Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 79

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G6 as applied to draft duplicates and redirects from typo in the draft namespace

Hey folks, could I please get some guidance on WP:CSD#G6 as applied to the draft namespace, specifically with regards to:

• drafts which are near duplicates of another draft (may or may not have the same author(s)) (example)
• redirects in the draft namespace which were created as a result of page move to fix a typo in the title (redirect target is either in the draft or article namespace) (example)

I've noticed several editors routinely nominating such pages for deletion. The admin response is all over the place, with some choosing to delete and others choosing to decline. Is it ever appropriate to apply G6 (or any speedy criterion) in any of the above cases? -FASTILY 05:19, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

drafts which are near duplicates of another draft: definitely not a G6. It's better to redirect the less-developed draft to the other one, so that the content remains visible in history so that it can be merged if necessary. SD0001 (talk) 06:07, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Agree with SD0001 wrt duplicates. As for redirects, WP:R3 does apply to draft namespace as well and should be able to handle those redirects that are created from moves of recently created pages. For other redirects, the footnote in R3 does indeed point to G6 for obviously erroneous redirects. The reason R3 excludes other redirects that stem from page moves is to avoid breaking external sites linking to Wikipedia. With most drafts however, that should not be a problem, so that deletions should be okay. Regards SoWhy 06:50, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

In the cases of recently created drafts that duplicate the topic of an existing draft, (and I intentionally echo the language of criterion A10), these seem to me to be obvious speedies: why would he draft space be more retentive that the article space? In the case where the drafts have the same author, we see this all the time where a promotional editor appears to be trying to game the system by creating multiple drafts on the same topic, and speedy deletion is the obvious (to me) choice for the "extra" draft (or drafts). But even in the case of multiple creators, the case of redirecting seems weak, since the resulting redirect would then be subject to G6 (via R3's footnote) as an obviously erroneously titled page: why add the extra step instead of simply speedily deleting the extra draft? If editors are uncomfortatble with using G6, I will propose a new category (D10, to parallel A10?) to cover cases of recently created draftspace pages that duplicate the topic of an existing draft. UnitedStatesian (talk) 13:20, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

By R3's footnote, G6 is only for redirects created as a result of erroneous page moves. I don't see how the resulting redirect in this situation would be G6-eligible. Redirecting it or leaving the page as-is for an eventual G13 deletion are the options we have. SD0001 (talk) 14:40, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Point of clarification: I think the redirect deletion can be done speedily when a page is moved from an incorrect title. Certainly there was no reason not to speedily delete Draft:Kkk when it was correctly moved to Draft:Government spending and economic growth in the United States. In such cases, the move is not erroneous, it is the original title/resulting redirect that is. UnitedStatesian (talk) 17:29, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

In my opinion G6's in draftspace should be pretty rare. I think its generally ill advise when there two independent or related draft articles on the same topic due to attribution requirements. Redirects are generally okay but probably best left to die naturally unless a specific need arises or perhaps someone else has moved something to mainspace a while ago. Draftspace should generally self-clean itself after 6/9 months or so or so I thought. Excessive CSD:G6 could be an indicator of someone truing to skew their edit count. Allow G6 which someone has a technical need; and then scutinise for plagiarism and non-attribution. Djm-leighpark (talk) 13:43, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

The rule of G6 is: If any reasonable person would raise an objection that isn't just a mere misunderstanding, it's not a G6. If you anticipate a misunderstanding, consider pre-emptively clarifying things in the deletion log. To use a made-up example, if you are deleting the mis-spelled redirect of Draft:John Smitth to make room for a bio of someone who actually has that name, consider logging it as: "Deleted Draft:John Smitth (now Jon Smitth), to make room for draft bio of John Smitth, a world-champion 18th-century Scrabble player." davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:48, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

• @Fastily: IMO, you made the right call on both examples. Steel1943 (talk) 21:10, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
  • In other words, I oppose G6 applying in this manner. Steel1943 (talk) 19:01, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
• In my view, the normal response to any such more-or-less duplicate draft should be redirection not deletion, whether by speedy or by MfD. I routinely opt for "keep but redirect" at MfD for such drafts, and would probably decline a G6 for such cases. There are several reasons for this:
  1. If the draft was created in good faith, the redirect lets the editor who created it know where the content is and where any new work should be done in an easy and natural way, harder to get wrong than needing to read and understand a deletion log entry.
  2. If the draft was created in an attempt to game the system, the redirect leaves it obvious to anyone checking the record of the user what happened, while a log entry might more easily be missed.
  3. If the two drafts are on the aME TOPIC BUT ARE NOT IDENTICAL, A redieect leaves the content available in the history, where it can be merged into the remaining draft.
  4. R3 applies only to "typos" or in general errors of naming. "John Smith (Printer)"is not an error for "John Smith (Publisher)", particularly if the subject was both. "Jane Roe (Singing)" is not an error for "Jane Roe (musician)".
  5. G6 should not be needed unless such a redir is obstructing a move, or perhaps if an editor is tendentiously reverting the redir to a competing draft without discussion. And then I think an MfD would be better than a G6, or perhaps protection of the redir.
  6. A redir can be created by any user, there is no need to involve an admin. It is more transparent. It has no real downside.
  7. Redirection is out standard response to separate pages on teh same topic.

  In short I see no value in speedy deletion for such cases, and significant downsides. Indeed I might be tempted to bring such a deletion to DRV. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 22:06, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose G6 creep. G6 should not cover unimportant unnecessary deletions like draft duplicates. There is no need to delete, WP:ATD-R applies. Knee jerk deletions are likely to confuse newcomers when they can't find their contribution history, and there is zero explained benefit. Duplicates should be fixed by redirection as a normal edit. If more is required, write a better edit summary. More generally, G6 should not apply to anything with a non-trivial edit history. Does it? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:22, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
  • SmokeyJoe G6 should not apply to anything with a non-trivial edit history. Does it? Yes. If an article is merged into another, and a redirect is left that has a non-trivial edit history, and a new draft of an article that properly belongs at that name is created and approved, a G6 will be needed to clear the name for the draft to move to mainspace. But clearing the way for proper page moves is the only case I can think of where G6 should apply to a page with a non-trivial edit history. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 04:08, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
    • I don't think that's right. G6 for page moves is used for deleting recently auto-made trailing redirects, and temporary third pages for title swaps. If the redirect has a non-trivial page history, it should be moved to a disambiguated title and redirected, not deleted. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:07, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
• I generally think that admins should have a fairly strong mop when it comes to deleting cross-namespace redirects that are likely to be of questionable utility and are potentially of negative utility. We don't have a PROD for redirects, so what is the alternative? Sinking time at RfD, perhaps MFD? BD2412 T 04:58, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
  • The only cross-namespace redirs which there is general consensus should not exist are ones out of the main article space to somewhere else, I think. Any other sort would need a deletion discussion IMO, unl;ess they clearly fit one of the other CSDs which would not normally be the case. G6 is not "I think it is unbhelpful". Obtaining consensus where there is no pre-existing consensus is not a waste of time IMO. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 23:05, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per DES and Smokeyjoe. This fails the uncontestable requirement that almost pages that could be deleted using it should be. Thryduulf (talk) 10:24, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
• Most of these will be eventually G13/G8-deleted (like many other drafts), or can be deleted after mainspacing the draft. Speeding up these deletions seems busywork without much benefit. —Kusma (t·c) 16:34, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Per WP:RDRAFT redirects should not normally be deleted when moving a draft article to the main namespace. Thryduulf (talk) 17:43, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Clarification for G5

I want to ask what is the minimum limit for the substantial edits criteria, because a bad faith editor can add some minor edits, so it does not meet G5. e.g: A banned editor A created a page, and another B added a null edit by appending <!----> to the end. Should this page still meet G5? This RfC is for reaching consensus or uniamity about this problem. -- PythonSwarm ^{Talk | Contribs | Global} 10:01, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

• Unless I'm mistaken, substantial edits means additions of content or changes in content. More than copy editing, minor edits, and application of maintenance tags, etc.. A null edit as described is certainly not substantial. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 10:17, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
• A substantial edit is a bit vague, but how would one draw a line? I would expect it to at least visibly change the content of the article, but a large removal of content could be a substantial edit, as could a large addition, but how large? Adding a reference? If it contributes to verifiability, generally yes, if it establishes general notability, yes, if it merely duplicates a dubious source, no. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 11:40, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
• I have always applied it as 'no addition of content', excluding typo fixing, categorisations, fact-tagging, bot-edits, addition of maintenance templates, infobox inclusions (where all info is taken from the article), moving parts around (copy-edit), spelling/grammar corrections, wikilinking, disambiguations, additions of 'short description', stub-tagging, and format fixes(, etc. etc). I really expect that there is at least a good part of a sentence of new facts being added (so I still regard something like 'she was born in Moscow' to 'she was born in Moscow, Russia' as non-substantial). In case I doubt I will tag only and have a second pair of eyes on it. Note that I have deleted pages that have sometimes up to 10-15 'maintenance' edits after the creation by the sock under G5, as there were no edits that actually changed content. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:11, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
• This doesn't have to be an RFC; there's no dispute here. The idea that some admin somewhere would decline a G5 because someone added an html comment is facetious. —Cryptic 13:03, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
• Per Cryptic's comment: PythonSwarm, can you point to a specific time you believe G5 was applied incorrectly that this RfC would address? Otherwise, this is just hypothesizing about a situation that I don't think exists. GeneralNotability (talk) 14:20, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

  @GeneralNotability: I asked PythonSwarm this very question, but at the time of this writing, have not received an answer. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 23:11, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

  @GeneralNotability and Deepfriedokra: For example the Template:Technical Non redirect page, it has been edited by people while changing content, but nominated for G5 after, although this should be nominated for redundancy and G3. Plus, CSD should not contain anything vague. I was sleeping while you guys asked this question. sry. -- PythonSwarm ^{Talk | Contribs | Global} 23:20, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

  Template:Technical non-redirect has not been deleted. It has no substantial edits. It was tagged for WP:MFD and WP:G5, and then test and WP:G3 tags were added by OP. Those two were removed by Pppery --Deepfriedokra (talk) 23:31, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

  Just looking at that template specifically, there were zero substantial edits made after the creator saved the page. A TFD and three different people warring over which CSD tags to use do not negate a G5 nomination. Primefac (talk) 23:54, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

  Of course, if WP:G5 were incorrectly applied, it would be addressable by contacting deleting admin and then WP:DRV --Deepfriedokra (talk) 23:13, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

• Why has this gone straight to a full-blown thirty-day formal RfC? I can't find any evidence that the suggestions at WP:RFCBEFORE have been tried, let alone exhausted. That aside, "substantial" is subjective, we cannot define a "minimum limit". --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:09, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
• I would agree that a "substantial" change must involve some displayed semantic change in content. A mere change in form (copyediting, and the other things mentioned by Beetstra above) would not be substantial, much less a cosmetic change that has no effect on the rendered article would not be substantial. However, a talk-page not or even an HTML comment to the effect 'I take full responsibility for this article" by an editor in good standing who is not a puppet of the sock should probably stop a G5. I agree with those who question why this went right to a formal RfC. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 21:42, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

New section - Modules

Since it takes some extra work to ask that a module be speedy-deleted, I drafted a new section called "Modules" then self-reverted. Here is the proposed change. Here is the comment by Primefac on WT:Lua which prompted the change. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 23:15, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Modules fall under WP:TFD (as far as XFDs go) and by that logic Modules also fall under the Template CSD criteria (which I believe at the moment is only WP:T3). Primefac (talk) 23:55, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

@Primefac: from memory, applying T3 to modules was discussed and rejected previously although I can't remember why. Thryduulf (talk) 00:02, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

The first four discussions I found (Archive 51, Archive 70, Archive 72, Archive 73) mostly seem to be concerned about whether it's worth folding them in. In 2019 two discussions basically concluded that Modules were just fancy Templates and could (in theory) be tagged with T3, but since it's a seven-day hold on deletions they might as well go to TFD. In other words, "you can do it but why bother?" Primefac (talk) 00:08, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

No immediate objections to that, but the comment makes me wonder whether the U set of criteria should also apply to modules in the Module:Sandbox/your userid/ hierarchy since (from my limited understanding) that's treated as a user sandbox space? While a U3 eligible page would be pretty unlikely (if even technically possible) there, U1, U2 and U5 are not implausible. Thryduulf (talk) 23:59, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

I think the pertinent statement is more about putting the nomination on the documentation subpage; at the moment U, G, and T all qualify for use, which is pretty much all of the relevant criteria (since obviously A/R/F/C/P are namespace-specific). Primefac (talk) 00:04, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

@Thryduulf: I agree that the "U" criteria could apply to the Module:Sandbox/your userid/ hierarchy with the caveat that the page should not have any significant history of being outside that user's sandbox area. Otherwise, I could take any arbitrary module, move it to my "user sandbox", change the content so it looks like it's not worth keeping, and tag it for speedy deletion. For that matter, ALL module speedy-deletions should have their "move history" and "edit history" checked to make sure the requesting editor isn't trying to "game" the system. Note that normal editors can move modules without leaving a redirect so tracking the move history may take some extra effort. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 00:41, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

But as you state in your penultimate statement, that has nothing to do with the page or the criteria but with the deleting admin actually checking the history. It's the same as when someone moves a page to a new name and then puts it up for "G7". No, you cannot do that and say it's "your page", you moved it and therefore (unless it's an R-eligible move) the redirect needs to stay. I've seen just about every CSD criteria manhandled at some point or another, but that doesn't invalidate its potential usage. Primefac (talk) 01:32, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Instead of writing in prose whether you want just the module itself, just the doc page, or both to be deleted, why not recommend using <includeonly> or <noinclude> so that the template and categorization only happen on the page where you want them to? Also, template editors have the option of changing the page's content model and then applying a CSD tag like on any other wikitext page. Do you think that's worth mentioning too? Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:22, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Actually, thinking about this some more, I think I have an even better idea, that will allow CSD tagging straight from modules, without needing to change their content model (it will leverage Module:Documentation). I'll try to code that up tonight or tomorrow. Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:27, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

@Jackmcbarn: If it's practical, can you make this work on .css, .js, and other "code" pages in user-space? If I want to delete the page history of my .css page, there's no easy way to slap a speedy-deletion template on it right now. For that matter, it would be nice if .css and .js pages had a "doc" option so I could write documentation if I'm going to share the script with others or encourage others to import it. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 13:18, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I vaguely recall deleting a .css or something similar that had the {{db-userreq}} commented out, but it still "transcluded" (or at least, showed up in the category). That was a few years ago though, so they might have changed how those page classes handle the code. Primefac (talk) 13:22, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Templates on CSS/JS pages do populate the categories, but don't have any visual appearance on the script page of course. For sanitized-css (the contentmodel used for TemplateStyles), the template will need to be commented out (otherwise the page can't be saved due to the resulting syntax error). JSON is the only content model which currently is impossible to tag, because once again the page can't be saved with a tag due to the syntax error and unlike sanitized-css, no forms of comments are allowed in JSON, and unlike modules there are no documentation pages also.

