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Discussion of wording of speedy-deletion templates, including proposed new wording (Feb. 2008), is on subpages for general, articles, images and other (redirects, categories, userpages, templates, portals).

Read this before proposing new criteria

Contributors frequently propose new criteria for speedy deletion. If you have a proposal to offer, please keep a few guidelines in mind:

  1. 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."
  2. 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.
  3. The criterion should arise frequently: speedy deletion was created as a means of decreasing load on other deletion methods such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion and Wikipedia: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.
  4. 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.

Oft referenced pages

A suggestion for encouraging and better enabling proper sourcing

Wikipedia talk:Requests for verification#A suggestion for encouraging and better enabling proper sourcing

Proposed change to criterion A7

Propose changing criterion A7 from:

An article about a real person, organization (band, club, company, etc.), or web content that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. This is distinct from questions of 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.

to:

An article about a real person, organization (band, club, company, etc.), or web content which is patently non-notable. This is distinct from questions of 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. If the article fails to assert notability but the subject is not patently non-notable, the Proposed deletion procedure should be used.

Reason for change:

Articles on perfectly notable subjects have been subjected to CSD under this criterion because the author didn't realize that the subject's notability had to be asserted and explained. If the article doesn't violate any other criterion (advertising, BLP violation, copyright, etc.), there is simply no reason not to give the author a few days to assert the subject's notability. This change would avoid damage to the project from newbies who find their articles deleted in a manner they consider unfair, without any real downside from keeping questionable articles around a few extra days. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 20:58, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I generally like the change, I don't like the word patently. One person's patently is another's objection. Also saying an article about a real person...that is patently non-notable. This is distinct from questions of notability... is a bit confusing to me. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 21:16, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If the article doesn't assert notability, how are we supposed to know that it's not patently non-notable? Sarcasticidealist (talk) 23:52, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I should add that I do support the impulse behind this; I think there are plenty of perfectly salvageable articles deleted under A7. It just seems to me that if an article makes no assertion of notability, then there is literally no way for an admin to recognize potential notability unless she/he is him/herself familiar with the subject. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 23:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The idea I had in mind was that A7 would still apply if the article itself made it clear the subject was non-notable -- "Jimmy and my friends have this great band and we're going to do a demo as soon as we come up with some songs", "Peter is this guy in my High School and he has this crush on Susan" and so on, cases where non-notability is clear from what the article says. (This is still a lot of articles). The category I'm suggesting moving to WP:PROD rather than speedy-delete is cases where it isn't obvious from the article, one way or the other, whether the subject is notable or not. I'd invite better wording. The case I really want to take out of CSD is cases like this, where the subject is really quite possibly notable but the author simply fails to assert it clearly enough -- it can be a bureaucratic gotcha. If it's felt this distinction can't be clearly defined, an alternative would be to move everything in A7 to WP:PROD without keeping anything in CSD, but I don't think this is necessary. I think enough obviously non-notable articles get created that we can come up with something to explain the distinction. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 01:29, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If their article is deleted because they weren't aware they needed to assert its notability, they are forced to read policy pages and gain knowledge.

If CsD is revised to account for their ignorance, they remain ignorant and continue to upload one non-notable article after another. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 01:56, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do not understand how if editors are given a courtesy notice explaining the reasons for proposing deletion and a few days to correct it, they will end up more ignorant, or less likely to read policy pages, than if their work is simply summarily deleted. Is it reasonable to assume that "being forced" is the only way volunteers will learn about policies? What about WP:AGF? Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 05:27, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Zenwhat. This is absolutely not the time when we should be relaxing our requirements for new articles. If anything, we should be requiring even better quality submissions than we did in the past. I strongly oppose this change. — Satori Son 02:01, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How does a courtesy notice and a few days to improve an article result in relaxing requirements? This doesn't involve standards, simply the decision procedure. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 05:27, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Reluctant oppose - I'm reluctantly forced to concur with Zenwhat. The obligation is on the creator of the new article to make themselves minimally clear. The example Sirahadasha uses is a prime example; the ordinary (non-French or non-naval-buff) reader won't know who this guy is and why he matters, without much more context than the original article provided. --Orange Mike | Talk 02:38, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: The example article is on the former head of the French Navy. Is such an article really appropriate for CSD simply because the author didn't explain it properly? --Shirahadasha (talk) 05:27, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, my humble opinion is that article was not a speedy candidate under the current wording. I wholeheartedly agree with Mangojuice's statements below. — Satori Son 15:43, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I oppose this. I think this is a well-intentioned attempt to rewrite the criterion to make it clear that it is intended, particulars aside, to be used to delete only inappropiate articles, not appropriate ones. However, what matters much more in CSD criteria is how badly they can be stretched, because effectively many articles get deleted if the most liberal interpretation of the criteria applies to them. Wording like "patently non-notable" is so open to administrator opinion that it would be enforced very unevenly, and would also be a hard thing to explain to users whose article had been deleted, and would probably lead to a lot of DRVs. Plus, I don't like the idea of admins judging the appropriateness of a topic without community input, at least, not as a codified standard practice. Mangojuicetalk 03:04, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Modified proposal

