Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Most vandalized pages (2nd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's
talk page or in a deletion review
). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the discussion was: no consensus.

(non-admin closure) CLYDE ^{TALK TO ME}/_{STUFF DONE} (please mention me on reply) 05:31, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply

]

Wikipedia:Most vandalized pages

Per same reason for blanking: this page could give vandals ideas, isn't in use anymore, has been blanked though contents could be accessed in history, and I see no reason to keep it. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:56, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - kept historical, blanked, and protected, should be fine. "Historical" has a value in this case, I think. - jc37 02:14, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see a reason why this should be kept historical (other than old links, but the deletion log should serve that) and there is quite a chance of giving prospective vandals ideas. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:19, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The page has existed since 2004, I think we're ok with the courtesy blanking. – The Grid (talk) 05:45, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Because? Aaron Liu (talk) 11:49, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The page hasn't really seen vandalism on its own since the "peak" days around 2005-2008. I don't see a reason to delete it because it has "a chance of giving prospective vandals ideas." If someone wants to vandalize Wikipedia, they will. We have several safeguards in place to prevent disruption, using bots and other editors. There's even an essay about
maintaining counter-vandalism. – The Grid (talk) 12:24, 5 June 2023 (UTC) adding a keep vote based on the information I provided – The Grid (talk) 13:30, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

Keep, contains data about which articles were frequently vandalised (especially from the early days of the page, before semi-protection was introduced in 2005) which is hard to reproduce and may be interesting to researchers. The deleted edits feature was never meant to be a backup service. Graham87 03:09, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Such people could consult the Wayback Machine. I’m not sure what you mean by deleted edits. Aaron Liu (talk) 11:49, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
They could and that would give them a rough idea of the page's history ... but the Wayback Machine only has 162 entries for that page while it was edited 2,153 times. By deleted edits I mean this. I just don't think any theoretical benefit of deleting this page is worthwhile. Discussing it at a venue like this gives it far more publicity than just leaving it alone. Graham87 05:10, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Aka, the Streisand effect... - jc37 05:23, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - I see no reason to keep it. - No that's not how it works. You need a valid reason to delete, not to keep. Your rationale is very flimsy, without any indication that keeping this page around would give vandals ideas. By that logic, would we not then delete all of the pages that are considered the "most vandalized" to stop allowing them to vandalize? --Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:22, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This starts with a mischaracterization of the argument and ends with conclusion that obviously doesn't follow. The argument actually is that having this page here is basically a flashing billboard saying, "Look at things people like to vandalize", and if people are looking to vandalize pages this is basically a centralized list of targets. Now you can disagree with that rationale, but that's clearly a rationale. To build on it, there's a reason, for instance, Special:UnwatchedPages isn't publicly viewable, since that also would give people trying to cause disruption a set of easy targets. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 12:36, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A weakness of Special:UnwatchedPages is that it doesn’t report how many admins actively check their watchlist. A list of actually vandalised pages has an obvious use. SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:31, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you watch a page, then you should be checking the watchlist once in a while, so that weakness should be marginal. Also, we do not have a report of how many admins actively check MVP either. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:37, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you watch a page, then you should be checking the watchlist once in a while?

Do you have any suggestions for implementing this new standard? Auto-remove watchlist items if you don’t look at your watchlist? Or if your eyes don’t linger on the item? Or some reminder or reprimand for not looking at your watchlist for too long? SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:36, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Watching a page has no effect unless you check your watchlist. If you watch a page then you should be expected to check your watchlist. Else you click on watch and do nothing and that also does nothing. I don't see any reason for a person to be watching pages if they are not going to be checking their watchlist. And again, MVP is just a shared watchlist that's harder to check partly because it doesn't have special userscripts for notifications and ergo it is subject to the same "weakness", in fact a worse version of that weakness you just said. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:40, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Your ideals on watchlisting are not workable. MVP need not be better than watching for it to be allowed to exist. Unwatched pages is a perennial problem, and deleting this page would be a backwards step. SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:53, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It would not be a backwards step, as it currently is outdated and has no use. Such as page requires A LOT of resources to maintain, and just like how many here argue there's no evidence of the page being misused, you'll need to provide evidence that this will become useful.
Also, these aren't ideals. It's to say that most people who watch something will use the watchlist, else they aren't using it, unless you can refute my argument. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:32, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Deleting history is almost always a backward step. Historical reference is a use. It requires no resources to maintain. Keeping something for historical reference does not require an argument for how it will become useful.

As for your argument, have you considered that most
WP:EDITORS
are inactive?
The English Wikipedia currently has 45,690,175 users who have registered a username. Only a minority of users contribute regularly (118,783 have edited in the last 30 days)

- SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:11, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On Wikipedia, there are several reasons for deletion for unused things. What you are arguing is essentially inclusionism, which isn't a valid reason to keep alone. Plus pages require server resources to maintain.
While most users don't use the watchlist, I see your point. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:48, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In projectspace, we don’t usually delete history.

Deletion doesn’t reduce server space. It’s been a very long time that deleted pages were actually deleted. Deletion just restricts visibility to admins.

There are perennial concerns about how Wikipedia is going to fail. One of them is about how the number of pages will far exceed active users and subtle vandalism will persist undetected. Anything that tracks and studies this is useful. Granted, bot-detected vandalism is way better now than in 2005-8, and probably it will improve more, but a historical study of trends in vandalism is a valuable resource. This page is part of the data. Blanked and protected is surely more than enough to reduce hypothetical misuse. SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:07, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep until evidence is provided for how this page in a blanked state causes any problems. That is, is there any evidence that the listed pages are still under increased risk of vandalism, and is there a plausible causal link between that and this page's content being accessible from history.—Alalch E. 17:59, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep and leave blanked. Vandals don't generally need to stumble across obscure projectspace pages to find ideas. Concealing the history otherwise has no real benefit and some, admittedly minor, cost. As a policy matter we need a formal reason to delete and I don't see any unless someone wants to handwave
WP:DEL14, which is rather unconvincing. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 18:32, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

Delete. This serves no encyclopedia-building purpose, and isn't even of any use in anti-vandal activities since the data is ancient and too partial to be meaningful; in the meantime, anyone can look at the list and get "wouldn't it be funny if..." ideas. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 06:28, 7 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per non as above. Catfurball (talk) 18:59, 8 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as having no useful purpose.
WP:DENY is best and deleting this serves to encourage a culture of not erecting memorials. Johnuniq (talk) 22:14, 8 June 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
Special:AbuseLog is probably best. WP:DENY is good response advice. SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:04, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom, and as being quite useless in its nature. — Sundostund mppria ^{(talk / contribs)} 02:09, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. No evidence of it being misused. No particular danger of it being misused. Creative paranoia is not a reason to delete old good ideas. With the decline of active editors, more and more pages will be unwatched by active editors, and this sort of shared watchlist could become useful, at least as an example of a solution. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:27, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's
talk page or in a deletion review
). No further edits should be made to this page.