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Deprod criticisms

I have been taking criticism from User:CorbieVreccan, User:Liz, User:Meters, User:Largoplazo and maybe a couple others about my deprodding activities over the last few months. Complaints have included:

1. I am "randomly" deprodding
2. I am not giving adequate reason for deprodding
3. I am failing to improve the articles that I deprod
4. I am creating extra work for an overworked AfD crew

I have discussed this on my talk page but this keeps coming up from the same editors so I'm going to respond here too:

1. I am deprodding only up to 25% of nominated articles. It is not a random process. I spend significant time reviewing each article I deprod. This includes examining prod reason, the article itself, any tags on the article, article history, talk page, incoming wikilinks and any references.
2. When I started prod patrolling in March, I took WP:PROD policy at face value and did not provide a justification for some of my deprods. I received feedback from other editors and quickly adjusted to leave a clear reason in the edit comment or the article's talk page for each deprod.
3. There is no requirement for a deprodder to improve the article. With over 50 prods per day it is simply not practical to do so. Nevertheless, if the nom claims non-notable I will often look for references and leave a discussion and links to those on the article's talk page when I deprod. Occasionally I add the reference to the article itself. Many of my deprods recently convert the prodded article to a redirect. In most cases I consider a redirect to be an improvement compared to outright deletion. Where a redirect is of no value, I do not deprod.
4. I have participated in AfD discussions for several years so I am helping with the work there. The work there is made heavier than necessary by noms who do not fully appreciate WP:BEFORE and by the practice of extending discussion periods repeatedly. Less than 15% of my deprods are going to AfD and about 30% of those are surviving.

I'm happy to adjust my WP:PRODPATROL activities based on constructive input. I am prepared to discuss any other criticisms. I maintain records of my deprods to adjust my work based on outcomes and to be open about what I am doing. ~Kvng (talk) 23:46, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Kvng, for stating this case so concisely. I just wonder if you could offer a few examples of articles you have DePRODed that you subsequently improved. It doesn't have to be rewriting the article, just a few examples of where you looked for and found references would help make your point, I think. Thank you. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:56, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

The case I stated is that the deprodder has no obligation to improve deprodded articles and that doing so consistently is impractical for a prod patroller. Nevertheless, here are a couple articles I deprodded and improved today: Bánánach, National_Highway_26_(India)(new_numbering). ~Kvng (talk) 00:26, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

My only comment on Kvng's deprods was a suggestion that deprodding an article about a book (Rise Up and Salute the Sun) with no hope of surviving at AFD on the grounds that it might make a valid redirect to the authors article (Suzy Kassem ) if that article survived its already running AFD. Redirecting it immediately rather than deprodding would have made more sense since if the author's article failed at AFD (as it did, in fact it ended up salted and the SPA creator was blocked for socking) the book article would then have to be taken to AFD Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rise Up and Salute the Sun. If it had been redirected immediately the redirect would have gone with the author's article. As it happened, the article had previously been deprodded, so the second prod was invalid in any case. Right move, wrong reason. I had, and have, no comment on Kvng's other deprods since I'm not familiar with them. Meters (talk) 01:33, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Based on this experience and comments from User:Meters on my talk page I have been more aggressive about progressing deprods of books, albums and songs of questionable notability directly to redirects to their authors/artists/albums. ~Kvng (talk) 02:01, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Kvng is right. A deprodder has no more obligation to improve an article than an AfD participant. However, WP:BEFORE is pretty clear that nominators do have an obligation to at least consider improving an article before nominating or proposing it for deletion. Pburka (talk) 02:30, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

(←) Kvng's sole "improvement" to Bánánach was to add a bare url to a mediocre source.[1] He couldn't even be bothered to properly format the ref. That page doesn't even merit a dicdef. This deprodding of wholly unsourced articles, with zero attempts at improvements, has happened on a handful of articles I've prodded. He then misrepresented my feedback on his page:[2]. This user is clearly deprodding articles where he does not have enough knowledge of the material to judge sources, and in most cases is leaving up articles that are wholly unsourced and have been flagged for sourcing for three years or longer. It is a waste of productive editors time and is becoming a type of disruptive editing. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 03:17, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Again, my assertion is that prod policy does not require improvements (or even an explaination) when deprodding. Why does this keep coming up? Do we want to change prod policy to require improvement when deprodding? Also what is the problem with deprodding unsourced articles? Lack of sourcing itself is not a valid reason for deleting an article. ~Kvng (talk) 14:14, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

To clarify, at User talk:Kvng#Deprodding Indiepay, I agreed with the dePRODding of the article. It was the reason you gave that I questioned. The PROD reason was based on an asserted lack of notability. Your dePROD reason was based on the notion that the PROD reason could have been addressed by giving the article more time to develop. I chose merely to point out to you that no amount of editing can overcome a lack of notability. The reason I supported your dePROD anyway is that, independent of its content, I did find sufficient basis for at least suspecting that the topic was notable. Largoplazo (talk) 07:23, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

I presume I also suspected the topic was notable. Notability is most commonly the lynchpin in these discussions. If I didn't mention that, it is because I like to back up such assertions with sources and presumably didn't have time to to the research. It does bother me that potentially promising articles by new editors are often slated for deletion hours or even minutes after being created. I consider this WP:BITEy and I was probably primarily kicking against that in this case. ~Kvng (talk) 14:14, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

You asked for constructive criticism. I offer you these notes:

1. When I comment on a PROD or a dePROD, I comment on the reasons given, not on what was going on in the other person's head that wasn't expressed. If you have a solid reason for doing something, keeping it to yourself isn't your ideal strategy, especially if you do give a rationale but it's based on a misconception (such as the idea that a notability problem can be fixed by editing the article).
2. If you feel in good faith that notability is a possibility, you don't have to do any research to justify dePRODding and letting it go to AFD, which is where that possibility can be explored. Or else leave the PROD and come back to it within the grace period when you do have time.
3. If the PRODder thought in good faith that a topic is non-notable, then hours after creation is more than plenty of time for PRODding the article. The notion of biting is about not giving the creator enough breathing space to write the base article so that it can be evaluated as a whole and might stand up to content-related scrutiny: A1, A3, A7 speedy deletion. It's a "give me a chance" thing. If the topic isn't notable, then it won't be notable six hours from now or a day from now. Meanwhile, it might even be nicer to put the creator on notice earlier so that he doesn't wind up putting in several more hours filling out an article that's going to be deleted anyway. Largoplazo (talk) 16:16, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm having a little trouble converting this constructive criticism into actionable items. In (1) are you asking for a more verbose deprod reason? In (2) are you asking for any specific change. Obviously, if I deprod due to potential notability. I do so with due consideration and in good faith (see item (1) in my original post here). I beleive item C2 in WP:BEFORE indicates that promptly prodding questionable new articles is not necessarily best practice. I do appreciate that an article on a non-notable subject is never going to amount to anything. I'm not so convinced that it is better to put it (and potentially its creator) out of its presumed eventual misery quickly. But anyways, I'm not clear about the constructive request associated with (3). I am currently a little more likely to deprod marginal articles if they have been created recently. Are you suggesting that we should be using the same or lower standard for recently created articles? ~Kvng (talk) 17:55, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm saying that if you're giving a reason, and you have a valid reason, express the valid reason. Unless you prefer giving an invalid reason, and then having someone like me come along and take issue with the reason you gave, only for you to respond, "Well, I actually had a valid reason even though I didn't say what it was." I'm not suggesting more words, I'm suggesting that what you say your reason is should match what your reason is. Largoplazo (talk) 19:16, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

OK. I understand. You would like my deprod to include a valid Keep justification like one would expect in an AfD discussion. I do try to do this and I will try to do it better and more consistently.

You had three bullet points and I had a couple questions above. Is there anything else for us to work out? ~Kvng (talk) 20:04, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

In response to (2), I was cutting you some slack for dePRODding if you feel that the PRODder overlooked a strong enough potential for a finding of notability when you feel notability can't be dismissed for a bona fide reason. I was also reminding you that you have some time to consider it and don't have to rush to dePROD if you think a little more time spent later in the day or the following day might reveal the PRODder to have been reasonably motivated. I wasn't prescribing any specific course of action, just pointing out that you have some breathing room.

