Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 41

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

I happened to notice the deletion discussion Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Simon_Williams_(comic_artist). In this case, it is clear that the user who created the page didn't actually want the page deleted, but said to go ahead with deletion out of frustration with the page being nominated for deletion. After the page was deleted, the page creator posted an additional comment which made it clear that he was very upset that the page was deleted. I'm asking about this here because I'm really uncertain if G7 was meant to apply when a page creator doesn't think the page should be deleted, but has nevertheless posted a comment saying that the page should be deleted. Is G7 appropriate in such cases, or is it only appropriate when the page creator actually wants the page to be deleted? Could some clarification on that perhaps be added to the G7 description or to the explanations subpage? Calathan (talk) 22:25, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

It's spirit of the rule that's important and not its exact wording. If people thought the article should have been deleted then there's a good chance it did. If someone issued a

CSD G7 allows us to skip that and remove a non-notable article without it hanging around for a week. I think the user realised that the article needed to go, and his final comments were just a bit of drama: laying a guilt trip, calling us snobs and vowing never to use the site again. — Fly by Night (talk

) 16:06, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I never saw the article in question, so I have no idea how close or far it was from meeting the notability guidelines. I was just surprised that it got deleted as a G7. My assumption had been that G7 was only for cases where a person actually wanted the article deleted. While you say the spirit of the rule is what's important, if different people think the spirit of the rule is something different from reading it, then I think the wording needs clarification. Also, I don't think the user thought the article needed to go. I think he still has no idea how the notability guidelines work and didn't understand why the article was being deleted. Calathan (talk) 16:30, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

You make a good point about the interpretation. I tagged an article for something a while back and, between tagging and an admin seeing it, the article was improved so that it didn't meet the criteria. But the admin deleted it, per {{

CSD G7. — Fly by Night (talk

) 16:57, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

What Fly by Night says often happens, and I will frequently suggest just that to authors of articles I move from speedy to prod because they do not fit a speedy reason, but are essentially hopeless. My usual wording is: If you decide that the article cannot meet our standards, you can facilitate matters by placing at the top a line reading : {{db-author}} . But on the other hand , if I se someone deleting an article of theirs that appears to have considerable promise, I'll query them before deleting. DGG ( talk ) 01:59, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

• I just noticed this thread, and figured I might as well comment since I did the deletion. I saw that the user was clearly frustrated, but he was also notified of what the problems with the article were and how best to go about fixing them if possible. He had a whole week available to attempt to fix it up, but his immediate reaction was to throw a fit and say to go ahead and delete it. He claims he was given no guidance, when in fact Drmies explained quite clearly what the problem was. He got advice, but he didn't like what the advice was so he took his ball and went home. We say this is the encyclopedia anyone can edit, but the fact is that some people have too much ego and just can't get down with the way things are done here.
  talk
  ) 20:15, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I saw this, and I just couldn't let this one go by; "Uiolentapneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosising. pronounced We-o-lenta-new-mono-ultra-microscopic-silico-volcano-cony-osis-ing. derived from the word pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. the word was created on the 21st of december 2010 it has 56. The forcible torture of making victim inhale volcanic silicon molecules causing inflammation of the lungs, resulting in scaring of tissue and possibly disease for the purpose of causing harm and pain to the individual/individuals." The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:57, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Hooray. — Timneu22 · talk 17:06, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I hate it when my tissues get scared; I can never find out where they hide. HalfShadow 18:17, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

It seems like forcing somebody to say or spell that word would be an even worse torture (or enhanced interrogation technique). Jehochman ^Talk 18:35, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

This has to be the most bizarre

In my 8 1/2 months on NPP, I have never seen a band article advertising the member's blood types. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:16, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps they're members of some Vampire rock genre? Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:59, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

There's a common belief in parts of Asia (our article mentions Japan and Taiwan) that blood type determines personality, somewhat like star signs. This has lead to blood type being a standard item in this kind of profile. Algebraist 00:07, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this actually reads like random but genuine publicity for a generic talent-agency created Asian boy band to me. — Gavia immer (talk) 00:32, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I know about the whole blood type thing (I'm going to grad school in the fall to study Japanese history); never seen it in a band ad anywhere. Many other contexts, yes, but this is a first for me. Suffice to say that

Melt Banana and Chthonic don't advertise such things (although they're also about as far from boy bands as you can get). The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい

) 01:11, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I have come across a few articles that admins have refused speedy deletion on the latest being David Rossiter which has since been speedy deleted. The admin stated that the article made ...a credible assertion of importance or significance, sufficient to pass A7. A cursory glance at what was stated in the article along with the sources would have shown that it was BS. So if I create an article about myself and claim for example that I was a number 1 selling musician or the first in some field making me notable with no sources to back this up, then is this enough to pass this criteria? Mo ainm~Talk 10:20, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, unless it's blatantly non-credible. First published Inuit hip-hop artist? Credible. First woman to sail around the moon? Not so much. Thparkth (talk) 12:28, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Good examples. :-) And the latter would probably be a G3 rather than an A7. Regards SoWhy 13:47, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I was the one who declined this A7, which has subsequently been deleted as a Hoax. Obviously if someone had checked for sources and tagged it as a hoax then my declining the speedy would be troutworthy in the extreme. But in my understanding there is no obligation to search for potential sources when correcting a deletion tag. I gave a cursory glance at the article, it was unsourced and made what to me was a credible assertion of importance. So I replaced the tag with a BLP prod as it was an unsourced new BLP that clearly asserted not just importance but notability. If someone who knew the subject or had tried to source it tags it with G3 that is ideal, but I consider my BLPprod tag was correct and A7 was an incorrect tag. We deliberately set the speedy deletion criteria to err on the side of caution, so that contentious and borderline deletions should be by prod or AFD. This means that many articles which are incorrectly tagged for speedy deletion will subsequently be deleted at AFD or after someone has tried to source them and found them to be puffed up, or in this case a fake. To my mind the best answer for that is to try and get more of our taggers to slow down and try and source articles. ϢereSpielChequers 14:41, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Forgot about this thread, I wasn't getting at you WereSpielChequers I was just looking for clarification. So if it is unsourced but a claim is made what do you do then? Mo ainm~Talk 23:05, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd say it depends on the claim. For example, someone just created an article about an obvious nobody, with the words "won the nobel prize" in it. This is obviously false, so I just flagged it a7/g3. But if you read a claim like "is the top band in Brazil" and you google it but don't get any results, I often post the A7 tag with text above it (and a comment) that says something like "this google result shows the claims are untrue." — Timneu22 · talk 23:09, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

R3 is currently for recently created implausible redirects. Why is it important that they are recently created? The redirect may have been created a few years ago but never deleted. If it has no links, what difference does its age make? McLerristarr | Mclay1 13:45, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Because when discussing redirects,

WP:ITSUSEFULL is a valid argument. As such, any redirect that survived a long period of time was most likely noticed by some editor and they decided that it's a useful redirect (by not nominating it under R3). But if even one person finds a redirect useful (which we have to assume after all that time), we should not delete it without discussion. Regards SoWhy

14:02, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

(ec) The whatlinkshere tool is useful for judging how useful a redirect is. If those incoming links are removed, there's no way to determine if it was linked to and considered a worthwhile redirect in the past. That's less of a concern with a newly created redirect of course. Other possibilities are

here. –Whitehorse1

14:09, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

It depends what namespace it's in however. In the main namespace, I agree, but in other namespaces, people often don't bother cleaning up redirects. The redirect that sparked this question was in the category namespace. Very few people will have ever seen that page but no one bothered to nominate it for deletion. I fail to see how its age, which has nothing to do with its usefulness (in this specific case), makes it any different to other implausible redirects cased by moves (except it wasn't exactly moved since it's a category – all the members were moved). I still think R3 should be for any age redirects, at least for non-mainspace pages. Editors just need to apply common sense before nominating things. McLerristarr | Mclay1 15:04, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

As explained above, the older the redirect, the far likelier it is that someone found it useful. You can guess that they didn't but uncertainties are nothing that should be handled with speedy deletion. If it was around for years, there is no harm in keeping it for 7 more days at RFD and it's really not that much work to start a RFD, is it? And of course, we don't have to worry about storage space or about numbers, so why (speedy) delete them at all? Unless they present a problem, there really is no point and if they do, you can explain it at RFD. Regards SoWhy 15:49, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

When we say that a redirect "has no links", we mean that it's not being used as an internal link on the English Wikipedia. The older the redirect is, the more likely it is that someone has bookmarked it or is otherwise using it off-wiki—something we can't easily test for. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:46, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

I just deleted a significant number of orphaned talk pages from CAT:CSD that apparently had been up for some time. Is there something wrong with the bot that deletes orphaned talk pages? Nyttend (talk) 14:12, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

talk · contribs) seemed to have stopeed working on 27 December. You might want to ask Chris G (talk · contribs) about it, who runs the bot. Regards SoWhy

15:11, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

HOW I TAUGHT MY GRANDMOTHER TO READ AND OTHER STORIES

THIS IS THE FIRST BOOK OF SUDHA NARAYANA FOR CHILDREN.IN IT SHE REFERS TO HER PREVIOUS EXPERIENCES THAT CHANGED HER LIFE.IN THEM WE COME ACROSS MANY INCIDENTS OF HER LIFE LIKE HOW SHE TAUGHT HER ILLITERATE GRANDMOTHER TO READ AND HOW A SMALL COMPANY WITH A MEAGRE CAPITAL OF Rs10,000 GREW UP TO BE INFOSYS.WE ALSO COME ACROSS MERE BEDTIME STORIES WHICH HAVE A LOT OF MORAL IN THEM.SHE ALSO TELLS OF HOW PEOPLE LIKE JRD TATA CHANGED HER LIFE

— Timneu22 · talk 14:07, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Not a speedy candidate. It's a poorly written article about a book which is not obviously notable, but none of that's a reason for speedy deletion. Algebraist 14:13, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

This is obviously a case for speedy userfication. There are so many things wrong with this article, it does not belong in the main namespace. — Timneu22 · talk 14:15, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd say this is a borderline G11. Otherwise, if you can't find an article on the author, just prod it as a

non-notable book. Prods and AfD's are also for stuff that doesn't belong in Wikipedia. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}

