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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Mav (talk | contribs) at 07:34, 14 January 2004. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

A summary of earlier discussion follows.

Miscellanaeous

  • Biased articles: The statement that biased articles should be be given an NPOV dispute notice rather than listed on VfD was revised to say "However, list articles if rewriting the facts in an NPOV way and removing unattributed opinions would leave no useful information."
  • Administrators' judgement: GrahamN felt sysops should not have to use judgement because all decisions should be made by consensus. Evercat and FearÉIREANN felt this was unrealistic as 100 deletions occur a day. GrahamN proposed a Pure wiki deletion system, which Axlrosen supported.
  • Cleanup: Martin suggested pages where a unanimous agreement to delete had been reached on Wikipedia:Cleanup could be deleted. Camembert objected.
  • Policy discussions on VfD: Taku added to the policy that pages which serve the Wikipedia community such as VfD and Cleanup ought not be listed on VfD as that is not the place to discuss policies. Angela agreed but removed it from the policy page as it may confuse people about whether pages in the Wikipedia namespace are perhaps not allowed to be listed for deletion. She felt that saying VfD shouldn't be listed on VfD was stating the obvious.
  • Sub-stubs: dave sought clarification that the deletion of sub-stubs was acceptable after Jiang reversed his deletion. The policy supports dave's decision but there are mixed views on how stubs should be treated, so such deletions may be regarded as controversial by some.
  • Day Pages: MrJones asked whether there should be a policy on whether pages about days (Pi Day, Yellow Pig Day etc) are allowed and whether there ought to be a separate wiki for them. Maximus Rex explained that such pages are kept if they concern real verifiable days, and felt a separate wiki for them may not be useful. He suggested merging them into one page.

Major Change Proposed

(initially by Fuzheado with modifications by Daniel Quinlan)

  1. Time on the list has been reduced from 7 days to 5 days.
  2. Only usernames which are at least 1 month old can vote (F version was 5 days)
  3. Only usernames with at least 100 non-minor edits can vote (F version said 100 edits)
  4. Deletion requires a 2/3 majority in order for page to be deleted (F version was 3/4)


The rules for who is allowed to vote

  • Dysprosia supported points 2 and 3 but queried whether 100-edits was enough to prevent ballot stuffing, but also noted that rapid 100-edit-making would be really visible.
  • 129.234.4.10 felt the page author should be allowed to vote regardless of number of edits. Fuzheado thought this reasonable.
  • mav said "non-minor" should be replaced with "valid".
  • A hitherto unknown user, Wanwan, objected to the proposal as it precludes frequent readers from voting, and thought this would create a new class of wikipedia users, disenfranchised from voting. Kingturtle explained that these users were still allowed to comment on VfD, even though their votes might not be counted. Whilst Wanwan strongly objected, Kingturtle and Maximus Rex maintained it was necessary for the prevention of 'sock puppet' votes. Wanwan suggested votes be checked by IP, which Fuzheado explained would not work as users were coming in via proxies such as AOL. Wanwan suggested it may be better to remove the desire for ballot stuffing by having a stricter policy on what was allowed to be kept.
  • Jake strongly disagreed with the 100 edits ruling, feeling that "10 valid edits to articles" would be better. He later said 50 is an option... 10 could be too easy, true. Maybe 25. He also stated he would prefer 2 weeks to a month, but did not feel strongly about this. He proposed that invalid votes be marked with "this user has less than 20 edits" rather than "invalid vote".
  • Fuzheado agreed 1 month was too exclusionist as we are trying to avoid sock puppets, not "prove your worth." He also coined the term Sock Puppet Avoidance Threshold (SPAT)! Fuzheado supported the idea that edits must be "valid", not necessarily "non-minor".
  • Kingturtle thought the number should be between 25 and 100 and later said a full week and 100 edits seemed fair. He also stated that users should not be allowed to vote on articles that are older than they are but should have the right to make comments on the VfD page.
  • Axlrosen felt anything more than a week and 25 edits too much and edited the policy to reflect this.
  • Cyan suggested a rewording of "Sysops clearing out VfD are permitted to disregard votes and comments if there is strong evidence that they were not made in good faith," which he believed was the de facto policy anyway. This was endorsed by Fuzheado, RickK, Angela, and Martin
  • Fuzheado presented Talk:List_of_caucasian_people/delete as an example of how the avoidance of sock puppet votes changed the outcome of this page's fate. Camembert objected as this deletion should not have been based purely on votes anyway. Angela (who deleted the page in question) said that the recent policy modifications hadn't actually affected her decision to delete the page but that it provided support if she was asked to defend the deletion. She felt she often had to justify deletions in terms of numbers, even though that may not be the underlying reason for her decision.
  • Camembert said that if a policy page which is quite clear about whether such-and-such a page should be deleted or not, these things should over-ride bare numbers.

