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G5 clarification

Banned user. Pages created by banned users while they were banned.

I think the implication of this should be better explained. Banned users should not be making edits. How about "pages created by ban evading users" -- Cat chi? 17:07, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Or "ban violating". But I think the current wording says the same thing. Remember than bans and blocks aren't exactly the same thing, and I don't take G5 to mean that any block-avoiding creation should be spedyable. Mangojuicetalk 18:17, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
I want to think of it as both. Blocked users shouldn't even be editing. -- Cat chi? 20:05, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Right, but an editor that's evading a block can be blocked, but I don't think there's consensus to wholesale revert or delete everything they do while evading the block. Others? Am I wrong? Mangojuicetalk 22:19, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
I've always viewed G5 to apply only to banned users and indef-blocked users whom no administrator is willing to unblock (and who are thus effectively banned). The latter is per point 1 of Wikipedia:Banning policy#Decision to ban. I've never thought of pages created by users while temporarily blocked as speedy-able per G5. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 23:00, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
  • For temporary blocks, no. For indefinite blocks or bans, the policy allows us to delete whatever edits they make, but that doesn't mean it is required. Depends, really; if they do something useful, keep it, but they usually don't. As I recall there are two or three users that Really Are Not Welcome and are an exception to this. >Radiant< 08:35, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I understand the criterion as something of an educational tool. Only if we delete and rollback their non-bad contributions we can show a banned user using lots of IPs and sockpuppets that he is really banned. We do not want any of his contributions until he stops making bad ones. If we keep good edits, it gets a lot harder to get the point across that the user is really banned. Kusma (talk) 09:31, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
    • When a user creates a good article, it should be kept: our purpose is to build p the encyclopedia. If an indefinitely banned user (generally this is a result of prior vandalism) does manage to create a good and useful article, this could perhaps be seen as a sign that it might be time to un-ban him. As Radiant says, persistently disruptive users are quite another matter, and it is not good to allow them to re-integrate themselves without further discussion.DGG 00:34, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

About Da Volunteers picture

How, exactly, do you delete a picture?

You can't, unless you're an administrator. The picture I think you're referring to will be deleted in a few days by an administrator because its copyright status is unknown. Hut 8.5 08:10, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Extension of A7

A7 currently only lists people, groups, corps, and web content. I was wondering if this should be expanded, as i have sometimes encountered unremarkable software programs and other things that don't neatly fall into the specific A7 langauge. It wouldn't be a major change, just something like "does not assert the notability or significance" in a more general fashion. Is this a good idea? hbdragon88 22:24, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

No, it isn't. See above for the basic reasons why it's really not a good idea to expand this further. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:26, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Allow me to expand on badlydrawnjeff's point. Many editors think that A7 is already too broadly applied by some. Regardless of one's position on the matter, it is almost guaranteed that any proposed extension will generate significant opposition. Another issue is that it is often difficult to recognise what constitutes an assertion of notability when one is not educated about the subject. This is particularly true when it comes to specialised topics such as chemistry, physics, biology, and even software programs. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 23:50, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Even as something as simple as "so-and-so is a software program"? Well, I guess that could fall under A1 territory. hbdragon88 23:58, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
It could fall under A1 depending on the actual content of the article. However, I don't think most one-sentence software stubs would be speedy-able per A1, as they seems to consist of "X is a software program by Y for Z", which provides enough context to definitively identify the subject of the article. I think {{prod}} would probably be better for such cases. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 00:29, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
In general the danger of deleting unfamiliar things is already great enough with people, and even worse with corporations. Once we get the process running with greater precision, then we can think about expanding it. DGG 04:03, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
  • It would help if you were to cite evidence that this is an actual problem, as opposed to a hypothetical one. For instance, do we get a lot of AFD nominations for software programs that don't plausibly fall under another CSD? Does PROD not suffice for these? >Radiant< 14:26, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't believe this is a problem, as from my experience, 90% of "non-notable software" or "non-notable product" articles fall under G11 anyway. In the few cases that they don't, PROD, or in dubious cases AFD, is fine. - Zeibura S. Kathau (Info | Talk) 16:58, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

So does this mean I could write an article about an unremarkable company and phrase it "Software product is a product developed by Unremarkable Company..." and if I disputed the prod tags it could only go through AFD? That is ridiculous. A7 is much better for this than G11, as G11 is easy enough for the creator to avoid (add some neutral language, a couple sections and presto, it's "almost" a real article). -- Renesis (talk) 16:22, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I am in favor if adding "products" to the A7 list because of the situation mentioned above. A company article can be deleted under this rule but any number of its product articles remain standing. I propose inserting the word product after company as in "… club, company, product, or web conten …". It logically follows that if a company is unremarkable, its products will also be unremarkable. With the proposed software notability guideline having fallen through the cracks, it would be convenient to have another tool to use with software articles that consist mainly of a feature list, a long list of one-name developers and a link to a download or purchase site. Perhaps tagging with {{db-corp}} and using an edit summary of "db-corp: product of unremarkable company" is sufficient? ✤ JonHarder talk 16:34, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

New image criterion

Something I've come across a number of times is an image which has been uploaded for the sole purpose of identifying or mocking someone on an attack page. I generally just delete these images as "attack only" even though that's not literally set out in the image criteria. Would it be useful to explicitly state that images uploaded for this purpose should be speedily deleted? Mak (talk) 16:31, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

G10 or G3 is fine for these. Remember that the general criteria apply across all namespaces. - Zeibura S. Kathau (Info | Talk) 16:36, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
I believe that this is the main reason why "attack pages" was changed from an article criterion to a general criterion. >Radiant< 16:50, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Reword proposal of G1 template

I don't know how many of you watch templates, so I'm posting a link to this here. I've just posted a message on Template talk:Nonsensepages proposing to reword the template that some of you might be interested in offering your opinions on. Cheers! - Zeibura S. Kathau (Info | Talk) 23:20, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Time limits on image speedy deletion

I'm suggesting once again that the time limits in the criteria for images be removed.

For those who may have wondered at some point or another why the speedy deletion criteria for images have time delays built into them while all of the other criteria do not, the MediaWiki software has only recently (since June last year) supported the undeletion of images. Prior to that, if images were deleted then they could not be restored (indeed, one admin was emergency desysopped when he deleted a bunch of images). This was a very good reason for having delays built in, so that images would have to be tagged before deletion, giving an opportunity to make certain that the images should be deleted.

However, with image undeletion available, this is not necessary at all. If an image is mistakenly deleted, then it can simply be undeleted. There is only one good argument I've heard in favour of delays, and that relates to giving bots an opportunity to do things with images slated for deletion, such as orphaning them. But that can be catered for by using holding categories, and deleting images once the bots have finished their work. --bainer (talk) 00:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

That assumes that someone is going to notice the deletion of a legitimate image from an article. I don't see what the disadvantage is to waiting a few days before deleting. —Centrx→talk • 00:17, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
If that is the case, then why aren't there waiting periods on all of the other criteria? --bainer (talk) 00:34, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Because page history can and should be checked to see if the other criteria were met at one point. There is no file link history to see if the image was removed from a page, so there needs to be time for people to notice on the page itself. -Amarkov moo! 00:38, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Time is a good thing. I'd actually advocate allowing a bit more time to let people correct the problems, but thats me. —— Eagle101Need help? 23:26, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Also, surely in CSD I6, the 7 day countdown clock should be starting from the time of tagging, not the time of upload? Jheald 15:29, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

G8 needs revisiting.

Talk pages for nonexisting pages are often useful...

  • If they contain interesting discussion about a topic that should exist, but the article at that headword was so bad that people decided on AfD to delete rather than blank (a better fix would be to blank more often as the result of AfD, but this doesn't happen atm)
  • If they contain non-deletion discussion about the topic that is relevant
  • If they contain discussion that began separate from the article's existence and was moved to the article talk page when it seemed relevant (in which case the page should be merged elsewhere, not deleted).

In general, speedying something by association is dangerous, and should be treated here with more care. +sj + 07:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe an admin could explain. It seems to me that if a deleted page is validly recreated, then the talk page could be undeleted upon request. People might not know to ask, but it would solve some of the problems you raise. Placeholder account 07:23, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Right. The great majority of these pages have no relevance after the original page is deleted; the contain mainly templates from the various assessment teams and the like. To a considerable extent, retaining them in general would obviate some of the virtues of having deleted the usually spurious article. But there are times to do it, and there are examples of such pages where this has been done. . Just ask either of us. DGG 03:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale and boilerplates

Images #6 should say that boilerplate fair use templates DO constitute a fair use rationale, IF the boilerplate contains enough enough rationale. For example {{Non-free game cover}} or {{Non-free album cover}} if it's used only on the page about the game or album in question, the image is low resolution and no free alternative can be made. Comments? I'm bringing this up because someone is flagging thousands of images for deletion. --Apoc2400 09:37, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Already being discussed several places, please don't start another parallel thread here. See Template talk:Non-free album cover#Hard coding the fair use rationale in to the template for one such discussion. --tjstrf talk 09:50, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Deletion summaries for attack pages

See WP:AN#Deletion summaries for attack pages. Given the relevance to this policy, I thought I ought to post a pointer here too. To summarize, I think that using prefilled deletion summaries for G10 deletions should probably be avoided. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 18:27, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale is not fair use tag

The text on Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#Deletion templates for {{db-badfairuse}} suggests a fair use rationale is the same thing as a fair use tag:

"Bad fair use rationale - image tagged for fair use under a rationale that is patently irrelevant to the actual image, like {{game-screenshot}} on a photo of a celebrity. Please notify uploader on their talk page using {{subst:badfairuse|image name including prefix|tag that was on the image}}."

Besides a copyright tag, each fair use image needs a fair use rationale explaning the purpose of use on Wikipedia. Either there should be made a difference between a bad fair use rationale and a bad fair use tag. I suggest the text is changed to:

"Bad fair use tag - image is tagged for fair use with a tag patently irrelevant to the image, like {{game-screenshot}} on a photo of a celebrity. Please notify uploader on their talk page using {{subst:badfairuse|image name including prefix|tag that was on the image}}."

– Ilse@ 11:36, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Support. Good call. Well spotted. Jheald 15:17, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Urgent proposal to temporarily suspend CSD-I6

Bearing in mind

  1. The enormous sudden number of "missing fair use rationale" notifications that have been put out by BetacommandBot in the last few days,
  2. open division and debate here on talk WP:FAIR as to what the appropriate (and even the current) standards for book covers, media covers etc actually are,
  3. urgent - but far from complete - efforts at talk WP:FURG to develop model rationales for standard use cases (eg album covers on album articles, logos on logo articles, screenshots),
  4. the widespread confusion on this issue, and just what the bot is asking for, evidenced at WP:VP and othe talk pages for the bot and its owner,
  5. the legal importance of high-quality rationales, preferably based on legally checked models, because low-quality rationales will be pilloried by anti-commons zealots like the so-called Progress and Freedom Foundation, and could even constitute criminal incitement to copyright infringement,
  6. the wide level of anxiety amongst ordinary wikiusers right across en wikipedia that this is causing,

I propose that it would be appropriate to suspend CSD-I6 temporarily, at least until items (2) and (3) above have become more resolved.

Cases like this one [screenshot from "Rebus"], where an image was deleted two hours after the bot slapped a tag on it, are particularly inappropriate at this time; and arguably not appropriate for Speedy on this timescale at all.