- timed 14:27, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I know, but as we've had this conversation a bazillion times, PROD often fails (author will just remove it) and AfD, in a case like this, is a waste of people's time. Speedy userfication in a case like this is the best of all worlds. It doesn't BITE the newbie, it would explain to the newbie why the article is in poor condition without eliminating the content, and it removes the obvious nonsense from the main namespace. — Timneu22 · talk 14:31, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Userfication is fine where the "article" is really an autobiography and can become a userpage. I've also used it to turn testpages into sandboxes. But I'm uncomfortable using it for potential articles, especially BLPs and ones that should actually be deleted. In my view the place to develop and improve articles is in mainspace where they can be categorised and multiple editors can work on them. That said I've heard of at least one wiki that has "SHOUTING" as a deletion reason, and while I don't think we should implement that here, I can see the temptation. As for the broader question, CSD is for a limited number of clear cases which can short-circuit the normal deletion process, most articles that merit deletion do qualify for one or other speedy deletion tags. But an article can be pretty obviously heading for deletion and yet not qualify for speedy deletion. If someone can identify a frequently occurring, clearly definable group of of obvious deletions then we could introduce a new CSD type. ϢereSpielChequers 14:57, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

IF ANYTHING THAT TITLE NEEDS TO BE CHANGED BECAUSE IT DOES SEEM LIKE SHOUTING! Maybe we need speedy inubation, then? That's the area for improving these types of articles, right? — Timneu22 · talk 15:03, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I frequently move articles to correct capitalisation issues. Even if you believe something merits deletion there is no harm and much good faith in improving it even if at the same time you are tagging it for deletion. As for incubation, I see that as having similar drawbacks to userfication. The advantage of a wiki is collaborative editing and we only really get that in mainspace. ϢereSpielChequers 15:11, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I see. I guess my goal is to keep the main namespace as professional as possible. As for a CSD for this, I don't think it's possible unless you'd want to have a CSD that is an and-or kind of thing... "if an article meets any 6 of these 10 criteria...". I do see plenty of articles that fail just about everything, but don't fall neatly into a CSD. — Timneu22 · talk 15:13, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Fram has now redirected it from

Sudha Murthy. Just conceivably the individual books are notable, but the obvious first step would be to expand the discussion of them in that article. After all, there are , alternative to deletion, such as this. I would have done the same: first check if the author has an article, and then make the redirect. I possibly would have merged some of the material as a start on expansion, but anyone can do that as it has not been deleted. DGG ( talk

) 00:45, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

• It's one of the things that first irritated me about Wikipedia--not everything that's clearly not appropriate for the encyclopedia is speedyable. It's one of those pesky things like "due process" in criminal proceedings. It gets in the way a lot of the time, but it's there to prevent people from being railroaded. There should always be a set of "clearly junk" articles that don't meet the speedy criteria, just to make sure the speedy criteria aren't applied in a manner that trashes good content. Jclemens (talk) 01:13, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Is that a vote in favor of my "6 out of 10 criteria" suggestion? — Timneu22 · talk 01:25, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Unless you list your ten criteria it isn't really a proposal, but I'd be surprised if that approach either met the simplicity requirement for speedy deletion or would involve enough articles to be worthwhile. ϢereSpielChequers 01:55, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
      • It's not something I've put much thought into. But it's a shame when everyone on here says "yeah, not encyclopedic", yet we're all handcuffed by the guidelines to permit the article's existence. If an article met a number of
        WP:NOT reasons, for example... — Timneu22 · talk
        13:55, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
        • Ah but just because there is no applicable Speedy deletion criteria does not mean we are permitting an article's existence. Remember our primary deletion process is AFD not CSD, even if in practice there are more CSD deletions than AFD ones. If you think an article merits deletion but there is no relevant CSD criteria then Prod or AFD it. If you can formulate a clear simple test that would identify another significant group of articles that would always get deleted at AFD, then feel free to propose it here as a potential new CSD code. ϢereSpielChequers 17:09, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

• Exactly. If you can propose a new criterion that meets the requirements at the top of this page, by all means go ahead and do so. Coming here and bitching about every article yo find that can't be speedy deleted isn't going to accomplish anything. I'm quite certain this has been explained to you many times already.
  talk
  ) 20:36, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

• Beeble, I wasn't bitching about anything. Retract your comment. "About every article I find" is just bullshit. Retract your comment immediately. — Timneu22 · talk 21:06, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

• Nope. How many times have you started a thread here about some article or other yu think you should be speedy deleted but can't be? How many months has this been going on? What has it accomplished? I stand by every word of that remark.
  talk
  ) 22:56, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

• The fuck you do. I make a few hundred patrols per week, and you said "every article I find." This is a lie, and I expect you to retract it. Further, we were having a pleasant conversation here, and my initial question was to see which speedy should apply to an article. After being told "none", I said, "well this seems like another good indicator for speedy userfication", and the conversation commenced. You just jumped in this thread to make inaccurate claims about my abilities as an editor. It's all false, false, false. You should be ashamed. — Timneu22 · talk 23:00, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

• (ec) It seems like there are a lot more admins deleting tagged pages than there are people actually patrolling and tagging them (see the section started at the bottom). It's easy enough for the admin corps to handle the pages that are already tagged for CSD/PROD/AfD, but someone actually has to tag them; we have to make the decision what to do with it before the admins ever get there. Not to mention that given how few of us are actually out tagging things, it's a much bigger burden on us to monitor PRODs and set up/monitor AfDs. Whereas admins basically have to worry about it at the end of the 7 days, we get the pleasure of having to monitor all of them for the entire 7 days, even though it's a foregone conclusion. Timneu22 and I have both given suggestions before (A11, speedy userfication); in fact, Timneu22 mentioned speedy userfication already. Perhaps we should revive one or both of those discussions; implementing either one would significantly help. Yeah, I have to say it's annoying that we're mostly met with hand-wringing, but Timneu22 and I have now both suggested something. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 23:11, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

• Ok Tim, whatever, you don't start a thread on every single article you see, it's just a figure of speech (as I would have thought was obvious) but fine I'll grant you that point. I have not attacked your abilities as an editor, I have questioned the wisdom of repeatedly complaining here about not being able to speedy delete certain things, and i continue to stand by that assertion. Anyway, what is so hard about watchlisting something for a week? I PROD or AFD something pretty much every week in addition to preforming dozens if not hundreds of admin actions, monitoring oversight emails at OTRS, working on the backlog of several thousand uncategorized articles, watching pages at Commons, currently drafting a Wikimania bid for 2012 on Meta, just started editing on Simple, and I have a job in the real world on top of that. If it's too much trouble for you to monitor a deletion nom then I suggest you stop working in deletion related areas. The suggestions you have made in the past did not gain support from the community, so what is up with blaming the admin corps for being unwilling to ignore consensus? That is exactly what we are supposed to do, and we don't get paid any more than you do for our trouble so I don't really appreciate the admin-bashing tone of this conversation. Show me where an article wasn't deleted that does in fact fall within one of the criteria and then you've got a valid complaint.
  talk
  ) 23:27, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not trying to bash anyone, I'm just pointing out that PROD and AfD are two very different tasks for those with and without admin tools. If I didn't like doing this, I wouldn't; the problem is, we have a paucity of people doing what Timneu22 and I specialize in, and it can be frustrating at times. Shit happens. I don't have time to dig through and find everything, but one example that comes to mind is

Hangry, which was a neologism sourced to a local website and Urbandictionary.com that got dragged through AfD. What I was trying to say above (although it obviously wasn't clear) wasn't that it's too difficult, it's that we're trying to streamline it. But again, I've suggested we revive a discussion; if you don't want to, just say as much. And while I can't speak for Timneu22, what makes it hard for me to watchlist things for a week is that I have PDD-NOS, which among many other things severely hampers my organizational abilities; when I have tried to use it, I get so incredibly frustrated trying to keep it in order that I've decided it's not worth the emotional toll (which sounds funny until you see it for yourself), so I try to operate completely by memory. It usually works, as my memory is extremely good, but it's not perfect. That's why I'd like to streamline it; it's not monitoring everything that gets me frustrated (see straw man), just this one group of articles that have foregone conclusions. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい

) 23:42, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, here's a gem I just came across; Lipocurean. I know Spanish Wikipedia's A3 is "articles consisting solely of OR"; that's essentially what this is. Does that seem feasible? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:25, 24 December 2010 (UTC)That got IAR deleted; perhaps we should create said criteria to avoid that, if you're interested in working within consensus.

Could one guarantee though that it was only original research. Just thinking - I could write an article that looked exactly like it was only OR, but where there is actually a notable, if obscure, topic and sources that academics (or geeks, or dentists or something) would be aware of. Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:00, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Rationale?
Whereas 'Old' would show a higher probability that the article might not be improved. Anarchangel (talk) 14:18, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Strictly speaking if an article is completely redundant there's little sense in keeping it around, but my intuition is that more "mature" articles that have been around longer and have more editors and more edits have a higher chance of containing some tidbit of useful information that can be merged into the other article. It may also indicate disagreement over the best name for the article, in which case a redirect and not deletion is called for. For these reason I think it's useful to have a deletion review. Dcoetzee 14:50, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Dcoetzee. A10 is similar to R3 in that regard. The longer something exists, the higher the chance that deletion will not be uncontroversial. Regards SoWhy 14:58, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Could someone point me to past discussion of whether or not it should be possible to speedy unsourced BLPs if they are older than a certain amount of time? BE——Critical_{__Talk} 05:27, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/blp. A more extensive discussion is at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people, with what you are referring to at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 37#Add new criteria to CSD. As a result of these discussions, Wikipedia:Proposed deletion of biographies of living people was created as a policy for those articles (instead of using speedy deletion, imho correctly). Regards SoWhy 09:16, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Hey, thanks :D BE——Critical_{__Talk} 20:45, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

At the moment User:NotAnonymous0 is coming up in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion by user - but I can find no trace of a CSD on that page (and it has not been changed since 9 October 2010 anyway). There are no other pages tagged G7 - so I cannot see that it's due to some transcluded template. It's a mystery...  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 17:02, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I assume that someone tagged a userbox for deletion without using <noinclude>-tags and it was still cached. I guess the template in question was User:A930913/UVClub. Regards SoWhy 17:17, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I would like to get other opinions about whether the following situation falls under criteria R3 and/or G10, and if it doesn't, whether we should add or alter a criteria so it is.

If there is a redirect from the name of a living person, that does not contain any edit history not directly relevant to the redirect, to another article in which this person is not discussed, and where the association of that persons name with what is discussed at the target is a potential BLP issue.