C2 in WP:BEFORE is inapplicable for notability because, as I've discussed earlier, if the topic really isn't notable, then no amount of work on the article will change that. And in that case, as I noted, you are actually doing the creator a disservice if he labors on, oblivious to the eventual demise of the article anyway.

Re your (3), "I am currently a little more likely to deprod marginal articles if they have been created recently": again, WP:NAECOLN. If a topic's lack of notability is inarguable, leave a PROD alone. If its lack of notability is inarguable and the article has been there for only a short while before it was PRODded, leave the PROD alone. If you want to come back a day later and you feel the topic arguably has notability, then dePROD. That's my recommendation. Largoplazo (talk) 20:33, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Here's what I hope is some constructive criticism. I was one of those who posted a comment on your talk page after you deprodded an article I nominated, Forward in Faith North America, which was subsequently deleted (and redirected) at AfD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Forward in Faith North America. My issue was the reason you gave for deprodding - your reason was because there were other WP articles that linked to the article. The problem is that is not a valid reason for keeping an article. There isn't any policy on WP:N or WP:GNG that mentions internal linking as a reason to keep an article. I also note that you gave a different reason at AfD, which suggests to me that you may have only taken a cursory look at the article before deprodding, but took more time at AfD. I think you should have looked for sources before deprodding, not afterward. The feeling I get from this is that you deprod articles more for ideological reasons than WP policy reasons. I don't think you necessarily have to fix an article after deprodding (most people who vote keep at AfD don't improve the article either). But I think you should only deprod when you can give, in the edit summary, a valid reason for keeping an article that could be given at AfD - which I think is in the spirit of the rules and would be much more helpful to the project. FuriouslySerene (talk) 13:51, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

In this case, as with many others, I was not confident that the article would survive AfD because there was not a solid case from notability. I was confident that this was not the kind of uncontroversial deletion that prod was designed to handle because there were some legitimate references and, because of the incoming links, the topic would at least be useful as a redirect. I was not wrong about this as there was a lively AfD discussion and the article survived as a redirect. There definitely have been a couple cases where I have misjudged and an article snowballs through AfD. I try to learn from these. ~Kvng (talk) 14:14, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Well no, the article wasn't "kept", it was deleted, and a new redirect was created in its place. That's not the same as a simple redirect, as there is no page history anymore. And I do not agree that 7 delete votes, and 1 other keep vote besides your own vote, is a "lively" discussion. I do feel like you missed the point of my comment though. FuriouslySerene (talk) 15:43, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Sorry if I missed the point. I'll keep trying. I think that the best possible path for Forward in Faith North America would have been if the original prodder had simply boldly redirected the article to Forward in Faith. This is option is clearly discussed in WP:BEFORE (C4). If more editors would consider these deletion alternatives, we'd save a lot of time in prod and AfD. When I said I thought the AfD discussion was lively, I meant that it did not WP:SNOWball, there was consensus but it was not unanimous, the discussion was non-trivial. This indicated to me that the prod was not entirely uncontroversial and that deprodding was therefore justified. ~Kvng (talk) 18:09, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Reaching back here to comment on something I may have overlooked in FuriouslySerene's comments but that was quoted and emphasized by CorbieVreccan below. I do absolutely spend more time per article on AfDs than on prods. Per prod policy, there is a very low bar for deprodding (no justification is required when deprodding). I don't deprod without justification but I do deprod when I feel that the deletion is potentially controversial. So, if for instance there is only one solid source cited to establish notability I can hope that I or another editor will be able to find another if the article goes to AfD. I do take issue with your impression that I am only taking cursory looks at articles before deprodding. I have described my process in my response to "random" deprodding above. ~Kvng (talk) 20:40, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

I want to highlight and endorse what FuriouslySerene said above: [These large numbers of deprods] "suggests to me that you may have only taken a cursory look at the article before deprodding.... I think you should have looked for sources before deprodding, not afterward. The feeling I get from this is that you deprod articles more for ideological reasons than WP policy reasons. I don't think you necessarily have to fix an article after deprodding (most people who vote keep at AfD don't improve the article either). But I think you should only deprod when you can give, in the edit summary, a valid reason for keeping an article that could be given at AfD - which I think is in the spirit of the rules and would be much more helpful to the project."
Additionally, while "completely unsourced and flagged for three years" may not be in the current reasons to delete an article via prod, it is always a reason to delete unsourced text from articles. When an article is 100% unsourced, and no one has bothered to respond to the call for sources, all the content can and should be deleted. If that leaves an empty page, that means the whole page needs to go. Those are the sorts of pages this user has been deprodding, in my experience. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 19:42, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Material that is contested or is likely to be contested should be sourced and is subject to deletion. I'm not certain, but it sort of sounds like you're saying that all unsourced material should be deleted (in the 7 day prod period). If I understand you correctly that seems like a pretty extreme position to take. ~Kvng (talk) 20:25, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

It's not extreme, it's policy: Wales, Jimmy: "Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information", WikiEN-l, May 16, 2006: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced."[3] See also WP:BURDEN. This has been the policy for at least ten years now. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 21:16, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

There's a difference between unsourced and unverifiable. The former can be fixed by adding a citation, only the latter requires that the material must be removed. WP:BURDEN does encourage editors to add citations to verifiable but unsourced statements instead of removing them, and notes that it may be appropriate to tag material rather than removing it. Hut 8.5 22:00, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

I've been only sort-of following this conversation, but I want to say that I agree with Kvng that the notion that all unsourced content should be removed if not sourced within 7 days is an extreme position. Template:Citation needed exists and is widely used for a reason, and there are plenty of times where it is appropriate to tag information in an article as unsourced rather than just removing it (and whatever Jimbo Wales said a decade ago doesn't change what is widely accepted in practice today). Tagging something as unsourced will let anyone who reads it both know that it isn't verified as correct and that, if they are aware of a source that verifies the information, they should add it. I also want to mention that removing content or prodding an article without checking for sources yourself is just as lazy and deprodding an article without giving a good reason. While policy allows you to do either, neither best furthers the goal of having good sourced articles on notable topics. I further want to add that there are lots of valid reasons for deprodding an article besides those that could be made at AFD. Prod is not intended to be used just because you have a good case for deletion, but for when you don't reasonably expect anyone to object to deletion and don't think a discussion would be helpful. For example, if an article has been around for many years with edits by numerous users, or been assessed as high importance by a wikiproject, those seem like reasonable reasons to object to a prod (but certainly not valid arguments to keep an article at AFD). I often get the impression that many people always prod articles before taking them to AFD, but again, that isn't the way prod is intended to be used, and anyone should feel free to ask for a discussion if they feel one could be helpful even if they haven't personally found sources. Calathan (talk) 22:29, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your input here. I will try to start taking WikiProject rankings into account in my WP:PRODPATROLling. One motivator (besides all the love and encouragement I am receiving here) for my patrolling is that I noticed some of the 2008 vintage articles I had been working on at the WP:ORPHANAGE were silently disappearing. And I said to myself, "Prod is not intended to be used just because you have a good case for deletion, but for when you don't reasonably expect anyone to object to deletion." ~Kvng (talk) 22:54, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

URu2Si2 an form of uranium with disitinct physcial properties like no other element. is unacceptable, not only unsourced. I'm not able to tag the article to be deleted, because it's allegedly tagged, but it's not. No single byte of discussion Talk:URu2Si2.Xx236 (talk) 07:32, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Now I understand, the problem is described in Hastatic order, so maybe a redirect would be useful, but not an form of uranium with disitinct physcial properties like no other element. Xx236 (talk) 10:02, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

This is a case in point for User:Kvng. You deprodded it (which I discovered after I'd prodded it, so I've reversed myself on that) with the rationale "no reason given for deletion. verifiable". I will grant you that the PROD was posted with no reason. On the other hand, the article, as it stands, is not only not verifiable, it's false. URu₂Si₂ is not "a form of uranium", with or without unnamed properties distinguishing it from "every other element". It isn't an element at all, it isn't a form of uranium at all. It's a chemical compound consisting of three elements, of which uranium is one, and of which the other two are ruthenium and silicon. The article says not one true thing. If I had come across the reasonless PROD before you did, I would have added a PROD2 tag citing this rationale (unless I had the time to do sufficient research to replace it with something substantive and correct). I can't say that you were wrong to remove the PROD tag based on its lack of reason, because normally that's a proper course of action, but I'm also pointing out that it would have been better if you'd realized what the situation was. Largoplazo (talk) 12:01, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

I deproded based on the fact that the subject potentially deserves to be included in the encyclopedia. I verified with a simple Google search that that URu2Si2 is a thing of some note. Sure the content is was crap but it got fixed pretty quickly, didn't it?