CSD procedures are supposed to be non-controversial. In the current circumstances, CSD-I6 does not fit that brief.Jheald 11:42, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the "Rebus" image that seems to have been a WP:CSD#G7 deletion seeing as the uploader himself deleted it. --Sherool (talk) 12:11, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Fair call, I've struck out my comment about the Rebus screenshot.
But, as User:Tony highlights here at talk WP:FREE, surely there is an error in CSD-I6 as currently constituted. Shouldn't the 7 days countdown clock for deletion be running from the time of tagging, not the time of upload ? Jheald 15:13, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be images that are falling foul of a wording change on the template as well.(Paraphrasing) "Do not remove this template an administrator will review the fair use rationale" has changed to "Remove this template if you have added a fair use rationale". So some images have had rationales added, the template left in place as requested, the template text changed and then images were deleted because they had the template still present, regardless of the fact they had a rationale. I know this a side issue to the above but it is relevant to it. - X201 14:22, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Does that really happen? If someone delete an image with a fair use rationale for the reason of it not having a fair use rationale you should go poke them with a stick and ask them to please pay more attention. Note that there are sometimes multiple reasons to delete an image though, and just because someone added a fair use rationale does not nessesarily mean all it's problems have been resolved. Some log entries with examples of such deletions would be usefull... --Sherool (talk) 14:58, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
(I'm waiting for the Admin in question to get back to me) I can only speak about what I've seen. Not sure if it's a bot gone wild or an Admin making an honest mistake but there are enough people saying "I added fair use but you deleted anyway" on User_talk:Naconkantari. The image (Aiwasegacd.jpg) I added a fair use rationale to was deleted with the edit summary "Expired disputed fair-use image, concern was: no fair use rationale given" which leads me to think that a mistake of some sort has happened. - X201 15:18, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Fixed, images restored. - X201 16:10, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Hmm regarding Image:Aiwasegacd.jpg, I'm not sure "To illustrate one of the Mega-CD variants that Sega released with third parties." would quite qualify as a fair use rationale. That just says that you intended to use it for, not how it fulfills all the 10 criteria in our policy. The fair use rationale guideline could probably still do with some imrpovements to avoid such confutions. I'd suggest writing up a stronger rationale to avoid problems in the future. Also beeing sold in low volumes in Japan only is not nessesarily a reason to say a free licensed image of one can't be produced, though I agree it's better than your average "could not find any on Google" reason given by many. --Sherool (talk) 16:14, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

CSD U4 proposal (myspacing)

I'd like to propose another criterion for speedy deletion of user pages. I believe that all pages of users with no encyclopedic contributions whatsoever, and being used as a Myspace substitute should be deleted. Many of these pages have been nominated on MfD, and they're pretty much cluttering up the place. —Crazytales (public computer) (talk) (main) 14:17, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

That's a tough matter to determine clearly though, and since it's userspace, it's almost always worth asking the user to stop first. How would you propose wording it, and how busy is it really making MFD? Last I checked it was maybe 10-15%, and that's not a high-traffic page. 64.126.24.12 14:33, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
The wording I'm proposing is: "User pages of users that have made no contributions outside of their own user space and that contain no information that could be considered encyclopedic" - that should cut down on the MFDing traffic, while getting the most obvious violations. It's about 30-40% at the moment as far as I see. —Crazytales (public computer) (talk) (main) 19:16, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to see a length-of-time since creation criterion for the criterion (boy, that's recursive), and your proposal (as written) isn't just for social networking pages, but anyone who does not use their userpage for drafting articles. Needs to be much tighter. 64.126.24.12 22:06, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
In my heart, I like the idea, but I don't think the practical implementation will work. I routinely tag long userpages with prod, using a summary like "User's only edit; WP is not Myspace." Only in rare cases does it need to come to MFD. Also, MFD is not really cluttered; it could easily handle double the traffic it currently sees. Basically, I've seen test pages in userspace from 2004 and 2005 when that was the user's only edit, and I've blanked them or tagged them G2, and admins have advised me not to bother with these. YechielMan 08:13, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
PROD may be a more suitable venue, I actualy haven't seen many prodded userpages. Maybe because Ihaven't been checking CAT:PROD. —Crazytales (public computer) (talk) (main) 13:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I realize "user has more edits to user/usertalk spaces than to articles" would not be an effective catch-all definition, but it would at least help identify the most prolific "myspacers" without ensnaring legitimate, productive editors. Thoughts? — CharlotteWebb 08:20, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

That might have a false positive though. SOme editors value communication between people very highly, and thus have a higher usertalk then mainspace edit count. (Though of course the useratlk edits are relevent to encyclopedia building) For instance, I have 1700 mainspace eidts and 1100 usertalk on my main account. It's not much of a stretch to see that I may have more usertalk than mainspace edits if I communicated a lot. —Crazytales (public computer) (talk) (main) 13:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
An effective new page patroller is supposed to have more non-deleted edits to user talk pages than to mainspace. Let's try to use common sense instead of a perfect definition. Kusma (talk) 13:14, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I think we've discussed this before, and a reasonable wording was "accounts that aren't new and have no contributions to article space" or "no contributions outside user/user talk" or something like that. This obviously needs a breathing space for novice users. Other than that, good idea, and we have quite a lot of such users these days. >Radiant< 13:49, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
    How about non-new users that have no contributions other than to user/user talk? That gets your twp wordings merged together. —Crazytales (public computer) (talk) (main) 19:11, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Why no instead of "very few", or "no recent"? If you want to add a speedy deletion criteria, you might want to catch all the people that edited once in 2006 on the Myspace article. -- lucasbfr talk 08:55, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Edit summaries

Some time ago, I added to the page the advice that an editor who nominates an article for speedy deletion should always mention that fact in the edit summary. I thought this would be non-controversial. Shortly thereafter, however, another editor weakened my phrasing to "it is a good idea to...".

I do not understand this. There does not seem to be any good or legitimate reaon why anyone should ever nominate an article for speedy deletion without mentioning that fact in the edit summary.

The guidelines at Help:Edit summary say:

Always fill in the summary field. This is considered an important guideline.

I have strengthened the wording again, to say "Please be sure to supply an edit summary that mentions that the article is being nominated for deletion."

If there is actually an issue here for debate or discussion, I would be glad to discuss it. But at present I cannot see what the other side of the argument could possibly be; it seems to me to be a completely unobjectionable request. -- Dominus 17:33, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

A possible objection might be that this slows down deleting of large numbers of articles, but there are tools to deal with this, really. Dcoetzee 18:00, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, it should always be mentioned. I think the concern is that it's not like forgetting to mention it in the edit summary makes the deletion request void or something. NickelShoe (Talk) 18:13, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I think I was the editor that rephrased Dominus' edit, and that's exactly what I was trying to avoid. When we use "must" and "always", we make it sound like they have broken process if they do not do so. Wikipedia's definition of "guideline" is not well-understood by everyone. 64.126.24.11 19:13, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Clearly identifying editing activites, especially when nominating a page for deletion (XfD, prod, speedy) should always trump the "but it's easier" argument. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:35, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I support saying that one should always do this. I just wouldn't support punishing someone for ignoring this issue, as long as they're still trying to help. Mangojuicetalk 20:56, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I now understand the concern; thanks for explaining. The issue I want to address should be clear: Last week an article that had been around for weeks or months, that I was planning to do more work on, was speedy-deleted, and even though I had it in my watchlist, I didn't find out until it was too late, because the editor who added the speedy-delete tag had left the edit summary blank.

Adding language to this page won't entirely solve that problem, of course, but it might help. And I do think that the speedy-delete instructions should say something about putting an appropriate annotation in the edit summary; that step should be part of the recommended process.

I don't frequent this project, so it is my hope that you folks who do will come up with some language, acceptable to everyone, that will insist, as firmly as possible, that the edit summary be filled in when an article is nominated for speedy deletion.

Thanks. -- Dominus 00:01, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The article isn't gone forever; you can always submit it to Deletion review if you feel that it was unfair, or you can ask an admin (yo) to restore the article if you've got substantial edits to make that would address the speedy deletion criteria. EVula // talk // ☯ // 00:13, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I did already get it back, thanks. But that is an orthogonal issue. -- Dominus 00:18, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Oh, I completely agree that proper edit summaries should be used; I just wanted to make sure that you were fully taken care of. Glad to hear you are. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 00:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Clarification of I6 (missing or invalid fair use rationale)

I've rewritten I6 for clarification of the restrictive nature of the Foundation Licensing Policy. Anything that isn't free and doesn't qualify under the exemptions is to be deleted, so I've redrafted with an eye for that:

  • Missing or invalid fair-use rationale. Any image or media without a valid fair use rationale as specified in the guideline (which is our Exemption Doctrine Policy under Foundation licensing policy may be deleted seven days after it is uploaded. Foundation policy is restrictive rather than permissive. If in doubt, delete. Boilerplate fair use templates do not constitute a fair use rationale. Images and other media uploaded before May 4, 2006 should not be deleted immediately; instead, the uploader should be notified that a fair-use rationale is needed. Images or other media uploaded after May 4, 2006 can be tagged with {{subst:nrd}}, and the uploader notified with {{subst:missing rationale|Image:image name}}. Such images can be found in the dated subcategories of Category:Images with no fair use rationale.

This doesn't change current practise. Tagging should continue and uploaders should still be given time to remedy their omissions. --Tony Sidaway 02:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Rewriting this is completely out of order, when the clause and its implementation is under active discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/FURG. Get consensus first. Reverting. Jheald 02:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Here's the diff (new text in bold):
Missing or invalid fair-use rationale. Any image or media without a valid fair use rationale as specified in the guideline (which is our Exemption Doctrine Policy under Foundation licensing policy may be deleted seven days after it is uploaded. Foundation policy is restrictive rather than permissive. If in doubt, delete.
You're telling me that's not a major change of emphasis you want in the guidelines?? That kind of change needs consensus. Jheald 02:28, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Deletion of non-exempt non-free media is already foundation policy and cannot be revoked by the apparatus of this wiki. We'd need consensus to create a new exemption. This is just a clarification. --Tony Sidaway 02:41, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Guys, this is already covered in I7: "Media that fail any part of the non-free content criteria and were uploaded after 13 July 2006 may be deleted forty-eight hours after notification of the uploader." -- Ned Scott 02:31, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


Just the same, it's best to cut off the routes of escape to the wikilawyers. --Tony Sidaway 02:41, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with the change. First, just as there can be content disputes, there can also be disputes regarding the validity of a fair use rationale. Such cases are better handled through discussion rather than summary action, albeit the burden of proof should naturally be on those arguing to retain the fair use image. Second, the statement "If in doubt, delete." is rather extreme. "If in doubt, ask others" seems a much more reasonable standard. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 02:53, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
100% agree. The way SPEEDY is used (or even if SPEEDY is used) to carry out such deletions is not for Tony S to re-write on his own. If there is consensus for such a change, it needs to be established here, first. But I too dispute it. Jheald 03:03, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
This is a misunderstanding of what the criteria for speedy deletion, and foundation policy, are about. The foundation mandates that non-qualifying media must be deleted. The exemption policy permits certain exemptions. The I6 criterion permits seven days for discussion and resolution. Images with invalid fair use criteria will be deleted. This clarification simply says that it will happen. --Tony Sidaway 03:15, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Seconded, its pretty implicant never mind the foundation policy for a second, why would it be in CSD if it were not to get deleted in X days. Thoguh I don't mind making an exception for the next few weeks to allow time for folks to correctly justify their images. —— Eagle101Need help? 03:23, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
If time is an issue, we could extend it to 14 days. But non-exempt images will be deleted anyway. This simply enables us to comply with Foundation policy--and we have to do that, one way or the other. --Tony Sidaway 03:34, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Seems to me the most relevant point about time is it should be X days from tagging, not X days from upload. Jheald 04:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
No problem there. How about 14 days from tagging to deletion? --Tony Sidaway 05:02, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Just to clarify ... my only problem with the revised version of I6 was in the wording of two statements; I neither intend nor want to change the Foundation's stance. :) Specifically, I disagree with the inclusion of the sentence "If in doubt, delete" and the addition of "or invalid". Regarding the former, it seems to invite people who don't know much about fair use policy to delete first and ask questions later. I realise that is not its intent, but that's how it comes off. Regarding the latter, invalid fair use rationales don't and shouldn't prevent images from being deleted, but I think genuine disputes regarding the validity of specific rationales should be handled through discussion rather than speedy deletion. Essentially, I want to make sure that speedy deletion of images doesn't extend to controversial cases. I realise full well that that wasn't your intent and I apologise that my previous post was not clear in expressing what it was that I actually disagreed with. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 07:31, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Well we can do without "if in doubt, delete" because it could certainly incite a trigger-happy attitude. Not sure about losing "or invalid", because at some point we've got to start looking through fair use rationales, some of which are pretty ropey. The upload log shows that we've taken on board over 100 image files in the past hour, and this at a time when most of the Western Hemisphere--the bulk of the English speaking world--is asleep. There's no way we can handle all of the invalid rationales in the non-free images at human speeds. Tagging, fixing and deletion of the unfixed images is the only practicable way to keep copyright infringement on this huge scale under control. --Tony Sidaway 07:54, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
The other way to handle it is to identify standard classes of usage which we can agree are okay, with standard rationales that can be straightforwardly linked to. That would hugely reduce the load of un-rationaled articles, and give us the advantage of relying for the most part on a few standard rationales which can be legally quality-assured. But this is a discussion for another place. Jheald 08:06, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I haven't been too involved in the various discussions about non-free content (I've focused more on text than media), but I think that would be problematic as the fair use rationale is always contingent on the particular type and purpose of use in a given article. Standardised rationales would be inapplicable in more than a few cases -- in fact, even valid rationales can become invalid if the content of an article changes. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 08:31, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Revised proposal for I6 (and the BetacommandBot tag mountain)

Eagle101 has suggested the following way forward at WT:FAIR#Way forward to deal with the BetacommandBot tag mountain; (other admins have made similar suggestions at WP:AN/FURG).

  • we start work on correcting the currently tagged images. Be that leave them be and let them get deleted (some may have to go this route), fix up the images that are being used correctly, or add some critical commentary about it, and then fix up the rational. I would suggest that if we take this course of action that a proposal be made (or effort go to supporting a current proposal if there is one), to hold off deleting the currently tagged images for 2-3 weeks. By that I mean extend the tag's time period from what it is now to 14-21 days. After this timeperiod ends and the image backlog returns to normal (admins get a chance to review all of these) we turn betacommandbot back on. The bot would be to run at tagging 300 images a day. Thats managable. (as opposed to the literally thousands tagged daily).
  • scanning and tagging could continue for new uploads
  • I7 (speedy deletion for clearly hopeless or fraudulent fair use claims) to continue as normal.