To give a specific example, currently being discussed at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2011 January 2 is a redirect to Julian_Assange#Alleged_sex_offenses from the name of one of the women who is making the allegations discussed in that section. There is consensus at the target article not to include the names of the accusers, so she is not discussed there. I believe that were her name mentioned in the article without any accompanying verification that explicitly mentions her that thsi would be a BLP issue; and as her name is not mentioned there there is no such source (as there is no need for one).

User:TeleComNasSprVen suggested that this might fall under criteria R3, but I don't think it does (it is not a typo, and if she were discussed in the article it would be a plausible redirect so it's not a misnomer either). I think G10 is a closer fit, but the purpose of the redirect isn't solely to attack or disparage the subject - as I said it would be a good redirect if she were discussed there (positively, negatively or neutrally), and you can't add sources to a redirect. Thryduulf (talk) 19:39, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I should also add that where BLP issues are not involved, I do not see the need to speedy delete -

Good question. When it's blatant, such as redirecting "John Doe" to

WP:RFD, even when it's longer, should be preferred. The fact that redirects are less exposed to the common reader and that there is some plausibility to have one with that name are good reasons to allow a discussion. The RFD shows that there certainly is controversy over it, so speedy deletion would not be in anyone's best interest. Regards SoWhy

19:47, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but I was referring to

NaSpVe :|

15:43, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I think that that R3 you stated is intended for areas where G10 may apply, but it's likely that some admins will think otheerwise; or for borderline cases. At any rate, this list of criteria is for listing the redirects at RfD, not for speedy deleting them. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:39, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Negative unsourced BLPs can be speedy deleted at present (G10). Attack bios obviously should immediately be. But sometimes it isn't so clear. For example, I came across this this article yesterday. Now, it was obviously unsourced and negative - and technically I could have deleted it immediately. But, it is also the case that the article was probably substantially factual, notable, and harmless. When I've been patrolling BLPs, I've often found similar cases with bios on old mafia bosses, or disgraced Fijian politicians - dozens in the last few weeks alone.

The difficult for someone patrolling is what to do. Tag it, and it will sit for another 4 years. I could research it myself, but if I don't choose to do that (and I don't usually like doing research), what else? Prodding isn't any use since BLPprod doesn't apply to older articles, and regular prods will get removed with "seems notable" -often with the thing still unsourced. I could send to AFD, but again, I'm not saying there shouldn't be an article here, merely that there can't be an unsourced one - and AFD does sometimes tragically keep something because it can be sourced, without actually sourcing it. (In this case, I raised the matter in IRC and invited interested editors to fix it, rather than me deleting it.)

What I'm wondering is whether admins ought to have another option. The option of saying "this needs sourced soon, or it must die" - and giving a short period of grace before speedy deletion. In that period, if any other admin judges the article harmful they can still kill it, but otherwise those who like to rescue such things get a short window (if they miss the window, it can still be undeleted later if someone wants to fix it.)

Currently, I tend to speedy such articles, and then undelete them if someone asks and offers to source them. However, that does tend to lead to friction, and doesn't allow non-admins to review. Some time ago, I put together Template:G10 delayed (indeed I forgot I created it until now) - just to see what this might look like.

This would NOT represent an expansion of the CSD - because all the applicable articles would already be speedy candidates. It would simply allow an admin to take the decision to slow down his speedy, in the hope of another solution, rather than deletion, being found. It would also not preclude attack articles being instantly nuked.

Thoughts?--Scott Mac 14:53, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

• You raise a lot of interesting and meaningful concerns, and I am really happy that you are thinking about the substance of such articles instead of simply G10 them (which would be a completely understandable response). I tend to think that the best course of action would be to incubate them somewhere outside mainspace, noindexed, and then notifying them to some interested wikiproject (or even the, admittedly debated, ARS, which could help in rescuing these things and sorting them). Also on a personal note: I know we have our grudges, Scott Mac, but in the interests of the encyclopedia I'd be very happy if you can pop on my talk page and notice me of some of these articles -I'd be happy to source them if I can or put them to deletion if I can't find anything. --Cyclopia^talk 15:05, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
  • This isn't just about me or you. So me putting them on your talkpage won't upscale. What I'm trying to do is to tweak current practice to find a place where negative unsourced BLPs (whose notability is generally not in question) can be fixed by those who want to - but are now allowed to hang about indefinitely in hope. The incubator idea is interesting, but we'll not get consensus for such ideals. We might get consensus for my small tweak. --Scott Mac 15:12, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
    • I know it wouldn't upscale, it was just raising a hand to help you now. It was, so to say, a deflamatory gesture in the name of common interest. But fine. The delayed G10 sounds interesting but I doubt it will be of real help if a mechanism to notify people interested in the potential sourcing (either by notifying wikiprojects or otherwise creating a "hub" where to deal with that) isn't also put. --Cyclopia^talk 15:19, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
      • It could create a hub. It could add the articles to a special category, and a bot could generate a list for sorting. I don't imaging this tag would be applied very often or to very many articles. Even when I'm at the height of my searching, I'm only finding a few utterly unsourced negative bios per day - and some obviously need immediate deletion because they are scurrilous. But if you look through my talk page you'll find a steady stream of people saying "can you undelete this?" I always do if they are willing to source it, but it would be good to have a less heavy way to the same result = "either no article or a sourced one".--Scott Mac 15:27, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)I'm just thinking out 'loud, but how about a system where the pages are blanked and editors are invited to draft a sourced version on the talkpage or a subpage thereof? After a period of time (2 days, a week, whatever), an admin reviews the new draft. If it's good, they replace the blanked page with it. If it's no good, they delete the article.  -- Lear's Fool 15:07, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Interesting, but won't get consensus. The current norm is to speedy negative unsourced articles. You'll not get that changed, but we might give admins a little leeway to be more creative.--Scott Mac 15:15, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
    • edit conflict to SlimVirgin, below Okay. I suppose my main concern with your proposal is having negative, unsourced BLPs still being indexed by search engines. {{
      noindex}} doesn't work in the mainspace, so the only way to prevent indexing would be to accompany your delayed G10 with a courtesy blanking, which means further improvements would have to be drafted elsewhere (the talkpage?). What do you think about adding a courtesy blanking to your template, and a note inviting people to source the pre-blanked revision?  -- Lear's Fool
      15:37, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
      • Yes, blanking is a good idea.--Scott Mac 15:38, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
        • The regular G10 template asks users to blank the page in a warning below the speedy box, we could use an appropriately modified version. Cenarium (talk) 20:03, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
• I think this is an excellent idea, assuming the period of grace isn't too long. But it's certainly very fair, in that it gives people a reasonable chance to find sources. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 15:32, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
  • I'd say 7 days MAXIMUM. But a list could be kept of any not sorted in that time, so people can offer to source them beyond the deadline.--Scott Mac 15:37, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Some recent examples of my G10 deletion (any of which I'm happy to undelete if someone is willing to source): Oreste Scalzone, Mickey Featherstone Virgilio R. Gonzalez.--Scott Mac 15:35, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

• • • ISBN 0-06-059003-3, Mustaine, Gene. Murder Machine. Onyx Books, 1993. Scott, you really shouldn't be speedily deleting such articles. Fences&Windows
      19:58, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
• I tend to think that permission to delete without review, a la G10, implies permission for an administrator to take any lesser action which might also solve the problem. Thus, I really don't think blanking should be off the table--it, along belongs alongside research/expansion, incubation/NOINDEXing, and other sub-deletion approaches as a valid way to handle such an article. Jclemens (talk) 15:38, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
  • I tend to agree with Jclemens. In the interests of consensus, I definitely prefer this to simple G10. One can also get a list of articles tagged by seeing what links to the template, which is nice and neat. I am happier again with mass deletions if we have a log somewhere of all the articles so far removed, so that any admin other than Scott or a TPS of Scott can take a look and undelete/userfy/email/whatever. Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:40, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
• Can we not widen BLP PROD to include such BLPs, so long as they are stubbed? My experience of this kind of thing was Yoshinori Watanabe, about a Japanese yakuza boss - it was nominated for speedily deletion as an attack page, declined, then blanked, then deleted. I came across it because it was debated at ANI, hardly the optimum way to deal with such articles. Fences&Windows 19:49, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
  • • Let me be clear. We are not talking about mass deletions - there are hopefully very few negative unsourced articles - or about controversial deletions. We are talking about articles that currently fall within the CSD - but can sometimes be fixed. All I'm saying is that things might be smoother if a reviewing admin has the option of slowing down his speedy deletion. Unless and until someone puts a valid reference on such a negative article, it would still remain eligible for speedy deletion. I'm happy with blanking, as long as it is understood that the blanking is a temporary measure, to allow some grace for fixing the article. I'd only be willing to use such a "delayed speedy" if the time allowed were less than 7 days. (I'm still willing to userfy or undelete for immediate sourcing beyond that time).--Scott Mac 19:57, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

• I had suggested sometimes ago the option to delay a speedy, see Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 36#'Delayed' speedy deletions, which generated support, but didn't follow up. I proposed it for G11, A1, A3 and A7, but it could certainly be extended to G10, possibly others. Technically, this can be implemented with an option delayed=yes, which changes the template wording and categorization (so no need for new templates). Generally speaking, users could delay a speedy if there is a reasonable possibility for the concerns qualifying the article for speedy deletion to be addressed, and doing so seems worthy (i.e. if it's a certain AFD-kill it's not worth it). Cenarium (talk) 20:03, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

• I like the delayed-G10 template idea, and would some kind of small info box, perhaps on the BLP noticeboard, to give folks visibility to articles tagged with the template. Something simple, just listing the articles tagged, and perhaps (if it's possible to do with template coding) the date they'll be deleted. --InkSplotch (talk) 20:31, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

• The specific case that sparked this is indeed an interesting object lesson in checking for sources, but there are varying degrees of attack pages, and this one is more the exception than the rule. The vast majority of attack pages I have deleted are just that, pages clearly written from a specific point of view to defame or insult a specific person. We don't want to open the door to keeping that sort of thing on-wiki for even one second. Blanking is not an acceptable alternative because anyone with even a passing understanding of WP can still see it in the page history. Don't get me wrong, I like this idea, but it needs some tweaking or it could be gamed to keep libel and other garbage on-wiki. What about RevDel? We could use that to remove the most negative information and inform the article creator that it can only be restored if they provide a source.
  talk
  ) 22:38, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