Looking at the new AfD, this has now become a case in point for my patrolling activities. There's not a strong case for delete here let alone the uncontroversial case you're supposed to have for prod. ~Kvng (talk) 13:14, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

If "deserves to be included in the encyclopedia" was justification for keeping a defective article, then we wouldn't have WP:A1 or WP:A3 or WP:G1 deletion. We'd just say "It deserves to be here" and leave it empty or with uninformative or nonsensical content until someone came along and fixed the text. See WP:TNT. I think you're confusing the question of valid topics with the question of valid articles. I think you're confusing the question of valid topics with the question of valid articles.

Yes, it got fixed because I nominated it for AFD deletion and someone noticed that and decided to do something it. The same could have happened if someone patrolling PROD submissions had decided to do the same thing—the PROD grace period provides that opportunity. On the other hand, in the case of a dePRODing that no one follows up with an AFD submission, it could have sat there for years unnoticed by anyone with a critical eye and providing false, useless information the entire time. Now it's fine and it should be kept. In the state it was in, it needed to be gone. It was uncontroversial that the article that it was wasn't a valid Wikipedia article.Largoplazo (talk) 15:27, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

• I've looked at a couple of these cases – uranium ruthenium silicide and langsuir. Kvng seems to have a good feel for this work and merits commendation for his diligence in preserving these notable topics. He should please continue to patrol and remove prods of this kind. Andrew D. (talk) 17:26, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

• Are you truly of the opinion that an article on uranium ruthenium silicide should have been left here solely and incorrectly explaining its topic as "an form of uranium with disitinct physcial properties like no other element"?

To be clear: Under no circumstances would I have left the article untagged for some kind of deletion and with the false information sitting there. So the very least I would have done would be to remove it. That would have left an empty article. Empty articles are subject to speedy deletion under criterion A3. Therefore, it's very hard to argue that Wikipedia means to encourage editors to stand in the way of deletion of articles with nothing but misleading information in them, however desirable the topic might be if someone were to write an acceptable article for them. Largoplazo (talk) 19:24, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

• Largoplazo should please read about alternatives to deletion which we prefer as a matter of policy. In this case, what we have here is a newbie editor trying to develop from the topic hastatic order. They edited that topic and then started URu2Si2 8 minutes later. Within 5 minutes, this stub was nominated for speedy deletion as A7. This nomination was clearly erroneous as the stub was already making a plausible claim of significance. The hasty nature of the nomination was a violation of WP:BITE and we should note that the new editor has not edited since. The speedy was correctly dismissed but the nominator then doubled-down by using the prod process. This was also erroneous because the prod process is only for uncontroversial deletion and so is not appropriate for an article which someone has started in good faith just one hour before. The prod, like the speedy, was correctly dismissed. Largoplazo then repeated the prod which was doubly mistaken and then took the matter to AFD -- a fourth attempt to delete the page which is also being dismissed. These repeated attempts to delete the topic were a waste of everyone's time and it could all have been avoided by either improving the initial stub or by editing the page to redirect to the parent topic of hastatic order. This seems like a classic case of Maslow's hammer. Please expand your toolkit by first considering alternatives to deletion. Andrew D. (talk) 09:40, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

• We delete false information instantly. Period. (If you feel this is "controversial", then we must live in separate universes.) Removing the false information from that article would have left an empty article. The fact that we have A3 means that Wikipedia does not have a principle that every time somebody adds a title to article space with nothing valid underneath it, we need to drop what we're doing, research a topic about which we know nothing, and add valid content to it, rather than having it deleted summarily. Yes, even if the topic is notable. A3 doesn't say "unless the article is about a notable topic". The article still has to have valid content. This also why the the process for requesting articles doesn't consist of "Create an empty page, and someone will come along and fill it in for you." There was no legitimate basis for controversy regarding the deletion of that article. Largoplazo (talk) 14:38, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

The controversy I suspected in the URu2Si2 prod was that there was no reason given by the nom for deletion and, after doing my standard deprod research, I couldn't come up with a reason myself. ~Kvng (talk) 21:09, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Not a single person has disagreed with that reason for removing a PROD tag, and I have pointed that out to you before. So would you please stop bringing it up over and over when it isn't a point of contention and isn't furthering the discussion that is actually being held about reasonable grounds for adding and removing PROD tags and, therefore, can only confuse the issue? Largoplazo (talk) 23:36, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

I think Kvng is acting in good faith. However, s/he has deprodded a number of articles I consider spam. At the same time I cannot say that I am right more often that they; sometimes articles I consider spam are rescued by the community and I am proven wrong. Nonetheless I would like to ask Kvng to read my Signpost op-ed on the article I consider promotional spam (Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-04-08/Op-ed), and recall it next time you see this type of an article. I am now off to AfD Frosmo, which he deprodded due to depth of coverage. I remain unconvinced this depth exists; the coverage is passing/routine/self-publish/promotional. But I am fine discussing this at AfD, however - this AfD will delay me from cleaning more spam, or creating an article about Korean king on pl Wikipedia I promised to some friends recently. Is defending what often is Yellow Pages-like spam by paid-for editors who undermine Wikipedia really worth it, Kvng? I was once an inclusionist, but this kind of spam made me abandon this position years ago. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:46, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

I have read your piece and I don't disagree that there are a lot of articles that don't meet guidelines and should be dealt with. I do a fair amount of tagging, prodding, merging and redirecting myself. I think the difference is that I don't see an urgency to this. Most of this material is orphaned and so is unlikely to be seen by readers. With reduced editor participation, development of Wikipedia articles happens relatively slowly these days. Deletions should also happen slowly. Most of what I'm doing as a WP:PRODPATROLler is enforcing policy that prod should not be use for potentially controversial deletion and that WP:BEFORE and WP:ATD should be given due consideration. ~Kvng (talk) 15:21, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

This conversation is now continuing at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Kvng. In addition to some repetition of issues we've discussed above, there's an assertion that it is inappropriate to deprod a proposal whose 7-day waiting period has expired (but an administrator has not yet acted on the proposal). I don't see that in the policy anywhere and I don't think it should be policy. I don't beleive 7-days is enough time for adequate review and I personally frequently fall behind and so am sometimes reviewing past the 11th hour. ~Kvng (talk) 22:27, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Proposal to make notifications of prodding and deprodding a requirement