Propose changing criterion A7 from:

An article about a real person, organization (band, club, company, etc.), or web content that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. This is distinct from questions of 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.

to:

An article about a real person, organization (band, club, company, etc.), or web content that indicates, based on the facts stated in the article, that its subject is not important or significant. This is distinct from questions of 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. Note: this criterion should be used only for articles that make it clear from the facts stated in the article that an Articles for deletion discussion would be closed under WP:SNOW. If the article fails to assert importance or significance, but the article does not actually indicate that the subject is not important or significant so clearly to make the outcome of an articles for deletion discussion obvious, the Proposed deletion procedure should be used.


The phrase "patent non-notability" seems to have confused people. Perhaps this wording may explain more clearly why "Bob goes to my school. Bob rocks!!!" could still get deleted under CSD, but this would not. --Shirahadasha (talk) 14:29, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, none of this is necessary for Jacques Lanxade, because that wouldn't be deletable by the current criterion either. "Former navy chief" is way more than necessary to be a claim of significance. People who tag for speedy deletion don't always understand this kind of thing, but we can't really help that, we just have to educate them one at a time. As for the new proposal, this is even worse. Admins could still stretch this to delete anything they think is not a notable topic -- I can picture this leading to deletions of radio stations or small villages, if the admin wasn't clear on community consensus about those things. But also, this implies that we should keep articles that don't make claims. Your "Bob" example for instance shouldn't be deleted if this were the rule, because while it's implied that Bob is just a typical student, the article doesn't come out and say that, so it's possible that Bob is significant but it's not explained. You could still delete "Bob is a typical high school student." or "Larry's is a restaurant on the corner of Main and Oak Street known as an ordinary local diner." Now maybe admins wouldn't be that strict, but if that was the text of the rule, those who had their NN articles deleted would start challenging those deletions on this basis, which is just a big mess. Mangojuicetalk 14:45, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My thoughts exactly. — Satori Son 15:43, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This absolutely does not imply we should keep articles that don't make claims. It simply says we should use WP:PROD instead of WP:CSD. If the article literally says nothing at all, it can be deleted under one of the other CSD criteria, as patent nonsense or for lack of context. The idea is to limit CSD to cases where an AfD would be closed under WP:SNOW, and to use PROD for cases where and AfD might possibly result in a KEEP if the article contained more information. Admins have to use judgment including obvious implications of article statements. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 14:56, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't like either proposal, and this one seems much worse than what we have. Articles have to specifically indicate non-notability before they can be deleted? Besides vandalism, why would someone create an article and state in the article why the subject is non-notable? An assertion of notability is not hard to meet. If the subject is notable for something, why would you not include that in the article from the beginning? Also, if we were to change the criteria to require actual non-notability, does that mean we can bypass AFD if we can't find evidence the subject is notable? Right now, as long as there is an assertion, it can't be speedy deleted. With the proposals here, even an article with an assertion of notability could be speedy deleted if it cannot be proven. Finally, how is "patently non-notable" distinct from questions of notability? Mr.Z-man 18:25, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Currently, the article must assert notability -- it must affirmatively argue for it's subject's notability. I regularly turn down CSD requests where the article turns out to be on a completely notable subject and but fails to make this assertion sufficiently clear. I have no idea why editors regularly do this, it may not be logical, but this doesn't change the fact that they do. (If things are as you say, why does CSDs of notable articles happen so often as a rubber-meets-the-road reality?) Removing the set of cases where the assertion is unclear to PROD will simply not have the affects you indicate. If an article asserts notability, then "the facts stated in the article" will indicate it's notable -- there's no proposal here to go outside what the article says, doing so would be inappropriate for CSD. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 20:01, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: A lot of comments have suggested that requiring patent insignificance would leave matters to admin judgment. But the current requirement of deleting absent a affirmative assertion of importance or significance equally leaves much more up to the admin, and the purpose of htis proposal is to take some of that judgment away. Letting the admin decide what's important leaves all the gray area to the admin, while letting the admin decide only what's unimportant lets anything gray go to PROD. For example, the President of the United States article never actually uses the magic words "The president is important"; this has to be inferred from the asserted statements based on general knowledge. Perhaps everyone can be expected to know this from general knowledge, but on many subjects this simply isn't so. For example, a "chief" can be a relatively low-level officer; so an admin might not be aware that a reference to a former French navy chief refers to a former head of the French navy as a whole and might think the subject's importance hasn't been asserted. When the admin has no knowledge of the underlying field or subject-matter, it can be very easy not to notice something's importance when an editor doesn't use specific magic words. This is the problem that the proposal is trying to solve. The fact that a subject's importance isn't clear to an admin doesn't mean it isn't important to an expert in the field, and potentially good subjects have been deleted under CSD simply because their importance isn't explained in a way that admins understand. These are the kinds of articles that shouldn't be deleted by CSD. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 20:01, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Are the admins actually doing anything wrong anywhere? Like I said, and like several others agreed, the example you gave was not an appropriate CSD candidate. For truly appropriate subjects, A7 is an extremely low bar to pass, and my experience has been that in the few cases where an article on such a subject is speedy deleted, things end up working out in the end anyway. If there are cases where these things are actually being wrongly deleted, I'd like to see it.. but I think I'd still believe that was a matter of misapplying a good policy rather than the policy being flawed, unless there's a serious, widespread problem. Mangojuicetalk 06:03, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
that's wildly overoptimistic. What appears at Deletion review is just the top of the iceberg. Problem is getting a suitable level--it relies to much on the admins--people should be given clearer guidance. Yesterday without searching for them I came across 3 separate speedies of schools for non notability, and 2 audio albums. DGG (talk) 07:46, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Shirahadasha that it's better for articles we're not sure about to go to prod. Remember the case of Ggggggggggggggg12, where the (incorrect) speedy deletion of an article, in combination with other circumstances, led to a valuable contributor apparently being permanently lost to the project. Speedy-deleting the article of a new user (or even of an established user) is not a trivial, easily reversible thing: it's perceived as an insult or rejection. It has an emotional impact. I'm sure it drives some editors away before we discover whether they were the type of person that would have become a regular contributor.

I suggest adding something like the following to the current wording: "If significance is not asserted but you suspect the subject may be significant, consider using prod rather than speedy."

Wikipedia is supposed to be editable by anyone. You're not supposed to have to read the rules before starting to edit. People put in articles based on common sense, and common sense says that you don't begin an article with "Tom Jones was a really important person." You begin it with "Tom Jones was a cello player" or whatever. At least, if it's a good, non-spam article you do. Or if you've read the NPOV policy. --Coppertwig (talk) 03:19, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the wording I suggested above now seems too strict to me. Why prod an article if you suspect the subject may be significant? Better to leave it alone, or put a "notability" tag on it, or use AfD, to avoid the possible deletion of a good article. I suggest: "If significance is not asserted but you suspect the subject may be significant, consider an alternative such as prod, AfD, notability tag or doing nothing." --Coppertwig (talk) 13:19, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
better yet: If there is no indication of significance, but you suspect the subject may be significant, consider an alternative such as prod, AfD, notability tag, looking for additional material yourself, or doing nothing."
I agree with Coppertwig that one of the important considerations is balancing upholding our standards with courtesy and friendliness to volunteers, particularly new contributors who don't know the ropes and who write articles in good faith without understanding all the requirements. Enforcing our standards in a courteous way that explains to people the difficiencies in their articles and gives them some time to improve them seems to me to be more in the long-term interests of the project than an approach that simply deletes articles on sight, as CSD does. Pure CSD is best applied to vandalism, spam, content that could expose us to legal liability of some sort, and similar problems. A gentler, more courteous approach seems better for legitimate articles that simply don't meet our discretionary content policies. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 14:06, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Redirects warning