• Personally, I'd still delete most of the examples given here, but would want a noindexed list of redlinks created somewhere so people can work on recreating the articles if they want to do so. The redlink list would include the birth and death years and 'profession' and 'nationality' of the person in question (i.e. basic biographical metadata). Cases where the basic biographical metadata is not probably not worth spending time on if any sort of priority is applied to such a list. The system would intentionally not give people access to deleted revisions unless they asked, as it should be possible to write a new stub just from the basic biographical metadata (name, dates, country, profession) and available source. In many cases, the redlinks might already exist at name (disambiguation/set index) pages, but a central listing of redlinks would help, split by topic probably. This could be in addition to the slower G10 proposed above, if support can be found for that. Carcharoth (talk) 08:30, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
• Very often, especially with Mafiosi and Pornstars the profession is itself negative. I'm loathe to keep such things longer than necessary. If the admin who finds them has any hesitation then its perfectly possible to tag rather than delete. I suggest that a better approach would be to come up with a gentler message to the author, I have done some very apologetic ones that have made it clear how to get there article restored if they can provide a reliable source. ϢereSpielChequers 13:06, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm attempting to find an admin to delete an image of photo identification that has been edited to blur out the subject, but the underlying layer is still visible in the image preview (.jpg keeps a record of the preview, but for some reason it isn't the same as the censored version). It's some kid's ID and I'd rather not broadcast it all over the place so how can I get in touch with an admin with access to commons? Thanks. 64.180.84.184 (talk) 03:40, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

You need to go here:[1]. Actualy in this case emailing [email protected] might be a better idea. There's nothing we can do about it from over here.

talk

) 04:16, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks I'll do that. 64.180.84.184 (talk) 06:49, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

There are thousands of unpatrolled pages dating back to November 24. After a month, new pages are automatically marked as patrolled, and this makes it quite likely that articles will slip through the cracks. How can we encourage more people to be NPPers? — Timneu22 · talk 16:55, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Don't know how to encourage editors to join in. But posting the link makes it easier for readers of you message to drop in a do a few. Also, if this is a problem, should the 30 days be changed to 60 days? Vegaswikian (talk) 23:35, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

And in addition to those, there are the Article Wizard creations from January 2010 articles that need looking at. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:44, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Maybe it would help to stick Special:NewPages in right above or below Special:RecentChanges on the sidebar. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 23:56, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

As I understand it, these pages aren't marked as patrolled after 30 days, but that they simply fall off

Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol, if anyone is interested.  -- Lear's Fool

22:24, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Currently the flag of patrolled or not is only maintained for articles in their first 30days, and there are techy reasons not to extend that. We could continue it by getting a bot to add a hidden category to any such articles so they can be followed up and dealt with, but we'd need a bot writer..... On the broader issue of handling the flow of new articles better, one of my favourite ways is to identify potential new candidates for WP:Autopatrolled status so their subsequent articles don't go through NPP. I did a big trawl about a year ago and identified dozens of them, its probably time for another such trawl. But of course any newpage patroller can nominate candidates for AutoPatroller status. ϢereSpielChequers 22:49, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

If pages are reaching the end of the NPP 'conveyor belt', it is because they are not being removed from the stream as fast as they are being replaced. Extending the length of time that they remain in the system (which equates to extending the duration of RecentChanges since the two are tracked through the same database structures) will merely hide the problem for 30 days, after which you will see exactly the same flow of pages into the ether; it will do nothing to address the fundamental issue which is, as Timneu says, that articles need to be removed from the system at a faster average rate than they are put in. Happy‑melon 23:53, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

The backlog has fluctuated in the past, and will doubtless fluctuate in the future. Keeping some sort of tag on the ones that currently fall off the end is one part of the solution, recruiting more patrollers is another. We have plenty of backlogs, I can think of no other where we automatically approve things at the end of the queue. ϢereSpielChequers 14:02, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

(To WSC) i'm just thinking out loud here, but would it be worth a broader rethink of the autopatrolled userright? Currently it's quite tricky to get (I certainly wouldn't qualify), and I wonder whether reducing the requirements and allowing more autopatrolled editors would work. I'm not sure how far this would go to reducing the backlog, but it may be a good idea to bring the standards for autopatrolled more into line with those for rollbacker and reviewer regardless. Regarding the unpatrolled backlog, it may be worth getting the wikify WikiProject involved, as I imagine there's a lot of overlap.  -- Lear's Fool _mobile 02:15, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't qualify either if I wasn't an admin (or maybe I would - if I wasn't an admin our coverage of

Magonids would probably now be rather more complete). Currently you need to have created 75 articles and shown that your new articles don't need to be patrolled by others, or you need to go through RFA and it is then awarded to you as part of the mop. I can't remember the last time we had a successful or even near successful RFA candidate who had any opposes for not yet being ready for autopatroller, so in theory we probably could lower the bar. But I'm convinced there will be loads of candidates out there who are quietly submitting an article a week and finding and appointing a bunch of them as autopatrollers would make a difference. A year ago I trawled for them manually and I suspect the hundred or so who I appointed then have subsequently contributed thousands of articles. But without a bot producing a list of article contributors it is very time consuming to do this. If we were to run such a bot and exhaust our prospect list then I guess we could lower the bar and look at candidates with fewer new articles created, but the gain would also be lower - someone who has created sixty articles in three years might only be contributing one or two articles a month. It takes much longer to check a candidate for Autopatroller status than it does to check one of their articles and mark it as patrolled, so it is only worth doing if someone creates lots of articles. ϢereSpiel

Chequers 14:02, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

There is a fundamental problem in that there are plenty of pages which tell an editor "how to edit", and are often added as a welcome to their talk pages. For the more mundane matters, there is no "advert" - there's no "volunteers wanted" on the main page. Unless one is really curious or has made some bad edit, I would suspect there are lots of editors out there totally unaware of how they could possibly help Wikipedia. I drifted into vandal fighting as I was curious to find out what TW and HG stood for in an edit summary. The work of an NPPer is even more harder to observe.  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 00:09, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I got into NPP because I was on recent changes and came across a new article tagged by CorenSearchBot. It took me a couple of weeks to even find Special:NewPages, so I was watching RecentChanges looking for new articles for a while. I suspect that we'd get at least a few people by simply making NewPages more prominent. As to the autopatroller right; we really need to make that easier, although I'll leave numbers up to those who are more experienced. I'll say this, though; the 1-2 articles a month doesn't sound like a lot, but when you multiply that by a few thousand it can make a difference. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 06:24, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

75 articles!! Needs to be a lot less than that. Hell, I'd give it to people who have 1000 mainspace edits or who have previously created 5 articles without problems. Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:18, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

^Strongly agree with this point. 75 articles is overkill by a longshot. Few users qualify for this, so the benefit is minimal. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 03:19, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Have started discussion at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Autopatrolled_-_reduce_number_of_qualifying_articles, see if anyone can remember why it was set to such a high number. If that doesn't turn up anything dramatic, someone could start an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Autopatrolled.Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:19, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

One thing I've wished for is a way to subdivide the list. If I could get a list that was automagically filtered to display (for example) medicine or military-related articles, then I think a couple of the big WikiProjects would be happy to do some subject-specific patrolling (perhaps leveraging the AlexNewArtBot). But most of the stuff is pop culture, which I have basically no interest in. I do trawl through the list on occasion just to see if there's anything that seems relevant, but it's primarily a sea of BLPs, with no way of knowing what might be what I'm looking for. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:54, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Back to this topic briefly. I ran a Special:Newpage query that included 10,000 articles and searched for "band". I was able to nominate quite a number of

I remember doing that with him, and it was rather startling; I think the total I got was 56 CSDed garage bands, and about 10 more that we PRODded. The autopatrolled issue is a part of the problem, but we do need more people as well. I can only think of a very few of us who regularly do NPP; maybe we can pull a few vandal fighters over, especially now that a certain user is back. We could also make some noise in high-profile areas, like the people handling unsourced BLPs have, and see where that gets us. A few loud notes at the Village Pump might help. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:49, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Give more people the ability to actually delete junk, rather than just slapping a template on. Friday (talk) 00:09, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

That'd be nice too; you have anyone in particular in mind? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:14, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I think this is patent nonsense. It's code, which isn't patent nonsense to me, but it's not at all prose, so is this patent nonsense?

Discussion

Thoughts? — Timneu22 · talk 15:26, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Speedy delete as A1, unable to identify the subject, lack of context.

Fram (talk

) 15:36, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Nope. Patent nonsense means it's incomprehensible, not non-encyclopedic. If anything, I'd say the speedy deletion criterion which most likely applies to this is G12--code is automagically copyrighted when written, and there's no copyright notice that I see on first glance, so I'd call it a likely copyvio. ec: I'd not call it A1, there's comments in the code. Jclemens (talk) 15:38, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Well G1 worked, but I guess A1 is better. The title was DSP TOOL USING GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE, so it was clear that the code was for whatever that is... but I guess "whatever that is" was unclear, so yeah, A1. — Timneu22 · talk 15:43, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Either of those, or A3. Code is not meaningful, substantive content.

talk

) 00:23, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

No, code is not G1, and is not G12 either unless a non-free copyrighted source is identified (many of the source code submissions to Wikipedia are in fact written by contributors). It is rather likely to be either A1 or A3, though, unless it contains explanatory comments. Dcoetzee 01:12, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

If if has explanatory comments comprehensible to anyone besides the programmer himself, it's likely to have been written by someone who was forced on pain of termination to write said comments, hence copyrighted. :-) Jclemens (talk) 03:06, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

G1 is not applicable. The content is coherent, though not in English. A3 does not apply, because there is certainly plenty of (admittedly non-encyclopedic) content, and A3 is only for short articles, which that was clearly not. A1 would demand that someone knowledgeable in the language in question couldn't understand what is going on. And has been pointed out, G12 should probably be able to specifically identify the source. So... I'm thinking it should have been PROD'ed. Not everything that's clearly non-encyclopedic should be speedily deletable. Jclemens (talk) 03:11, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

In this case, I'd say it's so clearly non-encyclopedic that

Office of Speedy Deletions to my knowledge. But could be PROD'ded, too. It's not actively harmful content, and one's not worse than the other. (Though one might want to direct the author to a site like Pastebin, as that may be what they're looking for anyway. In that case, removing it quickly would discourage the practice. (Off the topic, Jclemens, how do you get by without commenting? If I look at code I did six months or a year ago, it can take me some time to even figure out the details of what the hell -I- did, let alone to have someone else figure it. And besides that, explaining it in a clear form makes you think about what you're doing anyway. Comments are good!) Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me}

04:01, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

J, you say the content is coherent, just not in English. Gimme a break. That provision is intended for material in a foreign language, not computer codes. Let's not pretend the intent was to protect an article like this. The criterion was never intended to be wiki-lawyered in such a manner to protect an article that is not in any language spoken by actual human beings. I also don't see where it is specified that A3 is only for short articles. It is for articles with no substantive content. Like a bunch of computer code without any explanation of what it is. And let's not forget that we are allowed to use our own brains once in while to make a decision. I would have accepted IAR as a reason to delete something like this. Dumping code on us without explanation could only confuse our readers. I have been among those who have criticized Tim in the past for trying to stretch what CSD is for, but he's right on in this case.

talk

) 04:13, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Seraphimblade, when I code (which is entirely uncommon--I don't think I've written anything more than a shell script in a decade or so) I write comments to help me remember what I did, not introduce someone else to the topic.

