Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy/Archive 49

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I'm kinda surprised

For some reason, every time i check the "talk" page of some article i always see that it was nominated for deletion. Why you want to remove 75% of your articles? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.62.3.197 (talk) 18:28, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

@149.62.3.197: - you may just be checking an odd group of articles, given we delete such a tiny fraction of the c.6 million. Of those that survive a month, almost none are deleted. Nosebagbear (talk) 18:35, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

fwiw, of the total number of submission to draft and article space, about one-half remain in the encyclopedia -- this has been approximately constant for the last 10 or 12 years. About 1/2 are for lack of notability, 1/2 for promotionalism--and some for other reasons , like copyvio or BLP. Before we had Draft space, the deletions were from article space --now that we have Draft, articles from new editors go there first, and most of the promotional and hopelessly non-notable articles are removed there. This is followed up by a much more effective New Pages Patrol, so inappropriate articles get removed much sooner. There are still a few hundred thousand from earlier years when standards were lower that we need to remove. As for why we needto remove half the submissions, its becauseof the great attraction of enWP to promotional editors, along with the rise of undeclared paid editing DGG ( talk ) 03:28, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Archiving

The text reads: "Deletion should not be used for archiving a page. The developers have indicated that the deleted pages can be cleared or removed from the database at any time." based on a comment by Brian Vibber in 2007. I dont think this is actually the current practice, nor has it been for many years now. DGG ( talk ) 03:27, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Since 2007, storage has only become much cheaper, I don’t think Brian’s warning is likely to be carried out. Still, deletion should not be used for archiving a page. Another reason is that non-admins have good reasons to have access to project history. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:23, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Paid editing disclosures and deletion

I suggest adding an extra item to WP:DEL-REASON:

15. Articles created in violation of the policy on paid editing disclosures.

The policy Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure and the relevant WMF terms of use impose strict disclosure requirements on paid editing, including disclosing the employer, client, and affiliation for every paid editing contribution. However, in practice the policy doesn't have real teeth in terms of enforcement. Paid editing has become a widespread phenomenon and many paid articles are created by SPAs, that create a single comissioned article and then disappear. Often they make no disclosures or only partial paid editing disclosures. Such editors would not be significantly deterred by post factum blocking. I think that at least in the cases where a partial disclosure has occurred, we should be able to delete the article, via AfD, after it has been created in mainspace. Nsk92 (talk) 22:49, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

I basically agree, but it has been proposed before, and failedof adoption. The basic reason is that is is not all that easy to be sure what actually consititutes paid editing. The prevalence of promotionalism in the world leads to good faith new editors writing promotionally, because they think that's what is wanted here. Even after years of experience, I still make mistakes about this. What works fairly well instead, is our higher standards for notability in susceptible fields, and our increased willingness to delete because of the"combination of borderline notability and clear promotionalism" -- I've used that phrase many times at Afd. DGG ( talk ) 03:32, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Interesting, thanks. I was thinking about the situations where a partial diclosure of paid editing was made (leaving no doubt that paid editing did occur) but where the partial disclosure did not comply with the requirement of Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure. I recently came accross a case of this kind, Mark Boguski, when I saw this article in the prod category as having been prodded. The subject's WP:PROF notability is not borderline; e.g. because he is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine. The article went through the AfC, and, as Talk:Mark Boguski indicates, somebody brought up the issue of paid editing while the article was still pending at AfC. Then the creator, User:Declanwilson410 made a partial paid editing disclosure in Talk:Mark Boguski#Compensation Disclosure. The disclosure did not comply with WP:PAID since the user did not disclose their "employer, client, and affiliation" with respect to this paid contribution. After the partial disclosure, the article was still moved from AfC to mainspace, by an admin, no less. That was back in November 2017. I did leave a note at User talk:Declanwilson410#Paid editing on Mark Boguski asking for a fuller disclosure, but, of course, by that time the editor has long since disappeared. Nsk92 (talk) 08:21, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

• To my reading, consensus evident at Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_policy/Archive_48#Undeclared_Paid_Editor_(UPE)_product was lacking to support this edit. I think all participating then should be pinged. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:18, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
  • OK, thans, I am pinging the participants of the Archive48 thread you linked (liiks like the group ping template has a limit of ten users being pinged...) Participants in the discussion Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_policy/Archive_48#Undeclared_Paid_Editor_(UPE)_product (King of Hearts—Legacypac—Pppery—TonyBallioni—Bhunacat10—Pythoncoder—Graywalls—Ivanvector—Bsherr—DGG)@Thryduulf:@SmokeyJoe:
  • Here are my further thoughts on the matter. I think this situation is analogous to WP:G5 and should be treated the same way. For articles created by banned users, the quality, notability, absence of promotionalism etc are completely irrelevant; we still delete such articles via WP:G5. In the case of WP:PAID, creating an article in violation of WP:PAID is categorically prohibited, both by the Wikipedia policy and by the WMF policy. We should not just disregard these policies and pretend that they don't exist. If we allow articles (including high quality neutrally written non-promotional articles on unambiguously notable topics) created in violation of WP:PAID's prohibition to remain, not only are we enabling rule breaking, we are also actively sabbotaging the WP:PAID policy itself and WMF's terms of use. That's why I think that such articles should be deleted. Nsk92 (talk) 10:36, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
• There are cases where we block paid editors - in that case, we've hopefully demonstrated paid editing to our level of satisfaction. It could be a legitimate way of use then, with the same exemptions as the blocked editor CSD (another significant editor etc) Nosebagbear (talk) 10:52, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Very strongly oppose adding this. If the article is not speedily deletable under an existing criterion, particularly G3, G5, G11 or A7 then it is not sufficiently problematic that we need to delete it without discussion. G5 is different because it is easy to verify whether all revisions of an article were or were not created by a given user, it is not possible to easily determine with certainty whether an editor is or is not editing for pay and, if they are, whether they have correctly disclosed (given that there are multiple ways in which disclosure is explicitly permitted and it may be retrospective).
  It is important to remember that while there is an overlap between promotional editing and undisclosed paid editing they are very far from the same thing and it is trivially easy to find examples of edits that are one but not the other, and ultimately it is promotional (and otherwise biased) editing that harms the encyclopaedia, not whether an editor was or was not paid to make that edit. Thryduulf (talk) 10:56, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Most of what you say is arguing against the WP:PAID policy itself. As long as that policy remains in effect, we should enforce it. Regarding G5: I am not suggesting creating a new CSD criterion here, just adding a reason for deletion. IMO, any deletions based on violations of WP:PAID would need to go through AfD (or XfD), and they should only occur if there is no doubt that paid editing has taken place. The Mark Boguski mentioned above is a good example. The article's creator made an exlicit acknowledgement of being a paid editor for this article, but that acknowlegement fell far short of the WP:PAID disclosure requirements. Nsk92 (talk) 11:08, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

This may be viewed as a feature or a bug, but an AfD reasoning based off that would mean that a single editor could edit it and use that as justification for its removal, even if major (but non-AfDable) issues remained. We don't want to make it non-removable during AfD (WP:HEY), but not gamable would be worthwhile. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:15, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Hmmm. I see two possible ways of handling this issue. If such an article is listed at an AfD and substantial edits to it are made during the AfD, the closing admin can perform a selective deletion (redacting out a portion of the history log) via RevDel, under item 5 of WP:CFRD, instead of deleting the article itself. If substantial edits by other editors are already present when the issue is first identified, then instead of nominating the article for an AfD the apropriate route would be to request selective deletion via WP:REVDELREQUEST, by directly contacting some admin. In both cases, using item 5 of WP:CFRD still requires invoking WP:DEL-REASON, so the latter would need to be revised first. Nsk92 (talk) 11:54, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Even for banned or blocked editors, removal is optional, not required-- see WP:BANREVERT. Even for G5, if an editor in good standing takes responsibility for it to the extent of making substantial edits, the article is not deleted by speedy, for it no longer meets G5; nor do we generally use REVDEL. but just revert. Similarly, even we used a G5-like criterion for undeclared paid editing, an editor in good standing could rescue it with substantial edits , for it would no longer be entirely written by the undeclared paid editor. Any change here would affect multiple other policies, and require a general RfC. I think it was Kudpong suggested, that the generous use of G11 will deal with most of it.