Courtesy is important and to some degree mandated by WP:CIVIL. I suggest we should stop making it a nice afterthought and start requesting it, by changing sentences like "The article's creator or other significant contributors should ideally be left a message at their talk page(s) informing them of the proposed article deletion..." and "Consider notifying the editors involved in the PROD by placing a {{Deprod}} tag on their user talk page.". Let me be clear: I am not saying that a nomination or an objection which does not include a notification should be invalid. I am just saying that we should make this more then an idle "oh by the way you may want to be nice" requirement. If I prod an article I always leave a message because I think it's DISCOURTESY to suggest someone's work for deletion and not notify them. This is particularly important for new editors, who may not monitor the watchlist, and don't even know their work may be targeted for deletion. I teach classes where I assign students to Wikipedia, and occasionally their work gets deleted (I tell them to work in sandboxes but some don't listen...) - and in most cases nobody bothers informing them of the reason; by the time I learn of the problem the article and its history is deleted, with me and the student none the wiser. I have also seen many new non-student contributors annoyed by this, which they consider, and rightly so, a lack of respect: "I tried to contribute and Wikipedia deleted my work without so much as an explanation". For more experienced editors showing a bit of respect for their work would also be nice (wouldn't YOU want to be notified is someone nominates your work for deletion?). For the record I have never ever been left the Deprod template, people deprod my nominations without usually bothering to follow through - I spend several minutes considering a prod, only, often enough, to have it discarded with a common few second meaningless summary "I think WP:ITSNOTABLE". Sigh. Let's at least make incivil behavior discouraged by the rules (no penalties against people who don't follow through, except we may just tell them eventually to follow the rules, pretty please, and respect those whose work they are trying to undo one way or another). PS. Ping User:CUA 27 who commented on this idea a while ago in the discussions above. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:15, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose If you think it NEEDS to be deleted no matter what, why are you even using the PROD process in the first place? Take it straight to AfD, don't try and make PROD into AfD. Alternatively, watchlist the article, or track your own contributions--if you're PRODding too many articles for that to be effective, then you're probably not using the PROD process in the manner in which it was intended. Remember, the editor doing the PROD in the first place must have a good faith belief that no other editor in good standing will object to the deletion. Jclemens (talk) 05:09, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

PA on AfD by PROD patroller Kvng

Per this diff, User:Kvng made several personal attacks in an AfD, and then tells the nominator "If you're not willing or able to do the work required from your side, please refrain from doing nominations." (his bold, not mine).

I have not commented on the AfD, but one of the reasons for the AfD is that somebody didn't use WP:COMMONNAME for the article title, and thus several people could not find significant sources to get past WP:ENN. Many of the initial comments on the AfD indicate that there are many small mentions only, including an editor I know will find absolutely anything that has even a hint of the topic in it. That's why it was prodded, and that's why it was AfDed.

Kvng removed the prod, added nothing to either the article or the talk page to explain the DEPROD, and then he attacked other editors in the AfD based on information he did not share. PAs are never appropriate, nor is leaving a problem for someone else to fix and then berating them for not fixing it when they have no way of ascertaining what the problem is. My view is that if a PROD patroller can fix a problem, they should, but if they don't want to do it, they at least need to leave a pointer, and that was not done in this case. I also don't particularly care if anyone thinks "I'm going after" the editor - if they didn't engage in the behavior, I'd have nothing to say, because there's nothing wrong with the article itself (once you figure out exactly what the source of the problem is).

My question is: how many discussions need to be had, and how many problematic actions need to be shown, for the pattern to actually change? There have been several discussions involving Kvng here and on ANI, he claimed he was changing his editing conduct per some previous discussion, and as of three days ago, he's still deprodding with no rationale. Then Kvng PAs an editor on an AfD? I'm sorry, but if PROD patrolling by an editor is going to lead to this sort of editor interaction, then that editor needs to stop patrolling and find some other task that isn't going to lead to editor interaction problems. I see this going right down the same road as SiTrew. MSJapan (talk) 17:33, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't consider that a personal attack. I criticized Namiba's actions at PROD and AFD. A personal attack is when you criticize the person. Because I try to be generous with my WP:AGF, I do not consider the discussion on this page and elsewhere about my deprodding behavior to be a personal attack.

As far as Kings County Democratic County Committee goes, I gave my deprod reason in the edit comment. For everyone's convenience here, I have added full details to the talk page of the article but you can also find the same information in the article's history.

The assertion that a deprodder must improve a deprodded article has been made several times. I have rejected that suggestion and I have support for this in prod policy and from other editors. I'm open to continuing the discussion on this issue but I would prefer if it were done so as a specific proposal to modify prod policy.

You are asking me, if I can't or won't improve a deprodded article, to "leave a pointer". As per my improvements position, I don't feel obliged to do that. I do normally participate in any subsequent AfD discussions and regularly contribute comprehensive sourcing and other improvement suggestions there.

Just to give you a balanced picture here, I do also spend a lot of time improving other articles in the encyclopedia. I feel my time is better spent improving articles within my areas of expertise. One of my favorite things about working on Wikipedia is that editors are allowed to decide where they spend their time. Frankly, the time I'm spending here responding to MSJapan is not a good choice for me. ~Kvng (talk) 18:24, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't think that's a personal attack. On the other hand, Kvng, there's really no reason to comment on an editor's "skill" at nominating for AfD rather than just explaining your rationale and leaving it at that. Consensus is determined by strength of argument, not number of votes, so the article wouldn't be deleted if you provided strong and policy-based rationale for keeping and the other user didn't supply a strong and policy-based rationale for deletion. ~ Rob^Talk 18:32, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

I do not see that as a personal attack. Kvng followed the PROD policy and did explain why he removed the PROD. If you believe the PROD policy should be changed to include more restrictions you should start an RFC. -- GB fan 18:48, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Kvng certainly spoke undiplomatically in that discussion, but I fail to see the problem with the "pattern of behavior". The PROD was improper, as it did not cite a valid reason for deletion. That alone should have been enough to dePROD. It's extremely unfair to accuse of Kvng of "leaving a problem for someone else to fix." By that logic, any editor who sees a problem and doesn't immediately fix it is leaving a problem for someone else to fix. Kvng fixed one problem (an improper PROD), but has no obligation to improve the article further. Remember that we're all WP:VOLUNTEERs and there's no WP:DEADLINE. Pburka (talk) 18:57, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

• I'm kind of tired of this continual sniping between Kvng and MSJapan. Only a few days ago, there was an ANI involving Kvng's actions where MSJapan commented very, very heavily and there was no consensus to sanction Kvng in any way. Following that, I suggested to MSJapan that, while it doesn't violate policy, it probably would be unproductive for him to continually monitor Kvng's PRODding. He has not; he continues to engage Kvng. Since the ANI (and remember, this was only a few days ago), MSJapan has e-mailed at least one admin requesting sanctions for Kvng (the admin, HighInBC, referred the matter to his talk page, and ultimately declined to do anything), AND started this discussion. The continual drumbeat for action against Kvng after being denied multiple times in such a short amount of time smacks of WP:IDHT by MSJapan. I also agree with Kvng's assessment that some of MSJapan's AfDs have been sloppy; at times it frankly seems to me that MSJapan AfDs articles that Kvng has declined PRODs on mostly because he doesn't trust Kvng. For example, he's nominated articles that have five or more sources. pbp 19:03, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Once it gets to the point of WP:FORUMSHOP, it rarely ends well... I hope that MSJapan decides to drop the WP:Boomerang before its too late. Anyway, this is definitely the wrong forum, the only place to discuss it at this point would be a new thread at AN/ANI. (Too soon for Arbcom) Monty₈₄₅ 22:15, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Deprod after 7 days

There's an assertion that it is inappropriate to deprod a proposal whose 7-day waiting period has expired (but an administrator has not yet acted on the proposal). I don't see that in the policy anywhere and I don't think it should be policy. I don't beleive 7-days is enough time for adequate review and I personally frequently fall behind and so am sometimes reviewing past the 11th hour. But if we can get get a consensus here otherwise, I'm happy to keep my hand off of these. ~Kvng (talk) 22:39, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

If a PROD has run for 7 days deprodding it without a very good reason is simply disruption to make a point. Personally I think that deprodding (at all) without at least giving a solid reason and at a minimum showing that the problems can be addressed causes harm to the encyclopedia by 1) allowing articles which do not meet and may not ever be able to meet Wikipedia's minimum standards to continue to exist and 2) forcing a massive expenditure of volunteer time to AfD articles which would otherwise have been deleted by PROD. Jbh^Talk 22:45, 12 June 2016 (UTC) Ammended Jbh^Talk 23:16, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

So you're saying it should be allowed but there needs to be a higher bar than used when deprodding before the deadline? If I've understood correctly, I find that proposal unnecessarily complicated and would prefer a simple prohibition over defining a new class of deprod. ~Kvng (talk) 22:59, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

