Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 1

Please see my comment in Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia policy on permanent deletion of pages. — Toby 03:21 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)

I notice that Magnus puts new votes at the top of the page. Perhaps he doesn't realise that we expect them at the bottom, since the software that he wrote originally placed automatic links there. Or perhaps he is sending us subtle hints that the top would be better. Well, I can see some merit in that. ¿What do people think?; ¿should we switch the order here? (and presumably on the other, less used, vote pages). — Toby 01:26 Aug 16, 2002 (PDT)

I generelly prefer logs like this to accumulate at the top. I also think things like lists of annual awards should be be chronological starting with the present and working backward (Wikipedia is inconsistent about that). If I ever get around to adding a feature to nominate articles for deletion, I'll probably add them to a list at the top, just like the deletion log and upload log (and I'll probably call it "deletion request log", because it has nothing at all to do with voting on anything). --LDC

I prefer to put new stuff at the bottom, since I read from the top down. This depends, however, on the page being short enough to load quickly. I'm much happier seeing a page like Wikipedia:Deletion log going backwards, since it can get long and is automatically generated by a fixed template. This page, however, with its many interspersed comments, needs a more straightforward chronology. Well, that's my $0.02; I can work with either way. — Toby 05:52 Sep 17, 2002 (UTC)

Everyone reads from the top down! That's precisely why some people want new additions at the top - so that they can see them as soon as they load up the page, without having to scroll right down to the bottom of a long list. I have no strong views on this matter myself, although I do strongly support the idea that chronological lists of awards etc. should go forward in time down the page, as is done in almost all such lists everywhere else! -- Oliver Pereira 08:12 Nov 11, 2002 (UTC)

The article Arts and Crafts Movement is a substantial topic which could be expanded to make a nice article. What is there is only a tiny part of what could be included. User:Fredbauder

What was there was, in fact, completely irrelevant to the actual subject. I've used Ortolan's material on why not to delete it as the basis of a stub. Much more is, indeed, needed. Vicki Rosenzweig

--- Now that we have the stub-marking capacity, we don't need to delete stubs that may in the future become good articles, no? --The Cunctator

That's absurd. If there is no information on the page then it is far more informative to have an edit link. Besides this is a non-standard option. --mav

It's not far more informative to have an edit link. In fact, the edit link is the equivalent of a stub threshhold set to 1 character, without the added information that someone has edited the entry before.

It's not absurd. I can respect your disagreement, however, especially if you understand my argument. --The Cunctator

The article says: "(or use the Vote feature)": what is it? olivier 11:24 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

Time ago, there was an option in the menu bar, "vote this page". This led to a form by which you could directly add the page you were reading to one of the voting pages, with a comment. You could choose to vote for NPOV, for rewrite, for brilliant prose and for deletion.

This feature has been removed, I think for technical reasons, but this page (votes for deletion) was perhaps the most useful one, so it survived in manual use. BTW, other pages are still available at

Wikipedia:Votes for NPOVing

Wikipedia:Votes for rewrite

Wikipedia:Votes for wikification

Wikipedia:Votes for article-of-the-day

--Gianfranco

"Also, check the What links here link. Many entries that seem not to belong in an encyclopedia are linked from Sep 11, 2001 related pages."

This is stated, but not explained. What relevance does "Sep 11" have to the suitability of articles to an encyclopaedia? If there is a page explaining this somewhere, could someone link to it? Thanks. -- Oliver Pereira 08:12 Nov 11, 2002 (UTC)

It has already been decided that many of the 9/11 pages should be moved out of the encyclopedia to the newly created http://sep11.wikipedia.org We just haven't got around to doing it yet. --mav

Thanks for the explanation! Of course, since Wikipedia is neutral and all that, I look forward to a similar Wikipedia subproject for the victims of the subsequent bombing of Afghanistan... -- Oliver Pereira 10:01 Nov 11, 2002 (UTC)

