Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion Information & Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion Links at HealthHaven.com

Read this before proposing new criteria

Contributors frequently propose new criteria for speedy deletion. Please bear in mind that CSD criteria require careful wording, and in particular, need to be

Objective: most reasonable people should be able to agree whether an article meets the criterion. Often this requires making the criterion very specific.
Uncontestable: it must be the case that almost all articles that could be deleted using the rule, should be deleted, according to consensus. CSD criteria should cover only situations where there is a strong precedent for deletion. Remember that a rule may be used in a way you don't expect, unless you word it carefully.
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.
Nonredundant: if the deletion can be accomplished using a reasonable interpretation of an existing rule, just use that. If this application of that rule is contested, consider discussing and/or clarifying it. New rules should be proposed only to cover situations that cannot be speedily deleted otherwise.

If you do have a proposal that you believe passes these guidelines, please feel free to propose it on this discussion page. Be prepared to offer evidence of these points and to refine your criterion if necessary. Consider explaining how it meets these criteria when you propose it. Do not, on the other hand, add it unilaterally to the CSD page.

Often referenced pages

Wikipedia:Deletion policy (talk)
Deletion log
Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators (talk)
Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Explanations, explanations of the reasons for each criterion

Archives (Index)
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37

This talk page is automatically archived by MiszaBot II. Sections with no replies in 7 days are automatically moved.

1 Suggestion: A10
2 Should unsourced become a speedy deletion criterion?
3 F7 etiquette
4 Proposal (related to A9)
5 Dated Speedy?
6 Unclear wording of P1
7 "Deletable category" process?
8 Use of F8 in wildly different cases
9 A7 and things
10 G7 clarified
11 Martial arts schools
12 WP:Attack page
13 Interpretation of new A10 criteria
14 "Aim to" in A10; what does it mean, how is it applied; what does it add?

[edit] Suggestion: A10

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

The consensus, interpreted by an administrator (not me) back in November, was to add A10 to the criteria for speedy deletion. This discussion has now been open for one full month, and it's been ten days since DGG re-opened it. Reviewing the discussion from the last ten days, I think it is 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. If DGG or any other editor in good standing wishes to start a RfC seeking the repeal of A10, they of course are entitled to do so. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 17:56, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Closing discussion as a formality; the consensus, interpreted by an administrator, was the addition of A10 to the criteria for speedy deletion. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 17:11, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I have reopened the discussion. 2 weeks is not enough for something so radical. I do not think the discussion had sufficient notice . See my comment below. I do not think the implications were sufficiently considered. Frankly, I did not continue in the discussion after my few comments, because I could not believe that something like this would have been seriously considered. If the admin who closed it disagrees with allowing more time, I will not consider it edit warring if he reverts me, but will proceed by way of an RfC. I apologize for moving so quickly, but I wanted to prevent archiving. DGG ( talk ) 13:56, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure most of us have seen articles with titles like "What is Hannah Montana?" or "Why is the capital of Russia?"; pages written by a new user who isn't familiar with our format, but wants to contribute anyway. These articles don't neatly fit into any criteria, given that they are on a worthy subject, but they need to be deleted as we already have a page on the topic. Redirects are possible, but a lot of these titles would be deletable redirects if changed. A normal CSD criteria would be bitey to a user who is clearly attempting to help, however misguided. That's why I suggest we add an additional A10 criteria;

A10. Duplicate of worthy subject

An article about a worthy subject that already has an existing, established article of greater quality, and where the title would create an implausible redirect

This criteria, at the very least, would enable us to implement a kinder template, with information on how to contribute, rather than just the cold hearted A7 or G2. \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 23:28, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Support, the examples given do not fit under any other criteria, and it occurs enough to warrant the inclusion of a new criterion. –blurpeace ^(talk) 23:37, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Support Good category for covering such articles.-- fetchcomms☛ 23:40, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Support I've run into these such articles, absolutely a need for a criteria to cover this IShadowed ✰ 23:53, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) What about applicability outside of these cases? I'm thinking especially in terms of stubs where it's not necessarily clear which is the "established article of greater quality." I don't know how often that occurs, but I could forsee this being misapplied in some cases as worded. Maybe adding "recently created article" to the fore could prevent some of that? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 23:55, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

That is what I was intending to suggest, so I think that's a good idea. \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 00:07, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Upon thinking about it, is the "of greater quality" part actually even necessary? Even if the old article isn't substantially "better," if it's "established" then it shouldn't be viable to be replaced without bold actions or discussion on the talkpage. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 04:37, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Support - fine idea. Straightforward, not redundant, and beneficial because it provides a better description for these cases. If a new page is basically copied from another article (which serves no useful purpose), it would tend to fall under G6; FWIW, I've already been making a few of these "A10"-type deletions with my own personalized summary. Still, this would be very good to implement. JamieS93 01:20, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Support Good idea, I think Amory's suggestion is good too. What about changing the language from "worthy subject" to "eligible subject"? Beeblebrox (talk) 01:51, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Support I've been waiting for something like this to pop up... Until It Sleeps ^{Happy Thanksgiving} 02:14, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Support, I'd propose phrasing it something like: "An article on a topic already covered by an existing article, where the article's title would not make a useful redirect to the article already written." Excellent idea though, and this does come up frequently enough to warrant the addition. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 03:13, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Support I really like this, and I agree with Seraphimblade's proposed phrasing. ~ Riana ⁂ 05:41, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

How's this wording?

"A recently created article on a topic already covered by an existing article, where the article's title would not make a useful redirect to the article already written."

This takes into account Amory's and Seraphimblade's proposed changes. \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 05:59, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Support, this comes up very often, and it would nice to have a CSD for them. I prefer the second wording, as the title is the problem, not the quality. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 08:45, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Support I don't recall encountering these in the wild, but since other people apparently have and this criteria is otherwise reasonable... --Cybercobra (talk) 08:55, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Neutral I cannot say from my experience that this is really coming up this often and I think PROD could handle them just fine but I won't oppose the idea. Regards So Why 09:09, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Support I see these already either as G6es or redirect-then-R3s, but I agree that it's worth codifying as a separate criterion - these are quite common, and the wording of it is good and less bitey. ~ mazca ^talk 10:05, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
support in principle I'd like to see the wording of the resulting templates. I think it is important that the phrase "of greater quality" is part of the criteria that new page patrollers use to decide whether to tag as A10; But is not included in the templates pasted in the article, and especially not on the users talkpage Ϣere SpielChequers 10:15, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Support with followup. User 100% needs to get a message, with no exceptions, that could easily give a friendly explanation of it and how they can still help the Encyclopedia even if we did speedily delete their article. This would probably need a few new talk template, but still easy. There are a lot of constructive words to use that wouldn't be scary and would terrify anyone who made a new article and saw a high red box instead. Would this be usable for, say, band members or albums names of things pending discussion as non-notable music articles? ♪ daTheisen (talk) 11:03, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Possible template created in my user subspace here, feel free to improve/comment as you see fit. \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 11:09, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Awesome! I'll start the talk page over there, too. Goal being to be as encouraging as possible. ♪ daTheisen (talk) 11:41, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

A more contemporary example; How the earth came to be. \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 12:13, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Can someone ease my concerns that this criterion will not be (ab)used to speedy articles whose deletion is not uncontroversial? I'm specifically thinking of articles like Plot of Les Misérables, which spawned a large AfD and a subsequent DRV, in relation to the proposed wording "... topic already covered". decltype (talk) 12:34, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe the "recently created" part of the wording is intended to remove that possible usage. \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 12:36, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Odds of something like that getting through even a hangon tag and some quick improvements would be unlikely to slip past the larger number of patrols of hangons and admins peeking in. Any actual new information offered would be easily added to the existing article. ♪ daTheisen (talk)

that's not the case. People will create a new spinoff article about the plot, and it will be removed under this criterion instead of being discussed.-- or even if it has been discussed it could still be removed. DGG ( talk ) 02:08, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Either way, I think I'd be more comfortable with something like "a recently created article whose subject is already covered in the same or greater detail in a different article, and [is not a plausible redirect]", or maybe something like "a recently created article that provides no information not already present in an existing article on the subject, and [is not a plausible redirect]". I'm not opposed to the principle, but am unsure about the wording. decltype (talk) 16:00, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

In case if got glazed over above, Backslash Forwardslash's proposal page on a template actually has 3 general ideas up already and the more input the better in edits or the talk page. If we can make this look solid in some haste the more seriously it'll be taken overall. Consensus doesn't seem like a problem for now, at least... a general agreement I don't think should be all that difficult. ♪ daTheisen (talk) 13:25, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
On first sight strong oppose, as it may prevent a calm evaluation of mergeable content, corrections of possible mis-namers and removes without a pressing reason a content addition from all edit histories. Redirecting is the appropriate action for content on an existing topic where no other speedy deletion reason applies. A useless redirect is not necessarily a harmful one. Tagging it for R3 is in my opinion outright incorrect as there was no redirect 'created' in the first place and the fact that I see this happen, only nurtures my doubt about extending this idea to an automatism on our already often too frantic new page patrol. In short, I am wary of codifying the basic assumption that these duplicates "need to be deleted" as it is unfounded in principle and often wrong in practice. Let's redirect and see later if the redirect actually bothers enough to have it deleted at RfD.-Tikiwont (talk) 14:38, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

On second thought my objection goes against the application to legit articles: They are never candidates for speedy deletion just because they seem to be misnamed duplicates. That is different than the examples that people seem to have in mind. Those are articles with content of the type outlined at WP:NOT#Content, e.g soapboxing and the like: completely unencyclopedic stuff. Which is again not a criterion for speedy deletion by itself. I am still not convinced that combining those two aspects and adding "that fail WP:NOT" makes it already a good criterion, but as far as I am concerned, that is the only direction to consider as tricky comparisons of names and content are beyond the scope of CSD. Better messages are good in any case and would be useful also for redirects but sometimes a self written text specific to the case is best. --Tikiwont (talk) 20:58, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Opppose I think A) it isn't clear that the numbers of these is so large that PRODing won't work B) I worry that the criteria is too subjective and will result in articles being deleted in good faith that are actually viable. C) I worry that it might be abused as a general "we don't need this article" thing. There are too many things already being speedied out of process. As nearly any article can fit this definition (Astrophysics is already covered by Physics right?). I think this is solving a minor problem and potentially creating a major one. Hobit (talk) 21:20, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

It does happen often - I certainly see it happen more often than A9 articles. Again, the Astrophysics article an any existing article don't get covered by this, as it is not a 'recently created article'. I believe your, and Tikiwont's suggestions, are solvable with tightening the wording; can you think of anything obvious that could be changed to ease your concerns? How about Decltype's suggested wording? \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 22:02, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a newpage patroller, but I'm doubtful that this happens often enough that prodding is that horrible. Decltype's suggestion is certainly an improvement and addresses many of my worries. Your point about existing articles is understood, but my point is that someone can easily make such a mistake in an area outside of their interest. This implies that speedy is the wrong way to do this. Hobit (talk) 17:46, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Support. I think this mostly happens in practice. The blatantly non-salvageable examples shouldn't be sent to AfD or PROD'd just because it's not explicitly written down in the CSD. PeterSymonds (talk) 22:20, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Strong oppose --very strong oppose if it is just an existing article, not an existing article of better quality. First of all, it is not necessarily obvious when there is no content worth merging; this is usually worth a look by the community. The CSD conditions need to be essentially indisputable. The examples given are, but most will not be quite so clear. Second, If someone does contribute an article of better quality under a different name, is it seriously being suggested that we should throw it out? I do not see how that helps Wikipedia in the slightest. I would hope no admin would be careless enough to do this, instead of merging, but I know from experience that this is a vain hope. The minimum conceivably acceptable wording would be Decitype's a recently created article that provides no information not already present in an existing article on the subject, and is not a plausible redirect. Even here, I see misuse: a person will start a spinoff article by making a copy of a section, intending to expand it. It seems to me that prod would be a much better way to go, to give adequate time to do the writing.