No, it should not be allowed except in exceptional circumstances ie if the DePRODed is actually going to fix the article. You can also read my opinion as never but allow IAR deprod to fix the article. In particular I would consider deprodding articles at the end of their cycle to be disruptive editing for the reasons I gave above. Jbh^Talk 23:06, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't beleive 7-days is enough time - This certainly makes it seem like you view removing it after 7 days as ok because you disagree with the policy, which is based on 7 days. You can start an RfC to make that a longer period of time, of course, but you should not try to subvert the rules because you disagree with them. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:19, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Removing a prod after it has been on the article at least 7 days is not against policy. Anyone can remove a prod at any time for any reason. It can be disruptive if someone is massively removing prods. -- GB fan 23:25, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

I didn't say it was? But prod is based on a 7 day cycle. The above was just a symptom of Kvng not liking the prod policy, which is based on a 7 day window. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 00:52, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

• The PROD template states that if the template has been in place for seven days, the article may be deleted. Third paragraph of PROD: "A nominated article is marked for at least seven days; if nobody objects, it is considered by an uninvolved admin, who reviews the article and may delete it or may remove the PROD tag." You are neither uninvolved nor an admin, thus you may not remove those tags. As a patroller, by the way, you;re expected to know the policy you function under very well, and you clearly do not if you didn't see that. MSJapan (talk) 23:10, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Try the first sentence instead. Uncontroversial. If deprodded at any time, it is not uncontroversial, and it may not be deleted under WP:PROD. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:18, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe is 100% correct and on target. Jclemens (talk) 03:31, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

• The assertion is incorrect. A prodded article can be deprodded anytime, even post-deletion it will be automatically undeleted, even if impolitely without a reason. Jbhunley is getting ahead of himself asserting deletion, one deprod is not disruption. A slew of deprods without participation at subsequent AfDs is more like the line of disruption. It is certainly appropriate to revert multiple prods by an editor exhibiting poor judgement in prodding. If there is any dispute, go to AfD. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:16, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
• Deprodding an article at any stage is allowed, whether the PROD has been on the article 7 minutes or more than 7 days. And articles deleted via PROD are always undeleted when someone asks. You should give a reason but it is not required. If you think it might survive an afd remove the PROD. -- GB fan 23:18, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
• I don't like the idea of removing after 7 days, but I don't read the policy as explicitly forbidding it and it doesn't seem like a huge deal (for the reasons GB fan mentions, i.e. Kvng could just request they be undeleted instead). I might support a change in the wording to make 7 days explicit, but this seems like a distraction from the bigger issue via the ANI thread of hit-and-miss judgment. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:24, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
• Note This discussion was opened by OP in response to an ANI discussion re their multiple dePRODS [4] rather than as a general question so that discussion is needed for context. As it this thread at NPP [5]] Jbh^Talk 23:24, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

• If we allow deprod at any time, if a PROD expires and an admin isn't there to jump on it, we essentially keep the article if a patroller gets to it first? That's basically what you're saying, and basically renders the entire PROD procedure meaningless. It might as well be seven minutes and be kept when an admin doesn't close it right away. PROD is a low priority admin action, but by saying it can be deprodded after seven days, it abrogates the admin's role in review.MSJapan (talk) 23:30, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

• So are you saying we should allow an admin to delete the article and then have someone go to REFUND ask for it back and then another admin restores it? That is overly bureaucratic. -- GB fan 23:47, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

• If articles are being deprodded after 7 days, in the reasonable judgement of any editor, and these articles are not being SNOW deleted at AfD, then this is prima facie evidence that the PROF period of 7 days needs to be increased. This need is not surprising, given that the editor activity generally is endlessly slowing, and newcomers are not restrained from creating new articles. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:41, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

• Except that that isn't permitted by the PROD procedure. Step 3 says: "The article is first checked and then deleted by an administrator seven days after nomination (or any time after seven days that an administrator reviews the article). It may be undeleted upon request. If the reviewing administrator does not agree with the deletion they may remove the PROD tag instead of deleting the article." Note that it requires admin input no matter how long it takes once the prod expires. It does not say that a deprod is OK because the article is still awaiting review by an admin after the 7 days expires. Adding more time isn't going to improve the admin review process - it's just going to cause the articles to have more daily logs, and then the same thing is going to continue to happen, but just that a user will remove the tag after 14 days instead. There needs to be a cutoff, and the point of PROD is to reduce AfD load, and it can't do that if prods are removed when they've completed the defined process to be deleted. It completely removes the utility of the PROD process to make it longer than AfD. MSJapan (talk) 23:51, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

• You sound like an overly aggressive Prodder. Why do you not maintain the automatic ProdLog? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:54, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
• Did you read the lead of the prod right below a sentence similar to the one you keep quoting? It says "The first objection kills the PROD, and anyone may object as long as the PROD tag is present." Anyone can object and remove the PROD even after it has technically expired. -- GB fan 23:57, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
• The above two editors are correct. MSJapan, the only thing that happens after seven days is that it's fair game for an admin to delete it. There is no point after a PROD is placed, regardless of the article's deletion status, where objecting to the PROD doesn't restore the article and foreclose it from further PROD eligibility. Jclemens (talk) 03:34, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Above we have discussed increasing the 7-day period. There was support for this. I want to push this forward. I have not had the time to figure out what the next step is. There is a link to the issue we're discussing here but I think they can be discussed separately. I did not deprod expired proposal today to make a point or try to push for a longer review period. I had been away for a while and simply reviewed the oldest proposals first.

Let's please stop arguing about what the policy says and decide what we want the policy to say. ~Kvng (talk) 00:04, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

• Considering you can request a pretty much automatic WP:REFUND on a prod deletion, not letting someone de-prod during the admin backlog just creates pointless extra work for admins. Either the de-prods are good or bad, the timing really doesn't have anything to do with it. Monty₈₄₅ 00:06, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
• Unless someone is advocating that only admins can remove a expired PROD, there isn't much to say here. The policy says that anyone can remove the PROD as long as it is on the article. If someone wants to restrict who can remove a prod after it has expired they need to start an rfc. -- GB fan 00:11, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

I will grant you that the wording is a bit ambiguous but it seems very clear to me that process-wise the intention here is that after 7 days it is admin only. De-PRODing after 7 days by anyone leaves the process too open to corruption by editors like Kvng whose judgement is controversial at best. Jytdog (talk) 00:20, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Are you saying that we should only allow an admin to remove the PROD or delete the article if the prod is expired? Then make the editor that would have wanted the article saved go to REFUND and ask for it back. This seems overly bureaucratic to me. -- GB fan 00:26, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

That's exactly what used to happen, IIRC, and the articles tended to be userfied. MSJapan (talk) 03:39, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

I am proposing to clarify the policy so it is consistent. See below. And what you write makes no sense - of course only admins can delete an article. Jytdog (talk) 00:28, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

• Considering that REFUNDS of obviously non-notable etc articles are placed in draft it user space rather than remaining in article space that is precicely what I am advocating. Jbh^Talk 00:43, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

If you want an article deletion that sticks, use AfD, not PROD. Don't try and make PROD into AfD, use the AfD process if you want AfD-like results. Jclemens (talk) 03:38, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Missing the point. A REFUND is usually not placed in Main space and the very act of asking for a REFUND means there is someone who is interested in working on the article. A dePROD means none of that and it is very likely that it will allow a non-policy compliant article, which no one is going to work on, to sit in Main space. Either that or articles which have no chance of passing AfD will then clog up AfD. Jbh^Talk 03:52, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Considering Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Supercute! went for went four weeks and closed "no consensus with no prejudice against relist", I wholeheartedly agree with not clogging up AfD. The WP processes do not work as efficiently as they used to, because there's less activity. I remember there being upwards of 40 RfAs a day, and anybody who was here for six months and managed to not piss anyone off pretty much got it, but you had no chance if you got established for a year, because you'd had time to make a mistake. The RfAs had upwards of 200 voters, if not more, easily. Now we have maybe one a month, and if you get 90 votes, that's good. We cannot overload the processes that require more work to complete, or they will never be completed. If you don't believe me, go look at the FfD backlog. MSJapan (talk) 04:51, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Jbhunley, 1) REFUNDS of PROD materials go back in mainspace. If an admin wants to move it from mainspace, they would have to justify that action separately. The fact that many users request userification or draft status is simple politeness. 2) I disagree with your characterizations of de-PROD vs. REFUND request. 3) Non-policy-compliant articles which are de-PRODed should go to AfD. If they're egregiously noncompliant and/or the PRODding editor reasonably suspects that someone will object to a PROD, then the AfD or Speedy deletion processes should be used instead. Jclemens (talk) 05:18, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Proposal

The following discussion 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.