Beeblebrox, you've got it 100% backwards: Speedy criteria don't exist to "protect an article", they're a very limited set of things, defined by the community, which can be deleted without debate, fanfare, or even much in the way of notice. Using initiative to expand speedy definitions without consensus is improper, and while computer code may indeed be pointless and non-encyclopedic, it's hardly downright harmful. PROD works fine in these cases. It's not like a raft of code hanging around for a week is going to hurt anything. Jclemens (talk) 15:34, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but the criteria are deliberately narrowly worded to protect articles from being deleted unnecessarily. I think your contention that computer code qualifies as a foreign language is deeply flawed and sets a precedent we don't want to set. If it's a foreign language, then how about you translate it into English for us so we can all understand it? That's what the prohibition against deleting article just because they are not in English is for. Any article that cannot be translated into English because it is not written in a language intended for use by human beings should not qualify for that protection and should qualify for speedy deletion. Wikipedia may be written on computers but it is meant to be consumed by people.

talk

) 22:27, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Go read G1 again... Fanfic isn't G1'able. Bizarre conspiracy theories aren't G1'able. Why should computer code be different? Jclemens (talk) 04:43, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Because it is impossible to turn a bunch of code into an article. Fanfic can be read and understood in general terms even if a person is unfamiliar with the fictional universe it is based in. Conspiracy theories may be nonsensical from a logical standpoint but if the gist can be comprehended by the average person they do not qualify. Computer code is different in that it has no meaning in any language used by humans to communicate with humans. It's irredeemably incoherent and cannot be translated into something that can by understood in English. As I said, if that's not the case I'd be interested to see a translation of the code into English. Not an explanation of what it does or what it's for, if that had been included we could have just cut the code out and decided if what was left fit a CSD, but rather a translation of the code into comprehensible English. It's my contention that this cannot be done. Prove me wrong and I'll happily concede the point.

talk

) 06:15, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Beeblebrox is largely correct. Computer code is a set of instructions, meant for a

WP:NOTMANUAL, as well as most probably incomprehensible to anybody not intimately aware of the particular task they were created to perform -- and of no interest to anybody not wanting to perform that task. NotEnglish+InstructionManual+Incomprehensible+ExtremelyNarrowInterest = blatant SPEEDY in my book. It's not so much a matter of whether, but under which rule -- as it would appear to be under the overlapping penumbra of several. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P

) 06:53, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

This seems to one of those times when we run the risk of tying ourselves in knots over technicalities of CSD. This to me screams

WP:IAR; not encyclopedic, never going to be encyclopedic, shouldn't be here, so delete. GedUK 

13:48, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

That's common sense. You'll find that common sense and IAR are hated by many of the hard-core admins here. Yesterday Life is the name of strive and struggle was written by a guy who said it was his own personal essay and that it was a place for people to add things about positive living (or something). No chance of ever beingencyclopedic, but an admin left me a message saying that it could not be CSD. So people can self-proclaim that I wrote this essay that is nonsense!! but admins would rather we follow procedures than use common sense. You're spot-on, Ged. — Timneu22 · talk 15:30, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

You're all missing the point. Or rather, you're making points that are invalidated by the presence of other, non-speedy deletion processes. In real life, I can't go out and find a murderer and bash his head in, but if I catch him in the act and that's the only way to stop him from killing someone right then and there, I can do so and it would be called justifiable homicide. In much the same way, speedy deletion criteria are the limited, closely defined set of things where a single admin, with no notice or review, is allowed to summarily execute an article. If any of you think computer code should be G1-able, then by all means start an RfC and seek community consensus to expand the speedy criterion definition; I wouldn't oppose such a proposal. But don't pretend that there's something wrong with IAR being insufficient grounds for a speedy: any remotely controversial speedy, any one that's contested in good faith by a single editor in good standing, goes to AfD instead, where things can be sorted out appropriately. (The exception being articles where real, ongoing harm is an issue) Jclemens (talk) 15:42, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

What about something that isn't remotely controversial? Like an essay that someone says is an essay, that isn't encyclopedic. The essay I'm talking about today is different than anything else I've brought up, because the user said he created the essay for people to comment on it! Use IAR here; there's no reason to leave such nonsense around! — Timneu22 · talk 17:48, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

In the case of essays there are some that are suitable for moving to user space, some that should be in Wikipedia space and some that don't belong anywhere on Wikipedia. People have different opinions on what is suitable for essays in userspace (and sometimes this depends on the contribution history of the user in question) and what is suitable for essays in Wikipedia space. So unless the essay meets an existing speedy deletion criteria then it should go to AfD. IAR is never a suitable reason to delete something. Thryduulf (talk) 17:56, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I would have to agree with Jclemens here. Mixing

WP:IAR is a very bad combination. I would probably argue for its inclusion under G1 -- as (i) it is not meant to make linguistic sense to humans (ii) it is not covered by any of that criteria's exclusions. A bit of a stretch, but sufficiently relevant/analogous to pass muster for a non-controversial deletion. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P

) 18:19, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

IAR doesn't say "If a rule prevents you from improving the encyclopedia, unless it has to do with

CSD, ignore it", it says, "If a rule prevents you from improving the encyclopedia, ignore it". There are some times where IAR is the right thing to do, and this would seem to be one of these times, as it improves the encyclopedia by not having random computer code floating around. If we were to let this go, someone might take the opportunity to post malware in code form that would sit around for 7 or more days. CSD is not here to prevent people from using common sense, as you seem to be suggesting; I actually trust our admins' judgment when it comes to this matter. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい

) 22:04, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

What's not said in IAR, but probably should be, is that given the amount of controversy an IAR decision can prompt, IAR is often an inappropriate choice because shortcutting existing processes can consume more time in drama than simply following the seemingly overly bureaucratic community processes would have consumed in the first place. IAR is more for "marching off the map" into unknown territory where no processes exist than for saying "the community processes take too long to do this". Thus, while I entirely agree that IAR can apply everywhere, there's rarely a good reason to use it instead of established process. Jclemens (talk) 22:18, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

And this would seem to fall under that category, unless someone can remember another time where a new article was entirely made up of computer code. If that has happened before (maybe it has, I've only been around since March 2010), that would be a starting point, but I certainly don't know of it. I also know that IAR can excite controversy; that's why this thread is still alive. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:31, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

WP:SPEEDY+WP:IAR=arbitrary article deletion at admin discretion -- not a good idea in my book. In fact, I'm not sure if I'd ever be in favour of a WP:IAR utilisation of admin tools. It would set a dangerous precedent. I would consider widening the interpretation of G1 to include information that is encoded (particularly when it is non-encyclopaedic even when decoded) is far less dangerous. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 03:39, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I suggest that photos over 5 years old NOT be speedied for the following reasons:

• It's very likely that the rules on uploading photos have been changed since that time
• It's very likely that editors other than the uploader have an interest in keeping the photos, and these editors may be difficult to find and inform
• It's very likely that the original uploader will be difficult to contact
• It's very unlikely that anybody is being hurt by copyright infringement - if the copyright holder hasn't contacted us in 5 years, he probably won't ever contact us.

I'm not asking that the current rules not be enforced - only that some time be taken so that all the people involved can be properly contacted and participate in a non-speedy deletion discussion.

Smallbones (talk) 17:06, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

If a photo meets any of the speedy criteria, it should be deleted regardless of how long it has been on Wikipedia. I think the only criterion for which that could be disputed is criterion F10 (useless media files), which is for files, including pictures, which have no foreseeable encyclopedic use. That's regardless of whether it is of any other use to anyone. However, an alternative to outright deletion would be to transfer the file to Commons if any of Wikipedia's sister projects could conceivably make use of the picture.

Often, unused pictures that old were uploaded to insert in an article that was itself speedy deleted, and I disagree with the assertion that someone other than the uploader might have some interest in keeping the picture. Should that be the case, it shouldn't be that hard to show that the picture does indeed pass the F10 criterion or is otherwise transferable to Commons. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 18:59, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Again, I'm not saying don't delete them if they don't meet current criteria, I'm saying don't speedily delete them - just take the time to get proper input that may take longer to get in these cases.

After 5 years or so there are many people other than the uploader who may be interested in the photo. In my case, I try to make sure that lists of National Register of Historic Places listings are completely illustrated. There are often over 100 listings in a county (up to about 600). My specific problem involves "F4. Lack of licensing information. Media files that lack the necessary licensing information may be deleted after being identified as such for seven days if the information is not added. Be aware that editors sometimes specify their source in the upload summary." Requirements for licensing information are likely to change over a period of 5 years. I'd hate to think that every 5 years, I'll have to find new pictures for each site, essentially because 5 year old photos are going to be very easily deleted without any discussion effectively allowed. Just slow down the deletion process, please, for this small subset of our files to allow proper input. Smallbones (talk) 20:13, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Five years, plus a week to fix the problem should be more than enough time. NRHP content already gets a free pass on

talk

) 22:18, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Please take this request seriously, nobody is asking for a "free pass on copyright policy." All I'm saying is that if a photo has been in use for 5 years without any problem, it's rather extreme to have a procedure where it can be deleted speedily with the only notice going to the uploader. Why is there a rush to delete these without comment or calm consideration? Example: on Jan. 31 files were listed for deletion and only the uploader was notified. On Jan. 6 a bot commented out the photo in a NRHP list with a notice that the file could be deleted by Jan. 14. I noticed it and asked the nominator to give me some time to see what was happening. On Jan. 7 the photo was deleted. What possible reason is there for this rush?

