the article should be deleted. Since we are unable to predict for which articles such objections will be raised, it's impossible to word A7 in a way to only cover those cases where consensus at AFD would be to delete. Also, your argument is flawed, since "not notable for stand-alone articles" != "should be deleted". Since, as Jclemens points out below, WP:ATD applies to speedy deletion as well, such information can usually be merged somewhere more appropriate, the pages can then serve as useful redirects to the overview article and shouldn't be deleted. On a side note, A7 does not require notability, so you need to be more careful with your argumentation. Since almost any school will have been covered in some kind of newspaper, it's safe to assume that all of them will fail the very strict standard that A7 applies to articles, thus making your proposed change pointless. Regard SoWhy 21:01, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes I know A7 is a lower standard than notability. It was shorter to type and obviously if an article has notability it is not a speedy deletion candidate. Most primary schools I've searched do not have coverage in newspapers and like I've said, it there wasn't an exception they would fit into the org category of A7. Many of the primary school stubs are directory-like. Bhockey10 (talk) 22:56, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Per WP:ATD, deletion is only for things which have no valid merge or redirect target. Jclemens (talk) 19:01, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Technically lots of things that get speedily deleted could have a redirect target, which is why the school exemption needs fixing. We usually don't redirect other non-notable orgs, business, bands, etc... covered under A7 to larger articles. Primary schools are basically getting through with the exemption, only for consensus to find them not notable and redirect (and sometimes delete) them. Bhockey10 (talk) 20:39, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that "policy is violated so we have to change the policy" is a valid argument. That's like saying "theft should not be illegal because many people steal stuff". If something has a valid redirect/merge target, then WP:ATD says it should be redirected/merged. Also, your argument is flawed for another reason: Any editor can and should redirect/merge a non-notable subject to the valid target and there is no need to start an AFD to do so (that's what WP:ATD#Merging and WP:ATD#Redirection say already). Only if someone objects to this, a discussion is needed but in such cases speedy deletion would not be correct anyway. Regards SoWhy 18:26, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose This would be a loss of useful content for merging or otherwise keeping. Remember we are building an encyclopedia here. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:17, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's one component of my point- We're building an encyclopedia, not a directory. There's generally not a lot of useable info to be merged and most primary school stubs are just redirected. In most cases it's nearly impossible for primary schools to have articles with little to no proper sources. They're textbook examples of non-notable orgs yet we have an A7 exception for them Bhockey10 (talk) 01:38, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

You've just explained why adding primary schools to A7 would be incorrect, "most primary school stubs are just redirected". Speedy deletion is only for things that are always deleted at the relevant XfD - redirecting is very different to deleting. Thryduulf (talk) 02:30, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Deletion within 24 hours of original creation

I propose that the policy for speedy deletion should be changed.

I created an article this morning for a subject which I personally believe is notable - however it is evident that others disagree with me. It would seem that because I dared to create that article as a stub - it was late, I was tired, and other people know a lot more about the subject than I do - the article in question was tagged with speedy deletion. Further to this, the article has been locked so that only administrators can modify it, denying anyone the ability to justify its existence.

I was less than impressed to discover that it had been removed before I woke up this morning.

I propose that the policy is changed so that 'speedy deletions' cannot occur before 24 hours has elapsed, or until article creator has agreed that the article is not noteworthy - whichever is sooner.

That articles can be deleted from Wikipedia without the creator even having the chance to contest the speedy deletion irks me. That I created an article at 02:00 today to find that it had been deleted by 10:00 today without me even having the opportunity to contest its proposed deletion irks me further.

If this is standard policy, then WP:SK may as well not exist at all. If people don't have the chance to even invoke it, what point is there to its existence?

--Syniq (talk) 14:40, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

I presume that you're complaining about El Goonish Shive. This subject was deemed non-notable by Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/El Goonish Shive (2nd nomination) and the version you created didn't contain any information that could possibly revise that decision, such as new references (when you created the article you saw a notice asking you to add references to reliable published sources, you didn't do this). The idea of timed speedy deletions has been proposed (and rejected) many times in the past. Hut 8.5 14:51, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

In general there is also undeletion, so if someone can work out how to ask they can request userfication or undeletion if they want to improve it. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:07, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Welcome to Wikipedia, and sorry you had a sour experience with Speedy deletion! A time limit would take away from the "speedy" part. It might benefit a few articles but most tagged for speedy deletion are tagged because they need to be removed asap and that removal is uncontroversial (besides the creators which sometimes have issues with it). The easy way to avoid your situation in the future is find at least one proper source before beginning the article, or save it to a word file and keep building it the next morning before starting it. Bhockey10 (talk) 01:38, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. This would be popular with vandals, though. Hoax and attack pages (not to mention copyright violations) would take over a day to delete. Guoguo12--Talk--  23:01, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose As Guoguo12 stated, it would give vandals more "free reign" as they know they could create articles and they'd stay for longer than they do now.   ArcAngel   (talk) ) 01:14, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose per above. Horrible idea, would open the door to vandals even wider than it is now. ScottyBerg (talk) 01:20, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

• A couple of points:

• I find it ironic that you would complain about something being deleted when your edit summary when creating it ended with "delete this, bitches." You more or less invited scrutiny.
• When you recreated it you would have seen how many times it had already been deleted and a notice that says " If you are recreating a page similar to the previously deleted page, or are unsure, please first contact the deleting administrator using the information provided below." You did not do this so you don't really have a leg to stand on with this complaint.
• On that same page you would have seen this notice: "When creating an article, provide references to reliable published sources. An article without references, especially a biography of a living person, may be deleted. You can also start your new article at Special:Mypage/El Goonish Shive. There, you can develop the article with less risk of deletion; ask other editors to help work on it; and move it into "article space" when it is ready." You ignored that as well.
• The userspace draft option explained in that notice is still open to you so your claim that you are denied "the ability to justify its existence" is also false.