Anyway, we already have a very simple alternative in cases where the redirect is really off the wall: first redirect, and then delete the redirect as R3. DGG ( talk ) 02:08, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

But that method R3 is expressly forbidden. To solve that misuse, simply make an exception for content forks; the deletion of those would be against the spirit of the proposal anyway. \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 03:52, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

That was a very recent addition to the policy that AFAIK has not been discussed. I have therefore reverted it. decltype (talk) 14:38, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Recently added phrase, yes, but not as addition of policy but as clarification of something that is incorrect anyways as those have not been 'created' as redirects. SIn fact if it was correct that newbie writes article, editor converts to redirect, they or another editor tag for R3 and an admin deletes, we would indeed not have this thread on A10 as it basically amounts to codifying that sequence of events under yet to be determined circumstances. Anyways, I've opened a separate thread on R3 below.--Tikiwont (talk) 15:05, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

comment if this comes to be, then the purported duplicate must be named in the tag. This is so that a deleting admin can confirm the case. But I would like to also say that if the scope of the new article differs then it should not be deleted speedily. For example topic X may be forked to History of X, List of Xs, X in popular culture, Blue X etc with nothing but the original X article paragraph as a starting position, but which could then be expanded on if the new article stayed around, and for which the detail would be too great for the original article X. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:27, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
Support - This is a very useful idea. I've run across articles like this before, and the only thing you can tag/delete them with is G6. --Coffee // have a cup // ark // 02:48, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

In trying to take the objections and viewpoints into account, would the wording of the following allay the concerns?

A10. Recently created articles on an existing topic

A recently created article with no connection to another article (i.e. relevant page history), that provides no information not already present in an existing article of greater quality on the subject, and the title is not a plausible redirect. This does not include content forks or split pages. Pages of greater quality that the existing article should be merged

Best, \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 04:04, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd keep it to the point and strike the last sentence.--Cybercobra (talk) 12:31, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

It's an improvement, but I'm not so sure about "quality", as it is a very subjective measure. decltype (talk) 14:38, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I still think that quality evaluation is beyond CSD and that this should be restricted to unencyclopedic stuff per WP:NOT. Maybe reads also better:

A recently created, unencyclopedic article with no relevant page history, that provides no information not already present in an existing article on the subject, where the title is not a plausible redirect. This does not include content forks, split pages or any article that aims at expanding or detailing an existing one.

Which would not mean that I am already swayed.--Tikiwont (talk) 15:20, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Support - This is a wonderful idea. As a seasoned (former) NPPer, I can't tell you how far this would go towards resolving the issues around this specific kind of new article (which is fairly common). <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 19:21, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

ABSOLUTELY NOT Anything that involves a thorough review of the content to see if something could not be merged should be sent to AfD. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 17:11, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Oppose - I've seen lots of articles like this go to AfD, and they aren't always (or even frequently) deleted. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:04, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Strong Oppose Mergers, redirects, forks, and differing scope are major content issues worthy of discussion, not to be disposed of by speedy. Ray^Talk 01:11, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Which is why this criterion doesn't deal with that. \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 01:31, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

But it could be taken to be, far too easily. What constitutes the same subject? What constitutes better or greater quality? These are all in the eye of the beholder, and reasonable editors can surely differ, and differ greatly, on such broad concepts as content forks and article quality. CSD criteria should be clearcut, and err on the side of caution and preservation of information in the face of any ambiguity. I can see this being applied controversially all too easily. I've been in too many AFDs where this sort of thing was controversial, I just can't see us benefiting from applying it as a speedy. Ray^Talk 01:39, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Support the principle but not yet the wording. I'm not a new page patroller and so I'm going to just take the word of the folks who are regarding the frequency. I think the key points for the criterion are (in no particular order:
1. Recently created
2. The topic duplicates the topic of an existing article
3. not a content fork
4. not a split or breaking out of an existing article
5. The content obviously and significantly is inferior to or duplicates all or part of an existing article, although not necessarily verbatim
6. Redirecting the title to the existing article would not produce a useful redirect.

Regarding point 4, I've seen this done by first copying the information from the existing article into a new one and doing basic cleanup on it, before then removing the copied comment from the main article. We need to be careful with this not to catch a break out in progress. I've looked at the templates linked above in Backslash Forwardslash's userspace and think they're both missing a key point - we should (imo) be explicitly inviting the creator of the new article to contribute to the existing one, with a prominent positive message pointing them there and to it's talk page. I'll have a go at writing one when I'm more awake (it's gone 2am here atm). Thryduulf (talk) 02:11, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, my proposed wording of the template for the user talk page is now at User:Backslash Forwardslash/A10 Template. Thryduulf (talk) 18:07, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Support This is a good idea; we need to close this loophole in the CSD criteria. So long as the wording is strict enough to prevent controversial speedy deletions, I don't see a problem. I think a lot of these would-be-A10 pages are currently deleted under G2 as test pages, which is stretching that criterion a bit too far for my liking. However, it seems like a waste of time to go through PROD and/or AfD with some of those articles, especially those where speedy deletion would not be controversial. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 06:54, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Ugh -- I realize this has already been implemented, but it looks like something ripe for abuse and generally assuming bad faith. When people don't know where to put their article, those articles should be merged, or a redirect created, or judgment used in deleting ridiculous titles along with a gentle note to the creator about how to improve the section of the existing article that they are interested in. None of this is compatible with speedy deletion, which is over-reaching its remit. Oppose. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 15:40, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Support for A10. Recently created articles on an existing topic. The other wording is confusing and may make them try again. If the article they create isn't notable it can be deleted under other criteria. Mkdw ^talk 20:51, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

see my dicussion below, under opposition. If people disapprove of this way of proceeding, revert me, fix the heading number so the follow sections are not subheadings of an archived section, and I will open an RfC. DGG ( talk ) 13:56, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Support Although further clarification of the key terms would be needed, but this would make a suitable speedy for maintenance purposes . It would take some clue to carry out effectively, but none more than the A7 and G11 criteria. Like A7 and G11 the reviewing admin would be within his right to make changes to a qualifying article instead of deleting it. Them From Space 09:50, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Where do we stand?

Currently the criterion is in since Backslash Forwardslash as proposer has also declared it to be consensus.[1] I'm not convinced that this has been discussed already widely enough or that inclusion has really been noticed. While there is a lot of support there is also some substantial opposition. I have not reverted because I would still not rule out that some foolproof clause can be found, although that might reduce it to cases where a prod or a redirect works fine. In any case the current wording "that aims to provide no information not already present within the scope of an existing article on the subject" sounds somewhat awkward.--Tikiwont (talk) 13:30, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

After going through that discussion multiple times, my read was that there was consensus for the inclusion, and that the opposition was mostly due to the wording (which I again inserted the version that would be most indicative of the consenus). The discussion had gone on for two weeks and was advertised in the Signpost, so I don't think that there wasn't enough attention given to the discussion. However, after a possible "lightbulb appearing above" moment, perhaps the clause that we were all searching for was; "that does not aim to expand upon, detail or improve information within scope of an existing article on the subject". Apologies if my addition seemed a bit hasty, I had added it to the page and waited for a time before making MediaWiki changes, and was simply trying to keep the idea going (it does have substantial support). \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 13:43, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, as somebody who did question the wording and was worried about it, I think that's a fair interpretation. Of course, a CSD criterion doesn't really exist until it shows up in Huggle and Twinkle ;-) Ray^Talk 13:51, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, i did not find it outrageous in substance or form, but a formal and visible closure of a thread on a deletion criterion by an uninvolved administrator might be appropriate as this is after all what we expect for any deletion discussion that affects a single item. Which can of course still be done. I was also not aware where this has been crossposted. How about the village pump?--Tikiwont (talk) 14:09, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

It was put in the Signposts' Discussion report which I feel gives it enough 'exposure'. And as for the uninvolved administrator, User:Decltype has copyedited the entry while being somewhat neutrally involved in the discussion, and while I don't want to put words in his mouth, I feel his actions at least display that the addition was not erroneous. I would like your feedback on the last clause I suggested, because I believe that may very well check the last box that is causing some discomfort. \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 14:31, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Well I wasn't strictly uninvolved since I participated in the discussion. However, having re-read the thread, I too reached the conclusion that there was a consensus to add the criterion, and I expect the wording to improve if it turns out that the current one has problems in practice. The policy page is not set in stone after all, it is constantly evolving, and there are many recent examples of tweaks and adjustments being made when there is consensus that the current wording does not quite reflect the intent of a criterion. decltype (talk) 14:56, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Guess I kind of prompted this. Still I think this kind of situation where people may feel defensive or petulant is best avoided in the very beginning.--Tikiwont (talk) 18:04, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Two weeks is not all that long for something like a CSD criteria. I'd give it another couple of weeks, at least. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 15:44, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Or to put it differently, even if there was agreement among people here which are mostly those interested in speedy deletions, the sign post might have been a good choice to announce that among the many threads on this board that rush by, this time a proposal with a chance of gaining wider community support has resulted. I'm somewhat unhappy with my own actions here but after I lodged the first oppose in the original thread and also opened this sub-thread, I did neither want to revert nor provoke the kind of implicit local 'closure' above. I'll comment below on the substance. --Tikiwont (talk) 14:30, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm uneasy with the "aim to" wording. It excludes the obviously ridiculous like Better article about Barack Obama, and all of the other criteria, even G11, consider pages as they currently are instead of trying to mindread the creator's intentions. —Korath (Talk) 22:44, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Seconded. I wouldn't know how to evaluate a candidate under this criterion with "aim to", and ultimately I'd have to ignore that language in making a decision. I also think the word "detail" as it's being used is not very helpful, what do we mean by it—clarify existing material? What is meant by "detail" that is not covered by "expand upon" and "improve information"? I also think we should mention in the ending caveats that article do not qualify if they have sourced, mergeable material. e.g. someting along the lines of:

This does not include content forks, split pages, article that aims at expanding or detailing an existing one or articles with sourced, mergeable material.