2/3 majority needed

  • Oliver P. felt it was all "utterly, utterly wrong!" as we shouldn't decide the fate of articles by voting at all. The purpose of commenting on Vfd should be to try to settle the question of deletion firstly by pointing to our existing policies, and secondly by rational debate. He thought votes without comments should be ignored and arguments should be judged on their merits not on whether a user had 100 edits or not. He said more definite policies about what material is eligible for inclusion were needed to avoid having to argue similar points over and over again. If a page is contrary to Wikipedia policy, it should be deleted, regardless of how many people want it kept and vice versa. He thinks that cutting the amount of time that something stays on Vfd to save space on the page is not scalable.
  • Fuzheado disagreed and said that even with firmer policies about what is included, there will still be debate about the interpretation of them so a voting process is needed. He pointed out that we want debate and comments, not just a vote. Oliver P. felt the policy put too much emphasis on numbers and Kingturtle suggested renaming VfD "Concensus for Deletion.
  • Angela pointed out the problems of people not aiming for consensus. They vote and then go away rather than following the discussion. RickK added that there are people who will vote "no" just to deny consensus to anything. Fuzheado agreed.
  • Oliver P. said voting eradicates debate and adding up votes gives a meaningless figure, because if votes are made over a period of time during which the article is constantly changing, each vote is effectively for a different article! Hence, people should give reasons for their decision.
  • GrahamN advertised his meta:Pure wiki deletion system (proposal) as a solution to the voting issues which FearÉIREANN criticised. Further discussion was moved to meta:Talk:Pure wiki deletion system (proposal) and Wikipedia talk:Edit war.
  • Camembert asked that the 2/3 rules not be enshrined in official policy and let the sysops use their judgement instead. Fuzheado thought it was best to leave it in the policy so the process was transparent . Camembert thought Wikipedia:Requests for deletion would be a better name, and that the policy should allow flexibility.
  • Daniel Quinlan proposed that a sysop may delete if > 1/2 majority and < 2/3 super-majority and should delete if >= 2/3 super-majority. Camembert liked this extra flexibility. Jake was firmly against allowing cases with less than 2/3 be deleted. Daniel Quinlan thought requiring more than 2/3 was silly and sysops' judgement should be trusted. Angela said that if sysops deleted with less than a 2/3 agreement, there would be too many VfU listings. She also said the "Sysop should delete if >= 2/3" was wrong because often people vote before changes are made to the page and that votes sometimes go against established policies. In these cases, even 90% of votes to delete do not mean a page should be deleted. Martin agreed.
  • There was some sort of vote in which Kingturtle and Jake participated, but no-one else knew what they were voting for.

Unsummarised discussion

Consensus vs. 2/3rds

I thought we'd agreed a rough policy on consensus vs 2/3rds at Wikipedia:Deletion_guidelines_for_administrators#Rough_consensus - maybe folks here didn't know (I should have added more cross-links, perhaps). See exitsing discussion at Wikipedia talk:Deletion_guidelines_for_administrators Should the discussion be moved there? Martin 21:26, 8 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Good point, but a lot of people prefer actual numbers. Eloquence's call to the mailing list for Jimbo to assert some fixed percentage is what kicked this off I think. The 2/3 is just one way to quantify rough consensus. Angela

I think "just one way" - is right. I'd prefer sysops made their own decisions (and stood by those decisions) on what rough consensus is, at least for the time being. That's what's happening in practice, I don't see an overwhelming amount of support for changing that. Certainly not for changing it to any specific set of criteria. Martin 00:14, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I don't disagree. Angela

Has anyone addressed the point that different votes are for different articles? It's rather an important one, I think. -- Oliver P. 06:52, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Does editing imply support?

