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How Long is Appropriate for a Renomination?

The policy says the following regarding renominations for deletion: "After a deletion debate concludes and the page is kept, users should allow a reasonable amount of time to pass before nominating the same page for deletion again, to give editors the time to improve the page. Renominations shortly after the earlier debate are generally closed quickly. It can be disruptive to repeatedly nominate a page in the hopes of getting a different outcome."

I want to nominate a page for deletion that was last nominated by someone else two and a half years ago. At the time, it received "no consensus" as the result, but since then, hardly anything has changed for the article, the information on there seems less relevant than it ever was and does not seem like appropriate content for Wikipedia, in my opinion. It seems like a vanity page. I have left a number of comments in the Discussion page for the article advocating for deletion, to which no one has made any follow up reply comments. However, I don't want to be considered "disruptive," so I'd like to know if two and a half years is "a reasonable amount of time" for opting to renominate it for deletion. Webmacster87 (talk) 02:46, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

after a non-consensus, 2 years i certainly enough. I'd say even more strongly: Unless it's apparent that a non-consensus close would now result in a keep, it's not a bad idea to renominate it after even a month or two. We want to establish consensus one way or another. Even after a keep, if anyone finds a 2 year old keep that they think might now fail, it's right to nominate it. (In fact, shorter periods are also quite acceptable--my personal guideline is 4 to 6 months after a single keep, 1 to 2 months after a non-consensus.) DGG (talk) 03:37, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Two years is certainly enough. But I don't think we want to establish consensus; it's costly in man-hours and project dissension to AfD something, and if we don't think there's going to be a new result, there's no point in AfDing something. If it's had two AfDs, even no consensus ones, let it alone for at least a year, and hopefully more. I wouldn't bring up a non-consensus after 1 to 2 months unless I thought I had something really new to bring up.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:20, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
after two consecutive keep AfDs I too would wait at least a year, and after three I think it should need prior consensus at Deletion Review or elsewhere even to consider it. Personally, I think every reasonable effort should be made to determine consensus. DGG (talk) 23:55, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of NYS Route 21A

Why was it deleted when it is just coming out? Why can't I start a discussion??????-? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Check77 (talk • contribs) 00:42, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/New York State Route 21A Rossami (talk) 16:41, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Image duplicate of one on commons

Image:Benzene resonance.png is a duplicate of an image on commons. I think it should be deleted and its history transposed to commons if necassary, but I'm not sure what policy says about such cases so I'll let you handle this. Shinobu (talk) 12:34, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of a purely Wikipedia self-referential article

Is there a deletion policy for articles like List of Fairfield County, Connecticut Related Wikipedia Articles that is completely self-referential? As it is, the article is simply a list of Wikipedia articles that is related to a topic. The two categories it is currently in and their subcats do the exact same job. I've prodded the article for now but I was wondering if this falls under some kind of speedy deletion criterion. --Polaron | Talk 01:07, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

It does not and many such list articles are regularly kept in AfD and/or RfD discussions. Lists and categories serve different purposes and support different readers who navigate the pages differently. Lists, for example, can be found via the search engine and via "what links here". Categories can also be found via search but you have to know more about what you're asking for. Categories have the advantage that they self-update - lists have the advantage that the link doesn't drop off just because someone vandalizes the page (and, for example, deletes or overwrites the category tag). Personally, I prefer categories and think that in most cases, the list should be deprecated. But the deprecation should leave behind a redirect to the category page so that the new users who don't yet know what categories are can easily find the right place.
But that's only my opinion. Others disagree. Which is why this will never qualify for a speedy-criterion. Those disagreements need to be discussed in an AfD discussion. Rossami (talk) 14:17, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Rewriting a deleted article?

What is the process/policy for rewriting a deleted article? Ladder golf was speedied because it was a bad article and kind of an ad, but this could easily be a real article - it's got a number of news articles about it, and it's played at many sporting event tailgates. It's also got other names, all of which have reliable sources, like hillbilly horseshoes [1], hillbilly golf [2], ladder ball,[3] etc. To me, it seems like a game that passes notability requirements. Can I just rewrite a new article with those refs and such, or should I go to deletion review? It doesn't quite seem to fit the deletion review guidelines. --AW (talk) 19:07, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Reading some deletion review discussions, it looks like I can just rewrite it, so I'm doing that now. --AW (talk) 19:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, you can rewrite articles that have been speedy deleted and they won't get deleted again so long as you address the reason why the first version was deleted. Proposed deletions can be undone if any editor contests the deletion, even if the article has already been deleted. If the deletion was the result of a debate then it's often best to go to deletion review. Hut 8.5 19:34, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. Ladder golf was speedied so I rewrote it. --AW (talk) 20:00, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


Administrators violating their AfD rights

As an on again, off again Wikipedia article creator. I've come to notice that the majority of the articles I write tend to get the "non-notable artist" card without considering the fact that the article has very reliable links attached to them. In some cases, when an article which I created gets put up for deletion, I state my opinion in the discussion, and no one even replies back. I believe some administrators here need to actually "try" to look for sources (when the fact is there's sources linked on the article) themselves and post them onto the article. Sometimes I believe they are being deceptive toward the policies, which is the main reason why I rarely create anything here. Many individuals feel the same way as I. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.153.235.46 (talk) 01:32, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Can you provide a couple of examples? I'll take a look at the articles and deletion debates. The only thing I can see under your current IP address is DJ Clay, which is currently being discussed and looks likely to be kept. --Stormie (talk) 03:15, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
It is, and most likely will be. The ip also blanked the AfD, which I reverted. — MaggotSyn 10:09, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

If in doubt, don't delete

I've restored a very longstanding principle to this policy: if in doubt, don't deletes.