The speedy deletion policies have been given a lot of thought, perhaps more than any other area of WP policy. They are designed to be used only in specific situations and the user interface is designed to warn you of the risk of speedy deletion. That you chose to ignore that information and recreate an article that had been repeatedly deleted without citing any reliable sources is not something anyone but you has any control over. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:38, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

New criteria for the speedy renaming of categories

There is currently a discussion taking place on Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion about a new criteria for the speedy renaming of categories. Thank you. McLerristarr | Mclay1 12:14, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Quarterly deletion policy update

A couple of things. Veblenbot has reported at Wikipedia talk:Update that we just got 4 new deletion policy pages; not sure what's up with that. Also, starting July 1, I'm going to stick to content and enforcement policy for the quarterly update. It would be great if anyone wants to jump in and continue the update of deletion policy; the page has had a regular readership for years, and it would be nice if that part of it could continue. - Dank (push to talk) 02:23, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

To your first part, we figured out what was going on at the village pump; someone had stuck something in a template and forgot to put the noinclude tags in. It's been fixed. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 05:04, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Verifying G4

As it stands, G4 is pretty much unverifiable for a mopless editor. Is it possible for there to be an archived version that can be checked when nominating something for G4? For example, let's say that article Bad Example was deleted with 500 bytes of information, then recreated and greatly expanded (up to 3000 bytes). Auto-confirmed and new editors can only see that it has been nominated and deleted, but cannot verify it themselves. I think this may (possibly) cause many G4s to fail and possibly waste admin's time. If, for example, some rough statistics about the article deleted were kept at the talk page of the deletion discussion, editors would be able to check for similarities before nominating. That may help, in my opinion. Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:34, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Good idea. My initial take is that a bot would note on the XfD talk page either one or two lines of statistics. The statistics would be those reported by the popup box, namely size in kb, number of wikilinks, number of images and number of categories. For a page in the article namespace the number of ref tags present may also be a useful count. One line would be the last revision prior to deletion, the second would be the last revision prior to the placement of the XfD tag. It would thus perhaps read:

Revision prior to deletion: 2011-05-16 22:20:06: 33.9kB, 122 wikilinks, 1 image, 1 category, 0 ref tags.

Revision prior to nomination: 2011-04-07 19:34:34: 11.2kB, 77 wikilinks, 0 images, 1 category, 0 ref tags.

There are some questions though

Would we want a count of ref tags? References can be added by other methods, Doesn't reflect the quality of sources (3 reliable sources are better than 25 unreliable ones)

Do we want stats prior to nomination, prior to deletion or both?

Can bots read deleted edits?

How would the bot determine what pages it needs to provide stats for? Perhaps reading all closed AfDs and updating if the nominated page has been deleted?

How would it deal with group nominations?

How frequently would it update? Daily? Hourly? every 15 minutes?

How long should it wait after the closure of the discussion before checking to see if the page was deleted?

Do we want it for AfDs or other XfDs too? I don't see a point for RfD, as the only useful check would be the target, which is recorded in the nomination already.

I don't think any of these issues are insurmountable, indeed some of them are possibly trivial. Thryduulf (talk) 00:23, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Hmm... good questions. My own opinion, point by point:

1. Would we want a count of ref tags? References can be added by other methods, Doesn't reflect the quality of sources (3 reliable sources are better than 25 unreliable ones)

I think the quality of the sources would be included in the AfD (at least for the controversial ones). If not, perhaps include a list of references used in the article with the statistics.

1. Do we want stats prior to nomination, prior to deletion or both?

Both, probably. Some major revisions can take place while an article is at AfD, and they don't always result in a keep.

1. Can bots read deleted edits?

I have no idea, to be honest. This seems to indicate no.

1. How would the bot determine what pages it needs to provide stats for? Perhaps reading all closed AfDs and updating if the nominated page has been deleted?

That sounds theoretically possible, but I am not versed on the ways of bots.

1. How would it deal with group nominations?

Scanning all of them and including them one by one on the talk page of the AFD maybe. Can bots be programmed to do that?

1. How frequently would it update? Daily? Hourly? every 15 minutes? and How long should it wait after the closure of the discussion before checking to see if the page was deleted?

If it were run three times a day or so that should be more than enough. AfDs seem to close at a rate of thirty a day or so (guesstimate), so three times a day ensures that nothing gets left behind and the queue doesn't get too big.

1. Do we want it for AfDs or other XfDs too? I don't see a point for RfD, as the only useful check would be the target, which is recorded in the nomination already.

