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Contributors frequently propose new criteria for speedy deletion. If you have a proposal to offer, please keep a few guidelines in mind:
The criterion should be objective: an article that a reasonable person judges as fitting or not fitting the criterion should be similarly judged by other reasonable people. Often this requires making the rule very specific. An example of an unacceptably subjective criterion might be "an article about something unimportant."
The criterion should be uncontestable: it should be the case that almost all articles that can be deleted using the rule, should be deleted, according to general consensus. If a rule paves the path for deletions that will cause controversy, it probably needs to be restricted. In particular, don't propose a CSD in order to overrule keep votes that might otherwise occur in AfD. Don't forget that a rule may be used in a way you don't expect if not carefully worded.
The criterion should arise frequently: speedy deletion was created as a means of decreasing load on other deletion methods such as Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion and Misplaced Pages:Proposed deletion. But these other methods are often more effective because they treat articles on a case-by-case basis and incorporate many viewpoints; CSD exchanges these advantages for the practical goal of expeditious, lightweight cleanup. If a situation arises rarely, it's probably easier, simpler, and more fair to delete it via one of these other methods instead. This also keeps CSD as simple and easy to remember as possible.
The criterion should be 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. Only if a new rule covers articles that cannot be speedy deleted otherwise should it be considered.
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.
Please forgive me if this has been suggested before:
CSD-T3: Templates which are not used in any articles and which provide no information that could not be easily provided by another template; that is, they are substantial duplications of another template, or hardcoded instances of another template where the same functionality could be provided by that other template.
This covers the two most common snowball issues I've recently seen at TfD: clones or similar copies of an existing template (often POV forks), and instances where someone has copied an existing template (usually an infobox) and replaced the parameters with hardcoded values (as opposed to creating a subsidiary infobox, which of course is completely different). Both of these cases are entirely uncontroversial. Comments? Happy‑melon15:15, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
G6 (housekeeping) has traditionally covered duplicate articles... it was even written in to the rule at some points. If applied just to true duplicates, I think you could already speedy delete unused duplicate templates without much controversy. I'm not sure we really need a new rule here... these seem uncontroversial and uncommon. --W.marsh16:21, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
I also take a broad view towards "housekeeping" outside of article space. If a template is not transcluded at all and a different template should be used anyway, and there is no controversy, then deleting the template as housekeeping is reasonable. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:53, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
It's functionality is not deprecated by another template that is :P. I assume you know what I mean though - perhaps replace "used in any articles" for "used in any useful context". Happy‑melon12:08, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps it's a question of semantics, but I feel uncomfortable about classing these as G6. It's stretching G6 quite a bit to cover these, and that worries me that people will try and stretch it in other ways. I don't think it's at all controversial to delete something like {{Vocal classification}} as a duplication of {{vocal range}}, or {{Infobox LBS}} as a hard-coded instance of {{infobox university}}. In this case adding a new criterion is not instruction creep, but just an easy clarification which removes ambiguity. Essentially I'm saying "there's a hell of a lot of different 'housekeeping' tasks, some of which are controversial, some of which aren't. Why don't we split this uncontroversial (but common) task off to reduce ambiguity and potential confusion?" Happy‑melon18:46, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
I have added this as a proposal to the CSD list. I reworded it some to reflect Kim Bruning's valid point and my personal concerns. Thoughts? — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:04, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
I most definitely support this. Most of the templates I listed at TfD yesterday were hardly controversial and would have come under this new criterion. This is an excellent idea and will reduce the amount of little-used templates being put through needless process! ><RichardΩ61220:03, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
I saw this issue quite some time ago and created WP:DOT. Its been a little inactive lately, but essentially has a procedure that marks the template for two weeks to ensure that it is truly not used (newly-created, subst'd, etc.) and then the templates are deleted under WP:CSD#G6. Hopefully, in the coming weeks, I'll be able to do some more work with that page. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:53, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
As is done with image CSDs, we could simply require that a deprecated template needs to be tagged for a certain period of time before it can be deleted. I think 2 weeks is a very generous delay. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:56, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
I assume you mean as a CSD vs. using G6? Because that's currently what WP:DOT does; it marks the template with {{deprecated}} and then waits two weeks. Once logistical question is whether to use separate categories for each day or do what the current set-up does, which is use ParserFunctions to calculate 14 days past the day marked. However, ParserFunctions are cached quite heavily.... --MZMcBride (talk) 22:34, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Do we really need a CSD for this? I would either use the existing procedure or be bold and simply delete it without rule or fanfare under the general housekeeping criterion. Nobody will ever object and in the rare chance they do, you can just undelete it. No harm to adding a criterion but the page is already quite long. Wikidemo (talk) 01:45, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm not completely sure that we need it; it would be possible to decide that it falls under G6 anyway. On the other hand, if a new criterion saves people a significant amount of effort at TFD (as a couple editors above claim), then that might be enough reason to add it.
Re MZMcBride, yeah, I meant as T3 vs. G6. Categories are more convenient than parser functions, and we could probably merge the DOT system into a new criterion if it is approved. Personally, I think 7 days is enough delay to ive time for review. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:01, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
(responding to Wikidemo): I support Wikidemo in the notion that an additional CSD type is not needed for this. The WP:DOT mechanism, which is sort of like a WP:PROD for templates (I am more familiar with PROD, myself). If there are problems with DOT that make it undesirable, let's fix those. If the existence of DOT is considered to be problematic as "just another place to go", maybe one could consider merging PROD and DOT in some fashion, either as a single process or as two processes under a single umbrella. My point - I do not think WP:CSD#T3 is necessary ... and keeping additions to CSD to a minimum is a desirable thing in my opinion. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:16, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
(responding to Carl): I feel a bit queasy about using WP:CSD#G6 as CSD is intended (i.e. on-sight deletion) for this. I can't quite put my finger on what feels wrong about it, but it might have something to do with the difficulty in determining true deprecation when substituting is an option. If there were some way to poll content for substituted instances, that would make me feel a lot more comfortable with the G6 option, I think. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:16, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
(responding to MZMcBride): I don't think I would call deletion of the templates at the end of the DOT observation period as an application of WP:CSD#G6 because, as I mentioned in my thoughts to Carl, CSD is meant as an on-sight process and DOT is most definitely not a delete-on-sight process. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:20, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
There are three issues. (1) I (and others I presume) already delete templates under G6 if the meet the proposed criterion. (2) There are already other CSD criteria that have waiting periods (look through the image ones). So it isn't accurate to say that the current CSD criteria are all delete-on-sight in nature. (3) The DOT page isn't part of Misplaced Pages:Deletion policy at all; if we're going to agree on it as a new part of deletion process, it ought to be documented somewhere, or else how will anyone know to use it? But I think that CSD (possibly with a waiting period) is better than DOT, because it would follow a broader pattern. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:28, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
My bad on 'delete-on-sight' .. thanks for clarifying ( I work almost exclusively in the article and redirect spaces ). What about the notion of taking the DOT process under the PROD umbrella - that would satisfy a broader pattern as well. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:35, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
←I don't really consider the WP:DOT process to be a particularly useful one, for three reasons. Firstly, it is very poorly publicised and not particularly active, such that templates listed there will receive less attention there than they would if listed for CSD directly, let alone if they went for TfD. That's significant because secondly, it strikes me as an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy in an essentially uncontroversial process. WP:DOT (as best I can determine) compiles lists of templates which meet the criteria in WP:CSD#T3, sits on them for a fortnight, then lists them for deletion under WP:CSD#G6. Given the poor publicity, what is the benefit over listing them straight up for #G6? The DOT process is unlikely to conduct any more rigorous checks than the closing admin would - checking history, checking incoming links, reading the documentation (if any) and conducting a search for similar templates. Thirdly, the DOT process, being unconnected to WP:Deletion policy, doesn't actually have any muscles of its own. It's not like it has a handful of admins standing by with the mop to muck out the list once each {{deprecated}} tag expires - it actually has to send its rejects to CSD to get them deleted! While folding WP:DOT into WP:PROD might aleviate this issue, it does not remove the unnecessary bureaucracy which only very rarely adds anything constructive to the debate (since in most cases there is no debate - the status is clear and unequivocal). DOT actually appears to function more like a WikiProject or task force which patrols the template namespace for templates which would qualify for CSD#T3!! Surely their mission would be made much easier by #T3 as they could tag these templates directly and use CSD's own infrastructure to patrol and mediate the list of tagged templates.
A new CSD criterion, by contrast, solves all these problems. Firstly, remember, speedy deletion is not the be-all and end-all. Of course mistakes will be made, as they are with all CSDs, PRODs and indeed AfDs and TfDs. That's why we have WP:Deletion review. It's of course important to ensure that whatever solution we find is carefully restricted to this narrow (if common) class of deletions which genuinely are uncontroversial. But I feel that a CSD criterion is the most precise and carefully-defined method of doing that. Because there is less bureaucracy and (if you want to think of it this way) fewer "safeguards", admins are traditionally more careful in applying CSDs than they might apply PRODs. A careful admin is as likely to spot any reasons not to delete during a thorough CSD examination as a handful of half-interested reviewers are during a cursory look for a PROD or TfD. And if a mistake is made, it will probably be an uncontroversial one: a brief note on WP:DRV, admin realises the mistake, template is restored, problem is solved. But these are going to be sufficiently rare that it makes more sense to move the bureaucratic checks-and-balances to after the deletion, and to use an already-existing, widely-known and -watched, and comprehensive structure to handle this.