Obviously this does not apply to biographies of living persons. If somebody is saying nasty things, kill it first and then argue about it. But most of the time, a stub article is acceptable. --Jenny 23:37, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Per the rinse cycle I re-removed the line pending some conscensus on its inclusion. My opinon is that this "sound bite" does not substitute for reasoned debate, and does not belong in this policy page. - brenneman 00:12, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Hello Aaron. Excuse me but aren't you the same person who was told off for being a naughty boy here for removing the exact same words without consensus [4]?

It will be noted here now that, before I made the above comment, I had diligently searched the whole of the talk page and its archives, and have found no discussion in which it was agreed to remove this fundamental principal, which was recorded in the arbitration case that I have cited above

Obviously I could be wrong about all this and there might somewhere be a discussion wherein the community reached a decision by consensus to remove the fundamental expression of deletion policy from this page. In that case, let's see it, and we can go about our business. Or else let's see in what circumstances, and without a discussion, the policy was traduced. It makes a difference, you know. --Jenny 00:23, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Since, as my edit verifies, this snippet has been in policy for an eon in Wikipedia-time, there really should be consensus to remove it, not add it. I am not connected to whatever conspiracy it was that got blocked over adding it, but I do think it's a generally good concept to keep in mind. Increasingly people say stuff along the lines of "confusing case? arguments either way? defaults to delete" but that is out of step with tradition. Just my opinion, trying to keep deletion policy balanced. --Rividian (talk) 00:31, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

The principle described above has never been in doubt but I don't think it means what you think it means. But it wasn't on this page originally and hasn't been on this page for a very long time. That phrase is found on Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators. It was originally an admonition for how admins should close decisions (that is, default to keeping when interpreting ambiguous discussions), not a boundary on what the rest of the community may or may not consider appropriate for the encyclopedia. Putting that clause here subtly but significantly changes both the context and the meaning of the clause. I am pulling it out pending an explicit discussion that we want to add it here. I'm uncomfortable with the change. Rossami (talk) 01:44, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
I keep being surprised by Rossami's wisdom. I ought to be getting used to it by now, I've been seeing it for a while. Rossami is right, there is a real difference between having it here and on WP:DGFA - where it definitely does belong. I spot checked the last version of every calendar quarter. The most recent such to contain that phrase was this one from December 2006. In that version it appears in the section about repeating XfD nominations... specifically "in some cases, repeated attempts to have an article deleted may even be considered disruptive. If in doubt, don't delete." That is a very different context for this page than a stand alone paragraph. If restored today with the usage from then, it would go into the "renominations" bullet of the "Deletion discussion" section. I don't think it needs to be in this page; it does need to be in WP:DGFA. GRBerry 01:55, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
(ec) Well that is what I thought it meant... not sure how you got the idea that I thought something else. If there's no real clear consensus or obvious policy argument coming out of a deletion discussion, it defaults to keep, not delete. That seems like something that should be clarified since a lot of people get it wrong. I still think it should be in this policy, in some wording or another, to clarify that a deletion decision requires some degree of certainty. --Rividian (talk) 01:56, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps in deletion discussions, something akin to "If the closer of a discussion is in doubt about the consensus, they should not delete." That would, however, be redundant to the existing "If there is no rough consensus, the page is kept ..." And in the speedy deletion sections something akin to "If in doubt, promote to a deletion discussion instead of speedy deleting." And in the DRV section - "If the closer of a discussion is in doubt, they should undelete." GRBerry 02:26, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
Just adding your CSD wording would be fine... it's surprising it doesn't say that, actually. DRV... I dunno, people who close those usually know exactly what they're doing... not sure how much advice is needed. --Rividian (talk) 02:29, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
As one of the current DRV "old hands" (where are those I learned from? I want them active at DRV again!) I'll try to make sure the current DRV closers know what they are doing. But it is also fair to put it here so that those who are not DRV regulars can understand. There are often times when the majority of a discussion is by people that are not regularly seen at DRV, and I've closed some DRVs in ways that surprised long term admins because of that rule. GRBerry 02:35, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
The policy is basic in both places. Deletion is the last resort for articles that cannot be fixed or merged or otherwise dealt with. there isnt even an exception for BLP as such, just unsourced negative blp. DGG (talk) 03:48, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Agreed. I put it back. Hobit (talk) 13:34, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
    In your edit summary, you reverted me saying that you didn't see consensus to pull the phrase out. On the contrary, there has never been consensus to add it in on this page. Leaving it here changes the context of the phrase in ways that 1) it definitely was not intended when the phrase was first written and 2) that may not be completely good for the project. Please pull it back out until we actually reach a decision here. Rossami (talk) 14:06, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
  • I support retention of the admonition here since it seems that editors involved with AFD and similar processes would benefit from a reminder of this sort. I patrol AFD and see too much enthusiasm to throw the baby out with the bath-water there. Deletion seems to be regarded too lightly and so other, better remedies are not considered first, per WP:BEFORE. Colonel Warden (talk) 14:20, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Then let's think the implications of this change through. Putting the clause here moves the burden of surety from the closer to each individual discussion participant. Under the current rule, I as a discussion participant should honestly believe that the project would be better off without a page in order to express a "delete" opinion. I only have to be 51% sure that the project will be improved by deletion to say that, though. Hopefully, I will express my reservations clearly in the comment and will have my facts in order so that the closer can weight my opinion appropriately but I can honestly express my opinion that I believe that the project would be at least slightly better off. If others are more sure than I that the page should be deleted, the closer can make the aggregate call that the page should go. The closer must determine only that the aggregate opinion of the community is no longer in reasonable doubt.