If anyone's actually serious about doing that rather than just using people's deaths as the butt of sarcasm, I'll be more than happy to set up a blank wiki for it. --Brion 10:17 Nov 11, 2002 (UTC)

I was actually making a serious point about neutrality (albeit with just a hint of sarcasm), and I genuinely would like to see a site dedicated to the victims of the bombing in Afghanistan, or indeed anywhere else. I don't have much personal knowledge in the area myself, but I would find it interesting if people who knew more about Afghanistan were to build such a project! -- Oliver Pereira 10:30 Nov 11, 2002 (UTC)

If anyone remembers, I suggested the Sep11 wiki be morphed into a general "victims of war and terrorism" memorial. -- Tarquin

Aha! I vote for that idea, then. I don't remember that, as I'm new round here. (I might add that line to everything I write from now on, so that I can be excused from everything I do... ;) -- Oliver Pereira 10:49 Nov 11, 2002 (UTC)

I agree and have suggested the same thing myself. How about this; memorial.wikipedia.org. I wonder why Brion created such a specific url when there were several suggestions that such a site should not be exclusive to 9/11. No biggie right now and sep11.wikipedia.org can and should always point to the 9/11 In Memoriam page. A general Main Page can be made later after the primary url is changed to something more inclusive (piped namespaces can be used for disambiguation if need be). --mav

I can't believe that after all that discussion, The Cunctator just deleted the paragraph under discussion! I don't think someone should delete a clarificatory paragraph if other people feel it is necessary; certainly not without discussing it first! There are a lot of "Sep 11"-related articles (e.g. biographies of victims) that look a little out of place in an encyclopaedia, and as mav said, the articles haven't been moved yet. So I think it is worthwhile to keep a note to this effect on the "Votes for deletion" page so that people don't complain about them. -- Oliver Pereira 20:33 Nov 12, 2002 (UTC)

Give an example of such an article.

Noone has put a Sep.11-related page on Votes for Deletion in quite some time.

Mav's use of the passive voice ("It has been decided...") is inappropriate. It's simply not true. --The Cunctator

I don't get your problem. I gather that you want the "Sep 11" pages to remain, and yet you repeatedly delete a paragraph which tells people not to nominate the pages for deletion. What do you gain by doing this?

As for giving examples of pages, I gave a whole set in my message above. To repeat: "There are a lot of 'Sep 11'-related articles (e.g. biographies of victims) that look a little out of place in an encyclopaedia."

Biographical entries in an encyclopaedia (which seems to be the standard view of what the Wikipedia is striving to be) traditionally describe people who are famous or worthy of note in some field of endeavour. While I am in no way trying to denigrate the worth of the victims' lives, I can't see how most of them fit the traditional criteria for inclusion in an encyclopaedia. I for one thought their inclusion was odd, until I heard about this memorial site (which of course I fully approve of, especially if it were to be upgraded into Tarquin's more neutral "victims of war and terrorism" memorial).

I hasten to add that saying that their inclusion seemed "odd", and not "traditional", doesn't mean that I am against their inclusion. After all, I only discovered the Wikipedia nine days ago, and I found the whole thing odd and untraditional! Now that I've become more used to the Wikipedia, I can see that it has the potential to be a lot bigger than a traditional encyclopaedia, and so can contain a lot that traditional encyclopaedias leave out. But I still think it's likely that other people will have similar thoughts to my initial ones about the "oddness" of the victims' biographies, and they may well nominate them for deletion. (You yourself once wrote that the material "stretches the bounds of the Wikipedia mission".)

It is an undisputed fact that a new memorial site has been set up. It is here. Whether the victims' pages are to be moved to that site or merely linked to from that site may be disputed. But it's not really relevant. Either way, it has been decided that the pages are not to be deleted, yes? So why not have a paragraph on the "Votes for deletion" page saying this? If the paragraph is slightly misleading, reword it. There is no reason to axe it altogether, as far as I can see.

As for other people not putting "Sep 11"-related articles on "Votes for deletion" for some time, perhaps this is partly because they believed that what mav said had been agreed had, in fact, been agreed.