For the record, Twinkle can be used for CSD tagging modules (it will put the tag on the /doc page) and for CSS/JS pages (but not for sanitized-css or json pages). – SD0001 (talk) 13:29, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

JSON does allow comments, if you disguise them as data within an object - see for instance Wikipedia:Geonotice/list.json where the UK20200809 object includes a name/value pair named "comments", which is ignored by the bot that processes the page. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:58, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Yes, but they don't get parsed as wikitext, so can't be used to add categories. For example, Category:X1 does not list User:Jackmcbarn/sandbox.json as a member. Jackmcbarn (talk) 18:23, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

My solution for tagging modules without needing to mess with their doc page or content model is now live. You can see a demo at Module:Sandbox/Jackmcbarn/csd. I also submitted https://github.com/azatoth/twinkle/pull/1121 that will make Twinkle start doing this. Jackmcbarn (talk) 18:20, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Is this really a good idea? It appears to me to make the process more complicated, in addition to having the unintended consequences of causing every page in module namespace to transclude itself. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:53, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

@Pppery: Don't most pages these days transclude themselves for one reason or another? And for modules in particular, most of them will anyway because their doc page will contain an example of their usage. And as for complexity, is that a big deal given that most CSD's are done with Twinkle? Jackmcbarn (talk) 19:38, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Most article pages transclude themselves via Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration. Most non-article pages don't transclude themselves. Either way, this change still appears to lack a purpose. most CSD's are done with Twinkle is irrelevant, since this change means nothing for CSDs done with Twinkle. For CSDs not done with Twinkle, modules need to be treated differently regardless, and I think using Module:Module wikitext is actually more confusing than adding the deletion tag to the doc page.

The only actual problem presented with adding the deletion tag to the doc page is that some admins are careless, which should not be worked around by the addition of more module creep. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:54, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

@Pppery: How is this any worse than putting the tag on a different page though? Either way, it's a nonstandard way of doing speedy deletion. (By the way, I like your clever usage of package.loaded in it.) Jackmcbarn (talk) 22:24, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

It's not really much worse, but it's not really any better either, and this it is not worth the increase in complexity of Module:Documentation in my opinion, especially since the code you added has nothing to do with documentation. As I said above, there was no actual problem with putting CSD tags on the doc page, other than admins occasionally acting carelessly. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:37, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Like Great work! – SD0001 (talk) 14:10, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

This is a conversation for a different place, Jackmcbarn, but I wonder how receptive WP:TFD would be to this as a potential nominating process. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 01:49, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

@Amorymeltzer: Part of me wants to just WP:BOLDly do it. Jackmcbarn (talk) 02:44, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

And I'd revert. There's absolutely no problem with the current system of nominating modules for deletion, and this no need for any of this. (and I'm responsible for a large fraction of module nominations at TfD) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 02:53, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

R3 and malformed parenthetical qualifiers

Is R3 intended to cover cases where a parenthetical disambiguation qualifier is missing its closing parenthesis? If so, is the (vague) recency requirement waived as long as the redirect has no incoming links? Otherwise, has the vagueness already been discussed somewhere?

I have a specific example at hand, but to avoid any appearance of impropriety (i.e., an end run around the normal deletion process) I won't mention it here. I did verify that no move is involved. --SoledadKabocha (talk) 18:21, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Practical question: How can you be sure that it has no incoming external links? Regards SoWhy 18:30, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I recognize that such external links are frequently generated by various forum software that doesn't recognize certain punctuation as being a normal part of an URL, but I didn't think that was relevant - where the problem really is just an omission of a closing parenthesis, the reader should be able to fix it manually. I admit this was sloppy logic, and I am willing to drop the issue, even though there are some parts of my original question(s) that this doesn't cover. --SoledadKabocha (talk) 20:09, 31 August 2020 (UTC) (+ 21:50, 31 August 2020 (UTC))

I am not clkear. If this isn't a redir from a move, how did it occur if that is known? Is this Example (type points to Example (type)? Or Example (type points to Example (kind)? Or Example (type points to Example? Or what? DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 22:57, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

It's the first one - the specific redirect I had in mind is Punch-Out!! (NES, for which it is trivial to check Special:WhatLinksHere and Special:Log to verify that it has no incoming wikilinks and is not a move. I eventually decided against nominating it for deletion, precisely due to the concern of external links as I described above. --SoledadKabocha (talk) 23:55, 31 August 2020 (UTC) (+ 23:58, 31 August 2020 (UTC))

SoledadKabocha, if such a redirect gets brought up to WP:RFD, then barring exceptional circumstances it will almost certainly result in unanimous deletion (examples: 1, 2, 3). R3 wouldn't apply unless the redirect was recently created, and I'm not aware of any exceptions to this recency requirement. – Uanfala (talk) 22:17, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Is there a bright-line quantitative rule for R3's recency requirement, or does it require checking other things such as the creating user's contributions in combination with common sense? --SoledadKabocha (talk) 23:55, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

"or pages that perform a disambiguation-like function (such as set index articles or lists)."

WP:G14 mentions "or pages that perform a disambiguation-like function (such as set index articles or lists).". Set index articles and lists are Wikipedia articles, and serve as much disambiguation-like function as any other Wikipedia article with wikilinks. They are intentionally not disambiguation-like navigation pages, because the consensus was to add encyclopedic content to them. List articles are valid link targets, and "(disambiguation)" redirects to them should be speedy-able. If editors need links to indicate that the list is intended, the set index article should be moved to the usual "List of " titling, or some correct redirect like "X (list)" or "X (set index article)" should be used instead. I propose striking that phrase from the criterion. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:09, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

• The context is Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 September 15#Tphoon Mujigae (disambiguation). The page now at List of storms named Mujigae is very similar to a disambiguation page in that it lists all items with the same name. Storm pages are categorized as a "set index article" in Wikipedia, but that's just a technical phrase that non-dab editors aren't aware of that allows these disambiguation-like pages to have a bit more information (such as when the storm name was retired in this case). In cases where we expect there to be a disambiguation, like this one, a "FOO (disambiguation)" redirect is able to point searchers who may be looking for such a page to the correct location. It also has the advantage of preventing a duplicate disambiguation from being created if for some reason, an editor cannot find that page. In the case before us, Typhoon Mujigae (disambiguation) was the name of the page for several years, so the redirect is also a {{R from move}}, which is useful to prevent linkrot, etc. I disagree with the claim that they serve as much disambiguation-like function as any other Wikipedia article with wikilinks. There are cases, such as the one above, where the index or list is clearly disambiguation-like and there are articles where the content is clearly not serving as a tool to distinguish multiple things with the same name. However, where there may be gray area, I think it is best to have it addressed at RfD so I would not be in favor of having this exception removed. -- Tavix ^(talk) 14:05, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
• I agree with Tavix. The line between what is a disambiguation page and what is a set index or a list is one that is entirely arbitrary and completely unknown to most editors, let alone the majority of our readers. Indeed set indexes as a concept independent from disambiguation pages only exist as a compromise between those editors interested in serving the best interests of readers and those editors interested in rigidly enforcing style guidelines about what can appear on disambiguation pages. If someone is searching for "Foo (disambiguation)" they want to be taken to a page that lists encyclopaedic topics that could reasonably be titled "Foo", reasonably be referred to as "Foo" and/or reasonably be found on a list of "Foo", in >99% of cases they don't care whether they arrive at a disambiguation page, a set index or a list, as long as the page they arrive at lists the things they are looking for (it could be they are looking for the list of things, or it could be that they are looking for a specific thing that is unlikely to be the primary topic but they don't know the article title for). This all means that the majority of redirects ending in "(disambiguation)" pointing to set indexes or lists should not be deleted, let alone speedily deleted and so I very strongly oppose removing the exemption from G14. Thryduulf (talk) 15:26, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
  • I'd agree too, and would suggest that they be styled like navigation pages instead of articles, but I'm in the minority there. On Wikipedia, they're lists with encyclopedic content, and the arbitrariness of the line would be rendered moot by the use of redirects that match the target. If SIAs somehow "need" a redirect that indicates that the incoming wikilink is intentional (even though they are valid wikilink targets, just like any other article), then the "X (set index article)" or "X (list)" wording would solve that. Or they can be better titled as "List of Xs named Y" rather than "Y (X)". -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:19, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
    • The point is that distinguishing intentional links isn't the only reason these redirects have value - people also navigate directly to them in (at least) the two scenarios I outlined previously: People wanting a list of things with the name, and people wanting to read about something which is not (or they think might not be) the primary topic but which they don't know the title used. This means that even if the target is renamed "X (set index article)", "X (list)" or "List of Xs named Y" people will continue to use the "X (disambiguation)" title to look for it and so the redirect will still be needed. Thryduulf (talk) 01:39, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

de-PRODded pages still eligible for CSD?

Can CSD still apply to pages whose PRODs were contested? Id est are previously PRODded (or de-PRODded) pages still eligible for CSD? I initially thought about discussing {{dfu}} as opposed to File PROD. However, reading both policies, neither CSD nor PROD seems to address implementing CSD on de-PRODded pages. For instance, an orphaned non-free file is PRODded but then de-PRODded, but then the B-bot automatically tags the file as "orphaned" to be deleted for more than seven days. If the "orphaned" tag is uncontested, either the "PROD only one" is weakly enforceable, or there may be a loophole between CSD and PROD. In another case, what can an admin do to a de-PRODded file currently tagged with "dfu"? Not only files, I have wondered also whether de-PRODded articles are still eligible for CSD. --George Ho (talk) 09:19, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't believe a PROD precludes a CSD, but usually if an editor feels one of the CSD criteria apply, they would have used it instead of a PROD(as well as a reviewing admin). 331dot (talk) 09:29, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

I guess it would depend on the criterion, but generally yes. Copyvios, for example. G5 too, especially if the creator was a sock of a banned user that was detected only after the deprod. Reyk _YO! 09:33, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

All right. What about WP:F7 (including dfu), WP:F5, and WP:F11? George Ho (talk) 09:36, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm not exactly an expert on files, but I would say all of those are still valid even after a deprod. My general feeling is that, because PRODs can be removed for bad reasons or no reason at all, a deprod can't be used to veto a legitimate reason for deletion. This include speedies. Reyk _YO! 09:43, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Wouldn't any criterion using the seven-day deletion period (like "dfu" and "orphaned non-free") conflict with PROD if de-PRODded files are still eligible for those criteria? Is this conflict (or some sort of loophole?) something to worry about? George Ho (talk) 09:48, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

• When I returned from my hiatus, I declined a couple of speedies that had been ProDed based on the assumption that they needed AfD and sent them to AfD where the consensus was that I was an idiotwrong. I've seen no policy or guideline anywhere that says I was right in thinking ProD precludes CSD if CSD is applicable on it's own merits. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 13:49, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
• There are so many possible scenarios that it's difficult to see how a set of explicit rules can be codified. On one end of the spectrum there are copyright violations that should obviously get deleted regardless of previous prods, and on the other – speedies using "weak" criteria (like A7 or G6) when the previous deprod was well explained. As a general principle, I would think that "quick" processes that receive little scrutiny should not normally be able to override "deeper" ones that have engaged the community at a larger scale (as prods do). But in most cases, why should we resort to speedy deletion in the first place? If there are concerns that the de-prod was iffy, then just prod the page again: it's better to break the minor technical rule against repeat prodding, than to work in a way that technically isn't prohibited but that goes against the general principles of the project. – Uanfala (talk) 14:18, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
• I must strongly disagree with Uanfala's comment just above. if an editor re-prods a page previously deprodded, the sec ond PROD should be summarily and promptly removed, and in any case a reviewing admin should not delete under it. If the editor placing she second prod knew that there had been a previous deprod, that might be grounds to sanction the editor, perhaps a TBAN on placing prods. That would be a matter for ANI. A deprod would not in general block a proper CSD, as several editors have said above. When the issue is much the same, say a prod concern was "not notable" and the deproder gives good reasons why the topic is probably notable, an A7 would probably not be appropriate, as speedy deletions should normally be uncontroversial, and in that case an A7 would clearly not be. A similar conflict might occur between a deprod and an G11 (spam), a well reasonewd prod mightr be evidenc thqt the CSD is not uncontroversial. in any case if a deprod is "iffy" the normal next step is AfD, not CSD or re-prod. And so it should be. Where there is a dispute we need a community discussion leading to a consensus, not a speedy action. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 00:48, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Errmmm.. so you're suggesting that it's OK for a previously deprodded article to be summarily deleted per G15 or whatever, but that an editor who instead opts for the wider-participation one-week-long process should be dragged to ANI and sanctioned? – Uanfala (talk) 01:00, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