Under this new interpretation, I as an individual discussion participant must hold myself to a substantially higher standard before I can honestly express my opinion that I have no doubt that the project would be better off without a particular page. Not only must the closer have no doubt, each individual participant must have do doubt. If people applied this standard honestly, it could create a situation where every single person in the discussion is mostly sure that the page would be better off deleted yet the page would be kept. Is that truly your intent? Under the current rules, if 10 participants unanimously recommend "weak delete", the closer would properly interpret that as a clear consensus. Under this new interpretation, even though there was not a single "keep" opinion offered, the page could have to be kept.

(Yes, I know my example sounds a bit extreme and tests the margin of this interpretation. Obvious cases don't need rules like this in the first place. If the new rule doesn't work at the margin, it's not worth writing down.) Rossami (talk) 21:11, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

  • You under-estimate the extent to which editors already express strong opinions in favour of deletion, even though they appear to have given little consideration to the matter, as advised by WP:BEFORE. For a fresh example of such snap-judgements, made without any trace of doubt, please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Overspending. To make any impression upon ignorant, trigger-happy deletionists, we really have to belabour the point. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:33, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
Please reconsider the manner in which you are choosing to express yourself, Colonel Warden. Using language such as "ignorant, trigger-happy deletionists" will only increase the level of heat in the discussion, and does very little to help us come to a reasonable, well thought out consensus. And on consensus I'd encourage those who above have effectively voted for its inclusion to review the "consensus" page. We don't count noses. brenneman 09:57, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
I've just noticed that there was even an attempt to delete this article last month! What language would you prefer to describe such nominations? Colonel Warden (talk) 15:21, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
  • I'd think we can call that a joke. That said, I do think we should keep the phrase. Perhaps a quick "vote" here?

I think Rossami has summed it up pretty well. "If in doubt, don't delete" is not a statement of Wikipedia's deletion policy, it's guidance to administrators in interpreting consensus and implementing that policy. As such, it is appropriately placed on Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators (where it has long been), and not appropriate on this page. --Stormie (talk) 01:30, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd say the consensus is that it belongs here as well, though a somewhat different wording would be OK also. DGG (talk) 02:06, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I see no such consensus. On the keep-it-in side
  • A brief statement by Tony that "a stub article is acceptable"
  • Rividian calims "confusing case? arguments either way? defaults to delete"
  • Hobit provide no rational for his support
  • My rational is that A) It's been here over time. B) I think it is the correct policy. C) I think it has consensus. I thought I was clear before, sorry. Hobit (talk) 14:11, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Colonel Warden feels people need "reminded." Kotniski and Kevin Murray both agree.
  • DGG provides some sound, policy-based arguments, if briefly.
Contrasting that,
  • Rossami provides a clear argument based upon policy, which he expands on in detail below.
  • GRBerry backs this up with historical precendent based upon the actual content of the page over time.
  • Stormie agrees with them.
  • I've not counted myself in this (yet) since I've made no formal statement of opposition and because of the straight-toArb-without-RfC finding so generously linked by Tony above.
Consensus is not a vote (noting I've removed a section below that attempted to do just that.) If there is anyone who knows more about deletion process than Rossami, I am not aware of that person. For us to ignore his thoughtful commentary based upon a handful of "me too"s and a couple of sideswipes about "deletionists" is not how policy is made (or changed) in my experiance.
brenneman 02:56, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Digging further into the history, in the earliest version of this page accessible through the page history tab (earlier versions available through diff from it), at a time when the entire content of this page was addressed to those individuals with the password to the administrative account (i.e., when this page was what now is WP:DGFA) that phrase was here. The page split occurred in September 2003.[5] [6]. At that time, this phrase moved with all of the other administrative specific guidance to the page that is now WP:DGFA. It was immediately prior to the split the time the fourth bullet point in a section entitled "Guidelines for admins". (#3 on that list was "Use common sense and respect the judgment and feelings of Wikipedia participants.") I am now 100% convinced that the version Tony attempted to insert was actually a change in policy, by moving wording from one context to another. I suggested above ways of wording this here that would be reasonable and not change policy - namely wording it as guidance to closing/backlog clearing administrators rather than as guidance to Wikipedians who are opining in an XfD. Those who are opining in an XfD should be making sound arguments in line with communal norms, but those norms definitely don't include "you must have no doubt to opine delete" - the actual norm is "make sure your opinion reveals and explains your best judgment about what to do, including any doubt that you may have." GRBerry 05:08, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I hope that the wording I inserted a few days ago meets these concerns.--Kotniski (talk) 07:39, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I find it to be an acceptable compromise. The assertion that it is a "fundamental principle" is, perhaps, putting too much undue weight upon what should be a suggestion. Shereth 18:17, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I think the original is much better. This discusses what an admin will do. The other discusses our default policy. They are quite different. Hobit (talk) 19:47, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
To be very clear here, the "original" was as the admonition to closers. You are advocating for a change to the standards. If you want to carry the day, you need to explain how this change will make the project better. Rossami (talk) 20:07, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposed policy for "invisible merging"