However, Thryduulf, keeping UPE does all by itself harm the encyclopedia because it encourages other paid editors. Nsk92. I do not think that failure to make the full declaration in the Boguski instance matters all that much--it was obviously made at the direction of him or his employer. The reason for the full disclosure is to help track down and discourage other paid editors--it is important, but I would be very reluctant to delete otherwise acceptable articles under it. What was necessary at Bogarski was the subsequent substantial removal of fluff by Doc James; I may do a little more myself. And, the true fundamental and fixable problem that is completely under our own control, was that the article should have been written by a volunteer editor many years ago--he was elected to the NAS back in 2001. Our failure to cover major people in major fields is one reason why people use paid editing. It would be much easier to remove the non-notable (which are generally promotional also, and often paid), if some effort were made to extend complete coverage to fields like science, not just sports. As is, medical scientists have a remarkable tendency to get articles when they found start-ups, or when their start-ups are acquired by a major company. DGG ( talk ) 13:37, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

• Advertising is already a reason to delete, even if something is notable. See WP:NOTSPAM. Focusing on the disclosure rather than the advertising confuses the issue. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:04, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
• Undisclosed paid editing is a user conduct issue, not an article content issue (particularly given that disclosed paid editing is not a violation). A block is the deterrent for undisclosed paid editing. (At least in my opinion, that deterrent is sufficient.) There is a fine line between a deterrent and a punishment (arguably there is no line, but our policies distinguish between the two). Wikipedia:Sanctions against editors should not be punitive, and deleting otherwise acceptable content solely because of a user conduct issue fails that test. Besides being punitive, all other factors being equal, an article edited by an undisclosed paid editor is indistinguishable from any other article, so, since our goal here is to build an encyclopedia, deleting otherwise acceptable content is inconsistent with that goal. I thus agree with Thryduulf. Making that point is not inconsistent with WP:PAID, which is silent (I believe, intentionally) about what, if anything, should be done with content created by undisclosed paid editors (because it is a user conduct policy, not a content policy). (Lastly, although I am critical of WP:G5 for the same reason, in the case of a user evading a block or ban, that is really the only deterrence tool left, so I see a better justification.) --Bsherr (talk) 14:28, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Sockpuppetry is also a user conduct issue and yet we delete, per WP:G5, articles created by socks of blocked users, regardless of the quality of those articles. Blocking editors for failure to properly disclose PE has been an ineffective deterrent. I have not seen any such blocks myself (if they exist, they must be really rare), but I have seen plenty of undisclosed or insufficiently disclosed paid editing. Most of paid editors operate as SPAs. They come, create a single paid article, and then disappear. Blocking them after the fact would not serve as an effective deterrent even if such blocking was done more agressively than now. Nsk92 (talk) 17:41, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Under the current policy, I believe an article is deletable if it has been created by one of the accounts in a sockfarm where one or more of the accounts have been banned. That would be deletable under article created by banned user policy. The most difficult challenge is identifying SPA and sock.Generally speaking, paid editing has become very pervasive and they're very frequently undisclosed. Paid doesn't have to mean specific payment for the specific task. Salaried external relations/public relations personnel making changes to the company's own page or on topics related to the company while on payroll is considered paid tooGraywalls (talk) 17:46, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

• Support We are generally talking about articles created by socks, but it is hard to fully verify whether or not someone is sock which makes G5 hard to actually apply. G11 is fairly subjective. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:02, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
  • G11 and G5 are a lot less subjective than almost all cases of suspected undisclosed paid editing. We should always be focused on the content and not the contributor - if you cannot tell from looking at it whether someone was paid to write it then we have absolutely no justification for deleting it for any reason that we would not use to delete text written by a volunteer. Content doesn't magically become bad just because someone we didn't like wrote it - content is good or bad because it is good or bad content, not because of who wrote it (and yes this applies equally to G5, which is a reason to reign in that not to expand the inappropriate actions to more content.). Thryduulf (talk) 16:07, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support: Any move that hampers clear paid editing including unintended (or intended) stealth support. We should never delete an article under unfounded suspicions but making it easy by 1)- you cannot undertake paid editing, 2)- There is still a better than average chance you may still get paid. Your edit may not get deleted if you are caught clearly making undisclosed paid editing, therefore you can collect. That seems to be what arguing it is a "user conduct issue, not an article content issue" advances. I also think it naive to consider someone getting paid will only create one article then leave. Why would someone "leave" if they have found a cash cow that we inadvertently support? I imagine SPA's (that only creates articles for monetary gain) visit AFD as often as anyone. Otr500 (talk) 02:17, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Blocking is not a deterrent because the cost of creating a new throw-away account is zero. -- RoySmith (talk) 00:45, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

To follow up on that, WP:NOTSPAM is an insufficient tool. What it says is, Information about companies and products must be written in an objective and unbiased style, free of puffery. So, we end up with, either through the work of the more sophisticated spammers, or via WP:BOGOF volunteers, well written spam. But it's still spam. The goal of the spammers is to get articles written for their paid clients, for SEO and/or general vanity/PR purposes. This leads to selection bias, where our content is preferentially enriched with articles about subjects who are willing to pay. We are essentially turned into a vanity press. We forbid the use of vanity presses as sources, why should we be willing to turn ourselves into one?

As it stands, the economic cost-benefit analysis to spammers is clear. If you fail to disclose, it eliminates the anti-spam bias many reviewers have. That's the benefit. I imagine some clients prefer disclosure not be made, to give the article a greater sense of veritas. The cost is zero. The worst that happens is you get caught and are forced to disclose. Being blocked is meaningless (and cost-free), since most spammers create throw-away accounts for each job.

If I was somebody making a living writing wikispam, I probably wouldn't disclose, given the current playing field. The threat of deletion is our big stick to get them to do so. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:07, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose We should be judging article content, not article editors, in my view. I have never really liked G5, which leads in some cases to deleting perfectly valid articles cereated by block-evading socks. This proposal seems worse to me. If the article complies with WP:NPOV and is properly sourced, it is a net gain to the project. If not, WP:NOTSPAM or other content policies will apply. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 15:23, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose as unworkable, and broadly detrimental, to add motherhood statements on unverifiable criteria. There needs to be an objective criteria what detection of "undeclared paid editing" before casual AfD reviewers can be asked to comment on nominations to delete on the basis of alleged UPEditing. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:32, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per DESiegel, SmokeyJoe, and others above. If taken literally and enforced across the board then this could cause unknown damage to the encyclopedia. Even though a higher level of scrutiny should definitely be focused on paid editor's creations, if a page is properly sourced, the topic is notable, and the page has or would stand the test of time (and an AfD) aside from the creator's paid status, then the paid editor's work should outlast their own stay on Wikipedia. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:32, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
• Mixed, Support for the reasoning given (we should just delete material that is basically spammed to Wikipedia). The problem is already too much that it pays to be paid for editing ... and Wikipedia is not worse if we delete articles which we were not supposed to have in the first place, and hence this / G5 can be a way to deny the editor their success. Oppose because it is difficult to objectively decide that someone is a undeclared paid editor - it may be an editor with a conflict of interest and lack of understanding, and not necessarily someone who gets paid for the material. More objective is the determination whether material is notable, and/or whether it promotional beyond repair. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:47, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Comments: My disdain for paid editing cannot, nor should not by anyone, be used to cast aspirations or fling accusations. There is a process we generally follow to ascertain if an editor is editing as paid. Surmising "IF" "COI or paid editing is involved", and using that as a rationale in AFD discussions or AFD closings when there is no proof, to me, is paramount to assuming total bad faith. If there is clear indications that an editor is paid, or very likely might be paid, then "someone" should investigate but we should never sling unfounded accusations. I recently weighed in to that effect at AFD. Money gives an unarguable edge as to reasons why we should fight spam and paid editing on Wikipedia. I am for any move that hinders COI editing but never that might support the making of false accusations. If there is clear evidence of paid editing that is an big red flag that person is not here to actually contribute to this encyclopedia and any contributions should be scrutinized very closely. I have seen cases where an article involves COI/paid editing but the subject of the article is notable.