That would require further discussion, to be sure. AfDs would be the most likely ones, but I can see the merit for TfD. I don't see it doing much for FfD and CfD though (side note, are those ever G4'd?).

It seems this would be a big change if implemented. Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:28, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure how big a change it will actually be, but I think it's worth it regardless. I'm sure I've seen files and templates G4ed, but I don't recall categories. I'll ask someone at the bots group to comment on the practical questions regarding bots. Thryduulf (talk) 06:30, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't have many connections. Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:19, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

• I don't think this is needed or workable. How long it was is not relevant. Sheer number of "ref" tags is also not relevant as "article rescuers" often use puffery to artificially inflate those numbers. If you want to know why an article was deleted, read the AFD. There should be clear and specific reasons there. If you want to know if it is significantly similar to a deleted version, ask an admin to check. I also don't believe this is a serious enough problem to bother with such a complex solution. Generally if you aren't sure if something qualifies for speedy deletion, don't nominate it. If it goes to AFD instead and it becomes apparent that it does qualify for G4 an admin can re-delete it then. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:48, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

• If it's an older article there might be a copy at deletionpedia Failing that just use your best judgement. It's up to the admin who reviews the CSD tag who can see the deleted article to make the call using his best judgement. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:59, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

• If you see an old AfD where the arguments seem to be a perfect fit for the article you're looking at, with none of the "delete" arguments having been addressed, then I believe it's fair to assume that you're looking at a repost. G4 is not invoked that often, and an admin has a choice to either look into the article's log to make sure it is indeed a repost, or "pass," that is, leave the article for another admin's consideration without taking any action. In the case where the old AfD and the current incarnation of the article can't be possibly related, then it's clear that G4 doesn't apply. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 03:11, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

• The speedy criteria are intended for mopped editors. I would only suggest G4 tagging an article if you watched the article, nominated it for deletion then saw it recreated in what you know is it's same form. Then a mopped editor will see that you're right and delete it. Something like that. - filelakeshoe 09:50, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
  • No, the criteria are intended for everybody. Incorrect speedy deletions actively harm the project, so it is important that we have as many people as possible looking over those pages tagged so that the error rate is a low as possible. If there is a simple way to help non-admins error check G4 tags then this is a good thing. Thryduulf (talk) 10:17, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
    • Yep, but only mopped editors can delete. And the very point of speedy is that any kind of consensus is not required in these cases. You only really need one admin to check whether a page meets G4, check the AfD'd revision, check the recreated version, if they match, delete. - filelakeshoe 10:28, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
      • You only need one admin to check, but there is no harm in more people checking. CSD is not about consensus, it's about "does this page meet these strict criteria?" If no then anybody other than the page's creator should remove the tag. Thryduulf (talk) 11:04, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I understand the problem, and I agree it would be desirable to have a solution, but I cannot find one. Neither the state just prior to nomination nor the one just prior to deletion is necessarily the relevant one, The size is not necessarily relevant, because the new article might as well be a shorter version as a longer, and either might be better or not better. References can be shown in so many explicit or implicit ways that this is not always relevant either. Of the G4s I se nominated, must are inserted without significant (or sometimes any) improvements, so I delete most of them. But the others are tricky. I think it very likely I have made a few mistaken deletions by not comparing carefully enough , so I suppose other admins have made such mistakes also. What would help best is a built in warning to the admin, perhaps automatically displaying the article history to them to avoid at least the gross mistake of not looking at all. DGG ( talk ) 06:33, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Did the discussion we had about including a check for the existence of a prior AfD (Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 42#Suggestion - include the past AFD check in the A7 Template) get anywhere? Thryduulf (talk) 08:06, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

A WP:VPPR thread started on it, currently archived here. It got unanimous support, myself included. Maybe a good time to revive it? On a related note, it'd be helpful to add in a Twinkle/Huggle parameter to name of the deletion discussion if it's a different title, because sometimes the same article is recreated under a different title and the default G4 won't link properly (one example being HEMA (Hookers, Escorts and Masseurs Association); after being deleted, it was recreated under a totally different title and probably would have slipped by if I hadn't happened to see and realize it, as I participated in the inital discussion). The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:48, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

• That looks like a good thing to do too; at the very least there it can help show that the article had actually been AfD'd. Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:53, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

• No all of us use automated tools, so as long as it's a parameter that can be applied normally as well, then this seems like a very good first step. Thryduulf (talk) 07:35, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

• If you are a non-admin, there's usually nothing wrong with having a G4 tag rejected by a reviewing admin. You've brought the article to an admin's attention; how could you have known how similar to the deleted article the newer article was? You couldn't have, which is why you brought it to an admin's attention in the first place. If the page isn't deleted, no sweat. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 06:32, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
• Comment Roughly what percentage of percentage of Speedy nominations are G4? Is it common for articles to be nominated and then kept? If yes, this may also cut back on the admin's workload. Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:34, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Roughly 100-200 articles are deleted under G4 per month, which makes it one of the less-used speedy deletion criteria for articles (A2, A5, G9 and maybe A9 are consistently used less frequently). Hut 8.5 10:55, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

That's probably the number of actual G1s we get too, although that gets so overused it's hard to tell (I think I've had one this month so far). The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:00, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