Added warning Watch out. Some redirect pages contain page history. It's probably not a good idea to speedy delete these.

Some people don't use redirects right, or put redirects over page history. As simply deleting such pages might cause GFDL compliance issues, and/or cause history of wikipedia to be lost (in the project namespace), it's not a good idea to delete such redirects. (I've actually made references to history of redirected pages in discussions. It's a long story as to all the possible ways things can go wrong).

At any rate, it's not a great idea to speedy redirects with history, so Don't Do That. --Kim Bruning (talk) 21:18, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If only it were possible for a speedy deletion template for redirects to detect the presence of non-redirect versions in the history, a big blinking warning could be added. *sigh* — CharlotteWebb 21:27, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I shudder to think of the modifications that would need to be made to the mediawiki software to permit that sort of check :D. Happy‑melon 21:32, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A bot could do it. --Coppertwig (talk) 23:00, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Would a bot have time? The usual lag between tagging and deletion is very small. Rossami (talk) 23:02, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There was discussion earlier about the idea of using a bot to increase the lag time between tagging and deletion. (Though as far as I know maybe nobody who knows how to write bots yet was involved.) --Coppertwig (talk) 03:26, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All articles and redirects have history. At least 1 edit. What do you mean "it's not a great idea to speedy redirects with history"? If you don't specify it the sentence it's equivalent with "it's not a great idea to speedy redirects". Sorry, I am mathematician and I need more data to understand. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:58, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Speedying redirects with histories is a bad idea for two reasons: 1) Many redirects are created after merging the original contents of the page into another article. Deleting the history of such a redirect might delete the history of content that is still present on Wikipedia, which could run afoul of the GFDL requirements. 2) Within the histories of many redirects is information that is encyclopedic and could be merged out of the history at some point in the future. Indeed, many redirects are even created as an act of vandalism or at the very least without consensus. Deleting such a page would amount to a completely out of process deletion of non-speediable material. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:48, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mathematical translation: "redirects with history" is being used as an abbreviation for "redirects with nontrivial history," which can be taken to mean "redirects with a history greater than 1 edit" or "redirects with a history containing material other than redirects" or "redirects with a history containing material in such amounts that recreating it would take more work than saving it now"; it doesn't much matter which, as most cases will be either redirects with a history of 1 edit or redirects with a history containing significant amounts of material, so all three definitions would give the same result in most cases. --Coppertwig (talk) 02:05, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Not quite. A redirect resulting from a recent pagemove has an edit history with only one entry but may have non-trivial history both because changes to page title are generally considered useful history and because the old title may have inbound links. Some argue about whether such pagemove-created redirects are useful in any specific case but they can represent non-trivial history and complicate your general case. Rossami (talk) 02:33, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm not sure, but I think the same information about the page move is also in the edit history of the moved page, so that's OK; if I'm right you can still delete redirects with one-line histories. Inbound links are important but are not "page history"; they're "inbound links". So we need to specify that redirects with one-line histories (or whatever) can be deleted after all inbound links have been reassigned. --Coppertwig (talk) 03:26, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • Sorry but no. You might be able to fix all the internal inbound links but there are no tools available to even find, much less to fix, the inbound links from outside the project. Those could include research papers (online or offline), Wiktionary and WikiSource and a host of other places that don't show up under "what links here". And even then, all the old internal links would still be scattered throughout our history and could be restored by anyone who has to revert one of the changed pages (for example, to revert vandalism). Redirects created as a result of a pagemove aren't even deletable in the normal course of business. They definitely are not speedy-deletable. Rossami (talk) 05:13, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Second the original post. I spent a happy morning once tracking down the history of Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress/Wikipedia:Requests for investigation (I moved it to the Wikipedia:Historical archive once I found it). It had been speedied as an 'unneeded subpage' a wihle earlier... --ais523 13:37, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Why delete unused templates?