One suggestion I would like to make. Since both branches of the proposed wording require comparison to another template, this should be specified by a parameter in the same manner as {{db-i1}}. It's not very helpful to tell the admin that "this template is redundant to another one", but saying "this template is a hard-coded instance of {{infobox university}}" makes it very simple: either the template is a duplication or instance, in which case it is deleted, or it is not, in which case it stays. With this parameter in place, deletion couldn't really get much less controversial.
In a nutshell then: I don't think DOT or PROD would be useful for this type of deletion because it's an unnecessarily bureaucratic approach to an uncontroversial class of deletions; CSD is more streamlined but also more transparent. Just my $0.02 :DHappy‑melon13:47, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
I think you have made many compelling points that I agree with. In returning to one of my primary suggestions, I do think that TfD has sufficiently less traffic than AfD that a PROD-like release valve is not needed. As for the specifics of the T3 criterion - would we want to include a timing statement as is included in WP:CSD#I5 and WP:CSD#I6, for instance, or would T3 be applied as a delete-on-sight action? My gut tells me that a timing statement should be included, but I am not adamantly attached to that. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 15:10, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
While your comparison of WP:DOT to a task force is an accurate one in my opinion, I'd like to offer two clarifications about it. First, in the past it has been quite active, containing in excess of 150 templates at any given time. Since notifications are often given and a two week delay is mandated, the templates do receive some attention (e.g. see the "Objections" section on the talk page). Second, once the 14 days expire, these templates are not listed for deletion under WP:CSD#G6; instead, an admin reviews the pages and just deletes them, citing G6 and WP:DOT, or removes the {{deprecated}} tag (i.e. rejects speedy deletion). So, technically, it doesn't send anything to CSD.
That said, I don't really oppose your suggested template criterion, as the only real downside is a lengthened CSD page and a criterion that is somewhat redundant to existing processes, which may well be offset by the extra clarification provided. I'd like to raise one last point: is comparison to another template really necessary? It's often the case that a template is not a duplicate of any other, or has not been replaced by any other, but is simply unused and - in general - has no conceivable use. While these are covered by G6, perhaps any new template criterion should consider them as well. Black Falcon18:22, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your support, but extension to unused and unusable templates is what I specifically want to avoid, as there is no crystal-clear objective determination of "unusable". While it is quite likely that few deletions of unusable templates would be controversial, it is not guarranteed to be so, and as has been pointed out above, the load on TfD is not so great that these deletions can't be processed there. This criterion is really about clearing the bureaucracy from a narrow class of completely uncontroversial deletions which we get far too many of at TfD. With regards DOT, thankyou for the clarification; the point I was trying to make was that the admins do not delete templates "because DOT has told us to", whereas admins do say "deleting this because of this AfD/PROD/CSD". A CSD criterion is still used as the justification for deletion, even though you take a different road to the deletion. It's a semantic point again, but it just represents unnecessary bureaucracy in my opinion. The new criterion is only redundant to CSD#G6 because up till now we've interpreted G6 as covering it!! The actual wording of G6 says nothing about this (or many of the other things we delete under it), it's just our loose interpretation of it that causes redundancy. You're quite right in that the extra clarification provided in this instance would be a benefit, and hey, it's only an extra hundred words at most :D. Happy‑melon18:43, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Ugh. The reason WP:DOT was created was so that we wouldn't have to list these unused, largely forgotten templates on TfD and there wouldn't be a need for long, drawn out debates about a new deletion process or a new CSD criterion. Well here we are, facing walls of text. Ugh. While it hasn't been shouted on every talk page and village pump, WP:DOT linked from the WP:TFD main page, not that anyone bothers to read that. It was also discussed on WT:TFD before being created with a handful of editors weighing in.
While WP:CSD#G6 probably could be applied to a lot of these templates without further discussion, I've edited and looked at a lot of these templates, and while I try to avoid ones that are always substituted or are intentionally without transclusions, I've screwed up. That's exactly why a two-week waiting period was given: so that people could see the template was marked for deletion on their watchlist and notice any screwed up substitutions over the course of the two weeks. When this was previously discussed, everyone was in agreement that a waiting period was better than an abrupt deletion.
WP:CSD is official policy; changes to it are a big deal, esp. the addition of new criteria. Frankly, it might be nice to have a new criterion, but it simply isn't necessary. To have instant deletion of templates, much like how CSD#G1 or CSD#G3 currently operate would be a terrible idea. As for your assertion that WP:DOT-rejected templates get sent to WP:CSD, that is simply incorrect, and I have no idea where you got that impression. As I said, WP:DOT has been pretty inactive lately; hopefully some admins will be able to rectify that shortly enough. If I can quote the preface to WP:DOT: "Listing all unused templates at Templates for deletion would unnecessarily burden that process. Instead, this page has been established to coordinate efforts to maintain the template namespace by removing unneeded templates in an orderly and systematic manner." That seems pretty clear to me. As for the suggestion that users be forced to go to WP:DRV when an admin screws up, that is entirely the wrong approach regarding deletions altogether. Unequivocally. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:19, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I haven't seen any objections to a delay before deletion; I will add that to the proposed text. I think that "necessary" is too high a standard for a new CSD criterion. I think the t3 criterion meets the four bullets at the top of this talk page. The main objection I have to DOT is that since it explicitly only applies to templates that meet some CSD criterion (like G6) already, they could just be deleted without going through DOT (which is what normally I do myself; I didn't even know DOT existed). Essentially, T3 would formalize the DOT process slightly; the DOT page itself would be augmented by a category of t3 candidates, and the {{deprecated}} template would merge with {{db-t3}}. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:30, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
MZMcBride brought up a good point when saying "WP:CSD is official policy; changes to it are a big deal". That implies that our agreement here might not be sufficient to adopt the change officially. What is the path forward to make the policy change? Is there a change control board that needs to consider it, for instance? Thanks for spelling it out ... though I've been here quite a while, I have not engaged in policy revision discussions up to now. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 04:41, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
There is no formal procedure. I have added a "proposed" message to the CSD page, which will draw the first wave of comments. If that seems positive, the next step is to announce it at the village pump. If it still seems to have consensus after that, it's part of the policy. I think it's worth announcing at the admin noticeboard as well. The main thing is just to give people who are likely to care a fair chance to comment. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:45, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I think the criterion might have merit if it could be made to work without being overly bureaucratic (i.e. containing a detailed description of numerous prerequisites and exclusions). In its current form, I oppose adoption: although the criterion is supposed to cover cases of uncontroversial housekeeping and clarify a subset of G6 deletions, it is now about as long as and more complicated than criteria G12, C2, and I9. (Moreover, it accomplishes less than is accomplished through the combination of WP:DOT and CSD G6.) – Black Falcon05:37, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
The nature of the new criterion is that it will accomplish less than what is currently done under G6. That's unavoidable, since about any speedy deletion of a template for any reason could be called housekeeping. I agree that the present wording is too long. It needs to be rewritten to make it more succinct. But I do think it will cover any template that would actually get deleted under DOT (the requirements for listing at DOT are less, but that doesn't mean that anything that gets listed will get deleted). — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:45, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
With some rewording I have made the criterion at least sound less complicated and bureaucratic. What do you think now? Happy‑melon13:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Now that we have a reasonably stable wording, and a new template ({{db-t3}}) to go with it, I think it's time to open this up to a wider audience. Does anyone have any suggestion as to the order of events? I am inclined to go: RFC, then VPP, Signpost and/or community bulletin board. Objections? Happy‑melon19:48, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
T-3 - a potential problem for WP:WSS
There's a potential problem with the new T-3 criterion as far as standard stub-sorting practice is concerned. Often it is useful to create a batch of stub templates to completely split an overgrown type consistently, and occasionally this will result in a template which is necessary for potential use but is not actually used.
For example, if Category:Football (soccer) biography stubs were very large, the best way to manage it would be to split the biographies byusing different templates for different decade of birth. Any templates which got sufficient usage would get their own categories, others would have their articles remain in the main stub category. Thus, {{1920s-footy-bio-stub}}, {{1930s-footy-bio-stub}} etc would all be created at the same time, back to the dawn of the professional era. Sometimes, such a split results in an unused template (there may be no current football biography stubs for players born in the 1890s, for instance). It could be argued that this stub template would be speediable, as it is unused and - given that the template would be upmerged into a larger category - does nothing that the plain {{footy-bio-stub}} does not.
I know of several current cases where this situation exists - for example, every country in the world has its own geo-stub template for geographical articles, but the one for the Vatican City is currently not used on any articles. I'd hate to see this new criterion being used as a means of removing valid stub templates that complete a set.
Might I suggest the wording be amended slightly to Templates that are deprecated and orphaned and which are not part of an established series - that is... ? I doubt it would interfere with many of the templates which are mentioned as being the sort that T-3 is aimed at, and it would reduce the chances of potentially useful stub templates suddenly disappearing. Grutness...wha?04:51, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, but... the way you added it is misleading, since it implies that no stub templates could be deleted under T-3 (it makes it sound like the "larger series" is stub templates overall). There are definitely problem stub templates that it would be good to have speedied under T-3 (indeed, many WP:SFD candidates are snowball deleted when T3 could be implemented more efficiently). Perhaps simply deleting the subordinate clause from your addition (to leave Templates that are part of a larger series should not be deleted under this criterion.) would reduce this ambiguity. Grutness...wha?05:52, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I think a better way of addressing this than adding a condition to T3 is to prevent the useful-potential-stub templates from being orphaned in a similar manner that dab pages are prevented from being orphaned - have a page that is meant to transclude otherwise orphaned templates, something like Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Stub sorting/Template Hitching Post. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 05:55, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Transcluding on that page could make it look like there are more stubs than there actually are. What about simply linking to the stub templates on an appropriately titled project page, so anyone looking to speedy, when checking backlinks, would notice the list.