(this was prompted by my recent discussion with PhilKnight)

Sometimes, a decision in an AfD is made to "merge and redirect", but nobody actually carries out the "merge" part. Perhaps because the job is too intimidating for everybody involved in the discussion, and requires an expert on the subject. If such is the case, I propose that it be policy to add a notice on the talk page of the article which the page is to be merged into.

What currently ends up happening at times is that a page is, for all intents and purposed, removed from view, and the only person who ends up realizing this is someone curious enough to look through old deletion discussions or the histories of redirection pages (and I think there aren't very many such people). Esn (talk) 19:23, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

While that would be the courteous thing to do (and is the practice in most cases that I've seen such as you describe), to add it as an explicit policy requirement strikes me as unnecessary instruction creep. There is no requirement to post a notice if you boldly redirect a page outside of a deletion discussion. I don't see why it would become necessary just because the consensus was formed within a deletion discussion.
I also think that if the discussion participants really care about the content, they will generally have the page watchlisted and should be expected to assist with the cleanup soon after the discussion is closed. You're probably right that there are not many people randomly patrolling through old discussions but we have some rough numbers on the tracking of recent discussions and decisions. On average, about 10% watchlist the deletion discussion itself and about 30% have watchlisted the page under discussion. That number tends to go up when the page under discussion has content that at least some participants consider merge-worthy. Rossami (talk) 20:05, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Although it is true that "instruction creep" in general is to be avoided, I really see this as not so much instruction creep as making sure that a decision is actually carried out, and not just "on paper". Maybe not as policy, but as a "suggestion", I think it should be said that if none of the editors in the deletion discussion, nor the admin closing it, are prepared to do the actual work of merging the articles, then a notice should be posted on the talk page of the to-be-merged-into page so that some other editor eventually can be found. Talk pages are far more visible than old deletion discussions, so someone's bound to turn up eventually.
If a decision in AfD is made to delete an article, it is (as far as I know) not considered acceptable for an admin to close the discussion but then not actually carry the decision out. I don't see how this is any different. (that scenario isn't a problem because it's easy to tell if an article has actually been deleted; the link to it turns red. There is no analogously easy way to determine if an article has actually been merged.)
Sure, for many articles this is not a problem. But some articles were written by very few people a long time ago, and these people are no longer on Wikipedia and don't participate in the deletion discussions. The particular case which prompted my question had only one other comment in the AfD besides the nominator's. Nobody was watching that article, it seems, and nobody from the to-be-merged-into page was aware that it had been turned into a redirect and (supposedly) "merged" with their article. Esn (talk) 07:20, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

There's already a template for this (notifying on a target talkpage the merge result of the deletion debate of the other article); can't think of what it's called right now.Skomorokh 16:29, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Fond it: {{Afd-mergefrom}}. Skomorokh 17:55, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes by AMIB

I have some concerns about the changes made by AMIB to this policy page and would like to see what others think.

I'm not sure that neologisms belong in this sentence as RS's can often be found for them (as Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms notes. Heck, the whole point of that article is not to have entries for terms that don't have RS's that define the term rather than just use it. Being a neologism isn't a reason for deletion as far as I can tell from the article (though it is used that way all the time in AfDs).
  • "Any other content not suitable for an encyclopedia."
  • I'm not sure how I feel about that one. First of all, WP:NOT covers things like NOT#PAPER and NOT#CENSORED which aren't exclusion guidelines. Secondly, I don't think WP:NOT defines what is not encyclopedic, rather it defines defines what is not wikipedia. A minor, but important, point.
I largely think the other changes improve things.Hobit (talk) 00:57, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

"Any other content not suitable for an encyclopedia" has been in there for ages and ages; I simply moved it to the bottom.

Being a neologism used to be its own reason for deletion, but now it's mostly because most neologisms fail WP:N. I merged the line about neologisms to the "Can't be verified in reliable sources" because of this gradual shift in practice. The line still links the neologism guideline, which helps clarify what a reliable source is in the context of sourcing an article about a neologism. Neologisms are pretty uncontroversial nowadays anyway.