Incidentally, I think that edits to an article should be counted as implicit expressions of support for that article (unless overridded by more explicit statements); explicit support for some general policy should be counted as implicit support for deleting/keeping articles according to that policy, and explicit support for deleting/keeping some article should be counted as implicit support for deleting/keeping another equivalent article. Martin 00:14, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Hmmm. Nice idea, but you expect me to remember how people have voted previously in order to take that into account in future decisions? I'm not too sure that's realistic. Angela
It's not realistic if you want to be mathematical about it - but if you're just going by judgement and instinct, then these are the kinds of things that (imo) naturally filter in. Martin 02:14, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Oh well, in that case, yes they probably do filter in, as do many other factors beyond a simple 2/3 count. I might report the reason for deletion in terms of numbers but the decision is rarely based on that alone. Angela 02:24, Nov 9, 2003 (UTC)
I very much disagree. (1) I've edited an article that was on VfD that I thought should be deleted. I didn't know how the vote would turn out, and if it was going to be kept, I might as well make it better. (2) I think it will be very subjective as to when two articles are "equivalent", and also to some extent when an article falls under a particular category or policy. Axlrosen 21:24, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Perhaps I should clarify that edits to an article are only implicit expressions of support - if someone explicitly votes for deletion, then that's what counts. I reckon the creator of an article, and the majority of those who've made major edits to it, probably want to keep it, even if they don't actually vote as such (perhaps they've left, for example). Martin 21:38, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I disagree (that edits imply support). What are we discussing anyway? Is there a real disagreement or proposed change? The current system seems to be working fine. Daniel Quinlan 22:44, Nov 9, 2003 (UTC)
No, I'm not proposing a policy change - just giving my thoughts on what influences rough consensus. Martin 23:17, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I also disagree that editing implies support. I've edited articles which I think should be deleted, and articles which I have no strong views on one way or the other. -- Oliver P. 06:52, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

-> Wikipedia talk:Candidates for speedy deletion

Undeletion without listing on "Votes for undeletion"

The categories of page eligible for speedy deletion currently include "previously deleted content, where the page was not listed on votes for undeletion."

It seems that Angela is happy with the idea of sysops undeleting pages without listing on Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion if they think that the proper process has not been followed. I'm happy with that, too. So should the above rule be removed? -- Oliver P. 02:44, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Maybe it just needs tweaking to something like: "content previously deleted according to this deletion policy, where the page was not listed on votes for undeletion". I believe we were trying to guard against people continually recreating articles that had already been discussed on VfD and deleted with a near consensus. Gah, this is legalistic. Martin 02:47, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)~
Reword. Don't remove. Angela
Thanks for clearing that up, both of you. -- Oliver P. 04:09, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Shouldn't the undeletion policy be at wikipedia:votes for undeletion or else wikipedia:undeletion policy? Martin

Ok. Angela

I have a proposal: would it be fine to delete plural redirects iff all the links pointing to that redirect are fixed? Dysprosia 00:13, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)

No. Somebody may link to the plural in the future, and deleting the redirect may also break links from outside the Wikipedia. --Camembert
Good points. So much for that "brilliant idea" of mine :) Dysprosia 07:42, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy/redirects for discussion of the new guideline about moving titles to /partial history pages.


Various updates

I don't think any of these are controversial, but...

  1. "In general, admins will follow a process" -> " You can expect admins to follow the process" - perhaps over-optimistic, but judging from the deletion log and traffic on VfU, I think this is stronger than "in general"
  2. "process of listing on VfD" -> "process below" - updating for multiple pages
  3. "deleted test" for speedy deletions by non-admins - it's either that or normal VfD, I guess. This might be dodgy, but I wasn't sure what else to say. Umm.
  4. List articles that contain no verifiable information - people do this anyway, and even most inclusionists dislike unverifiable content, so make it explicit.