If people decide to tag such stub templates with T3, they'd have a hard time showing that the templates are actually deprecated as required, since they would have to look for past discussion on its intended use. –Pomte07:28, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
The suggested text says, in part, "Templates that ... are no longer used ... may be deleted after seven days". I presume what we're after here is, "If the template seems like a dead idea, and nobody has used it for seven days, just delete it". I don't have a problem with that in concept; sounds good to me. But how would one check that? To the best of my knowledge, there's no way to see a usage history for a template. That is, there's nothing that will show you when a page used to transclude it, or the last time it was substituted. (If there's some MediaWiki feature I've missed, just hit me over the head with a cluebat about it.) —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 03:45, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Okay, that makes more sense. And I think the idea is a good one! • But now I have a different concern: Every other criteria on WP:CSD is for situations where an immediate decision on deletion is justified. The deleting admin can just click delete and be done. Indeed, that's what makes it speedy. While Misplaced Pages is not a bureaucracy, I am worried that having one CSD situation that works differently than all the others is just an opportunity for confusion and strife. Would it not be better to fold this into WP:PROT, or work on promoting WP:DOT to guideline status? I like to avoid inconsistency when there are better alternatives. :) —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 23:03, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Read WP:CSD#I4, WP:CSD#I5 and WP:CSD#I6 - it's by no means a unique situation. Note that I actually agree with you that there isn't really any compelling reason for a wait period, but someone said they'd be more comfortable with it in and I'd rather have a CSD with a delay than DOT, PROD or TfD. Note that it's still clearing the bureaucracy away from the process, which is what this new criterion is really all about. Happy‑melon11:07, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
The wording of the proposed new WP:CSD#T3 is now in place on the main page under a {{proposed}} template. Please read the discussion in the section above for details of the development of this criterion. At this stage we would still like comments, criticisms, improvements and suggestions, particularly about whether editors feel that the seven day wait period is necessary (I'm not convinced it is). If consensus does not appear to be clearly in favour or opposition, we might open a straw poll at a later date. Happy‑melon11:16, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps I'm missing something, but templates no longer in use on current versions of pages may be important parts of older versions of pages. Deleting such templates could seriously damage the readability of older pages; at minimum, this seems to directly contradict the concept of a wiki - preserving a trail of who did what. -- John Broughton(♫♫)19:48, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
That is an excellent point, which I don't think anyone had really considered. However, I don't think that a mass cleanup of the template namespace to clear out all old and deprecated templates is the aim of this CSD, however the wording might appear. Instead, the new CSD is supposed to deal with two narrow categories: templates which are essentially duplications of other existing templates (such as this from today's TfD), and hardcoded instances of existing, versatile templates (such as this, this, and this (we've had literally dozens of these in the last week or so at TfD), or ones like this or this). For comparison, it is not the intended purpose of the CSD to cover deletions like this, which I think is what you're getting at. Do you think that a rewording is needed to solidify this interpretation? If so, what do you propose? Happy‑melon20:44, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
We currently have 23,571 templates that are unused (that number includes template redirects). That's absurdly large. We TfD templates daily, some are even speedied on a regular basis. While it's unfortunate that this can damage past page views, so can image deletions and CSS changes, to say nothing of deleting articles, which cause red links and inaccessible content. It's simply unreasonable to expect us to keep all of this old data. It isn't in contradiction of a wiki, it's what must be done in order to keep this place tidy. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
"...templates whose use has completely been replaced by another template" could be misapplied, as there have been instances of people forking out a template, replacing the old one with the new one, and then trying to delete the old one. Now, I have no idea why they do this when they could just edit the existing template, but since it's relatively harmless (unless it's a POV fork, which can hopefully be judged by the admin checking edit histories) and a pain to merge edit histories of the old and the new, I don't have much of a problem with it.
I support the 7-day wait. Templates are maintained at a much slower pace than articles, they don't need to be deleted, and it allows time for people to notice to explain why their template isn't redundant etc. at TfD in case they have objections. –Pomte00:00, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
The wording above, Templates which are not used in any articles and which provide no information that could not be easily provided by another template; that is, they are substantial duplications of another template, or hardcoded instances of another template where the same functionality could be provided by that other template. - is not the same as on the project page. If the intent of this CSD is fairly narrow, then this wording, or something similar, would make more sense than the broader version.
The larger issue, of course, is why even bother deleting templates that aren't used? I agree that duplicates and hard-coded, narrow-use templates should be deleted - that makes it easier for ongoing editor work. But for older templates, why not just mark them deprecated and leave them as is? (I'm thinking particularly of templates used for footnotes, before cite.php was developed).
In any case, the following seems uncontroversial (I'm just tweaking the wording): Templates which are not used in any articles and either (a) are substantial duplications of another template or (b) are hardcoded instances of another template where the same functionality could be provided by that other template. -- John Broughton(♫♫)14:23, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
(Edit conflict with IronGargoyle below) I think this wording is more closely restricted to the categories of deletion I had in mind when suggesting this criterion. I have replaced the version on the mainpage with essentially this wording. I have changed "used in any articles" to "employed in any useful context" as there are many templates designed to be used outside articlespace; I've also added the seven day criterion as it seems to be popular. What do we think? Happy‑melon16:31, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I completely and stridently oppose any new speedy deletion criteria for templates. As a regular closer of TfDs, it does not seem like the workload on TfD is too extreme at the moment. I also think that there are many templates whose template coding is far too esoteric to sanction speedy deletion without the customary 7 day period for community comment. Yes, in certain cases CSD G6 should apply, but these cases should be absolutely clear cut to the level where any Misplaced Pages editor with a moderate level of experience (but no template experience) should see that the case for speedy deletion for housekeeping is obvious. I think a prod-type template would be a much better solution. IronGargoyle (talk) 16:17, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
While I agree that the workload at TfD is not unbearable, it is rather tedious to work through dozens (and I mean literally dozens) of TfDs that you know are going to be utterly uncontroversial, are clearly either a duplication or a hard-coded instance, and where the rationale for deletion is so obvious you wonder why you have to bother. This CSD is about clearing the bureaucracy from this narrow class of uncontroversial articles. I'm not sure how the level of complexitiy of a template has any bearing on whether duplications or hard-coded instances should be allowed - a hard-coded single-use instance is still a hard-coded single-use instance, no matter how ugly the code is - in fact the more esoteric, the less we want the code duplicated all over the template namespace. The seven-day wait period of TfD is built into the CSD, but in a manner that is much more likely to provoke "comunity comment" if editors have strong feelings about the template (the template {{db-t3}} being a bit more eye-catchinig than {{tfd}}!). Considering the way T3 divides these uncontroversial deletions into a category such that they are more clearly explained than using CSD#G6 (and no moderately experienced wikipedia editor would deny that these two situations are appropriate deletion criteria), I do not entirely understand why you oppose this addition. Happy‑melon16:43, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't see this as a new criterion at all - I would already delete all the templates this covers under G6. The proposal does have a 7 day delay, just like prod; if the deletion is contested then TfD would be needed anyway. How does the complexity of the template code affect things? — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:11, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
If it has a 7-day delay then I'm fine with it. The idea was that there would be some individuals who could review the need for the deletion. The 7-day delay wasn't there when I first opposed. IronGargoyle (talk) 15:00, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Since the comments on this page appear to all be addressed, I removed the proposed tag. If there are additional concerns, let's discuss them. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:35, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Comment - In reading over the text of the proposed speedy criteria, it seems to me to just be a way to speedy merge duplicate templates (and thus deleting whatever one isn't the template "preferred" to remain). First, there may be coding differences that might not be obvious to the uninitiated. Second, I seem to recall at least one recent TfD in which the nominator orphaned a template in order to retain their preferred version - presumably in good faith, but it's still troublesome to consider. Is there a reason that speedy is required for this, rather than to just allow for the 5 days of discussion? - jc3702:49, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I just noticed that for some reason I was reading "seven" as "second". (Interpreting that as 2 days - My apologies.) So now I'm wondering how this is a "speedy deletion", and not just a variety of WP:PROD? - jc3702:52, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
There are criteria, I4, I5, and I6, that already have a 7 day delay. I checked WP:PROD again earlier tonight, and it talks about "articles"; it is not at clear to me that prod applies to pages outside the main namespace. It is true that I4-I6 and proposed T3 could be replaced by prod if it did apply to all pages. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:57, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, I was suggesting that this was similar to PROD (a PROD "variation"?) - That said, now that you point the others out, it would seem to me that each of these three would seem to be more appropriate to be merged into PROD. However, if that's done, two things would need to be dealt with. 1.) Due to previous consensus (mostly for technical reasons) PROD is not intended for categories. 2.) We'd have to indicate that the idea of "tagging" a page (regardless of namespace), with the intent of "speedy" deletion after a certain length of time (such as seven days) is essentially PROD. I think the only way that would find consensus, is if talk pages, userpages, and Misplaced Pages-space pages weren't PROD-able. An alternate answer would be to create 2 new PROD-like pages, one for an image version of PROD and one for a template version of PROD. - jc3703:26, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
While it may be possible to reform PROD in that way, the proposal here is more incremental. What do you think about the T3 proposal on its own, given that nobody has yet actively proposed merging the existing criteria (I4-I6) into prod? — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:57, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
On its own, I still have the concerns I listed at the top, about how it can be abused, or how misunderstood templates might be deleted, when they may have been quite useful. I don't know, this just seems to cry out "preference by personal aesthetic taste" to me. What am I seeing different than you? - jc3704:03, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
If I am looking at the right comment, I see two issues. First, that there might be coding differences. I don't see that as a major issue, since the actual code of a template is not usually that important so long as the template works properly. Second, that a template might be orphaned with prejudice. The seven day delay is meant to help with that. It only takes one veto for CSD before the template would go to TFD. But in a large number of cases, the deletion will be uncontroversial, which is why a CSD criterion is worthwhile. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:11, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Again sounds an awful lot like PROD. By the way, it seems that a PROD version for templates has been discussed several times. The main "oppose" has been that TFD isn't backlogged the way AfD can be. That also applies to your porposal. That said, I personally am not sure that that's a valid reason to oppose creating a template version of PROD. There's also a discussion about images at Misplaced Pages talk:Proposed deletion, as well. See also Misplaced Pages:Proposed deletion/Template prod, which apparently died in infancy. - jc3704:15, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
(de-dent) - You know, rather than just talk around it, let's talk about the processes involved. Speedy deletion (SPED?) is (presumably) deletion of a page without the need for a template. The criteria are strict for those reasons. Proposed deletion (PROD) is deletion which occurs after a template "tag" is placed on a page, without anyone disputing the tag by removing it. If disputed, the page must then be nominated.