However, one thing seems clear. It is not a bad thing to hamper paid editing. Previous attempts to add wording have apparently failed (per DGG above) because it "is not all that easy to be sure what actually consititutes paid editing.". As far as I can tell the above suggestion (adding #15) does not indicate reasoning that we should "immediately delete" said articles. 1)- We do use the rationale often associated with COI/paid editing such as Reasons for deletion (#4) of advertising and spam, 2)- Regardless of reasoning the "Reasons for deletion" center around notability and not article content. When COI/paid editing are clear then there is reason to examine good faith a little closer. Not many would agree to pay for an article to be created that is crappy or that does not paint a good picture of the subject so would be biased. This is even more important considering our BLP policies and guidelines where company heads get articles created of clearly dubious notability. If I was involved in a startup company part of the process would be "getting the company info "out there" and what better place than to spend startup capital than advertising on Wikipedia. Does that happen? Come on of course it does! Will it stop? Only if the economy crashes or we make it as hard as possible.

Adding wording that is already used will not be a detriment. If there is doubts it will be misused then add:

• 15. Articles created in clear violation of the policy on paid editing disclosures.

I do not see this as an attempt to change change the policy of "PAID" but as a reinforcement that paid editors should follow the guidelines of Wikipedia:Conflict of interest especially using AFC when there is a conflict. The reason back-door avenues are used is that money is involved (and not necessarily notability) and this mandates an article being fast-tracked. This clearly violates more than one policy and guideline so we should not make it any easier by being so vague as to indirectly support paid editing.

I am going to fight it when I see it but I leave the investigating part to editors more experienced in this area. I DO NOT and will not support false accusations or just tossing the words around to gain support at AFD or anywhere else. I would never want that to happen to me so consider that when it is being discussed. I will start warning editors that make unfounded assertions. If there is clear evidence there is possible, probable, or very likely paid editing this needs to be looked at and we have steps that can be taken. We should not unjustly attack any editor but we should not make the path to paid editing more profitable.

"IF" "creating an article in violation of WP:PAID is categorically prohibited" then how could it not be a listed reason for consideration of reasons to delete? IF valid concerns of paid editing are at issue then we should always "take a closer look. IF there is deemed notability and any editor in good standing champions the article I will immediately support a WP:Hey. I welcome anyone that can sensibly counter this. Otr500 (talk) 09:46, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

• Support: Per my comments above and those of User:Nsk92. While we don't want a confusion between plain COI, paid editing, and just a fan creating an article or someone that adds advertising content in good faith, we should not ever make it easier for this to flourish. At the least we should not be so lax that circumvention is a given. If there are clear indications of paid editing, we should at the very least acknowledge that it would be a reason for deletion. Otr500 (talk) 03:28, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Redirecting

The current wording of WP:ATD-R is:

Further information: Wikipedia:Redirect § Redirects that replace previous articles

If redirection will not leave an unsuitable trailing redirect, deletion is not required; any user can boldly blank the page and redirect it to another. If the change is disputed, an attempt should be made to reach a consensus before restoring the redirect. Suitable venues for seeking a consensus if a redirection is challenged include the article's talk page, Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion, and Wikipedia:Requests for Comment.

A few observations/suggestions:

1. There's no need to point out that any user can turn an article into a redirect: the other alternatives to deletion are also open to everyone, but this point is made only in this section. I think it can safely be left out, but if ultimately it's judged that an explicit mention is needed, then it should be added at the top of the "Alternatives to deletion" section, not here.

2. WP:BLANKANDREDIRECT is linked both in the "Further information" hatnote and in the first sentence of the text. I believe only one link is enough.

3. I think the part about unsuitability of the redirect should be unpacked a little bit and linked to a page that explains which redirects are unsuitable.

4. I don't think we should encourage the use of WP:RFC straight away as a means of challenging a bold redirect. Sure, this is available as an option, but only after informal discussions have proved unsuccessful.

In light of the above, I'm proposing the following text for this section:

A page can be blanked and redirected if there is a suitable page to redirect to, and if the resulting redirect is not inappropriate. If the change is disputed, an attempt should be made to reach a consensus before restoring the redirect. Suitable venues for seeking a consensus if a redirection is challenged include the article's talk page and Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion.

5. More tentatively, I'm also proposing to rename the section from "Redirection" to "Redirecting". I've been participating at redirect-related venues for years, and the first term strikes me as odd. At the very least, it's not as commonly used: WP:Redirect has no mentions of "redirection" in the text, but it has eight instances of "redirecting" used as a noun for the action of creating a redirect. Is there any reason for preferring "redirection"? – Uanfala (talk) 23:16, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

• If there are no objections in another week or two, I'll be implementing the proposed change. – Uanfala (talk) 15:38, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

PERMADEL

Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Archiving is a brief section with the following content:

Deletion should not be used for archiving a page. The developers have indicated that the deleted pages can be cleared or removed from the database at any time.

The first sentence is alright, but the second one could raise some eyebrows. I've asked about it at the village pump, and from the two responses given there I'm left with the impression it is not particularly germane any more. I'm proposing that the second sentence be removed, along with the shortcut, so that the section would look like this:

Deletion should not be used for archiving a page.

– Uanfala (talk) 22:27, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 February 2020

I request the deletion of my edits from wikipedia and delete my ip address account on here 71.241.214.63 (talk) 18:55, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

That is neither an edit request nor possible. Sandstein 19:31, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Proposed clarification of policy - biographies of children who are now adults

I believe the deletion policy should be clearer on a particular point. If a person became notable as a child, are now a relatively unknown, non-public figure, and as an adult request deletion, it should happen (given consensus, of course). However, an important part of this is that the now adult should not have to become an editor to do so, and if they want to remain anonymous, they should be able to do so. Privacy is a human right, and we should not make the subject surrender it now, because someone made a decision for them as a child.

If there is something of a consensus on this, Ill go ahead and draw up an actual edit we can discuss. Rklahn (talk) 23:44, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

The silence is notable. Im going to close this discussion by archiving it. Rklahn (talk) 15:24, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Draft snowballs

Draft:Adith Saji has as its body:

content redacted

It is cited only to the subject's own website.