The use of "detailing" in this trailing sentence is also not clear.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:10, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. The main part should focus on the article, "aim to" can stay in the qualifier.--Tikiwont (talk) 15:22, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Twinkle now lists A10 with the current version of the criterion, once you think you've finalized the wording please let us know at WT:TW (and the people at WT:HUGGLE as well). Thanks, Amalthea 14:47, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Examples?

Are anyone aware of any page tagged or deleted under this new criterion? I would be interested to see how it is applied in practice. decltype (talk) 08:50, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Internet emerges, Эрнест Вуд, I ♥ Elephants, Global warming caused by, Ghandi's assination, Lista de episódios de Lie to Me. It was only recently added to Twinkle too, so it should be seeing more use. \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 09:06, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

\ /, I tagged Internet emerges with A10 and was impressed with your template, Template:Db-a10-notice, which I think is an excellent response that encourages further participation in the project by new editors. The creator of Internet emerges was not discouraged and has since created four new stubs, none of which have been speedied. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 17:04, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I've deleted Inset number, after prodding uncovered a duplicate, so that would be an example where it can be used after content has been analysed.--Tikiwont (talk) 15:22, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, this was more of a test case in view of ongoing discussions. --Tikiwont (talk) 14:17, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] wording fix

the actual wording permits the deletion of any article on a new topic, since the heading and the rule are usually considered separate. We normally include the heading in the paragraph describing the criterion to avoid confusion. I have done so without changing the meaning, even though I in addition object to the entire concept & I consider the wording problem and the many other wording problems discussed above as examples of the way this has been done without adequate consideration. But I consider the fix totally non-controversial,or I wouldn't be making it DGG ( talk ) 13:56, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] opposition

I am very uncomfortable with this criterion, which I did notice, but thought so unlikely as not to be worth detailed consideration, so I didn;t keep track of it. My fault, but if I had seen I certainly would have opposed it much more strongly/ I challenge the depth of the discussion by which it was adopted & the small number of particpants for a major change. . It is about the most newby-hostile criterion it is possible to imagine: A recently created article with no relevant page history that does not aim to expand upon, detail or improve information within any existing article(s) on the subject, and where the title is not a plausible redirect. This does not include content forks, split pages or any article that aims at expanding or reorganizing an existing one or that contains referenced, mergeable material

first, that "recently created" If the article is impossible, recent creation should not make any dfifference.

Most articles that evoke this criterion will have been contributed in good faith. The appropriate response to a newby who does this is advice. In cases like this, I normally suggest to the author that they do a db-self, and find some existing articles to add to, & in my experience, they always do that and are grateful. If it had been accompanied by the noticve of immediate deletion, most editors will not return to us. This is a sure way to prevent the growth or even the survival of Wikipedia. The particular type of article

second, "aim to improve on" this is a criterion that is almost impossible to interpret. We do not know what people's aims are. Except for vandals and people playing games, every contributor of an article intends to improve on the encyclopedia.

I think this will be used for a variety of unsatisfactory articles with out any clear boundaries, and for which we have a fully satisfactory way of dealing with by prod.

In fact, I do disagree with almost every example given above. "Inset number" is an attempt to provide an example. It is not a very good one, but it was an attempt to improve the encyclopedia. These need specialist attention, and AfD (or sometimes prod) is the place to see they get it. "Internet emerges" is an almost empty article, and could either have been handled as such, or simply prodded. It was not harmful. "Эрнест Вуд" was already at AFD, where it would have been rather quickly deleted--I comment more on this foreign language dupliucatetitle problem a little further on. "Global Warming caused by" is not a good article, but the user probably intended to introduce a summary article on this topic., and needed advice. That does not to me count as a duplicate. Prod is the way. "ghandi's assasination" was one somewhat incoherent sentence and had no substantial content. It would have fit very well as A3. and I would have delete (to be continued) "Lista de episódios de Lie to Me" is a special case--an exact copy of an article with a different title that is not a good redirect because it is in a foreign language. We could better craft a special rule that applies to only this (or where it is a partial copy) --but some such apparent articles have in fact had additional information, and also I have rather frequently seen people start new articles on exactly similar subjects by using existing ones as a kind of template and making the necessary changes. They do need to be linked, because otherwise it destroys the edit history, but otherwise it is an acceptable way for creating some articles. Shall I put the text of these articles on a subpage here? I'd rather not formally undelete them. DGG ( talk ) 15:48, 2 December 2009 (UTC) DGG ( talk ) 13:56, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

This criterion is designed so that we don't bite newbies. Currently, all they get after creating such articles is a standard CSD notice, or even worse, a notice about 'their redirect' being deleted. {{db-a10-notice}} is different from the other notices in that is not only encourages and assures the creator, it helps them find the correct way to contribute! The whole idea is to ensure that good faith contributions are not forced through another criterion and forgotten. The articles we deleting aren't going to be great, they aren't going to be well written, but the whole idea is to provide more assistance than we could possibly provide through an A3 notification tag. \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 22:09, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

the way to deal with snarky templates is to improve the templates. But you seem to have missed the point that the articles being tagged would most of them not meet A3 or any other speedy criterion. The relevant template that needs to be dealt with is WP:PROD, which is already fairly helpful, though much too wordy. Personally though, I do not think that any template can do much good. What does good to new editors writing inadequate articles is personal advice, discussing the actual article that they have written and what it would need. I admit i do not have time to do this as often as possible, but I try at least for the ones that look like help would be appreciated. The usual comment by them after I;ve done this, is to thank me for actually saying something helpful,and a good deal of the time, a db-self. That's the right sort of speedy for these articles. DGG ( talk ) 00:33, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Support new A10 criterion. Logical. Debresser (talk) 22:21, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
I applaud the spirit this was proposed under, but I have major reservations. There may be a few clear cut cases, but I fear this will become a magnet for bad tags and bad deletions. Yes, Who is Hannah Montana is an obvious one. But for every one like that, I fear there will be dozens tagged on topics that require specialized knowledge to know if it really is a duplicate, is not a valid redirect, and doesn't merit its own article. --Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the whole concept of meriting its own article is one that is not appropriate ever for speedy unless it can be defined more exactly. We've over the time gone to great trouble to get reasonably successful wordings for some of the criteria. But now this proposal would undo all that in many cases. I will try to define a more narrow wording that will deal with the true duplicates. (there is hidden way of dealing with duplicates that sometimes has been used: change the article to a redirect, and then go to RfD as it being unlikely. RfD can be very quick when its clear enough. This procedure obvious must be used with discretion, but it does allow a few days of dfscussion, not a few minutes. DGG ( talk ) 00:33, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

We are not discussing whether an article deserves it's own article; rather whether we already have one. That's why A10 doesn't cover splits or mergers! Advising the user how to write better articles isn't changing the fact there already is an existing one which their time is better of being contributed to. We aren't helping anyone by using facetious deletion summaries or simply stretching the boundaries; and the solution of RfD is by far the worst - how would a newbie even know what a redirect is let alone why 'their' redirect is being deleted. We shouldn't treat a new editor like that. \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 01:14, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

DGG, I strongly disagree on this. I think the templates here are actually very friendly to good-faith new users, and I think A10 is a good addition to the CSD. You talked about Internet emerges above, but what about Grasslands, Estuary, Forest, which I also tagged as A10? As you can see (but I can't, since I'm not an administrator), the article essentially discussed the subject of grassland without expanding or improving on the subject already covered in that article. Now, the article was deleted by Altenmann without actually citing any of the speedy criteria, but I personally felt that A10 was the only one that covered it. This really is a useful criterion. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 05:25, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Other recent examples of my taggings where A10 fit perfectly well: The Sopranos, Season 1 and Celebrity Deathmatch Cast. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 21:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

[edit] Should unsourced become a speedy deletion criterion?

One of the things I've noticed at WP:NEWT is that whilst our policy is that data needs to be verifiable, many editors are working to an unwritten policy that new articles need to be verified by a source. My view on this is "Strong Neutral" as I think that either a consistent policy of all new articles require a source, or a reaffirmation of current policy would be far preferable to the current situation which I believe guarantees that newbies, established article creators and newpage patrollers will be bitten. Obviously redirects, Disambiguation pages and Lists don't need sources. But what do people think of requiring all other new articles to specify a source? (I gather the German Wiki has something like this which may even be automated). Ϣere SpielChequers 11:54, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

If we did this and required that the source be reliable (i.e. not IMDB etc.), we could get rid of every other CSD criterion at a swoop.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 12:00, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
- I think it's quite enough that being unsourced is a reason to delete via PROD or AFD; those processes give people a week in which to track down and add sources, and a week in which newbies can learn not only the reason why they must add sources but also the mechanics of how to add sources. New articles that are not vandalism or libel or obvious A7s don't have to be deleted instantly just because they don't cite sources yet. If sources can't be added because the subject is truly nonnotable, keeping the article around for a week or so isn't going to harm the encyclopedia. +Angr 12:10, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
  - Agree with Angr. While I support having some variant of this idea for BLPs, the simple fact of the matter is that if we implemented this policy, we would have to go around and delete hundreds of thousands of articles. If there simply are no sources anywhere, that is another matter and can be dealt with through existing processes, but this simply is too much. Tagging articles with {{unsourced}} may be a bit eventualist, but it has (mostly) worked for us so far. NW (Talk) 12:15, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
    - It would be an odd anomaly that all new articles created after a certain date had to have sources, but we could change the new article creation process to prompt authors for their source without necessarily deciding to delete all existing unsourced articles. Ϣere SpielChequers 12:45, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Sources? I don't know. If its an experienced editor we expect them to be editing inline with the policies anyway. They'll probably include sources. If its an inexperienced editor there is a good chance they'll include inappropriate sources which will end up not being much better as editors will have to scrutinize sources instead of just the claims made in the article. I don't know if that will create more or less work or if it'll save more articles or not. Let's not forget that CSD is only supposed to delete things that aren't supposed to be here. If there are sources out there any article created shouldn't end up meeting CSD unless its created very badly.--Crossmr (talk) 14:32, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Absolutely not. To do so would be institutionalizing newbie biting. I like WPC's idea of making the article creation process prompt people for sources, but I do not think that articles should be speedily deleted based on that criterion - they need to be allowed some time for development. LadyofShalott 15:31, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
As Crossmr says, CSD should not be used to delete pages for reasons that are actually reasons for improvement (see editing policy and WP:BEFORE) but rather to remove pages quickly that for various reasons cannot be included at all. Regards So Why 16:35, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
No, no, ten thousand times no. First, we have the issue that most new editors don't understand the importance of sources. (Heck, a lot of experienced editors don't really get it.) So instead of educating them, we bite? Please, no. Second, unsourced does not equal unsourceable. If the article can not be sourced, it probably falls under another CSD criteria, or prod can adequately deal with it. If it is sourceable, then we now have an editing issue, not a deletion issue. Add the source, educate the editor, and move on.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:28, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Agree with above. In fact, if I can't find any sources for an article that I doubt sources exist for, I find PROD to be a very effective tool. If there is in fact a source that I couldn't find, it will get added. If there are no sources, it will get deleted. It's actually a perfect use of PROD. Just because no sources have been added doesn't mean they don't exist. It is not an obvious deletion, there's no reason why it needs to be done speedy, and rather than take pressure of other deletion methods, this is the perfect use for other deletion methods. Singularity42 (talk) 17:34, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Definitely not. SoWhy, Fabrictramp and others explain very well why this would be a very bad idea. Davewild (talk) 18:33, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Absolutly not per excellent comments above. Ikip (talk) 19:55, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Maybe for BLPs. But it would be a huge shift in policy to say that unsourced articles should be deleted, and I don't think it would be a shift for the better. -- Atama頭 01:47, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Certainly not. We've been over this before. it is not even a criterion for deletion via prod or AfD. The crirterion is unsourceable (unverifiable), meaning that they can not be sourced using resources available to at least some members of the Wikipedia cpmmunity. About half the articles brought to AfD for which this is the principal claim, do it fact get sourced, generally quite easily. Speedy deletion is for articles which do not even have a plausible chance of being kept, and nobody can tell this for an unsourced article without doing a proper search. No two people by themselves are really reliable for this. It has to be shown to the entire community, in the hope that somebody will know--and among us all, we're fairly good at this. Not individually--I'm supposed to be a professional at this sort of thing, and I don't always get them--I have limitations is what I know about well enough to find. Something may, for example, be trivially sourceable from Arabic online sources, let alone print, but I'll never find it. Others will.