---

The lead already says: "A nominated article is marked for at least seven days; if nobody objects, it is considered by an uninvolved admin, who reviews the article and may delete it or may remove the PROD tag. "

To make the rest of the policy consistent with that, the following changes are proposed: (NOTE - The only changes are the underlined words. Everything else in the policy remains untouched otherwise; nothing is deleted in this proposal Jytdog (talk) 06:37, 13 June 2016 (UTC)))

• In the lead:

;There are three steps to the PROD process:

1. To nominate an article, place the {{subst:Proposed deletion|concern=reason for proposed deletion}} tag on the page. This is automatically converted to a {{proposed deletion/dated}} which lists the article in Category:Proposed deletion. You should notify the article's creator or other significant contributors by adding the {{subst:Proposed deletion notify|Name of Article‎}} tag or other appropriate text to contributor talk pages.
2. If anybody objects to the deletion (usually by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} tag—see full instructions below) within seven days of the PROD tag being placed, the proposal is aborted and may not be re-proposed.
3. The article is first checked and then deleted by an administrator seven days after nomination (or any time after seven days that an administrator reviews the article). It may be undeleted upon request. If the reviewing administrator does not agree with the deletion they may remove the PROD tag instead of deleting the article.

• In the "Objecting" section (with notes removed only to reduce clutter)
  

To object to and therefore permanently prevent a proposed deletion during the seven days after the PROD tag has been placed,remove the {{proposed deletion/dated}} tag from the article. You are encouraged, but not required, to also:

1. Explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion, either in the edit summary or on the talk page.
2. Consider notifying the editors involved in the PROD by placing a {{Deprod}} tag on their user talk page.
3. Add or modify an {{Old prod full}} tag on the article's talk page, to prevent renomination under Proposed deletion. It will then be listed at Category:Past proposed deletion candidates for easy tracking.
4. Consider improving the article to address the concerns raised.

If anyone, including the article creator, removes a {{proposed deletion/dated}} tag from an article during the seven days after the PROD tag was placed, do not replace it, even if the tag was apparently removed in bad faith. This excludes removals that are clearly not an objection to deletion, such as page blanking or obvious vandalism, and tags removed by banned users may be restored. If you still believe that the article needs to be deleted, or that the article should be deleted but with discussion, list it on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion.

-- Jytdog (talk) 00:28, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

NOTE people are for some reason interpreting this as meaning there must be deletion after 7 days. All this proposal does is say that the PROD tag can only be removed by anyone in the 7 days after it is placed. After that, only an admin can remove it, and that will happen when the admin decides to delete or keep. Jytdog (talk) 06:32, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

!votes

• Support as proposer Jytdog (talk) 00:49, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
• Support Once the ProD has run its course it needs to be assessed by an admin. While it is possible to request an automatic REFUND of a PROD deleted article the refunds are generally placed in Draft or User space so they can be improved rather than staying in Main space. Jbh^Talk 00:54, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - As long as the prod is still on the article anyone should be able to remove it. There is no running the course for a prod. At AfD we don't stop editors from making comments after it has run its course of 7 days. This proposal is going the wrong way. -- GB fan 01:16, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
• Strong oppose - our mission is not to delete as many articles as possible, but to improve the encyclopedia. Whether intended to or not, this proposal will unnecessarily tilt the balance towards deletion by making it more difficult to oppose a PROD. PROD is for uncontroversial deletions. If the prod is opposed, then it is, ipso facto, controversial. This should be obvious. If an editor is concerned about their PRODs being opposed, then they should select the articles they PROD more carefully. Pburka (talk) 02:53, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - The only thing magic about administrators in this case is their possession of the delete button. The spirit of PROD policy is to give editors easy access to the keep button. The proposal introduces unnecessary complexity and does not further the spirit of the policy. ~Kvng (talk) 02:28, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose That's not what PROD is for, when in doubt send it to AfD. See my other comments below. Jclemens (talk) 03:30, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose as outright silly, given that any editor can request that a prodded article is restored at WP:REFUND. Based on the WP:REFUND process, the time limit to remove a prod is infinite. It extends even after deletion. Adding a bureaucratic step by which an admin deletes the article and then the editor who opposed the PROD must request its undeletion fails WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY. ~ Rob^Talk 03:31, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
• Support as a step in the right direction, though more work needs to be done. I'm not sure why there is a sense that REFUND will be inundated all of a sudden, or that it's suddenly bureaucratic; it's never been a problem before, and the fact that we need a hard and fast rule on when PROD finishes, or PROD doesn't work, outweighs the potential pitfalls, especially when uncontroversial prods tend to be articles that have been dead for years with retired creators. At its core, PROD is not a keep policy, it is a deletion policy. The keep policy is WP:GNG and its derivatives. MSJapan (talk) 04:57, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose: Per Rob13 mostly. The people who are supporting this seem to believe that anything prodded MUST be deleted THE MINUTE the seven days are up. If it's going to be deleted, why does it matter if it takes 7 days 1 hour? Or 8 days? Or 9 days? WP:NODEADLINE. pbp 05:17, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose PROD is, by design, an easy to stop process for the least controversial articles which do not meet a CSD criteria. If the process was intended to have articles deleted after seven days without opposition, they would be automatically deleted by a bot after seven days. This proposal shows a blatant misunderstanding of how the PROD process is supposed to work. --kelapstick^(bainuu) 05:19, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose, a PROD, at its core, is a proposed deletion of an article by one editor. This proposed deletion has no strong weight in deletion policy until the article reaches the magic 7 days. Any editor may remove the PROD at any time. This is built into the policy. After seven days, an administrator may assess the article and endorse the PROD and delete the article without objection to restoration, or reject the PROD and list the article at AFD. There is no requirement on the administrator to delete the article if the PROD is uncontested. Nakon 05:22, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Comments

I've made this subsection so as to delineate where the changes are and maintain the integrity of the change section. MSJapan (talk) 00:37, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

• So are we going to do this in pieces? We're not yet addressing the issue of whether or not it is permissible to remove a PROD after the process has completed. MSJapan (talk) 00:37, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

There is ambiguity in the policy, clearly. Jytdog (talk) 00:39, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

That seems to be sort of important, though. We've already ascertained that removing a PROD kills the PROD. IMO, you could have BOLDed that change (normally, that is). What needs to be delineated is at what point the PROD has completed, and there having been no objection in that defined time, the PROD becomes static and stays until such time as an admin reviews the article. We didn't need that when we had a ton of admins, because nothing stayed around long enough to be a problem. We do now, because the process is being entirely circumvented. MSJapan (talk) 03:30, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

• I would lie to see "You are encouraged, but not required" be changed to "you should address the reasons given in the Original PROD reason" or some such. This would prevent mass dePRODs and dePRODs on 'principle'. Otherwise I do not object to the added text and this should in general be read as a support of the proposed additions. Jbh^Talk 00:46, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

I hear that; that is a different issue. One thing at a time! :) added a !votes section above. Jytdog (talk) 00:49, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

• And when the original PROD presents an improper reason for deletion... what then? Pburka (talk) 01:36, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Simple... say so. Mind I do not mean "This article fails GNG" -- "No it does not" rather "No it does not. See here are N sources that look good". Jbh^Talk 01:46, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

I had interpreted "address the reasons" as meaning the opposer should fix the problems identified by the nominator. If all you're asking is that they present a coherent reason for opposition, then I agree. Pburka (talk) 02:56, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