I don't see any reason why this can't apply to any page in any namespace (with the 3 exceptions I noted above: Category, Misplaced Pages, and User; as well as all talk pages).
I'm somewhat confused; there are already three CSD criteria in place that require a week delay after tagging. CSD is not always about the ability to delete things without a delay. There is also already WP:DOT, already in place, that would be subsumed under the T3 criterion. I don't know what would go into a criteria for proposed deletion page - the point of prod is that any reason can be given, although it only applies to articles. The motivation for the new criterion was reports from TFD that there are a large number of nominations that would fit this criterion. According to the top of WT:CSD, that's when a new criterion should be proposed. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:35, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Extending R3b
R3b writes "Recently created redirects from implausible typos or misnomers. However, redirects from common misspellings or misnomers are generally useful, as are redirects in other languages."
I propose to remove Recently created and state it as:
"Redirects from implausible typos or misnomers. However, redirects from common misspellings or misnomers are generally useful, as are redirects in other languages."
The reason is that they are many redirects left behind sometimes that coming from misnomers. Check Special:Prefixindex to see tenths of redirects that are just articles with quotes only for emphasis. As Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions writes: To maintain the functionality of Alphabetical Indexing and avoid needless redirect pages, page names should not begin with non alpha-numeric (A-Z,0-9) characters used solely for emphasis.
I believe the reason "recently created" is there is so if some other website has linked to an implausible redirect we won't break their links. If the redirect was recently created this probably won't happen. Hut 8.513:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
The other reason that clause is needed is because many things that one person thinks to be "implausible" often turn out to be very plausible - just not obvious given the way that you personally use the computer. Remember that different people use different keyboard layouts (Qwerty vs Dvorak for example) making typos based on key proximity non-obvious. Language, pronunciation and spelling variants are also common. If a redirect has been around for more than a few days, the odds are that several people have looked at it and decided that it's an acceptable redirect - or at least that we should assume good faith on the part of the redirect's creator. Those decisions should not be unilaterally undone by a single administrator. If you think the redirect is truly implausible, use the RfD process. A bit of discussion and a short wait to confirm the implausibility of the redirect is reasonable. Rossami(talk)16:20, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Ok let's make it more explicitly. I suggest we introduce the following rule for cases like these:
"Redirects from common misspellings or misnomers page names that used solely for emphasis"
Since yesterday I have tagged for speedy deletion more than 100 redirects and all were deleted immediately. I want to extend this in older redirects that were forgotten somehow. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:30, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Please read this WP:NOHARM. Your answer implies that even if someone brings one of these redirects for RfD you would vote against because "Old redirects aren't doing any harm". -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:34, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
That essay is aimed at deletion debates on articles, not other types of deletion discussions. About the only two reasons we would want to delete such a redirect are that "we don't need it" (which isn't a valid reason to delete anything) or "it saves server space" (see WP:PERFORMANCE). Indeed, a common argument at RfD is that "redirects are cheap", and I can see plenty of debates listed there currently where "Not needed" is being attacked as an invalid deletion rationale. Hut 8.520:07, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Check Misplaced Pages:Redirects for discussion/Log/2008 January 2. I nominated 5 redirects for deletion. Many other similar cases were recent enough to be speedy deleted. Usually some users put quotes in song titles, terms or even names. Keep in mind that thsis phenomenon has already been noticed in Misplaced Pages but there is no policy for speedy deleting these cases if they get really old that they have to be nominated first and then deleted in all the cases (does anyone have a counter-example?)-- Magioladitis (talk) 20:23, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I think you are attributing intent where there is really only innocent (but sometimes old) error. Quotes in a page title generally occur when a new user attempts to find a page on a specific topic. Knowing that a standard search for will look for occurences of all the words in the phrase or title, the user puts the exact phrase in quotes, hoping to narrow the search. If we have a page by that title, the search engine works perfectly and takes you straight to it. If, however, we don't have a page by that title, you get the search results page saying so and offering you the link to create the page. That's a wonderful way to expand the encyclopedia and has worked very well for us. The problem occurs when you actually follow the suggested link where, for reasons that I still do not understand, our software adds the quotes in the title by default. The new user, not knowing the difference (or the older user not noticing what happened) creates the page in good faith. Sooner or later, someone notices the mistake and moves the page to the correct title without the quotes and the software automatically creates the redirect. That's not an intentional attempt to emphasize the title, it's a glitch - a newbie trap that our own software creates. In a perfect world, I'd rather see someone fix the software so the default link stripped off the quotes but even then we'd have all the old ones scattered through history - and yes, we do have to preserve the history of these pages including the changes to the page titles. Preserving attribution history is a requirement of GFDL. Leaving the redirects around does not hurt anything and actually consumes slightly less resources than taking the effort to deleted them. Rossami(talk)20:54, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
You are discussing for a different thing. I am seeking a way to optimise an already existing Misplaced Pages policy i.e. No reason to lose time to have 2 different strategies for new and old errors, no reason to Rfd cases that, experience shows that, will be deleted one way or another. You are discussing for changing the deletion policy and in fact stop R3b completely. Am I right or not? You are not telling why can deleted the new errors with quotes and not the old ones. You are telling me why we must no delete any of them. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:46, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
No, I'm not trying to change the deletion policy but I am saying that you've been applying the current speedy-deletion criterion inappropriately. Accidentally adding the quotes to a newpage is not and never has been an "implausible typo". On the contrary, the frequency with which these titles are created demonstrates that it is a highly plausible mistake. Rossami(talk)15:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
That is a relatively recent change to the way our software works (and is part of the reason the speedy-deletion criterion is limited to only recently created redirects. Pages moved before the software was updated did not simultaneously move history or (in an intermediate version) moved the content history but did not automatically record the change in title in the pagehistory. Remember that even changes to the page title are generally considered to be useful history and are exempt from deletion (much less speedy-deletion). The ones that you've run across may have mostly short histories but there are many still out there from before the software was updated. An RfD discussion can sort out the useful from non-useful ones. A speedy-deletion has too much chance of error since it doesn't have as many eyes on the question. Rossami(talk)15:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, that would not be a reliable rule. Even if the software moved the history, you still have the problem of potential internal and external links to the page (which Hut 8.5 described at the top of this thread). If the title only existed for a few hours, it's highly unlikely that anyone found and linked to it. On the other hand, if a page existed at the wrong title for any length of time, there is an ever increasing chance that someone started making links to it even though the title was wrong. As a matter of practice, we do not want to risk breaking those links unnecessarily. RfD is pretty good at sorting out the useful from the harmful links. Rossami(talk)19:39, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Internal links are not a problem. In addition, 99% of the articles I checked were orphan. It's Admininstrator's responsibility when deleting a redirect to ensure that he doesn't break any links. I insist that your problem is the rule in general and not it's expansion.It is obvious from your recent votes to similar RfD and your opinion here. -- 21:38, 3 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Magioladitis (talk • contribs)
Internal links are a problem because even if you have them currently orphaned, they may still exist in history and can be restored whenever a page has to be reverted (for example, to fix vandalism). And even if you do fix all the internal links, you have no way to find, much less to fix any external links to the page. It's easy to say that it's the deleting admin's responsibility to fix any links but practice has shown that to be an unreasonable burden in far too many cases (and not even possible externally). My problem is not with the rule but with this inappropriate use of it. Rossami(talk)00:09, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
<outdenting> Unless the link is actively harmful or misleading (and a few on that list are), then I think that particular effort is a generally bad idea. It's usually better for the project to create the redirect and let it be. "Fixing" links just for the sake of changing them adds little or nothing to the readers' experience and bloats up the edit histories. (No worries about this becoming a personal dispute. I consider this a purely professional disagreement arising primarily from the different experiences we've had during our respective tenures on the project.) Rossami(talk)01:59, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
CSD G10 - proposed alternative author notice
I should like to suggest that an alternative author notice be provided for those instances where the db-attack template is used for WP:BLP concerns. The present notice is fine for out and out attack pages but seems way too fierce for BLP concerns about content that may have been created in ignorance of BLP policy by, for example, an inexperienced user. BlueValour (talk) 00:27, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Weirdness in A7?