So about 100-200 articles are deleted, but roughly how many noms? If there's a goodly number of noms (1000 or so, maybe) then the ability to compare an article with an outline of a deleted article may be useful in reducing Admin backlog. Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:30, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't have that data, but I'd be surprised if the number of nominations was more than a few hundred. (And Blade: that would mean that about half of G1 deletions are valid.) Hut 8.5 20:36, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

If you believe Balloonman's data-gathering from WP:WIHSD, that's generous; I think we do better than 28%, but I correct an awful lot of nonsense tags as a non-admin. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:03, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Hmm... Sounds like quite a few, but I don't know what the backlog is like. Well, I guess that if a proposal is necessary than we can go to the pump. Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:46, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Slavko Pengov

I do not understand why you have eliminated my photos of Pengov's paintings in Bled, in Žale and in the Parliament House of Slovenia. I have made these photos myself and I have dedicated a lot of my time to recover the work of this slovenian artist. I am very dissapointed with this violation of my work.--Oliver-Bonjoch (talk) 22:33, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

These were not on Wikipedia. They were on Commons, where they were deleted after a deletion discussion. I've replied to your note at Commons:User talk:Oliver-Bonjoch#Slavko Pengov. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 22:36, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

F7 and WP:NFCC

The Non-free use rationale guideline states, in part, that "Fair use images that fail any part of WP:NFCC may be tagged as {{subst:dfu|reason}} and deleted after 7 days." (my emphasis)

The current wording of the policy for F7 states "Invalid fair-use claims tagged with {{subst:dfu}} may be deleted seven days after they are tagged, if a full and valid fair-use use rationale is not added."

WP:NFCC contains several criteria that are extremely subjective. In particular:

• 3a. Minimal usage. Multiple items of non-free content are not used if one item can convey equivalent significant information.
• 5. Content. Non-free content meets general Wikipedia content standards and is encyclopedic.
• 8. Contextual significance. Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding. Purely decorative images are not appropriate.

It seems to me that speedy deletion is not intended to be used to delete media based on subjective principles like these. These issues should be decided by community discussion at WP:NFCR or elsewhere.

In the case of non-free image overuse (3a above), it seems to me that an individual image can have a "full and valid fair-use rationale", and hence not be deletable under F7 even while its use in combination with other non-free images might fail NFCC 3a. Again, this should be an issue for community discussion, not for arbitrary speedy deletion based on the judgement of a single person.

Given all this, I believe that the wording at WP:Non-free_use_rationale_guideline contradicts both the spirit and the literal wording of F7, and I would obviously like to propose a change to that guideline - but first, I would appreciate hearing other opinions on this. Is it the intention that F7 should apply to images that arguably are not being used in accordance with any part of WP:NFCC?

Cheers,

Thparkth (talk) 18:14, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

{{dfu}} can only be used when there is no fair use rationale, not when the image fails WP:NFCC. The description of the template is clear and I think WP:FUG does not imply that F7 should be applied if the image fails NFCC but if the description is incorrect. Hence the next part in the section "speedy deletion" reads "Please consider, as an alternative to deletion, fixing the description page, if possible."

Also, F7 is part of a policy, so its wording supersedes the wording in WP:FUG which is only a guideline. As such, the clear wording of F7 is more important as the somehow confusing wording in WP:FUG. Actually, since F7 is clear, I propose we change the wording in WP:FUG, since that guideline should only reflect this policy, not interpret or change it. Regards SoWhy 18:50, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Several errors in the above. {{dfu}} is in fact not for the situation where there is no rationale (that's {{nrd}} and CSD#F6). Dfu/CSD#F7 are for files where there is a rationale but the rationale is invalid ("Invalid fair-use claims tagged with {{dfu}} may be deleted seven days after they are tagged, if a full and valid fair-use use rationale is not added.") What "invalid" means is wholly dependent on the context of the actual use of the file. A rationale that sounds nice and logical and coherent, and which would be perfectly fine with some other image on some other article, may still be blatantly invalid if the image isn't actually doing what the rationale claims it should do. And the fact that it is invalid in this way may be related to a failure of any of the NFCC clauses, even the "subjective" ones where there is room for some discretion of judgment. If that wasn't the case, we'd first of all have to get rid of the whole of CSD#F7b, the "replaceable" clause, because judging irreplaceability has often been claimed to be one of the most "subjective" issues about NFCC policy (with only NFCC#8 "significance" being contested more often), and yet it has its own, very explicit, CSD clause which has been in place for years and has its own well-established practical deletion infrastructure (the {{rfud}} queue). Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:16, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I cannot see dfu or F7 allowing people to tag images to ultimately get deleted by the decision of one admin simply because they disagree with an explanation or rational. That's way too much gaming. On the other hand, if the rationale is truly invalid, meaning that it doesn't describe the source of the image, or what article its used at, or something that is either a yes/no answer, then yes, after 7 days, these can be deleted, because those are unquestionable requirement per NFC. If you dispute the use of the image or its rationale, then you go to a talk page or FFD to deal with that. --MASEM (t) 22:21, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

"If you dispute the use of the image or its rationale", then of course you can use Dfu. That's what "dfu" freaking means. It means "disputed fair use rationale". That's precisely what the CSD is for. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:26, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