It has the proverbial snowball's chance of being published. But I can't PROD it, and it doesn't seem to meet CSD. How can it be got rid of, in order that it wastes no further editor time? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:18, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Honestly it should be deleted as a matter of privacy since (Redacted). Praxidicae (talk) 19:19, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Good point, but what if it were not? AfD seems overkill. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:21, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Let it die the normal slow g13 death. There's no harm in it existing in draft space (in the theoretical situation, the PII of minors is harmful.) Praxidicae (talk) 19:23, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

I am across the article because it was in an error-tracking category; that wasted my time. "No harm" is thus false. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:48, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

I think the implication is that "a draft that is not worth keeping, but does not meet the CSD criteria for deletion" is not harming anyone if it sits around for six months. Obviously if it's in an error-tracking category, fix the issue(s) to get it out. Primefac (talk) 20:21, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Without commenting directly on the content of this specific draft:

• If it's suppressible information, email the oversight team.
• If it's an attack page, nominate as G10. If there's just a little bit, remove and email Oversight for revdel.
• If it's neither of the above, do what Prax suggests and just let it die a natural G13 death.

Nothing wrong with having garbage in the draft space, it's kind of why it exists. Primefac (talk) 19:29, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Nomination for requested deletion

Hi, I've recently listed the article Album of the Year (website) for requested deletion. Although my original edit contained a fairly detailed explanation of my concerns, the text did not come through with the addition, for some reason. I've since added my reasoning again but this has resulted in the text appearing in triplicate – at least from what I'm seeing on screen. If anyone knows how to fix this error, or can suggest another page to visit, I'd be much obliged; totally inexperienced with this procedure and the template(s) ... Many thanks, JG66 (talk) 13:28, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Problem with prose

Primefac, a rule of thumb: if someone goes to the trouble to indicate prose is unclear, it's probably unclear. And they might not be able to articulate exactly why it is unclear because, well, it is unclear and incomprehensible to them. I had to draw a flow/logic chart to try to grok that paragraph and couldn't. In the sentence "where the subject has requested deletion and there is no rough consensus" it's reasonable to read that as "no rough consensus to delete." If it means either way, you could edit in either way (instead of reverting) and specify whether it's conjunctive or disjunctive, but it still doesn't make sense to me. Additionally, it has the typical problems of passivity (it's not clear who is "closing" and/or deleting) and jargon ("PROD").

If you can clearly specify it here, I'll help with the prose (once I understand what is being said). Or, if you want to specify cases, that'll work too. -Reagle (talk) 14:01, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

That's fair enough, and apologies if I seemed like I was just brushing you off. Obviously what's clear to one person (i.e. me) is not necessarily clear to another (i.e. you). To me "no consensus" means that there isn't any clear "result", so it doesn't matter if the intention was to keep or delete there was no agreement to do either. However, parsing (and re-parsing) that sentence, it doesn't really make any sense to refer to any sort of "no consensus"; if anything, it should say "no clear consensus to keep" because of the three options (keep, delete, or no consensus) only "keep" would result in the article being kept (a "no consensus" in this case would default to delete if the subject has requested it). Primefac (talk) 02:56, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the response, I've tweaked the prose a bit to follow this. I think clarity could be improved if you wrote the three conditions as bullets with similar grammatical structure here. For example:

• • Delete IF biography is poorly sourced, AND of non-public figure, AND no consensus to keep.
  • Delete IF subject requests deletion AND non-public figure AND no consensus to keep. [If the first bullet is true, what does it matter if the subject requests or not?]
  • Delete IF ... -Reagle (talk) 18:40, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

    Or... just stick with "if there is no clear consensus to keep", which fits all of those bullet points. Primefac (talk) 16:03, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of biographies of living people

Although this section provides a link to the full WP:BLPPROD policy, the wording given here fails to make it clear that only completely unsourced BLPs are eligible for the tag, and can give the false impression that it can apply to any BLP without a reliable source. How should this be addressed? I'm not sure that I ought to go boldly editing a policy like this, even though it's contradictory. Adam9007 (talk) 03:39, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Good catch. Updated. Primefac (talk) 13:20, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

It's a disaster to remove a template.

TemplateːSundanese-stub If you do not accept page deletion, please do it better. Two edtors were so helpful to restore the trash. Xx236 (talk) 13:44, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Xx236, I'm not entirely sure what your intentions are with this template, but please follow the instructions at WP:TFDHOWTO to properly nominate the template for deletion. Primefac (talk) 13:49, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Discussion on proposed bot for restoring redirects to undeleted pages

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Bot requests § Restoring redirects to recreated pages. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:02, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Blank and Redir comment

I recently found a stub I had written on the semiconductor industry had been removed and redirected to a page on orthodontia. The checkin note claimed this was due to it being "unsourced pr gibberish". When I pointed out my concerns, another editor noted that B&R is perfectly acceptable and that there is no need to inform anyone of this action.

It's that last bit that I am here to discuss. "unsourced pr gibberish" is exactly the sort of thing we created PROD and CSD to address. This is intended to be light-weight process but still give the involved editors a chance to protest or correct any noted problems and the wider community a chance to comment on the validity of the action. I believe this duty-to-inform is a core concept in deletion policy as a whole.

In the case of B&R, the end result as seen by the content editor is the same; their content disappears. It might be uncontroversial, like two pages being substantially the same. But this is not what I am seeing in these examples. It appears we are giving editors an "out" from the policies we enshrine: to avoid "more bureaucratic actions", one simply uses B&R instead of PROD and the content disappears without telling anyone.

At a minimum, I believe the language here and on the redirect page should clearly state that B&R should be used in uncontroversial cases, where the target of the redir is substantially the same topic. One should not use B&R when the topic of the R is unrelated.

I believe the language should also clearly state that if the problem is with the content, like "unsourced pr gibberish", then that is a matter for PROD or AfD, not B&R. We have two different systems because they are solving two different problems.

Beyond that, I see no reason why we should not have a duty-to-inform in the case of B&R. Is it really too much to ask to place a note on the editor's talk page?

Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:12, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Redirection is to be preferred over deletion because any editor can revert it, as you have done. In this case it seems that User:Praxidicae redirected to what she thought was the most likely article that someone looking for "Aligner" would want, even though it is unrelated to the article that you wrote. She may have been mistaken in that thought, but I'm sure it was genuinely held. I'm no great fan of all of this notification that we have these days, where most notifications seem to be for utterly trivial matters. My answer to that issue would be that you should use your watchlist, but in the march of Wikipedia to emulate social media sites editors seem to want to be notified about everything, so maybe we should codify such a "duty-to-inform in the case of B&R", but the discussion doesn't belong here because this is not deletion. Phil Bridger (talk) 14:58, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

I believe notifying creators when blanking and redirecting is just as appropriate as when proposing deletion. Also, this is is the correct place to discuss that, as blank-and-redirect (WP:ATD-R) is part of the deletion policy, and we are on its talk page. – Uanfala (talk) 15:14, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Just for clarity, Phil, may I read your comment to boil down to "(weak) support, with reservations"? I will push back on the "any editor can revert it", however, as you can see on my talk page the process can be very confusing for editors - well, this is the Wiki, I think that can be said about most everything! Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:45, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Notifications would have to done manually as automated tools always go for the first revision which would not have been MM in this case but the editor who first created the redirect; and the redirect target was not chosen during BLAR, it was simply restored to how it was created by a third party. I would oppose making notification a requirement as most of the time it is done to enforce AFD decisions that are being deliberately ignored, or to revert persistent expansion of redirects by spammers and socks against consensus. And there is little use to notifying inactive, retired and blocked editors. If an article is so poor as to require BLAR and it is not being watched closely enough for the BLAR to go completely missed, that would indicated the BLAR was most likely correct. I don't think we should be creating new rules to cover rare contingencies. Regards! Usedtobecool ☎️ 15:55, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

I will say this though: it was clearly not unsourced, and in my opinion, neither PR nor gibberish. Usedtobecool ☎️ 16:33, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