As side issues: it inhibits article creation. People add articles, save, and then add the sources--it's a totally legit way to write. (at least i sure hope it is, because it's the way I write. ) Wikipedia is a cooperative project, and what one person does not finish, another will. DGG ( talk ) 02:06, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

BLP, 100%; Agreeing with Atama, mostly. When extreme claims of notability or other importance are given without sources that it alone should be CSD'd, immediately. We can't take any risks regarding spam, harassment or child privacy issues. Ever. Not if they're 99% avoidable. G10 already exists, but the wording doesn't include BLP-style hoaxes and it's meant for pre-existing pages, 1-liner vandalism or semi-hidden mention within articles, or other times we might blank a page for any reason. Harassment can take many forms besides this and should be picked up from the minute an article is created if we have a means of doing it. Because of the ethical and public safety issues of BLP, non-sourcing needs a category. G10 would still be needed for "normal" applications like we have today, but it's restrictive in some ways. I ran into this last night with a terrifying WP:YOUTH problem article and I put on a G10 and notice of blanking, but since it was the article's 2nd CSD tagging (an A7 was already there), it took quite some time to get seen. I know I "could" have removed the A7 so it would come up in the more vital category, but there's no policy for editors about shuffling tags. Far better and safer would be an alarm-sounding CSD type that would show up at the top of any admin list if looking through CSD candidates and demand immediate attention (sorry, I have no idea how your page actually works). Getting immediate attention is really important because an admin could either protect the page or block the user nearly instantly in a very dangerous situation. Sometimes and if the author is still online at the time it's pretty much an edit war until you get lucky and can report it somewhere-- At least I've spend a good deal of time constantly refreshing page histories of awful situations. I guess I'm talking about what would be a Wikipedia '911 tag'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Datheisen (talk • contribs)

If you tag it G10, it will appear in the relevant category, no matter what other tags are on the page, so that's not a valid concern. G10 serves us well to remove those articles that really violate BLP in a way that cannot be tolerated, i.e. harmful unsourced information and is not limited to any kind of page but includes any page that meets the criterion (i.e. almost everything you mentioned above or by G3 in the case of hoaxes). But making every unsourced BLP, even those with neutral or even positive information, a reason for speedy deletion would fundamentally alter our whole editing policy. If the information is not harmful (i.e. G10), then an unsourced article is not that harmful to the project that it has to be removed immediately but can be deleted via the normal venues. So please explain to me why an article like "John Doe is the president of <some small and unknown but real country>" needs to be removed immediately and without discussion. Regards So Why 10:58, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, I admit there are a lot of loopholess, and you've totally got me on a blanketing concept. My attempted semantics were that even "good" content like your example can still be vandalism, but no filter or bot would ever detect editor irony. If there's no way to detect it, it can't be seen, so you are correct-- it would be a large editing policy shift, since even if it only happened once every million edits it still is, and It's a basic AGF matter. To counter, I'll give a an instance of something contrary appearing ((in no way to I think this is bad)); what happens to a persons end up blocked/banned for "neutral" or harmless but stubborn like user page usage (neutral, boring text), but is an amazing article writer with 50+ FAs. Despite never harming or so much as made a single grammar error in the mainspace but their content is 'pre-disapproved'. Just saying, there are a few occasions where it can happen. Once in never, I know. Anyway-- You offer the simplest solution that I entirely forgot about-- just removing said dubious content if possible and G10 per norm if the article is dead. Question from that which I think I should know the answer to but don't: what if, after information that is cited but cited incorrectly or misquoted is there and needs to be removed, what then of the article? CSD it for being empty besides a name? Or just blank the thing if dangerous and G10 it ASAP? ♪ daTheisen (talk) 14:31, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

This suggestion comes up frequently, and it's simply a terrible idea. Most articles are created by new users who don't know anything about how to reference sources. Do we really want to delete articles that could easily be sourced just because the creator didn't know how? Even WP:BLP does not call for the removal of any unsourced material in biographies, just contentious material. CSD is intended only for articles for which we can presume an overwhelming consensus to delete at AfD, and clearly that does not exist in these cases. Appeal to privacy issues and harassment amount to moral panic - dealing with problem articles in a timely manner is all we need to do to protect innocent people. Dcoetzee 12:56, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
No way. Tons of useful articles are currently unsourced. The way to deal with them is to (a) add sources; (b) tag them as unsourced; or (c) use an existing deletion process so as to either be ignored for a week or to convince other editors that there's no possible way it can be sourced. ^Bongo_matic 13:58, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Nope - not even I am that deletionist. I would strongly support the creation of a bot that put a PROD on every existing article which has been tagged as "unsourced" for over, say, six months; but this is just way too bitey. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:40, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
no - see WP:BEFORE. A WP:COPYVIO or WP:BLP violation would overrride WP:BEFORE, but WP:BEFORE applies to an ordinary article that has no sources. --Philcha (talk) 15:51, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Reset button The problem isn't one of needing a new CSD, but rather of education about the proper use of the current criteria. I think that is where discussion on this matter should be focused. Not every problem can be solved by making a new rule. When admins see an obviously bad speedy tagging, not only should they decline it, but follow through and explain on the tagger's talk page why it was declined and how to properly use that tag. Let's re-set this discussion to explore how we might better inform csd taggers about these issues. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:51, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

For how that hasn't really worked, see WP:NEWT :( Well no. There was no education there, mostly just lecturing. You're right, though. But since every A7 is different you can only get so far. I'd easily slide in under the line of "troubled patrol" at 90%ish on selections, which I know is pretty bad... please sign me up? Ooh. how about you throw in G10 at the same time? Equally as subjective and hard to let by if it's a SPA writing (though the article of course is made fairly). This is why my idea in general is to encourage incubate/etc and encourage use of the newpage and new gushingly friendly templates. Less total questions. Incubation would be good, too. To be more specific, there needs to be another step-down on an option besides just leave the article alone vs CSD... if an actual process for the article that changes its future were "official", no one would have to feel guilty for something borderline, or try to determine AGF, etc. I know it's good to work on the things a bit to reach a small stub status to survive a deletion, but not everyone always has time for that out of the blu, and it can be extremely time consuming at times. ♪ daTheisen (talk) 20:31, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

There is already "another step-down besides leaving the article alone vs CSD". It's called the {{notability}} tag. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:23, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

No I know people chafe at this declaration, but we really have gone over this in detail before. I'm flummoxed that people don't understand the relationship between barriers to contribution and decreased volume of contributions. I feel strongly that we need some criteria to filter unwanted articles out in the short term (which would encompass CSD) and unwanted articles out in the long term (AfD), but neither of those two should turn on what sources are present in the article. Protonk (talk) 21:26, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes, yes, yes a thousand times yes to a process to delete wholly unsourced articles, such as was proposed at Wikipedia:Requests for verification (including the modifications suggested on its talk page), but no, never, to a pure speedy criterion addition to the project page here.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:41, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Goodness no. Nothing of the sort. The thing to do, when you come across an article that's unsourced that troubles you, is to source it. If you think the article makes problematic statements, cut those, then source it. We have a criteria for unsourced BLPs that have no redeeming value, it's G10 or A7. One of the perils of deletion is always that we're getting rid of valuable information owing to a momentary inability to find good sources via cursory database search. We shouldn't raise that failing to the status of a virtue. Ray^Talk 01:48, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Oppose Simply lacking references should not be grounds for speedy deletion. Unless it's extremely negative, an obvious hoax, or any other criteria that are already covered by the CSD. I fear that such deletions would only make newbies feel unwelcome. Reach Out to the Truth 19:55, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Oppose as well. Go find sources, or tag the article. Debresser (talk) 20:36, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Strongest possible oppose Improve, don't delete. --Dweller (talk) 22:37, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
I would support a PROD-like process (something in the spirit of Wikipedia:Requests for verification, whose original form I opposed at the time it was proposed), but not a straight-forward speedy deletion criterion. –BLACK FALCON ^(TALK) 19:30, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
A noble idea that we aren't yet ready for. I would like to see us move in this direction with regards to sourcing and verification, and ideally in the future I would like to see a CSD set up to do this (coupled with a more controlled process for article creation), but clearly we haven't progressed far enough to implement this now. It would be a logistical nightmare with far too much imformation lost at once. Rome wasn't built in a day, and we require time to slowly up our standards of verification until it will be no big deal to implement this. Them From Space 08:00, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
No, as the thing to do is look for an add sources first. Next, if you cannot find any, ask the article's editors and creator on their userpages if they could kindly add some. Third, ask a relevant Wikiproject. Only then after steps 1-3, should deletion be considered. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 01:23, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
No, there are hundreds of thousands of innocuous, unsourced articles. Some unsourced because content contributors chose to add material and not source it. Some unsourced due to summary style. No reason to develop a criteria for that. Also doesn't fit the CSD rules at the top of the talk page and would make an absolute MESS of the CSD queue for no reasonable gain. Protonk (talk) 03:08, 3 December 2009 (UTC) Whoops. Voted twice. Protonk (talk) 03:54, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
No you would have eliminated a large proportion of articles as they were created. It should not be a speedy delete criterion. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:24, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
No - perhaps we need to clarify A7 to say that BLPs really need the sources that assert notability. While sourcing is obviously important in all of the articles, sourcing is absolutely critical only in BLPs. Demanding sources from all conceivable kinds of articles immediately is counterproductive. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 14:46, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
No there are plenty of articles on encyclopedic subjects which are unsourced, especially by new users. The way to deal with this problem is to find sources for the article. If this can't be done then the current deletion procedures allow the article to be deleted. Pages are supposed to be deleted when the content can't be improved to adequate standards, not simply because the article needs improving. Hut 8.5 15:28, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
Possibly for BLPs, not viable for anything else. Stifle (talk) 15:57, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] F7 etiquette

I've recently seen an F7 deletion, even though the image was tagged {{hangon}}, with a request to see a discussion at WP:NFCR, where various people had found the image to be at least potentially of some merit.