I'd appreciate feedback on the third, in particular... Martin 22:37, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)

candidate for deletion or other action

This is silly: for other actions, don't use VfD. Anyone listing a page on VfD as a candidate for some "other action" is abusing the process (IMO, YMMV, etc). Martin 23:50, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Copyvios should be listed on wikipedia:Possible copyright infringements, or you may choose to inform Wikipedia's designated agent if you are the copyright owner or their representative.
To keep Votes for Deletion down to a reasonable size, articles that are proposed for deletion because they are written in a foreign language should be listed at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/foreign language. If you can speak (and translate!) another language please feel free to watch that page... if a page comes up in your language.. maybe you can do the translation and save useful content from deletion.

I removed these, as they duplicate the extensive list of deletion-orientated pages earlier... Martin 20:25, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

-> Wikipedia talk:Candidates for speedy deletion

Tildes

Hi folks, I made the four tildes <tt> because they're easier to read on my computer that way - without it they look like one squiggly line. How's it work for you? Tualha 01:47, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Proposed changes to deletion policy organization

A few recent entries on VfD have been for articles that were good topics, things we'd want articles for, but were just written badly: one a rant, one nonsense, one in French. Looking at the last few days, I see this happens fairly often. Such articles should be fixed, not deleted - and indeed these were fixed, and quickly. (Wikiwiki!) They should be listed on Cleanup, not VfD. (If they stay there for a while with no improvement, then VfD, as with Post-colonialism in literature.)

This is covered in Deletion policy - Section 2, bullet points 2 and 4 - which suggests to me that people are posting on VfD without carefully reading the policy. To try to remedy this, I propose the following:

  • Swap Sections 1 and 2 of Policy, putting what to list (and what not to) before how to list. That ordering will hopefully cause people to stop and think before posting, and cut down on the unnecessary ones.
  • Further, we should emphasize the importance of (the new) Section 1 in the top matter.
  • I'd also like to see something along these lines right near the top: "When in doubt, list it in Wikipedia:Cleanup, not in Wikipedia:Votes for deletion."
  • Finally, the message at the top of VfD should be emphasized - bigger font, italicize the "please", red font - something.

Discussion?
Tualha 06:26, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The first point is a good one, I think. The rest will fail - no matter how large instructions are, some people will ignore them. Trying discussing with the individuals involved on their talk pages, and convince them that cleanup would serve their needs. Martin 22:57, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)
True, some people will still ignore it. But it might be significantly fewer people than the number who ignore it now. I'll retract suggestion 4, it'll probably be too obtrusive, but I'm sticking with 1-3. Tualha 01:08, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)
If you think reordering would help, then you could try that, but I expect the problem is that people just don't read it at all, or possibly they don't agree with it. I disagree with you about the foreign language articles being a problem. These are currently dealt with very well by the Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/foreign language subpage. The pages are listed there with the aim of getting them translated and/or moved to the appropriate Wikipedia, and the page contains instructions on contacting the appropriate Wikipedia's embassy member. The only thing wrong with that page is probably the name as people don't really vote on deletion there unless they understand the language and can verify that it is nonsense. Cleanup would be a bad place to list these as they would simply be lost and very hard to find for people coming over from other Wikipedias to help with. Until Cleanup is working properly, which currently I'm not convinced about, I see no problem with people making inappropriate listings on VfD. Things get fixed a lot faster there than they ever will on Cleanup. Angela. 18:29, Jan 4, 2004 (UTC)

-> Wikipedia talk:Candidates for speedy deletion

Proposal for reorganization

How would people feel about this structure:

  • Wikipedia:Cleanup
    • Our guideline should state clearly that readers should list anything they consider fixable on Wikipedia:Cleanup first. That means: If the information can be salvaged, or the article edited into proper form, it needs to go through the cleanup process. But there will be no punishment in case this step is skipped -- we trust readers to use their own best judgment as to when to use Cleanup. Emphasis is on should.
  • Wikipedia:Deletion requests
    • Controversial pages can be listed here. Only consensus matters. If no near unanimous counsensus can be reached within 7 days, the page cannot be deleted. Roughly as VfD operates now, with one important exception: Every opinion needs to be justified. If it appears that a participant has clearly failed to respond to an argument, their opinion also has lesser weight. This makes "Keep" and "Delete" comments effectively "Me too" posts that can be ignored.
  • Wikipedia:Deletion votes
    • No page could be listed here until it has undergone the Wikipedia:Deletion proposals page. The arguments for and against would have to be summarized, probably by the person adding the page to this list. This adds a certain burden which prevents abuse, and also provides readers with useful information to inform their votes.
Any page listed here would have to remain for another 7 days. During this time, people only add "Keep" and "Delete" votes without justification -- the discussion period is over. After that time, the votes are counted, and any page with 80% or more support for deletion is removed. Having this separate would ensure high participation rates