There is also the policy text in WP:NFCC#Enforcement itself: "A file in use in an article [...] that does not comply with this policy 48 hours after notification to the uploading editor will be deleted. To avoid deletion, the uploading editor or another Wikipedian will need to provide a convincing non-free-use defense that satisfies all 10 criteria." This, too, clearly speaks of any kind of failure of any of the NFC conditions, and places enforcement of all of them squarely within the domain of the speedy queues. (This, by the way, doesn't preclude the idea that it is usually the wiser idea to take the FFD rather than the speedy path when tagging such files, whenever you can predict contention, but that's a purely practical issue.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:24, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I've always taken the "does not comply" being for those that don't _try_ to address all the issues. Those that do make a reasonable attempt at doing so (broadly construed) should not be deleted under this policy. When we get issues of opinion it seems a wider discussion is generally valuable. Hobit (talk) 22:33, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

You are re-defining the English language now. "Comply" means what it means; it means that rules are actually met. "Does not comply" doesn't mean "doesn't make a reasonable attempt at explaining how it meets the rules". It means "does not meet them", period. The issue of deciding whether an image complies with NFCC#2 or 3 or 8 is no more and no less subjective than deciding whether it meets NFCC#1 (replaceability), for which we have an absolutely unambiguous mandate to act within the speedy framework. It is also no more and no less subjective than deciding whether an article is pure advertising or a pure attack page. In all these cases we assume the possibility that there will be cases that are obvious enough that a competent admin can make a responsible speedy judgment, while there are others where an admin may decline to act speedily and ask for a community process instead, or where a wise editor will avoid invoking the speedy rule from the start and go straight for the community discussion because they expect good-faith opposition. That doesn't make the speedy rule invalid. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:46, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

So all NFCC calls fit under the speedy criteria? Hobit (talk) 23:01, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

If they are obvious cases, yes. There can be obvious cases related to any of the 8 NFC criteria, and less obvious ones especially with some of the criteria; in the latter case, an FFD is often preferable. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:09, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Humm, where do you get "obvious" from? I tend to agree with you, but my redefinition of the English language might be preferred to just inserting non-existent words :-) Hobit (talk) 00:27, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I get "obvious" from a common-sense understanding of what speedies are all about, and from widely accepted best practice. Admins do these judgment calls if and when they consider the case obvious; otherwise they defer to community discussion. F7 is no different in this respect than, say, G10. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:16, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Subjective criteria like "encyclopedic" "minimal use" and "contextual significance" will never be "obvious cases" to the extent that the judgement of one editor should be sufficient to delete them. This is radically at odds with the principles underlying all other speedy deletion criteria. If this was proposed as a new criterion today, I'm quite sure it would not gain consensus. I wonder if there might be support for changing the F7 wording from "may be deleted seven days after they are tagged, if a full and valid fair-use use rationale is not added" to something like "may be deleted seven days after they are tagged, if a full and credible fair-use use rationale is not added." This would mirror the difference between "credible significance" and "notability" that is so important for A7. Thparkth (talk) 00:28, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Basically the only time that images should be put up for "Speedy" (within 7 days) is if these issues are tagged and not corrected in that time frame: 1) a missing or obviously incorrect license (like a PD tag on a copyright screenshot from a recent film) 3) lack of any type of rationale, and 3) a rationale that is missing required elements including the article its used in, some type of NFCC#8 rationale, etc. If there's proper licensing, and there's a complete but possibly contested rationale, that should go to FFD and not be speedied. --MASEM (t) 01:13, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

This would be a radical change in policy that would remove 90% of all the scope of application of F7 as we have known and practiced it for years, and would also be in direct opposition to the wording of NFCC (which, as a policy text, can actually be argued to stand above CSD, given its role in enforcing Foundation policy). We have been doing speedies on these criteria in thousands of cases, and we have had such speedies upheld at DRV in dozens of cases. Doing them has been long-standing policy. You'd find me in strong opposition to such a change. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:35, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

By the way, let's be a bit more concrete. Here are a few hypothetical, but quite realistic, cases of where F7 deletions on NFCC3 or 8 grounds could typically be invoked:

1. An article about a minor, living, political figure has several non-free photographs of past situations in the politician's career: one showing him graduating from university, one showing him shaking hands with the President, one showing him receiving an award, one showing him waving to the crowd after an election. Uploader argues that photographs of these past situations aren't replaceable. Standard deletion argument is that it is not necessary to see a photo of him in these particular situations to understand that the situation happened. Routine deletion.
2. An article about a music CD has two cover images, of the regular first release and a second alternative release. The two covers look almost identical, contain the same photograph of the artist and differ only in a few details of lettering and color. The difference between the two releases is not otherwise commented on in the article. Routine deletion.
3. Several episode articles from a TV show each have a non-free screenshot in the infobox. The screenshots only show generic "talking heads" takes of always the same protagonists, in nondescript situations that have little or no individual identificatory value for each episode. They have no captions, no explanation about how they relate to the plot, and are not the object of individual commentary. Routine deletion.