Most cases handled by speedy are for new articles that don't meet the basic requirements for being on Wikipedia. These photos have been around for 5 years and contributed to the encyclopedia during that time. All I'm asking for is to have a reasonable chance to find out about the proposed deletion, comment on it, and check whether the problem can be rectified. Smallbones (talk) 03:40, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I see what you are saying here and completely agree. Where there is a known copyright infringement we are right to get rid of it as soon as we can. Where there is no suspicion that something is a copyright problem, only that there is a chance it isn't free because we don't know enough to be completely certain either way, then there is no harm (and possible benefit) in not being in such a hurry. As to what to do about it, perhaps we should add a requirement that the 7 day period does not start until messages have been left on both the uploader's talk page and the talk page of any page that uses the file. I'm tempted to suggest that any for any uploaded with no edits in the past year that a human is required to see if there are any other contact details (e.g. links to other project's talk pages, email addresses, etc) and attempt to make contact via any method as well. 19:14, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

There is a push to get the lack of licensing fixed at the moment, see

WP:REFUND. Graeme Bartlett (talk

) 21:18, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the information and for concentrating on the basic issue - speedy vs. non-speedy. Now I know at least where to look for these soon-to-be deleted files [[Category:Wikipedia files with unknown copyright status]] , which has sub-cats by dates and appears to be semi-hidden. I understand that there are a lot of improperly uploaded files - maybe 70 in the January 9 sub-cat - and something needs to be done. I'd say ones that have been uploaded in the past year almost have to a pretty strict culling process. But in the January 9 list, I browsed through 8-10 proposed speedy deletions of photo that looked old or interesting, finding only 3 or so that were over 18 months old. One was uploaded by a user who says he is in the top 400 editors by number of edits. He forgot to put a copyright notice on the file when he uploaded it, but did put in the information that he took the picture himself. This tells me that even an experienced editor can have a couple of oversights now and then. Interestingly, when notified he did add the copyright permission, but forgot to take off the "This file has no copyright information" tag. So who knows whether it would have been deleted or not? (I took that tag off). Another older file File:Raffles Lighthouse.jpg was quite interesting. The original uploader did everything right, but another editor uploaded a non-free image over it, and changed the copyright permission. (I reverted to the original). Would this have been caught in a regular speedy process? Another obviously inexperienced editor just filled in the form sparsly on a fair use image- that looked pretty straightforward to me to fill in a few obvious details. So based on a very small sample - I'd say that there are not that many photos here that are even 2 years old and being careful with them won't hold up the process. And older photos are affected by quirks that I never would have even imagined. Why not just say that photos over 2 years old cannot be speedied, or at least add a requirement that timely notifications be put on the article talk pages where the photo appears? Smallbones (talk) 05:43, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the simplest short-term measure would be to simply require that for all photos nominated under this category, the seven-day period does not start until notices have been placed on both the uploader's talk page and the talk page of any page that includes them. This should be easily doable by bot, and if so done, should delay the process by only a few seconds for those images that should really be deleted (thus not affecting the legal issues at all), while providing more time for cases such as those Smallbones identifies in the original message. If after a few months this hasn't fixed the problem, then we can look at more complicated ways of solving the problem, hopefully with more data to work with. Thryduulf (talk) 15:31, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

So the new wording should read as follows?

"F4. Lack of licensing information. Media files that lack the necessary licensing information may be deleted after being identified as such for seven days after the uploader and the talk pages where the file appears are notified if the information is not added. Be aware that editors sometimes specify their source in the upload summary."

The text in bold being the new wording; it wouldn't be bold on the CSD page. Does everybody agree? Shorter or simpler variants would almost certainly be acceptable to me. Smallbones (talk) 22:08, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

• This sort of thing has come up in the past, and the general consensus was that multiple notifications would be nice but could not be mandated. In fact, even notifying an uploader or article creator is not actually required by policy. It's something that everyone should do of course, but it has never gained a consensus as a absolute requirement. I know I have seen it in the past that when an image is tagged for CSD a notification is placed right under it on any page it is used on. If we could automate that process there would be no need to try and require mass notifications. If I recall correctly, the main objection in the past to such requirements was that if an item was that important to you you should have it on your watchlist. That's why we have them after all.
  talk
  ) 22:20, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

So a photo that's been around for awhile, where somebody has over-written the properly entered copyright info (see File:Raffles Lighthouse.jpg as explained above) can simply be "disappeared" without telling anybody? If this is the sense of this provision, then I'd guess 90% of Wikipedians would say you are over-stepping here. Smallbones (talk) 22:30, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Why can't notifications be mandated? They are for other types of deletion - if we create the relevant templates (which probably already exist) it's only 1 edit for the uploader's talk, and 1 edit per page the file appears on - edits that could easily be done by bot. Thryduulf (talk) 02:19, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

5 days and no responses as to why notifications cannot be mandated. Am I then to presume that there is no reason we can't implement this way to improve the deletion process? Thryduulf (talk) 12:53, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Not saying that automatic notification is bad but have we any evidence that editors dont notify when they add Template:Di-no license as it is part of the instructions. It only really needs to automated if we have evidence that editors are ignoring the instruction. MilborneOne (talk) 13:10, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Instructions are only to notify the uploader, not the talk pages of the articles that use the photo. Smallbones (talk) 14:10, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't know, but the problem that this is trying to address is that interested editors aren't getting to find out about images that might be deleted in time to do anything about it. This is why the suggestion is to require notification on the talk pages of pages that use the file as well as the uploader's talk page. Say that file:Example.jpg was being marked for deletion because it wasn't explicitly released under a free license according to current standards. Currently, only the uploader (user:example) would be notified, but if that user has retired then it is not unlikely that the editors at Example, where the image was used, would not have their talk page on their watchlists. As such the first they might know about the file being marked for deletion is a bot removing the image after it has been deleted.

Under this proposal, the file would not be deleted until 7 days after notifications had been placed at user talk:Example and Talk:Example. Thryduulf (talk) 13:59, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Still confused Template:Di-no license says that the uploader should be notified and the article use tagged with a deletable caption. So I am confused that you think the editors with the article on the watchlist would not see the deletion caption being added. MilborneOne (talk) 19:29, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

If it were reliably used then yes they should, but in practice the addition of "deletable caption" is not consistent and when it is added is frequently done several days after the image was tagged. As it currently stands the deletion period starts with the image tagging, not the notifications (which should be given, but are not required to be given, so deletions can happen even if they aren't). This change would mandate the notifications and the deletion countdown would not begin until they are. So it would give a guaranteed 7-day period after being notified rather than the current somewhere up to 7 days but sometimes none. Thryduulf (talk) 22:09, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Just seems strange that you would tag it days later, normally you add the template and do the uploader notice and add the captions. Not sure why anybody would come back to it days later. Have we any stats that people go back days later to add them, most people would just do the job then move on. Sorry to go on but I am still not convinced we have a problem. MilborneOne (talk) 22:25, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't know that anybody collates stats on this sort of thing, but it's sometimes a bot or another user that adds a delayed tag. See the very start of this thread for details of the problem. Thryduulf (talk) 23:45, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

OK - I dont agree that it is a problem, if it is a copyright issue it does not matter how long since it has been uploaded. If the image doesnt meet the copyright rules then it will go, giving a longer notice is unlikely to help and the suggestion to wait until the last notification is unlikely to delay the deletion by more than a few days. If a user is really miffed about an image dissapearing then they can take it to a deletion review. But I do agree and would support a case for automating the notification process, but I dont think that would require a change in the text here. I will leave it to others to comment now, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 00:08, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Since you asked for stats, I went and checked out a small sample. For the first 10 files on the page "Category:Wikipedia files with unknown copyright status as of 12 January 2011" (date chosen to see how long it takes to notify) that had been included in at least one article

• 8 files did NOT have notifications in the articles
• 2 files did have notification in the articles

• 10 articles with the above photos were NOT notified
• 2 articles with the above photos were notified - and none were notified late.

Obviously a small sample, but equally obvious that non-notification is much more common that notification. As far as getting the photos reinstated after they have been deleted - that is incredibly hard. But correcting them while the upload info is available, I'd guess about 4 could have been rectified if somebody bothered to inform the uploaders a few basics, rather than biting the newbies. For the very few older files (over 2 years old) that I've seen, I'd guess 80-90% of the problems could be rectified, if the uploaders were still available. Smallbones (talk) 05:11, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Point of order: F10 applies only to non-media files. Stifle (talk) 10:07, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Mandatory notification for deletion of files

So we have evidence there is a problem (interested editors not finding out about files that may be speedily deleted before they're deleted), and a suggestion for how to solve this problem (require notifications to uploader's user talk, and page talk of pages that use file; start 7 day period only when these notifications have been made). How can we move forward to implement a solution, either this proposal or a better one (not that any have been made)? Thryduulf (talk) 01:02, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I know hoaxes have been discussed, and it's always been decided to not speedy them if they're not blatant. But, wouldn't it make sense to say a BLP that's unsourced, that may be a hoax, should be speedied on sight, since any hoax would expose the subject to ridicule, even if the claims are positive, and even they (the subject) were the author of it. I use this model's bio as an example, which could be embarrassing to the subject, if people thought she was making these claims about herself. Keeping the article around a few days, and having an AFD (which remains visible), just invites people to use Wikipedia to make up plausable false claims about a person, just for kicks. --Rob (talk) 20:20, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to do so. There is consensus against speedy deleting unsourced BLPs and there is consensus against speedy deleting non-blatant hoaxes. So why should there be consensus for the combination of both? If the claims are not clearly a hoax, then there is

WP:BLPPROD were designed to handle such cases after all. Anything might expose any subject to ridicule by third-parties, even sourced facts. But while a person's life and the effects of a Wikipedia article on it are acceptable reasons for deletion in certain cases, I don't see a reason why it has to be handled by speedy deletion. Potential misuse by other people is not a valid reason for deletion after all. Otherwise we would have to delete quite a lot of material (just think about pornography-related pictures that might seriously offend some people but are still encyclopedic). If material is purely negative and unsourced, we have G10. If it's clearly a hoax, we have G3. If there is no indication of importance or significance, we have A7. But for the rest, we should always give the creator the benefit of doubt and allow some time to decide about them. Regards SoWhy

22:27, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

There are gradations between speedy and 10 days on AFD. I'd suggest poping a fairly obvious hoax on the BLPNB, where a few people can review it. If it's obvious, someone may well ignore the rules and speedy it after a bit of discussion.--Scott Mac 22:50, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Generally, SoWhy's position pretty much mirrors my position on Speedies, but here I think we differ... but

"Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion"---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!}

22:53, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Balloonman has hit the nail on the head here. If you remove all unsourced or poorly-sourced contentious information from a BLP, and there is no content left, then you can speedy it under A3. Typically though, at least a stub will remain (e.g. "Jane Doe is an actress.") While A3 does not usually apply if there is a more substantive version in the history, I think it should if reverting is not an option. Dcoetzee 01:06, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I have been going through a lot of old, orphaned templates lately, and I often find ones that contain no more than a few words, or a single link. Here's an example: {{Hovet}}. It contains a piped link only:

[[Johanneshovs Isstadion|Hovet]]

No documentation (even in edit summaries), it's totally orphaned (not even any incoming links except from lists of orphaned templates), it's been sitting around for awhile (i.e. it's been given a chance at life, which it hasn't taken), and it has no scope for future use. (In this specific case, the template was used briefly in the article 2009–10 Elitserien season, but then it was removed. The creator, Heymid (talk · contribs), no doubt created it in good faith, and not as a test.)