• This all seems off the mark. Is the timing of Kvng's deprods really the problem? What if he/she deprodded all the same articles just before the 7 day mark? Same scenario. If removing past the 7-day mark is people's main objection, I clearly misunderstood as I really don't care whether it was before/after 7 days. To me that just says we need more admins. The problem here is a pattern of poor judgment combined with high activity which undermines the prod process, and that's not addressed here. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 00:58, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

I have paying mind to what you have written through all this. Judgement in dePRODing is not something policy can resolve well in my view and Kvang's judgement on dePRODing should be the focus of a discussion; the discussion above turned to this issue which can be (and should be) clarified. Jytdog (talk) 01:02, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

• User:Pburka - Your !vote above assumes bad faith in a serious way, and I suggest you amend it. Good content and bad gets added to Wikipedia every day and PROD is one way to deal with it. PROD is meant to be a way to deal with hit and run article creation where nobody is even around any more who cares about it; it was created for good reason. Not every sperm is sacred. Jytdog (talk) 02:10, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
  • I apologize for assuming your motivations, and have edited my !vote. Pburka (talk) 02:56, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
    • I also take issue with "choosing the right articles" - I'd say an unsourced article that has been such for seven years without improvement is a textbook PROD that should pretty much go through. Yet, said article was deprodded and remains unsourced. I don't think it's always the choice of article that's the problem; there's no way I could PROD an article with 8 V and RS sources and expect it to go, but an article based on 8 sources all written by the subject is a different matter entirely because it doesn't meet GNG. Where there is a problem is when the right articles are chosen, the procedure isn't neutrally followed, and we keep articles that do not meet the relevant policies. MSJapan (talk) 03:36, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
• User:Kvng people are made admins because the community has decided to trust their judgement. That is the "magic" they have - good judgement - and that is why they are entrusted with the tools And questions over yours is what has sparked all this. Your statement in your !vote just makes it even more clear that you don't understand this place. Jytdog (talk) 02:40, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Stuff about me aside, what's your reading on the spirit of prod policy? Is there something magic about 7 days? Is there something offensive about 7 days + 1 hour. ~Kvng (talk) 02:52, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

There needs to be an endpoint, period. The process needs to end at some point so further action can be taken. It's not an indefinite holding pen. What's "offensive" is that you don't seem to think any limit whatsoever should apply. The process runs its course in seven days, after which the article can be deleted. People had a week to object, and did not. Now, because of a deprod after the fact, now we need to have a backlog at AfD, which AfD really can't be having because AfD hasn't got the participation. In short, PROD is specifically designed to reduce the load at AfD, and by arbitrarily circumventing the process, you're causing exactly what PROD was supposed to prevent? And why? Because WP:IDONTLIKEIT? Guess what? You're not the savior of prod patrol. You don't get points for "clearing a backlog" if you're not doing it appropriately. Inmstead, you're wasting editors' time at AfD when it's already overloaded as-is with articles for which there is no question that they should be deleted. It doesn't matter that you "cast a delete vote" - the fact is that someone has to go back, write up and submit the AfD, and then wait another couple of weeks because you didn't exercise proper judgment in your chosen role. MSJapan (talk) 03:25, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

There is no endpoint, since anyone can request undeletion at any time, and making a 168-hour limit doesn't create one, just enables a different sort of admin backlog. Handle user conduct issues as user conduct issues if you believe such exist, please, and stop trying to alter time-tested procedures to account for the actions of a user you disagree with. Jclemens (talk) 03:41, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

User:Jclemens I am really confused why you and User:BU_Rob13 keep repeating this thing about "There is no endpoint, since anyone can request undeletion at any time" in the context of opposing limits on removing PROD tags. if anything what you are saying is an argument for facilitating deletion under PROD since it is so easy to reverse. Instead you are using that argument for the opposite - facilitating removal of PROD tags. How is the fact that it is easy to reverse deletion under PROD, an argument against putting limits on removing a PROD tag? Jytdog (talk) 04:12, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

We are not a bureaucracy. We don't delete things just to undelete them. If an editor feels an article shouldn't be deleted but weren't allowed to remove the PROD tags, they'd just wait for the deletion to go through and then request undeletion. What's the point of that? ~ Rob^Talk 04:16, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

That makes no sense. The whole spirit of PROD is - Somebody in good faith thinks the article is deletable under PROD noncontroversially. It sits seven days with no contest, an admin comes and again judges, and decides. There is always two steps before deletion. The community determined that 7 days with no objection was a reasonable test for "not controversial". Right? Let's say the creator shows up 2 weeks later and wants the article back - bingo they can have it in draft space (hopefully teed up with AfC tags so it can be reviewed before it goes live again). That's the spirt of PROD. The idea is not that an inclusionist can patrol PROD and "save" articles they actually have no interest in. And heck if somebody like Kvng comes across an expired PROD they can watchlist it and once it is deleted, if they actually do care about that article, they can request undeletion and fix it up so it is decent. Yes, they should have to do some additional work at that point. Your argument makes no sense to me. Jytdog (talk) 04:28, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Yes, there needs to be an endpoint and the endpoint I propose is when an administrator deletes the article. Defining the endpoint as exactly 7 days creates a new purgatory state from 7 days until an administrator gets around to evaluating the proposal. Although the new state creates unnecessary complexity, I'm not strongly opposed to this, I just would like to see some justification for it. And, yeah, my simple proposal is in line with how I've already been interpreting Object policy so maybe all you're able to see in it is a self-serving proposition. I can't do anything to change your mind about that but ideally it isn't something you should be basing your !vote on. I think I can do my WP:PRODPATROLLING just about as effectively with either proposal. ~Kvng (talk) 04:59, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

• User:Purplebackpack89 and User:Kelapstick - to both of you - You are misjudging me (which is annoying) and the proposal (which is worse). The admin's judgement is still essential. Of course a bot should not do it nor should it be "automatic". Seven days for anyone to judge and remove and after that, an admin judges. Sheesh. Jytdog (talk) 05:26, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm not judging you at all. But I do think what you're saying right now is at odds with what you've proposed. What you're saying right now doesn't really defend your proposal, it defends PROD as currently written. You're also failing to give any kind of reason at all why it must be EXACTLY 168 hours or 10,080 minutes. pbp 05:31, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

By writing "The people who are supporting this seem to believe that anything prodded MUST be deleted THE MINUTE the seven days are up." you are making me out to be a moron. The argument for the 7 day limit for removal is really about PROD patrollers with controversial judgement. There have been boatloads of discussions about Kvng's judgement over the past month or so and this is one way to cap the level of controversy somebody like that can generate. I don't see it as unreasonable at all. Admins will get to a PROD that has reached that "safe harbor" when they get to it. There is no rush to the actual evaluation by an admin. Jytdog (talk) 06:29, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

• User:Nakon yuo have misread the proposal. All it does is clarify that the tag can be removed by anyone within 7 days. After that, only an admin can dePROD, and they will do that when they decide to keep or delete; this does not remove the admins freedom to judge however they see fit. Jytdog (talk) 06:34, 13 June 2016 (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.