The following was originally posted here

I understand deleting unused fair use images, but why delete perfectly good templates just because they aren't in use? If it's a vanity, userbox, etc. template I also understand. In my opinion many other things should be first in line for deletion before informational templates. I don't think unused free images are deleted, are they? Free templates should be given the same treatment. This is pure bureaucracy just for the heck of it.--Henry W. Schmitt (talk) 23:33, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello? Anybody home? --Henry W. Schmitt (talk) 22:39, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, I have no idea if this is why the criterion exists (I forget) but this criterion would limit the accidental use of obsolete templates, so that discussion on how a template should appear can be performed on a single version at any one time. Why not just redirect them...I have no idea. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:46, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Unused free images are indeed deleted on IfD when it appears they are unlikely to be used in an article. The word people use for that is "unencyclopedic". In the case of unused templates, they have been deleted because they no longer serve a useful purpose, as part of general housekeeping. Of course there is no requirement that everyone has to go around looking for unused templates, or unencyclopedic images. But if someone chooses to spend their time tidying up old templates, it's their volunteer time to allot. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:51, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your input. While I am not fond of the phrase, Wikipedia is not paper. "Housekeeping" is not an excuse for bulldozing unused rooms in a home where construction never stops and money is no option. If somebody leaves, that does not mean that somebody will not move in sometime in the future. As long as no other rules are broken, it should not be deleted. --Henry W. Schmitt (talk) 19:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Unused templates generally just create clutter. Their existence can be a cause of distraction (e.g. if an editor is forced to spend time comparing two templates), confusion (e.g. new editors may not understand why there are two templates for the same thing, and this may discourage them from using one or the other), or inconsistency (e.g. different editors may use different templates on different articles). I think a more apt analogy for template deletion would be the act of throwing out bent paper clips scattered throughout an office. Black Falcon (Talk) 20:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I do not think we are talking about the same thing. I understand deleting templates that have been replaced. Just because a perfectly good paperclip is not attached to a group of papers at the moment is no reason to toss it in the trash. --Henry W. Schmitt (talk) 23:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That could be... I had in mind templates that have been obsoleted or are single-use instances of a more general template; I wasn't referring to templates that may be useful but are simply not used at the moment. Black Falcon (Talk) 23:56, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

CSD G9

Criterion G9 says, in pertinent part: "The Wikimedia Foundation office reserves the right to speedily delete a page temporarily in cases of exceptional circumstances". It would seem to me that the Foundation has the right to delete a page permanently or indefinitely as well. I doubt there's any time limit on an Office Action-related deletion. So I'm wondering if we should remove the word "temporarily" from this criterion. szyslak 11:46, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well as office action puts it, office actions are temporary. I could be wrong, but I get the idea that it's "temporary" in the sense that it can precede discussion of the issue, and not that they're reserving the right to just circumvent procedure entirely (which they could do if they wanted to, anyway). Someguy1221 (talk) 11:51, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If the office wants a page removed, it's not just going to be deleted. At the very least it will be oversighted, and maybe even purged from the database by the developers. So I think "temporarily" is actually quite appropriate: temporarily deleted pending complete obliteration :D. Happy‑melon 15:14, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rumours