Follow-ups on this general plan to WT:FAIR#Way forward

Specific proposal for I6

  • Normal grace period for I6 changed to 10 days from tagging (per Tony Sidaway at 05:02 above, but less generous), rather than number of days since upload.
  • Temporary moratorium on carrying out I6 for 14 days, to be reviewed at that date, while attempts are made to clean up the current tag mountain by other ways than deletion.

Would people find this acceptable? Jheald 07:58, 8 June 2007 (UTC) (follow-ups to here).

Yes to a temporary grace period increase. No to limiting the bot's tagging, in any way. -- Ned Scott 08:08, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
User:Jheald, your proposal seems reasonable. However, there are two tag mountains, because User:BetacommandBot has been applying two templates, viz.
  1. {{dfu}}, which places images in a subcategory of Category:All disputed non-free images. This category currently contains c. 14,000 images.
  2. {{nrd}}, which places images in a subcategory of Category:Images with no fair use rationale. This category currently contains c. 7,000 images.
I think that the moratorium should apply to both templates, since from the BetacommandBot point of view they are functionally equivalent, both being added to images with no rationale. I mention this because {{dfu}} appears to formally fall under CSD I7. Possibly a different dated CSD I7 template should be written. Spacepotato 08:24, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, although unlike the original proposal I say we sick the bot on all the remaining non-free images with no rationale at maxmum possible speed (with some apropriately modified boilplate messages) rater than hold it back untill the current backlog is cleared. Once it's finished it's run though all current images we can then set aside all the dated categories created during it's run and say that images in categories dated X though Y will be subject to deletion 14 days (or 30 or 90 or however long is deemed reasonable dependign on how big the backlog gets) after the tagging date rater than the normal 7 to give people a reasonable chance to provide rationales. Subsequent dated categories created after this run has finished (presumably containing only newly uploaded images) should be processed per the normal rules in the meantime. --Sherool (talk) 09:15, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Could we centralise discussion please on what to do with the bot to WT:FAIR#Way forward, and keep the discussion here to just the specific CSD proposals? Thx. Jheald 09:21, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Wow, what a ridiculous suggestion. To paraphrase Bart Simpson, how will we catch up with the problem by going slower? And why should we add the extra effort of having to tag images (rather than allowing the grace period after uploading) just because people were negligent in reading Special:Upload? --bainer (talk) 10:53, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Why? It's called good faith. You ask how we will catch up by going slower. The hope is that the images will have rationales added, the infighting over the bot will stop, Wikipedia will stop being disrupted and we will be in a better place than before. We're trying to manage a change in our policy over a period of time, rather than simply announcing and implementing a new policy in one move. Yes people were negligent in reading Special:Upload, but we've already seen thousands of images deleted out of process based on this issue, something I hope we can all agree is not on. What we're looking for is a cessation until the end of the month, to give WikiProjects the time to write proper rationales, and not boiler plate rationales. We want to see a proper resolution to this, and the majority of people who have commented now think that that is best managed over a period of time. What you have to understand is that there are two solutions to an image with no rationale. You can either add one or tag it. At the minute, given the speed at which the bot is ripping through, tyhere's a slight imbalance in favour of tag adding/deletion. This problem has existed on Wikipedia a long time, another 21 days isn't going to hurt anyone. I hope all of that helps. Hiding Talk 15:05, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Lets remove C3

§C3 specifies: "Template categories. If a category is solely populated from a template (e.g. Category:Wikipedia cleanup from {{cleanup}}) and the template is deleted per deletion policy, the category can also be deleted without further discussion.". But, when the template is getting deleted, then the category will probably be empty, and thus deletable per §C1. I know a long time ago, the categories wasn't updated directly, but now adays, they are, so there is not a big problem. I believe it's a rather unnecessary criteria, and could easly be removed. →AzaToth 19:04, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Well C1 technicaly says you have to wait 5 days though (not sure to what degree that is actualy followed, for one there is no way to tell how long a category have actualy been empty), anyway I would think it would just be common sense to get rid of such categories without much fanfare, but then again a lot of the criteria are common sense things, so I guess there is no harm in having this written down either. --Sherool (talk) 21:52, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to comment on the uselessness of the "wait 5 days" limitation. If a category had members less than five days ago, it's difficult to prove. You'd have to find individual diffs showing the more recent removal of category links from one or more pages (which may or may not be by the same user who marked the category for deletion). If a category has actually been empty more than five days, you couldn't prove that at all (not without doing fully searching the next database dump to see that no revisions within a certain time range contained a link to the category). This is because Special:Relatedchanges only shows edits to pages which are currently in the category, not ones freshly removed. — CharlotteWebb 01:33, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

New C4: Advocacy categories

C4: Advocacy categories. For the same reasoning as templates, categories that exist to group users according to point of view.

This makes sense in itself and seems to follow logically from the overwhelming endorsement of a large number of ad hoc speedies performed by Dmcdevit the other day [1]. --Tony Sidaway 20:21, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Not sure this is at all necessary, and there's also nothing to indicate this won't be horribly abused. What failsafes would be put in place? How do we tell the difference between advocacy (usually not good for interpersonal cooperation) and full disclosure of a point of view (usually very good for interpersonal cooperation)? What's the actual need? Let's not assume that DRV, closed a day early and hardly unanimous, demonstrates a wider consensus. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:33, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
CSD is for administrators, who are the only ones with the delete button. Administrators are reasonable people. If you are going to oppose on principal because you think administrators are evil and it will be "horribly abused" for some reason, that's your prerogative, but I don't see any reason to listen to such insults. Dmcdevit·t 20:44, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Given the fail rate of A7/G11 speedies, I think it's more than a valid concern. Most are reasonable, but too many are not. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:48, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
The reasoning given for deletion was as follows:
Divisive POV-advocacy user categorizations: please refer to WP:SOAP, WP:NOT#WEBSPACE, and especially WP:ENC; this promotes no encyclopedic purpose.
This is a list of the endorsed deletions:

I think you'll agree that it's a pretty catholic criterion. All were endorsed. --Tony Sidaway 20:53, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but the reason for deletion was "divisive POV advocacy", not just POV advocacy. I fully agree that divisive user categories should be speedy deleted, but that's not necessarily any POV category. -Amarkov moo! 21:39, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
See the above list. --Tony Sidaway 21:40, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I saw it. I'm not sure what you want me to look at. -Amarkov moo! 21:42, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Unless you are intending to delete things like Category:Roman Catholic Wikipedians and Category:Democratic (US) Wikipedians then I think your wording is too broad. CFD often finds a distinction (albeit a fairly fuzzy one) between categories that advocate a position (e.g. support/oppose) and identity statements (like religion and political affiliation, where it is not simply pro/con choice on a single issue). The former are generally deleted/merged into neutral categories like Category:Wikipedians interested in the abortion debate and the latter are consistently tolerated (i.e. the two examples above). Dragons flight 21:44, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't violently oppose the change made (now it is "group editors by position on a divisive or inflammatory issue"), but that sounds a bit weaselly to me. Something said can be divisive, even if it isn't already about a "divisive issue." Can we think of a wording to solve that? Dmcdevit·t 22:11, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
So again, why do we need this? --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:13, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Oppose. This is much too broad, and the 'endorsement' above involves squinting your eyes just a bit. -- nae'blis 03:22, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose The current template criterion is "divisive and inflammatory" which is a much narrower criterion and is in fact applied fairly narrowly. I see this proposal as an attempt to prempt proper debate at CfD. We have a place that can deal with the problem. DGG 05:53, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - Note this CSD for user categories discussion, for a previous attempt at creating CSD criteria for Wikipedian categories. (Additional comments would be welcome.) - jc37 10:12, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Would this technically cover Category:Administrators open to recall? --W.marsh 18:14, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Yep ... trolling categories should be speedied. But this is too much of a slippery slope as it is now. --BigDT 18:42, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
      • EH? that category is not even advocacy, as has been established several times now, and to call it trolling is a bit of a reach. Or were you saying that 90+ admins are trolls for putting themselves in it? I think a clarification might be in order... ++Lar: t/c 01:18, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
        • And BigDT is in that category, so I'm not sure what he's getting at. I can't even tell why that category would qualify under any definition of the criterion, so this seems like we're getting sidetracked. Dmcdevit·t 04:06, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
          • Sorry ... maybe I should have punctuated my comment better. Yes, I agree with the concern that this rule would cover the recall category. I believe that trolling categories (which this rule would be designed to cover) should be speedied, but it is a slippery slope because it might be applied (correctly or incorrectly) to other categories, such as the recall category. --BigDT 04:33, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

I agree with the idea, but I think the wording needs to be better. Instead of "For the same reasoning as templates, user categories that group editors by position on a divisive or inflammatory issue" how about "...user categories that explicitly advocate a particular point of view on a divisive, inflammatory or controversial issue". This is less open-ended, seems more in line with what actually got deleted. Moreschi Talk 19:09, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

That doesn't make sense. That covers none of the deletions that were endorsed. Categories don't advocate a point of view, they categorize people according to point of view. That was my initial version, which was changed. Dmcdevit·t 20:53, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose for the same reasons I oppose T1: too subjective. I also believe that speedying this type of thing generates conflict, rather than eliminates it. Dcoetzee 21:04, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I believe it's a good idea (and note, Deco, that this is not a vote so a bolded statement like that really isn't necessary). There exists a plethora of templates about opinions and issues (many of which reside in userspace). Since we have the whatlinkshere function, it does not follow that all these templates need have a matching category. Indeed, except cosmetic purposes, such cats are pretty pointless. >Radiant< 11:11, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
    • I agree, and regarding [2], if someone thinks it is a good idea but disagrees with the wording, it would be nice if they participated in the discussion, instead of making an unproductive drive-by revert. Dmcdevit·t 04:06, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Sorry, just following suit. I should clarify: speedy deleting trolling categories that people were placed into by others as an attack, is already covered by the Attack pages CSD. I don't believe categories used for any type of self-identification should be susceptible to speedy-deletion, on the general policy that speedy deleting potentially offensive things has not been shown to effectively derail conflict, nor do I believe it does so. Dcoetzee 21:37, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I support this idea very strongly, and I think Dmcdevit is onto something here. Honestly, what we have is mess of senseless user categories that do absolutely nothing to help build an encyclopedia. ^demon[omg plz] 23:27, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Removing the templates per T1 has been appropriate. Removing categories which essentially serve the same purpose that divisive templates do is equally appropriate. These should be deleted on sight and any templates which populate them should be either deleted if they are divisive or edited to remove the categorization if they are not. --After Midnight 0001 00:09, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Oppose, sorry. An admin doing something once does not necessarily make good policy. I think that deleting unhelpful advocacy categories is a good idea, but CSD is not the best way to go about the deletion; there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with the process. In its everyday usage, CSD is most useful for pages that are being created and are viewable at Special:Newpages. I assume C4 would mostly be used for clean-up of previous categories, not dealing with with unstoppable swarming masses of advocacy categories that appear every day (cough).
  • So, I think it would make a bad CSD criterion—better left unwritten. While suggested in good faith, I suspect that this will be abused to no end, like T1 sometimes is. Abused by "reasonable" admins who maybe just want to get something done, process be damned: they no longer need to explain their logic (as Dmcdevit certainly did), because they have policy on their side. GracenotesT § 01:02, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Screaming about dire inevitable abuse from evil admins is a silly reason to oppose a CSD. If a policy is "abused" administrators should be held accountable, and a CSD is no impediment for holding them accountable for real abuse. As far as I can tell, usually the people that have cried admin abuse are the ones that disagree with such deletions taking place in the first place, and have no other recourse. All criteria for speedy deletion 1) institute mechanisms for deletions without discussion, because 2) admins are trusted users with the judgment to act according to the community's will. As such, we should not be debating whether something is abuse-prone (an absurd concept) but whether it makes sense to delete a type of page, which can be clearly defined, outright. In this case, I would say both that these categories are easily identified by our administrators who we can trust to make the judgment, and that all categories identified as such should always be deleted (and the community has supported that position). Dmcdevit·t 10:04, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
      • "As far as I can tell, usually the people that have cried admin abuse are the ones that disagree with such deletions taking place in the first place, and have no other recourse." - Considering a recent discussion, I think I might dispute that statement (though I don't believe the words "admin abuse" were ever "cried"). Also, while we presume that "admins are trusted users with the judgment to act according to the community's will." - wishing doesn't make it so. One need only to go through the archives of WP:AN / WP:AN/I / WP:RfAr (among other places) to see examples of where that clearly isn't true. So while we would like to, and should presume good faith of our admins, just as we should of any editor, we should also recognise their humanity and possible fallibility. An admin is not necessarily quintessentially, existentially, or inherently right. They are just being trusted to (hopefully) attempt to perform in the encyclopedia's best interest, per previous community consensus. And WP:CSD is strict for just those reasons. - jc37 11:31, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
      • That's not my only argument. As I said, this criterion would be used for cleanup. Tacking on policy to handle a problem like this is instruction creep, and in my experience, results in bureaucracy. I don't think CSD is a good way to handle this: we could set up a category prodding system if WP:UCFD can't handle the load (I think they can). GracenotesT § 16:32, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
        • Interesting, but, it's a bit odd to say I didn't reply to your whole post when you did the same to mine. My main point was that these categories are easily identified and that they are always in need of deletion; the combination supports speedy deletion. I don't quite know what to say to your claim that speedy deletion is bureaucracy, except to note that it is incongruous, with your suggestion that each one be taken to WP:UCFD or that we set up a new WP:PROD for categories. Please don't just throw the buzzwords at me because you can; requiring all these to go through some unnecessary process is instruction creep, not speedy deleting them. Speedy deletion is the non-bureaucratic solution. Dmcdevit·t 01:36, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
          • Hm, I didn't respond to anyone's post, I don't think. It was just sort of a "comment out of the blue". As for the bureaucratic part: no, it won't be bureaucratic now. But when basically all advocacy categories are deleted (with 1 or 2 trickling in every week), it will be bureaucratic. This is why I would prefer process to policy here, especially a policy as core as WP:CSD. WP:TFD sees a hell of a lot of templates that should obviously be deleted. Wikipedia is a volunteer project, and the apocalypse isn't going to come if someone chooses to spend their time (which is completely their own) to vote to delete an advocacy category. GracenotesT § 05:06, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
          • I should probably mention that I'm certainly not a fan of needless process, but I'm also not a fan of needless policy. Rather precarious balance here. szyslak does have a good idea below about letting the community decide in more borderline cases, and this appears to be a reasonable compromise, so long as it is not abused. GracenotesT § 06:08, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose not because I don't support the deletion of divisive categories, but because I feel this is a solution in search of a problem. Perusing through WP:UCFD, I see that there are several days where only one category is nominated. In fact, May 29 and June 2 went by without a single nomination. The worst offenders can already be deleted per G3 or WP:IAR. I'll support this in an instant the day UCFD is so backlogged it's ready to burst. szyslak 10:26, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
    Wikipedia:User categories for discussion would have bursted a few days ago if Dmcdevit had nominated all the categories he speedy deleted the slow way. Instead, he did it the fast way. So let's legimitize the fast way to prevent the surrounding drama from reoccurring next time someone does the right thing and deletes a swath of these categories. Picaroon (Talk) 21:20, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
    I think UCFD could've handled it. For the several days of the debate, UCFD wouldn't even be as busy as one day at AFD. The system is working. szyslak 04:05, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
    But why? You said above that it is a solution in search of a problem. In fact, it is a solution to the needless bureaucracy of WP:UCFD, yet another deletion process, and one that, frankly, very few people know about. This set of categories is clear, and even in this thread, I think only 2 people have actually said that such categories shouldn't be deleted, others like you have made arguments in favor of process for something you agree should be deleted. WP:UCFD, on the other hand, is a solution in search of a problem. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dmcdevit (talk • contribs) 04:25, June 14, 2007 (UTC)
    Yep, I do support deleting most, but not all, "advocacy" categories. I also support deleting articles that contain nothing but original research, but I wouldn't advocate a speedy criterion for that purpose. Why? Because it takes the community input of a deletion debate to determine what is and is not an inappropriate "advocacy" category. Blatant cases can already be speedied. Also, if UCFD constitutes one too many deletion processes, maybe we should merge it back into WP:CFD. Maybe instead of painting all possible "advocacy" cats with the same brush, we should adopt something more similar to T1, which nukes the obvious cases and leaves the rest for the community to decide. szyslak 05:11, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I support this proposal because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Wikipedia is not Myspace, it is not Free Republic, it is no Democratic Underground. The encyclopedia's articles are not the place to push your point of view, so why should category space be sacrificed for that purpose? The answer is that it shouldn't. Picaroon (Talk) 21:20, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I support the idea; kudos to Dmcdevit for coming up with this. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 01:20, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
  • This will save us days of debate on deletion forums, at no cost to the encyclopedia. There is no downside. If you have views you can type them into your user page easily enough. Such categories only enable canvassing and vote stacking, and are useless for creating an encyclopedia. --Tony Sidaway 01:30, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
    • T1 came in by fiat; this is unlikely to stick/gain consensus in any simpler way, as categories are inherently less inflammatory. -- nae'blis 03:08, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
      • "I don't support this because it doesn't have support" is not a logical argument. In fact, it's rather embarrassing that the community couldn't have decided on T1 by itself, but that was months ago and we've certainly accepted it by now. Dmcdevit·t 04:25, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
        • Good thing that's not what I said, then (or at least not what I meant). The CSD criteria that are the most disputed are those that are the most subjective; T1's uses have been narrowly defined enough that it usually doesn't cause controversy anymore, but think back to the userbox wars and tell me again that had broad support among Wikipedians in good standing. Viz A7, G11, etc... I don't believe consensus support is demonstrated here for C4, so the only way I see it coming in is by fiat. Clearer? -- nae'blis 13:31, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I think this is a great idea, but Nae'blis brings up a good point. There are too many people that use these types of categories that will be against it that consensus will probably be hard to get. --Kbdank71 19:20, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Yes, process is annoying at times (there's a category I want to delete right now, but will have to wait 4 days for C1 to apply), but it ensures that fewer mistakes are made and less controversy is produced. There is no need for this addition to the deletion criteria and I believe it would unnecessarily create problems that could be avoided through the use of UCfD. Lack of patience to start a deletion nomination (which only takes 2-3 minutes, by the way) should not be the basis of a speedy deletion criterion. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 20:24, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Can someone explain why this wouldn't already be covered with CSD C3 in combination with CSD T1? I mean, those categories arise from userboxes, right?People may subst the userboxes, leaving some behind, but I wouldn't think this is a big stretch. Mangojuicetalk 21:04, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
    People might add themselves to user categories without using the template. C3 would apply to some, but not all that exist currently, and wouldn't apply to the categories as they were created. - Zeibura(talk) 08:28, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
    OK, technically, yeah, but does that happen so much that we really need to worry about it? I don't think this is really needed: with T1 and C3 we should be able to delete most of these anyway. And the few we can't, can go to CFD. Mangojuicetalk 17:48, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose. On the one I think if we're enforcing T1, we may as well be enforcing this. However, Black Falcon's statement about consensus seems valid, and those stating that a divisive category isn't as bad as a divisive template have a point; the categories still leave text at the bottom of someone's userpage saying "Wikipedians that (inflammatory point of view)" even after they've been deleted, just in red text, whereas the userboxes don't. It's a bad idea, and we shouldn't be condoning it, but the only real reason for concern is the fact that they leave divisive text at the bottom of user pages, which they would do even if they were deleted. It's not enough of a big deal to be creating a new speedy criterion which is essentially just a judgment call. - Zeibura(talk) 08:38, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose per the discussion above, because this is a solution in search of a problem. I don't see any capacity problem at WP:UCFD or any urgent need to prevent damage to the project;yes, these categories are mostly a bad idea, but taking a few days to run them through WP:UCFD will do no harm. Per Black Falcon, using the available process has the advantage that fewer mistakes are made and less controversy is produced. --15:44, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Black Falcon, policy creep. +sj + 18:38, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose total nonsense. Don't like political categories? Get over it. WooyiTalk to me? 16:09, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

"provided that the copy is substantially identical"

Can we reword this to emphasize that it's meant for exact copies of the deleted article?

Any recreated article is, by definition, going to be about the same topic. That's certainly not a criteria for speedy deletion; it should go to a regular AfD. This criteria is only for articles that are exactly the same; copied before deletion and pasted back in afterwards, with a minimal number of edits since then. — Omegatron 20:10, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

They would not necessarily be on the same topic either, especially less likely if the title is a person's name. But yes I see your point here. If an improved version of an article on the same topic is posted, it should not be speedy deleted. In fact the old deleted edits should be restored underneath it if the new version is obviously derived from the old one (containing any of the same sentences or paragraphs). I think the phrasing "substantially identical" is clear enough. If you can look at the two versions and immediately notice the difference, it's not "substantially identical". — CharlotteWebb 23:28, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
"Substantially identical" means "identical in every way that matters". In other words, you can't just change one word to escape G4. I'm not sure what wording needs to be changed - the criterion already means what you are seeking to change it to. --BigDT 01:43, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree with BigDT here, I'm not sure what your criticism is here. Trying to be more specific will just generate ruleslawyering. -- nae'blis 02:28, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
I may be --for a change--a little less permissive than some about this: think it ought to mean, a copy which is the same in substance by not having addressed any of the problems which got it deleted. What would be permitted, for example, is that if it was deleted because there were no references, and you added some, if because there was copyright material and you removed it; it it contained BBLP and you fixed it; it it was loaded with spam, and you removed it. What should not be permitted, and continue to be speediable, are trivial changes: if there were paragraphs full of spam, and you removed just a little, if all the references were from the subject, and you added another one but also from the subject, if it was intrinsically non-notable, and you changed the wording around. Let's face it, there will always be people trying to slide by essentially unfixed versions, and there will on the other hand always be people who were strongly opposed to the article, who will call any reworking, no matter how satisfactory, a re-creation. wherever we draw the line, there will be problems. (I'll mention one special case: trivial changes in the title do not avoid the ban on re-creation. Nothing is more common than for someone to add or remove a middle initial and try again.)DGG 07:04, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

a copy which is the same in substance by not having addressed any of the problems which got it deleted

Even that would need to go to a normal AfD, to determine whether the original problems have been addressed. Speedy should only be applicable to articles which are based exactly on the deleted version, with almost identical wording. If the article's been rewritten from scratch, it's not good enough that one admin considers it to be the same article; it needs to go to a normal AfD and be determined to be a copy by consensus. — Omegatron 01:44, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Then every article is going to get 50 AfDs. —Centrx→talk • 02:00, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Frequently it is a matter of obvious fact (rather than opinion) whether the "problems have been addressed". For instance, if an article is AFD'ed for lack of sources, it is easy to see whether a recreation does or does not have sources. >Radiant< 07:51, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

CSD G13 - New Proposal

I move that we establish CSD G13. Many times, I'll be working on Wikipedia, and I'll find an article that *doesn't quite* match one of our CSD criteria. However, I still believe it should be deleted. Many times, these are in Wikipedia-space as well, which is why I propose it be a general criteria. Therefore, I propose CSD G13, which would be worded as follows:

13 - Pages that should be deleted - This applies to any and all article/template/category/redirect that should be deleted in their respective xFD deletion discussion, but the tagger or admin is far too lazy to do such a thing, and would rather see it gone now before anyone decides its worth keeping (ie: Prod is not an option). This would include reasons such as WP:UNENCYCLOPEDIC, WP:JNN, WP:RUBBISH, WP:IDONTLIKEIT, WP:BORING, WP:IDONTKNOWIT, WP:ALLORNOTHING, WP:LOCALFAME, and WP:GHITS

Brilliant, yes? ^demon[omg plz] 14:39, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Please tell me this is simply an elaborate joke. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:41, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, it made me laugh :D - Zeibura Talk 14:45, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
That sounds like a speedy prod. :P This is obviously a joke. Funpika 20:38, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
I like it. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:42, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
I Vote Support!. (H) 04:07, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Just as long as we create a new WP:BLOCK rationale for "editors who attempt to annoy G13 deleters by adding sources and improved prose to articles to circumvent a deletion". I see the secret Deletionist Cabal goals are finally nearing reality. --W.marsh 04:12, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, you could say that an article deleted under G13 just had some bad luck ... --BigDT 04:16, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Here is a draft of the template. :P Funpika 20:50, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm tempted to tag the page for deletion per WP:CSD#G13. ... ;-) Black Falcon (Talk) 21:00, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
But it only says articles, templates, categories, and redirects! Nothing about user subpages! Funpika 21:08, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Umm, let me think ..... G14 anyone? -- Black Falcon (Talk) 21:47, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
G14 – All pages that do not meet any of the speedy deletion criteria, but would probably be deleted in their respective XfDs, and the tagger or admin is *still* too lazy to go through other channels and would rather see it gone before anyone has a chance to argue that it's worth keeping.
Can't we just make that G13? Funpika 22:02, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
I guess I should have specified: All pages that do not meet any of the speedy deletion criteria, including CSD G13, ... :) -- Black Falcon (Talk) 05:57, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Change "lazy" to "lazy or impatient", and I think you've hit it on the head. (I really hope this is a joke : ) - jc37 11:11, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

No. Change it to "lazy, impatient, or having a divine imperative from God (does not apply if the admin is an atheist)" GracenotesT § 16:38, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Bogus license, copyvio, is this a speedy?

I'm still a bit foggy on csd for images. This Image:Clemensatyankeestadium.jpg was uploaded with a claim for public domain, but the meta-data shows its copyrighted to Getty Images. Can this be speedy deleted or does it sit around for a week like other images? —Gaff ταλκ 22:11, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I think G12 (Blatant copyright infringement) would apply. -- Ned Scott 22:15, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Oh good grief ... what Real Man of Genius (tm) took a pd-self license from an spa named Mike123454325 seriously and moved it to commons? --BigDT 04:19, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

small (I hope) change at User pages

I propose to change the header of that section to

For any user pages that are not speedy deletion candidates, use Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion or Wikipedia:proposed deletion if the user has made few or no contributions to the encyclopedia.

WP:PROD#How_it_works states that Only articles may be proposed for deletion. The only exceptions to this rule are pages in the User and User talk namespaces which may be proposed for deletion if the user has no recent edits and has made few or no contributions to the encyclopedia, this should probably be reflected here also. -- lucasbfr talk 08:46, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

For clarification, a comma should probably be added after the link to MFD. GracenotesT § 16:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Given that, if there are no other objections, I'd have no problem with you adding it. GracenotesT § 21:32, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Should we use Template:AutoArchivingNotice here

This talk page gets long quickly with all of the comments that are posted. I think it might be helpful if we added {{AutoArchivingNotice}}, perhaps set to 7 days after the last comment. Anyone else agree? -- kenb215 talk 23:31, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually if the template and bot had enough customizable features it could be used everywhere. But I'm not aware of any way to get it to move to the next archive once the previous one reaches a maximum size, other than watching it like you would a gas pump. — CharlotteWebb 23:57, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

CSD A2

A question regarding CSD A2 (article that exists on a foreign language wikipedia), does this exclusively mean a foreign article which has been copy-pasted over from (part of) a foreign language wiki article, or do foreign articles which appear to have been written from scratch, but an article on the same topic exists on a foreign language wiki, also meet the criterion? The example which has brought this up is Palmares, Pernambuco, which appears to have been written from scratch, but an article about the city also exists over at pt:Palmares. - Zeibura(talk) 08:05, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I guess nobody answered yet. The idea of CSD A2 is that there's really no point having this article in the wrong language wiki because it already exists where it needs to be. If the article doesn't exist in any of the wikis but it's in the wrong language, usually it goes to requests for translation unless it's clearly useless. So if another language has the article, even if the text is not the same, that's a valid CSD A2. As it happened, someone translated the article into English, and I added the interwiki links, so everything's in good shape. YechielMan 06:52, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

"G11 - blatant advertising" too subjective

I'd like to propose either the clarification or removal of criterion G11, "blatant advertising", because that criterion, as written, is too subjective to be appropriate to trigger speedy deletion. I suggest something along the lines of, "An article which primarily contains links to websites, phone numbers, unsourced assertions of the quality or superiority of the subject of the article, or other non-encyclopedic advertisement material should be evaluated by examining what content would remain if that material were removed. If the remnant of the article after such an edit would meet any other criterion for speedy deletion, then the article as a whole also qualifies for speedy deletion. Otherwise, the article should simply be edited to remove the offending material." Any thoughts? --DachannienTalkContrib 12:49, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

G11's been around for at least 6 months now and honestly the only truly controversial deletion made with it was the whole Fleshlight incident, and G11 was just a convenient excuse for a deletion that probably would have happened anyway. Also, G11 came down from the foundation's legal counsel at the time. So those two things are important to consider. At one point I was trying to write an essay to define as closely as possible what blatant advertising is (User:W.marsh/Blatant advertising), and I still think something like that would be somewhat useful.
But, in the field, we seem to be okay with admins making the call on what is blatant advertising, and what isn't. There's always the admin's talk page or WP:DRV when they get it wrong, but it doesn't seem to be nearly as problematic as everyone thought it would be to let admins speedy delete "spam". DRV is hardly crawling with cases of admins deleting legitimate articles under this rule. It's kind of a "I know it when I see it" thing and I'm not convinced we could ever put it into words very effectively, either an admin has the judgment to make the right call or he doesn't, in the latter case he'll figure out if he keeps getting challenged. --W.marsh 12:59, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
To be fair, there was also the food products deleted under G11 fiasco, but I'm willing to attribute that to growing pains since it was very new at the time and got roundly overturned, IIRC. -- nae'blis 16:09, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Oh, I'd forgotten about that... your summary is pretty accurate. Since G11 has gotten a bit more established it's not like it's been used to just purge any article on commercial products or companies, it just makes getting rid of the unenyclopedic ones easier and doesn't bog down AFD. --W.marsh 20:41, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree that G11 is too subjective, not so much because an admin cannot identify "blatant advertising", but because articles should only be deleted if they either have no redeeming value or describing a subject that is, in and of itself, not notable. Notability is notoriously subjective and not something a single admin should determine. As for no redeeming value, I've rarely seen a G11 candidate that couldn't be stripped down to a descriptive outline that was much more NPOV, which is what ought to be done for notable products. Finally, many G11s are written not by corporate representatives but by fans of the products - these are legitimate editors who should be receiving feedback about NPOV and encouraged to fix up articles on their own. I think we've all written some prose that was a bit too positive about subjects we like.
In short, I think the process for blatant advertising should work like this: strip out the POV material, and if you believe the subject itself is still non-notable, nominate for prod or deletion. Dcoetzee 20:40, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I also find G11 a little vague. I'm usually more comfortable using A7, most of the G11s fit that too. However, for those that don't, I'm very willing to delete if the amount of rewriting that would be required is significant: more than deleting a few lines from the article. I don't mind salvaging an article that's almost okay, but I'm not going to spend my time to save an ad, it makes me feel like I'm working for the company who posted it. That said, legitimate disputes over G11 deletions have happened a few times but are really quite rare, so I think the criterion is okay. Mangojuicetalk 15:12, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposed template: naming convention orphan redirects

I'd like to propose a new speedy deletion template for orphan redirects created as the result of page moves such as Dominion (album kamelot) → Dominion (Kamelot album), for which {{db-pagemove}} or {{db-redirtypo}} aren't really suitable.

I'm thinking of calling it {{db-namingmove}}, with rationale:

It is an implausible redirect page resulting from renaming a page according to naming convention (CSD G6).

Any comments or objections? --Piet Delport 16:40, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Not really objecting, just thinking... One could argue that if the original article creator made the mistake, it is reasonably likely that other users will do so as well. There's also a certain (very limited) historical value in these redirects. -- Visviva 16:53, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
This is true of many redirects, but not so much of this particular issue, i think: the creator may invent an unconventional parenthetical disambiguation when forced to name the article, but other users will find the existing article instead of trying to create and name it.
I think it's worthwhile to avoid keeping such redirects around: they're basically clutter, much like typos, that serve little purpose other than confusing new users and propagating bad naming style.
I tried to indicate the limited scope with "implausible redirect", but perhaps the rationale text needs to make this clearer? --Piet Delport 19:08, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
I always use the redirect criteria (R2 and R3) for clearing up page move redirects which aren't necessary. I personally think the text on R3 should be expanded rather than G6, so that rather than saying "from an implausible typo" it just says "an implausible redirect". From the current wording, if someone created "Dominion (album kamelot)" as a redirect (as opposed to creating it as an article and the article being moved) it wouldn't be speediable. - Zeibura(talk) 20:34, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the feedback. How about adjusting R3 to read:

Redirects from an implausible typo or misnomer.

and creating {{db-redirmisnomer}} to read:

It is a redirect from an implausible misnomer (CSD R3).

--Piet Delport 15:33, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, i'm going ahead. --Piet Delport 02:27, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

If it's the result of a pagemove, I would think normal cleanup with G6 would apply. ^demon[omg plz] 05:41, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, G6 applies with several other criteria too. :) --Piet Delport 06:14, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

proposal

dear wikipedians! some of peoples have patrol function about newpages and they often use speed deletion`s templates in the articles. usually those articles do deleted in future. with this deletion, the history of article and further, profitable contribution of the wikipedin does deleted. for solve this problem, we must found a way which these contributions be remained for wikipedian. I`m a new user and If anyone know where we could suggested and corect this problem, wrote the message about it in my talk page. thanks a lot, --Gordafarid 16:50, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Are there any particular deleted articles you think shouldn't have been deleted? If so, take them to a deletion review. - Zeibura(talk) 20:27, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Additionally most admins will restore a deleted article to your user space if you ask, so long as the article wasn't libel or a copyright violation.--W.marsh 20:39, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
For example, I will restore a deleted article if uncontroversial--if in any doubt, I'll email (sometimes after a promise that it won't be restored in its present form). And when I keep a deleted article in my own user space temporarily, I generally add nowiki tags around the article so its won't appear in searches.
But this is a more general problem, and frustrated me very much when I first came here. I had some radical ideas until people such as W.marsh explained the practical need to go fast. We still need a way of demarcating the undoubtedly deletes as altogether impossible from the others. The problem is that at some point any process needs to rely on someone's judgement, and the best of us are only approximately perfect. What we can do, is try to organise things here so its clearer to people what to do, and also to educate them when they overdelete or mislabel just as we educate people when they put in articles inappropriately. My current guess now that I know the system better is that we get maybe 10 malicious speedies a day, and perhaps 200 or 300 that either should never have been nominated at all or need AfD instead. W.marsh, what's your guess?-- I'd like to think that we catch them all, but of course we don't. For people who know enough to complain, of course we can fix things afterwards. DGG 01:41, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I really don't know what the current error rate is with deletions... but it seems to be acceptable. Each day Wikipedia takes a few steps backwards and dozens forward, it's all part of having such a high edit/unique editor volume. Trying to make no or very few mistakes would probably slow the whole machinery down to an unacceptable degree, considering the restrictions and layers of review that would be needed. We just have to accept that there are going to be some bad deletions. If an acceptable article on a legitimate topic is deleted, eventually someone will notice, even if the initial creator doesn't take it to DRV. And once it gets noticed, it will get corrected. Hopefully that makes sense... it's unfortunate that stuff gets deleted improperly sometimes, but it's really hard for a legitimate article to fall through the cracks for long, even under the current system. --W.marsh 03:12, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
    • As you say, that's unsupported by evidence. With your well-justified confidence in your own work, you may not be aware of the poor quality of others. DGG 23:44, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Curious

What speedy deletion criteria would userpages in CAT:TEMP fall under? They don't fit exactly into any of the criteria, but they still need to be speedily deleted. Sean William @ 19:12, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't say they were speedy candidates. The category text says "these pages should be deleted after a suitable period of time", so that's not speedy deletion; placing the userpage in the category marks it for deletion at a later date. It's a separate deletion method, so to speak. - Zeibura(talk) 20:30, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
After said time expires, then it would be fair game for somewhat speedy deletion. That's what I'm referring to. Sean William @ 01:19, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I think the most appropriate speedy deletion criterion would be CSD G6 (uncontroversial housekeeping), although perhaps Zeibura is right that it constitutes a de facto separate deletion method. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 01:42, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
WP:PROD accepts userpages now, I could see tagging it there if {{db-userreq}} doesn't fit... -- nae'blis 03:38, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Also, housekeeping cleanup (or G6). Note that "speedy" in this context does not mean "immediately", it means "without the need for further discussion". >Radiant< 16:17, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

That was fast. KP Botany 23:30, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Clarification of R2

Today, I came across Wii v. PS3, which is a redirect to Wikipedia:List of Humourous Articles/Wii v. PS3. Would CSD R2 apply for redirects from mainspace to the Wikipedia namespace? —Disavian (talk/contribs) 08:21, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Nope, although this particular one doesn't seem necessary. Cross space redirects can be useful though, for instance shortcuts such as WP:NOT and C:CSD are technically both in the mainspace. - Zeibura(talk) 08:50, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
I had always assumed that shortcuts were using "quasi-namespaces" and as such, were okay. So you're saying that if I put {{db|CSD R2}} on Wii v. PS3, it wouldn't necessarily be covered under CSD R2, but would probably get deleted anyway? —Disavian (talk/contribs) 13:03, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Probably best to take it to WP:RFD. There might be a reason behind it being here. - Zeibura (Talk) 15:03, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

CSD-A9: BLP CSD-G10 rewrite

This proposed criterion for speedy deletion is a formalization of principle 4, "Summary deletion of BLPs" in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff/Proposed decision.

  • 9 Gross and irretrievable violation of the BLP. Any administrator, acting on their own judgment, may delete an article that is substantially a biography of a living person if they believe that it (and every previous version of it) significantly violates any aspect of the relevant policy. This deletion may be contested via the usual means; however, the article must not be restored, whether through undeletion or otherwise, without an actual consensus to do so. The burden of proof is on those who wish to retain the article to demonstrate that it is compliant with every aspect of the policy.

Rationale: this is a form of words currently being adopted (6-0-0) by the arbitration committee in the above arbitration, and constitutes an authoritative interpretation of the biographies of living persons policy (BLP). Deletions qualified as above, if challenged, must be treated as described to comply with the BLP. Gross breaches of administrator conduct, such as restoring BLPs without actual consensus to restore, are disruptive and may result in immediate blocking, and are likely to result in substantial remedies if brought up at subsequent arbitration cases. --Tony Sidaway 09:45, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Isn't this essentially the same as "attack pages" (G10)? Seems to me that a page that spreads negative information on a living person is an attack page. >Radiant< 09:52, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Not all BLP vilations are attacks. But G10 does appear to become redundantper this, a stronger (or more widely-applicable, anyway) criterion. Guy (Help!) 10:00, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree with JzG. I'd rather not let it bleed into attack pages. For instance that article on the pole vaulter the other day had BLP problems, but it wasn't a simple matter of negative information. Rather it was information grossly overbalanced the article. I think BLP in its full sense should come out from behind the shadow of "attack pages".
However we could of course merge attack pages with this new wording. It also occurs to me that the intention of the arbitration committee is to cover all pages, not just articles, so this should be the wording of G10.
How does that sound? --Tony Sidaway 10:02, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
I really don't think the Arbcom principle is meant to apply to arbitrary pages. I suppose it would be reasonable to read "articles" as "pages that are articles, regardless of the namespace they're in" (e.g. so a userfied BLP would still count, whereas the talk page of an article on a living person would not). But that's as far as I think we could stretch. Mangojuicetalk 20:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict x3) Unnecessary, we have a BLP clause in G10 that we can expand. This would be better as it would apply to more than just articles, and we could also word it less redundantly that way. The arbcom formulation is in great part a restatement of the general WP:CSD policy. --tjstrf talk 10:03, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Merged. How does it look? --Tony Sidaway 10:15, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
It looks like you forgot about the existing elements of the policy that weren't just about BLP violation. It needs to contain both. --tjstrf talk 10:23, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Try this revision.[3] I kept the previous content regarding attack pages, but merged the expanded BLP stuff from the arbcom decision. I also trimmed out the aforementioned bureaucratic redundancy. (There's no point to including the "Any admin at their own judgment, blah blah blah" section since that's true of every single WP:CSD criterion and speedy deletion in general.) --tjstrf talk 10:40, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
It think this is unnecessary. I also object to wording which disenfranchises non-admins who cannot access deleted articles and who would be unable to demonstrate how an article they cannot see does or does not meet the BLP requirements. Catchpole 13:03, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
But it applies to every speedily-deleted article that non-admins cannot access it. A non-admin can easily write a stub on the subject to prove it is possible to write an article there without violating BLP. >Radiant< 13:29, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
All in-policy undeletions go through Deletion Review as it is. A speedy deletion criterion that attempts to specify special terms of undeletion is unwarranted. I also find it difficult to believe that there exist articles that are "irretrievably" in violation of BLP - I've parred down some obvious BLP articles to the point where people started AfDing them as vanity articles. Dcoetzee 20:04, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I think we should go back to the A9 idea: indeed, some BLP violations will be attack pages, but those that aren't should be treated differently and I'd rather not try to jam two criteria into one slot. It's okay to have criteria that are related without being the same. Also note that the arbcom principle refers to articles, not to all pages, and I don't think we should start requiring non-articles to comply with BLP, especially not pages on which people leave signed comments. Mangojuicetalk 20:28, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

given the level of policy change involved it would appear to need to go through the same kind of community approval process that was applied to WP:ATT.Genisock2 21:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
I am going to repeat what I have been saying on WikiEn-L: there is not a single administrator including myself that I trust with this power. There are 1200 admins. On any subject where it is possible to have unreasonable ideas, some will have them. The control at present is that if they do something unreasonable, any of the great majority of admins who do not share this idea can and will stop them. Almost always works. And anyone who thinks that Deletion Review is effective in undeleting unreasonably deleted material is welcome to visit there. DGG 23:40, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
The arbitration committee has made it clear, unanimously, that the new G10 wording is the correct interpretation of the BLP. It's a matter of policy interpretation and conduct. I'm just proposing that we recognise this because if we don't and admins summarily undelete pages deleted as G10 then they're going straight to arbitration. --Tony Sidaway 02:16, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree that this is, de facto, a policy. But now that I'm thinking about it, it might make more sense to just cover this at WP:BLP and at WP:DP. Speedy deletion is really meant for uncontroversial deletions, and while we should recognize that this kind of deletion, though allowed, is not like other speedy deletions. Including it here might make the impression that a BLP deletion is always correct, whereas what I think Arbcom is saying is that it's legitimate for those articles to be deleted before a debate on their correctness. Mangojuicetalk 15:59, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

This is not something we should rush. Work on the wording here on the talk page, gain a consensus, then put it on the policy. Why am I even having to say this? -- Ned Scott 03:29, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Elsewhere, Tony argues that the Arb Com rulings take precedence over decisions at Deletion Review, but I notice he doesn't say that here yet. We should write the policy we think is right, by consensus--all WPedians at this page are equal.DGG 05:47, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Like Ned, I can't see what the rush is here. BLP Admins will act as they wish in accordance with IAR/DNH, and we can try to wordsmith something that will stick on this page. I personally think two criteria will be right, as I will not be involving myself in the new A9 but G10 is a major focus of my administrative actions. -- nae'blis 06:06, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I've no idea where DGG gets the idea that I've argued that "Arb Com rulings take precedence over decisions at Deletion Review". Except in very limited circumstances this simply isn't true.
There are no "BLP admins". Except insofar as all admins, like all editors, have to enforce the BLP. There is no opting out, I suppose, so in that sense it's meaningful.
The new G10 wording is compliant with the arbitration committee's interpretation of the BLP, but I'm sure the wording could be improved to further enhance the importance of the BLP. --Tony Sidaway 06:13, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
The arbcom's job is neither to set policy nor to state the correct interpretation of policy. That's up to us, the editors. Spacepotato 08:36, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Actually, no. Arbcom settles disputes, including disputes over the interpretation of policy. It has spoken very clearly on this occasion. In the future, those who act in ignorance of the interpretation, or in defiance of it, face possible sanctions, so this interpretation has teeth.


We have the option of either writing the intepretation into our written policy so that all editors will have the opportunity of reading, understanding and acting on it, or we could leave things as they are and let people be sanctioned for acting disruptively in ignorance of policy. --Tony Sidaway 16:24, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
This view is putting the cart before the horse. If there is confusion as to policy, it should be sorted out in the ordinary way. Once policy is clarified, it will inform the Arbcom's future decisions. Spacepotato 18:26, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Arbcom has resolved the dispute over interpretation. That is its job. --Tony Sidaway 19:18, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't matter one bit what the ArbCom think on the matter. If the arbitrators wish to influence the CSD policy then they are more than welcome to come along here and discuss it, but you are not allowed to simple change the CSD to your interpretation of their interpretation. We shall discuss it and come up with a solution. violet/riga (t) 21:59, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Arbcom have stated what they think the policy should be. They are wrong.Geni 23:07, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

We have applied policy to a particular case. It is up to the community to determine if our interpretation can or ought to be stated as a general principle. Fred Bauder 00:19, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

as I would expect, exactly right, and what we do here should be determined by what the community wants to do with the policy--this is obviously a question of general interest and we should not assume a conclusion either way, but word things in such a way as to facilitate normal operation in the interim. DGG
I think we have just gotten a little excited about BLP and the frustration surrounding a hand full of situations involving a few users. I think the arbcom case itself will deal with clearing things up for those users, even the ones not listed as being involved. Aside from that, nothing has really changed to require us to be "tougher" on BLP. Frustration should not change policy alone. -- Ned Scott 04:57, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Blank talk pages

Does {{db-blanked}} cover blank talk pages? (for example, talk redirects left behind after moving an article to make way for its disambiguation page) --Piet Delport 11:27, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Hrm. Any objections to creating a {{db-blanktalk}} for this situation, then? --Piet Delport 12:01, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Do we need to? If it is a talk page of a non-exisitant page or deleted article {{db-talk}} covers that. If there is an article and it has been blanked, why bother deleting it? ViridaeTalk 12:05, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
This is for the talk pages of pages that do (and should) exist: for example, the Skeletons in the Closet and The Dreamer articles that i recently moved to make way for disambiguation pages. The resulting talk page redirects can be cleared by blanking instead of deleting (which i've been doing before learning more about the speedy deletion process), but i think this is a bad idea for the same reason as with articles: it wastes effort by fooling people into following apparent bluelinks, and checking the history for vandalistic blanking. --Piet Delport 21:11, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Before I was an admin, I tagged them as housekeeping. These are a move artifact. If it is easier for you to have a template that references that criterion, I think some people would use it. -- nae'blis 21:15, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
This is already taken care of by G6 (Housekeeping) and G8 (talk pages whose corresponding article does not exist). I don't think we need another template. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:23, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
{{db-g6}} doesn't really communicate anything about blank talk pages, though; there's just the nebulous "non-controversial housekeeping". This issue is pretty common and specific: i think a clear template will significantly help streamline things.
(It's either that, or {{db-blanked}}: the wording of CSD G7 already covers this situation perfectly if you interpret it as applying to the talk namespace.) --Piet Delport 02:21, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, i've created {{db-blanktalk}} with the following rationale:

This is a blank talk page with no substantial edit history (CSD G6).

--Piet Delport 07:20, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:CSD#T1

This needs greater clarification. What is "divisive and inflammatory" is very vague writing. Virtually anything can be considered inflammatory to somebody. This section definently needs expansion and rewriting.--SefringleTalk 21:54, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

This is a known problem however any attempt to fix it is likely to cause way more problems than are solved.Geni 23:06, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I think the easy solution would be to remove something vague; probably not going to be agreed upon, so I think it needs to be discussed. Otherwise anything can be deleted if somebody doesn't like it, and that is just censorship.--SefringleTalk 23:11, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes it is however the last userbox wars were bad enough and we could do without them being restarted.Geni 23:58, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, especially since any political userbox is at risk of being deleted per T1 apparently, even if majority consensus is against it.--SefringleTalk 06:54, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I had someone accuse my Boston Red Sox userbox of being inflammatory to Yankee fans. I don't think we'll ever have a perfect definition, but it has to bother people on a fundamental, visceral level - such as religion, not baseball. YechielMan 06:44, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

As I've stated before, I believe T1 creates conflict rather than avoids it, resent its installment by decree, and believe it's far too subjective to be a CSD. I'm all for making it more objective and/or weakening it, but ultimately wouldn't really settle for anything other than its elimination. 08:05, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I would also be in favor of removing it. Look at the recent Deletion Review involving a user box. Some editors are treatin this as "Any userbox that expresses a persona opnion may be speedy deleted." When this was proposed, it was said that such user boxes as "I am a democrat" or "I am a Republican" were of course safe, but at least links to such have recently been deleted. Deletions under this criterion are and have been far more "inflamatory and devisive" than any of the user boxes deleted. This ought to go. DES (talk) 13:59, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
OK. I propose changing WP:CSD#T1 to: "Templates that are divisive and inflammatory should go to Wikipedia:Templates for deletion and judged by consensus." Opinions?--SefringleTalk 04:05, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

T1 seems like creep. Can't we just say something for general criteria instead? -- Ned Scott 04:08, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Like what do you suggest?--SefringleTalk 04:43, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

A7 Scope again

I would like to revist what constitutes a "Claim of significance" sufficient to disallow a deletion under A7 (db-bio). My specific example is this page. It was deleted as an A7, and the administrator who deleted defended that deletion as perfectly proper, despite the fact that the article gave publication info for multiple books by mainstream legit publishers written and published by the authors. I admit that in that form, if not improved, the article might not have passed an AfD, but A7 is supposed to be a lower bar than that, or so i thought. After I had several exchanges with the deleting admin, and I indicated that I had found and would add additional sources to the article, it was undeleted. Thew current version is this, which i hope no one thinks is deletable. Are my expectations out of line here, or is A7 being over used in cases like this? DES (talk) 14:06, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

  • In my opinion, if an article is about an author and lists a dozen books complete with ISBN number, that is certainly asserting significance. If in such a situation I felt the article should nevertheless be deleted, I would use PROD over A7. >Radiant< 14:19, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
  • As to your example, I agree with you and Radiant, A7 did not apply. As to how to define "claim of significance" in general--who knows? The more I do newpage patrol, the more tough cases I see that cast doubt on the idea that A7 can be consistently applied. Uncle G's proposal looks really attractive now. It's objective and there was evidence that there would be a very low error rate if applied. Pan Dan 14:31, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
    • It is an interesting idea. Note that it would fail not apply on my example only due to the age factor, a 25yo with 10 published books but no sources cited would be deleted under it. Still, perhaps that would be a rare case. DES (talk) 15:03, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
      • I don't think Uncle G's proposal would fail on your example. From the list of books, the earliest of which was published in 1985, it could be inferred that the subject is > 25 years old. Pan Dan 15:09, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
        • You are correct, I intended to say that, but must have been unclear. (That is what I meant by "only due to the age factor"). What I meant to say is that an author with a similar-sized list of published books, but who is under 25, would be delted under the proposal when IMO such a person should not be. (And yes, i have seen authors with 10+ legit books to their credit before 25.) That is all that I meant to say. DES (talk) 17:03, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Now for the harder question: what can be done in the current situation to get more admins not to delete under A7 in cases like this, and other cases where there is a claim of significance, which is perhaps unsourced or poorly sourced, and which might not pass AfD if unimproved? Can anything useful be done? I kind of wish we all had to pass periodic refersher courses in "Adminship", but we don't and any proposal that we should would never fly. DES (talk) 15:03, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
the way which is practical now is to energetically intervene when noticed, and to explain things to the admin involved. I think that probably a relatively few admins may be responsible, and AGF, I think they are being careless, rather than deliberately not following policy. It is easily possible for anyone to observe the deletions made by any particular admin.: Special, Logs, Deletion Log, user name. Actually seeing the pages deleted does of course require a user with admin access. If the admin persists in not following policy after such a discussion, the way to go is as for any other such instance one or two publicized instances should be enough.
We can also try rewording the notice & the wording of the policy--without changing the policy-- to more clearly indicate the limits. I'll make a few suggestions later. I think we should see what can be done under existing procedures and existing policy. DGG 17:24, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree this was not a good candidate for A7. My personal take: bring cases like this to deletion review if the deleting admin won't overturn their decision.: that should give the admin a reality check. If an admin is getting further and further out of touch with reality, serious WP:DR may be necessary... but I'd think most of us would adjust our approach if we weren't doing things properly. Mangojuicetalk 17:55, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Oh I do assume good faith. I don't think the admins who would delete this sort of thing as an A7 are intentionally breaking policy -- I do thank that they misunderstand policy, and in particular that soem are applying to A& much they same standards that they would to closing an AfD. For example, in this case, the deleting admin said here "Anyone can have a book published, and we've all had childhood friends. There was no assertion of notability. If you can find a couple of good sources, say a review of one of her books in the NYT, let me know..." and here "The article makes ZERO claims of notability....a list is a list, not an assertion of notability". i don't want to beat on this one case, it is merely the example to hand, and it is over with anyway. But I have seen a number of similar instances from various admins. I really think there is a misunderstanding of A7, not just a failure to carefully check things. DES (talk) 18:13, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I do not think that Deletion Review is necessarily the best place. If an editor objects in good faith to a speedy, then it is obviously a controversial deletion, and such deletions should simply go to AfD. Arguing privately over a speedy is a waste of time--it should be discussed in public. Usually AfDs get a great deal more attention, and are watched by the different subject workgroups, thus attracting the comments of those who know the fields. Let's think how to word all of this. I think we more or less all agree on the direction to move. My personal suggestion is to move slowly, so people can get used to things. Improvement also, in practice, requires the cooperation of the general body of admins to the change--I think this will be most easily attained if we always first make the assumption that it was merely a careless slip--that's always been my approach both with admins and non-admins. No admin believes they do not understand policy, and they should be given an opportunity to save face--just as any editor should. Many people resist learning otherwise. DGG 02:41, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know how much cleaer "No assertion of notability" can be? ViridaeTalk 04:13, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Another example -- this was delted as an A7 aa few miniutes ago.
Anna Masing is an experimental street theatre director and producer of Iban origin, currently based in London.
Anna Masing was born inCanberra, Australia, onAugust 3 1981 to Dr. James Masing and Fiona Henderson. For the first six years of her life she lived in Kuching, Sarawak, before completing her schooling in Auckland, New Zealand. Anna Masing graduated top of her class with a BA in performing arts from London Metropolitan University in 2004.
Anna Masing is responsible for instigating and producing cutting-edge collaborative London East-End interdisciplinary street theatre projects. Influences range from 1980's Hollywood musical films to Latin American experimental theatre. Anna Masing typically chooses to cast her actors from lesser known, although highly talented, actors from immigrant communities based in the area of staging and production.

IMO it would fail AfD in its current state, (sourced only to the subject's web site and Youtube) and google doesn't show any obvious sources to improive it, but don't you think that "responsible for instigating and producing cutting-edge collaborative London East-End interdisciplinary street theatre projects" is a claim of significance? I'm not takign this one to DRV, because i know that several regulars there will say "So what if it wasn't a fully proper speedy, do you want undeleted only to delete via the proper process?" I don't really, but I do think that Prod would have been a better choice in this case. DES (talk) 19:24, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Again I have to agree with DES, A7 didn't apply. I'll go ahead and speculate (why not?) that if the article had contained only the first sentence, it might not have been speedied. The rest of the article reads autobiographical and spammy and may have aroused the suspicion of that particular newpage patroller that Ms. Masing is not as notable as the article suggests. Pan Dan 19:38, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Yet another A7 scope-widening proposal

Does anyone else think it would be useful if A7 was expanded to include articles related to a non-notable band (e.g. "The new single by...", "Our up and coming album", etc.)? Many times such articles will fall under A1 or G11 as well -- but even in my small length of time patrolling Newpages, there have been many exceptions. Several times I've had to A7 a high school band's entry and PROD related pages that were also created by the editor in order to fully comply with the rules. Thoughts? Iknowyourider (t c) 17:45, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I doubt it's necessary. If you feel that PROD doesn't work well enough, why not just merge those pages into the A7-tagged band page, and then tag them with {{db-r1}} after it is deleted? Mangojuicetalk 17:55, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
That is a very good idea. Thanks! Iknowyourider (t c) 17:57, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

CSD-U4: Polemical userspace transclusions

Okay then...how about this for CSD U4? Polemical statements. Any user page (including subpages and userboxes in userspace) that contains nothing but polemical statements. Funpika 00:19, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
"I'm against censorship and I like ice cream" wouldn't fit, although its polemical intent is clear. How about "Any page in userspace used to transmit a polemical message" ? --Tony Sidaway 00:28, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I popped a version up. This seems pretty cut-and-dried because we've always limited user expression in user space in this way. Putting the stuff into a userbox is taking the piss. --Tony Sidaway 00:39, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
The tagging template is ready IF there is consensus for this criteria. The template may be deleted under G7 (if no one else edits the template) if there is no consensus. Template:Db-polemic Funpika 01:01, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Somebody has reverted my proposed U4, but I don't see any meaningful objection in his edit summary except that he thinks we don't have consensus. Well, does anyone have an actual objection? Is our user page guideline wrong? --Tony Sidaway 01:38, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I like the proposed U4, as stated by Tony and the {{db-polemic}} tag. It's easily supported by WP:NOT#SOAPBOX and WP:USER, and userspace isn't supposed to be a platform for political or religious campaigning anyway. --Coredesat 02:10, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I would say "intended primarily to transmit a polemical message." As written, this version would seem to encompass deleting someone's entire user page because they posted a one-line polemical message on it. While tempting in some ways, that is probably bad. --Aquillion 07:48, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I see the need to delete such things, but I don't see the need to make such things a speedy delete. Speedy deletes allow us to delete something without the process of an XfD, making things easy for those obvious situations. But, sometimes speedy deletions aren't seen from a maintenance point of view, they're seen as enforcement. This isn't necessarily bad, obviously, and is sometimes desired. I like the idea of making silly deletions hassle free, but I just see the potential for too many problems, and it doesn't seem to be enough of an issue in the first place. There's just way too many gray areas, and places admins in a judgement role that replaces the community's voice. -- Ned Scott 05:55, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Like expanding T1 to userspace transclusions, this proposed criterion is open to abuse which would imperil the German userbox solution. Spacepotato 07:32, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
It would only involve the polemical userboxes. "I like The Beatles" and stuff like that wouldn't be affected. Let's remember that all of this stuff is purely furniture, it plays no part in producing an encyclopedia and it's easy enough to make any userbox you like by saying {{userbox|id=Arctic|info=Arctic Monkeys fan}} with the following result:
ArcticArctic Monkeys fan
So we wouldn't stop people saying anything appropriate on user pages, but rather clearing up harmful clutter that goes against Wikipedia's reason for existing. --Tony Sidaway 10:16, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Tony, please forgive me if I don't trust those admins, who have proven themselves to have a strong userbox bias, a liberal stance on using the delete button to remove said userboxes and used reasoning that was less than convincing ("This user supports recycling" - T1: divisive and inflammatory... EH?!?) to support those actions with being unbias and neutral and assuming good faith when it comes to determining the value of "polemic" of a certain userbox. I see almost daily the narrow interpretation of T1 used in userspace (e.g. "This user is a communist" - T1 instead of MfD) despite that T1 was intended to be for Templatespace and Userspace is granted much more leerway. Looking at this I fail to believe that the vagueness of "polemic userboxes" won't be reinterpreted to "userboxes I want to delete" 84.145.203.216 02:32, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
This seems like a good idea to me. Political organizing and agitation have no more place in userspace than they do elsewhere on the wiki. -- Visviva 11:08, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Uh huh. And what would be the boundary? Polemical could be interpreted to mean anything. Attack and trolling userboxes can and should be deleted right now, today. Anything else that's in userspace ... who cares? --BigDT 12:31, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, we do. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a web host. --Tony Sidaway 13:06, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Um, minor point. "Polemical" is a little too confusing a word to put in speedy rule. Try to find a clearer way to express the idea if this gets off the ground. YechielMan 13:32, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Dislike this. It's a good deletion reason but not a good speedy deletion reason, because it fails many of the points at the top of the page, namely, it's not obvious when something fits this, and it's not uncontestable in all cases that deletion is required. I'm removing it from the policy page: the addition at this time is obviously very premature. Mangojuicetalk 14:45, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Foo, I tried to T1 it. Imagine the division and inflammation of the community if it were used, making it a plain case for T1 (and deliciously ironic). -N 14:56, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
By "polemic" I mean espousing a political or religious belief. It's pretty easy to define and enact.
On N's suggestion, I don't think it's helpful to suggest that those who openly abuse Wikipedia to propagate their political and religious beliefs are in any way worthy of consideration as members of the Wikipedia community. If that's what they are here for, let them leave, and good riddance. --Tony Sidaway 15:01, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Why don't we expand T1 to include user pages intended for transclusion outside the same user space? A userbox a person creates for themself is exempt. One on a page like UBX has that says "put this on your page" blah blah blah would be included. Of course that leads to questions where someone uses someone else's userbox without permission... -N 15:22, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
All polemical statements are covered by the user page policy, even those only intended to be used by the user. --Tony Sidaway 15:31, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
You do know the difference between something eligible for speedy deletion and regular deletion, right? -N 15:39, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
(ec) Maybe, but there's a big difference between a userbox that says nothing more than "This user supports Zionism" or "This user is Jewish" and a real polemic text. It seems pretty clear people have rejected extending T1 to user space templates. Mangojuicetalk 15:41, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Tony, don't you think that's a little much? I don't like myspace-style userpages either, and don't think they really belong here, but there have been plenty of constructive, longstanding users who have contributed significantly to the encyclopedia and still had some stupid userboxes on their userpage. Saying that people aren't "in any way worthy of consideration as members of the Wikipedia community" because of a handful of bad edits they put in their userspace goes a bit too far. But, aside from that, there are still going to be blurry cases... is it polemical to simply declare that you are a member of a religion? What about declaring your sexual orientation? Is declaring your nationality polemical? What if your 'nationality' involves a serious dispute over its basic status, like Taiwan, Palestinian territories, or Tibet? It would seem silly to say that you can't mention where you're from at all (that is actually relevent information that other users you interact with during normal editing could benefit from knowing), but in the case of (say) Tibet, almost anything you say is going to seem polemical to someone. I think that there are ways of looking at such things and saying whether or not they're really polemical or not, but I'm not sure it's clear-cut enough for a CSD, at least not without qualifiers (e.g. "unquestionably intended to be polemical.") --Aquillion 17:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Oppose this proposal, total nonsense bollocks, don't like userboxes? Get over it. Perennial proposals like this are especially cluttering and harmful to this project. WooyiTalk to me? 16:12, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't think this is a good idea. Deciding whether something is 'polemical' or not is extremely subjective, and could easily lead to more controversial mass userbox deletions, which is the last thing we want. There are userboxes of this type that should be deleted, but MFD is perfectly adequate for them. Hut 8.5 16:38, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I think this is a terrible idea. There have been similar proposals for the elimination of categories as divisive if they are, say, "Republican Wikipedians" , and now proposes to extend this to userboxes. Under his wording, a page with a single such template is eligible for speedy. (Under a modification, pages or subpages consisting only of such templates are eligible for speedy, but many users deliberately put them on a subpage to reduce clutter, a practice which I think should be encouraged.) The existing prohibition in the userpage policy is for "material that is likely to bring the project into disrepute, or which is likely to give widespread offense" which is a very much narrower category indeed.
Such proposals are being consistently rejected at MfD and Deletion Review, ad this is an attempt to do by speedy what has been rejected at other processes. There's one going now. [4] where opinion is going about 10:1 against the removal of such boxes. Considering the high proportion of wikipedians that use political or religious affiliation boxes, this would certainly not have general consensus.
Personally. I do not display my political (or religious or other) affiliations. But I admit it is sometimes very useful to know if someone has--rather than increase divisiveness, it helps prevent COI and POV-pushing, because it's a declared interest. As was suggested at CfD by someone else, if someone with such a box were to make an edit to the page on some related issue, people would see the possible COI and allow for it.
I do have a template on my page saying Im an inclusionist--possibly that could be regarded as polemical, especially by those who are not. I think by now these suggestions are beginning to show some signs of forum-shopping. DGG 19:44, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Why are we reopening this issue? What's wrong with Wikipedia:Userbox migration? —Ashley Y 20:57, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