I'm trying to wrap my head around a way to merge the rest of the "no reliable sources" lines without stepping on any of the notability controversies. Haven't done anything with it yet. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:33, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

What happens when a Deleted article re-appears?

There is an article Luka Magnotta which was first cleaned up due to the multitude of unreferenced claims in the biography of a living person, and then the article was nominated for deletion, and then it was deleted due to the fact that he is a person of no notability, and now someone has re-created it with what appears to be a copy and paste of the original article. Does this have to go through the entire process of deletion again, or can the entire article be deleted straight up by an admin? 65.96.67.105 (talk) 12:39, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion, specifically criterion G-4 which addresses the recreation of content which has been previously discussed in an XfD discussion. (It's already been applied to this page.) Thanks. Rossami (talk) 14:44, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Prodding user pages

I've proposed that user and user talk pages should not be eligible for PROD. See WT:PROD#Prodding user pages -- Ned Scott 06:57, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Alternatives to Notability

I feel that notability is too restrictive a guideline for deletions and too subjective.

I propose a more pragmatic criterion for deleting articles: Usefulness.

The encyclopedia is a tool. Each article should be judged by whether it provides a marginal enhancement to the usefulness of the encyclopedia to its users. Some articles may not be notable but they still provide useful information to many people. For example the article on github is not about something very notable but is definitely very useful to many people. The pragmatic criterion of usefulness is I think better than notability. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.229.186.246 (talk) 23:11, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Given that the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/GitHub is clearly leaning towards keeping the article, on the grounds that is is notable, it's probably not a great example of Wikipedia's notability standards being "too restrictive" and "too subjective." --Stormie (talk) 01:23, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
There is no way that "provides a marginal enhancement to the usefulness of the encyclopedia to its users" is a less subjective criterion than "has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". –Black Falcon (Talk) 15:36, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
I think that an article on my cat would be "useful" to me. If I were selling a house than an article on the house would be "useful" to anyone thinking of buying it. Obviously neither of these is a good topic for an encyclopedia article. Hut 8.5 18:15, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of talk pages

As I was reading through the deletion policy, I didn't see info about deletion of article talk pages. When an article is deleted, is the talk page of that article also deleted (assuming there has been discussion on the talk page)? I can see that in some cases, you'd keep the talk page in the event that the article comes up again and is legitimately valid later as an article. However, I can also see that nonsense articles (e.g an article of Nvenaidifasveni) with discussion can have their talk pages deleted. 71.243.218.126 (talk) 17:34, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

There are (unfortunately) many, many pages covering aspects of the inclusion/deletion policy. Talk pages are routinely deleted at the same time unless there is a compelling reason not to. An example of a reason to keep would be on old page holding the deletion discussion. (We used to archive the deletion discussions on the article's Talk page.) That happens so rarely now that it's a speedy-deletion criterion (G-8) to automatically remove the Talk page of a deleted page unless there is a an obvious useful purpose to the page. Rossami (talk) 23:39, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
My view is that if there has been extensive and useful discussion of sources and other matters, without any BLP concerns, then talk pages should be archived somewhere. A good rule of thumb is that if there has been enough discussion to have the talk page archived, then deletion should not be automatic. Sometimes, the main page can be recreated as a redirect, and a link to the talk page of the redirect can be left on the talk page of the destination. I do hope people don't blindly delete talk pages of redirects... Carcharoth (talk) 14:46, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
I came here looking for something slightly different and was wondering if someone could help. What is the policy for deleting a talk page for an article that has not been deleted? I was going to comment on a possible missing item in an article, but saw that the corresponding talk page has been deleted... and can't tell therefore if the item I was going to mention had already been considered and discarded. Jim (talk) 18:03, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
Talk pages of articles that currently exist are deleted only in special circumstances: when the talk page was created mistakenly (e.g. editing test) or inappropriately (e.g. copyright violation). Legitimate discussion, even if it is about an issue that is quickly resolved, is almost never deleted. If you could identify the article, I could let you know what content was on the talk page before it was deleted. –Black Falcon (Talk) 19:25, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposal: apply WP:BEFORE to speedy close in certain cases.

Greetings. As a regular participant in AfD and frequent closer of debates, I often see discussions where an article on a topic of questionable notability that has a clear potential merge target whose notability is not in doubt. Some examples:

  • Fictional topics such as characters, settings and story elements of notable books/films etc.
  • People associated with notable groups/organisations, such as band members, sports team members and political officeholders.
  • Artistic works, such as songs, books and films, by notable artists.

Typically, the articles are of poor quality, and the debate focuses on whether the outcome should be merge, redirect or keep. As is often the case in deletion discussions, the discussions can be very acrimonious and taken personally by participants. In light of this, I propose that we should start enforcing the directive on our current AfD page (WP:BEFORE) to "[c]onsider making the page a useful redirect or proposing it be merged rather than deleted" before nominating for AfD, as "[n]either of these actions requires an AfD". Doing this would have two main positive effect:

  • Reduce the bitter argument, acrimony and divisiveness common in so many deletion discussions.
  • Keep Articles for Deletion for serious discussions about deleting articles whose notability is in question.

