Wikipedia talk:Deletion process

VfD process when article is kept

On my talk page, JamesMLane asked "In Wikipedia:Deletion process, you wrote: "If the decision is to keep, put a link to the discussion sub-page on the article's talk page." Is there a reason to prefer this procedure to that of just copying the deletion debate onto the article's talk page? The latter seems simpler."

Here were my thoughts when I drafted the process. You'll note that many of these are back-up techniques. A wiki is a powerful tool but much of our archiving process depends on manual work. I think some redundancy is worth the effort on a deletion vote. If there's a better way, though, I'm all for making it simpler. Rossami 14:56, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

For long discussions (and there are many of those), it keeps the discussion from overburdening the article's talk page. This is most relevant on a controversial topic where the discussion page may already be very large.
It adds a sense of emotional distance to the discussion. If I care passionately about an article and return to it often, it can be grating to keep reading the delete votes even when the final consensus was to keep.
The discussion closes after 5 days. Once the discussion is closed, no one is supposed to be interjecting with their own opinions, edits and rebuttals any longer. By keeping the discussion on a separate page, you can more easily look at the page history to see if someone is adding comments in an attempt to rewrite the decision. If the situation gets bad enough, the discussion page can be protected - something that you can't do if the discussion is embedded in the Talk page. I believe this is a low risk but I'm told it's happened on very emotional debates.
A separate page using a well-known pattern (Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/PageName) makes it easier to find the old discussion if/when the Talk page gets archived.
If a page is renominated for deletion (accidentally or intentionally) and we are still using the same naming conventions, there is a good chance that the old discussion will automatically reappear. This hopefully will mean that we can re-vote with full knowledge of the prior decision.
If anyone created a link to the discussion, the link will not get broken like it does with a cut-and-paste.
Finally, it's a judgement call about which is really easier. When I timed myself, it took almost exactly the same amount of time either way.

Factoring in /Old

Stormie & Jerzy (t) were each surprised to realize that current use of Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Old was incompatible with Wikipedia:Deletion process, which failed to even mention its existence. They agreed thatStormie would do an edit (timestamped 03:43, 2004 Aug 6) and Jerzy (t) would review it.

I've started out by recoding the respective sample results for the two subst-calls, namely from Template:Vfd top and Template:Vfd bottom; as far as i can see, we profit from not only having links to the templates, but also getting those samples as transclusion calls: changes to the templates will be automatically reflected on this talk page's WP (project) page.
As to less technical matters:
- IMO edit conflicts on VfD are virtually no problem for two reasons: edit conflicts are now automatically avoided unless the edited areas come too close to overlapping, and the overwhelming majority of VfD sections get only a single edit in their time on the page: the section still gets created as a VfD edit, but the many entries belonging to the section have now become edits on sub-pages. I will suggest other arguments when i next edit this talk page.
- IMO, Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators#Rough consensus, Wikipedia:Deletion process#Votes for Deletion page, and Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Decision Policy reflect two approaches, not fully reconciled:
  1. lack of consensus to keep or delete requires continuation of discussion;
  2. lack of consensus to delete constitutes, after 5 days, a decision to keep.

I don't insist that there can be no benign ambiguity between these, but IMO there is an immediate need to at least acknowledge explicitly both approaches wherever one approach is stated.

--Jerzy (t) 07:24, 2004 Aug 11 (UTC)

Close vs. Extend

In practice, i think those who undertake this work are admins, if only because no one else can do the deletions that are most of the work. IMO it is also implicit in any workable policy that no one should do it because of their interest in the article in question. But rather than say "admins", i'll assume this is done by editors with at least a steady history of post-5-days maintainence of VfD entries, whom i'll call "VfD closers".
Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Decision Policy says clearly that lack of consensus for deletion after 5 days means keeping.
The unqualified discussion at Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators#Rough consensus at least suggests strongly that it can be good to continue discussion when no consensus for either keeping or deleting has been reached.
While WP seems to comfortably tolerate substantial policy ambiguity, having these two statements acknowledge each other seems likely to be a widely shared minimum goal.
At least at present, the following approach seems consistent with policy (when practiced by VfD closers):
- The first VfD closer to handle an individual entry after the five days may exercise some discretion between moving the past discussion to the article's talk page and referring further discussion there (which may undercut continuity of discussion), or explicitly noting the value of extending the opportunity to discuss on VfD.
- As a practical matter, VfD closers who extend discussion may want to indicate a date at which closing or further extension, and probably should anticipate eventual intervention by other VfD closers if they do not.
- Discussions that grow to great length impose a substantial burden of loading time on those not involved, if the discussions remain on VfD with a transclusion (double-("curly"-)braces) link to the discussion subpage. Especially where
  - polarization is high, or
  - non-deletion seems inevitable, or
  - the discussion does a lot of wandering off-topic,

conversion of the link to a normal HTML (double-("square"-)brackets)link should be considered at the time of each extension, if not done earlier in the extension period (or even during the initial 5 days).

--Jerzy (t) 21:28, 2004 Aug 11 (UTC)