    The point about PROD is that it's for uncontroversial deletion. Once an article has been de-PRODded, it's clearly no longer uncontroversial, so a re-PROD cannot take place. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:49, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

    Well, CSD is even more so for deletions that are uncontroversial. I was just trying to point out the apparent absurdity of insisting that a "higher" process (PROD) that has proven too controversial for a given case to be applied again can be overridden by a "lower" process (CSD). Formalities aside, this is akin to insisting that articles that have survived AfD shoudln't be nominated for AfD again, but can instead be prodded. – Uanfala (talk) 22:45, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

• Also in practice, despite what they said, I don't think anyone is likely to actually be sanctioned for a single bad PROD, only if they continue to do it repeatedly after being reminded that it's against policy. --Aquillion (talk) 22:24, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

• My opinion is that a prod has no interaction with CSDs whatsoever. An article that is eligible for a CSD that was put up for prod was almost certainly done so by accident (because the editor did not realized they qualified - obviously, if you know an article falls under a CSD, that's a faster and more reliable way to get it deleted.) And the deprod absolutely does not invalidate any CSDs - someone above said that it received more scrutiny; I strenuously disagree. Deprodding can be done by anyone and does not at all imply that they know or checked for the CSD criteria. In subjective edge cases an admin considering whether to delete a CSD-tagged article that had previously been deprodded might take the deprod into consideration, but for everything other than the prod process itself, a deprod carries no formal weight. The only exception might be when the prod mentioned a rationale that actually fell under CSD, and the deprodding editor specifically disagreed with it (eg. edit summaries of "prod, Hoax" -> "deprod, I don't think this is a hoax" (from someone other than the creator) -> "CSD G3, this is a blatant hoax" might be dubious because the disagreement of an uninvolved), but even then it has to be decided on a case-by-case basis. And who deprodded matters - while the creator of an article can deprod it for any reason, their opinion that they are not committing vandalism or adding hoaxes obviously carries no weight for WP:MANDY reasons. --Aquillion (talk) 22:19, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
• A de-prodded article should not be tagged {{db-a7}}, take it to AfD instead with a link to the deprod. A later discovered G5 or G12 CSD eligibility should not be hindered by a prior PROD and dePROD over notability. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:59, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

  In other words, a dePRODded file should be taken to FFD, not tagged with {{dfu}}, right? George Ho (talk) 02:09, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

  What does {{dfu}}, Template:Di-disputed fair use rationale have to do with speedy deletion? Doesn't {{dfu}} prompt others to add to the rationale? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:18, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

  It's part of WP:CSD F7 (line d). Has anyone else notice it? George Ho (talk) 02:23, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

  WP:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#F7#d appears to be a file deletion equivalent of PROD, but with no prior de-PROD caveats. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:15, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Can T3 deletions be refunded?

Can deletions per WP:T3 be undeleted via WP:REFUND? Or must they go via WP:DRV? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:43, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

First step (regardless of REFUND or DRV) is always to contact the deleting admin. Personally I see nothing to indicate that a REFUND back to the template space is appropriate, but REFUND can also be used for userfication which would be acceptable. Primefac (talk) 19:03, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Primefac, I see. On a tangential note, I notice that a closer can treat TfDs with no participation for 7+ days as "PRODs" / soft deletions, where they can be REFUNDed (usually I've seen refunds go back into template space). Wouldn't it make sense to have the soft deletion closes (where rationale was it being a duplicate / otherwise within T3 scope) match up with the T3 undeletion process, so going through one route doesn't end up with different undeletion processes than the other? Note: very picky point though, and more me being curious / raising an observation, rather than pointing out something which is posing a problem currently. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:41, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

Not really, because they are two different processes. Primefac (talk) 11:49, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Clarified that page-authors can remove their own speedy tags - common sense applies

Changed

The creator of a page may not remove a speedy deletion tag from it. Only an editor who is not the creator of a page may do so.

to

The creator of a page may not remove a speedy deletion tag from it unless he placed it there himself. Otherwise, only an editor who is not the creator of a page may do so..

This is just clarifying some common-sense situations that the previous text seemed to prohibit, namely, editors reverting db- tags they mistakenly placed on pages they authored and editors changing their minds after placing a db-author or db-user tag on a page they created.

If anyone objects, feel free to revert and ping me to discuss. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 20:20, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

No objections here. GeneralNotability (talk) 23:35, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

No objection to the intent, but I have reworded it to avoid the needlessly gendered language. Thryduulf (talk) 23:46, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 19:12, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Reasonable. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 03:21, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

• Wait, is this necessary? It seems to me like WP:INSTRUCTIONCREEP par excellence. Surely editors should have the minimum of sense required here? Or do we really have people placing tags by mistake and then not daring to correct their error? Pings to davidwr, GeneralNotability, Thryduulf, Pbsouthwood. – Uanfala (talk) 21:40, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree. This is silly. Obviously someone is not going to think it refers to reverting their own mistaken tag. Natureium (talk) 21:45, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

@Uanfala: I appreciate your point. You've swayed me a little. I'm still in favor of the change, but not as strongly as before. Survey for seasoned administrators: Has this ever been an issue? If not, perhaps this change can be held back until/unless it becomes one, provided there is a general, not necessarily written-down, understanding among administrators that editors can, in fact, remove speedy deletion templates they have placed on pages, even if it was on a page they created. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 21:50, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Well, the understanding certainly is there for some less obvious cases where creators can remove speedy tags. There was a discussion from a few months ago, and I was thinking of implementing the draft text I proposed there, with the obvious additions of anything that gets decided here. – Uanfala (talk) 22:11, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Not greatly concerned either way, but not all of our editors are equally endowed with common sense. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 06:42, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

• I've replaced the paragraph with the version discussed earlier this year [1]. I couldn't bring myself to re-introduce the bit about creators removing tags they've placed in error, but if anyone wishes to see this text back (davidwr, Pbsouthwood?) they're free to insert it: I certainly don't see consensus against it. – Uanfala (talk) 13:08, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

T3 waiting period

There was a discussion at Template_talk:Db-meta#T3_and_C1_categories about the lack of a holding category, separate from CAT:T3 and similar to CAT:EMPTY for C1, for templates awaiting CSD T3. Some users, myself included, questioned why the 7-day waiting period is necessary in the first place. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 08:29, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

If a template is a substantial duplicate, it MAY be because someone is doing some testing or other template re-organization. In those cases, an "almost zero notice" deletion would be disruptive. In the rest of the cases, which admittedly is a majority if not a vast majority, a 7 day waiting period is harmless. I would be open to a 2-day waiting period with a no-questions-asked WP:REFUND if asked for within 5 days, but that might just be adding bureaucracy. Likewise, I would be open to having pending T3 deletions listed prominently all in one place, with the dates that the CSD was added to them, so that interested editors can object in a timely manner. This could easily be done with a bot that tracks membership in whatever category T3s are in, by doing a partial transclusion of pages that have the T3 template on them. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 13:34, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

I think T3 is quite wonky as well and that the 7-day hold is weird and makes it a lot less effective, but I would definitely not want it removed. In my experience from having CAT:T3 on my watchlist is that there are a lot of dubious nominations and ones that would technically qualify as duplicates but would clearly not be controversial, usually because recent activity, historical use or occasionally even widespread current use. These are almost always removed before the 7 days are up. With the amount of potentially controversial nominations I'm seeing I've been wondering if it would be better just abolishing the criteria instead; I even asked for a list of all 15 templates deleted using T3 during the month prior to June 12 2020. My opinion based on analyzing this data set was basically that most of them could be dealt with redirects, G2, G4 and wrong namespace G6 leaving just a handful that would need an actual TfD. One of these would be Template:House of Hohenzollern (Germany); a fork of Template:House of Hohenzollern (Prussia) that allowed the template to display the sections for only the three German Emperors which was not possible in the main template. If this went through TfD this functionality would almost definitely been added to the main template rather than losing a potentially useful feature. That being said there are few bad deletions actually being made here because our admins are competent and know what would be considered too far even though this badly worded criteria technically would allow for a deletion. My preference here would be removing the criteria and letting the handful of templates that can't be handled with other criteria or a redirect go to TfD increasing the workload by roughly a percent or two. If not I think the holding period should be kept to allow for some more oversight of this potentially abusable criteria. I'm very curious to see what admins actually review these think though. --Trialpears (talk) 16:01, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

A7 School exemption

I'm curious, does the A7 exemption to schools extend through to individual department or faculties or does it stop at the institute proper? McMatter ^(talk)/_(contrib) 18:36, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't think the exception specifically protects them from A7, but I also suspect it's rarely going to be a good use because most faculties are plausible redirects to their parent institution. If the "University of Clogtown Knitting Department" doesn't assert significance, redirect it to "University of Clogtown" with a view to merging anything that's salvageable. I don't think I'd have a problem considering something on the extreme low-end ("Mrs Fish's 4rd grade class at Clogtown Elementary") as an A7able group, but as usual with CSDs I'm not actually sure how often any real edge-cases come up. Are there any specific examples you're thinking of? ~ mazca ^talk 19:00, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree with mazca'a assessment that in most cases they should be mergeable/redirectable but minor subgroups are not protected per se. Regards SoWhy 17:33, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Explicitly recommending that page movers to do some types of "deletion via move" to avoid delays

SOME DB-G6 "make way for a move" deletion requests can be "split" so the move doesn't have to wait for an administrator.

How?

I have a page ready to be moved from OLDPAGE to NEWPAGE.

NEWPAGE exists and is not a single-edit redirect. I slap a {{db-g6}} on it asking it to be deleted to make way for a move.

A "page mover" verifies the db-g6 is reasonable, moves it to a temporary location e.g. NEWPAGE-ToBeDeleted, updates the rationale of the db-g6, then moves OLDPAGE to NEWPAGE, leaving a redirect or not depending on the circumstances.

I continue working on NEWPAGE, without having had to wait for an administrator.

Later, an administrator deletes the temporary page.

The only reasonable objections I can think of are:

• There aren't enough page movers to really make this worthwhile (less than 400 vs. thousands of administrators)
• It makes the page log and deletion log history messier vs. a straight-up "delete and move." Since I'm not an administrator I don't know how "messy" this makes things, so this may be a non-issue or it may be a serious objection.

Thoughts? Did I miss anything? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 16:52, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

• Notice: This discussion has been publicized at Wikipedia talk:Page mover#Discussion on WT:CSD that would affect those with the page-mover right (permalink). davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 16:59, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

  I check G6 at least once a day, though obviously I'm not on every day (though I rarely see more than about 10 pages in the cat). Is there ever a case where a page absolutely cannot sit for a day or two while it waits for an admin? Primefac (talk) 18:43, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

  Here's a hypothetical. Some vandal moves, say, Universe to Randy McRandolph murdered a child, and then immediately does some edits to the new redirect to prevent the page being moved straight back. That would require immediate attention. Reyk _YO! 20:48, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

  Fair point, and while to be completely honest it's been long enough since I've received the mop that I'm not entirely sure what I would do (as a non-admin); I suspect either IRC, AN, or a quick pageswap followed by a G10 would be high on my list of actions taken. Basically, I don't think G6 would be the best way to deal with that sort of situation, but that's because I knew/know a lot of available admins who could deal with it more quickly than that particular template. Primefac (talk) 21:03, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

  Forgive the double-post, but I just re-read the "reasonable objections", and based on my reply above to Reyk I'd say the first one is pretty valid (I'd go for an admin first), and I would definitely argue that it makes cleaning up things more difficult. If you're moving something away from a "vandal name" (again, discussed above) that move would now need to be removed (likely RD2) from at least one more group of logs than with just a reverted move. Primefac (talk) 21:06, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

• If a page mover gets involved then there probably won't be a need for any speedy deletion in the first place. If the end goal is to move OLDPAGE to NEWPAGE, then the redirect NEWPAGE can simply be moved to a title that will still be appropriate as a redirect, say NEW PAGE, NEWPAGE (FOO), etc. There are relatively few topics that are so saturated with redirects that you would struggle to think of an eligible one that's not yet been created. But even if there's no eligible new title, the redirect can simply be moved from the temporary title onto the title formerly occupied by the now moved page, effectively swapping NEWPAGE and OLDPAGE. That's described at WP:SWAP and WP:ROBIN – there's a script that performs these steps at a single click, so the technique is widely used (and also frequently misused). The usual way to ask for an uncontroversial move is at WP:RMT (rather than using G6), most editors who patrol that are pagemovers, and they would almost always use a pageswap to perform the move. – Uanfala (talk) 13:52, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
• Once I accidentally (re)created a page which I thought was salted indefinitely (it was salted just for a week). Immediately after the accidental creation, I moved it to my userspace while suppresing the redirect. That was basically G6 deletion. I think many pagemovers already perform G6 from time to time. I am not sure if they patrol the CSD category though. —usernamekiran (talk) 03:49, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Change how notifications work for G13