The need for the first is widely called for by those of us despairing at the WP:BATTLEGROUND nature of AfD, and is reflected in the great tension and fighting over notability guidelines like WP:FICT, disruptive wars over "cruft" and several top-level mediation processes. The need for the second positive effect is what has motivated the introduction of WP:PROD and WP:CSD amongst other developments.

So, if this proposal is a good idea in principle, the next question is how it would be implemented. As it would be a not-insignificant change, I propose that it would be implemented conservatively, at least at first. An uninvolved administrator (or non-admin?) should speedy close deletion debates which meet the following conditions:

  • There is an obvious merge target (nominators often admit such)
  • A substantive debate has not yet started e.g. there are few comments, comments which are mostly arguments to avoid, the nomination is only a few hours old etc.
  • There is no reason to speedy close that would override this one i.e. a speedy delete as copyvio or speedy keep as a disruptive nomination

The closing admin should then replace the Afd notice on the article with a {{mergeto}}, tag the target article with {{mergefrom}} and start a heading on the appropriate talkpage with a standard merge proposal heading and a short explanatory note linking to the closed Afd (this process could be easily automated). What does the community think?Skomorokh 16:22, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Update I forgot to cover how the merge discussion would play out; time limits are certainly important as Protonk noted. So how about these stipulations:

  • If the merger discussion, though listed by the admin in their close, does not attract any attention in [insert time period] (a few days? a week?), anyone can bring the article to AfD where it may not be speedy closed as a merge candidate again.

I wouldn't want this sort of thing to be used as a tool by inclusionists; and if nominators address why the AfD should not be speedied as a merge proposal, it should not be. Hope this clears up some of the problems with the proposal.Skomorokh 17:46, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Second update Protonk makes a good point about the problems of scope w.r.t. "merge targets". I think we can address this with a simple and intuitive marker:

  • Article a is a suitable merge target of article b if one should expect coverage of topic b in an article about topic a.