Hi, Mikkalai. I was wondering if you could explain what you found weird about the language of A7. I want to be sure that the language is clear enough for editors who apply it to understand that web content is a separate consideration from other creations by people. :) --Moonriddengirl19:58, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
The old text read: "..and web content themselves, not articles on their books, albums, software". I reckon you don't see nothing weird here. Well, I have never seen any "web content" that has "their books, albums or software". I thought only people and organizations may have their books or albums. I may be mistaken, though... `'Míkka>t21:55, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
True enough. I wonder if the statement can be rewritten without cutting web content. Again, I want to be sure that the language is clear enough for editors who want to apply it. Would something like "A7 applies only to articles about web content or articles on people and organizations themselves, not articles on their books, albums, software and so on" seem more appropriate to you? (Adding: I've gone on ahead and incorporated that and will await response from you or others.) --Moonriddengirl22:24, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Dictionary definitions
I've seen quite a few dicdefs listed at CAT:CSD as either nonsense or insufficient context, and occasionally as pure vandalism. Often such dicdefs are from urban dictionary. These don't seem to clearly fit any one criteria for speedy deletion, yet they are routinely deleted. I'm sure they would be deleted through AfD, but if common practice is to delete them speedily, shouldn't the criterion to apply be more clear? Gimmetrow06:00, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Generally, I tag such articles for transwiki. Once they've been transwikied, they fit under WP:CSD#A5. :) I wonder if it would clarify things to suggest that in that criterion? --Moonriddengirl13:05, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Does anyone know what, if anything, Wiktionary does with these dicdefs we ship off to them by the truckload? They mostly seem unverifiable and often promotional (people defining buzzwords related to whatever thing they're selling), I sometimes imagine Wiktionary sees this stuff as junk mail. But I'm not familiar with that project. Anyway, you can always use prod if it doesn't fall into any of the CSDs. Stuff copied from urban dictionary often might, though. --W.marsh16:02, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
While reasons in WP:NOT are not speedy deletion listing, some will be lacking context. Otherwise they really should be AfD'd or transwikied. But that is just my take, there is always IAR(when used with care). 1 != 216:10, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't think IAR should ever have a uniform application. If that's the case, and it's accepted, then a policy change would likely also be accepted (but I don't think that's the caes here). Someguy1221 (talk) 16:13, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
and I don't think IAR is ever a reason for a speedy deletion. There's a difference between one person ignoring all formal rules, and a community decision that a particular case warrants doing so. DGG (talk) 16:48, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Talk pages that are deleted as per CSD G8 cite "page does not exist" as a reason after their main pages get deleted. However, this is often false; first of all, the page does exist in a form viewable to administrators; second of all, the page often exists as a cached form after the deletion, and third of all, versions that get sporked to other encyclopedias and services exist. Thus, it is misleading to say that the main page does not exist. Moreover, deletions per CSD G8 due to deletions of the main pages is de facto censorship, as it constitutes the hiding and/or erasing of people's opinions. 68.36.214.143 (talk) 18:10, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
After deletion the talk page is also visible to administrators, if the need arises
This is not relevant, as the page will have been deleted for a good reason - the fact that deleted content can still be accessed in some circumstances is no cause not to delete it in the first place - the purpose of deletion is not censorship (that's what oversight is for) but to make a statement "this content is not suitable for an encyclopedia"
See above
Deletion is not censorship, as above; the clearing of talk pages for nonexistent mainspace pages is considered uncontroversial housekeeping, as no opinions should have been expressed on the talk page that were not relevant to the (now nonexistent) article. If the deletion of the page is overturned at Deletion review, then the talk page will be restored at the same time. In a certain sense, deletion of the talk page is a protection measure to ensure that if this restoration occurs, the two pages are still 'synchronised', instead of the talk page possibly picking up edits and comments that are not reflected in the main page.
I personally think that we should add the deletion of obsoleted images (like better quality images, images that are SVG's now, etc) as a possible criteria for speedy deletion. IF and ONLY IF the image is truly not needed anymore. Good idea? ViperSnake15112:55, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Not a bad idea to delete. A bad candidate to speedy-delete. The determination that an image is truly obsoleted is not always obvious or non-controversial. From what I can tell, the Images for Deletion process seems to be working. Do you have evidence to the contrary? Rossami(talk)14:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
DRVs and speedy A7
Several articles at CRV show a number of people justifying speedies on such reasons as not having a reasonable chance of passing AfD , and "just don't see from the cached version why he's important or significant." I think we need a clearer statement of what is not a reason for speedy, or a strong modification of CSD A7 DGG (talk) 14:19, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Is the problem with the CSD A7, or is the problem with how people are wording their remarks? Is it the case that the articles you are looking at indeed do not assert the significance of their subject, and people are just not phrasing their comments well? Some examples might help, if you have specifics available. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 14:58, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
DGG: Thanks for those examples. I've looked them over and I think I see the issue here: Not everyone agrees with what an "assertion of notability" is. For example, some people think a statement that being a member of a semi-pro baseball league is an implicit assertion of notability. Other people think that's not a statement of notability, just a random fact. I can't say who's right, and even if I could, it wouldn't solve the problem in general: How to determine what's an implicit assertion of notability. Maybe that makes the whole CSD A7 guideline broken, but at the same time, I think we need something to deal with the never-ending flood of WP:vanispamcruft. And I certainly wouldn't want something that encourages articles to explicitly justfiy their own inclusion ("subject is notable because..."). Thoughts? —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 22:09, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
The problem with CSD A7, as it is presently worded, is that it has been formulated with the inscrutable subjectivity "does not indicate why its subject is important or significant", which leads some administrators to delete articles when they don't personally believe the subject matter to be important. I propose the following reformulated version:
Blatantly non-notable material. An article about a real person, organization (band, club, company, etc.), or web content that is blatantly non-notable, such as vanity autobiographies, and articles concerning garage bands, personal webpages, and companies run out of people's basements. This is distinct from questions of actual notability, verifiability and reliability of sources. A7 applies only to articles about web content or articles on people and organizations themselves, not articles on their books, albums, software and so on. Other article types are not eligible for deletion by this criterion. If controversial, as with schools, list the article at Articles for deletion instead.
I think A7 is worded fine and precise, such that anyone reading it for the first time should realize that it isn't easy to fail. The problem here is either people don't understand it, they confound "doesn't assert significance" with "insignificant", or they're justifying it by IAR to avoid AfD creeping. "Blatantly non-notable" is allows too much room for interpretation. –Pomte16:57, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
On the contrary, "blatantly non-notable" describes the issue quite precisely. For instance, although an article comprised of the text "John Doe is the coolest person in the world" would technically "indicate why its subject is important or significant", it would still be properly speedily deleted. The examples provided in my proposed rewording clarify what is meant by "blatantly non-notable". John25417:05, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
To give another example, some administrators might assert that an article consisting of "ACME Company is a publicly traded corporation listed on the New York Stock Exchange" would be speedily deletable on the grounds that it "does not indicate why its subject is important or significant", because, after all, there are thousands of companies listed on the same exchange. I would hope, however, that we aren't going to start speedily deleting articles concerning publicly traded corporations; the language "blatantly non-notable" clarifies that we shouldn't. John25417:11, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps it's impossible to adequately define what CSD A7 means by reference to any abstract formulation. To quote Justice Potter Stewart, "I know it when I see it". I therefore suggest that the policy provide a link to a project page containing specific examples of articles that would legitimately be subject to speedy deletion per CSD A7, as well as articles not deletable under the criterion. John25419:03, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't think that your proposed wording would significantly change the behavior that you and DGG are concerned about. It would, however, significantly increase our instruction creep problems. Rossami(talk)21:17, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
John254: I think your proposed wording is significantly different from the meaning of the current CSD A7 wording. The current rule, as I read it, is about material which fails to even assert the importance of their subject matter. (In other words, if I wrote that Albert Einstein was a German scientist who emigrated to the US, liked chocolate cake, had frizzy hair, etc., but never mentioned his scientific contributions, that fails to assert importance, and so would qualify under the present CSD A7.) But an article which says Joe Blow is a scientist who invented the electric spoon, water-proof towel, and submarine windshield wiper, well, that's saying why he's worth noting. Maybe those assertions don't meet the standards of WP:N, WP:V, etc., but they are there. I think such a significant change merits community discussion. Maybe mention it at WP:VPP or WP:RFC/POLICY? • That said, I'm concerned with the vagueness of your proposed change. I think I understand where you're coming from with "I know it when I see it", but CSD is supposed to be "uncontestable". Such an overtly subjective rule, with so much room for interpretation, is not a place for a "speedy decision", I would think. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 20:19, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
A7 is a subjective criteria, ultimately. "John played baseball with Blacksburg Middle School" is, in a very technical way of looking at it, as much of a claim of importance as "John played baseball with the Baltimore Orioles". I think all of us agree that some subjectivity needs to come in when deciding if a claim of importance is enough. But since A7 applies to vast and diverse sets of articles, and because deletion can be harmful, I think it makes sense for us to try to set the bar low. Some people like to set it high, and end up deleting articles on quite notable topics through error in judgement... I don't see that as a very positive way of administrating the project.
A7 should never be about whether an article will survive AFD or not (in fact, admins are remarkably bad in trying to predict such things, especially if someone like User:Uncle G takes an interest in improving the article). But if the bar for A7 is set quite low, we end up playing it much more safely. I think A7 should try to communicate this... admins should never be trying to guess whether an article will survive AFD or not, but just looking about whether there's a credible assertion of importance. Can the policy language convey this without becoming bulky and bureaucratic? I don't know. Can we enforce this spirit of A7 application at DRV? I think so. --W.marsh21:16, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Policy by example is hard to demonstrateto someone who is being skeptical. And we should try to set it up so that not too many things have to be appealed. I have been reluctant to add to the work at Del Rev by appealing the incorrect speedies I come across but which are for articles that have no chance of surviving AfD, but perhaps we really should be doing this to make the teaching point.