Although I haven't taken it up with Explicit (talk · contribs), my concern is that automatic tools that now exist make it very easy to automatically empty whole categories, without the deleting admin necessarily ever looking at what objections to deletion may have been raised on the image page.

Here is another example, which I did raise with Fastily (talk · contribs), but that user is mostly off-wiki at the moment.

IMO, if even a half-coherent defence for an image has been argued on the page, then WP:CSD is no longer appropriate, and the image ought to go to WP:IFD.

Also, if the defence for an image is rejected, the person who put up that defence should get some notice, both that the image has been deleted, and some reasoned argument as to why.

Should WP:CSD be amended to add some guidance to this effect? At the moment it gives no guidance as to how to proceed if objections are made to deletion; or any recognition that a deleting admin has even seen a hold-on tag. Jheald (talk) 12:49, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

To make this more concrete, I propose adding the following to the end of F7

If an objection to the proposed deletion is raised, and the objection has any prima-facie coherence, then the file should normally be referred to WP:FFD (or alternatively, the CSD tag be removed). If there is not even a remote possibility that the objection might succeed, the objector should nevertheless be notified that their objection has been seen and rejected.

Thoughts? Jheald (talk) 11:06, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Oppose It seems to me that administrators are supposed to have the judgment necessary to decide whether to speedily delete or remove the CSD tag and list at WP:FfD. After all, this page states: "Administrators should take care not to speedy delete pages or media except in the most obvious cases." Therefore, if "the objection has any prima-facie coherence," as you wrote above, the administrator should already know that the file would not be considered an obvious case and that speedy deletion would not be appropriate. If you disagree with an F7 tag on a file you did not upload, you of course may remove it; if you disagree with an administrator's F7 speedy deletion of a file, you may take the case to WP:DRV. But your proposed addition to the criterion in question is wholly unnecessary. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 17:24, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

It's far from unnecessary. WP:CSD sets out the framework within which admins exercise judgment and the proper procedure. There is an issue of procedure here, and another issue of the framework for judgment. Both need attention.

Firstly, admins are not giving any acknowledgment of having seen and considered objections to F7s. That needs to be fixed.

Secondly, a number of admins believe that the instruction "not to speedy delete pages or media except in the most obvious cases" does not apply to what they call "pseudo-speedy deletions" (eg here). That also needs to be fixed.

In an ideal world, what you write might be appropriate. But as things stand, this clarification is needed. Jheald (talk) 22:31, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but I disagree. Regarding your first point, administrators are not required to acknowledge that they have read and considered objections to speedy tags. You're talking about just those tagged with F7, but I'm talking about speedy tags in general. Say an article is tagged for speedy deletion under A7, and the author puts a {{hangon}} tag on the page and posts on the talk page. If an admin is considering following through with the speedy deletion, it is assumed that they will consider the author's arguments. Our admins aren't perfect, so maybe some delete without reading the author's arguments, but I fail to see any reason why forcing admins to post somewhere to acknowledge reading objections is necessary. Regarding your second point, that is a matter regarding admin conduct and not the F7 criterion itself. I suggest you bring that up at the village pump instead of here. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 05:10, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

On the second point: this page is the page for policy discussion as to when and whether items should be speedily deleted or not. From your first reply above, I think my understanding of policy is no different to yours: as you yourself write, a key principle of WP:CSD is "not to speedy delete pages or media except in the most obvious cases". But in my view clarification is needed as to how this applies to F7. F7 is often used, probably rightly, more like a WP:PROD than a CSD, with a lower threshold for tagging (the so-called pseudo-speedy deletion). But that being the case, it should be made clear that when an active objection is brought to F7, the full CSD threshold should apply before deletion.

On the other point: if you sincerely believe that "administrators are not required to acknowledge that they have read and considered objections to speedy tags", then I can only respond that then they damn well should be. According to recent press, see eg the most recent signpost, WP is haemorrhaging contributors – to the tune of almost 50,000 simply in the first three months of this year – and they key issue they identify is arbitrary and uncommunicative treatment by established "insiders". This is the #1 issue threatening WP's continued health and survival. If you think it is appropriate for content to be deleted without objectors getting even the slightest recognition that their objection has been considered, then God help us – because we certainly wouldn't be helping ourselves. Jheald (talk) 12:01, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I generally do try to leave the user of a {{hangon}} (or its equivalent in the image world) a note on their talk page if deletion still turns out to be warranted, but I can see why some people don't—all that tends to get you is more "Butbutbutbutbut!", if not outright abuse. Courtesy goes both ways. I personally believe in providing that courtesy even if it isn't often returned, but the more calmly we all communicate, the more people will be willing to communicate. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 14:48, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. The more fairly and reasonably everyone behaves, the better. As for "Butbutbutbutbut!", this is actually how the deletion process tells people to behave, to try and avoid escalating to WP:DELREV; and being able to handle the "customer relations" appropriately in connection with any action is perhaps the most fundamental qualification needed for being an admin. Jheald (talk) 15:15, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Since the discussion above seems to have run its course, I propose to go ahead now and add the text proposed. Jheald (talk) 15:15, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Also oppose. Admins are supposed to use judgment, which from what I can see, we do. No consensus whatsoever to add this. Stifle (talk) 15:58, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

CSD is supposed to be for open-and-shut cases, not cases which require judgment. And the point about dealing transparently with people who have made objections remains. Jheald (talk) 21:01, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Let me clarify what Stifle wrote. Admins are supposed to use judgement to decide whether or not a case is open-and-shut. Our views of speedy deletion are similar, Jheald, in that we agree on using it with caution and only in the most obvious cases – but that doesn't mean every F7 where the uploader raises objections can be a case where the speedy is declined. Admins must use judgement at that point: If the objections are coherent and it's not an open-and-shut case, send it to FfD; if they aren't and it's an obvious F7 case, then speedily delete. If you feel an admin is applying F7 correctly, take it to WP:DRV.

And like Stifle, I'd like to point out that there's no consensus to add this – in fact, only you have expressed support for it – so you should not add it. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 14:41, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal (related to A9)

I have a feeling this has probably been proposed before, but I think it would be useful to create a criteria similar to A9 for books/novels, having come across a few in new page patrolling that would have met the A9 criteria if they were a musical recording. It could be a separate criteria parallel to A9, or could be made a part of A9. Potential wording for the new criteria based on A9:

A?. No indication of importance (books/novels).

An article about a book or novel that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant and where the author's article does not exist. This is distinct from questions of verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability. This criterion does not apply to other forms of creative media, products, or any other types of articles.

Let the discussion begin. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 19:04, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Oppose to the first bold part. Any text about a book may be safely and easily merged into the author's article. If its content is an unreferenced plot summary, it may/must be severely trimmed as original research. - Altenmann >t 19:40, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Prior related discussion higher on this page at #Extension of A9.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:06, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Now that I take a closer look at that, it seems that A9's non-specific theme is "article about _______ that does not indicate importance and when the creator's article does not exist." Is this a theme that more criteria could be based off of? Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 20:57, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Someone who manages to publish a book, usually has a publisher or at least a distributor, i.e. was assigned an ISBN etc. As such, books are different from musical recordings that anyone can successfully publish using the web. Furthermore, book articles that need to be deleted (and cannot be redirected/merged/etc.) are only created very seldom compared to most other CSDable articles and as such they can easily be taken care of using PROD/AFD. So even if we assumed that books are similar to musical recordings (which I don't), such a proposed addition fails the "frequent" requirement on top of this page. Regards So Why 23:13, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Aye, books are a rarity here. Software, however ... Black Kite 23:44, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Disagree with SoWhy—it has never been easier than today to get self-published (or purpose-published) books with ISBNs created (although it always has been reasonably easy for people of means). Indeed this is a notable topic already covered (see self-publishing and this Google News archive search). ^Bongo_matic 23:57, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Possibly but it's still more complicated than burning a CD or having a MySpace page with music. Regards So Why 16:32, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I haven't run across that many articles about unimportant books that should be deleted. I don't see the need. Music singles and software are another story. Especially music singles, but that's a gripe for another page. Ray^Talk 01:38, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
The difference is that a notable CD by a non-notable band is extremely rare, but a notable book by a non-notable author is not all that uncommon. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:45, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Can you provide an example? I can't seem to find any. TheWeakWilled (T * G) 01:50, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

(Per my proposal above) I agree with Ks0stm. Why should we have any article on wikipedia where the creator of the subject of the article doesn't already have a page. I can't seem to find one article where a product or form of media is considered notable when the company that made it/author isn't. TheWeakWilled (T * G) 01:49, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Very strong oppose for books. In practice, naïve new editors are often writing inadequate articles about books they've read in school, but which are very notable--sometimes major national prizewinners, sometimes such famous books as Brown Girl, Brownstones, which I long ago rescued from prod. It is not that easy to tell unless someone recognizes the book. A9 works in part because our coverage here is fairly exhaustive, and contemporary popular music at any rate is covered quite thoroughly. It is simply not the same on children's literature. People know only the books of their own generation (and possibly their younger siblings or their children). There are hundreds at least of notable chjildren's and young people's authors that ought to have article and do not. We also do have a principle that if an author is known for only one book, the article should sometimes be at the book, not the author--I do not think it is necessarily right, but we have often decided that in AfD. This rulewould simply be incompatible. DGG ( talk ) 05:42, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

as for software, the problem is there will not be articles on their authors in almost all cases, so we cannot use this sort of criterion. Black Kite, if you can find one that is not going to be controversial, we might consider it--but considering the rancor at some recent AfDs for them, it's not going to be easy. DGG ( talk ) 05:45, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Oppose as well. We should look for sources ourselves and make a a regular friendly talk page request to the user before tagging articles for deletion. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 23:48, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Oppose These do not need to be speedy deleted and prod can be used instead. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:53, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Dated Speedy?

With all the discussion above about "rescuable" CSDs, how about splitting CSD into two categories: speedies that should be deleted ASAP, and everything else.

Change the speedy tags to something like {{tl|prod}} which turns into {{tl|dated prod}} when subst'd.

