Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

To summarise there is a Consensus in favour

I don't think anyone can argue that good communication is bad, and it is clearly good communication

With regards to the time taken to notify users if editors aren't using Twinkle/Huggle1]] <talk> 10:47, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

---

person}}, I propose changing the notification language

from: "Please consider placing the template ... on the ion will not notify.

• Notifying only the author seems to lean toward deletion at all cost.
• Nominator effort shouldn't increase if automation tools are used. Twinkutomate nom/notify steps.

This proposed change should increase proper tagging+notification, and increase the chance for article improvement. This is intended only to increase the opportunity for improvement and justifiable removal of the CSD tag by involved editors, not to advocate or suggest discussion, or to slow down the CSD process. --Lexein (talk) 16:44, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Partially struck and amended above. --Lexein (talk) 23:01, 10 October 2012 (UTC) Amended to stop misquoting and refusal to understand intent. --Lexein (talk) 11:09, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Some points:

• It is useless to notify interwiki bots which have just adjusted the interwiki links in an article. I suggest that bots shouldn't be notified at all.
• As this will increase the number of notifications, users should probably be given an option to opt out from some or all notifications.
• Would it be too much work for the deleting administrator to check that notifications have been given?

When nominating a file for deletion, Twinkle currently only notifies the user who made the first revision of the file information page. I've often thought that it would be better to notify all uploaders instead. This is what happens on Commons. I don't know if article deletion nominations would result in an unreasonably large amount of notifications. --Stefan2 (talk) 17:22, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Notification should remain optional. In fact, I would change the language to actively discourage notification rather than encourage it. If it's not a legitimate candidate for speedy deletion, the admin processing the request should refuse it. All notification of people that have an interest in retaining the article achieves is potential disruption by people that don't understand the guidelines for article creation and retention.—Kww(talk) 17:39, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

It would be pointless to make this mandatory in all cases. For things like housekeeping deletions, deletions requested by the author and pages created by bots it would be positively silly, and in other cases such as vandalism it wouldn't help much. Speedy deletion isn't designed to give the author the opportunity to contest the deletion. Hut 8.5 21:25, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Baby/bathwater. I said such as {{db-person}}. There may be others. I agree about maintenance deletions, requested deletions, and pages created by bots. --Lexein (talk) 23:01, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Can you name a case where making it mandatory would be desirable? Where a requested CSD should be rejected on the grounds that interested editors were not notified?—Kww(talk) 23:31, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Wrongly applied {{db-person}} w/o notification right here by a very determined IP editor 1, 2, 3. All it takes is a disinterested or overworked or pissed-off-about-BLPs admin to blackhole it. So, two motivations, article preservation as well as admin workload minimization. If several of us hadn't already been watching, it might have gone on. IMHO required notification is a cheap, low-impact check & balance. Ok, admittedly, I worry too much. But I have no idea how many decent needs-only-a-little improvement BLPs have gone down the drain due to non-notification. --Lexein (talk) 16:56, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Compared to the volume of correctly applied CSD tags that get incorrectly removed by parties interested solely in the preservation of the target article without regard to guidelines or policies, I think you are worrying about a rain puddle and neglecting the lake.—Kww(talk) 18:41, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

I am not the least concerned with improper removal of csd tags, because this is so easily detected, and dealt with. And the problem with people concerned with preservation of articles in defiance of policy, guidelines, and rationality is at AFD, where they can argue. If they limit themselves to tag removal at csd the article --and the editor-- will very soon no longer bother us, especially if someone thinks to apply create-protection. DGG ( talk ) 01:15, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