What is the status of pages that describe a rumour, intends to clarify the rumour status and indicates that no official information is currently available? For example company xyz is rumoured be bringing out a camera of model 9D. Would a page, covering the subject, for example 'xyz 9D', indicating the page describes a rumoured camera be considered okay, or subject for speedy deletion? If it is a gray zone, what sort of information would ensure the page would be kept, since most references are likely to based on sketchy facts, like "representant x suggested y", and "this fits in with the current time line". I ask, because having created a page that was intended to indicate rumour status, I am now wondering whether it was the right thing to do. --AJ Mas (talk) 17:55, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Wikipedia's basic standard for inclusion is verifiability. If the rumor is not reported on by reliable sources, it almost certainly is not a valid basis for an article. If it is, it may be both notable and verifiable enough to include an article, depending on the circumstances. For instance, even verifiable rumors are generally not enough to write an article about a future film, as the notability guidelines on films indicate that only films in production are typically notable enough for an article. This question arises enough that Wikipedia has developed a specialized term to describe it: "crystal". If the article you created does not meet the sourcing requirements, you may want to tag it with {{db-author}} to request its removal until the article can be created as fact, not rumor. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:01, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It might not be speedy-deletable but as Moodriddengirl said, a page about such a rumor should definitely be deleted through the regular processes under WP:CRYSTAL. Articles about future events should not be written until the future event has actually occurred and the event has demonstrated long-term impact on society or other notable reason for inclusion. Rossami (talk) 18:31, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps in the rare case that the rumor itself is notable (as opposed to it simply being a widespread but unverified or incorrect belief about a notable subject), then sources can be found. I can't think of any examples but its close cousins the urban legend, the hoax, and the campy conceit (e.g. Elvis lives among us) do sometimes pop up as articles.Wikidemo (talk) 19:28, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki graffiti, when good faith can be dragged in (by it's hairs)

Sometimes, one comes across pages, that could be best describes as graffiti. They usually hold bold claims like "Joe Smith is the greatest guy in the world!", "The Rolling BeatGees are the greatest band ever", etc, etc. In my opinion, these should be clear candidates for speedy deletion. However, there is currently no criterion to delete them under. A1 does not apply, because a (minimal) context is provided, nor does A7, as there is a assertion of notability. G3 would be the best bet and the closest thing to a matching criterion, but vandalism is always a word to avoid, as vandalism in the wiki sense assumes bad faith. Now assuming that the creator of the article really thinks that the Rolling BeatGees are the greatest band ever, and this user doesn't know criteria for inclusion, maybe thinks that Wikipedia should be used as some sort of blog, we can safely say that the user placed that article there in good faith. Are there any options left to speedily delete such an article? And if there aren't, would a new criterion for these types of articles, or an expansion of another criterion (possibly A1 or A3) be in order? Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 20:58, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

These are soundly deletable under A7; an adjective ending in "est" does not an assertion make.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:08, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My standard is whether a reasonable person would possibly think they were notable in terms of any reasonable interpretation of an encyclopedia. Not whether they know our standards exactly, but whether there is any reason to think a case can be made. Nobody could reasonably think that a band that had never played a gig or released a recording is notable, or an author who had not yet published a book--to give the most common examples. Or a high school student whose main accomplishment is getting admitted to college, or who played on the school team. People, frankly, are the easy part of this. Companies or clubs can be much harder. But maybe we should discuss a few real disputable borderline cases for people. DGG (talk) 22:33, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, there are assertions that are hard to call. The "wiki graffiti" examples given in the opening post, however, are as far from any grey area as you can get; empty puffery depending from no assertion whatever.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:55, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Redirects