My argument is basically this: BLAR (I like that...) as seen by the content editor has a substantially similar end-result to PROD. As such, I see no reason it should not have the same basic requirements. Your argument (salad) does not actually address this - everything you say about BLAR could equally be said of PROD. So please be clear: do you argue for the removal of a duty-to-notify on PROD? If not, can present an argument to present as to why the two are fundamentally different? Maury Markowitz (talk) 13:29, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Um... they're fundamentally different because PROD results in the deletion of a page, while B&R still maintains the history in a live article. Thus, a page deleted via PROD needs to go through a REFUND request, whereas the edit creating a redirect can simply be undone. Really, the only similarity between the two is "the content is no longer visible on the live page". Primefac (talk) 13:37, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

"the only similarity between the two is "the content is no longer visible on the live page"." - which is the definition of fundamentally similar I would posit. You're saying they're different because of something that is invisible to the user, especially to new users who are baffled by what to do in this situation. This fact that is illustrated on my talk page. Do you really believe giving them instructions is too much to ask? Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:06, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

The difference is not invisible: the links are literally different colours; ʻOlu Pua Botanical Garden and Plantation is red, Filkers is blue, with the latter a similar situation to your Aligner page of someone saying "not worth an article, redirect to a reasonable target". Any editor can see (and restore) the latter content, only admins can see the former.

I see nothing wrong with giving people instruction, or helping them when they have questions. Your initial post is asking whether we should mandate notifying editors of any blanking edits, which I disagree with. If someone's confused, then by all means we should help them understand. Primefac (talk) 15:39, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Slight wording change

The first sentence of the section on incubation is really awkward to read since it has so many clauses and 4 commas, and I don't see why we need the namespace on the drafts link. I propose changing

If recently created, articles that have potential, but that do not yet meet Wikipedia's quality standards, may be moved to the Wikipedia:Drafts namespace, where they may continue to be collaboratively edited before either "graduating" to mainspace or ultimately being deleted.

to

Recently created articles that have potential, but that do not yet meet Wikipedia's quality standards, may be moved to the draft namespace, where they can continue to be collaboratively edited before either "graduating" to mainspace or ultimately being deleted.

It's a minor change, but I think it's more readable. 192.76.8.74 (talk) 18:01, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Since no one has objected to this proposed change, would someone please implement it? 192.76.8.80 (talk) 16:48, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

 Done ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:57, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

@ScottishFinnishRadish: Thanks, could you link "draft" to Wikipedia:Drafts as in the text above? 192.76.8.80 (talk) 18:01, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

All set. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:04, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Can stopping regular PROD, or causing a deletion discussion prevent BLP- PROD

I don’t know what the answer is to this question is, so we’ll make it. 98.22.242.247 (talk) 23:17, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

You may want to read through the full policy on BLPPROD. In this case, that is made very clear by a note at the top: Note: BLP articles may still be nominated for standard PROD if they do not meet BLPPROD criteria, or even if an article has previously been flagged for BLPPROD and declined. The same is true in reverse—a declined standard PROD does not prevent BLPPROD. BLPPROD is a separate process from standard PROD, with different criteria and rules, so having been nominated for one does not affect the other at all. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 23:23, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

If the article has already been sent to AfD then tagging for BLP PROD is a bit pointless, if you leave a note at the AfD pointing out that it's a completely unsourced BLP then the closer will pretty much have to close the discussion as Delete if sources aren't added. BLP PROD and AfD have the same lengths, so the article won't get deleted any more quickly. Hut 8.5 12:33, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Need high-level review around Orangemoody-type situation

• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Naveen_Jain
• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Naveen_Jain_(2nd_nomination)
• Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2022_February_24
• Draft:Naveen_Jain
• Talk:Naveen Jain/GA1
• WP:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_21#Naveen_Jain
• WP:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_46#Naveen_Jain
• WP:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_67#COI_editing_at_Naveen_Jain_yet_again
• WP:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_82#Sleep_Country_USA
• WP:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_128#Just_odd
• Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/Archive264#Naveen_Jain

An article that was well-referenced and heavily reviewed was deleted after a bunch of SPA accounts wrote an Afd based upon the 2010 Afd that had been withdrawn when it was clear the subject was notable many times over. The article has had an extremely high level of COI and UPE activity. It's now been recreated in a whitewashed form by a new SPA.

Can the old article be undeleted so good faith examinations of the situation can be done? Should a SPI be done against all the recent SPAs? --Hipal (talk) 17:18, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

The place to review deletion is known (surprise, surprise) as Wikipedia:Deletion review. There is an ongoing discussion there in which you have taken part, and looks at the moment as if it's heading for an overturn. Why on Earth are you posting this here rather than there? Phil Bridger (talk) 17:45, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

The issues are larger than a deletion review. I'll probably write something up at COIN at some point. The abuse of deletion process needs to be taken to a higher level than the single review too. --Hipal (talk) 17:55, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

There are no larger issues. Drive-by SPAs happen all the time and admins are well aware to ignore them. There's absolutely nothing special about this case that makes it different from every other AFD that gets closed by how someone doesn't want it to. WP:DR is the correct venue. --Jayron32 18:30, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. Much appreciated. I'll search for somewhere to get the SPA/COI/puppetry issues addressed, probably starting at COIN.

The abuse of deletion process is very concerning to me, and if this is a regular problem, then perhaps policy should be bolstered. I see at the DRV that they're suggesting protection of the next AfD discussion, which is a very good solution for this specific instance. For general situations, I think we should have some policy on having very strong burden of evidence for deletion when an article is well-established. --Hipal (talk) 18:58, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

<Sigh>. There was a confirmed admin who closed the discussion. It isn't possible to "abuse the deletion process", where an experienced and confirmed admin has properly reviewed the discussion (including, as we are all supposed to do, giving no weight to comments from driveby SPAs or other clear attempts at votestacking, etc.) That does not mean that the admin closed the discussion correctly (and my saying that doesn't mean I believe they didn't close it correctly. I hold no opinion on the matter). But if the admin didn't close it correctly, DR is perfectly designed to handle it. If other matters need to be dealt with (via COIN or SPI), then those processes exist too. But, if it is working correctly, AFD cannot be "abused", and if it is not working correctly, it is not because of "abuse", but rather because the closer of the discussion screwed up (which happens) and WP:DR is where you get that fixed. --Jayron32 19:04, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

It's best for this encyclopedia to have policies that make it difficult to delete well-established articles. --Hipal (talk) 19:20, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

If you wish to modify the deletion policy, WP:VPP is the venue to propose changes to policy. I suspect any changes that make it more difficult to delete articles based on any sort of time-based requirements is likely to be highly opposed by the community, but I've been wrong before, and you're free to propose a change to the policy and see what the community thinks. --Jayron32 19:51, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Time couldn't be the main criteria. Quality could be. Adherence to current content policy too. We don't want it easy for a few SPA accounts undoing years of work, nor using deletion as a means of working around content policy. --Hipal (talk) 20:17, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

It isn't easy for SPA accounts to undo years of work. You've found 1 case of it happening. That's such a small percentage of articles at Wikipedia that it doesn't bear changing policy about. Also, it's about to be fixed in short order, given the WP:DR discussion that is ongoing... so you'll soon have zero cases where it happened. Creating new policy to fix a problem that happened once (or actually never happened which is about to be the case) is not a good idea. --Jayron32 20:22, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