I see this sequence of events happen a lot:

1. A user writes a draft and it gets declined
2. 6 months later, it gets tagged for G13, the author gets a talk page message about it, and it gets deleted
3. Within hours, the author REFUNDs it
4. It isn't touched again for another 6 months, and it gets G13'd again
5. Steps 3 and 4 repeat until we run out of patience and/or MfD the draft

I have an idea for how to break this cycle, without making it harder for legitimate users to get drafts they actually work on undeleted: give the author a talk page message at 5 months telling them they have 1 month remaining, and crucially, don't give them another one at 6 months when it's actually tagged. This way, users who don't intend to work on their drafts won't get drawn back just to REFUND them, but users who do intend to work on them will still have both a reminder useful to them, and the ability to get it back if they actually remember it again in the future. Thoughts? Jackmcbarn (talk) 00:12, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

I like the idea of not giving them a notice on "day zero." I'm not sure giving them only one notice a month back will be enough. I would recommend doing two notices, one at "30 days out" and one at "7 days out." The 7-day out one should have maybe in small print a link to how to get a refund. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 00:20, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

An interesting idea. While disabling the user notification for the bot would be trivial, force-disabling the "notify the page creator" option on Twinkle would be slightly more problematic. Primefac (talk) 00:21, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I think a better idea would be to limit the number of times a G13-deleted draft can be REFUNDed. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:22, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

G13 was motivated by the many tens of thousands of unwatched drafts that included copyright and BLP violations. Even though the fraction was very small, it was not feasible to check them all, and it was decided it was better to have them all slow-delete out of caution. To avoid damage due to deletion of rare rough gems, REFUND was mandated to be easy. Once a user has put in a REFUND request, and an admin should be assumed to have given it a glance, the page is no longer in the category of pages that motivated G13. I think there is no concern at all. If a slightly active editor wants to slowly get around to their intentions, there are no time limits. If their “keep alive” edits annoy you, you should get over it. If their six monthly REFUND requests are a burden, have them userfy the page and strip the AfC taggery so that the problem goes away. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:51, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

HasteurBot (RIP) notified one month out from a G13 deletion. --Izno (talk) 02:32, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, HasteurBot notified page creators at 5 months that their drafts were approaching G13 status. See discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation#G13 5 month notices for why this stopped happening and how it can start up again, hopefully. Unfortunately, we lost a valued bot operator who took care of this task.

As for stale drafts, I moved to working on this area of Wikipedia just this past week and I think very few editors ask for restoration (and it seems like I've deleted hundreds of stale drafts in just one week, man, there are so many of them). But when I look at my deletion log, it's only about 1 out of 50 or more that have been restored. I'm mostly running into blank page drafts or drafts that were created 6 months ago and the editor hasn't edited since. Restorations are much more likely when the editor edits regularly on Wikipedia and notices the G13 deletion notice. But regarding restoration I think Graeme Bartlett and Muboshgu would be the best judge for their frequency since they are regulars at WP:REFUND.

I think this discussion has been held in the past at AFC and that is where it might be moved since they have the most background on drafts, stale or regular. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:40, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Liz,it's certainly a pattern I see alot, but I am not sure exactly how prevalent it is. I have also had a question I have not yet asked about what to do with AFC submissions that are "rejected" rather than "declined", and I guess I'll bring it up now. They still get deleted G13 with the directions to RFUD, so I undelete them. Should I? – Muboshgu (talk) 16:19, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

The repeat refunders are not much of a problem. When they ask for a repeat refund without intervening improvement, then we ask them a question to ask what they are going to do. If any action is proposed then we can refund, and if not the request is ignored. Individual admins do not have to do a refund, so no need to get stressed about it. There are a very few people with a lot of drafts that cannot handle the work load they set themselves, and we see a lot of their requests. They should probably have them userfied, but its no big deal. The most work is caused by admins who delete g13's without a sd tag, then us refunders have to change the article to reset the 6-month timer. However I have noticed that there are very eager taggers to tag for a sd-g13 withing an hour of the timelimit, so there's no need for admins to delete a draft for g13 without a nomination and notification. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:40, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I have a discussion with Calliopejen1 on my talk page but reevaluating the use of batch deletion on G13 drafts which, at the least, shouldn't happen without page creator notifications first, and maybe shouldn't be happening at all. I think there is a taken for granted assumption that G13 taggers are evaluating the drafts for potential which might not be happening. But that is a discussion that requires the participation of more admins and editors who tag & delete CSD pages and patrol CSD categories. It might be an overdue discussion. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:48, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

I realize that there are technical issues to be resolved in order to accomplish this, but we really should be notifying all page watchers and not just the author. If an abandoned draft has been adopted by someone else, they won’t get any notifications at all until the G13 tag shows up in their watchlist (and these tend to get deleted rather quickly). If the point is to get someone with an interest in the draft to take action on it, the page watchers are the place to start. CThomas³ (talk) 16:43, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

@Cthomas3: That's easy enough to do, just have the bot put a note on the draft's talk page. Anyone watching their watchlists will see the change. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:11, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

You'll end up with the same issue that IABot had back when it first started - the potential for an approved article with a half-dozen pointless G13 notifications on it. Primefac (talk) 18:25, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

That's easy enough to fix as well, just have the bot's message be namespace-sensitive, so if the namespace is something other than "Draft talk:" or "User talk:" it displays a different message entirely, maybe something like "This is a placeholder message, feel free to remove this section. [[Category:Talk pages with out-of-date G-13 warnings which need removal]]" davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 19:34, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

...which no one will remove, much like IABot's posts that (if I remember correctly) ended with pretty much the same message. Primefac (talk) 01:40, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

We can make a bot for that. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 13:16, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Historically, having a bot make an edit that a bot later removes/undoes has been frowned upon. Primefac (talk) 17:35, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Is there any way to have these removed as part of the script for accepting AFC articles? (I don't know how that is done as a technical matter, but Wikiproject templates get added to the talk page, and the AFC template is removed from the draft page as a part of the accept process.) Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:51, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Batch deletions of G13 content (ETA: without individual evaluation beforehand)

To pick up the thread about batch deletions for G13, it has come to my attention that one or more admins are doing batch deletions under G13. This concerns me because in the discussion about extending G13 to non-AFC drafts (including drafts that have never been submitted for AFC review for publication), there was more than one comment to the effect that "An admin is required to apply thought before deleting a speedy candidate". (Also: "CSD is a 'can-delete', not a 'must-delete'" (to be fair, I'm not sure where this user would stand on batch deletion), "Admins handling deletions can and should salvage good content", "Editors convinced that reams of mainspace-ready content will be deleted as a result of this policy tweak must hold a very low opinion of the judgement of our admins"). See Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 65. Batch deletion completely removes any judgment about whether the G13 nominated draft is crap to delete or whether it should instead be moved to mainspace (or submitted for review). I don't think that a G13 nom shows that judgment has been applied because I don't think the people currently nominating articles en masse are actually applying any judgment. Below is a table of outcomes for a Korean literature WP:GLAM project, showing that deleting admins could be (but in practice are not) a guard against bad deletions of content under G13. I'm not sure if these G13 deletions were batch deletions or not. I'm not sure if other speedy deletions are typically handled en masse by admins. Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:23, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Enormous table