Alternate proposal

Change first sentence of Objecting section:

To object to and therefore permanently prevent a proposed deletion, at anytime before the article is deleted, remove the {{proposed deletion/dated}} tag from the article. You are encouraged, but not required, to also:

I beleive this captures the easy objection spirit of prod policy. In any case, we're talking about a matter of hours here and at most a few days. Let's not needlessly complicate policy by creating a new administrator-only state for proposals. ~Kvng (talk) 02:38, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

!Votes

• Oppose this is just begging for dePRODs based on "principal" rather than for substantive reason. We need to be moving to better dePRODs not easier dePRODs. Jbh^Talk 02:50, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - Editor rewriting policy to condone own actions. MSJapan (talk) 03:17, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
• Support If there's a problem with a PROD being removed, send it to AfD. Mass de-prods are best dealt with as a user behavior problem, not by adding layers of bureaucracy to a lightweight process. Jclemens (talk) 03:27, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
• Support as a clarification of existing practice, given WP:REFUND. ~ Rob^Talk 03:33, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose I think it should be required that a substantial reason be given after the seven day mark at least. This proposal would just allow anybody to DePROD because they can. It renders PROD useless. Further, if you find yourself having to vote delete in subsequent AfD discussions, that brings your judgement on what is and is not worth keeping into question, at least in my mind. Mr rnddude (talk) 05:38, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose seven days is a reasonable length of time for people who are actually involved in the article to object. It is unclear to me if the community considered the notion of inclusionist PROD patrollers removing PRODs after they expired; the summary in the lead doesn't envision this. Since there is such a low cost to refunding a PRODed article there is no reason to make it even easier for uninvolved editors to remove the PROD tag. Jytdog (talk) 06:47, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
• Support - This is the policy as it stands right now and would clear up the ambiguity that some editors are seeing. The policy is that any editor can remove a PROD for any reason at any time. Justification is encouraged but not required. PRODs never expire even after the article is deleted. If an article is deleted via PROD then it goes into a different holding place and if anyone wants it back it is restored back to the article space and requires an AFD to be deleted again. -- GB fan 10:25, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose as unnecessary. The proposal above failed. I don't think there's anything which effectively says you may not remove the tag after 7 days but before the article is deleted, nor do I want to see us going out of our way to accommodate doing so. I don't understand the arguments about the time limit being relevant to rendering the prod system ineffective and still think this is a distraction from the actual issues going on (specifically, what to do when there's a pattern of poor judgment and/or mass deprods). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:17, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
• Weak oppose. The proposed rewording unnecessarily repeats something already clearly explained in the PROD process. This doesn't improve anything; it simply adds verbosity. Pburka (talk) 13:25, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Comments

@Jbhunley: I was hoping we could quickly (and possibly temporarily) resolve the ambiguity in the current policy before revising policy. Maybe not, eh? Do you have any proposals for better dePRODs? ~Kvng (talk) 02:57, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

As I mentioned in the section above, rather than 'being encouraged but not required' editors who dePROD should be required to give a solid reason for the dePROD (I also believe a reason should be required for the initial PROD as well). So if, for instance /Prod|reason=I can not find any RS to indicate this article is notable/ - Remove PROD and say here are a couple of sources that look good and can be used to back up the article etc. I particularly like the idea of sticky PRODs for all unsourced content rather than just BLPs but that may be a bridge too far for now. Jbh^Talk 03:06, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

No. PROD is not for detailed reasoning and rebuttal. Any objection ends a PROD, and indicates that the nominator is free, encouraged even, to send it to AfD if issues remain. Jclemens (talk) 03:28, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Gah.. you are missing the point. There are lots of crap articles that have no real chance of passing AfD so clogging up AfD with those is disruption. It is fine if the dePRODer has some reason other than "I feel like deprodding this". Simply deprodding for the sake of deprodding is abuse of process just like prodding without a reason is abuse of process. Both need an to have an articulated reason which is a much lower bar than detailed reasoning and rebuttal which is what should be going on at AfD. Jbh^Talk 03:48, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

@Jbhunley: what you describe is more than current policy dictates but, believe it or not, it is exactly how I approach my WP:PRODPATROLLING. I initially tried to cut corners but got heat for it and so adjusted my approach and I'm still getting heat for it. You can't please all the people all the time. ~Kvng (talk) 04:01, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I do like your dePROD log and commented on it at ANI. (If I may suggest it could be useful to record your dePROD reasons there as well just to have something to fall back on if questioned. I do something similar where I record the reasons my CSDs were declined and track AfDs so I can make sure my judgement comports with the general community consensus. Yes, I know what I suggest is more than required now by policy. One can wish though and maybe the policy will change... Jbh^Talk 04:12, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

I leave my reason either in the deprod edit comment or on the article's talk page. I could also put it in the {{old prod full}} template I generally leave on talk pages. The issue is that there's a lot to review at WP:PRODPATROL and I haven't found a way to post multiple copies of this information efficiently. ~Kvng (talk) 04:39, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

No, sending articles to AfD that need AfD is not disruption, it's using the process as designed. I would counter that trying to fundamentally change the nature of PROD itself is much more akin to disruption, but it really isn't that, either, just another misguided attempt to increase red tape on an intentionally red-tape-less process. Jclemens (talk) 07:32, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

• So how long is this exactly? Long enough for you to track the log and deprod when the PROD is about to close out? Do you not understand that your activity makes it look like you are waiting on these articles on purpose, and that you are deprodding for the sake of deprodding just so material is kept? Meanwhile, you've got at least six editors in the ANI disagreeing with your actions and statements, seven discussions in various places with people in the last month disagreeing with your actions and statements, and now you want to rewrite policy so what you want to do is absolutely OK? Let me guess, you don't see a problem here either. MSJapan (talk) 03:16, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

I can't tell for sure but it seems like you're taking a game theory angle here. There is no advantage to waiting until the last minute to deprod. I have recently deprodded a few articles after expiry. I don't do this frequently. I have done this in the past and did not upset anyone. It happened because I had been busy the past couple weeks and had a backlog. There was no conspiracy. I'm really OK with whatever clarification we can gain consensus on. I found Jytdog's proposal unnecessarily complicated and so did the other editors who weighed in on it so in the interest of getting to consensus more quickly I proposed a simplified alternative. If you have a simple solution to this, let's hear it. ~Kvng (talk) 04:10, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

This is unbelievably POINTY. This of course should be the next step if the first one fails. I won't !vote either way on this as I want to actually see what the consensus is on the first.. Jytdog (talk) 04:15, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

@Jytdog: POINTY on the part of whom? pbp 05:15, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

• @Jbhunley: Your opposition rationale seems weak. Why does unambiguously allowing PRODs to be removed whenever encourage PROD removal on principle? Can't removal of PRODs on principle happen at any time? pbp 05:26, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

PROD exists as a way to get rid of obviously non-policy compliant articles. Some people simply do not like deleting anything so remove PRODs whether or not the article is likely to ever be made compliant. Because of this I seldome use anything but BLPROD or AfD. Having a usable PROD system, where reasons, just simple articulated reasons, are required would require thought to be put into both prods and dePRODs.

Right now policy says that if a PROD goes 7 days it is a good indicator that no one is interested in fixing the article and, in my firm opinion, at that point it is worthwhile to get an admin to look at deleting it. If it is deleted and there is a RFUND request at that point there is someone, the undeleting admin, who can give, at a minimum, a recommendation to move the article to user or draft space until it is minimally policy compliant. Jbh^Talk 12:53, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

I guess this is where we fundamentally disagree. We absolutely shouldn't be deleting things that no current editor is willing to become aware of and fix within 7 days - WP:NODEADLINE, WP:DEMOLISH. Those who threaten to delete unless fixed are, in my opinion, clearly engaging in overzealous deletion. I see this in play frequently at AfD but it is held in check by the discussions. Speedy deletions also seem to be working well. With PROD there is (by design) minimal discussion. WP:PRODPATROL is supposed to be the civilian counterbalance. But, as you can see by the reception I'm getting for my work there, it's not an easy job, so it's not being done with any consistency. Admins are supposed to also counterbalance with their final reviews but AFAIK, there are no records of how PRODs are handled by administrators and no access (apart from WP:REFUND) to the deleted material so there's no practical way for me to assess this. ~Kvng (talk) 14:15, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

I must be missing something when I look at the policy. You said that the policy says "that if a PROD goes 7 days it is a good indicator that no one is interested in fixing the article" Can you specify where in the policy it says that? -- GB fan 14:21, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Not meant to be taken literally. If a PROD stays for seven days, this is considered long enough to remove the article (by an admin). Presumably somebody interested in the article would respond within seven days of the PROD going up. Since PROD articles can be undeleted anybody requesting the material after the PROD is complete can have that material given to them. It's a minimal fuss method of getting rid of content that may be worthless. I bolded may because an article that is not receiving any attention at the time of the PROD may receive that attention somewhere down the track. Whether this takes an hour, day or decade is beside the point. Mr rnddude (talk) 14:35, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

"PROD exists as a way to get rid of obviously non-policy compliant articles"? JBH is confusing PROD with CSD, he is severely misread WP:PROD. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:37, 16 June 2016 (UTC)