• Very strong support in general on grounds of basic fairness,and the critical need to continue to encourage good faith but not yet knowledgable editors. . The are a few exceptions--obviously maintenance and self-requested & talk p. of deleted article. but I'f also exempt vandalism and abuse and possibly test pages. Sometimes the editors do have to be notified -- & warned , but sometimes just quiet removal is the best policy. But when the reason is no indication of importance, people should be urged by all reasonable means to add something that will indicate some; for promotionalism, it almost always needs a follow up, either to warn or advise; for copyvio , notification is essential so they don't go on to more of it & so they have a chance to correct it. DGG ( talk ) 01:26, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
• Support As a substantial contributor to several articles, it would be great to get notifications when those articles are proposed for ANY KIND of deletion. At least it would save me the time and trouble of having to save screenshots for just-in-case scenarios. Ottawahitech (talk) 20:46, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
• Support excellent idea, we should have done this years ago. However a few points, firstly anyone who has marked their edit as minor or merely added a category probably doesn't want to be informed; I'd suggest that active editors are the person who started the article and anyone who has added referenced material. Also U1 and G7s need to be excluded from this, and it isn't necessary or sensible to inform, dead, retired, blocked or banned editors. ϢereSpielChequers 21:00, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. Not all editors can use Twinkle/Huggle, and without such a tool, this has the potential to get extremely tedious and will bog down the new article patrolling process. Most CSD'ed articles cannot be improved, which is why they're speedy-deleted instead of being sent through PROD/AFD; I'm thinking of things like blatant nonsense, hoaxes, attack pages, many A7s ("sarah jane likes soup and has eleven cats"), etc. If the contributing editors to the page have no hope of improving the article, even if they know about its pending deletion, because it is inherently unsuitable for inclusion in Wikipedia, then what, exactly, is the purpose of notifying them? —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 22:01, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
  • perhaps to forestall the "why did you delete my article, you ****" rants that are a popular feature of the talk pages of some admins? --Redrose64 (talk) 23:38, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
    • Any admin that deals with CSDs will have to deal with that sooner or later. (Heck, I've had to deal with it on reversions when I clearly explained the rationale for the revert in the edit summary. Some people just don't know how/where to look.) It is not too hard take the time to explain it when it does happen. However, the majority of the pages I've deleted never got such a query because they probably knew it was going to be deleted (like Sarah and her soup/cats, articles composed of nothing but "asdfaslkdfasdfadfa", and such; no rational person would expect such an "article" to be retained indefinitely), so notification seems kind of useless. If getting "why did you delete my article" notifications are seriously that much of a bother to any one admin they might just want to shift their focus away from CSD and towards a more formalized process like AFD. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 00:44, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
      • But the examples you gave are unlikely to have more contributors than the original author and the person who tags it for deletion, and if the article creator isn't contacted then how are they supposed to know what they've done wrong? "Blatant nonsense, hoaxes, attack pages, many A7s" are not really what this change is targeted at, this is targeted at the more borderline article where some people will add content and others would consider that a speedy applies. A very high proportion of goodfaith newbies do get told when the article they've just written is tagged for deletion, this is for the rare tagger who decides that informing authors is optional and decides not to do it, and for articles where more than one author has meaningfully contributed. If you are deleting articles that others have tagged then the authors have almost certainly been informed, if you are deleting untagged articles without informing people then please reconsider. ϢereSpielChequers 20:45, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
        • I have had quite a few of the articles I created deleted with no notice - to the point where I now waste precious time capturing screenshots of the list of articles I started every week and when one is missing I compare the screenshots to find out which one has been deleted and by whom. It is time that I would much rather spend on doing something more constructive, sigh... Ottawahitech (talk) 21:40, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
          • Or you could just ask for it userfying, you wouldn't even need to ask the admin who deleted it --Jac16888 ^Talk 21:44, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
            • Perhaps you should thoroughly look over the CSD criteria and figure out what it is your articles have in common that is causing them to be speedied so often. It is typically not that difficult to defeat the speedy criteria, as long as you give adequate context and provide sources to meet notability concerns. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 00:16, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
              • @Scott5114, perhaps I need to figure out how to circumvent CSD's as per your suggestion. The point I was trying to make, though, is that when Wikipedian's are not notified that articles they worked on are in danger odf deletion, they start developing coping mechanisms that may overwhelm precious resources. In my case I use the toolserver every week, or more often, to take screenshots of the list of articles that I have created which have survived this far. If everyone did that the toolserver would choke... Ottawahitech (talk) 14:11, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose, speedy deletion is supposed to be speedy. Not much point in notifying people when the page will be deleted within the next 10 seconds to 2 hours (i.e. before people will even log in again). Use WP:PROD instead for pages that could possibly be saved, keep speedy deletion simple and speedy. Imagine a speedy deletion comes up for review at DRV. Do we really want the deletion judged on bureaucratic criteria like who was or wasn't notified in the 20 minutes between tagging and deletion or do we want it judged on the contents of the article that was deleted? —Kusma (t·c) 05:10, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose as a mandatory requirement, for very similar reasons to Kusma. Speedy deletion is not designed to be a process which enables wider review of problematic articles. Hut 8.5 10:15, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

• comment: both Kusma and Hut 8.5 are assuming that there is no debate necessary when articles are deleted thru CSD, but I disagree. Here is an example of an article that I started which was deleted without giving me a chance to defend it. Admins are only human (and have too much work to do), and they do make mistakes, unfortunately more often than we hope for. Just my$. 02 Ottawahitech (talk) 15:49, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

• The whole point of CSD is that there is no debate before deletion. It is supposed to be for clear-cut cases. If mistakes are made, you can ask at the deleting admin's talk page or at WP:DRV and have the debate after the deletion. —Kusma (t·c) 17:17, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

• And a common request when I was a regular there was, can you copy the old version to someplace so I can fix it? Vegaswikian (talk) 18:33, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

• If you want to redesign the speedy deletion process to require some sort of debate or consultation period then that's a completely separate (and much more wide ranging) issue. The fact is that at the moment that's not how the process works. Given the vast number of pages subjected to speedy deletion implementing the change would probably be a major addition to admin workload. Hut 8.5 19:54, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

• @Hut 8.5, The way CSD works now (I get to use it quite often, sigh), is it provides a button to object and provide a reason for the objection, no? Ottawahitech (talk) 14:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