Title Description Author Reviewer Outcome Decline reason Decline comments Comments Speedy nom G13 deleter Eulhwa modern Korean literary work User:Minheepark33 User:Sulfurboy Decline Verifiability 27 footnotes at time of decline User:UnitedStatesian User:Fastily Jin Daebang jeon pre-1900 Korean literary work User:Minheepark33 User:Cassiopeia Decline Notability Need more source with inline citations Single general reference to entry specifically about article subject in Encyclopedia of Korean Culture User:UnitedStatesian User:Ged UK Im Gyeongeop jeon pre-1900 Korean literary work User:Minheepark33 User:Hughesdarren Decline Verifiability The article needs more inline citations from reliable secondary source and some internal links if it is to be accepted Four general references, including entry specifically about article subject in Encyclopedia of Korean Culture and entry specifically about subject in Dictionary for Traditional Korean Literature User:UnitedStatesian User:Fastily Choe Goun jeon pre-1900 Korean literary work User:Minheepark33 User:MurielMary Decline BLP without sufficient inline citations The draft needs more inline citations so that it is clear where the statements originate from. Not a BLP User:Squeeps10 User:Fastily Hong Gyewol jeon pre-1900 Korean literary work User:Minheepark33 User:Cassiopeia Decline Notability Single general reference to entry specifically about article subject in Encyclopedia of Korean Culture User:Squeeps10 User:Fastily Bang Hanrim jeon (方翰林傳 The Tale of the Woman Scholar Bang Gwanju) pre-1900 Korean literary work User:Minheepark33 User:MurielMary Decline BLP without sufficient inline citations Thank you for creating this article. There are no inline citations, only one overall source at the end of the article. Are there more sources? Not a BLP User:UnitedStatesian User:Fastily Pahk Yon-Hee dead Korean author User:Minheepark33 User:MurielMary Decline BLP without sufficient inline citations The sections of works, and awards, need citations. Not a BLP User:Squeeps10 User:Fastily Imjillok (壬辰錄 Record of the Imjin War) pre-1900 Korean literary work User:Minheepark33 User:Dan arndt Decline Notability Fails WP:NBOOK, lacks significant coverage in multiple independent reliable secondary sources. Single general reference to entry specifically about article subject in Encyclopedia of Korean Culture User:Squeeps10 User:Fastily Pak ssi jeon (朴氏傳 The Tale of Lady Pak) pre-1900 Korean literary work User:Minheepark33 User:MurielMary Decline BLP without sufficient inline citations Thank you for creating this article. There are no inline citations, only one overall source at the end of the article. Are there more sources? Not a BLP User:UnitedStatesian User:Fastily Sodaeseongjeon (蘇大成傳 The Tale of So Daeseong) pre-1900 Korean literary work User:Minheepark33 User:Praxidicae Decline Essay also needs inline sources. Covers authorship, plot, features and significance, "other", archival sources User:UnitedStatesian User:Fastily Ku Jung-seo (literary critic) Korean living literary critic User:Chaekbeolle N/A Not submitted, G13 deleted N/A 10 footnotes. Entry specifically about article subject in Encyclopedia of Modern Korean Literature listed in "see also" section.I have now accepted it DGG ( talk ) 06:53, 1 October 2020 (UTC) User:UnitedStatesian User:Fastily Jeon Uchi-jeon (The Tale of Jeon Uchi) pre-1900 Korean literary work User:Chaekbeolle User:Taewangkorea Decline Verifiability Thank you for your submission. However, to accept it, we would need several reliable sources cited in proper format. Feel free to resubmit after some changes have been made. Single general reference to entry specifically about article subject in Encyclopedia of Korean Culture User:UnitedStatesian User:Fastily Saekki seo bal Korean folktale User:Benlawrencejackson User:Zanhe Decline Verifiability Three general references and three additional references in footnotes User:JMHamo User:Justlettersandnumbers Namu doryeong Korean folktale User:Benlawrencejackson N/A Not submitted, G13 deleted N/A Four general references and four additional references in footnotes, including entries specifically about article subject in Encylopedia of Korean Folk Culture and Dictionary of Korean Language and Literature User:JMHamo User:Justlettersandnumbers Dokkaebi bangmangi Korean folktale User:Benlawrencejackson User:JavaHurricane Decline Verifiability Please add a lead to the article and properly source the article. For more information, see WP:CITE. Three general references and two additional references in footnotes, including entry specifically about article subject in Encylopedia of Korean Folk Culture User:Nnadigoodluck User:Fastily The Rainy Spell modern Korean short story User:Shinewer01 N/A Not submitted, G13 deleted N/A 20 footnotes, including article specifically about subject in Encylopedia of Korean Culture User:Nnadigoodluck User:Fastily Draft:An Heon-mi Korean writer BLP User:GoldenAlpha77 User:DGG Decline BLP without sufficient inline citations The material about the nature of her poetry must be referenced 14 footnotes User:UnitedStatesian User:Fastily Draft:Choecheokjeon (최척전 The Tale of Choe Cheok) pre-1900 Korean literary work User:GoldenAlpha77 User:Cassiopeia Decline Notability Need more dependent reliable sources and pls provide inline citation - see WP:REFB Two general references, including entry specifically about article subject in Encyclopedia of Korean Culture User:Lapablo User:Fastily Ha Sangwook Korean writer BLP User:Serendipity217 Not submitted, G11 deleted 15 footnotes, generally things that look like good-quality sources I have now accepted it, regardless of coi; there are enough good references. DGG ( talk ) 06:53, 1 October 2020 (UTC) Nominated G11 (spam) by User:Moonythedwarf User:Jimfbleak (comment: "self-written vanity page") Draft:Ham Seong-ho Korean writer BLP User:Serendipity217 User:AngusWOOF Decline Custom: "Likely notable, but the format is messed up at the moment with the sectioning and spacing. Also concerns that it might be copy-pasted from somewhere." Do not reference Korean Wikipedia. That is not a reliable source. Tone is also of concern since it makes POV statements about the author without attribution of who said it. User:UnitedStatesian User:Fastily Draft:Hwamongjip (A Collection of Romance and Dream Journey Stories) pre-1900 Korean literary work User:GoldenAlpha77 User:Cassiopeia Decline Notability Need more dependent reliable sources and pls provide inline citation - see WP:REFB Single general reference to entry specifically about article subject in Encyclopedia of Korean Culture User:Lapablo User:Cwmhiraeth Draft:Kim Sa-i (Poet) Korean writer BLP User:Seray Lim User:TheAafi Decline NPOV See, WP:Tone and WP:Layout User:Nnadigoodluck User:Fastily Draft:Isaenggyujangjeon pre-1900 Korean literary work User:Serendipity217 User:J947 Decline Notability Single general reference to entry specifically about article subject in Encyclopedia of Korean Culture (but listed in "see also" section rather than references section) User:Nnadigoodluck User:Liz Jeon Bonggeon Dead Korean writer User:Njoyseon User:DGG Decline Verifiability Allstatements that amount to judgement or evaluation must be referenced to a third-party independent reliable source 39 footnotes User:Nnadigoodluck User:Fastily Draft:Kim Chong Kwang Korean writer BLP User:Minheepark33 User:MurielMary Decline BLP without sufficient inline citations The sections on published works, and awards, need citations 21 footnotes and extensive sources listed in further reading. User:Squeeps10 User:Fastily Draft:Kim Joong-sik Korean writer BLP User:Minheepark33 User:Praxidicae Decline Advertisement User:UnitedStatesian User:Fastily Draft:Kim Jun Tae Korean writer BLP User:Minheepark33 User:AngusWOOF Decline Advertisement; verifiability The tone of this is rather promotional and looks to have been copied from some other magazine article. User:UnitedStatesian User:Anthony Bradbury Draft:Kim Youn Bae Korean writer BLP User:Seray Lim User:KartikeyaS343 Decline Advertisement User:Nnadigoodluck User:Fastily Draft:Kim Myung-su Korean writer BLP User:Sojungyang N/A Not submitted, G13 deleted N/A 26 footnotes User:Lapablo User:Fastily Draft:Min Gyeong-hyeon Korean writer BLP User:Minheepark33 User:Bkissin Decline Essay/NPOV User:UnitedStatesian User:Fastily Draft:Park Cheong-ho Korean writer BLP User:Minheepark33 User:Cerebellum Decline Advertisement User:ThelmaCow User:Fastily Draft:Seong Mi-jeong Korean writer BLP User:GoldenAlpha77 User:Theroadislong Decline Notability User:Eternal Shadow User:Fastily Draft:Sohn Won-pyung Korean writer BLP User:GoldenAlpha77 User:SportingFlyer Decline BLP without sufficient inline citations User:JMHamo User:Zzyzx11 Draft:Yeom Seungsuk Korean writer BLP User:GoldenAlpha77 User:Whispering Decline BLP without sufficient inline citations 19 footnotes (made using [1] [2] etc. instead of <ref> code) User:Lapablo User:Shirt58 Draft:Yoo Juhyun dead Korean writer User:GoldenAlpha77 User:KartikeyaS343 Decline Verifiability User:Nnadigoodluck User:Fastily Draft:Myth of Bak Hyeokgeose (Foundation Myth of Silla) Korean myth User:GoldenAlpha77 User:AngusWOOF Decline Exists What exists is a related article; not sure if myths deserve own articles User:UnitedStatesian User:Fastily Draft:Myth of Dangun Korean myth User:GoldenAlpha77 User:AngusWOOF Decline Exists What exists is a related article; not sure if myths deserve own articles User:UnitedStatesian User:Fastily Draft:Myth of Jumong (Foundation Myth of Goguryeo) Korean myth User:GoldenAlpha77 User:AngusWOOF Decline Exists What exists is a related article; not sure if myths deserve own articles User:UnitedStatesian User:Fastily Draft:Myth of King Kim Su-ro (Foundation Myth of Gaya) Korean myth User:GoldenAlpha77 User:AngusWOOF Decline Exists What exists is a related article; not sure if myths deserve own articles User:UnitedStatesian User:Fastily Draft:Inhyeon wanghu jeon (仁顯王后傳, Story of Queen Inhyeon) pre-1900 Korean literary work User:Seray Lim User:GeneralPoxter Decline Verifiability Some of the claims made in this article are not verifiable by the sole given source. Please cite sources, especially for the plot description. Suggested sources to look at: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/658635/summary Single general reference to entry specifically about article subject in Encyclopedia of Korean Culture User:UnitedStatesian User:Fastily Pansori-based fiction Korean literary genre User:Chaekbeolle User:Sagotreespirit Decline Verifiability Naver Encyclopedia should be WP:RS, but more specific references are needed, and the article needs to be more navigable. Reliable Wikipedia articles rarely cite everything from Britannica, for example. Ten general references, including entries specifically about article subject in Encyclopedia of Korean Culture and Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Literature User:UnitedStatesian User:Fastily Yeowarok (The Story of Yeowa) pre-1900 Korean literary work User:Chaekbeolle User:Taewangkorea Decline Verifiability Thank you for your submission. However, to accept it, we would need several reliable sources cited in proper format. I think that the topic is notable, based on a google search, but please link the references to the proper sections of the article. Feel free to resubmit after these changes have been made. Thank you. Single general reference to entry specifically about article subject in Encyclopedia of Korean Culture User:JMHamo User:Fastily Story of So Hyeonseong pre-1900 Korean literary work User:Chaekbeolle User:Juan90264 Decline Notability Three general references, including entry specifically about article subject in Encylopedia of Korean Culture User:UnitedStatesian User:Fastily Draft:Kim Kyoungin Korean writer BLP User:Seray Lim User:Sulfurboy Decline Notability User:Nathan2055 N/A

Somewhere to edit after the table

Batch deletions say absolutely nothing about the admin making the deletion, only that they have done a batch deletion. I regularly batch-delete post-TFD G6s and G13s, but only to save myself the time and hassle of actually clicking "delete" on every single page. The last time I G13'd a group of drafts (which was something like a dozen pages) I checked each one first, and then deleted them. I know that not all admins do this, but the implication that "batch deletions are bad" is simply false. Primefac (talk) 21:00, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. I agree that is fine; I'm concerned only about batch deletions without checking individually beforehand. If this isn't happening, I withdraw my comment. User:Liz, you were the one who told me that others did batch deletions. Do you know how these are conducted? Thanks,Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:48, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

No, I do not know how the batch deletions are done by every admin. It's my gut feeling that not all admins take the same care that Primefac does. This point of view is based solely on looking at the Deletion log and seeing the speed of deletion done by different admins. As far as I know, that is the only way you can tell a deletion was done manually or through batch, is by checking the timeline of the deletion log. With batch deletion, as you know, you'll have a dozen or more page deletion done at the exact same minute, if they are spread out over time, then you can see that an admin looked at each one individually. I didn't take into account admins like Primefac who would look at each page and then later use batch delete to delete them.

So, if you have back-to-back batch deletions (of any category of CSD) by the same admin, I think it's a good guess that the pages weren't looked at individually. I know that this discussion is about G13s but my concern with batch deletions is really about files, which seem to be batch deleted at huge quantities. Regarding G13s, I think this is really a discussion that should probably also involve G13 page taggers as well since I think many admins rely on them to only tag appropriate pages.

I posted a note at the AFC WikiProject talk page about G13 pages and categories so that interested parties would be able to quickly see drafts that were coming up on their 6 month mark if they saw potential in a particular draft and wanted to extend its life. There are a few editors/admins who regularly pull out aging drafts to extend their time. I think those who work in the AfC area are the best judges of potential. If this is also a discussion about nonAfC drafts getting tagged G13 & deleted, then this is a discussion that should involve SDZeroBot since many G13 deletions are based on the pages they are compiling like User:SDZeroBot/G13 soon sorting. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:23, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

P.S. I think a lot of the angst over G13s will be alleviated when the 5 month notices start being sent out again, hopefully, by Mdaniels5757's bot MDanielsBot. The notices will notify active editors that their drafts are getting close to the 6 month stage and they can start actively editing them again (which is the goal here). But I'm finding many of the G13s I'm coming across were started by brand new editors 6 months ago, their draft was not accepted or it was never submitted, and they've never returned to editing on Wikipedia. I'm not sure if the life of their draft is extended, whether another editor on Wikipedia will work on improving it and moving it to main space, without their participation. But that is a different question than the one you were asking. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:42, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

I think the notifications are not really that related of an issue. I imagine that the vast majority of draft authors are long gone by the time G13 rolls around. Calliopejen1 (talk) 04:41, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

My impression is that there are a very small number of admins who regularly do batch deletions (in the sense of deleting everything in a CSD category at once without checking individual items, or deleting pages one by one at high rates (around one per second) that don't suggest checking). One of the admins who was fond of that got desysopped last year. What I see nowadays is batch deletions for "easy" CSDs (i.e. ones that are perceived as being at a low risk of people complaining afterwards), that's G6, G7, G8, G13, and I assume some of the file criteria. – Uanfala (talk) 23:10, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Adding that I can think of one way to spot G13 batch deletions. If the deletion log has clusters of G13 deletions performed at about the same time by one admin, and if that one admin has no intervening edits to the draft namespace, this would suggest that they have a 0% decline rate, which in turn probably indicates they delete without checking (the proportion of promising drafts is small, but not as small as 0%). – Uanfala (talk) 23:19, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that some admins are doing (or have been doing) batch G13 deletions. In a few cases where I've restored a recently deleted draft following a request at WP:REFUND I've seen an admin delete it again a few hours later, even though it wasn't tagged and didn't qualify (because I edited it when I restored it the first time). The only way I can explain this is if the deleting admin was doing a batch deletion based on a report which was out of date. Hut 8.5 06:48, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

I think it's safe to conclude that the level of inspection of tagged pages differs greatly among admins and probably changes over time and also depends on the nature of the deletion. Some admins are very careful, others, less so. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:29, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

It's pretty obvious by looking at the deletion log, Uanfala. No admin can look at 4 or more pages in one minute so if you see dozens of pages being deleted in the same minute, it's a batch delete. Again, my question about batch deletion are file deletions which happen in such large quantities, it's impossible that the files are even being scanned for appropriate tagging.

I've noticed that the CSD Spam G7 & No significance A7 categories are very slow to be emptied and I think you've right about the regular patrolling admins avoiding deleting pages where page creators might protest. I think the pages still end up getting deleted but not as quickly as less controversial categories. I don't think it's become a problem yet, but it's interesting to notice it happening, in general, with most admins. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:29, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

List of discussions

I don't know how many gnomes we have watching this page, but I have a proposal/request (which I will happily take part in should there be enough interest). In the last few days I've been involved in a few discussion regarding this CSD criteria or that one, and each time I've had to search through the archives and hope that what I'm looking for shows up in the first few hits. So far I've been lucky (today I came across the origins of T3 as the first hit), but it got me thinking that we should have some sort of listing of "discussions about CSD criteria X", so that if (for example) you wanted to talk about why A7 doesn't count for books, you would at the very least have a list of discussions that pertained to A7.

Now, I'm not suggesting that we have a list of every criteria and the topic of that discussion (unless there's a big interest in that), just a place to start when making sure you're referring to the right rationale (or just refreshing your memory). As far as format goes, I figured it could be set up like {{Old moves}} and easily collapsed. Thoughts? Primefac (talk) 17:52, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Primefac I agree that such a list would be useful, but it would require significant manual work to create it, and more to maintain it. I can't see how it could be created except by going though manually all 76 archives of this page. Well perhaps the earliest ones could be skipped. Then onw would need to add to the list each thread that significantly discussed a given criterion. That requires human input. Then every new archive page would need to be scanned and the appropriate links added to the list page.s it worth the effort? DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 18:38, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

This kind of idea comes up every once in a while on various guideline and policy pages (the MOS even had a near-fork of the MOS for just such an index; not sure if it still exists). I have noticed <ref>s creeping in these past years to say why the specific text is the way it is on a few PAGs, which I think is generally more maintainable if one intends to be able to easily retrieve the rationale for the current page. I haven't decided if it's a good or bad creep in general, and I don't specifically know if it's valuable to index major discussions (whether they result in change or not to a PAG). --Izno (talk) 21:14, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

I guess if it were set up like RSP, where only policy-changing discussions were linked, that would be a good reference. On the other hand, it might save folks having to search for perennial proposals, like at this discussion, which was quoted about three months later in Archive 73. Primefac (talk) 22:23, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

I created a page for me to work on this while I'm bored in class at User talk:67.86.76.249/CSD Index. If you think it would be better placed somewhere else, feel free to move it. 67.86.76.249 (talk) 15:02, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

File PROD vs dfu (WP:F7d)

Before proposing deprecation of "di-disputed fair use rationale" ({{dfu}}; WP:F7d), I would first like to discuss the File PROD and "dfu". Both are seven-day processes but function differently. Both can have tagged files deleted if uncontested. However, File PROD can be contested only once as standard rule by anybody, including the uploader; any reason to contest PROD can be either good or bad or sufficient or insufficient. Meanwhile, "dfu" doesn't allow the uploader to remove the tag but must communicate in order to contest the "dfu". Furthermore, for the uploader, communicating with the person placing the dfu tag can be a hassle, especially when the tagger would refuse to remove the tag and then take a file to FFD. I have stopped using the "dfu" since the implementation of File PROD in 2017, yet I see others still using "dfu". I also don't see why we should keep both other than using "dfu" to avoid the hassle of PROD-turned-FFD unless I'm wrong. --George Ho (talk) 01:40, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

WP:F7d says Invalid fair-use claims tagged with {{subst:Dfu}} may be deleted seven days after they are tagged, if a full and valid fair-use use rationale is not added.