I have a suggestion that might reduced the ambiguity.
remove "organizations" and "companies." "Organizations" was added, apparently without any specific discussion by as recently as Oct 11, 2007, in the midst of a more general discussion about CSDA7 (now in Archive24). The major disputed instances we have been discussing come under the rubrics of "organisations" and "companies." Companies has always been a problem because it is extremely hard to tell if an article about a company is making a credible assertion. "X is an ice-cream shop." is obviously not a credible assertion, but "X is a large accounting firm in Y country" is disputable. and how about "X is a large restaurant in South Africa"
I am not certain about groups: I think it was originally intended to apply to musical groups that are not bands, and it makes sense in that meaning. Otherwise it is too general--it's been claimed from time to time that churches and schools are "groups" DGG (talk) 22:03, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm a little concerned with what that diff you posted reveals. I haven't paid attention to the evolution of CSD A7; I can only go by what's written presently. If the present wording doesn't actually reflect the consensus about how the notability guidelines should be applied, that's worrying. That said, it seems to me that (as currently worded) the spirit of CSD A7 is to allow articles which don't even bother to assert the notability of their subject to be deleted without discussion. If my take is accurate, "organizations" seems a reasonable way to express company/band/club/etc. It's basically taking "people" and "groups of people" to both be the same thing for notability purposes. But again, that's my interpretation based on current wording, so maybe I'm being led astray. I guess the question is: Is the current wording a refinement of consensus, or a change to it? —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 21:52, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
the intent of "organizations" may have been to sum up the other types, but that has not been its effect--its been used for nonprofit organizations, schools, churches, and the like--most of which have of course been non-notable, but which are very hard to tell if yjust one or two people look at it. A kit of the questionable speedies come from this group. I don't think that it was ever thought out properly or even defended, and i propose reversing it immediately. if people want to reinsert it, they can make the argument. DGG (talk) 09:00, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Ehhhh... in my experience, being WP:BOLD with significant policies almost always results in sub-optimal results. Storms of editing, storms of discussion, upset people, accusations of bad faith, revert wars, page protection, etc. I like to avoid that kind of wikidrama if possible. At best, it means people are surprised when something they thought was consensus policy is suddenly unclear. Heck, that's how we got here in the first place. :) So I ask you to consider other avenues first. For example, raise the question at WP:VPP and/or WP:RFC/POLICY. They're explicitly intended for this kind of thing. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 15:36, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I guess I'm just a big ol' meanie, because I am really uncomfortable with setting the A7 threshold so very low that too much WP:vanispamcruft has to go through the ponderous and laborious AfD procedure. The number of manure-cart-loads of self-advertising trivia that shows up on the New Pages in a given day is heartbreaking. And I like the term "organizations" because it includes the non-notable high school glee club, local ethnic society, neighborhood watch group, D&D group, "Albigensians for Huckabee Caucus," etc. without a loophole for wikilawyering. --Orange Mike | Talk16:52, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
May I suggest a wording?
No claim of importance/significance. An article about a real person, organization (band, club, company, etc.), or web content that does not make a valid claim of the subject's importance or significance. This is distinct from the question of notability, verifiability, or reliable sources. A "valid claim" is, in short, the reason why the subject deserves an encyclopedia article. See the page documenting common deletion outcomes for examples of what might constitute a valid claim of importance or significance. Note that A7 applies only to articles about web content or articles on people and organizations themselves, not articles on their books, albums, software and so on. Other article types are not eligible for deletion by this criterion. If controversial, as with schools, list the article at Articles for deletion instead.
This allows a little bit of interpretation on what makes a "valid claim", while making it clearer exactly what qualifies under A7 (at least in my understanding). --UsaSatsui (talk) 17:28, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
it's not the claim. that would take us back to year ago, when people were insisting the the article say "This is notable because...". it doesnt matter if t here is an explicit claim, if there is some reason to think that the subject might be notable. How about no claim or indication of importance or significance. or even no indication of importance of significance. I want to get rid by speedy of the articles where someone tries to wikilawyer and says, "He is significant because he wrote an (unpublished) poem." thats a claim of significance, of the sort that no one could take seriously, and was not seriously intended. DGG (talk) 05:16, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I am a little confused. I don't see the difference between a "claim" and an "assertion" or "indication". How is your above example one but not the other? --UsaSatsui (talk) 07:59, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
A "claim" has been used in cases where an article talked about, say, multiple published books, or an important career, and did not in the first paragraph contain the sentence "He is a notable author, because ..." Sounds absurd, but i used to have to give advice to new authors to highlight such a sentence, to meet the objection "It didn't say he was important." The point is that the article has to give information that can be seen on some way as an express or implied claim, assertion, indication, or any other near synonym you'd like to add, that can be taken to show some possible sort of notability. The language here has to be very inclusive to prevent misinterpretation. Personally I like the phrase "anything that would indicate possible notability."DGG (talk) 01:21, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
G8 and images on commons
I propose we remove the exception for G8 where the image is on Commons. Once the image is moved to Commons, all discussion should take place there, not here, and having a red link image but a blue link talk page on the image is confusing and unhelpful. Majorly (talk) 15:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
If the image was moved from en to commons, sometimes the talk page has relevant licensing and copyright discussion, and so should not be deleted. After an image is moved to commons, do we really expect en editors to go to commons to make comments, when a talk page button is right there? Gimmetrow22:31, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I do. Commons is underrated for free images, and it makes sense to discuss the image where it is hosted. It's like discussing a non-existent article here that does exist on say, French Misplaced Pages, Majorly (talk) 23:18, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
It's more like a discussion on a redirect's talk page. Maybe if talk pages of images hosted on commons were soft redirects to the commons talk page? But that still doesn't address the issue of talk content prior to moving an image to commons - in some cases that should not be deleted. Gimmetrow00:12, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Speed of speedies
I'm growing increasingly alarmed by the # of articles I see speedied by admins for lack of content or context within literally a minute or two of creation. I know this sentence is in the opening, "Contributors sometimes create articles over several edits, so try to avoid deleting a page too soon after its creation if it appears incomplete", but I'm not at all sure it's being read. Is there a way to note something similar within the text of CSD#A3 and possibly CSD#A1? I'm all for not making the directions so long that people don't bother to read them, but speedy deletion is a fairly bitey thing to do when unwarranted, and it seems polite to wait at least a couple of minutes to see if the creator plans to add more. :/ I can provide examples, but would prefer not to as I'm not attempting to lodge a complaint against any particular admin. Since it involves more than one admin—and is behavior exhibited by others on new page patrol—a policy clarification might be warranted. --Moonriddengirl20:31, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I have a suggestion--why do we need A3? Why cannot articles without content simply goto Prod? their existence does not do immediate harm to the encyclopedia. And this would solve the problem--if the article is not attended to, it will be deleted. DGG (talk) 04:31, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, if someone (or the article creator, possibly a newbie) decided to be silly and remove the prod, we'd kind of have a pointless AFD over a blank page. I also usually check if the page was created by someone other than a newbie, and ask them about it if that's the case (I don't think I've ever seen a page created by a new user that went from blank to anything else). Someguy1221 (talk) 07:16, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
<reset indent>It's good that you do, but not everybody does. :) Both of the articles I observed speedied under A3 yesterday within a minute or two now exist as full articles. What I'd propose is completely moving (as opposed to duplicating) the sentence from the opening chunk of text to A1, as so:
“
No context. Very short articles lacking sufficient context to identify the subject of the article. Example: "He is a funny man with a red car and makes people laugh."Context is different than content, treated in A3, below. Contributors sometimes create articles over several edits, so try to avoid deleting a page too soon after its creation if it appears incomplete.
”
and then adding a brief note to A3:
“
No content. Any article (other than disambiguation pages) consisting only of external links, category tags and "see also" sections, a rephrasing of the title, attempts to correspond with the person or group named by its title, chat-like comments, and/or images. However, a very short article may be a valid stub if it has context, in which case it is not eligible for deletion under this criterion. As with A1, if the article is new consider that it may be in active development.