This severely restricts the scope of the AfD's this proposal would pertain to. I'd also like to mention that this proposal is not for articles which are likely redirects; merges only. Skomorokh 18:22, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm ambivalent. I think this is a well thought out proposal and seeks to address clear harms. I'm less sure that those harms would be addressed by the proposal. First, I agree that most debates where merger is an option result in discussions where consensus is difficult to judge. I also realize that a merger or redirect is a usually a compelling option for the article. An easy example I can think of is this AFD, where the closing admin vocalized the clear split among participants. But I don't like the idea of adding some additional step prior to nomination of an article. I am going to guess that (casting a wide enough net), most articles have a logical "parent" or "sibling" article. In this case, almost any deletion discussion could be turned into a merger discussion with a few suggestions. For some articles, this is better (all of those 40K articles would have been better merged than deleted and redirected). for some articles, this is worse (forks made due to WP:SIZE or POV are better assessed on their merits than merged into the parent article). For most articles, the result is probably neutral. But merger discussions have no time limits and their outcome is not compulsory. for example, the 40K articles I mentioned (a good source of acrimony if ever there was one) were brought to AfD because a small number of merger discussions failed (or received no comments and the subsequent mergers were reverted by IP editors). In this case, 90% of those AfD's would have been sent back to the talk page as proposed mergers even though the nominators judged (IMO, correctly) that the results from a small sample of attempted mergers would represent broader outcomes. In some cases this was noted explicitly in the nomination, in other case this was not. So the result (following this proposal) would have been to speedy close each AfD, list a merger discussion and wait some undetermined period of time. Then, following the merger discussion on the pages, the articles would be variously relisted or merged. this outcome isn't the end of the world, but I feel that it is a needless complication to the issue. How do we solve the problem without generating too much gridlock? I don't know precisely. My guess would be to reverse the order--make "mergers" a possible binding outcome of AfD. This would have to be tightly patrolled to prevent pages which aren't reasonable candidates for deletion from being listed in an alternate, more binding venue for mergers. But it would provide a less acrimonious outcome to the problem. So right now I'm going to have to oppose this as a policy change, but I think it is a good start and a compelling idea. Protonk (talk) 17:00, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Protonk wrote a better response than I did (below). I agree that "merge" should be a valid outcome of AFD but not necessarily "binding". Here's why... The current results of AFD are "keep" and "delete". "Keep" requires no action on the part of the closing admin other than to close the AFD. "Delete" requires actually deleting the article. Either can be done in a few minutes of the admin's time at most. "Merge", however, takes longer and is not something that an uninvolved admin can always do (often takes too much actual knowledge of the article content). For this reason, "merge" as an AFD outcome really means "keep with a recommendation to the editors that a merger be carried out". The merging editors can reference the AFD as support for their edits but the merge/redirect cannot be considered complete until someone other than the closing admin finishes the merge.
--Richard (talk) 17:15, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
That's probably a better possible choice of outcomes. I think that sort of outcome has emerged in a few cases. I've seen AfD's closed as no consensus with an admonishment to merge placed on the talk page. Protonk (talk) 17:25, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict with Protonk) Sorry, I understand the motivation of the proposal but this is too much process creep. Anybody can suggest to the nominator that he/she withdraw the AFD nomination and create a merge nomination. If the nominator agrees, it can be done and should be done by the nominator.
IMO, your proposal giving the admin the right to override the judgment of the nominator is a bad idea (reduces the burden on the nominator to weigh "merge vs. delete" and gives the admin the power to impose his/her judgment over that of the community).
"Merge" is a legitimate outcome of an AFD discussion. If the AFD is going to be acrimonious, it's likely that the merge discussion would be also. Lack of civility cannot be fixed in this way. If you see such in progress, step in and ask people to calm down.
--Richard (talk) 17:02, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments Richard. A few points in response.
Process creep': Nominators are already directed to pursue merges/redirects before deleting, so this does not add any extra process for nominators, the idea is very easy for admins to grasp and can be easily executed automatically, it's easy for those who want to comment in the Afd but find it closed (follow the direct link added by the closer, add comment there). Debates that have a likely merge outcome don't 'have to be dealt with in this way, I would just like to enable closers to do so.
Imposing admin judgement on the community I don't think this is any different from an admin speedy deleting a page the nominator thought was non-notable but actually failed to assert notability. The community gets it's say in the merge discussion, and can bring the topic to AfD if there is no consensus to merge at the article talkpage.
Acrimony in discussions I respectfully disagree that the merge discussions would be just as acrimonious as deletion discussions. When someone nominates for an article to be deleted, it sends a message of "your effort is worthless and unwelcome" to the article editors. A merge proposal, on the other hand, says "this topic could be better treated elsewhere", which is a far less antagonistic message, I think. Now consider inclusionist AfD contributors; nominating for deletion an article where a merge would be acceptable is a comment on the worth (the "notability") of the topic, something keep !voters who identify some way with the topic often take personally – "this topic could be better treated elsewhere" is definitely less of a challenge on the worth of the subject.
Merge as an outcome I personally feel that AfD should be kept strictly for keep vs. delete debates, but this proposal would not require that at all. Discussions could still close as merge, smerge or redirect, it's just that some debates which are predominantly going to be about merge or not merge can be pre-emptively shifted to the correct forum.
I hope this clarifies things, Skomorokh 18:14, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
I think (Richard, let me know if this is words in your mouth) the problem is ordering rather than discussion. I think the proposal is better applied following an AfD rather than prior to. In the case of some hypothetical article, I would rather have the discussion continue with editors knowing that "proposal to merge" or "merge" were appropriate outcomes than have it removed and listed as a merger discussion. In this case we can have a merger discussion under the sword of Damocles (as will probably be the case either way), but withsome direction. Rather than "have this merger discussion or the article goes to an uncertain fate at AfD" the admonition could be "have this merger discussion or the article gets turned into a redirect or deleted". Protonk (talk) 18:00, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