I would say that the deleting admin should "use his head" and see how the file is actually being used. If the actual usage is clearly "fair use" then keep the file, remove the template, and add a "full and valid fair-use rationale" or rewrite the existing one if it's not already "full and valid."

If "dfu" is not already one of those speedy-deletions that eligible for a WP:REFUND it should be, contingent upon a suitable fair-use rationale being added immediately. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 20:22, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

How often has a dfu-tagged file been deleted uncontested, anyways, despite having a "full and valid fair-use rationale"? WP:NFCC#8 (and/or WP:NFCC#3a) has been cited as a reason to use "dfu". George Ho (talk) 21:38, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't know the answer to the question "how often," but NFCC#8 and NFCC#3a violations, if true, would make the fair-use rationale's validity doubtful at best. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 22:41, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

PROD can be used for the same reasons as dfu, i.e. PROD would challenge the validity of the rationale. George Ho (talk) 03:32, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

@Davidwr: Regarding add a "full and valid fair-use rationale" or rewrite the existing one - no admin can be expected to do that. It is up to the person adding the image to the article to justify why it should be used in that article, and that is one of the primary purposes of the FUR. If they cannot justify it, it does not belong. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:05, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

As long as the dfu-tagged-and-bagged image can be summarily WP:REFUNDED on request with the condition that an appropriate FUR be immediately added, and, if there are no other issues with the image, no other conditions, this seems reasonable. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 13:26, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Technically speaking, DFU does not necessarily result in the deletion of the image. From the template text, "the file will be deleted or removed from some uses seven days after this template was added" (emphasis added). I have never used DFU in this way. -- Whpq (talk) 11:54, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

I've seen DFU, or perhaps a similarly-worded custom deletion template, used this way several times. I see it most with things like book/album/media cover art and corporate logos used properly on the page about the item but arguably improperly elsewhere without a valid FUR for that particular use. I've not seen deletion templates used for "obvious" improper "additional uses" - editors just summarily remove those on sight, as they should. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 13:22, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

I tried using "dfu" once for concerns that would been resolved without deletion. However, the file got eventually deleted, anyways, so I had the file undeleted per REFUND. Since then, I have either rarely or never used dfu for non-deletion concerns. Furthermore, "dfu" is still part of CSD, isn't it? BTW, how often have dfu-tagged files been removed from other pages but still left intact in just one page? George Ho (talk) 20:12, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

I would not be in favour of removing dfu or associated tags in favour of fileprod. Fair use rationales are important and just clicking Undo and leaving the mess in place is not appropriate. Stifle (talk) 14:19, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

While, I admit, fileprod functions too simply like prod, taking a deprodded file to FFD is easier, especially when communication is not required. On the other hand, dragging a dfu- tagged file to FFD wasn't easy as it requires an uploader to contact the person who placed the dfu tag. And waiting for an admin to challenge the dfu would take days before either direct deletion or FFD. --George Ho (talk) 17:08, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Can creators remove G14 tags?

WP:G14 ("unnecessary disambiguation pages") was recently split out of WP:G6. Given that creators are allowed to remove G6 tags, I would imagine that they should be allowed to do so with G14 as well. On a more practical level, I believe this would reduce the maintenance burden around dealing with G14. My impression from monitoring the category from time to time in the past year has been that there are very few clueless newbies who try to do dab pages, and most of the pages I've seen tagged for deletion were created by users who knew the dab guidelines better than the patroller who tagged them for deletion (a recent example; clarifying that this observation doesn't apply to cases where G14 is for redirects – this is usually done as part of clean-up operations, and both the tagger and the creator are likely to be experienced editors). – Uanfala (talk) 16:06, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Something needs to be done about the ambiguity between G3 and G10

Has anyone wondered that these criteria overlap so much? A lot of vandalism is insults, which can be "Attack pages", while attack pages can be made to deface the encyclopedia, henceforth it being "vandalism". 4thfile4thrank {talk} :? 20:32, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

I'll fully agree that the two can often overlap, but in what way does this actually cause a problem? Many non-notable autobiographies (A7) are also promotional (G11). Many test pages (G2) are filled with patent nonsense (G1). Speedy deletion criteria are designed to cover the most blatant problematic pages, and as long as there is a decent subset of both criteria that aren't covered by the others (in this case, vandalism pages that aren't directed at a specific person, and attack pages that are expressly negative but not made with the intent of vandalism) then there is no problem with having both criteria. ~ mazca ^talk 20:37, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Doesn't seem like the overlap is much of a problem. Not all vandalism is attack pages, and some attack pages aren't pure vandalism. There's no need to combine these, as the Venn diagram combining these two has plenty of non-overlapping space. Hog Farm _Bacon 20:44, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Additionally, I don't think anyone is going to say that the "wrong" criteria was used if (for example) it "should have been" a G10 but was deleted as G3. Primefac (talk) 21:01, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

The "non-redundant" rule doesn't mean zero overlap. It means that each rule covers cases not covered by any other. If (in the absence of an already-existing article) someone had written a slightly-exaggerated article on the controversial Israeli politician Rehavam Ze'evi, it could easily be a G10, but wouldn't be a G3. If someone creates a vandalism page which isn't an attack page, it would be a G3 but not a G10. Overlapping criteria already exist of G11/G12, G11/A7, G1/G2/G3, A1/A3/A7, etc. 147.161.13.58 (talk) 11:04, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Requested change to G7. Author requests deletion - to allow for multiple authors to do a joint G7

Resolved

I'm collaborating with someone on a template.

It turns out the template may not be needed after all.

I would like to change G7 to add the following:

--cut here--

Special case of more than one author

If there is more than one author, use {{db|1=db-g7 All authors agree to deletion. '''Administrators must verify all authors have signed this request before deleting. Remove this template if it is incomplete after 1 week.''' [insert additional comments here] ~~~~]}} then have each additonal author add their own signature after the first author's signature in subsequent edits.

--cut here--

I'm not picky about the exact text, but you get the idea: G7 should be usable for "db-authors" plural. Perhaps a new "db-authors" template could be written to put the message to the administrator in automatically. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 15:53, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

• This is unnecessary and overly bureaucratic. Praxidicae (talk) 15:54, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

  Agreed. {{db-g7}} has a |rationale= parameter, so if User A places the G7 and User B places the rationale (along the lines you describe above) that would meet the "clearly everyone's happy with this" criteria of G7. Primefac (talk) 15:55, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

• Or these multiple authors can first use the Template Talk page to raise and then each affirm that deletion is desirable, which would provide a signed trail (and space for anyone to dissent) before the first author places the G7 notice? AllyD (talk) 16:27, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks to all for the response. I don't know how I missed the "rationale" parameter, that solves the issue. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:42, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Straw poll - bot to do simple db-user speedy

 Request withdrawn Apparently, there are cases where a user will say up-front that the content has been put in the main encyclopedia, and it turns out, it was put in by another editor, making it necessary to preserve attribution. Even though the particular case mentioned below[2] was a multi-author page which the proposed bot would ignore, it could just as easily have been a single-author page. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 21:28, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Many {{db-user}} requests are simple enough that they will always be deleted. This sounds like a task for a bot.

As a simple example, a bot that would auto-delete a page in user space in which ALL of these apply:

• only editor is "the user" in question (I'd want a human to review multi-contributor pages)
• page is a sub-page of User:username/ (not "User talk:", that could be abused to delete user talk page, not main user page, I'd want a human to read it first)
• No move history at all (for keeping the bot simple)
• Short waiting period (1 hour?) to allow for self-reverts ("oops, I didn't mean to do that") or 3rd-party reverts (mentors, education project coaches, or just someone who wants to force this to be looked at by a human)

I'm keeping this simple for now. There are no doubt other "obvious" cases of db-user and db-author that should be "routine tasks that any user can do without an administrator's help." That's what admin-bots are for, to do the "no brainer" tasks so admins can do the things that require human judgement.

I'm asking administrators - would this be worth doing? Would you support this if went to the appropriate channels and asked for a bot to be written? For any bot-writers out there, does this look like something that could be written up and maintained without much effort? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 14:10, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

What problem is this attempting to solve? Do we usually have a backlog of U1 requests? Primefac (talk) 14:15, 26 November 2020 (UTC) (please do not ping on reply)

It's low-hanging fruit and will free up administrators to do other things. That's what bots are for, the "no thought required" things. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 16:47, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough. As to the second part of your question, yes, as far as I'm aware this is something that could be written up to meet the specifications to which you describe. Primefac (talk) 16:50, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

• My impression has been that G7 tends to be seen as an "easy" criterion, and so pages tend to get deleted very quickly, presumably without the sort of checks you would expect to see for more "serious" criteria, like G4 or G11. In these circumstances, a carefully designed bot will actually be an improvement, in term of due diligence, over manual action. – Uanfala (talk) 14:59, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

  For what it's worth, db-user is WP:U1, not G7. Primefac (talk) 15:11, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

  Ah, my bad. But otherwise, I've got the same experience with U1 as with G7. – Uanfala (talk) 15:19, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

• Probably a bit cart-before-horse at this point in time, but any bot tasked with this should be checking what links here for, and not acting, if the target page is transcluded/linked from {{Merged-from}}, {{Merged-to}}, {{Copied}}, {{Split article}}, etc. – or possibly, since I'm sure I've missed other relevant templates, hand made notes of attribution, and more I cannot think of, not acting if the target page is linked from the main talk namespace.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 17:34, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

  It goes without saying that the bot should do all the same checks a human would do, or maybe a "superset" of those checks if that makes coding easier. For example "if linked to from anywhere, leave it for a human" would be a much easier check to do. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:48, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

• That seems fair enough. U1 deletions do tend to be processed fairly quickly, because they are very easy to do, but there are quite a few of them and a bot would free up some admin time for other things. I'm not sure that merges are likely to be a problem in userspace, if user A writes something in their sandbox, copies it to a mainspace page and then tags the sandbox for deletion under U1 then the edit history of the sandbox doesn't need to be kept for attribution reasons because the content is attributed to user A in mainspace. Hut 8.5 18:04, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

  @Davidwr: Agreed. That approach is safest. @Hut 8.5: Since this does present the occasional copyright problem, a bot must take the most cautious approach. Your scenario is absolutely correct; that presents no copyright issue. The attribution problem arises when the content (that meets threshold of originality) is taken and used by a different user. I've seen this not just in the mainspace, but in drafts. (Actually, where I've seen this play out most often is: User A copies over content from their dedicated user-subpage containing an article draft; that content was edited in substantive way by user B (or B, C and D); A tags with U1–but that won't be a problem here because the bot is already proposed to only act where the target has only edits by User A).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:51, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

  OK - it didn't seem very likely that the content would be copied into mainspace by someone else only for the owner to tag it for U1, but if you've seen that happen then fair enough. I don't think "linked to from anywhere" is a suitable standard though because there are various pages which list all articles with CSD tags on them. You would have to either filter those out, look for certain kinds of links only, or restrict to certain namespaces. Hut 8.5 19:03, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

  Indeed: it does happen:-)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:38, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

• I use db-author a lot and those pages are almost always deleted by @Fastily: so pinging him for his opinion on it. Schazjmd (talk) 18:14, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

  @Schazjmd: This is about {{db-user}}, i.e. criterion U1, not about {{db-author}}, which is criterion G7. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:47, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

  Oops, thanks for the correction. Schazjmd (talk) 23:53, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

• We used to have a bot that automatically handled obvious u1/g7 deletion, until the operator was the subject of an ArbCom case (not related to the bot) and desysoped. -FASTILY 02:42, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Changes to U2 and U5

I added some "things to consider" for U2 ([3]) - nonexistent user, and U5 ([4]) - NOTWEBHOST. I think both reflect "common sense."