In each of these cases, the deleting admin knows that there are innumerable precedents of similar cases that have consistently led to deletion. Debating them anew would be a waste of time. The images wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell at FFD. That's what "obvious" means. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:51, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

To be honest all three examples seem like bad applications of CSD to me. All of them are subjective and involve judgement calls. All of them are all contestable. All of them are essentially editorial issues of article content. I believe that these are actually not cases where administrators have broad consensus support to bypass deletion discussion and delete things at their discretion. They are currently contrary to the intention of speedy deletion policy. Just because something is "routine" doesn't mean it is urgent or non-contestable.

Let's look at the issue which actually brought us to this discussion; image overuse. If an article uses "too many" non-free images (a threshold that is undefined, incidentally), which ones should be deleted? What is the correct number for the article, and which ones are most important? Would changes to the article text legitimately support the use of more images? Every part of this is completely subjective. It is not the intention of speedy deletion to grant "super-editor" rights to administrators in this way.

This isn't actually the worst example. WP:NFCC requires that images comply with the image use policy. According to the "F7 covers any breach of NFCC" theory, an administrator has discretion to F7 delete any image that "mixes photographic and iconic content" or doesn't "depict its content well" or which were "unfairly obtained" (which at least one editor has argued in the past could cover any image illegally taken by protesters in a dictatorship). It is simply nonsense to suggest that speedy deletion is intended to be applied to cases like this.

In short, this is a terrible use of CSD F7. If administrators are reading into the wording of F7 a right to apply subjective editorial judgement to non-urgent and potentially-controversial images that have credible fair use rationales then we certainly need to reword it to make it clear that community discussion is the expected standard in those non-obvious, non-urgent cases. The foundation's interests in non-free content policy would not be affected in any material way if the process was prod/ffd (for instance) rather than a seven-day "speedy" deletion. The only difference is that the uploader would have an effective means of objection and a mechanism to request community discussion.

Thparkth (talk) 11:12, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

We are not "reading into the wording". It is unambiguously there. And community consensus has repeatedly upheld that it should be, at multiple DRVs. BTW, people do also have "effective means of objection". The speedy queues come with instructions and tagging mechanisms for contesting a deletion tag, and if the objection is based on a tangible, half-way policy-conformant argument, it is already common practice to hand off decision to FFD. On the other hand, on FFD, too, administrators do routinely use their discretion to override even a numeric consensus to keep when it comes to protecting NFCC, and that practice too has been upheld multiple times at DRV. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:20, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I understand that's how you see it, and I accept it's a reasonable interpretation. All the same I don't think it was ever the intention that CSD would be used that way - it is just so radically out-of-line with every principle of speedy deletion. I suspect some of the regulars of this talk page will be quite surprised by what this discussion reveals.

Leaving all that aside, do you have any opinions on the prod/ffd route as an alternative? Is there some reason that a seven-day CSD is better than a prod, with a trip to FFD if contested?

Thparkth (talk) 11:31, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

As far as the uploader objecting is concerned, not every administrator has a good track record of considering uploader objections and making the correct decision on speedy deletions. In the case of F7 in particular, an administrator can tag an image and return seven days later to delete it, and there is no way to ensure that they give proper consideration to any objection by the uploader. It's still ultimately a deletion based entirely on one person's judgement. Thparkth (talk) 11:34, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

The trouble is that many objections are quite objectively clueless and, to an informed administrator, simply ignorable. It's just like if you have an A7 garage band speedy, and somebody adds a "holdon" tag saying "but they are the coolest band ever". Every sane admin will just ignore it. Believe me, we get lots of objections on that level in the di-replaceable queues. If we refashioned the whole thing on the analogy of PROD, we'd have to take these objections at face value, which in the large majority of cases would just be a waste of everybody's time (including the uploader's!). It's not the uploaders' fault; image policy is complex and difficult to understand, and you can't blame people if they sometimes spend a lot of energy defending the indefensible because they simply don't understand their position against the policy is hopeless. But that's just why we have the speedy rules: they are a time-saving device, to spare everybody the repetitive but futile arguments. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:46, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

If you carry the garage band article analogy further, we are talking about image files that the uploader has attempted to satisfy the letter of the law by including the correct license and all the required rationale parts - only that the rationale may be weak. This situation would be akin to a garage band article that happened to have one reference that discusses the band in a local metro newspaper, the editor's attempt to show notability. We would never be able to delete that article via CSD though certainly through AFD, and in the same manner, we'd never be able to delete the image without discussion of some type if the rataional itself is disputed. --MASEM (t) 13:05, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I think you are mixing up objective content-based justifications with mere formal paperwork in your comparison. The existence of the citation to the local metro newspaper would be a hint at an actual objective reason (albeit a weak one) that could serve to justify an article. The existence of certain filled-out template fields on an image description page is a mere formality, and whether or not somebody gets that paperwork "right" usually has absolutely no relation to whether the use of the image is objectively justified. This is because 95% of all FURs are worthless junk anyway: meaningless, completely vacuous boilerplate text that is of no value in judging the quality of a fair-use image whatsoever. (This goes both ways: you get perfectly fine fair use images with almost non-existing rationales, and formally perfect-looking rationales on absolutely terrible images). What F7 is about is not the quality of the paperwork, but the objective quality of the image as actually used in the article, and here, justifications are very often not just "weak", but truly non-existent, even if the rationale is formally fully developed (which usually just means they blindly copied it from somewhere). Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:27, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