I would argue that it happened, and was undone, which is different than it never happening, but also shows that our processes work (i.e. incorrect actions are reversed). Primefac (talk) 20:23, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Lots of things happen. Wikipedia is a huge place. You can't stop things from happening, no matter how undesirable. We have processes in place to fix them, but the OP is trying to rewrite huge swathes of deletion policy because their one pet article got deleted improperly. That's not how we do things. Have the wider view. Just because one weird thing happened to you one time doesn't mean it could have been stopped if only we had better policies. Weird things can't be stopped by policy. --Jayron32 20:27, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Never said I disagreed with you, just nitpicking your wording choice. Primefac (talk) 20:38, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Jayron32, best not avoid summarizing others' perspectives so it doesn't appear you are misrepresenting them. I'm being extremely cautious here. We're here to write an encyclopedia. It should be easy to write quality content, and hard to remove it. --Hipal (talk) 20:53, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is disagreeing with you on that particular point, they're just disagreeing where we stand on that front (you think we need to do more, others do not). Primefac (talk) 07:26, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

I apologize for misrepresenting your view. You said, and I quote, "It's best for this encyclopedia to have policies that make it difficult to delete well-established articles." We already do. See WP:AFD. --Jayron32 12:12, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

And if a mistake is made closing an WP:AFD discussion it can be fixed at WP:DRV. Are you suggesting any change to the deletion policy which already has these checks and balances? If not then this should be closed as being at the wrong venue, and the normal processes be allowed to work. Phil Bridger (talk) 14:18, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I'm looking to bolster the deletion policy, if this Naveen Jain situation is at all indicative of current problems. Perhaps it isn't, even though similar problems have been going on for a long time, as the Orangemoody case demonstrates.

Given the volunteer nature of this Wikipedia, we should help editors working to improve the encyclopedia, and make it difficult for editors to undo quality work. Because of Wikipedia's success, there are sometimes very strong financial incentives for editors to change or undo quality volunteer work, and our volunteers can easily be overwhelmed by concerted efforts. The Naveen Jain article has been a long-running example of such concerted efforts. --Hipal (talk) 17:10, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

I expect there have been past discussions to bolster AfD previously. I hope others will point them out, and I'll start looking for them. I'd hoped that the large-scale UPE cases, like Orangemoody, would have had more impact on our deletion processes. --Hipal (talk) 17:11, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

• Hard cases make bad law. It is not " at all indicative of current problems" It's an outlier, and we don't write new policy to deal with unpredictable outliers, because no policy would have prevented this. --Jayron32 17:30, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

It's a hard case, but seems rather essential for the well-being of this encyclopedia. Articles for creation was bolstered. As was COI and UPE enforcement. As I said, I'll be careful and look for past discussions. --Hipal (talk) 18:25, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

• I don't see much point in discussing this while the DR is still going on (at WP:Deletion review/Log/2022 February 24#Naveen Jain and not leaning towards Endorse), but now that the article has been undeleted, I'm puzzled at how anyone could argue Delete with a straight face, let alone that the closer wouldn't compare the keep/delete arguments to policy, rather count votes (especially with the low edit counts, and clear confusion on the process). I guess we are discussing sysop User:Doczilla here, so only right we ping him. Nfitz (talk) 21:52, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Gadget for mass AfDs?

Is there a gadget that makes mass AfDs simpler (if I want to nominate several very similar articles at once)? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:47, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

I think this should be discouraged, as such nominations are disruptive, and cannot be assessed individually if there are a lot. AWB would be capable of tagging a set of articles. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:51, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

I've seen plenty of mass-noms of nearly-identical pages get successfully closed as deleted; of course discretion is advised, but I don't think we should be discouraging it. Primefac (talk) 12:59, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

As mentioned, AWB is about the only way to mass-nominate pages; it's a bit of a faff but it's all we have at the moment. Primefac (talk) 12:59, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Hatnote

Do not edit war on a policy page. Please come use the talk page to come to a consensus as to what the hatnote should read, FAdesdae378 & Praxidicae. Protonk (talk) 21:24, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

No one has edited since their last revert which was adequately explained, so no need to ping us. PRAXIDICAE🌈 21:28, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Feel free to not do it all the same. Protonk (talk) 21:50, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Merging without consultation at intended target should not happen

In a 'normal' merge process, that does not come about in a deletion discussion, we are told (WP:Merge), " No permission or discussion is needed if you think the merge is uncontroversial; just do it (but it might get reverted). Otherwise, the merge should be first proposed and discussed, as detailed below." When a merger arises in an AfD discussion,it is, by definition controversial: at a minimum, one person has thought an article should exist in its own right to the extent that they have created it, and one has thought the content is unworthy of inclusion in Wikipedia with sufficient determination to create a deletion process.

In which case, why does the process ignore an important part of the WP:MERGE procedure, ie notifcation to the target page. It seems quite unreasonable for editors who have had no involvement in, and may have never even read, article [[Foo]] to determine that information in article [[Bar]] should be included in it, with no regard to whether that is proportionate in [[Foo]]. It may well be that the treatment of Bar within the Foo article is already at a level of detail which is proportionate and has been reached by consensus.

At present, the only suggestion of talk at the target is in the templates Afd-merge to and Afd-merge from, which only appear after the decision for close as merge has been made. Thus a page gets an out of the blue message mandating change to it with no inclusion in prior discussion: people with no interest in a page issuing instructions about its content.

I wonder, therefore, whether there should not be an expectation (I would prefer a requirement) that proposal of merge as an alternative in a deletion discussion is accompanied by posting a template similar to Merge from (maybe Merge-from-afd), with direction to the deletion discussion. I would propose further that an AfD should not be closed as a merge unless the notification has been posted to the target for at least half of the time since merge was first proposed.

This would avoid a particularly egregious form of forked discussion, a breach of the expectations of normal merge procedure, and a more constructive discussion about whether merger is appropriate. I suspect that it is very common that those proposing or supporting merger never visit the target's talk page to argue for what it is they thought was worth preserving and iincorporating. It would also make the merge decision stronger, as there will be editors at the target page invested in the inclusion of information from the article and who have been party to the discussion that gave consensus for that change, rather than the merger instruction reaching a page unexpectedly and where there is noone interested in making that inclusion or believing that it is appropriate.

I see this as testing the waters before a formal proposal: if similar has been proposed and discussed before, it would be good to be directed to it (I had a quick search of the talk archive with the search term 'merge' and saw nothing).

Thoughts? Kevin McE (talk) 12:40, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

So after 6 months of zero response to this suggested, and with the help of WP:Requested Templates and especially @VanIsaac, I have started putting templates on target pages, and notifications of that fact on AfD discussions.

There has been positive feedback, although some of these early cases, because there was sometimes several days between the merge proposal and the tagging, were not ideal applications of the idea. That should not remain the case: my idea is that proposing merge within Afd, as elsewhere, brings the obligation to post a template (Template:Merge from AfD) on the intended target. If the notification template (Template:Merge AfD note) is also used, it will be clear to others at the AfD whether this has been done or not, and another can do it if necessary.

There are some issues: when an AfD is relisted, the date in Template:Merge from AfD will need to be changed so that it links to the discussion properly, and closure of the AfD for any reason other than merger will require a visit to the proposed target page as the template will then be redundant, but I do not see these as excessively onerous matters that cannot become a routine part of such procedures.

As to whether it delays the conclusion of an AfD discussion, I would suggest that if the decision is not going to be merge, then the potential objections of those interested in the target page are irrelevant: eventually, I would hope for a requirement of a minimum time between notification to the talk page and a merge decision, if that is the conclusion that will be drawn: in the meantime, all the notification template suggests is that it "may need to be extended".