Since these are recommendations that can be "considered and ignored" by editors and administrators without causing someone to scream "you aren't allowed to delete the page because CSD says such and so," I went ahead and made the changes WP:BOLDly. If you revert, please start a discussion and ping me. Thanks. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 19:37, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia R2

Pages that redirect to any other namespace (unless if it targets to Category:, Template:, Wikipedia:, Help:, and Portal: spaces) are usually deleted per WP:R2. Do you think that any namespace redirecting to Draft: namespace (i.e. Wikipedia: space to Draft: space) would also be applied to R2? Administrators would usually delete redirects to draft space because we would not want to redirect readers into pages that are under construction. If this is certainly possible, we can probably add that to WP:Criteria for speedy deletion#R2. Cross-namespace redirects. Seventyfiveyears (talk) 19:39, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Seventyfiveyears, redirects from mainspace to the draft namespace are eligible for R2. What are you proposing to change? – bradv🍁 20:10, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

We certainly wouldn't want to say that redirects from any namespace to draft should be deleted, as user sandboxes are regularly moved to draftspace as part of the AfC process. But also, redirects in other namespaces really aren't a problem – the point of R2 is to keep this stuff out of mainspace. – bradv🍁 20:15, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Except for user sandboxes, according to "WP:Cross-namespace redirects" administrators would also delete redirects from Portal: spaces to Draft: spaces (even when they are caused by moves). Seventyfiveyears (talk) 20:21, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

That's WP:G6: accidental creation in the wrong namespace, i.e. routine housekeeping. Primefac (talk) 20:59, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Per WP:NEWCSD There are four requirements for new and expanded criteria: Objective, Uncontestable, Frequent, Nonredundant. I think what you are proposing is a criteria to speedy-delete cross-namespace redirects to draftspace from any other namespace. That's certainly objective, no problem there. As originally proposed it's mostly nonredundant (with the exception of redirects from the main namespace and redirects created by accidental moves) but that's not uncontestable though - moves of userspace drafts are just one example of something that could be deleted but should not be (you could exclude that, but you need to define your exception objectively). Is every other example something that always should be speedily deleted? I haven't looked, but you should have done this before making your proposal - please can you share your results? As for frequency - how many of these redirects are there? How often do they get created? How many of them are not already speedy deletable under the existing R2 or G6? Thryduulf (talk) 23:17, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Creation of a CSD criterion for articles and drafts with no encyclopedic value

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

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Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 33 § Creation of a CSD criteria for articles and drafts with no encyclopedic value

As an example, there's a discussion currently ongoing at MFD to delete a draft that contains the writer's predictions for the upcoming NBA season. For items like this with no place anywhere on Wikipedia, we should create a CSD criteria. Basically, what I'm proposing is U5, but for draft and article namespaces. They could even be bundled together, eliminating U5 and creating G15. I don't believe A7, A9, or A11 apply in this scenario (or, at the very least, I wouldn't tag an article like the above-mentioned draft with any of those 3 criteria. Thoughts? Squeeps10 ^{Talk to me}_{please ping me} 23:57, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

If the load at MFD is getting too high, then a CSD criteria may be in order (that may be the case here). If waiting 7 days for a discussion is unacceptable, then a new CSD criteria may be in order (I'm not seeing that here, but if I'm wrong, show me). Otherwise, you'll need to give more reasons why this is worth doing to demonstrate that the benefit is worth the "bureaucratic creep" cost. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 00:27, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't say MfD is overloaded (though to be fair I'm not a regular participant there so I wouldn't know for sure), but in the event something is obviously going to be deleted, there's not really any use in keeping it up for seven days when the results are obvious even before tagging. What I'm thinking is PROD, but without the waiting period, and with the ability to tag drafts. Squeeps10 ^{Talk to me}_{please ping me} 03:50, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

I would absolutely use A7 in this sort of circumstance. If the article/draft doesn't make any viable claim about why that person's prediction is notable, that would seem to fit perfectly in the A7 criteria. If an admin balks at applying it in the draft namespace, you might need to start a discussion at WT:CSD to get drafts explicitly covered under A7 and A9. VanIsaac_WS^cont 04:33, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

That still leaves us with the same problem of obtaining consensus to modify A7. Wikipedians love the status quo. {{u|Squeeps10}} {Talk} Please ping when replying. 06:20, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

FWIW I'd support expanding A7. Lev¡vich 07:51, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

For AFC drafts, maybe something that plays off the new AFC rejected (I think is the name) status? Sets the clock from 6 months to 1 month?

As for people hopelessly modifying some page in a NOTHERE fashion that doesn't meet that, dealing with the editor is usually the quickest way to take care of the problem. Block the editor from the page or entirely. Sometimes summary deletion isn't the best tool in the box. --Izno (talk) 14:17, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

I would support such a criteria, if only because there are a multitude of absolutely pointless worse-than-GARAGEBAND entries in the draft space that are little more than "I'm cool, look at my soundcloud/blog/whatever" (even if they are formatted properly). If they're not G2, G11, or G12 (e.g. Draft:Kartick Ghosh), we are almost forced to have them sit for six months before they can be deleted. Is this the end of the world? No. Do we need to have absolute garbage in the draft space? Also no. It's a weird balance between "who cares" and "OMG the server kittens", and I think I fall slightly on the side of the kittens. Primefac (talk) 14:47, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Draft:Kartick Ghosh is offensive to Wikipedians. That discussion last year that concluded that G11 is invalidated by the spam language being written in the style of Native advertising was off the rails. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:48, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

• The phrase "no encyclopedic value" is not a viable criterion, as its interpretation is completely subjective. CSD criteria must be precise. Expanding A7 to garage band kind of stuff sitting in draft space is a possibility. One could also consider creating a CSD criterion, probably for mainspace rather than for drafts, along the lines of "Pure WP:OR". That might cover somebody's speculation about the upcoming sports season or about what will happen in the next installment of the Avengers. Nsk92 (talk) 15:01, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

  The whole point of draft space is to allow editors to develop their articles in peace without over enthusiastic editors or admins tagging or deleting their drafts. There are too many examples of bad A7 deletions already without adding drafts where we first told editors they can take their time. Remember, drafts don't get indexed and don't appear to the outside world unless someone links to it directly. Imho, even MFDing such drafts is unnecessary busywork. Decline them and move on, sooner or later they'll be G13'd anyway. In the few cases where the subject is indeed worthy of inclusion, the creator can fix it. Else, they will most likely abandon it and it will be swept up later. Both MFD or a hypothetical draft-A7 require more work from editors and admins than that. Considering the amount of stuff that actually needs doing, it would be probably more efficient in the long run if we banned MFD nominations of drafts instead, which would result in less time being sunk in such discussions. Those drafts that need immediate deletion can already be handled by the existing criteria (notably G10, G11 and G12). Regards SoWhy 17:21, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

  You know, that actually is a pretty stellar idea (keeping drafts out of MFD); almost all of the drafts that get brought there are TE resubmissions and/or things that get closed as "who cares, let G13 handle it" (or "G13 will take it but why not since we're here"). The former is really the only major issue, and if anything that can be dealt with by sanctioning the editor (if necessary). Primefac (talk) 17:39, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

  I have seen some pages live for years being edited once every 5 months (sometimes more often!) without being submitted which have no hope ever of being main spaced. MFD remains an important method of removal, if one prefers not to involve an admin to remove the NOTHERE editor instead for some reason (perhaps convincing some admin to do something about that editor or not knowing where to go for that is difficult or a crapshoot, whereas MFD guarantees the content is assessed for what it is, in such cases). --Izno (talk) 20:12, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

  Somehow I doubt that this is actually happening often enough to warrant the creation of a new speedy deletion criterion. There are other ways to handle the few editors knowingly gaming the rules. Regards SoWhy 20:21, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

  I did not assert that as a defense of a new CSD criterion. Instead, I was rebutting Imho, even MFDing such drafts is unnecessary busywork. --Izno (talk) 18:52, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Off-topic

"a CSD criteria"? That is bad grammar, the number of the article does not agree with the number of the noun. It's "a CSD criterion" or "some CSD criteria". --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:53, 22 November 2020 (UTC) I think my meaning was still clear. {{u|Squeeps10}} {Talk} Please ping when replying. 21:56, 22 November 2020 (UTC) Redrose64, I've noticed that you are often fairly particular about things like this. The attention to detail/standards is useful in some circumstances, but for circumstances like this, I don't really see the value in pointing it out. If it really bothers you, section headings are listed as a WP:TPO exception, so you're free to change it yourself. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 05:46, 23 November 2020 (UTC) How about "a number of CSD criterions"? BD2412 T 06:14, 23 November 2020 (UTC) I agree with Redrose. Words matter, and the correct use of words is correct. This especially applies on this WP:CSD policy page, where everything is supposed to be objective. It is not good enough for it to able to be understood, it has to be impossible to misunderstand. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:53, 23 November 2020 (UTC) It matters somewhat for the policy page itself, but for the talk page? Let's not clutter discussions by policing each other's grammar. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:27, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. Drafts of no value are properly dealt with by AfC processes. These are:

If the worthless draft is unsubmitted, ignore it. This is the proper purpose for Draftspace and G13.

If the worthless draft is submitted, REJECT it.

If the worthless REJECTED draft is resubmitted (without dramatic unexpected improvement), MfD it.

There is no need, or desire, or any good reason for anyone to react to worthless pages in draftspace.

In mainspace, use A7 or A11.

With a whiff of promotion, a worthless page should be deletable by G11, blatant spam, regardless of the language style.

Overall, this fails WP:NEWCSD. No redundant. Not objective. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:48, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

• Close, but no banana. Clutter of articles that have no possibility of making it to mainspace helps hide the actual good stuff that is there. We don't have much collaborative editing in draftspace, and some skimpy CVs don't help that. It would be good to remind New Page patrollers that G3 and G10 both do apply in draft space, in recent weeks I have found and deleted both hoaxes and attack pages there. This particular proposal is too deletionist, but I would be in favour of something that took out the stale and unnotable. I am not a fan of the whole draftspace concept, but I think it would be a slightly better place if A7 could be applied to drafts that met the A7 criteria, and had not been edited for 30 days. ϢereSpielChequers 14:06, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
• I might be mistaken, but couldn't WP:NOTWEBHOST be used to delete some of these at MfD? SportingFlyer T·C 14:25, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

  Yes, but I think the point is to avoid MFD in an effort to "lighten the load". Primefac (talk) 14:32, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

  Also, WP:NOT is not a CSD criterion in itself. Regards SoWhy 18:49, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

  Anything at WP:NOT can be a reason to take to MfD, but the problem with NOTWEBHOST is that very rarely does a nominator provide evidence of WEBHOSTing, such as pageviews. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 20:43, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

• I strongly suspect that in practice this criterion would be used to mean "badly written draft", or even "draft which isn't suitable for mainspace", which rather defeats the point of having draft space in the first place - it's intended as a place for articles which aren't up to scratch yet. The idea, I presume, is that drafts which aren't at least an attempt to write an encyclopedia article should be speedily deleted. There is a fine line between these pages and very poor drafts which are an attempt at writing an encyclopedia article, and in practice this line is likely to be ignored. Hut 8.5 19:37, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. Doesn't meet the "objective" criterion 147.161.9.152 (talk) 16:04, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose already notwebhost is abused for article attempts. And this proposal is so subjective, it would also be abused for anything the tagger does not like. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:43, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose for the moment. It may be possible to devise a criterion in this area – I don't know, but no actionable proposal has been yet presented. Because of the extraordinary conservatism any new criterion proposal is approached with (for good reason), and the exacting nature of meeting the standards of objectivity, uncontestability, frequency and nonredundancy, a general proposal will almost always appear to fail them. (If past experience is any guide, for a proposal here to have a chance of succeeding, it is a necessity to devise and present near fullfledged, concrete language of a proposed criterion, already carefully honed to meet the mentioned standards.)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:22, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
• The load at MfD is actually quite reasonable compared to the past and in general. Furthermore, whether or not something has "encyclopedic value" is vague and certainly not something uncontroversial (i.e. clear-cut). Drafting should be given a wide amount of leeway and applying this to the articlespace would be very problematic for many reasons. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 07:17, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose fails the requirements for CSD criteria to be objective and non-redundant, and the frequent requirement is also dubious. Thryduulf (talk) 16:37, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
• I'm actually leaning towards supporting, if for no other reason that to stop criteria such as G2 from being misused for this sort of thing (yes, I often see G2 being misused as a catch-all in draftspace; I've mentioned this before). If we're going to speedy-delete drafts simply because they would never pass muster in article space, I'd much rather it is done under a criterion that at least means something along those lines. Adam9007 (talk) 17:45, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
  • The answer to the problem of misuse of a speedy deletion criterion is not to authorise a semi-related criterion. Thryduulf (talk) 17:56, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
    • To be honest, I don't see what else we can do. Speaking from my experience, if I were to start declining G2s or whatever on pages that at best simply wouldn't be accepted, and sometimes are just unencyclopaedic junk simply because they aren't strictly speaking test pages or whatever, the deletionists would get vexed really quickly. They'd consider taking those pages to XfD little more than overly bureaucratic, pedantic time-wasting. The fact is, it's happening, regardless of whether policy says it should be happening or not, and policy is supposed to reflect consensus and common practice, not vice versa. I do at times think that policies and guidelines give a somewhat romantic reflexion of common practice; the repeated rejection of an explicit criterion won't make it stop I'm afraid. If they're out of other options, they'll probably just invoke IAR anyway. Adam9007 (talk) 18:16, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
      • Any using IAR to justify speedy deletion needs taking to ANI quick sharpish as it is never appropriate and similarly anyone regularly misusing a criterion. IAR is explicitly meant to be interpreted narrowly and represent the only situations where deletion does not require explicit consensus. Every deletion not authorised by CSD or consensus (almost always XfD or Prod) is, by definition, controversial. IAR is only to be used for actions that will uncontroversially improve the encyclopaedia, so cannot be used for speedy deletion. See also WP:IARFREQUENT. It might seem burocratic, but if they do nominate these pages at XfD then either they will find that some or all the pages are not deleted (i.e. they should not have been speedying them) or it they will always be deleted and we will have the evidence we need to craft a speedy deletion criterion that meets all the requirements (frequent, objective, uncontestable, non-redundant) in contrast to the current proposal which fails 2 of 3 of the four. Thryduulf (talk) 01:26, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
        • Bollocks. But debunking the above, again, every time the above user takes out their soapbox to rail inflexibly against WP:IAR and speedies serve little purpose and is pretty tangential to this thread. As I said here: "It is utter fiction that WP:IAR is never a correct justification for speedy deletion but I see no purpose in repeating the conversation." (Additional related posts: here; here; here; and here.)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:46, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
          • You are entitled to your opinion that I am wrong, but you will have to do better than linking to old discussions where you have previously failed to demonstrate it. Thryduulf (talk) 22:51, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
            Expanding on this a bit, the old discussions are all variations of "I think it should be allowed" or "but it happens" without even attempts at rebutting the explanation I and others give every time for why it cannot be compatible with policy, or why not ignoring policy in this way is desirable - either there is something that should be speedy deletable according to policy but isn't (in which case policy should change, but can't because there is no evidence it needs to) or things are being speedy deleted that should not be (one of the most harmful things an admin can do). Thryduulf (talk) 23:25, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
            • Really. Fortunately, dismissive hand waving at prior discussion has no affect on its actual substance; mischaracterize it all you want; others can read for themselves.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:51, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
            • Thryduulf, I'm forced to agree with Fuhghettaboutit; I can't help but be reminded of Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Draft:Alice_Coe. Although IAR wasn't outright cited, it was in effect an IAR speedy deletion. There was some hoo-ha at WP:AN over it too, where a bunch of editors agreed it should have been speedied regardless of whether it actually met the criteria or not. Getting back to the point though, unless we have such a criterion, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see IAR or whatever being used to speedy unencyclopaedic junk that doesn't fit any criterion. If we find ourselves IARing the same sort of things for the same or similar reasons, it's time to rethink the rule. Adam9007 (talk) 05:15, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
              • I can't see it because it was not just deleted but suppressed, but given it was suppressed it looks likely it falls under G10, which typically has to be more aggressively enforced (really, G10 and G12 are the only important CSDs - everything else it's only for convenience). Honestly, you can (and should) turn down bogus speedy requests. You'll occasionally get slagged at AfD or something, but that's the role. If the page should be deleted but doesn't qualify for speedy deletion, PROD is usually fine (and I fairly frequently decline speedy requests, then PROD the page), and with the profusion of automated tools, sending something to AfD isn't actually a hassle; if someone feels the need to win a deletion contest right now, that's a problematic battleground attitude that shouldn't be indulged. WilyD 10:13, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
              • How is citing something that was correctly speedily deleted under existing criterion G10 (it wasn't technically an attack page, but it was unsourced and full of BLP issues, clearly within the spirit of G10) and then suppressed evidence that IAR speedy deletion is acceptable? An XfD discussion with three total comments, including nominator and closer, is also not evidence that "a bunch of people" agree. Ultimately the point is that nowhere in any of the disucssions has anyone refuted the basic nature of the issue:
                1. IAR is only for situations where a rule prevents an action that uncontroversially improves the encyclopaedia
                2. The only situations where speedy deletion uncontroversially improves the encyclopaedia is when the page meets one or more of the criteria
                3. Therefore, every speedy deletion not supported by a criterion is controversial and not suitable for IAR
              • If you think that "unencyclopaedic junk" should be speedily deleted and believe that a large number of administrators agree with you then there will be no problem at all in getting conensus to add it as a speedy deletion criterion. However, if you don't think that you will get consensus then perhaps that's a clue that there isn't actually a consensus it should be speedily deleted. If you know of an admin who is speedily deleting things there is consensus should not be speedily deleted then please remind them that this was a large part of the reason why RHaworth was desysopped by arbcom. Thryduulf (talk) 12:37, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose, "no encyclopedic value" is inevitably going to fail the objectivity requirement. Stifle (talk) 09:24, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