Rationale:

There have been concerns, notably by Jimbo, that the VfD process is overused and fallible. There have also been concerns, especially by myself, that the lack of clear guidelines turns deletion into a constant guessing game as to which action is in compliance with policy and which is not. These guidelines are relatively simple to follow: On anything controversial, try to reach consensus first. If that fails, you can call for a vote, but you have to organize it properly.

There will be a discussion period of seven days within which this proposal can be changed and refined in consensus. Starting on January 21, there will be a polling period of seven days where you can rate this proposed scheme on a scale from 1 to 5. You can already add a rating now but please keep the ongoing discussion and changes in mind.

The proposal is:

The current Wikipedia:Votes for deletion / Wikipedia:Deletion policy scheme is:

If the new scheme ends up getting more support than the old one, I think we should implement it, pending of course any major flaws that are pointed out, very strong objections or a proposal which receives much wider support. I would like to state that this is more a reorganization than a completely different scheme -- we are doing both votes and consensus based decision making right now, but in a more chaotic way.—Eloquence 05:06, Jan 14, 2004 (UTC)

Aren't you missing a couple steps with this proposal? We should discuss proposals to refine them before any type of poll is taken on it! If there has been specific discussion on this then please point me to it. Otherwise this poll is jumping the gun and should be closed (and then the proposal discussed and refined). --mav 05:44, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)
This is a refinement poll and as such IMHO clearly appropriate at this stage. In addition, it is the result of months of discussions which have led to no results. Let's act.
Suggested changes which receive consensus support can be made even at this point. But I believe the proposed scheme is clearly better than what we have now, and as such, we should swiftly move to reorganize our deletion policy in an evolutionary fashion. We can then make further minor changes.—Eloquence
Refinement of what? Your first draft of this proposal? This is the way things should work with proposals; first somebody does the work of making the first draft, then they ask for comments, refinements are made and discussed, then if there is no real clear consensus that emerges then a poll is called. Otherwise anybody can make any poll they want and we would either have to participate or not be counted. Just make the proposal and see what people's comments are. I in fact like the proposal but I am not ready to vote one way or the other yet until after regular discussion has died down and we have a proposal that is not just *your* proposal any more - but one developed by a larger group. --mav 06:12, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Tens of kilobytes of text have been written about various possible changes to the deletion policy, and are summarized neatly above this proposal. Almost everything that can be said has been said at some point or another. This proposal is a relatively minor change to what we already have. Yes, it is my proposal, and it is not a draft. If there are any major problems I'd like to hear them, if there are any minor refinements we can make them, if people change their mind because of the comments they can also change their rating. There's no reason to delay the decision, and this will only lead to this becoming another abandoned discussion.
You are free to downgrade the proposal because of the process that comes with it. I for one think that the time has come to be bold and actually make some gradual improvement instead of talking forever about whether we want to do so. A gradual rather than radical reform can be implemented more quickly, and on the basis of existing discussions rather than requiring a prolonged period of premeditation.—Eloquence 06:26, Jan 14, 2004 (UTC)
Sorry, but if I vote in this poll, even to downgrade your proposal, then I give it legitimacy. Would it really be that difficult to have refinement period? A simple statement on the relevant talk pages and a few days of discussion is all that would be needed. I would create my own poll on the legitimacy of this one, but then that would degrade the whole polling process and cheapen it. I'm still contesting this poll so I'm going to re-state that fact on the current polls page. --mav 06:55, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)
How about my modification of the proposal as a compromise?—Eloquence
I'm not sure if I follow you... What I think we really need for this type of thing is a Wikipedia:Requests for comment page that could be used before listing anything on the current polls page. --mav
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