F7 is about the completion of the paperwork, nothing more. Each clause, excluding the dfu tag for the moment, is about an incomplete or objectively replaceable image, so there's minimal subjectivity there. DFU's template says this This file has a non-free use rationale that is disputed. Unless this concern is addressed by adding an appropriate non-free use rationale, such as Template:Non-free use rationale, or in some other way, the image will be deleted or removed from some uses seven days after this template was added. Please remove this template if you have successfully addressed the concern. Notice that it says, effectively "by adding the standard NFC Rationale form, you will prevent this image from being deleted", which is basically filling the paperwork out correctly so people can follow it, again an objective measure. I can appreciate the people all the time upload images with weak rationale, but if the editor has acting in good faith in uploading the image and tried to follow all the rules that have been outlined for NFC, CSD is completely inappropriate, because determination of a "weak" rational is a subjective measure, and CSD should never be used for anything that subjective. --MASEM (t) 13:38, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

There is no such thing as a "standard NFC Rationale form". The form is only an empty skeleton. The actual rationale is what gets written inside that skeleton. And the CSD says that rationale needs to be "appropriate". The word "appropriate" means, above all things: it must be a truthful, accurate description of what the image is actually doing and why it is used. There cannot possibly be an "appropriate" rationale for an image whose use in the article is not itself objectively appropriate. The "appropriateness" of a rationale cannot logically be separated from the question of whether the NFCC are objectively met. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:48, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, there can be separation. There are 10 parts to the NFCC; several of the parts require to be specifically addressed in a rationale, including mainspace article, source, is low-resolution addressed, is minimal use of the original addressed, the license, the lack of free replacement, and the appropriateness for use. A rationale missing any of those, or with factually incorrect info (such as free replacement) qualifies for CSD. That's one line, addressed in F7's first few points. On the other side of the line is the actual content of what is filled in, and as long as we assume good faith and there are no blatant factual errors, analysis of those for WP will be highly subjective. Take the alt. album cover image example you mention. Likely, the uploader will use the standard form that has a blanket rationale for album covers (I don't like these, but that's not the point). CSD cannot be evoked here because while it may be apparent to an uninterested user of the album that the second cover is duplicative, the uploader may have a very valid reason for the second image. The merits of that reason can only be evaluated via discussion at FFD.

Of course, I will grant situations where the uploader rationalizes the image via a line like "It's a pretty picture I thought could be used on WP", a line akin to "they're a cool garage band", sure, that's clearly disputable and qualifies for CSD. But you are arguing that images editors that have tried in good faith to justify with an rationale that we would consider weak, that CSD should apply as well, which flies against every other CSD/Deletion Process convention. --MASEM (t) 14:04, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

A more realistic example of an invalid rationale, let's say in a case like the episode screenshots mentioned above, would look like this:

#A screenshot from a TV show. No free use can be found.
#It will not harm the sales of any related products.
#It is used for encyclopedic purposes.
#It is low resolution.
#No free alternative could be found.

That's the typical way people "fill out the paperwork". I don't known if people do this in good faith or not. I personally usually don't even bother enforcing "better" paperwork. (If I were to systematically tag files because, like here, they don't specify what enyclopedic purpose an image serves but merely asserts that it serves some – which in itself also renders the rationale formally invalid – I'd have to tag three times more images than I currently do.) But I also refuse to accept that the presence of a worthless rationale like this should magically shield the image from deletion. The paperwork wasn't the reason I deleted this one. But fact is, I once speedied the whole lot of all infobox images of a complete TV series, with rationales like this, in one fell swoop, and had that deletion upheld at DRV. Because no matter how much more (or "better") paperwork people might have added, the images were objectively unsalvagable. Current policy says this is possible, like it or not. If you want to change it, you will be changing a central part of how en-wiki enforces basic Foundation policy (you'd have to change not just CSD but also NFCC itself). Don't try to do that without some very strong consensus, and don't try sneaking such a change in through some minor "adjustment" in wording. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:30, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

For the benefit of those of us who are not NFCC regulars, why is this rationale "worthless" to the extent that you should be allowed to delete the image at your sole discretion? And what would happen if I, as an uninvolved editor, disagreed in good faith with your assessment and removed the F7 tag? Thparkth (talk) 14:56, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

It is formally worthless for the reason I just stated: because it consists of meaningless boilerplate text and doesn't describe individually what this particular image actually does. But, as I also said, that's not why I deleted the image in that case. The reason wasn't so much that it didn't say what crucial function the image had, but that the image objectively didn't have any in the first place (which means that no matter how much more you added to the rationale, nothing on earth could have fixed it.) As for your second question: by just removing the tag, you wouldn't have changed a thing (because that doesn't actually undo the fact that the uploader was warned.) If you had removed it with a substantial reason, providing a tangible reason why you thought the image actually was important, then of course it the reasonable consequence would have been to take it to FFD. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:03, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I just want to be sure I'm parsing this correctly. If an uninvolved editor removed the F7 tag in good faith, because they disagreed with your assessment that the FUR was obviously invalid, you would still be prepared to go back after seven days from the original tagging, and delete the file under F7 as if the tag had not been removed? Thparkth (talk) 15:13, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