I've been nominating these for G2, and admins have been deleting them. But they're not really "test pages". The wording of G2 doesn't say exactly what a "test page" is; it provides no guidance at all.

Here are a couple more examples: {{Hulk & Joseph 10}} (which contained the name of the template, before an IP changed the contents to "Template:Hulk"), and {{Imbucent succession box}} (which contains some parameters for something). Same arguments apply to both: no documentation, totally orphaned, both old (2009 and 2007 respectively), and no scope for future use. Again, I would have nominated these for G2.

A third kind: templates that contains only the name of the template, like {{Important Buildings}}. They would be an obvious candidate for A1 as articles, but for templates all we are left with is, again, G2. (This is maybe a clearer use of G2 than with the others I mentioned before.)

My concern with G2 is that its name "Test pages" doesn't reflect the contents of these pages. They are not necessarily tests - there may once have been a use for them. But they are long forgotten, and won't be used again. Seeing "test page" in the deletion log does not help a creator or contributor to understand why the deletion took place - the template was not a "test" in their mind, it was a good-faith contribution (albeit a useless one in the long run). Do we need a new criterion? Or do we need to explicitly word G2 (or some other criterion) so this kind of thing falls under it? — This, that, and the other (talk) 09:45, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd rather go with G6 or G8. If they are completely unused for a long time, then removing them is just cleanup and as such probably always unproblematic. If they are unused because the page that used them was removed, G8 applies. In the first example you cite, T3 probably applies (not directly but its spirit), since it's a hardcoded instance of a link that can be created dynamically by the software. If those don't apply, I would use

WP:TFD though, unless it's obviously created as a test. If they exist for such a long time, then there is no harm in keeping them a little longer. Regards SoWhy

10:25, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I noticed an article that had been marked for speedy deletion a month ago, and I spent a few minutes checking. It is very short, cut and paste from a promotional website, contains just 3 references which are blind, states qualifications that I could not verify, and irrelevant name dropping puffery. I list these concerns in the Discussion. Do articles actually get deleted if they are not actionable? Michael P. Barnett (talk) 11:35, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

If is totally cut and pasted from a website it would probably qualify for deletion under criterion G12 (copyright infringement). ThemFromSpace 11:45, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure it's correctly marked for speedy deletion? Right now there are no articles older than two days in the speedy queue. Thparkth (talk) 12:10, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The article is Paul Karslake I assumed the article was marked for deletion because, on my PC, I see "Paul Karslake FRSA This file is a candidate for speedy deletion. It may be deleted after Friday, December 17, 2010." in red, below the hat-notes (I think this is the correct term). I put in the four of these that are marked with a ! (exclamation). The fifth, that is marked with a ? on an open book was there already. I should explain this is remote from my interests -- I registered to edit WP articles to provide verified information on technical topics from 50+ years ago, started to practice on articles about places where I have lived, and this led me to Karslake article when searching web for material for Leigh-on-Sea. I have been putting a lot of effort into WP because I think so many articles are good, and the method of working is essential to many situations, but I am alarmed by the amount that is not good that seems irremediable. When I encountered an article that was actually marked for deletion (or appeared to be) I thought it could be salutary to see whether this really occurred. Hope I am not out of order in raising this question. Michael P. Barnett (talk) 13:39, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I see what you're referring to - the message about speedy deletion refers to an image that was previously used in the article. It looks like it was deleted on copyright grounds. I'll remove the now-useless message in the Karslake article itself. Thparkth (talk) 13:52, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I am reassured that "marked for speedy deletion" is not ignored. That leaves open the question of whether articles that are as bad (and in violation of WP guidelines) as I think this is can remain. I am particularly bothered by the contrast between tolerance of what I think blatant violation of WP guidelines in an article like this, and the hair splitting wiki legalisms that make writing good faith material that seems to conform to common sense interpretations of guidelines an invitation to wiki-legalistic arguments that preempt time that could be spent on substantive contributions. Are there processes that review the kinds of criticisms I posted?. Michael P. Barnett (talk) 14:16, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Certainly it will remain as-is, unless someone is motivated to improve it, or if it can't be improved, to nominate it for deletion. The article isn't an obvious candidate for speedy deletion though. Thparkth (talk) 14:54, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I have a more general question that I think can be posed as a follow up to this exchange. I do not want to nominate any article for deletion, only to warn readers when I think an article is seriously flawed. Of the 80 articles to which I have made changes (several of these minute and / or non-controversial), I think errors in less than 10 merit hatnotes. For some of these, I would need to construct new templates, to display "an Editor thinks that this article departs from mainstream usage of the term ... see Discussion" or "an Editor thinks this article deals with only a few of the topics that are covered by standard monographs with the same title -- see Discussion". Is putting hatnotes on 10% of the articles that a contributor edits wiki-"bad form" or exceptional. The articles are on topics I used for initial self-education and then substantive work, and in a few cases, that my wife and consulted for ephemeral reasons. I am trying to extricate myself from all articles except those of close personal interest to which I think I can make a useful contribution. I have draft information for other articles that I do not have time to research adequately. I am putting these in Discussion pages, for other people to follow up on, if anyone thinks this beneficial. I realize I am straying from the deletion issue, but this question is so close to what is in this paragraph already, I hope it is ok for me to ask for a referral to where I can find if a template stating "more information in Discussion" is permissible and, if so, how to find if it exists already. I have a morass of template material already, and think there may be a lot more. Also, related (I hope not obviously) how to alert appropriate Wikipedians to a possible harmful practice based on a principle I described in an invited talk to a reputable professional meeting some years ago, that has been published conventionally. Michael P. Barnett (talk) 18:19, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, for the second template you mention, you could use {{

off-topic}} is as close as I can find. These boxes that are placed at the top of articles are not "hatnotes", they are known as "cleanup templates" or "maintenance templates" (or even sometimes "amboxes"). Placing them on 10% of articles is probably not a concern, particularly if the articles are less developed (shorter) or poorly constructed. Still, this is all off-topic for WT:CSD. Let's end the discussion or carry it on elsewhere. — This, that, and the other (talk)

10:30, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd still like to create a "BEFORE creating an article..." page, myself. I've never much cared for the hideously overused

notability requirements, and that the article adheres to all other content policies. If not..." Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me}

05:12, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd kind of rather you not do that. In addition to being more related to AFD than CSD, BEFORE is being used more and more as a blunt object to accuse users of acting in bad faith. That's something I'm not keen to encourage.

talk

) 04:57, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, I agree with this. Speedy deletion should be based on what's currently in the article and/or can easily be deduced from what's in the article. It is intentionally a lightweight process, and should not be overly burdened with the requirements of BEFORE. Jclemens (talk) 22:03, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Another editor objected to my tagging an article as A7, because (he said [2]) even though the article text itself gave no claim of signficance (simply said Company X exists, does Y, has N employees [3]) a claim of signficance exists in one of the sources cited in the article. I say that the text of A7 -- An article ... that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. This is distinct from verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability. ... The criterion does not apply to any article that makes any credible claim of significance or importance even if the claim is not supported by a reliable source or does not qualify on Wikipedia's notability guidelines... (my bolding) -- strongly implies that the claim of significance has to be visible in the text of the article, so one need not rummage around in the sources to find even one reason the topic might be notable.
In particular, since A7 provides that it "does not apply ... even if the claim is not supported by a reliable source" the implication is that the required claim must exist whether or not any source exists i.e. it needs to be in the article. It seems to me A7 has little value if one has to look through all the sources to see what might be there, when the originator of the article couldn't be bothered to mention even a bare minimum of one qualifying claim of significance. Thoughts? EEng (talk) 21:29, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

FWIW I agree with you.  – ukexpat (talk) 21:52, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Opinions will vary, and the wording isn't clear on this, but I would consider it inappropriate to speedily delete an article where you know there is a credible claim of significance regarding the topic, even if is not explicitly present in the article text. Thparkth (talk) 22:37, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Well of course, if I knew such a claim was in one of the sources, I'd just add it to the article and the problem would be resolved. And I agree the wording isn't clear. I'm trying to see if we can decide on what the right interpretation is and and (maybe) get consesus for clarified wording. Take a look at the article I linked [4] and tell me whether you think it's incumbent on an editor to read through the 500 words in the three sources cited just to see if, somewhere in there, there's some claim of significance, before nominating for A7. EEng (talk) 22:52, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

If there's a list of potentially reliable independent sources, in my mind that's an assertion of significance that the subject may meet the

general notability guideline and should be discussed at AfD, not left to just one or two people to determine the article's fate via speedy. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)}

22:58, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The key there, of course, is potentially reliable independent sources. So, Facebook, Twitter, Official Site, BandCamp, YouTube, YouGetThePoint... don't apply! — Timneu22 · talk 23:01, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with that. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 23:03, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

This seems to be going in the direction of saying that the simple fact that sources (other than of the Facebook variety) are listed, then that counts as an assertion of significance on its own? That means that any article which cites any non-Facebook-type source immediately escapes A7? EEng (talk) 23:15, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

We want editors creating articles to be paying attention to

WP:N, so in some ways listing sources is the best way to assert significance. It's asserting that independent sources have written about the subject. See also User:SoWhy/Common A7 mistakes#Common indications of importance or significance. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)}

23:21, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Now, that essay is just an essay, not policy. The question is whether this is an appropriate interpretation of the A7 policy. I would advocate that it is not, and that the article text itself should have at least something to indicate significance. I'd endorse pretty much the full list of significance-signifying items in the list given in the essay, if at least one of them is given in the article text. I think that last provision is asking very little, and is a useful requirement. An example:
The article (about a company called AnaJet [5]) which started me thinking about this question lists three sources. One [6] is your standard dry company-profile piece (# of employees, revenue, etc); one [7] is a (surprisingly interesting) discussion of the technical challenges involved in printing on textiles (mentioning several companies) and the third [8] is about Anajet itself. I read through all of them and I can honestly say that nowhere is there even a single instance of what one might call a claim of significance. The closest I could come is:

• "The printers are AnaJet founder Chase Roh's answer to the clothing industry's problems with traditional screen printing."
• "Brother and AnaJet are considered by many to offer the only printers specifically designed for printing on fabrics and textiles."
• "Notice that Silevitch mentioned the print heads. There is a reason for this. While AnaJet’s machine was designed specifically for printing on fabric, it does utilize Epson print heads."