I know I've waffled on for quite some time here, but I'm trying to present logical arguments, rather than just getting into an edit war. If you have any logical arguments as to why a short and simple clarificatory paragraph is somehow a Bad Thing to have, please do present them. -- Oliver Pereira

I agree. No more reason to have an article for somebody just because they die in a noteworthy attack, than an article for each of the other 50,000-100,000 (I guess) people who die every day.

You have a point, but that's not actually what I was saying, so I'm not sure why you started with "I agree"...! -- Oliver Pereira 18:27 Nov 13, 2002 (UTC)

Okay, now I understand your concern better. You were confused by their inclusion, and found the explanation of their inclusion on this page helpful. My concern (which may be overweighted) is that I don't want the victim pages to be considered a special exception.

Some of these issues of the nature of Wikipedia have been discussed at m:Wiki is not paper and other places. It probably should be incorporated into Wikipedia:What is an article or the FAQ. Discussing it on Votes for deletion isn't quite the right place.

I would like it if you could give a specific example for us to deal with, too. --The Cunctator

Thanks for the reply. Yes, you pretty much understand what my concern was. I do see that treating certain pages as special cases would be controversial, so perhaps it would be best not to do so. I think people might find it helpful if there was a list of common deletion disputes, with a link to a page on what has been concluded from them. This would save going through the disputes again and again.

As for giving a specific example of something to be dealt with, I don't have one, as I was just speaking generally.

My other concern was that I don't like the idea of someone deleting a paragraph that someone else has only just edited, unless it is complete garbage. It could easily offend the person who has just edited the paragraph, and could very easily lead to edit wars. I think that rewording a paragraph to remove any factual inaccuracies would be more diplomatic than just jumping in and saying, "This is wrong. I'm deleting it." -- Oliver Pereira 17:30 Nov 16, 2002 (UTC)

The first sentence of Votes for deletion says,

Add links to stupid, incorrect, or otherwise unwanted page titles to the list below...

I think that "stupid" and "incorrect" should be removed, leaving it simply "Add links to unwanted page titles." The current wording is a little misleading, since deleting pages that are "incorrect" is not the general method of correcting errors. Any objections? -- Stephen Gilbert 03:31 Dec 10, 2002 (UTC)

No objection from me. Be bold! --mav

Of course, "unwanted" is just as bad a guide. --The Cunctator

Not so, when combined with the request to consult the policy page. It may not be an ideal guide, but it's better than "stupid" and "incorrect". -- Stephen Gilbert 00:36 Dec 15, 2002 (UTC)

Sorry for being particularly dense, but I can't mentally parse this block of text:

If the content of a page-to-be-deleted exists on some different page, please indicate that, somehow, on the page-to-be-deleted (either by redirecting it to the correctly titled page, or, better for our purposes, putting in a link to it). To facilitate checking that a "page title to be deleted" really ought to be deleted, please don't redirect such pages to page titles to be deleted.

Can anyone tell me what it's talking about? -- Stephen Gilbert 00:46 Dec 15, 2002 (UTC)

Links to international versions of the page are all pointing to versions of the Fifth World topic. Please, some admin restore correct links --G

Is there one of our subtler vandals at work? The outside link What is the 5th World recently appeared at Micronation. That site has a certain attitude about Wikipedia. My first impression was that there was a minor problem with terminology on one article. Gianfranco's bears further investigation. Eclecticology 07:21 Dec 26, 2002 (UTC)

The Wikipedia deliberately chose to cultivate only the Navajo legends, and the past, and leave our neotribal realities, and the present, behind. Right. It's time Tallini either explains what he's doing here, or gets banned. -- Zoe

I don't see how disagreement is grounds to ban somebody. Vera Cruz

I'm beginning to wonder of Vera Cruz and Tallini are the same person. -- Zoe

I'm beginning to lose a lot of respect for Zoe. Vera Cruz

The problem made worse by an apparent bug. When somebody entered the inter language links on the to be deleted list, instead of showing them where one would expect the software treated them as real interlanguage links and put them at the top of the article. These votes for deletion likely should have been entered on the separate Wikipedias for each of the languages involved. I've nowikied them, but somebody with sysop status on each of thes will have to do the deleting. Eclecticology 08:31 Dec 26, 2002 (UTC)

On the it.wiki I translated the current version of Fifth World (see) - I'd rather need someone to delete nothing less than the 14 Commandments, a good attempt to enlarge our visions about patience...