This will make it a little harder to tag things but it will give 12- or 24-hours or whatever before the timeout expires. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 21:25, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm a little skeptical. We ought not make things more complicated; the existing 3 channels of deletion are complicated enough, and NP patrollers find it quite difficult to learn to use the right one. I agree we need a solution to over-rapid deletion, but I'm reluctant to do something like this. It will be too difficult choosing between them. I don;t think we can go by class of speedy, since so many A7s and G11s are pure trivial vanity that really do need to go as fast as possible but should not be overtagged as Vandalism. I don;t want to rule it out though, because we do need to do something to give people a chance to write articles. David, can you work out some details and examples? DGG ( talk ) 05:35, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

AFAIK, general practice is that certain types of CSD do already have a slightly higher priority, particularly G3s, G10s, and G12s (copyvios and attack pages). A7s/G11s usually are not a huge hurry to delete, as those are potentially salvageable. However, this seems to be mostly common sense; I doubt that we need any sort of actual physical demarcation for which speedies should be taken care of first. GlassCobra 16:38, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

If technically feasible, I wholeheartedly support making A1 and A3s and to a lesser extent, A7s not propagate into CAT:CSD until a set time (a few hours) after creation regardless of when they are tagged (we've discussed this before; I think there was a technical hurdle which is what led to things like {{Hasty}} and changing the mediawiki messages at newpages to tell patroller to patrol from the end of the queue), but this would need to be automatic and we would need a much better way to stop creators from removing tags in the intervening time.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:50, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Alternatively, we could just ask NPPers to wait more then 1/2 a second when tagging as A1 or A3 ;).
I think that rather then changing the current speedy deletion process/templates. It would be better to create a new template, say {{csd-wait}}, which says something like "this article currently meets CSD A3/A1, but deletion is pending to allow the creator time to expand the page. Please do not mark this page for deletion in the meantime. If the page is not expanded in a reasonable length of time, it will be deleted.". NPPers could add this template to a page, watchlist the page, leave a helpful message for the creator, and then come back to it later. Best, - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 17:00, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I like that idea very much, and is so much less complicated than the initial proposal outlined above. ArcAngel (talk) 18:48, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

You guys apparently indented as responses to my post... see {{Hasty}}, already referenced, created for just this purpose. As for telling people to wait, we already do that. As I also noted, that's why we have the mediawiki message to patrol from the back end of the log at the top of newpages. It doesn't work and it will never work in the wild-wiki-west without an imposed solution.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:10, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth I've just made the message explicit about not tagging moments after creation. See the mediawiki message at the top of Special:Newpages.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:37, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

As far as I understood, {{hasty}} is for admin use after tagging (and biting), my template idea (partly prompted by the hasty template),is for use by NPPer before tagging, and therefore it would avoid bite. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 09:59, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Aha. I have deleted the redirect I made from it to hasty (which is not restricted to admins!) Go for it. However, It still is a stop gap measure hoping to preempt other NPPers who are on the same line with you and may come to the article first.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 10:57, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I think at least half the newbie BITE on a typical article comes with the tagging. Imagine writing the first sentence of your first article and hitting save to make sure it works. The save goes through and you continue editing only to get a strange "edit conflict" message. You return to the article and see it is tagged for deletion. This scenario happens quite often, I am sure, and a fair % of those people will just say 'fuck it' and leave without even bothering to re-save what they already wrote.

My ideal solution to this problem would be a software delay whereby a newly created article is visible to no one (including search engines) until some fixed amount of time - perhaps 30 minutes. Then it would be less of a problem if a NPPer tags it within 10 secs of becoming visible. Sure attack pages would technically exist for 30 minutes, but since no one could see them it wouldn't really matter. (Deleted attack pages technically still exist as it is.) The main downside to this idea is that it is hard to get the devs to act, as they have tons of work to do at all times.--ThaddeusB (talk) 23:51, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

If this could actually be done, it would be great. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:23, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I second that. It would seem a lot less bitey if this could actually be implemented. ArcAngel (talk) 04:53, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Ugh...sorry, but I don't think this is a good idea. Making CSD tagging more complicated is really unnecessary. I know anti-WP:BITE efforts are a big deal recently, but as a NPPer, I don't really see this as being very useful. My two cents. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 05:14, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree that we need to avoid overcomplicating things, I suspect that many of the problems at speedy deletion arise from it already being quite complex. That said I think that a short period of grace could make the system less complex for the various participants, but as pointed out above that period of grace should not involve template and counter template scaring off the newbies. However I disagree with the "software delay whereby a newly created article is visible to no one" approach, as this would make things way too easy for the cyber bullies as they could still email the link to an attack page and have it seen by far more people if it was up for an extra 30 minutes. My preferred option is to split the queue and NPP into three rather than the current two. An Antechamber where only bad faith articles such as attack pages and vandalism are deleted. Then after the article has been up for a certain period of time (at least one hour perhaps 24) it would go through Special Newpages as at present. (The back of the unpatrolled queue would be unaltered). One of the simplifications is that A1 and A3 would not apply in the antechamber but would at Special Newpages - thereby resolving the current divide in the community between those who consider A1 and A3 tags in the first few seconds of an articles existence as overhasty and those who consider they are judging the article as submitted. Ϣere SpielChequers 10:48, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Now that's an interesting idea. I like it, but in my experience some A1/A3 pages are clearly not going to meet A7/A9 even if expanded. I hate to be cynical, but I suspect there might be more G2 and/or G3 taggings if this idea was implemented. That is, if A1/A3 can't be used, just call it vandalism or a test. Thoughts? A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 20:29, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I see the concern, but I rather suspect anyone mistagging good faith articles as bad faith ones is liable to have that pointed out to them. I would hope that the more deletionist editors would steer clear of the antechamber and concentrate on Special Newpages. But I think two changes might assuage some concerns about the antechamber idea. Firstly if people have had articles deleted as G3 or G10 chuck any subsequent articles by them straight into Special Newpages with no time in the antechamber. Secondly allow userfication as an option in the antechamber, many of the most hopeless A7s are really userpages and whilst tests are I believe rarer I see no harm in turning a newbies test into their sandbox. Ϣere SpielChequers 19:29, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I suppose it's true enough that such mistaggings are, well, mistaggings, and that they would be identified as such. This is an interesting idea indeed; please let me know if you pursue it any further. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 21:55, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

As ever, strong oppose any delayed deletion for speedy categories which would give users the chance to remove deletion tags from inappropriate articles. Stifle (talk) 16:00, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I don;t see that as the key problem. We have technical means of keeping a list of those that the tag was ever applied on, and qwuite a lot of people following CSD. I'm not sure many really bad articles have ever escaped us this way. DGG ( talk ) 23:29, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Unclear wording of P1

Speedy deletion criterion P1 has been worded more or less the same way since its inception, so far as I know:

Any topic that would be subject to speedy deletion as an article.

However, I think that wording is unclear and possibly too narrow, particularly given the text of the {{db-p1}} template:

This page may meet Wikipedia’s criteria for speedy deletion. It is a portal page which would qualify for speedy deletion under [[Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#{{{1}}}|CSD {{{1}}}]] if it were an article. See CSD P1.

It currently seems that P1 only applies to portals about topics that do not merit an article (i.e. under A5, A7, A9), much less a portal. However, the template seems to state that all of the criteria for articles may be applied to portals through P1. This discrepancy is confusing to say the least; I personally favor rewording P1 so it allows speedy deletion of any portal that would be subject to speedy deletion as an article – not just portals on topics that would be subject to speedy deletion as articles.

Here's an example of the problem. Portal:The Addams Family contained no substantial content and contained insufficient context. If it was an article, it could've been tagged with A1 or A3. But because it was in the portal namespace, it was restricted to the general and portal criteria. P2 did not apply because there were many articles about The Addams Family on Wikipedia. P1, it seemed, was not applicable because the portal's topic was ineligible for speedy deletion in the article namespace, even though its content was. That issue was taken care of with a WP:IAR speedy deletion, but it would be best to clarify the P1 issue here and now. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 03:00, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I fail to see the problem. The example you used could have been speedy deleted as G2 without problems. The creator admitted even that it was only created in some sort of test... Regards So Why 14:04, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay, maybe there wasn't a problem with that example necessarily. But I still think some changes should be made so the wordings of the criterion and its template don't differ. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 20:17, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I've boldly changed the wording. Does anyone object? A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 17:59, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Usually we change the templates to fit the criteria, not the criteria to fit the templates, don't we? Regards So Why 18:31, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

That's true; however, this would be my preferred version. Would you rather change the template? Moreover, do you have any objections to this wording of P1? A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 19:34, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

For the record, I am fine w/the reword. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:13, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] "Deletable category" process?

It's happened time and time again - I go into process speedy deletions, and the C1 categories are there with no indication that the required four-day waiting period has passed. I have to go on WP:AGF to delete them, since the categories' histories do not indicate when the last title was removed. Additionally, it's somewhat ambiguous - does it have to be tagged for four days, or sit empty for four days before being tagged? Noting the fact that there is no history of contents preserved in the category itself, when I stumble upon it, I have no idea if the waiting period has passed or not, and thus only the editor that removed the last title from the category knows for sure if the waiting period had passed.

Is it possible to set up a dated "deletable category" process like we have for files? We currently have "deletable image", and that works quite well, allowing files so tagged to sit in holding categories until their day comes up, and then get deleted when it's their time. I don't see why this can't be done with C1. This will allow administrators to verify that the category has been empty for the required four days based on the dated tag, and then delete them after the required waiting period.