Really, that's it. There's no claim of even tenuous significance in the article because there's none in the sources which is why, of course, there's none in the article either. Yet despite this (under Paul Erik's interpretation) this article survives A7 and goes to AfD, and everyone has to suffer through all boring this stuff to discover for himself or herself not only that there's no notability, but that there's nothing that even hints at it. They should't have to do that, and under my interpretation of A7, they wouldn't: the article text should be required to give some indicator of significance (wregardless of whether sources are listed and regardless of what those sources might say). If the article can't do that, as this one can't, then it's deleted under A7 and we can all move on to other things.

The above is longer than I intended but there it is. Since I've gone this far I'll propose (in order to keep discussion concrete) that the policy's A7 text be modified thus:

An article about a real person, individual animal(s), organization [etc etc] that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. contain, in its text, at least one credible assertion of fact constituting a suggestion of the subject's importance or significance. [etc etc]

Thoughts? Don't all yell at me at once, please. EEng (talk) 00:50, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

(@Paul Erik e/c with large block of text above) Agree wholeheartedly. Here's where I stand on this.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:13, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

A7 is for cases where one sees no reason to believe the article could ever develop into something viable. If there is any reason to believe an article has a chance of surviving an AfD because of cleanup/expansion that could take place during the AfD itself, then A7 must not be used. And if a cited source gives a reason to believe the article could be expanded into something viable, then the article is simply not an A7 candidate, even if the claim of importance is not within the text itself. Although in such a situation, criteria A1/A3 may apply, but not A7. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 01:19, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Assuming that your interpretation of A7's current text is correct, I'm suggesting that we change it, in a very minor way. To repeat, I'm proposing that the article's creator, or just one person who cares about it, be required to trouble himself to take something indicating significance from one of those sources and put it into the article. That's it. Is that asking too much? The point of my long excursion above was to show that, where this isn't done (even now, when it's not required to be done) it's a pretty good indicator that there's nothing at all even suggesting significance that can be added to the article. That's the question on the table. EEng (talk) 01:26, 28 January 2011 (UTC) P.S. to User Fuhg: all of the examples you gave, with the possible exception of poet Penrose, would survive under my proposed version of A7.

My post was very specifically responding to another which was talking about the inclusion of reliable sources in the article text. They are an indication of importance and significance by virtue of the fact that we hold up sourcing as the wellspring of notability. The whole nature of notability is that for purposes of an encyclopedia, reliable sources taking note of a topic is what's important and significant for a topic's inclusion. But application of notability requires us to make a determination of whether the reliable, independent, secondary sources significantly treating the topic actually exist. So when we go to the far lower threshold of an indication of importance or significance (A7), putatively reliable sources being included, all by itself, is a fundamental indication. I was not targeting the scenario in your original post which, by contrast, contemplates us taking on the obligation of surveying the content of the sources included, in order to find an assertion in their text. That is totally unworkable. So I would have declined your A7 request—not because of anything in the sources, but because the sources themselves are not Myspace or Facebook but Business Week and others.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:21, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that there should be at least one credible claim to significance in the article text. Just because an article lists a source like Business Week doesn't mean the source is even relevant, let alone contain any claim of significance. I don't think it's too much to ask that if someone has gone to the trouble of finding sources that they include at least one claim from those sources in the article text. Regarding the specific wording suggested above, I'm happy with most of it but not the ending. I'd suggest instead:

An article about a real person, individual animal(s), organization [etc etc] that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. contain, in its text, at least one credible assertion of fact that indicates why its subject is important or significant. [etc etc]

Although I'm not 100% happy with this I think the slightly simpler language will help more people understand it. I would make it clear and explicit in an explanatory note that the inclusion of sources does not, on its own, constitute an assertion. I'd suggest making the same wording changes to A9 too.

To me, A1, A3 and A7/A9 together constitute the absolute minimum standard that are required for an article to be acceptable: There must be actual content that gives enough context to identify the subject of the article and contains a credible assertion that the subject is significant and/or important enough for an encyclopaedia article. Thryduulf (talk) 12:24, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with your proposed wording. I feel that if an article contains a reference to a relevant reliable source, then that itself is a credible claim of significance, and the article should not be speedily deleted. Thparkth (talk) 15:22, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The point is that it should be possible to determine whether a credible assertion of significance/importance is made by reading only the text of the article. The evaluation of the relevance and reliability of sources is something that is AfD's job. So either every article that includes a source (regardless of relevance or reliability, including myspace and facebook links) but does not state it's importance gets sent to AfD, or the claim of significance must be in the article text. Those are the only two options that meet the objectivity requirement of speedy deletion criteria. Thryduulf (talk) 15:46, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

This is a false dichotomy. Myspace and other obviously-self-published material never counts as evidence of notability, so no judgement call is necessary. If a topic has been covered in an independent reliable source, that is prima-facie evidence of a claim to notability, and speedy deletion under A7 is not appropriate even if the article text itself isn't explicit about it. This is the current practice for what it's worth. Thparkth (talk) 20:53, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The concept that sourcing alone is a statement of importance isn't reasonable. There are a lot of sources that convey no importance or notability. Should an article contain a statement that demonstrates notability? Certainly. Should a nominator take a quick peek at sources and fix instead of nominate when the source contains a statement of importance? Generally, yes. Should the admin processing the same article make the same check? Generally, yes. Has either the nominator or the admin made a serious error if they don't notice the statement in the source when the author failed to include it in the article? No. It's unimportant, and the worst that will happen is that a poorly written article gets deleted, and someone with better skills will have to recreate it. An excusable mistake with insignificant consequences. —Kww(talk) 21:05, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Thparkth (and disagree with Kww that the consequences are minor): Noting coverage in independent reliable sources is prima-facie evidence of a claim to notability, and this is the current practice generally, if not universally among admins. We practically hit new editors over the head with the message that the best way to demonstrate notability is to show independent coverage—it's in all the introductory material, including the Article Wizard ("If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article."). It appears in the {{

WP:V notes in a section all its own, "If no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." The edit notice when anyone creates a new article says, "When creating an article, provide references to reliable published sources. An article without references, especially a biography of a living person, may be deleted." A new editor who pays close attention to that is someone we want to keep around, even if they aren't getting all other aspects quite right. Quickly deleting such articles sends a frustratingly mixed message. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)}

22:04, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

(@ Thryduulf) You miss the point. "[T]here should be at least one credible claim to significance in the article text" you say, but you are limiting that claim to a prose assertion for unknown reasons. We are talking about indications of importance or significance for encyclopedic purposes. Our underlying goal is to separate wheat from chaff, and the wheat is topics that are likely to merit inclusion. Where would we look to down the road, on the merits, for whether a topic merited inclusion? We would look to whether it was the subject of treatment in reliable sources. That is how we ultimately assess whether a topic is "important or significant" enough to be included. With CSD A7, we are not down the road yet. We are not exploring whether the topic actually meets these standards but looking for a mere indication that it may. At the A7 assessment point, we don't know whether any statements of fact are true. We don't know whether a statement like "is very well know X" actually should continue "...in my high school only." We don't know whether, even if the statement is true, there are sources backing it up. Sourcing is the goal and the touchstone and the standard we will look to and require an article to meet to substantiate its importance. But as a practical matter we can't ask for that to be shown in an article's first version, so we ask for an "indication of importance and significance". That indication does usually take the form of a statement of fact, but because of what we are, and concomitantly, the grounds upon which we decide whether topics merit articles, there can be no better and direct indication of importance than cited reliable sources already present; they indicate that the higher level standard of proof notability calls for, may actually be met.

• John doe is an artist (born year) haling from X.
• John doe is an artist (born year) haling from X. He is very well known and has exhibited widely.
• John doe is an artist (born year) haling from X.<Citation to The New York Times and a book on impressionist art>

The first is uncontroversial A7. The second asserts a fact indicating importance, though we don't know if its true. The third indicates that the New York Times and a topic specific book have content on the subject—the very types of material that the second would need to show, if questioned, is already indicated in the third.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:08, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

That's true, and I think both the tagger and the reviewing admin have an obligation to review it. But if the sources were articles in a high-school newspaper, it's still A7 material. I don't think A7 should be written to force retention of an article sourced to questionable sources in an effort to avoid an occasional error with articles sourced to legitimate sources.—Kww(talk) 13:57, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Re the 3rd example, if both citations are linked to an on-line, or other source the reviewer has access to, and neither seem to indicate any actual notability, it may well still be A7. He may well, for example, have been mentioned in the NYT as the art student son of Jane Doe, the famous artist. However, I agree that if no such access is available one should AGF and decline the speedy (possibly PRODing it) even if the text itself fails to assert notability. Ben MacDui 16:17, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

As the editor who began this thread, I can only say... Oh my goodness! What a firestorm I've set off! I'll wait until the dust settles a bit before commenting. I do appreciate everyone's efforts to help answer this innocent question posed by lil' ol' me. EEng (talk) 14:22, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

That would be equivalent to where the assertion of fact is not true or deceptive or overblown and the tagger or reviewer takes on the task of checking. We get a lot of that in new pages. Based on placing and reviewing a few thousand csd tags, I think there are far more pages (by percentage) where the prose assertion is a lie, deceptive or overblown, than it is the case a citation to a seeming reliable independent source that someone has bothered to include turns out to be bullshit.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:45, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

True enough, but I have seen it. Ben MacDui 19:41, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh sure. Seen it many times.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:02, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

This happens a lot with articles about criminals; without any references, they're usually G10s. But if they have a reference, you have to check and see if it backs up the claim; there was one instance where I came across a screed of text accusing a man of child molestation, and the one "reference" was an article about three guys going to a basketball game. It was an obvious attempt at bullshitting; on borderline cases with A7 or G10, I always check the prose and the references. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC)