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User:Milowent/History of Wikipedia Article Deletion Processes

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This page documents the history of Wikipedia's article deletion processes.

Patent Nonsense and BJAODN (January 2001 - October 2001)

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The question of which articles should exist on Wikipedia is as old as Wikipedia itself. Though the earliest Wikipedia editors and its founders wanted to embrace the wiki concept and let it develop organically while the serious work of Nupedia was conducted. But it was recognized from the outset that letting anyone edit meant that some edits would be less than worthy.

  • 15 January 2001: "Wikipedia.com" launched. (see History_of_wikipedia#Founding_of_Wikipedia)
  • 21 January 2001: Larry Sanger creates the "Patent Nonsense" page to guide deletion of nonsense. [3]. Material defined as not nonsense includes "Really badly-written stuff. (So correct it.)"
  • 26 January 2001: The page "Bad Jokes And Other Deleted Nonsense" is created by Sanger, writing "We need a page where bad jokes and other deleted nonsense can rest in peace." It starts with one bad joke removed from the Poland page.[4]. The acronym "BJAODN" is used in later years for a growing compendium of nonsense content. Ultimately though, this page was for parking amusing content that had to be deleted. (E.g., someone added "I played the Recorder when i was in 6th grade -Zed" to The Recorder on 26 January 2001, it was moved to this page). The BJAODN page grew and grew into multiple pages of jokes and nonsense until its content was mostly moved off-wiki around 2007, but the legacy of the original page still exists as of January 2013 at Wikipedia:Silly Things.

Page Titles To Be Deleted (October 2001 - May 2002)

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  • October 2001: In October 2001, the true precursor to what is now Articles for Deletion was created by User:Manning Bartlett. The project had grown to about 15,000 articles by this time, and Bartlett created a page called Page titles to be deleted for the listing of, well, page titles to be deleted. The page is referenced in a Wikipedia-l discussion list post as early as October 18, 2001.[1][2][3]
  • By mid-November 2001, the page was being used by editors with basic procedures already in place.
  • The directions for PTTBD were simple: "Add links to stupid, incorrect, or otherwise unwanted page titles to the list below so an admin person can find them, check to see that they are indeed not legitimate pages, and delete them." There was no provision for discussing of a listing, it was simply a list, with a short explanation for why it needed deletion. Mundane things like misspelled article titles, blanked pages, nonsense pages, were common listings.
  • Although administrators had the power to delete articles, in November 2001 only Jimmy Wales, Larry Sanger, and Tim Shell, were permitted to delete articles, though "In the future we might add a small number of particularly trusted, responsible members to this list."
  • Some basic rules on deletion policy were created by Larry Sanger in early November 2001 to complement PTTBD. His suggestions included "When in doubt, don't delete," "Do not delete anything that might in the future become an encyclopedia topic." See Wikipedia policy on permanent deletion of pages
  • Originally this page was literally at "Page titles to be deleted", in what we now call the "mainspace" of Wikipedia. On November 5, 2001, Bartlett proposed that community pages should start with the word "Wikipedia".[5] This was adopted, and is the origin of all "WP:" pages.
  • January 2002: Sanger updates the deletion policy page with a link to PTTBD "for examples of pages both deleted and not deleted by admins"[6]. First recognition that what is deleted or not deleted can provide guidance in future cases. Later the link is changed to a list of deleted page titles, the precursor to the deletion log.
  • May 2002: The "Page titles to be deleted" page is superseded by "Votes for Deletion".[4]

Votes for Deletion (VfD) (May 2002 - August 2005)

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Articles for Deletion (AfD) (August 2005 - Present)

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Topics to include

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ [1] (Barlett comment about page)
  2. ^ (As of January 2013, we can't tell for sure exactly when PTTBD it was created. The earliest Wikipedia archives cover January 15, 2001 through August 17, 2001, and that has no reference to the PTTBD page, so we know it was created after August 17, 2001. We also know it was in regular use by mid-November 2001.
  3. ^ [2]
  4. ^ Wikipedia-l query on page deletion (May 19, 2002)
  5. ^ http://markmail.org/message/wackwxny7xwim5cr?q=wikipedia+list:org.wikimedia.lists.wikipedia-l+order:date-forward+%22votes+for+deletion%22&page=2 Votes for deletion (August 8, 2002)