• So? Yes, it's possible to object to a speedy deletion, but the process isn't designed to make it easy for people to do that - articles can be speedied at any time with no opportunity for debate or discussion, unlike PROD or AFD. Hut 8.5 15:38, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

• Kusma, Hut, read the proposal and stop misquoting the proposal. I suggested mandatory notification to allow for improvement, not discussion. Nowhere is "discussion" or "debate" or "consultation" suggested or advocated by me, so get off it. I have no interest in slowing down the CSD process. If I see a CSD, and I can see an easy, obvious fix, I fix it, and remove the CSD tag. I'd like involved (yes, down projects such as NPP. VQuakr (talk) 03:13, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Since the actual deletion can only be carried out by admins - do we also need to coach some of them as well? Ottawahitech (talk) 03:06, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Okay, hmmm. This discussion has happened frequently enough, that now some things are gelling (I'm guilty of bringing this up several times, both from the "more time" argument which I agreed long ago would disrupt the process, and the "more not is admittedly a bit vague, but the actual deletions and declines on this basis are reasonable and consistent: a quick check on google to add a reference or removal of a few paragraphs or stubbifying is normal editing, an extensive reference search or reorganization of the article is beyond that. DGG ( talk ) 04:07, 4 November 2012 (UTC) .

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

G5

I occasionally see G5 for users who were banned for being POV-pushing sockfarms or whatnot, but where the article was created before the ban/block. Typically, I'm inclined in that kind of limit to delete the article (as long as the user would'veed to examine everything they have been doing; usually we do catch and remove the earlier problems besides the ones that may have led to the block. But blanket removal is too tricky for a speedy criterion. DGG ( talk ) 03:58, 4 November 2012 (UTC), 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Sockpuppet of blocked user, the same one involved with the article above. MER-C 05:22, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I just realized R3 doesn't allow speedy deleatons of implausible redirects created by moves even if the page was only at that title very briefly. Should we make that move excapiton only apply if the page was at that title for a significant period of time, say less then a few hours or less than a day? Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 23:56, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we should. I pushed for that exception when revisions were discussed in March, but it wasn't incorporated into the adopted wording. - Eureka Lott 00:46, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

If it comes up again, I'd also support that. It may take a note on my talk page. BTW, I cleaned up following a multiple place move of one page to 3 or four new names and deleted those 'bad' redirects a few weeks ago. No one objected. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:55, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

R3 does mention {{db-move}}, so G6 could apply instead (even if it's not intended to reuse the page name): and if the page move was obvious vandalism, I would G3 the redirect (see {{db-vandalism}}). --Redrose64 (talk) 13:12, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

R3 isn't needed for this. If it's vandalism it's G3, if it's truly a mistake then it's G6, if it's neither of them it needs to be discussed. Thryduulf (talk) 13:21, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

What if it's not a mistake nor vandalism, but it's an implausible redirect. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 13:31, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

If it doesn't meet G6 or R3 then it needs to be discussed to determine whether it truly is implausible. It isn't going to be doing any harm that it needs to bypass consensus. Thryduulf (talk) 14:15, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

If I deleted these I would probably use the G6 summary ("housekeeping and other cleanup"). I don't think we need to try to micromanage it by changing the description of R3. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:10, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

G6 doesn't cover implausible redirects. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 16:43, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

It does cover obvious errors and redirects created in fixing them. The results of breif, implausible moves that are neither mistakes nor vandalism do not appear very often at RfD and as a non-current revision are unlikely to be doing harm, so I fail to see a need to speedy delete them. Thryduulf (talk) 02:02, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

G6 covers all sorts of routine housekeeping. I am simply saying that if, for some reason, I went through and cleaned up this sort of thing, I would use the G6 deletion summary from my drop down list. G6 has nothing at all to do with the plausibility of the redirect, it just signifies that the admin feels they are doing non-controversial housekeeping. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:06, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

RfC: Another criterion

{{rfc}}

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

I propose that we create a new speedy deletion criterion that can be applied to articles that are clear original research, synthesis, opinion pieces or otherwise non-encyclopedic. This will allow editors to tag pages for speedy deletion under this new criterion whereas they would previously have needed to either PROD the article or send it to AfD. AutomaticStrikeout 22:00, 2 November 2012 (UTC) Also, this would require any contradicting policies to be changed to comply with this one. AutomaticStrikeout 22:42, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. Please see WP:NOTCSD. Thryduulf (talk) 22:16, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Ok, so NOTCSD also needs to be changed. AutomaticStrikeout 22:23, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose per Thryduulf. I guess this RFC is trying to change NOTCSD, but it's not worded as such. -Fjozk (talk) 22:28, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose All those criteria are in the eye of the beholder. There is practically no way to tell a new article without referencing violates WP:OR because the policy requires only that claims be "attributable to a reliable published source, even if not actually attributed". So if you want to dispute a factual position, you need to give its proponent time to find a source to support it, and then may need to discuss whether the source is acceptable, or if there are WP:SYNTH issues. Yet the hallmark of all CSD criteria is that they are for situations where there is nothing to discuss, its either vandalism or G3 doesn't apply, etc... Monty₈₄₅ 22:31, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, CSD is for something where there is nothing to discuss. As you can see below, this was brought about by an article that clearly does not belong here and no discussion is needed. So why not have an applicable tag for any article that is clearly just someone stating their personal opinion? Why is an AfD necessary for things like that? AutomaticStrikeout 22:51, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