I had a discussion about speedily deleting redirects from Talk: pages to other Talk: pages, which some admins seem to be doing. If this is not policy, may I suggest that WP:CSD#R be amended to reflect that? I was confused by the wording myself until an admin explained it to me. — Zerida ☥ 21:01, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can you please provide an example? Because if you're talking about a redirect created as a result of a pagemove, they definitely ought not to be speedy-deleting those pages. Rossami (talk) 21:58, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's not necessarily true. If a new page is created after a move, then the talk page should definitely not redirect. The talk page belongs to the new page. I normally would just blank the talk page in a case like that, but there is nothing wrong with deleting it. However, that's covered by G6 in my opinion and doesn't require a change. -- JLaTondre (talk) 22:06, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I was referring to redirects to Talk: namespace as a result of page moves or merges. Almost every move I've made that is more than weeks old has had its Talk: redirect speedied. If this is something that is frequently done, I would suggest that policy reflect that more specifically--either adding something to that effect to R and G6, or otherwise, that it should not be done if it is not policy to avoid confusion. One page I tagged was deleted, then restored by another admin who disagreed. — Zerida ☥ 22:20, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Then I clearly disagree with the decision to speedy those redirects. The WikiMedia software creates those redirects for a reason. If there is consensus that the reason is no longer applicable, then the people who think the reasons have changed should be lobbying to change the way the software works, not making an end run around the tool. Rossami (talk) 22:25, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think an example of what he means is Talk:Battle of Tel al-Kebir. If your an admin, you can see the underlying issue, but it was a page move to Talk:Battle of Tel el-Kebir and the "al" version was deleted. MBisanz talk 22:28, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This and those moves I made before it. I do feel that some further clarification in the policy itself would be helpful. BTW, it's "she". — Zerida ☥ 22:31, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In that case, there is no reason to have deleted the talk page. -- JLaTondre (talk) 22:37, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Talk pages for articles should not redirect to different articles (except for limited cases where consolidation has been deemed necessary). The WikiMedia software creates the redirects out of convenience. If the convenience does the wrong thing, then we are not bound to by the software to do the wrong thing. However, that is only applicable to the specific case I mentioned. If the redirects Zerida is referring to are all of the type MBisanz found, then I agree those deletions are not necessary. -- JLaTondre (talk) 22:37, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In a move there is usually no need to keep the old redirect, since the old talk page content moves to the new one--can anyone suggest any possible purpose whatsoever? In a merge, the is a possibility that there is significant content on both of the pages, and unless the talk pages content is also fully merged, it may be necessary to keep the old. DGG (talk) 22:36, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Incidentally, that was the question I was asked but on the other end, namely what purpose does it serve to delete it? I figured if it were a candidate for speedy deletion (which is not clear), there was no point in keeping an empty talk page. — Zerida ☥ 22:46, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I can suggest one purpose - if the talk page being moved has a decent number of incoming links, it's better for them not to turn red after the move. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:55, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I had checked for incoming links on the talk page in question before tagging, but there was none. I want to clarify that most of the Talk: page redirects that were deleted after a move I made were done at the discretion of the deleting admin, not because they were tagged. Anyone has a suggestion for rewording the section on redirects to make it clearer about this point? — Zerida ☥ 03:34, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The simple suggestion is stop deleting the redirects resulting from pagemoves. Even if they serve little value, there is even less value to the project from deleting them. They do no harm, they consume no extra space and they aren't in anyone's way. As you asked two lines up, what purpose is served by deletion? Rossami (talk) 04:40, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I was wondering if there was a way to get admins not to delete the pages. By rewording the policy a bit, we could clarify that they are not necessary. See the message left on Talk:Egypt under Muhammad Ali and his successors for another example. — Zerida ☥ 04:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think such deletions should not be done. If a user bookmarks a talk page in his/her web browser, we are breaking that user's link that way. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Standardisation

I notice that although we have {{db-iN}} templates on the standard {{db-meta}} format, they are actually almost entirely unused; with templates like {{di-noncom}} being used instead; these do not follow the db-meta format, which is based on {{ambox}}. The formatting difference, combined with an absence of backlinks to WP:CSD to note which CSD criterion the image falls under, has the effect of largely dissociating image maintenance from CSD, which might or might not be a bad thing. What does everyone think - should the csd templates in the image namespace follow the {{db-meta}} format, or is the current format, which is standardised within the image namespace but is different to the other templates, acceptable? Happy‑melon 18:00, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bot tagging speedy

A bot has been proposed, and is now actually running, that is by itself placing speedy tags on articles automatically and unsupervised. Among other things, it is making its own judgment on no-context, and is marking no-content on articles within seconds of its creation. The discussion is at [[1]]. 01:30, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Broken user page notification template

FYI, whatever template was added here isn't working correctly. The link which should go to Talk:American Leadership Project is instead going to User talk:American Leadership Project. Too busy IRL to try and sort this out myself right now. -- Kendrick7talk 19:18, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone even know which template this is? -- Kendrick7talk 21:40, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it was {{spam-warn}}. Let's have a look. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:45, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for pointing that out! I don't know much about templates. I use them more or less like I use my car, with faith that they will work correctly. But this one seems fixed now based on the tests I've done on my own user talk page. It looks like it went wacky here, and I do not know with what rationale. I've simply put it back in line with the other notices. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:52, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What if you're not the creator and you disagree