Considering this is a process that would be nearly identical to the deletable image process, this should be fairly easy to implement, and to add to Twinkle and other such tools. SchuminWeb (Talk) 23:12, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Strong support. If I knowingly empty a category, I do add a comment saying that I emptied it, but I always hesitate to add the speedy tag because the cat gets deleted within hours, not 4 days. But if I don't add the tag, who knows when it will be deleted? This proposal makes a lot of sense.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:30, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
Take a look at Category:Empty categories awaiting deletion. I think there is already a 4 day delay before the categories actually appear at CSD. Take a look at when the categories at CfD were tagged. I'll note that this does not prevent categories that are emptied out of process which still should be considered before deleting. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:26, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

For grins I just tagged Category:Dead-end pages from November 2009 (which has been empty for more than 4 days, but let's pretend it hasn't). We'll see what happens.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 00:42, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

And it now appears in Category:Empty categories awaiting deletion - but I note that page title says "This is an administrative category for category description pages that have been tagged as empty using {{db-c1}} or {{db-catempty}}, and will be eligible for deletion after that tag has remained in place for four days" - that would suggest that the speedy tag needs to be in plce for 4 days before deletion. Ronhjones ^(Talk) 01:33, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I'd rather just abolish the 4-day waiting period. If anyone has a halfway decent reason for wanting it, it can easily be undeleted or recreated (its not like most categories have much content anyway). Mr.Z-man 01:08, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

How do you easily restore a deleted category? You have to do the restore while an external cache is available, or you can trance down the editor that emptied the category and rollback those edits, to find the content. Categories are not like articles where there is a history of what the contents were. That is part of the reason we have a separate process to empty and delete these. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:23, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

The category description page (the thing that is deleted) is just a page like any other wiki page. Anything categorized to it will remain categorized once it is deleted - the link on the associated article will just be red instead of blue. For example, if someone deleted Category:Living People its not like all the articles that contain the text "[[Category:Living People]]" will suddenly loose that text. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:32, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

True. Except that most editors who want to avoid going to CfD simply delete the entries before they nominate the category. The problem is that there is no way to watch the contents of a category so it is not easy to observe this type of problem. On the other hand there are a large number of these that are acceptable, like when a project is renamed and all of the assessment categories need to be renamed. So with the wait and the chance for admins to look into the reasons for the deletion, we can catch a good number of out of process emptying of categories. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:45, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

How exactly does the wait help with that? (Considering also that the wait currently works on the honor system). Mr.Z-man 05:14, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

If someone went along and emptied the category, it would be just as much work to revert his edits with a 4 day wait as without. Mr.Z-man 01:37, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Strong support I proposed something just like this several months ago, but apparently nothing ever came of it. The system already exists for images, so it shouldn't be hard to adapt it for categories as well. Nyttend (talk) 02:54, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I don't think we need to wait several days for the deadend category to be deleted — under CSD G8, we always delete the images-to-be-deleted-from-certain-date categories as soon as they're emptied (Category:Orphaned non-free use Wikipedia files as of 6 December 2009 will have plenty of images until early tomorrow, but it will likely be deleted less than 24 hours from now), and I don't see how this is different. After all, the deadendpages template has now been retargeted for the December category. Nyttend (talk) 02:58, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, those maintenance categories aren't really the same thing. I usually zap those with a G6 as soon as they're empty. SchuminWeb (Talk) 03:44, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Use of F8 in wildly different cases

User:Zscout370 recently deleted a .gif when a different, but related, .svg, was available on Commons, and in the midst of a complicated copyright discussion. His log entry referred to F8. When I asked, he said that F8 doesn't mean exactly the same format. I don't see how a .gif is even remotely similar to an .svg. He said that IAR somehow means he can and will do as he pleases, and says he does this under F8 all the time. Either the F8 needs to be changed, or he needs to be informed that policy applies to him too. Speedy deletion is used far too often by admins who think it is a way for them to delete what they please with a consensus of only one. For articles it works reasonably well, but for images, it is constant for admins to entirely disregard policy. Tb (talk) 16:09, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Let's see: F8 requires that "The Commons version is in the same file format and is of the same or higher quality/resolution" (emphasis added) The policy says it's not a F8 and the admin in question admits as much. Unfortunately, some admins indeed think that IAR means "I can do what I want" but that cannot be changed by discussion here. If the admin in question does not want to restore the image, you can use WP:DRV. If it really is relevant to a discussion, it should probably not have been deleted no matter what anyway.

On a side note, I agree that F8 could be changed to allow similar deletions, for example if someone converts a free .gif to .svg and uploads it to Commons directly. Regards So Why 18:42, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] A7 and things

Can someone explain why we don't specifically include things or objects under A7. It would appear that at this time I can nominate a rock, and it would not qualify under A7. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:26, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

All rocks are inherently notable, see WP:ROCKS. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:37, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh wait, I made that up. From what it looks like, this is a result of some things, such as books and software, being specifically excluded. You make a good point though, I'm just not sure what the solution is. I would like to think that in practice a rock that got nominated would be deleted anyway per WP:IAR, but sadly practical application of IAR seems to be going out of style. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:42, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Because CSD is not designed to cover every topic imaginable, but rather limit the AfD/PROD load by dealing w/the most frequent offenders. Just use PROD for these sorts of things. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:43, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Aw cmon, what about creating {{db-stone}}? Beeblebrox (talk) 20:45, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Did you ever come across a stone for speedy deletion when browsing C:SD? ;-) Regards So Why 20:47, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

This page may meet Wikipedia’s criteria for speedy deletion as an article about a rock, stone, pebble, gravel, pumice, or similar mineral content that does not credibly indicate the importance or significance of the subject. See CSD A7.

If this page does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, or you intend to fix it, please remove this notice, but do not remove this notice from pages that you have created yourself. If you created this page and you disagree with its proposed speedy deletion, please add:

{{hangon}}

directly below this tag, and then explain why you believe this wikipedia talk page should not be deleted on this talk page. This will alert administrators to permit you the time to write your explanation. Adding a {{hangon}} without explaining why the page should be kept will not keep the article from being deleted.

Administrators: check links, history (last), and logs before deletion. Consider checking Google: web, news.
This page was last edited by Fuhghettaboutit (contribs | logs) 19 seconds ago

Please consider placing the template:

{{subst:nn-warn|Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion|header=1}} ~~~~

on the talk page of the author.

This came up when I found an asteroid that was an article. The just of the text was that it was named after someone. Clearly I don't find that as notable and it should not need to go to prod. Yes, asteroids are rocks, or at least rock like. I guess my concern is that the wording of A7 has become overly restrictive to the point that we have removed the inclusion of items that common sense would say should be included. Likewise, I could write the article on The Temple of Goddess Spirituality Dedicated to Sekhmet, yes it does exist, and it could not be strictly speedy deleted as a thing. I guess my point may be that we need to allow more flexibility back in. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:10, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Surely a better action than deleting such an article on an asteroid would be redirecting it to the relevant List of minor planets sub list. Davewild (talk) 22:13, 12 December 2009 (UTC) Also I noted that in the particular case you refer to the prod has been contested anyway showing it is not the uncontroversial case that speedy deletion should be for. Davewild (talk) 22:15, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, being dedicated to someone is an indication of importance/significance imho. Vegas, I think you misunderstand the purpose of A7: It's not to delete anything that does not need discussion, it's to delete those things where XFD could not cope with when send to instead (i.e. because MySpace kids and bands create pages for themselves all the time). Rocks are not a subject where articles are created often, so those few that have to be deleted can easily be deleted at PROD or AFD. Regards So Why 22:28, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I have yet to see someone create an article about a non-notable rock. :P If they did, I find it hard to believe that anyone would contest the PROD. And if they did, it would get speedily snowed on AFD anyway. This type of thing isn't a problem, as it doesn't happen often enough for the existing processes to fail to cope with it. If we had to create a category for every single object that isn't going to be notable (yes, this specific key-shaped piece of metal is awesome, because it opens my door) then we'd fill up all of time and space and various other dimensions with CSD criteria... :) Ale_Jrb^talk 00:16, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

"and it should not need to go to prod...".

Wrong. Mistake number one. Everything should go to XfD, except for uncontroversial things that should go to PROD. PROD is our catch-all deletion process. CSD is process number 0, the tacked-on bit on the front that exists purely to keep the load on PROD and XfD manageable. "Would consistently be deleted at PROD" is not the sole criterion for CSD. Happy‑melon 21:47, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] G7 clarified

This edit clarifies G7 so that an talk page cannot be deleted by blanking unless the only editor is also the only editor of the article page. Likewise, once someone besides the creator has made a significant edit to a talk page, the article cannot be G7'd. I can't imagine that G7 was intended any other way. Making this explicit should prevent a repeat of this, as discussed here. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 04:32, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

"Likewise, once someone besides the creator has made a significant edit to a talk page, the article cannot be G7'd." So say I am discussing a new page with its creator on its talk page, and he is the only significant contributor to the page. If he consents to deletion of the page, can it still be deleted under G7? I would hope so. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 14:45, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Martial arts schools

Where exactly do these fall in the spectrum of criteria for speedy deletion? Are they outright spam (promoting one's own self-made school) or should they be included under some form of A7? I see these come up a lot because I'm notified when a certain string of words comes up in the IRC recent changes feed.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 20:01, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

You mean "school" as in "school of thought", not "local high school", right? Meanings 3/4 rather than 1/2? Happy‑melon 21:33, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Well the advertising (G11) category applies to all subjects, so any purely ad-like entry is eligible for that. You appear to be referring to "schools of thought" which wouldn't be eligible under A7 (and shouldn't be), but if you are actually referring to "training facilities" that would fall under A7 as a business. --ThaddeusB (talk) 21:45, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

If you mean "school" as in brick-and-mortar place, treat it like any other business or local non-profit. If it's part of a chain treat it like any other chain business. If you mean "school" as in "school of thought" treat it the same as you would schools of thought in literature, architecture, music, or any other form of arts. A7 applies to organizations, but has generally not included organizations offering generalized instruction, e.g. primary, secondary, and post-secondary schools. I'm not sure if schools like "Acme Hebrew School" or "Acme Karate School" or "Acme Barber College" qualify for A7. When in doubt, don't speedy. Unless the number of such schools that don't qualify for any other CSD but which wouldn't stand a snowball's chance at AFD is great, PROD or AFD is probably the way to go. If the number is great we may need to clarify A7. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:23, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

If the article is blatant promotion, though, G11 does still apply, as it does to anything that's promotional. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 04:29, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] WP:Attack page

I'm coming around to the idea that G10/Attack page has more subtleties than we want to handle here at CSD (currently, we say very little about it). I brought up the idea of either deleting or being more careful with WP:Attack page a while ago; I guess I'm now leaning toward the latter, although that might be an uphill battle ... the page is rarely edited, and people tend to talk about G10 stuff here. Thoughts?

Example: I just deleted "alex is an convicted terrorist born in 2000 lives in hong kong"; the title didn't mention the full name. A lot of pages that don't mention a specific subject (especially a specific person) don't get deleted as G10, but even though the vast majority of readers won't know who was meant, there's a good enough chance that some 9-year-old Alex in Hong Kong is being targeted here that I didn't want to risk leaving the page up. I have an app that scans the G10 queue every 5 minutes, and other admins usually get to the G10s before I do ... that gives you an idea how diligent we're being about attack pages, which is good. - Dank (push to talk) 15:27, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Lengthy, with 2 proposals.

I think one reason it's not talked about much is because it's the sort of "oh duh, I know what that is if I see it". Not entirely accurate, like your example above, and I agree with full of not. I entirely agree with your opinion on name; the so-called article also has subject, context, claim which is pretty much a checklist of the "good starters". No Google hits? Might be in some Chinese sources we'd never understand, have to consider that. Born in 2000, 9 years old? Maybe it was a conviction in 2000? ... These are the things we're supposed to think about and it can save a lot of articles. Even if we hate their topic or loathe their very existence, and a put a PROD on a day later when it's clear the creator doesn't want to talk... 'tis just how it goes.