• (after edit conflict)Oppose, at least until the proposer explains what benefit this would bring to the encyclopedia, including an explanation of how such a criterion can be made objective. I would also suggest changing the title of this discussion to something grammatical. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:35, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't see how the objectivity of the criterion is a problem. After all, we already have policies regarding the types of content mentioned, all we would be doing is making it easier to enforce those policies in a more quick way. It would help to cut-down on unnecessary AfD's and would only be applied in cases where the article was clearly against policy. AutomaticStrikeout 22:42, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

so the specific incident that provoked this was Remember the Annex! The 9/11 Raid on Benghazi. In the olden days, I might have just deleted that immediately. Instead, it's been sent to AFD. It's not even trying to be an Encyclopedia article; it's basically just a blog post or a comment piece. As to the objectivity problem, well - have you seen A7? We could have something worded as cautiously as that. But you know what, I don't think having at AFD doesn't do any harm. These articles seem pretty rare, and it's not like it's linked to from anywhere, so it doesn't do our reputation much harm. If we were getting a flood of such material, I might suggest figuring out a way of wording a clear CSD to include them. But we're not, so I don't think there's much point. Morwen - Talk 22:46, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

The articles of this nature seem rare to me, also, but I don't follow AFD and CSD much. Still, there is nothing on Wikipedia that requires us to leave blog material, personal opinions, unsourced accusations against living government officials and personal advertisements. I removed everything that is not encyclopedic. If it is a copyvio, it is already a CSD, and should not be AFD'ed instead. Copyvios have no place on Wikipedia and it is a waste of everyone's time to discuss them. The current article says nothing and could have been speedied for lack of context and content. -Fjozk (talk) 20:07, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

• Support I'm guessing most people who tend to oppose expanding CSD probably don't do much new page curation. What I would like to see is something like:

A11. Personal essay posted as the contents of a recently created article. For recently created items in the Article namespace that appear to be personal essays or opinions, for which a cursory search of the contents does not reveal obvious primary or secondary sources.

Or something like that. §FreeRangeFrog 22:51, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

• • Speedy deletion criteria must be judgeable based solely on the article contents, as soon as you have to go looking for sources you are outside CSD's competence. The reason for this is that "cursory searches" are not sufficient for topics that are not prominent in mainstream Western culture or science - see Wikipedia:Countering systematic bias. Opinion pieces on notable subjects should be edited into npov articles, or merged/redirected to existing ones not deleted (although see criterion A10). Opinion pieces on other subjects that do not meet A7 or A9 should go to AfD to determine whether they are or are not notable (it's not always obvious). Thryduulf (talk) 18:57, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. Speedily judging "clear original research" is easier said than done. It can be difficult (read: time consuming) to properly determine whether an article is original research or simply poorly sourced. Original research is currently specifically excluded as a reason for speedy deletion and I agree with that exclusion. --Ds13 (talk) 22:54, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I have struck the original research mention from the proposal. I don't believe there is any harm in having a CSD tag for opinion pieces and essays and such-like. AutomaticStrikeout 22:56, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that CSD criteria need bright lines drawn that distinguish between what is speedy deletable and what requires discussion. So where is the line between a slight pov article that should be improved, and a hopelessly pov opinion piece that should be deleted. If you want to propose a CSD criteria, you need to have a clear rule that convinces editors that it will not be overly inclusive and end up resulting it acceptable or even salvageable content being deleted. Monty₈₄₅ 19:55, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. The existing CSD criteria are deliberately tight to avoid subjective interpretation as far as possible. As regards opinion pieces, that is also a matter of opinion, and hence subjective and cannot be clearly defined as a tight CSD criterion. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:03, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

• An essay can sometimes be WP:SOAPy enough to delete as G11. But if it cannot, people will have different interpretations of it. With respect to WP:NOT, Fuhghettaboutit (talk · contribs) prepared a following criterion a year ago: An article on a thing (word, phrase, game, ceremony, philosophy, religion, etc.), which indicates that it was invented/coined by the article's creator or someone they know personally, and does not credibly indicate why its subject is important or significant. The criterion does not apply to any article that makes any credible claim of significance or importance even if the claim is not supported by a reliable source or does not qualify on Wikipedia's notability guidelines. →Σσς. (Sigma) 23:19, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose, whether something constitutes SYNTH is not self-evident but requires a careful analysis and discussion of the sources. So not appropriate for CSD. The criteria "otherwise non-encyclopedic" doesn't even merit discussion here. postdlf (talk) 01:17, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose, especially the usage of the nebulous, undefined "non-encyclopedic" phrase which is just another way of saying WP:IDONTLIKEIT.OakRunner (talk) 02:33, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose not sufficiently specific, & a substantial number of articles that would fit in this group are improvable, or sometimes mergable. Prod works fine for this sort of material. And I rather doubt I & the other regular contributors here who are opposing this really fit into the group of those who "probably don't do much new page curation. " I'd say rather that with increasing experience comes a fuller understanding of how difficult it is to judge rightly. DGG ( talk ) 03:48, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per above, but I will say that on the Spanish Wikipedia this is a speedy criterion (criterion A1). If someone can say whether the Spanish Wikipedia is having trouble with this criterion and what kind of trouble, I might change my mind. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 19:04, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Let me translate roughly the Spanish speedy criterion A1 as it currently stands:
    • A1. What Wikipedia is not:
      • If an article mostly contains material falling into a WP:NOT category, including:
        • A1.1. Articles consisting solely of external links, or lists of internal links, except for disambiguation pages, unnecessary lists or galleries of pictures without text. If such articles can be merged with existing articles, this would be prefereable. (Most of this already falls into our A3.)
        • A1.2. Definitions, quotes and texts previously transwikied to Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikisource or Wikiversity. (This is equivalent to our A5.)
        • A1.3. Original research. (yes, this is a speedy criterion on the Spanish Wikipedia.)
        • A1.4. Essays and opinion pieces. (here on the English, the only such articles that get speedied are the ones falling under criteria G10 and G11.)

-- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 19:21, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - for two reasons:

1. Too subjective: As many have noted, deciding if an article is an opinion piece etc. is not obvious in many cases and has to be better decided by the community.
2. Not a real reason to delete: If an article reads like a mere soapbox but the subject is notable and there are sources out there, then the article has to be improved by editing, not deletion. In theory it is not even always a good reason to AFD, let alone CSD.

--Cyclopia^talk 19:50, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose I've seen way too many of these be survive AfD (though often modified) to be comfortable allowing their speedy deletion. Where there's potentially room for two reasonable Wikipedians to disagree, speedy deletion isn't appropriate. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 06:36, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Deletion of talk page redirects as CSD G6

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive241#Deletion of talk page redirects as CSD:G6. Jenks24 (talk) 10:20, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

That discussion has now been archived at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive241#Deletion of talk page redirects as CSD:G6, with no support for the speedy deletion of generated talk page redirects.

But it raises an interesting question... what circumstances is the line in the deletion dialogue edit summary drop-down menu for the article talk namespace that reads G6: Talk page is a redirect created by move of associated article intended to cover?

It was interpretted by Jenks24 to mean talk pages don't need redirects as a fairly broad principle, and to justify deletion rather than correction of a misleading talk page redirect. This interpretation was rejected at WP:AN.

But I'm on Jenks24's side to a point, in that I can't see any other interpretation of this line in the dialogue. I can't see any valid circumstance in which it would be a useful and valid rationale for CSD:G6 in fact. I think it's highly misleading, and this also received some support at WP:AN.

Comments? Should the dialogue be changed? What are circumstances in which this rationale is valid? Andrewa (talk) 02:10, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Heads-ups posted at user talk pages of previous participants [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. Andrewa (talk) 19:29, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I posted my opinion at the discussion noted above earlier and it hasn't changed - The talk page created should not be a redirect, but should be a notice saying "The corresponding article was previously at title". The Mediawiki software should do this automatically. Also, you should be able to move a talk page over one that has nothing but this move notice. Ego White Tray (talk) 19:40, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

More on topic, deletion should not be allowed under G6. It's fine to blank it or put a notice up. Ego White Tray (talk) 19:41, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

So you'd favour removing that line G6: Talk page is a redirect created by move of associated article from the dialogue entirely?

I'm of that opinion too, as stated above. Andrewa (talk) 20:20, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

On a related matter, if a talk page exists at the target, the current move dialogue doesn't allow the option of deleting the talk page. If you haven't deleted the talk page in preparation for the move, you then need to move the talk page separately. This is cumbersome either way.

If the move dialogue allows an admin to delete the target article by simply checking a box, it should surely allow a similar option for the target talk page, whose history is far less important.

Alternatively there could be a delete dialogue line giving a CSD rationale specifically for this scenario, but a check box in the move dialogue is far better.

Possibly a heads-up at Wikipedia talk:Requested moves is a good idea at this point. Andrewa (talk) 20:20, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

This is something we can definitely agree on. It would make so many moves a lot easier – just today I missed that the talk page didn't move with the article and had to be reminded on my talk page. On the other issue, I think I've already made my position clear. I think it is useful and beneficial in some circumstances and would not like to see it removed, but if that's the consensus then so be it. Jenks24 (talk) 09:38, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think there's enough interest to establish consensus either way on changing the dialogue to address the other issue, so far. Pity IMHO. I'll try another heads-up at WP talk:RM. Andrewa (talk) 16:56, 13 November 2012 (UTC) Done. Andrewa (talk) 17:55, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

There are already 2 other problems with db-G6 template under discussion now at Wikipedia talk:Requested moves. (Problem 1) vanishing history on e.g. db-gb6 to move as "uncontroversial" a page previously reverted as a cut-and-paste controversial move. (Problem 2) editors whose db-gb6 is reverted by admins doing it anyway the moment the admin leaves. Latest example Starlet redirect. This aside from the basic problem that many db-g6 seem more controversial than those which go through WP:RM process. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:07, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Agree these are problems too. How do we go about addressing them all? Andrewa (talk) 09:29, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

R3 and "recently"

R3 is described as Recently created redirects from implausible typos or misnomers. Why only recently? If you find a duff redirect that fell through the cracks a long time ago, you should nuke it and move on. I suggest this is reworded. — Hex (❝?!❞) 23:06, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

A redirect that has been around longer is more likely to have incoming links, both on and of wiki. Further that it has been allowed to exist a long time suggests that other edits have not found it worthy of deletion. Monty₈₄₅ 03:29, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Obviously this doesn't apply to redirects with incoming links.

Your second point is illogical and construes an absence of evidence as an evidence of intention; it would suggest that every bad article we have should stay because it hasn't been found "worthy of deletion", when in fact it just hasn't been put up for deletion yet. — Hex (❝?!❞) 09:23, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Not sure that I agree with the last point, but certianly, the longer a redirect has been around, the greater chance there is that someone will have put it in their browser bookmarks, or linked to it from another site. We have enough problem with dead links ourselves, so we shouldn't be creating similar problems for others. 203.217.76.167 (talk) 09:17, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

If that were the case we'd never delete anything either, because somebody might have it bookmarked already. We're not responsible for the world outside, especially in the case of patently nonsensical redirects. — Hex (❝?!❞) 09:23, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

We are responsible if we ruin someone's attribution that linked to something that people here renamed and then deleted the redirect. So for things that have been around a short time, eg a day with a spelling mistake, it is fair enough to delete the bad spelling, but if it was there for a year then no, the chances are that something will have copied it. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:30, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

"The chances are" - so much hand-waving, so little proof. — Hex (❝?!❞) 12:48, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

We don't need proof to retain a possibly useful redirect. Phil Bridger (talk) 13:21, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

But we're not talking about possibly useful redirects, we're talking about bad and stupid ones that nobody in a blue moon is going to use. — Hex (❝?!❞) 14:21, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Can you provide an example of a redirect that is falls into this? Doesn't belong isn't needed but has survived for a while. Also how often do you find these? GB fan 14:49, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

There is no way to know if a redirect is the target of off wiki links. And I'm not saying they can't be deleted ever, just that they shouldn't be subject to CSD. Monty₈₄₅ 17:30, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Experience at RfD shows that redirects such as this are far from always deleted when nominated, and there are many reasons for this. For starters there is the incomming links issue mentioned above, in many cases we can make a semi-educated guess about the likelihood of incomming links by traffic statistics, but this is not infallible and the figures can need interpretation and balancing against other factors (speedy deletion is not competent to do this). Secondly what appears to be implausible to one person sometimes turns out to be perfectly plausible after investigation of the history of redirect and target, talk page discussions, google hits, comments from the author and relevant projects, etc. Thirdly, some redirects are required for attribution purposes. In many cases although the original target isn't plausible, it is a logical search term for another page to which it is retargetted. R3 is already applied to cases where it shouldn't be, and if anything "recent" and "implausible" need to be more tightly defined than they are. Thryduulf (talk) 19:33, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I substantially agree with almost all of what Thryduulf says. However, I strongly disagree with the suggestion that the terms should be "more tightly defined". One of the worst things that has happened to Wikipedia over the years is the endless instruction-creep, with more and more attempts to define situations precisely. There are two main problems with this. Firstly, this has made Wikipedia much less accessible, and more and more daunting for new users, who often get the impression that whatever they do there is some obscure clause in some policy, guideline, or "essay" somewhere that says they shouldn't have done it. Secondly, it has totally failed in its purpose of making things more definite. Quite simply, however "tightly" you define your terms, there will always be a need for judgement as to how to apply the principles. The more borderlines you try to lay down and define precisely, the more borderlines there are to have to make judgements about, so it does not make it any more objective or clear cut. The more borderlines you try to lay down and define precisely, the more borderlines there are for constructive good-faith editors to sincerely disagree about, and waste time discussing, and the more borderlines there are for unconstructive editors to wikilawyer about. There is no way of defining "implausible" precisely: however you try to define it, my idea of what qualifies will sometimes differ from yours, and any slight benefit from restricting administrators' freedom to use their judgement would have to be balanced against the increase in complexity, and the increased need for editors to spend time reading the precise definition and weighing up whether the case they have in mind qualifies or not. "Recent", on the other hand, could easily be defined more precisely: we could define it to the minute if we liked. But would that be an advantage? What would happen if I found an obviously totally stupid redirect that had escaped deletion for one minute over the deadline? I would ignore the unhelpful rule and delete it, of course. So what would I do if it was five minutes over the deadline? One hour? Five hours? One day? Where would I draw the line as to how far I could apply "ignore all rules"? Obviously, I would use my common sense and judgement in each case. So how would that be better than the present situation? Wikipedia has changed in many ways over the years, in some ways for the better. But one change which has done very little good and a great deal of harm is the gradual drifting away from Wikipedia does not have firm rules. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:32, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

No citation

Which criteria would an article that has no citations for verification fall into? -XapApp (talk) 08:35, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

None on the basis of simply having no citations. That is not a reason for speedy deletion. Phil Bridger (talk) 08:51, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

If you spend a few minutes trying to verify an article and can't, consider WP:PROD. WilyD 09:06, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

If the article without citations is about a living person you should use Wikipedia:Blpprod since unlike a regular prod it can't be removed unless a source is added first.--174.93.171.10 (talk) 02:17, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

A7. No indication of importance

Why does an admin who deleted a recent article I created tell me:

I deleted the article because it clearly qualified under WP:CSD#A7 for deletion. …Wikipedia:Notability and in particular Wikipedia:Notability (people) are the applicable guidelines that describe the criteria for inclusion on Wikipedia.

I understand this statement is incorrect because:

(A7)… is a LOWER STANDARD than notability.

If the claim's credibility is unclear, you can improve the article yourself, propose deletion, or list the article at articles for deletion.

…Often what seems non-notable to a new page patroller is shown to be notable in a deletion discussion.

Since I have had several articles deleted with an A7 TAG, I would like to know once and for all if my interpretation is incorrect – what am I missing? Thanks in advance. Ottawahitech (talk)

In order to avoid speedy deletion articles do not need to prove notability but they should give the reader at least the slightest indication why a person would be considered notable. "So and so is a Canadian lawyer who was disbarred in October 2012 by the Law Society of Upper Canada." is a perfect example of failing to indicate why the individual is notable. Being disbarred is not necessarily notable and you have given no indication whatsoever why it would be in this case. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:27, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it's sufficient that the article indicates why something or someone should be considered important or significant, not notable as per Wikipedia's definition. That said, a lawyer being disbarred is not even indicating importance or significance because it does not indicate as to why this should be considered anything but ordinary. On the other hand, for example an article "X is a lawyer who was disbarred for bribing government officials" would indicate possible importance but still not be notable without further information. Regards SoWhy 20:37, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

See the OP's talk page to see the relevant part of my reply omitted from the quotation above, where I stated that the rationale for contesting deletion was invalid. Obviously, lawyers are disbarred all the time. That in itself isn't a credible assertion of notability, and neither is WP:ONEEVENT necessarily an assertion. The article in question would have survived if an explanation of notability was in there (that is, why she was disbarred). CSD A7 merely permits that explanation of notability be unsourced, but that explanation wasn't in the article. Therefore, I deleted it. Apologies if that wasn't clearer in my earlier replies. ~Amatulić (talk) 03:15, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

This criterion should probably make it clear that articles that look like they may meet WP:N, based on the sources cited, shouldn't be A7'd. Since the criterion is hopelessly vague, I usually ask "Does this article make an indication it may plausible meet WP:N?" But I'm not sure there's likely is to be a consensus in favour of that. WilyD 11:01, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

In the particular case that sparked this discussion, there seems to have been a presumption that being disbarred grants a pass to the realm of "automatic notability." I don't even want to imagine what this project would become of losing the licensing or authority needed for your career conferered automatic notability. This is a very common scenario in speedy deletions, presuming some incredibly low bar for inclusion here, as in the constant stream of articles on no-name garage bands that managed to play at some local music festival or county fair. Any credible claim of notability is enough to stop A7, but it has to be a credible claim, not just "this person lost their job." If there is some other reason on top of that that they are notable, the onus is on the person writing the article to give some indication what that reason might be. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:00, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

I disagree that being disbarred is an insufficient assertion to forestall an A7. ONEEVENT and N are completely irrelevant in an A7 discussion, because any time that notability is even remotely considered, A7 is no longer applicable. It should likely have been sent to a regular deletion discussion, absent BLP considerations, which probably applied here: if it was a primarily negative article without sourcing sufficient to demonstrate notability, it would have been better deleted G10. Short answer: right result, suboptimal reasoning. Jclemens (talk) 04:38, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Um, no. Sorry, but I fail to see how the mere fact that someone lost a job is a sufficient assertion of notability. And I disagree that our notability guidelines are irrelevant for A7. Those guidelines suggest ways to assert notability. A7 just allows that assertion to be unsourced. WP:BAND is one example we use all the time to apply A7 deletions to articles; if there is no assertion corresponding to any of the criteria there, and no coverage, then out it goes. ~Amatulić (talk) 04:55, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, equating "lost a job" with Disbarment is probably your first problem in seeing the assertion of importance. Disbarment is a big deal, often covered in the press, and generally involves some serious misconduct. Hence, me treating it as a serious indication of importance (not notability, but importance is the threshold for A7) as well as a BLP trigger. Jclemens (talk) 07:32, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Disbarment is not a big deal. The United States averages about 800 per year.[6] Sorry, but I'm not seeing any assertion of importance over an occurrence that's so commonplace that it apparently happens several times per day. People get fired all the time for misconduct. Disbarment is just the way it happens in one profession. ~Amatulić (talk) 15:57, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

If there are 1,225,452 attorneys in the US (per Attorneys in the United States) it would seem to me that 800 disbarments per year are rare enough for an article to at least survive A7. Whether it should ultimately survive depends on the notability of the lawyer or the particular circumstances of the disbarment IMHO. As a separate point, the grounds for disbarments in most jurisdictions have an implication for the integrity of the system of justice because of lawyers' position in it, even if the circumstance of the disbarment is simply swindling client money. It's not the same as getting "fired for misconduct". DeCausa (talk) 17:10, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Disbarement is very much not a big deal by itself. It may be one if it happens to a high-profile attorney – or during some other pressworthy event – but I would expect that's almost never the case. It certainly basically never is in Canada; maybe one or two cases a year end up having any media attention whatsoever out of dozens. — Coren ^(talk) 17:40, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. The quote in my first post in this thread is the deleted article in its entirety (except I replaced the name of the lawyer with the phrase "so-and-so"). The "hang on" reasoning on the talk page was "This article should not be speedily deleted for lack of asserted importance because disbarred lawyers are (should be) notable." So, this particular user would have make disbarment a valid claim to notability across the board, meaning all 800 lawyers disbarred in a year in the US alone could have articles created on them and those articles would have to go through AFD to decide if they should be deleted. Does that honestly sound like a good idea to anyone? Beeblebrox (talk) 01:30, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

A better deletion statement would have been this: "I've deleted your page under speedy deletion criterion 7, meaning that it does not demonstrate the topic's significance. Hundreds of attorneys are disbarred in Canada every year. To demonstrate significance, you would need to explain why he/she was disbarred, and why this disbarment is different than others. Thank you for your contributions, and we hope to see more from you in the future. You can work on this article on your userpage until you feel it is ready to meet the requirements for a Wikipedia article." This does more than quote policy. Boilerplate is not the way to approach new editors unless the improper behavior is blatantly obvious. This statement goes beyond quoting policy and actually makes it relevant to the situation at hand and gives the editor guidance on how to write a better article, and encourages them to stay as a Wikipedia contributor. Ego White Tray (talk) 01:44, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, no. A7 is not notability, but assertion of importance. There is almost no question in my mind that there was no hope of the article surviving on a notability vs. BLP basis, but the fact that deletion was near-inevitable is not the same as A7 applying. If good faith editors can differ about whether A7 applies, then it obviously shouldn't, and a full deletion discussion is the proper approach. Jclemens (talk) 04:24, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

@Ego White: This is not a case of a newbie misunderstanding or a failure to properly educate. The user who created the article in question has been editing since 2007. As they hinted at in their opening comment, they have had many articles deleted for failing to claim significance. Here's another example from September "<some guys name> is an American businessman. He recently started another stock mutual fund." So, I think the problem is at the other end, if you take my meaning. After five years of seeing one article after another deleted for this reason one would think they would understand what is and is not a reasonable claim of significance. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:31, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

MIDI files of public domain music

Note: This discussion has been moved to Wikipedia talk:Copyrights#MIDI files of public domain music Ego White Tray (talk) 05:21, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

A7 auto edit summary is grammatically inaccurate

The current summary is "A7:Article about a real person, which does not indicate the importance or significance of the subject." This has always bugged me as the comma indicates a non-identifying/non-defining (or non-restrictive) relative clause i.e. the info after the comma is additional, non-essential information. In other words the article is being speedy deleted because it is about a real person. That is obviously not the case. In order to be correct it should be a defining relative clause i.e. "A7:Article about a real person which does not indicate the importance or significance of the subject." Can we change that? Valenciano (talk) 18:47, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Removing the comma would be grammatically incorrect also. Furthermore, removing the comma makes the sentence even more ambiguous, implying that the person, rather than the article, fails to indicate the importance of the subject. The comma clarifies that the phrase "does not indicate the importance..." describes "article about a real person" and not just "person".

To remove the ambiguity one could say "Biography article that does not indicate the importance..." ~Amatulić (talk) 18:56, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Good point, I never thought of that. "Biographical article that does not indicate the importance or significance of the subject" would be the best wording. Valenciano (talk) 19:02, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Or "Article about a real person that does not indicate the importance or significance of that person." postdlf (talk) 19:46, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

db-g6 listing

Should the page have a link to a list of all recent db-g6 "uncontroversial" moves? In ictu oculi (talk) 00:12, 14 November 2012 (UTC)