Sorry, I hadn't found intl. links in the article so I thought they were sysop reserved - you know, you can't check history for this page ;-) --G

How long after deletion of a page should the "vote" here be removed? Immediately? 1 day? 1 week? -- SGBailey 09:41 Dec 26, 2002 (UTC)

No fixed rule has been agreed upon yet. For a simple newbie's experiment I usually remove the entry immediately after deleting. If there was some debate prior to the deletion I usually remove the entry after about a week. -- JeLuF 19:33 Dec 26, 2002 (UTC)

I am interested to see that Vera Cruz is now in charge of this page, and has the power to completely delete a section of debate - the Fifth World stuff - claim it's a non-issue, and mark the deletion minor. I have restored the missing text, and would ask that people consider following proper procedures more carefully. This looks like an attempt at sleight of hand and should not go unremarked. 194.117.133.118 09:10 Dec 27, 2002 (UTC)

Vera Cruz annoyingly marks every edit as minor and Fifth World is now a decent stub. I'm willing to assume that the removal of Jp:Fifth World was a mistake. --mav 09:21 Dec 27, 2002 (UTC)

Fair enough, but what a help it would have been if the edit had not been marked as minor, and the Summary field had been used to explain the reason for the deletion. "Non-issue" tells us nothing, but "now a decent stub" would have been informative. 194.117.133.118 09:50 Dec 27, 2002 (UTC)

I agree. --mav

Vera Cruz is probably Lir, the editing style is the same, they have edited many of the same pages, Vera Cruz appeared a few days after Lir was banned, even the homepage with all the minor edits being carefully listed looks the same. --Eloquence

I'm getting tired of these Lir "sightings". Can we give people the benefit of the doubt? You are a developer so you can find out for sure. Just compare the IPs that Vera Cruz uses with the IPs Lir used. --mav

No, I can't check the IP, I do not have access to any server logs, nor sysop rights, only CVS access. Check the facts and you will see I'm right, mav. --Eloquence

If you really think so then ask Brion about it. He did a check on another user in record time. IMO VC is is far too reasonable polite, and until very recently newbish to be Lir. --mav

I don't really care either way. Just don't say I didn't tell you so when this comes up again. --Eloquence

So Tallini is Lir? Vera Cruz

No, you are. -- Zoe

Cunctator, what is your authorization to move items off of this page? -- Zoe

alphabetization is an art... Vera Cruz

moved discussion:

I would like to remind folks who actually delete a page to remove the request entry on this page. This will keep the length of this page manageable. Thanks! David

The entry should stay for a little time to document the discussion leading to the deletion. -- JeLuF 20:11 Jan 23, 2003 (UTC)

Of course, that is true. However, look at the length of this page! It makes no sense. If most of these pages have been deleted, the corresponding entries on this page should be deleted. But the world doesn't always work in the way that I think is obvious. David 17:21 Jan 28, 2003 (UTC)

I've removed the confusing paragraph:

If the content of a page-to-be-deleted exists on some different page, please indicate that, somehow, on the page-to-be-deleted (either by redirecting it to the correctly titled page, or, better for our purposes, putting in a link to it). To facilitate checking that a "page title to be deleted" really ought to be deleted, please don't redirect such pages to page titles to be deleted.

Can we rephrase whatever this is trying to say? -- sannse 16:45 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

I searched all over the place, but I could not find an appropriate place to put this. I have a request to block an IP. 4.18.224.162 has visited Wikipedia on two separate occassions and deleted information and posting graffiti. Kingturtle 01:51 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)