As a closer, when there is no significant opinion voiced in favour of deletion, I typically close as no consensus and start a merge proposal on the article talkpage. I'd like this to become more common, but that's another story. Regarding the admonition; under this proposal it's "have this merger discussion and if there is no serious opposition go ahead and merge, or the article goes to an uncertain fate at AfD". Regards, Skomorokh 18:26, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Protonk, thanks for your insights, very helpful. I've made two updates to the proposal to address some of your concerns if you'd like to respond to them here. Skomorokh 18:22, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll respond more fully later today. I want to agree with you on your point above about merger discussions being less acrimonious (on average) tha deletion discussions. Although we can easily find all the "Celebrations--->Reactions to 9/11" merger discussions to learn that merger discussions can be filled with vitriol, I think that you are correct on average. The large contingent outcome that deletion represents is a powerful motivator for people to solidify their stances. I think that mergers are generally supported or opposed with more equivocation than AfD's. I have seen plenty of AfD's with "ZOMG, strongest delete possible, I will uninstall WoW and...leave Wikipedia if this stays" and "Stong keep!!!! Article X (on something like a minor sidekick in a b-movie) is the most important article on any subject ever." So on that point we agree. I'll come back in a bit and let some other editors comment first. Protonk (talk) 18:32, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Great, thanks for your interest and very helpful critiques thus far. Skomorokh 18:57, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Ok. I've thought about this a bit and here is what I think. I agree with richard that imposing the before section of the deletion process as a policy represents instruction creep. The best possible analogy I can think of is the DRV process. Editors are exhorted to talk to the closing admin before listing a XfD at DRV but refusal to do so is not a reason to endorse the close or remove the review. Discussion is expected socially but not mandated because of the added hurdles it would represent for novice users. At the same time, the issue of instruction creep is not a deal breaker. It represents some drawbacks that must be overcome by the gains from implementing this policy. Here is my suggestion:
  • Codify the practice of closing AfD's as no consensus to delete, remanded to a merger discussion (or words to that effect). For afds where a merger possibility exists and would solve the underlying problem.
  • Don't treat it as some external speedy close but as an expected outcome from consensus. In other words, give it to admins as a tool but wait until some user (or preferably more than one user) has presented the idea independently. However it should still be a "speedy closure" of some sort, allowing admins the option to do so before the 5 day period without fear that the article will go to DRv for process reasons.
  • restrict the practice to AfD's that (as you said) can't be speedied otherwise AND restrict these kinds of closures from articles where merger discussions have occured recently or where mergers won't fix the problem (BLP, OR, Hoax, V, etc).
  • Set a two week time limit for the merger discussion. If the article isn't merged, then return it to AfD.
  • This may still be too much added process (also, I've probably stolen/modified some of your ideas shamelessly), but I like it. We can pick out articles that might help to be merged/redirected and allow that to be a more 'official' expected first step. Hopefully this will result in more discussion prior to the AfD and more complete nominations. I could see future AfD noms that include an explanation why the article isn't an obvious merger candidate. Thoughts? Protonk (talk) 16:32, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
    • Except for the early closure and the arbitrary timelimit on the merger discussion, we already have this option. And while it's not used as often as it could be, it's used with some regularity by our better closers (though the wording is usually "keep with recommendation to merge" rather than "no consensus"). The one part that I dislike about this current proposal is that it will encourage still more early closures which, if history is any indication, will lead to a increase of nominations to DRV. If merger is a good idea, letting the discussion run for the normal 5 days won't hurt the project or the suggestion. Rossami (talk) 20:01, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
      • As I've pointed out "the discussion" is not the same when it is a talkpage merge proposal as when it is an AfD discussion; less acrimony and hostility. It shouldn't spur any DRV's because the discussion will simply have changed forum. We have a culture wherein when editors don't like the existence of a particular version of a particular article, they nominate it for AfD. This is disruptive and destructive and needs to change. Skomorokh 01:33, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Rossami about speedy closes. I think they are often a mistake, in the absence of special cases like disruption, withdrawal, or copyvio. There seems to be an increasing trend that way, and it does lad to deletion reviews--which almost always put the article back for a full time, or for unhappiness with the result. They should be strongly discouraged. Otherwise, I think making very specific the possibility to merge is a much better idea than treating merge merely as a form of keep--for all the reasons given by various people above. It is in particular less likely to lead to a destructive merge eiyyher deliberately or accidentally, when that is not the consensus. DGG (talk) 01:29, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for commenting, DGG. Could you clarify what you mean by "making very specific the possibility to merge"? Thanks, Skomorokh 01:33, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
  • As a general comment I like this proposal in general. Even if some good admins open a merge discussion after no consensus closes with the option to merge, I think the project would be helped by the addition of a concrete policy option for an outcome and a time limit on merger discussions from AfD (before the article is returned to AfD). How would people feel if the speedy close bit were removed? Skomorokh, I know this is an important part of your proposal. How do you feel about the prospect of implementing either your proposal or my counter proposal with the "speedy" bit removed? Protonk (talk) 01:46, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't think that would formally change anything; I already routinely close Afd's with a small minority of delete !votes as "'keep/no consensus to delete, editors are welcome to join the merge discussion on the talkpage". If you think that closers could be persuaded to do likewise, I'd love to see it. It would not go as far as my proposal, nor would it have the adantage of avoiding unnecessary and unnecessarily divisive deletion discussions, but it would be a big improvement over the status quo, if it became standard practice. It's a lot easier to change a rule than to change a culture, however. Sincerely, Skomorokh 01:55, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I think it would. If we (for the sake of argument) decided that AfD's with a merger possibility could be closed as "discuss merger for 14 days and return to AfD for keep/delete if merger discussions break down" we could induce the two sides to cooperate. Some of the acrimony will never go away. Some people will argue that WP:N should be interpreted to include important daughter articles for notable subjects and such inherited notability is critical to building a complete picture of many fictional subjects. the other side (including me) will argue that WP:N doesn't and shouldn't make that a possiblity, that the encyclopedia should be written about notable subjects and not bent to accommodate non-notable subjects. That is a source of disagreement that will not be solved by this or any similar proposal (under the deletion policy umbra). But a "discuss then remand to merger" option with some force behind it will soften arguments in the initial AfD and eliminate the "ZOMG, you never tried to merge this" arguments in the second AfD. Assuming that this becomes part of the practice of AfD's, people will eventually respond by tempering their comments. If I am defending an article that may be merged on the first AfD, I don't need to pull out all the stops to argue to keep it. I can make some keep arguments and then make moves toward a compromise. Likewise with delete stances. It doesn't 'cut short' debate on subject like this but I see where DGG is coming from there. Speedy closes lead to DRV's, which are a pain in the ass. Protonk (talk) 17:13, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Counter-Proposal I don't think it goes far enough. I actually think that any AfD where the nominating editor fails to indicate that WP:BEFORE has been followed prior to nomination should be closed as disruptive. There are too many "I don't see any sources in the article" AfD's, and WP:BEFORE expects that nominating editors do their homework before involving the community in a debate. Obviously, this is presumably at odds with consensus, so I present it as a discussion point, knowing that consensus can change and believing that, in this case, it should. Jclemens (talk) 01:35, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
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