--Here's a proposal-- Particularly strict enforcement for things that generally make the encyclopedia look horrible with terrible PR if ever discovered or grabbed by Google. Things like terrorism, murders, rapes (any jail time with a reference?), race-sensitive remarks, threats of violent crime. Zero tolerance on any of these without at least one reference, or automatic CSD tag. Extra-strict enforcement on BLP articles articles as well. Anything with a name, period, and a thousand nasty warnings if a name + info that could lead to discovery are there, etc. These can "look harmless" and are often allowed through, but it's still BLP and it doesn't matter if its' 5 years old or 5 seconds old. We can treat the new editors in a proper way and still not allow the project to be tainted. ... and hey we'd have far less trouble later on with BLP issues in existing articles in the future if contributors were literally forced to understand it first.

--Alternate idea-- encourage more use of G3/hoaxes. That would cover a lot of what I claimed were extra-terrible. Generic duck test + any generic internet search to determine would be more than enough, if there are no citations to look at. Quite obviously a 9-year-old from Hong Kong isn't going to be a convicted terrorist... and no source. If it's legit, they can learn about the process, even, so anything in the future should have no problems. Bland statements and insults like "alex gets the worst grade becaues he's an effing idiot in all his classes" would fit G10 but too "normal" for G3. Yeah... terrorism claims? Felony charges? Even small BLP infractions? imo G3 could work. I hate 'encouraging' duck tests, but they're pretty damned effective. So, beyond this even expand G3 or create new for BLP? ♪ daTheisen (talk) 16:04, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and one rebuttal to a question that should be raised-- if someone claims we're just censoring because of race (one direction or another), we can easily point to how race wasn't the matter that suggested deletion, and it was everything else instead, Including links to BLP, GNG and a few specific essays on such things. We maybe could give a link to WP:WEIGHT or other things we're supposed to think of about the source of this sort of info, but too technical, I would think. ...Thoughts? ♪ daTheisen (talk) 16:04, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I think that G10 works quite well, and unlike some tags almost all G10 tags are correct. We made a big change earlier this year when we decided that taggers should blank G10s as well as tagging them, and hopefully this has improved things. I don't think we should reclassify some G10s as G3 - we have various ways to prioritise the deletion of G10s and I'm pretty confident that the average G10 gets deleted quicker than the average G3. One change we could consider is to have a separate template generating a slightly different warning for attacks on entities as opposed to people. The other change I'd like to see is to link the G10 notification to Huggle so that edits by people who've just written G10s get watched closely by hugglers. Ϣere SpielChequers 16:16, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Enthusiastic support for all of that, WSC. - Dank (push to talk) 16:21, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I've knocked up an alternate warning message at {{AttackOrg}} but it would need someone a bit more template savvy to change the template generated by {{G10}}. Ideally I'd like to see it offer two alternate templates to warn the author with; this for attacks on organisations and current one for attacks on individuals. Ϣere SpielChequers 17:18, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Template generated by {{G10}}? Do you mean the warning message? That's more a twinkle issue...Tim Song (talk) 17:26, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Its not just a Twinkle issue, as anyone tagging an article as an attack gets prompted to paste that warning on the author's talkpage. But I appreciate someone who uses Twinkle should make any changes as it would have to be Twinkle compatible, and I have yet to try Twinkle. If Twinkle automates the process and can't handle giving taggers a choice of warning message at that stage, then perhaps we need two versions of {{G10}} - one for attacks on individuals and one for other attacks. Ϣere SpielChequers 17:49, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

The newest TW fix for A10 permits passing an parameter to all warning messages, but it's one warning/criterion. So {{db-g10-notice}}, which TW uses, will need to be modified to incorporate both and switch between person/organization depending on the parameter passed. As to the G10 template itself, we can use two separate templates or one template that switches depending on the parameter. Either should be easy to implement in Twinkle. Tim Song (talk) 18:13, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

(←) I've edited {{db-g10}} to accept an optional "org" parameter. {{db-g10|org=yes}} produces

This page may meet Wikipedia’s criteria for speedy deletion, as it serves no purpose but to disparage or threaten its subject or some other entity. This includes legal threats. This also includes an article about a living person that is entirely negative in tone and unsourced, where there is no neutral version in the history to revert to. See CSD G10.

If this page does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, or you intend to fix it, please remove this notice, but do not remove this notice from pages that you have created yourself. If you created this page and you disagree with its proposed speedy deletion, please add:

{{hangon}}

directly below this tag, and then explain why you believe this wikipedia talk page should not be deleted on this talk page. This will alert administrators to permit you the time to write your explanation. Adding a {{hangon}} without explaining why the page should be kept will not keep the article from being deleted.

Administrators: check links, history (last), and logs before deletion, and do not quote any disparaging content in the deletion log entry. Consider checking Google: web, news.
This page was last edited by Fuhghettaboutit (contribs | logs) 19 seconds ago

Please consider placing the template:

{{subst:attackOrg|Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion|header=1}} ~~~~

on the talk page of the author.

while {{db-g10}} produces

This page may meet Wikipedia’s criteria for speedy deletion, as it serves no purpose but to disparage or threaten its subject or some other entity. This includes legal threats. This also includes an article about a living person that is entirely negative in tone and unsourced, where there is no neutral version in the history to revert to. See CSD G10.

If this page does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, or you intend to fix it, please remove this notice, but do not remove this notice from pages that you have created yourself. If you created this page and you disagree with its proposed speedy deletion, please add:

{{hangon}}

directly below this tag, and then explain why you believe this wikipedia talk page should not be deleted on this talk page. This will alert administrators to permit you the time to write your explanation. Adding a {{hangon}} without explaining why the page should be kept will not keep the article from being deleted.

Administrators: check links, history (last), and logs before deletion, and do not quote any disparaging content in the deletion log entry. Consider checking Google: web, news.
This page was last edited by Fuhghettaboutit (contribs | logs) 19 seconds ago

Please consider placing the template:

{{subst:attack|Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion|header=1}} ~~~~

on the talk page of the author.

Tim Song (talk) 20:30, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that looks good. Will it be made an option in Twinkle, or do people have to key org=yes? Ϣere SpielChequers 20:45, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I edited {{db-g10-notice}} to accept an "org" parameter as well. I put up a demo in my sandbox. Now it's a matter of editing Twinkle...Tim Song (talk) 20:58, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm being stupid I'm sure, but I can't see the difference in those two templates. Ged UK 20:51, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

There's a small difference in the name of the template for posting on the author's talkpage. It generates one of two different templates Ϣere SpielChequers 20:58, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

On second thought, I created {{db-attackorg}} and {{db-attackorg-notice}} for Twinkle use (and they are cleaner anyway). Demo of the first is below; the second is the same is {{db-attack-notice|org=yes}}.

This page may meet Wikipedia’s criteria for speedy deletion, as it serves no purpose but to disparage or threaten its subject or some other entity. This includes legal threats. See CSD G10.

If this page does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, or you intend to fix it, please remove this notice, but do not remove this notice from pages that you have created yourself. If you created this page and you disagree with its proposed speedy deletion, please add:

{{hangon}}

directly below this tag, and then explain why you believe this wikipedia talk page should not be deleted on this talk page. This will alert administrators to permit you the time to write your explanation. Adding a {{hangon}} without explaining why the page should be kept will not keep the article from being deleted.

Administrators: check links, history (last), and logs before deletion, and do not quote any disparaging content in the deletion log entry. Consider checking Google: web, news.
This page was last edited by Fuhghettaboutit (contribs | logs) 19 seconds ago

Please consider placing the template:

{{subst:attackOrg|Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion|header=1}} ~~~~

on the talk page of the author.

Now the Twinkle edit consists of inserting about 7 lines on code in twinklespeedy.js. But it's probably a good idea to let someone else take a look. Tim Song (talk) 21:38, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Twinkle test results: tag, notice. Tim Song (talk) 21:42, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Interpretation of new A10 criteria

I've come across this one a few times, most recently with Slumgullion nail. Someone copies and pastes existing Wikipedia article A into new article B, and uses the "replace all" function to make it look like the text from A describes B. The title of B is not a plausible redirect to A. Does this qualify under A10, or as G3? KuyaBriBri^Talk 19:50, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Just came across it again at Pascal's hexagon. KuyaBriBri^Talk 19:58, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Looks like A10 fits it: "A recently created article with no relevant page history that duplicates an existing topic, and that does not aim to expand upon, detail or improve information within any existing article(s) on the subject, and where the title is not a plausible redirect." The article/s that you are mentioning are:

A) Recently created,

B) Duplicating an existing topic,

C) Not plausible redirects,

D) And do not aim to expand upon information within the existing article.

Therefore they're deletable under A10. Kind regards, Spitfire^Tally-ho! 20:11, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

You could also delete them under G6 as copy-and-paste page moves, although this creates some problems as to whether or not the page should be moved or not (normally {{db-copypaste}} is used with the expectation that the page will be deleted, and then have the page it was copied from moved to itself). Spitfire^Tally-ho! 20:15, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

If it's the same text, then it does almost always not describe the new subject, does it? So it's a blatant hoax per G3. And if not, it's a copyright violation under G12. Just because it's from Wikipedia, it does not mean that there is no copyright that can be violated after all and a copy+paste move of such a kind (i.e. without attributing that it came from another article) violates the licenses under which the editors of the original page have contributed their material. Regards So Why 20:26, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

There you go Kuyabribri, A10, G6, G12, or G3 . (Although G3 and G6 are a bit dubious). Regards, Spitfire^Tally-ho! 20:33, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] "Aim to" in A10; what does it mean, how is it applied; what does it add?

Near the end of the A10 debate, the wording was still in flux until the last moment. The final version states in pertinent part: "does not aim to expand upon, detail or improve information within any existing article(s) on the subject,..." (emphasis added). I have no idea how to parse "aim to"; I have no idea what the words mean in this context or how they can be applied meaningfully. Can someone please provide an example of article content, properly deleted under this criterion, where "aim to" is of value in assessing the applicability of the criterion, over the text without it? And an example of the opposite: an article that would have been deleted but for these words being in the mix? The phrase appears purposeless to me, and adds ambiguity by that lack of purpose. The only way I can see to apply "aim to" is to put on my Carnac the Magnificent turban and try to divine what the article creator might intend to add that they did not include in the submission. If someone can explain that would be great. If not, simply removing the words, with no other change, seems to leave in place suitable language.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:33, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Suggestion: A10

[edit] Where do we stand?

[edit] Examples?

[edit] wording fix

[edit] opposition

[edit] Should unsourced become a speedy deletion criterion?

[edit] F7 etiquette

[edit] Proposal (related to A9)

[edit] Dated Speedy?

[edit] Unclear wording of P1

[edit] "Deletable category" process?

[edit] Use of F8 in wildly different cases

[edit] A7 and things

[edit] G7 clarified

[edit] Martial arts schools

[edit] WP:Attack page

[edit] Interpretation of new A10 criteria

[edit] "Aim to" in A10; what does it mean, how is it applied; what does it add?