And although there are additional tasks, I believe that the principal in question (that a page's users should not be told out of the blue that that page is mandated to receive merged material that might be disproportionate or inappropriate) is important enough to justify a small extra task. Kevin McE (talk) 18:12, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

If your thought is "TLDR"

• As per WP:MERGE, the target page should be notified when merger is proposed: Template:Merge from AfD has been created for that purpose.
• The fact of this notification should be published on the AfD discussion: Template:Merge AfD note has been created.
• AfDs should not be closed with a decision of merge unless there has been a minimum period of such notification being made. Kevin McE (talk) 18:48, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Comments on above pre-proposal

• Note. Editors may wish to read the related conversation at User talk:Kevin McE#Merge proposal at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs recorded by Armaan Malik which describes problems arising from the recent use of these templates at AFD discussions.4meter4 (talk) 19:54, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

  I have already explained to 4meter4 more than once that that was specific to applying the templates in bulk, and should not be an issue if the proposal that it be a requirement of proposing a merger becomes the norm. Kevin McE (talk) 21:43, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

I disagree. I think this is likely to remain a recurring problem unless we craft policies to prevent it. Without guidelines, editors will be placing the template Willy nilly with potentially negative consequences at AFD.4meter4 (talk) 07:21, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

That is the whole point of this discussion: to, as you put it well, craft the policies that will make merge decisions through AfD more likely be acceptable to interested editors at the target page, a consideration that I believe AfD has previously lacked. Kevin McE (talk) 07:39, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, we are both in agreement on that point. I only linked this so we could consider how to use the template in a way that is helpful and not disruptive. It seemed relevant to see an example of a disruptive use of the template, so that we might consider guidelines on how to avoid a re-occurrence of this kind. I am in support of the template, but I do think we should have guidelines in place directing its use. Best.4meter4 (talk) 07:45, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

• Request input from admins at AFD. Pinging LibStar, Ritchie333, Explicit, Liz, Guerillero, Doczilla, RL0919 (feel free to add any others that I may have missed)
• Comment. I agree that notifications are probably a good thing in instances where articles are likely to be merged as an alternative to deletion. However, I think there should be some limits placed on the use of these templates. I think it should only be placed when three or more editors have argued a merge, and if those arguments represent a likely outcome of merge (meaning that if there is an obvious strong consensus out weighing the merge arguments for keep or deletion the templates should not be placed because they are overly disruptive). Further, I think there should be limits as to the time of a merge argument and the placement of a merge notification. If an AFD has been re-listed already and merge is not the current cconsensus, I don't think the templates should be placed because again they are disruptive to AFD and our purpose isn't to act as a proxy for WP:MERGE. In short, these templates should only be applied when consensus is building towards merge as the likely outcome. Then use the templates to notify with an automatic relist to give time for comment seems reasonable. That could be a requirement of a merge close, to place a notification on relevant articles and relist one time before closing. That should probably only be done by admins at AFD who take care of relist maintenance, and not by just anyone. 4meter4 (talk) 19:07, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

  Disagree about it being only at some uncertain threshold where merge is considered likely: in a non-AfD merge proposal there is no such limitation, and it it the mere fact of proposal that demands notification.

  I have already acknowledged that in these recent early roll-out there have been some where the timing was not ideal, but that should be a purely temporary state of affairs. If there is any grey area as to whether the templates should be posted, such delay and the appearance of a template in an otherwise near-completed debate is more likely.

  There is no need for delay in concluding the AfD discussion if the consensus is not for merger, so it is not disruptive. Perhaps the text of Template:Merge AfD note needs to clarify that.

  The AfD procedure has long since positioned itself precisely as a proxy to WP:MERGE: a place where consensus to merge articles can be sought. But while exempting itself from the normal requirements of MERGE. Kevin McE (talk) 20:28, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

• No AFD is not a proxy for WP:MERGE no matter how much you say it is. AFD is concerned with notability and not necessarily with content organization which is a major editorial concern in merge discussions. It's often a far better practice to delay a merge discussion until after an AFD closes (particularly if it is a keep consensus), and in that way a merge discussion can happen without the threat of deletion. My concern here, is that this seems to be an attempt to further merge the two processes, which are distinct processes with different goals, in a way that is not beneficial to WP:AFD or WP:MERGE. We only use merge as an WP:ATD not as an alternative to keep. My biggest concern is how this will impact keep opinions/ consensus when there are a few nominal merge voters. It really doesn't seem like a good thing for the articles and AFD and merge processes, which often work better when separated.4meter4 (talk) 20:49, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by "no matter how much you say it is": I have said it precisely once. All I mean is that it is a means whereby merger is mandated.

At AfD there are a number of possible, non-compatible outcomes: any outcome is an alternative to all of the others.

I simply see no way in which it is proper for a consensus for merge can be reached here without reference to the target page, when it would (quite properly) not be allowed at WP:MERGE. Kevin McE (talk) 21:24, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

• Comment. The template itself seems great, and thank you for making it happen. But I am concerned that (whether under the original proposal or the suggestion above that only relisters should be using it), this creates an additional hurdle to merging. In principle, merging should be the preferred outcome for any AFD based solely on WP:N, since notability is about whether encyclopedic information should be contained in a standalone article, not whether it should exist at all. There are already a lot of practical barriers to non-delete outcomes on AFD (many of which arise from the ineluctable fact that deletion space will tend to attract people who like deleting stuff). So I have an unpleasant suspicion that if this template draws more topic editors into AFD (a good thing!), closers will mysteriously give much more weight to those editors' reasoned arguments against merging than their equally reasoned arguments against deletion. At any rate, adding a new procedural hurdle to non-deletion, even a small one, doesn't seem like a good idea. -- Visviva (talk) 19:57, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

@ Visviva The only reason I gave that opinion is because there has already been multiple issues impacting AFD closings by the use of these templates by Kevin McE. In one case a merge template was placed when an overwhelming keep consensus with large participation was about to close in a conversation that was already weeks old. It was a highly inappropriate use of the template, particularly when keep was the majority consensus with a strong policy backed argument. WP:ATD isn’t the best outcome if “keep” is the outcome. In this case the template was a barrier to a keep close. See the linked discussion in the note above. 4meter4 (talk) 20:00, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

I understand what you (@Visviva) mean about merge being a preferred outcome, but I also suspect that it is often the easiest to propose and the least popular outside the AfD discussion.

Picture the scenario I hope to avoid that I suspect is a parallel to many AfDs: a resident of Bigtown thinks his part of town, Littleboro, deserves an article and writes one; it is not thought deserving of an article to itself by someone who sends it to AfD. Someone drifting through AfDs thinks "That's part of Bigtown, stick it in there" and proposes merge, others concur. So a message (Template:Afd-merge from) is sent to Talk:Bigtown, after the AfD closes, instructing them to incorporate some material on Littleboro, whereas in fact there is already mention of Littleboro at that article that is proportionate to the treatment of the other suburbs, Riverside, Hilltop, Halfwayupaslope and Mediumboro. This requirement is placed upon them, while those who !voted the merger at AfD move on, without any co-operation in enacting or clarifying what they have demanded at the target article. Poorly researched merges simply become vague instructions to unbalance a well proportioned article (sometimes, obviously not in all cases).

That apart, it is not very arduous, I believe, and discouraging the lazy merge proposal is not necessarily a bad thing. But my example above is not the only type of merge, and if there is enthusiasm for it from the regulars at the target article, then consensus for the "preferred outcome" will emerge rapidly and there can be real confidence in it being embraced. Kevin McE (talk) 21:13, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Attack on deletion practices from the real world

The Bruce Faulconer article and its deletion were the subject of an article by Ted Gioia, "How a Prominent Composer Lost His Wikipedia Page—and Got Entangled in Kafkaesque Nightmare Trying to Get it Back: Bruce Faulconer deserves better, but the system seems rigged against him."