  • I strongly object to this, and i don't think new speedy deletion criterion should be created without clear consensus in a discussion that is at least advertised widly, such as on the Village Pump, WT:AFD and other relevant palces. i intend to remove this language as having insufficient consensus now. DES (talk) 22:34, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
    I think it was removed hours ago. I'd like to remind editors here that it's easy enough to cite some silly vote where there appears to be 10:1 against removal of polemical userboxes, but this doesn't change our policy which doesn't permit polemic in user space. Now we're fairly sensible about this in allowing people to say "I vote Conservative" on their user pages. But we're not talking about that at all. We're talking about organised attempt to spready such statements for polemical purposes, and that is an abuse of Wikipedia, no matter how many nitwits want to "vote" to keep them, and a deletion review closed according to policy will find such deletions to have been correct. So all we lose by having a speedy is a few days of vote packing by people who come to our wiki to abuse it. --Tony Sidaway 22:52, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
    So it was, as I found. This helps demonstrate the lack of consensus for such a CSD. A s for your statemetns on policy, where exactly is the policy you interpret as saying that "doesn't permit polemic in user space", and what makes you think that sucha policy is unchangable? very few if any of the policies here are unchangeable (WP:NPOV will probably never be removed, but its precise wording and intent may change). DES (talk) 23:03, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
    All of our policies are subject to change, but obviously it would be silly to not, for instance, have a blocking policy that covers disruption, just in case we decide one day that disruption isn't so bad after all. When that day arrives then we can modify our blocking policy. The prohibition on polemic in user space is in the user page guideline. --Tony Sidaway 06:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Tony, Wikipedia works by consensus, and there is simply no consensus to add this criterion. In addition, we have already had this argument a year ago, and we came to a sensible compromise based on what the German WP was doing, with Jimbo's approval. All this is going to do is annoy a large number of editors. When you annoy a large number of editors, you damage the encyclopedia. Please don't do that. —Ashley Y 02:48, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
    We can't know whether we do or do not have consensus for something until it is proposed. That's how we do it, through proposal and discussion. --Tony Sidaway 06:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
    Fair enough. I'm not objecting to proposal and discussion. —Ashley Y 07:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Again, I must strongly oppose such a change to policy. As above, we have already WP:USER, WP:NPA, and WP:NPA and many more core policies that apply to the entire wikipedia. And - I'll go on a limb here - if a admin uses WP:IAR to delete "This user hopes that all Members of $Religion$ die horribly as they are $expletive$ $expletive$" (for those that are not sure, this violates, amongst other things WP:NPA) - as WP:IAR is policy too, as some admins are fond to point out - he or she will not hear any complains. If said admin proceeds to delete "This user is a furry" citing WP:IAR or CSD#T1 (as it has happened in the past) I expect that admin to give us a clear explanation HOW this was "improving the community/wikipedia" or "divisive & inflammatory". Adding "polemic" to the criteria is a way of adding weasle words - who decides what is "polemic"? The same administrators that deleted "This user is an atheist" and "this user supports recycling" as divisive and inflammatory? Please forgive me if I cannot assume good faith and believe that they will be unbiased in deciding what is polemic or not. By adding the criteria of "polemic" we would basically be handing those admins the official "delete what you like" license when it comes to userboxes. Who would stop them? Ordinary users? They can only perform DRVs a lengthy and weary process, which can then quickly again be overturned by another "polemic" deletion. Other administrators? Again only via DRV, as undeleting would be a wheel-war. This said, there is a third option open. As much as those admins are good contributors, and as much as I'd loathe to do this, I will start RfCs, and if the admins in question continue in their misplaced zeal, RfArbs to keep them from continuing their actions. But as well intended as they might be, alot of wikipedia contributors do not share their views of "all userboxes should be gone" - and the effect of their efforts are countless DRVs and wikistress; to sum it up - distruption. And even it is unintentional distruption, we have a policy against it, even if the users in question are administrators and otherwise good contributors. 84.145.203.216 00:57, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
    The simple answer to your concerns is that Wikipedia isn't the place to come to to advocate your religion, politics, likes and dislikes, or anything else. The proposed speedy criterion would be absolutely clear: all of those where propogated with a polemical purpose, and therefore clearly against Wikipedia policy, would be deletable. Let's be clear: if you're here to do those things, you're abusing Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway 06:18, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
    I'm certain that most users don't come to wikipedia to advocate anything. I see the userboxes as, well, a more convenient and nifty method than saying "I'm a 26 year old catholic college student, and I support recycling. Also I'm intrested in Babylon 5 and Roleplaying games". But the past showed us that userboxes that were entirely legit in the majorities point of view were deleted. And I don't trust those administrators not to abuse any widening of the CSD and delete stuff against consensus (look at the DRV and how the wind blows with the last few deletions). Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? 84.145.217.236 15:05, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose - Stick with Wikipedia:Userbox migration. --DieWeisseRose 02:01, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I prefer the old userbox migration solution which is unobtrusive while the U4 proposal has a vague criterion (failing point 1 of speedy criteria: objectivity). Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:52, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Tony, you seem to be one vs. about 10,000, if not 50,000. The wpedians have made it clear what they want, and we go by consensus. DGG 00:18, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose No reason for this at all. We've been over this time and again, and there's no reason to restart the userbox wars (WP:TGS was suppose to solve all this, not just move the battleground!) -Royalguard11(T·R!) 20:18, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
    • And just to add to that; as an admin, I do not trust other admins with any policy that lets them delete userfied userboxes on any whim. I do not trust them especially after some continue to use T1 for userfied boxes even though it is not within policy (t=template space, t doesn't equal userspace). -Royalguard11(T·R!) 01:11, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

An expansion to A7

After patrolling new pages, I've noticed pages about non-notable events, ie: a walk that a school holds annually. It obviously should be speedily deleted, but I didnt know what tag to place. I think A7 should be expanded to include non-notable events, and a corresponding "db-events" or the like be created. Just my opinion. What does everyone think? Anonymous DissidentTalk 10:06, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Well, a walk that a school performs annually can, if verified, be speedily merged into the article on the school. Also, determining the notability of events can be tricky, so I am not sure such things are obvious speedy deletion items. If you think it should obviously deleted, and that the deletion will be non-controversial, WP:PROD is a good way to go. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:10, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Seems reasonable, as long as it continues under the no assertion part (not its a school fair, therefore not notable). ViridaeTalk 10:14, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
  • This fails the acid tests laid out at the top of this page, particularly point 3. Splash - tk 15:31, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm agreeing with Sjakkalle on this, merging could be used in most cases, and there are no notability criteria written for events yet so it would be quite difficult to extend A7 to them. I see your reasoning, but we'd need a more concise definition of "a notable event" before thinking about this. - Zeibura (Talk) 17:22, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I would oppose this. I am seeing A7 over used a good deal as it is, and whether an event is or isn't notivle would often require more than one or two sets of eyes. Are such pages really becommign a major or even a significat backlog at AfD? Are then almost always delted there? Commets that those were true of A7 bios was the original justification for creating A7, after all. Given that we now have prod, is there really a need for another CSD? Would anyone care to quote some numbers on how many such pages have been AfD'd recently, and what the results are? DES (talk) 18:12, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
An example of possible overuse of the present criteria is now at Deletion Review [5]. The first sentence of the article read: "CLSA is an award-winning brokerage house ..." DGG 20:56, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
One, by a very experienced admin, is CSD a7 for an author of a book--the article says it was o the NYT best sellers list for a number of weeks. A concurring voice at Del Rev from an equally experienced admin. give the reason, promotional in tone" If we can't stop this sort of thing we should remove A7. DGG 13:49, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Rewording of A7

"Articles about unquestionable unremarkable people, groups, companies and web content. An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that clearly does not indicate or assert possible importance or significance of its subject. If possibly controversial, or if there has been a previous deletion discussion that resulted in the article being kept, the article should be listed at Articles for deletion instead"

I do not think this is a change in substance, but only in wording--I think this was the intention all along, and the wording just makes it clearer. I think this lets us continue to speedy the articles where someone says. "This musician is significant for being the best guitar player in his high school." DGG 13:59, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

"Unquestionable" should be -bly, but I don't like that word there. I don't mind adding 'clearly' in the description, but "unquestionable" is too strong. I don't mind there being an objection to an A7 deletion, as long as it's not a good objection. "Clearly" is okay, because it shouldn't restrict any legitimate deletions. Mangojuicetalk 14:27, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't think it's a good idea. A7 is very carefully-worded because CSDs are supposed to involve clear and uncontroversial cases... the insertions of unquestionably and clearly start to get into hazardous territory. As long as any assertion satisfies, recognizing an assertion of notability is uncontroversial, I think, but what is a "clear" assertion of notability? What makes someone "unquestionably" unremarkable? --Aquillion 17:25, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
They are supposed to be clear and uncontroversial, but people use them otherwise. Read it again, --I am not asking that the article be clear, but that the lack of notability be clear. But apparently my wording wasn't clear, so I'll try again. How do you suggest wording it so people don't speedy as in the cases cited above? The only wording which is proven wrong is the present one: yes, it's fine for you and me & the other careful people, but how to we make it plain enough for the people who do not understand?

If we can't find a wording that people will follow, the alternative is to replace the criterion. If we can't find a suitable way to replace it, the only remaining alternative is to remove it. DGG

People who are misusing this process are wrong to do so, and it's damaging. But changing the wording of the policy is not going to make them stop, especially when they aren't following it now. No, discussion with those admins, and possibly WP:DR, is the only way to go. And for some, it may never work, but just as we tolerate people being annoying or abrasive, we can tolerate some abuse of process. It's not good, but we can live with it. However, process is not more important than product, so I would never support suspending A7 even if it is being widely misused, unless I see some kind of evidence that those deletions are actually wrong, as opposed to just out of process. That said, Aquillion was misreading the change, I think: "clearly no assertion" is not the same as "no clear assertion." Mangojuicetalk 19:05, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
one of the reasons for rewording is so that when they do over-delate, and someone chooses to remind them, there's something totally unambiguous to quote. And I don't want to suspend A7, unless we can replace it by something more exact, both to get stuff deleted that should be, and not deleted that shouldn't. Both are important. The more clear cases we can appropriately do under speedy the better, as long as the criteria pick the right ones. I await more suggestions before another try. DGG 20:08, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Sure. I just think we have to have a realistic understanding of what this will do. Take "clearly" for example: most admins would not be aware of the new wording. And those who understand A7 as it is will not change their behavior with 'clearly' there - they would say, they know CSD is supposed to be for clear-cut cases, and that the article fails the test will probably be clear to them. Those who don't understand A7 would need to be pointed to the actual policy regardless of the wording. In my view, though, adding "clearly" doesn't change the rule, and is a reasonable clarification. I just don't think know it won't make any difference. (As I said above, "unquestionable" goes too far, and would, to me, imply a change in the policy.) Mangojuicetalk 20:18, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Adding: IMO, this wording change would do little as ammunition in convicing an overreaching admin that they're taking the wrong approach... why not just poing to the bit in the "Non-criteria" section? It makes it much more clear, and that wording has stood for a long time without controversy. Mangojuicetalk 20:21, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
You are right that in practice the only way to get real improvement, regardless of wording, will be to work with the individual editors and admins, and to follow up at each misuse. I just encountered an admin who deleted a motion picture under A7 after giving the new editor who marked it the advice that it is perfectly OK to to pick one of the listed reasons, as db|reason means "other" As for the talk page he deleted it as "This article is a vanity page that was created by a user with the same name as the alleged writer and actor." The log entries are at 19:58, June 25, 2007.

Lets see what happens if I mention it to him. DGG 01:11, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Being the "new" editor in question, (DGG, I've been here since a month after your first post, by the way) there has been a significant issue on this particular deletion because there is really no suitable place to put a hoax movie that has been nominated for deletion (whereas the director/actor was CSD'd without question the night before simply because there was an appropriate catergory for him.)
The question for me is not so much an A7 question as what happens during breakdowns of process where you have an article that is unquestionably a candidate for deletion. This should have been deleted, I have no doubt about that, and it would have without question last night were there a catergory that it had fit in. The alternative is we pigeon hole uncategorized candidates for csd into a position where we need to hold meaningless AfD debates for something that is obviously a hoax - leaving them here for five days when they should be gone in five minutes. Trusilver 01:38, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
We do not speedy hoaxes because they may not actually be a hoax, it is up to someone's judgement and hoaxes may be hard do judge and are a very broad speedy category (as against does not assert significance - a7). I would suggest using {{prod}}, and if it is contested, take it to afd. ViridaeTalk 02:16, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
As I've said before, a clear hoax article, I would be willing to delete under WP:CSD#G3 (pure vandalism). For ones that are more subtle, i don't see a big problem with marking them with {{hoax}} and {{prod}} and waiting 5 days. Mangojuicetalk 19:50, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Split I2

I must suggest to split "This also includes empty (i.e., no content) image description pages for Commons images." from I2. Either move that clause to either I8 or G6, or create a new I9 for that. →AzaToth 16:09, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I suggest making it part of I8 as its always going to be in cases where images are on Commons. It doesn't really make sense lumping that in with I2 as it has nothing to do with corrupted images. Also I understand that various scripts orphan images deleted under I2 (which obviously shouldn't happen if its just an empty description page for a Commons image). This seems a pretty uncontroversial change. WjBscribe 16:11, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
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