Several templates use language such as this:
If you created this page and you disagree with its proposed speedy deletion, please add: {{hangon}}

What if someone other than the page's creator disagrees? Should he or she use the {{hangon}} tag too. I suppose a neutral (non-admin) could simply remove the tag with an appropriate edit summary, but what if a non-neutral disagreed? Is it best just to comment on the talk page? Seems like we should tell people how to handle this.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 20:27, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest expanding the language from "If you created this page..." to "If you created or have significantly edited this page". 99% of all speedies are new articles, meaning that the only person to have edited the page is the creator, but I agree that there are occasions in which there would be other contributors who shouldn't be removing the speedy tag. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 20:35, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't realize that the template now said "If you created this page". That clause should be dropped. Anyone can put the {{hangon}} tag on a page (though, as you suggest, in 99% of times it will be the article's creator). Rossami (talk) 21:14, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the issue is that if you're an uninvolved editor, you can just remove the CSD tag. If you're the creator, you can't do that. I think Doug's concern is that it's possible you can have somebody who, while not the creator, is still deeply involved in the editing of the page, and that person probably shouldn't be removing the CSD tag either. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 21:19, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see why they shouldn't be. They're certainly not excluded by the policy. If a page deletion is controversial, unless the article is in violation of BLP or copyright or some such inviolable rule, it should go through other processes anyway. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:21, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
They're certainly not prohibited from doing so by current policy; the question is whether they should be. To figure that out I think we need to ask why page creators are prohibited from removing CSD notices. As near as I can figure, it's because they are very likely to be too involved in the article and unable to look at it objectively (in practice, of course, a great many are also SPAs and/or bad faith editors). Is this also not true of somebody who has substantially edited the page?
I'm not married to any particular solution here, in large part because this situation (a page that has had multiple editors being tagged for CSD, with the tag then being removed by an involved editor who isn't the creator) almost never comes up, but it seems reasonable to me that if page creators are expected to use {{hangon}} rather than just deleting the tag, so to should other involved editors. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 21:30, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know. I think it's valid that creators should not be, since they can be expected not be completely disinterested parties. But, again, speedy is meant primarily for cases where "reasonable editors will agree what does and does not meet a given criterion". If there's not agreement, other processes are more appropriate. I know that there are cases where vandals tag-team on articles, but I don't know that this happens enough to warrant restricting other editors from disagreeing with and removing speedy tags. Those guys are just likely to remove the tags from self-created articles anyway, and likely wouldn't abide by the "hangon" requirement. I think in cases where an involved editor is tendentiously resisting a valid speedy, AfD is probably the best solution. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:56, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
When on new page patrol, I'll often substantially edit a page, even though I might not be all that interested in the specific topic. I might find some references to add or something, as a way of helping out the page creator. In such a case I think I should be able to remove the speedy tag -- especially if editing the page makes the speedy criterion no longer apply. If it is a topic that particularly interests me, maybe not -- but even then, if a page creator plus myself happening to come across it on new page patrol both think it should be an article, maybe it deserves to go to AfD.
By the way: for db-nocontent and db-nocontext, I suggest that it not just say that the creator can't remove the tag, but add something like "unless you are adding substantial content to make the criterion no longer apply." A condition like that might just possibly have saved Ggggggggggggggg12's Wikipedian career from ending before it really got started. --Coppertwig (talk) 23:28, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My take is that the wording is really intended for new editors. Experienced editors should be able to tell whether or not the article meets our standards and thus whether the tag should be removed. But we don't want to WP:BITE the new editors, thus we word it as saying that page creators shouldn't de-tag. GRBerry 23:32, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Double redirects in speedy templates

this move from Template:Db-g1 to Template:Db-nonsense has created a lot of double redirects which were speedy templates. For example Template:CSD:G1 Template:Csd-g1 Template:Db-non etc. (see User:Coppertwig/CSDlist). I suggest that it be moved back. --Coppertwig (talk) 00:04, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I count twelve double redirects. But before I'd consider fixing them, is/was there a discussion anywhere as to the mass renaming of the templates? Someguy1221 (talk) 00:19, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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