"What justification was given for its removal? When a troll demanded that he have an entry in the Grove Dictionary of Music (run by Oxford University Press), you begin to understand the biases they hold.

I can say this with some authority, because I’ve been a Grove contributor, and have published 8 music books with Oxford University Press—I love these institutions, but they are not authoritative guides for new and alternative media such as anime soundtracks. Wikipedia should know better.

And, of course, they do know better. Thousands of prominent musicians have Wikipedia entries without getting into Grove."

...

"I’d love to rectify this, but I can’t find any way of adding citations to a deleted article. I think this is called a Catch-22.

Which leads to an even bigger problem: There’s no fair and transparent appeal process at Wikipedia.

When I tried to find one, it took hours of fruitless inquiry. Many people told me that there was no process, and had painful stories to back up their claim. But, finally, I was directed to a page with instructions on the computer code templates that must be used when dealing with deleted pages.

I wish Kafka were alive to see this.

...

"I raise this not just to get fair treatment for one composer, but also because this situation is emblematic of a systemic failing among older web platforms. Websites that were launched with the goal of serving users have gradually turned into petty fiefdoms. Operations that were once open-sourced and community minded, become inside jobs and close-minded. There’s no accountability to anyone outside the system, and the appeal process is deliberately made opaque and unresponsive to complaints."

​ —  AjaxSmack  20:43, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

An unfortunate aspect that is difficult to avoid is that editing beyond the main space of WP does frequently require some understanding of markup and computer languages (like the DRV example here). While we can make wizards to try to simplify these better, those wizards also open the system to abuse. Masem (t) 20:54, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Why should we take any notice of what Ted Gioia says about the issue on his own web site? Phil Bridger (talk) 22:02, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Article re-created in mainspace after AfD consensus of "draftify"

This is has come up on occasion during NPP and I'm not 100% sure of the procedure. Basically, an article is taken to AfD, and the consensus is draftify. The closing admin moves the article to draftspace and deletes the resulting redirect as per R2. So far, so good. But then the original editor re-creates the identical article and makes no changes to the draft.

What is to be done with the newly re-created article?

• G4 doesn't apply, as G4 specifically excludes articles moved to draftspace for improvement. Also, arguably the article was not deleted as per the AfD. It was noted for improvement in draftspace, and the redirect was deleted per R2.
• Is it PROD? But the article was previously discussed at an AfD, so arguably PROD doesn't apply.
• Does that leave just another AfD? But literally the consensus as already determined at a recent AfD to drafity the article and we can see just comparing the draft and newly-recreated article that they are identical. It would put procedure over substance to go to another AfD in such a short time-frame (sometimes even a day after the last AfD closed).

So I'm actually at a loss of what to do in these situations. Fortunately, it doesn't come up too often. But it does come up on occasions, resulting in a smorgasbord of CSD tags, PROD tags, and Notability tags, with no one knowing exactly what the right procedure is. Singularity42 (talk) 17:07, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

WP:G4 does qualify, actually; the caveat for draftification is in regards to WP:NPR and similar, whereby the page is not suitable for inclusion so someone unilaterally moves it to the draft space for improvement. If an AFD says "draftify" and an identical copy is placed right after that, then "draftify" is still the outcome and a G4 deletion is the same thing as moving the new page to draft (since they are identical). Primefac (talk) 17:21, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Maybe WP:G4 needs an update or clarification? Right now, the policy states "It excludes pages that are not substantially identical to the deleted version, pages to which the reason for the deletion no longer applies, and content that has been moved to user space or converted to a draft for explicit improvement (but not simply to circumvent Wikipedia's deletion policy)" (my bold emphasis added). I would support such a clarification (as I think G4 should include this situation. Singularity42 (talk) 17:26, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

• As you described it, the intent of the AfD is that the article doesn't belong in mainspace in its current form. If somebody recreated it identical to what was draftified, that's clearly disregarding the intent of the AfD. I would just delete it under G4 and not worry about it. If somebody objects, point them to WP:IAR, which exists for exactly this purpose: to clarify that it's more important to do the right thing than to wiki-lawyer about how some rule doesn't apply because we can't cover every remote possible eventuality in writing. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:46, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
• I agree this should be deleted under G4, provided it hasn't been significantly improved compared to the draftified version. This is common sense. The bit in G4 about excluding articles moved to draftspace for improvement means that if an article is deleted at AfD and subsequently draftified then you can't delete the draft under G4, that doesn't apply here. Hut 8.5 18:33, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

  I agree with Hut 8.5 - what is being excluded from G4 is the draft, not a recreation in article space. The recreation can be deleted under G4 (assuming that it is substantially identical to the version that was draftified). IAR can never justify a speedy deletion because IAR is only for actions that uncontroversially improve the encyclopaedia, the only times where deletion without explicit consensus is uncontroversial are the CSD criteria. Thryduulf (talk) 22:09, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

  The point of my IAR comment was to listen to what is obviously the intent of the rule, and don't paint yourself into a corner because the letter of the rule doesn't quite say what it's obviously intended to say. As Hut says above, the intent is that the draft is ineligible. The rule doesn't come out and say that, but it's what everybody understands was intended. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:38, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

  Speedy deletion is explicitly intended to be interpreted strictly and narrowly - if it doesn't meet the letter it is not uncontroversial and cannot be justified by IAR. If the wording of a speedy deletion criterion doesn't match its intent then get consensus at (or in a discussion advertised at) WT:CSD to change the wording. However, in this case I disagree that the intent and wording don't match - a recreated article has been moved or converted to a draft. Thryduulf (talk) 00:21, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

  I tried this edit to CSD to remove the notion that AfD-draftification removes the G4 option should it reappear in mainspace.

  However, should and AfD-draftified page be boldly moved straight back, or recreated, I think that create protection is the solution. SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:36, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

• I agree that the recreated article subverts the AfD consensus and should be removed without discussion. However, I think that G4's current wording does not apply: the article was not deleted, as mentioned in Singularity42's opening comment. Moving "without leaving a redirect" makes the R2 deletion unnecessary. WP:Deletion policy#Incubation (shortcut WP:ATD-I) includes draftification as an alternative to deletion. My suggestion is that the recreated article be draftified also, although there is no value if they are identical. History merging the drafts is a possibility, but it is more effort than copy/paste recreating and thus does not scale well. Flatscan (talk) 04:36, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Is lack of importance a good reason to delete a wikipedia page?

Recently i had made a wikipedia page about one of melbournes major bus routes. However it got subjected to deletion due to lack of secondary sources, during this time i thought all I had to do to keep the page is to add more reliable sources however a few people thought that during this time it would be a good idea to justify the dleletion due to "low importance" however I was able to find other wikipedia pages dedicated to bus routes that were also considerd low important yet they weren't subjected to the same claims that my page was. I am wondering whether low imporant is a reason that a wikipedia page should be deleted. NotOrrio (talk) 06:26, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Whether a notable topic should have its own article is a matter of editor/community discretion (see Wikipedia:Notability#Whether to create standalone pages). If there is disagreement among editors on creating a stand-alone page, then a discussion in an appropriate venue should be started. Have you discussed this with others? Donald Albury 13:30, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

WP:WHATABOUT isn't a valid argument. Policies change over time, and articles that were acceptable at one point may fall out of scope for the encyclopedia. Even so, they may hang around because no one has noticed the scope change. "Importance" really isn't a term used for determining if an article should stay. Perhaps you mean notability? - UtherSRG (talk) 13:41, 21 October 2022 (UTC)