”
With regards to doing away with A3, I'd agree that getting rid of brief articles is rarely an emergency, but Someguy1221 has a point, in my opinion. I do wish that these criteria were not so often mistagged. --Moonriddengirl13:12, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Here's an example: Headless Nun was tagged and deleted within 5 minutes of creation. I see little reason why we couldn't wait a little longer than that. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:00, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Oh dear. This is unfortunate. This was deleted as patent nonsense when, in my opinion, it was not. When the poor new user tried to recreate the article and ask for help it was deleted again as having no content. Dsmdgold (talk) 04:38, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I actually agree that it was mistagged. However, the version of the article that I deleted had very little that was usable - it asserted that this was an actual ghost and was basically a ghost story. As such, I stand by the decision under IAR, from a purely editorial perspective. However, I also agree that it was excessively bitey and I should have taken more time to help along a new editor. As self-punishment, I will recreate the article in a more usable form.--Kubigula(talk)04:50, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
The deleted article seems to contain much of one version of the ghost story, I'm not sure why it's not usable. Yes, needs sourcing, but should be undeleted to credit the article creator. Gimmetrow05:19, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
The story was presented as fact and required a substantial rewrite - just about starting from scratch - to be encyclopedic. But, as I conceded above, it was unkind to delete it so quickly.--Kubigula(talk)05:47, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I should emphasize I am not trying to chastize Kubigula for deleting the article; the deletion was in line with established practice for speedy deletion. I was hoping to use it as an example of how the current practices could be improved, nothing more. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:37, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
<re-indent> Much of this discussion could be avoided if the new article would carry the template {{underconstruction}} . At least, the contributor would be given time to write and finish the new article. JoJan (talk) 09:57, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
That's a good idea. :) When I talk to new contributors, I frequently recommend that or {{inuse}}. As far as mention in CSD, is it reasonable to request a particular period of inactivity as proposed by Coppertwig or preferable to move the existing wording in the policy into the criteria? Or is there another approach that might work better? --Moonriddengirl13:11, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
The easiest way to resolve the problem would be to separate some of the CSD criteria into categories, like the image criteria, so that when an admin goes through to delete the CSD candidates, he or she is not presented with every recently created, tagged page. Of course attack pages and obscenity should be deleted right away, but I don't see that a full days' delay for A1, A3, and A7 could do any harm. So there would be a rolling set of categories, and for example on the 23rd one would delete candidates from the 21st. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:37, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
As I've said many times, a forced delay is not a good idea. I think it's a reaction to people who apply A1/A3/A7 too zealously... but the solution for that isn't to make it more difficult to apply A7 correctly, but to deal with the people who apply it too zealously. Articles properly deleted under these rules would need a total rewrite to be proper encyclopedia articles. Admins should show some diligence when doing C:CSD, with the above example, I probably would have added {{intromissing}} and removed the CSD tag. A less conservative admin might have added that tag but left it the CSD category, giving editors some time to salvage the article. An uber-admin might have just written the intro themselves. The bottom line is it requires a certain finesse for recognizing what is useful content and what isn't when doing CSD. The goal isn't just to delete a lot of stuff, it's to delete the stuff we don't have any reasonable use for and salvage the stuff we do.
But a mandatory waiting time is a bad idea that would probably lead to longer backlogs and more severe problem articles slipping through the cracks. It's just creating a massive layer of bureaucracy to deal with people who are breaking rules we already have a system in place to deal with. --W.marsh14:47, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Would you think it's a good idea to bring the existing wording in the policy down to the criterion for visibility, then, or do you think no change is required in language? --Moonriddengirl14:53, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Generally I'm for minimizing or eliminiting advice from the criteria. They should be criteria, not advice... if they're getting misapplied a lot, perhaps the criteria needs clarification, rather than a bunch of advice tacked on to it. --W.marsh14:57, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't see a massive layer of bureaucracy in the system we already have in place for speedy deletions of images. The real issue, I believe, is that we are concerned about articles that are created in a state unsuitable for the encyclopedia (to the point where deletion is an option) but could be improved to an acceptable standard with some extra effort. A more minor issue is the potential effect of a fast deletion on a new contributor who didn't understand our standards for an article.
While I agree that the problem would be smaller if each article in the CSD queue got 5 minutes consideration from the admin before deletion, I don't think we have that sort of admin effort available. And I don't want to excessively burden the admins who do donate their time to go through the large CSD queues for the benefit of the project. I don't think they are breaking the rules - I think they are following the standard practices currently in place. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:06, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I just don't believe that a high percentage of articles properly tagged under these 3 rules have any chance of becoming useful articles. These rules originally were carefully written, after all, to cover just articles with no meaningful content. I don't think the cost of such a delay-based system is worth a somewhat improved (but still imperfect) chance at letting the potentially okay articles be fixed before deletion. We're just not talking about very many good articles here (ones that, as created, meet a CSD criteria) and we are talking about a huge number of bad articles here. The math just doesn't make it worthwhile for me. --W.marsh15:14, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
<reset indent>(edit conflict)I take your point, W.marsh, but will note that the advice is already in the policy; just apparently in the part that's not being read. :) As I said above, I don't want to make the criteria so long that they're not being read either. :/ I'm not sure how best to clarify them. If we add a specifier like "not newly created", it seems it will beg the question of how long = not new. Something vague along the lines of "more than a few minutes old"?
“
No context. Very short articles, more than a few minutes old, lacking sufficient context to identify the subject of the article. Example: "He is a funny man with a red car and makes people laugh."Context is different than content, treated in A3, below.
”
and:
“
No content. Any article more than a few minutes old (other than disambiguation pages) consisting only of external links, category tags and "see also" sections, a rephrasing of the title, attempts to correspond with the person or group named by its title, chat-like comments, and/or images. However, a very short article may be a valid stub if it has context, in which case it is not eligible for deletion under this criterion.
I'm just more for flexible and thoughtfully pro-useful-content application of the rules to delete the bad articles and salvage the good ones than forced delays. In practice... these sorts of strict regulation of when we can and can't do something are unenforceable anyway. Are we really going to overturn otherwise valid A3 deletions because the admin waited 2 minutes instead of 4? That just won't be happening, or anyone who does overturn such deletions repeatedly will probably not be an admin for long. --W.marsh15:19, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I join you in feeling that deliberation is better than process. The reason I wanted to bring the advice into the criteria is because I have seen many articles tagged for speedy as no content within seconds of creation and, as I mentioned above, witnessed two on that particular day that were actually deleted within minutes. Both of those articles were in active editing, even though the editors had not tagged them so. Both were followed up on by the article's creators, who succeeded with their requests that the admins restore the article and moved forward with their plans to create full articles out of them. I wonder how many new creators facing the disappearance of an article in those circumstances would give up—on the articles in question, on Misplaced Pages altogether. I didn't bring this up with the intentions of expanding bureaucracy, but rather of encouraging CSD taggers and admins to notice the advice already in the policy, which would have prevented both of these and probably many other similar cases not challenged or observed. This is why I began with proposing that we restructure the policy, rather than changing it. We're already encouraged to be mindful of this, but sometimes taggers and admins evidently aren't. --Moonriddengirl15:31, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the general problem here. When I write a new article I do specific things to make it "speedy-proof", I'm sure these tactics aren't evident to new editors. The problem is there's no simple solution to Misplaced Pages's steep learning curve - which is most gruesome when it comes to creating new articles. Everyone's actions in the situations you describe are defensible - the new users didn't know better, the taggers and admins were just trying to patrol newpages as it is necessary for us to do. I appreciate that you're trying to fix a genuine problem here, I've just never been convinced this is a practical way to do it. Although it's frustrating to hear, I think the solution is in A) better documentation during the article creation and "I discovered my article was deleted" process, we're sorely lacking in that department even in 2008 and B) Better coaching of admins not to trample over would-be decent articles new users are trying to create. It's not an easy process, but I think it is workable... throwing documentation at people isn't the best solution, for example, but it's all we do now. Every other big site, even Urban Dictionary, offers some sort of a "wizard" to help new users generate new content without the result being a disaster for other people to clean up... why can't Misplaced Pages? I hate to be a stick-in-the-mud, but the solution to the problem you describe isn't as simple as just trying to legislate admins into acting more slowly. --W.marsh16:45, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
"Better coaching of admins...." There's a thought. Has anybody attempted, that you know of, to create a mentorship program for admins? It could be quite useful to have an experienced admin looking over a new admin's work. I know when I was a baby admin (suppose I'm a child or preteen now), I wasn't shy about asking for help, but you don't know to ask for help when you don't know you've misunderstood something. I know this is not the place to propose or debate such a thing, but since your words sparked the thought, I figured I'd ask here. :) --Moonriddengirl17:58, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm not one for formal coaching programs... although if others want to do that it's fine with me, I think such programs exist. My idea of coaching is more along the lines of giving those who make bad deletions a thumping or two at DRV... they rarely seem to end up back there afterwards. --W.marsh18:37, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
My general impression of the current system is that it encourages editors to write new articles elsewhere and then copy entire articles to WP in one edit. The alternative, writing the article "live", would require more than a few minutes to get up to our content standards, particularly for a new editor who is unaware of those standards. I don't completely object to the idea that new articles should be created in decent shape, but it does possibly contradict the "wiki process" foundation principle. A famous example of this was the Mzoli's meats article, which could not possibly remain undeleted as a one-sentence stub under current CSD practices. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:34, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
At the same time I've long felt we can't just leave unfinished articles sitting around. In years of maintenence, I've found so many of these where the creator doesn't come to fix the problems after months have passed. A lot of these unfinished works are just never going to get finished by whoever started them, and an article that meets A1/A3/A7 will be pretty useless to a new party who wants to work on the article. I think this explains why I support speedy deletion on sight if called for... maybe the creator's coming back to create a great article, but experience has taught me that is usually just wishful thinking. I think the "Wiki process" allows for deletion of articles that contain nothing useful yet... bear in mind I'm extremely conservative in my application of A7, perhaps that explains why I'm comfortable with a fast application of it. I do wish we had some "provisional" level of articles, where new editors (and Jimbos) could easilly say an article isn't quite ready to be an article yet, and thus be considered for speedy deletion, but work is being done. That way everyone wins - premature articles aren't deleted instantly, and premature articles don't make us look bad if we keep them around. But that would require some software-level changes obviously. --W.marsh16:36, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Tagging articles and working the CSD backlog require making many judgment calls, and, no matter what the criteria say, there will be imperfect judgments made along the way. In these situations, I think the most sensible solution is to drop the tagger or admin a note explaining the concern. Alternately, I like the idea of putting an {{underconstruction}} template on an article if you've reviewed it and think it might have potential.--Kubigula(talk)15:48, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