If no substantive reason was given, yes. What counts is the actual substance of the argument being proffered, not the formal act of de-tagging. The tag as such only serves a strictly informational role, and has no "official" process role. Speedy processes can take place independently of any particular templates being in play; the only thing that the templates serve to document is that some form of notification has been given. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:20, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I am actually quite shocked to read this. In my opinion, it is not acceptable for an administrator to privilege their own opinion over that of another editor in this way. Thparkth (talk) 15:33, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Nothing to do with "privilege" here. It's just that on Wikipedia, if you want your opinion to be taken into account, you are generally expected to give reasons for it. That goes for all decision processes. Why would you expect otherwise? Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:41, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Of course someone contesting an F7 tag should provide a reason. That's not the issue. The issue is that they might provide a good-faith reason that you do not consider "substantive" and so you go ahead and delete it anyway. When you do so, you privilege your opinion above theirs. Thparkth (talk) 15:47, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

It's not a matter of privileged opinion, but often it's a matter of simply knowing, because of greater experience, whether an argument actually addresses a crucial matter of policy or fails to do so. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:52, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

But I also refuse to accept that the presence of a worthless rationale like this should magically shield the image from deletion It doesn't, because you can always nominate it for FFD. Any NFC can be nominated at FFD because the rationale may be weak, and thus consensus discussion is used to either evaluate it, improve it, or delete it. One admin at CSD should not be the one to make that decision in the absence of any further discussion. --MASEM (t) 15:20, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, the onus of gathering consensus for this very substantial change of policy that you are proposing is on you. I'm just telling you how it is handled and has been handled, per policy, for as long as I have been familiar with the matter. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:25, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually there is already a contradiction between WP:NFCC and WP:CSD in that NFCC calls for deletion after 48 hrs, whereas CSD allows seven days. This should probably be cleaned up in any case.

However, there is a more important issue. CSD requires that "Administrators should take care not to speedy delete pages or media except in the most obvious cases." I don't see any reason to conclude that this vital principle doesn't apply to F7. Thparkth (talk) 15:40, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

That's what I've been saying all along. Of course speedy criteria should only be invoked in obvious cases. But such cases exists, and they are frequent; that's the point. Of course, a case may very well be more than obvious enough for an experienced editor who is thoroughly familiar with the policy, when they are far from obvious to the majority of others. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:49, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

...which brings us neatly back to the original purpose of this discussion :) Can any of the three NFCC criteria I identified (overuse, encyclopedic, contextual significance) really be said to be the most obvious cases? I believe not, because they are so subjective. I do actually cheerfully acknowledge that you and others with your experience can recognize a formally-correct-but-basically-hopeless FUR. But there are a few NFCC points where an "obvious" judgement cannot be made, and which hence should never be used as a basis for speedy deletion. Thparkth (talk) 15:58, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. Even at the top of this talk page, the first requirement for inclusion of a new CSD is objectivity. The result if a image tagged for CSD should be the same regardless of the admin that reviews the image after 7 days. A rationale that exists and hits all the main requirements of a rationale but is otherwise weak cannot be judged objectively. Hence the reason that F7 cannot be used to CSD such images; however, FFD works just fine. --MASEM (t) 18:42, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

• One of the main issues I saw when we started formally requiring rationales in addition to a fair use tag was the development of a new family of tags which were boilerplate rationales. This is exactly what the fair use policy is not. Except in clearly accepted cases (such as company logos on the page about the company), the rationale for the fair use of a copyrighted image should be specific and customized to the individual image. It should not be a (numbered or bulleted) list of assertions that the image ticks the boxes. Stifle (talk) 08:57, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
  • I don't think anyone is arguing against what you state here. The question is not whether images with formally-correct but subjectively-weak rationales should be deleted or not, but rather whether or not they should be speedy-deleted, a process which substitutes the judgement of one person for community consensus, gives uploaders very limited ability to object, and which is particularly bitey to new editors. Because of these issues speedy deletion is specifically intended only for the most obvious, least controversial deletion cases. I am arguing that NFCC criteria like "contextual significance" or "overuse of non-free media" will never be obvious or uncontroversial to the extent of falling under speedy deletion policy. In fact, as the current wording of WP:CSD requires speedy deletion to only be used in "the most obvious cases", F7 should only be used in cases with obviously-invalid rationales. This is the policy right now. Thparkth (talk) 11:28, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
    • I disagree with the final two sentences as anything in WP:CSD restricting deletion of non-free images to "obvious" cases is superseded, implicitly at least, by WP:FUC which has the backing of a Foundation resolution. Stifle (talk) 11:19, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
      • Do you really believe it is the intention of WP:FUC to empower administrators to bypass the deletion process in complex cases with no obvious outcome? Thparkth (talk) 13:07, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
        • WP:FUC creates an additional deletion process. It does not bypass existing ones. Stifle (talk) 09:33, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Note: Related to this discussion, I have proposed a small (and probably non-controversial) wording change on the talk page for WP:FUG. Thparkth (talk) 12:21, 9 May 2011 (UTC)