and there is also WP:PROD. If a notice is given, that can do the best of both possibilities--encourage construction of a article , and provide for its quick deletion if it isnt improved. Any editor pther than the original author, not just an admin, can remove a speedy tag and substitute a prod--and, I would hope, offer some help to the guy who started it. DGG (talk) 18:21, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Does the CSD warning template yet link to WP:FIRST? There is a lot of good advice there for creating speedy-proof articles. While I would agree that new users may not know policy, that is no reason to indifinately keep "Thsi band is teh BOMB" articles simply because the user that created it doesn't know policy. No reason not to delete AND educate at the same time... --Jayron32|talk|contribs18:36, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I have an idea! Have a template that says "This article is very short and doesn't explain what it's about. Please continue editing it and adding to it, but if it stays so short that we can't figure out what exactly the topic is supposed to be, it may be deleted." Then, about 30 minutes later (or more) a bot would either (a) replace the tag with a speedy-delete db-A1 if there have been no edits to the article meanwhile (other than Smackbot etc.); or (b) remove the tag if the article has increased by at least 10 bytes (or perhaps if it's been edited at all). The person putting the tag on would still have to watch the page, but they have to do that anyway with a speedy-delete in case someone removes the tag, so it wouldn't be much more work. bold type added to aid skimmers. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:32, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I have no idea how easy or hard that would be to implement, or how much resistance it might receive from new page patrollers and/or admins. I myself have no problem with it, but I can anticipate that some might. (Change is hard. :)) I do quite like the idea of having a bot tag the article after a certain period of inactivity, but I wonder if the human factor would function properly in terms of the tagger following up to ensure that material added actually helps the situation. --Moonriddengirl13:56, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps there's no reason why some individuals couldn't make such a template and bot and start using it, as long as they take responsibility for the results the same way they would if they edited like that manually. A variation: perhaps in the vast majority of cases, the page would not be further edited and the speedy tag would be put on by the bot. For the pages that had been further edited, the tag could simply be changed to a slightly different tag by the bot, and then people could later re-visit all those pages via a category or "what links here". Another similar idea would be "slow speedies": speedy-delete tags that somehow don't cause the page to show up until after a time delay (e.g. 30 minutes) in the categories where admins look for and delete them. Maybe that's essentially the same thing. --Coppertwig (talk) 21:58, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
By the way, I find that people over-apply the "nonsense" criterion (G1). If something appears to be fictional, a hoax, blatant original research, obviously false, or otherwise in their opinion obviously inappropriate for Misplaced Pages, they call it "nonsense" and apply db-G1. Wrong. None of the CSD should be used as a basket category for whatever one happens to think doesn't belong in the encyclopedia. I feel it's important to use prod rather than speedy in order to avoid WP:BITE. --Coppertwig (talk) 23:37, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
In that particular case, I suspect that the problem is with people who don't read the criterion at all. It says right in it that nonsense does not apply to those types of articles. :/ --Moonriddengirl13:56, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I admit to having made that mistake, earlier. I had read (or at least seen) but not memorized the criteria, and then I was using db templates and I got the impression that this was the criterion: "This page may meet Misplaced Pages’s criteria for speedy deletion. The reason given is: It is a very short article providing little or no context (CSD A1)." In other words, rather than re-reading the actual criterion, I was reading what was in the template.
I suggest the wording: "This page may meet Misplaced Pages’s criteria for speedy deletion as a very short article providing little or no context (Details at CSD A1)." I think it's better to remove the italics, which seem to me to give an air of legitimacy to the summary of the criterion, as if it's being presented as a quote from CSD. Also, putting "Details at" suggests that there's more information to see there, whereas just "(CSD A1)" looks like a citation legitimizing a quote. --Coppertwig (talk) 21:58, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Ah! Then how about we edit the templates to contain the exact, complete wording of each criterion as listed in the policy? --Coppertwig (talk) 01:55, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Quote W.marsh, above: "Every other big site, even Urban Dictionary, offers some sort of a "wizard" to help new users generate new content without the result being a disaster for other people to clean up... why can't Misplaced Pages?" It was in the works: Misplaced Pages:Article wizard. Unfotunately, it's currently stalled. Mr.Z-man created it back in October, 2007 and it looks like no one's touched it since my last edits to the biography section in November. I think it has the potential to produce some real change, but it's got to be finished, then advertised at the pump and places, and then, if accepted, implemented in some manner that makes sense so that it becomes the default process for new users.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:17, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Remove redirects from G3
I propose the removal of "and redirects created by cleanup from page-move vandalism", as I think that could be speediable under G6 as well. →AzaToth21:04, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I'd support that. As necessary, the text "and redirects created by cleanup from page-move vandalism" can be moved down (with minor changes) to G6. It makes sense to me to cluster all redirects together. --Moonriddengirl21:34, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
New criteria proposal
I think a new criteria is needed. It would be criteria U4 for speedy deletion and will be used in the following way:
Any pages in the userspace of an indefinitely blocked user not required for sockpuppetry tracking purposes can be deleted 30 days after said pages have last been edited.
When a user is indefinitely blocked, {{indefblocked}} is usually added to their user page. This template automatically puts the user in the category Category:Temporary Wikipedian userpages. These pages can be deleted after 30 days. The problem is, the category is so massive, it is difficult to go through to see which pages are ready to be deleted. After this criteria is implemented, there is plan to change the indefblocked template to allow for separation by date, so that the user pages that are ready for deletion will be easier to find.
(ec x 2) CSD is already quite lengthy and intricate. I'm hesitant to add an additional criterion unless absolutely necessary. G6 would cover these just fine. Perhaps we expand the definition of "housekeeping"? --MZMcBride (talk) 03:02, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
That definately is a possibility, however with the large volume of pages that this would apply to, I figured it would be best to have a separate criteria. - Rjd0060 (talk) 03:03, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
There appear to me two possibilities: A) If you can't tag until the time limit expires, we have a backlog of pages sitting in the existing cat, waiting to be tagged for the new speedy or B) We have a backlog of pages sitting in CAT:CSD waiting for the time limit to expire. I just don't see what you would accomplish with a new CSD criterion. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:09, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
There would be no waiting once the page hits CAT:CSD. When it goes there, it already passed the 30 days and can be deleted immediately. - Rjd0060 (talk) 03:11, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Who's going to move them? If the problem is the current size of the category, then you're expecting a non-admin to run through it and tag stuff. Now, I'm a huge fan of gnomish editing, but that seems boring even to me. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:14, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Move what? The pages will remain in CAT:TEMP (or something similar) until 30 days has passed. Once that happens, tag them with this speedy and then they are deleted. - Rjd0060 (talk) 03:16, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm just still not clear on how you expect this to accomplish anything. The existence of a speedy criterion will attract more admins to the necessary pages, yes, but the newly speediable pages would still need to be sifted out from the ~10,000 ones in that cat. And in any event, the pages are already deletable, with or without a new criterion. So it seems to me that not only would the criterion not solve the problem, but also it could be more easily handled by a bot that could go through and identify the pages that have been in the cat long enough. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:02, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
This proposal seems to be missing a few things that were originally suggested on the WP:AN thread. This would basically be done like the image deletion categories. After this is enacted, the templates that categorize pages into CAT:TEMP would instead use something like Category:Temporary Wikipedian userpages as of {{subst:CURRENTMONTH}} {{subst:CURRENTDATE}} to have categories sorted by date. Once a category is 30+ days old, pages meeting the criteria could be deleted. As for pages currently in CAT:TEMP, they would sit for 30 days and after that, if they meet the criteria they could be deleted. The existence of the criteria won't attract admins, but listing it on CAT:CSD would. Mr.Z-man04:10, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
"Indef blocked" does not mean "blocked forever and so his user pages won't be needed anymore". People are indef blocked while discussions occur about if they should be blocked and if so for how long. Indef blocked users should not have subpages deleted that will be useful for their continued contributions when they return. The current phrasing does not say "since they were indef blocked" but says "since last edited". So someone could indef block someone and then immediately delete any subpage not edited for a month. WAS 4.250 (talk) 11:17, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
It is not posible to predict when information will be useful for picking up sockpupets thus we should not be getting into guessing games and deleting even more stuff.Genisock2 (talk) 17:37, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Ummm, it is possible. Look for a tag that says "sockpuppet" , "multiple accounts", or anything like that. And we are already deleting these pages; this proposal would just make it easier to find the correct ones to deleted. - Rjd0060 (talk) 18:03, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
It seems a new CSD just simply isn't worth the effort (and drama) when G6 or a customized edit summary can simply be used. </2cents> --MZMcBride (talk) 02:10, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I filed a Toolserver request for a list of all pages in CAT:TEMP that hadn't been edited in 30 days and Misza kindly obliged. He also set up the list to update weekly. In my view, this eliminates the need to split the category into months. Thoughts? --MZMcBride (talk) 02:10, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
expand CSD R2 to include redirects from the Template namespace
You mean a page in the template namespace which is a redirect to a page in another namespace? What about userboxes that have been migrated but not all incoming links have been changed? Happy‑melon14:53, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
1) Do you have an example of a redirect that you're talking about? 2) How often do these occur? In several months of monitoring WP:RFD, I can't remember any such redirects coming up. That would tend to indicate that the volume is very low. Rossami(talk)21:24, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
There is no csd for lists that simply duplicates existing categories. Not sure if it is common enough to warrant it's own criteria. Can GSD 6 apply to these types of lists? Taemyr (talk) 18:10, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
No - use WP:PROD instead. It's not the type of deletion suitable for speedy deletion - sometimes the list has functionality that a category doesn't (I have seen AfDs of lists which "duplicate categories" kept), and deciding whether it duplicates a category or not is a subjective judgement which speedy deletion is not intended to be. --Hut 8.518:15, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