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

Spitballing - get rid of T3?

I've been mulling this idea over in my head for quite a while now, moreso since the deprecation of T2 a short while ago. I keep fairly consistent tabs on its tracking category and I would say that I decline probably 80-90% of the pages that have been tagged with {{db-t3}}. Some are mistakes about what T3 represents (I most recently declined the T3s of a /sandbox and /testcases), others are reasonable alternate names that could easily be converted to redirects (different dash types, alternate caps, etc), a small number being improper copy/pastes. WP:TFD is rarely overrun with nominations so an extra dozen nominations a week isn't the end of the world for the handful of actually-duplicated-but-not-redirectable cases. This isn't necessarily a formal proposal, as I'm mainly curious to see what others' have to say about the matter, though if there's reasonable support it would be easy enough to do so. Thanks for the input. Primefac (talk) 20:31, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

I'd like an effective T3 preferably (as I expressed in Template talk:Db-meta#T3 and C1 categories already, ofc; readers should review). Or full replacement with a template-PROD (maybe with some listing of prodded templates a la CFDS). (Or both tools would be nice. :D) --Izno (talk) 20:46, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

That does remind me of an additional point/reason to get rid of T3 - there's already a seven-day waiting period, so it's just as easy to kick it to TFD as nominate it. I'm on the fence about dropping the 7 day period and making it immediate, but even if we removed that "holding time" I would still likely be declining the same number of requests. Primefac (talk) 20:51, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

I mean, it's just a weak template-PROD today. It has the restrictions on it which make it not-speedy but which also make it not-PRODy. Let's drop the restrictions and let anyone tag anything with T3 if we don't do away with it. (And see if the world breaks.) --Izno (talk) 20:59, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

As an aside, re there's already a seven-day waiting period it is surprising the number of TfDs I see where people respond "Speedy delete T3" or similar. Since a TfD is already created, going through the TfD process is faster than now nominating for T3. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:20, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Not a TfD regular, but I don't have a strong feeling it needs to be kept (I note Izno's points as somewhat (IMO) for and against). It'd be weird not to have any T categories, though? As you point out, arguably we don't since T3 is speedy in process not time, but, still. Weird. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 01:31, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

I would agree that not having any T categories would be a little strange, but having watched the multitudes of debates about expanding the cat get shot down, I honestly don't think there are any reasons to speedily-delete a template that isn't already covered by G2 and/or G3. Primefac (talk) 01:39, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

The fact that T3 isn't immediate is not a reason to remove it. Many of the F criteria also have a grace period. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:57, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is saying that (I mean, I'm not). Primefac (talk) 14:00, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

I might have said something that could be construed as rationalizing removal because it takes a delay, but that was not my intent. I am arguing it makes the criterion effectively useless as a speedy criterion. --Izno (talk) 18:15, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

I've been considering making this myself and the main reason why I haven't started an RfC is that I wanted some admin who works in the area on board. If a criteria gets denied 80-90% of the time (which seems reasonable from my experience having the category on my watchlist) it isn't a good criteria. TFD is a suitable replacement and I see no significant inconvenience caused by removing it. In fact most TFD regulars seem to prefer not to since theres a decent likelihood that it will be denied and taken to TFD anyway. I think it would be simpler just removing the criteria. --Trialpears (talk) 23:53, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

RFC: should WP:T3 be deprecated?

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

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Should the speedy deletion criteria WP:CSD#T3 ("Duplication and hardcoded instances" of templates) be deprecated? Primefac (talk) 15:03, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Per the above/main section, I'm not seeing any significant opposition to deprecating or otherwise significantly changing T3 (quoted below just to save time clicking about).

Templates that are substantial duplications of another template, or hardcoded instances of another template where the same functionality could be provided by that other template, may be deleted after being tagged for seven days.

My reasoning for this proposal is twofold: first, as someone who regularly patrols this category I very rarely see instances where T3 would be appropriate and/or the only method of reasonable deletion; the template can be redirected to the "original" template or deleted under a different criteria such as WP:G2 (test) WP:G3 (hoax), WP:G6 (copy/pastes), etc. Second, there is currently a seven-day hold period for all T3 nominations, meaning that sending a template to WP:TFD would accomplish exactly the same thing as tagging T3 (and would catch any that wouldn't be eligible for the G-speedies). So there are two options (aside from the status quo) that I would like to propose:

• Option A: deprecate T3 entirely
• Option B: keep T3, but remove the 7-day hold (making it an actual "speedy" criteria)
• Option C: Status quo, do nothing.

Thank you for your thoughts. Primefac (talk) 15:03, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Survey

• Option A, as proposer. I personally do not think B is worth implementing, as we will still have the issue of most T3s being improper and/or valid under other criteria. Primefac (talk) 15:03, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
• I would prefer B to A, and either strongly to C, per above. --Izno (talk) 15:42, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
• Option A Per my comments above. --Trialpears (talk) 15:44, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
• Option A is fine with me, as long as there is a TFD criterion that clearly states that a template that is a substantial duplication of, or a hardcoded instance of, another template should be deleted (or redirected, if it has a reasonable name). – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:31, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
• Option A per Jonesey. T3 doesn't seem used all that frequentl,y and TFD can probably handle these nominations better and faster (through speedy keep NAC's). The hold period is as long as a TFD anyway so it's not like the current criterion buys us much. — Wug·a·po·des​ 21:55, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
• Option A is reasonable, as described by the proposer. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:59, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
• Option A per nom. Although as Jonesey95 states above, this is in no way an indication that template duplication is okay—merging redundant templates should remain one of the top priorities for those of us working in the template space. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:35, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
• Option A: if it's not useful in practice then there's no point to it, as everything that falls afoul of the criterion will also fall afoul of more basic guidelines and policies. — Bilorv (talk) 00:45, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
• Option A Redundant to TfD and frequently misused by editors to nominate pages that should be discussed at TfD. -FASTILY 02:39, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
• Option A: High rate of improper T3 tagging combined with other effective avenues available as needed (TFD, tagging as test, redirecting) means deprecation sounds fine. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 08:16, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
• Option A If there is duplication, it may not be clear which is the primary version and which is the secondary and so discussion is required. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:25, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
• Option A as we do not really need a load of rarely used or remembered criteria. TFD would be fine. Test duplications could be deleted as tests, or possible copyright infringements. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:40, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
• Option A. In the end, CSD are supposed to be shortcuts that keep a deluge of no-brainers out of XfD. Without that deluge, a SPEEDY criterion is just bureaucratic creep. VanIsaac_WS^cont 14:19, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
• Option A per Vanisaac. P,TO 19104 (talk) (contribs) 18:07, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
• Option A, per Primefac. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 09:15, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
• Option A. Given that the vast majority of nominations are declined, and the other comments above, it seems that it does not meet the requirements for speedy deletion criteria. Thryduulf (talk) 16:20, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
• Option A. Doesn't seem to be very useful in practice. Deprecating it would be a small but useful simplification of our CSD criteria. the wub "?!" 19:12, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose B - If it is kept, I do not think the 7-day holding period should be removed because it allows for appropriate review. Neutral regarding whether or not this should be kept or deprecated. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 02:37, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
• Option A but duplicate templates and hardcoded templates should be speedy redirected to the template they are replicating. Aasim (talk) 09:44, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
• A – speedy deletion rules need to be bright-line and it looks as though these should go to TFD. Stifle (talk) 09:16, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option B, obvious duplication should be speedy deletable. A is ok too, given it's low usage. - Nabla (talk) 11:15, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A as T3 is redundant to TfD as described by proposer. comrade waddie96 (talk) 11:27, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A per nom as first choice; option B as second choice. Also, Nabla's suggestion that the "duplicate" criteria be combined seems eminently sensible to me. Double sharp (talk) 22:43, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A – if a template is obviously redundant, redirecting can be done without any discussion. If it's less obvious, or if leaving a redirect appears undesirable, it needs discussion and should go to TFD. – bradv🍁 00:54, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A Ironic that this criterion is essentially a hardcoded instance of G2. JJP...MASTER!_{[talk to] JJP... master?} 13:31, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• A, or C as second choice. I think WP:TFD is better for this kind of stuff.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:58, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A Obvious duplicates are already covered by other Speedy Criteria. --Asmodea Oaktree (talk) 17:12, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option C Quickly deleting hardcoded templates with no warning can cause problems. If that template is used in articles, then the article will have a nice redlinked template in it until someone notices. Or, if the template is used as part of a complex multi-template Frankenstein transclusion, the main template might inexplicably stop working and editors will need to scramble to figure out why. The 7-day waiting period at least gives people a chance to notice the impending deletion on their watchlist and make corrections before it happens. I'd support option B only if language was added to ensure that the template has no transclusions (i.e. it's up to the editor who tags the article or the deleting admin to fix any transclusions themselves before deleting the template). —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 19:39, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

  I'm confused. Templates have a "What links here", the person deleting already has to ensure substantial usage is converted or orphaned as appropriate (as at TfD, so likely for T3 also). But, mainly, option A (deprecate T3) means all such templates go to TfD which already has the same 7 day waiting time. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:07, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

  I suspect Scottywong has misread/misinterpreted the verbiage of available options. Their !vote rationale appears to be in support of Option A... -FASTILY 00:22, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

  The current language at WP:CSD#T3 doesn't require anyone to fix transclusions before deleting the template. Additionally, I don't think that we need to waste editors' time voting on uncontroversial deletions at TfD. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 03:16, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option A per the above it can be covered by different speedy criteria and that the tagging is usually wrong. Edge cases can be handled at TfD. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 12:45, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A CSD should be frequently used. This one is not. I have never tagged something as T3 nor seen a T3 deletion, let alone deleted something for T3. We should reduce our bureaucracy whenever possible. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 07:41, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A. I trust the people who deal with this area when they say this is not often used correctly. Frivolous T3-tagging can be a pain in the neck, as the people involved with the template would need to stop what they're doing and wait for a week until the CSD is declined. TFD is perfectly capable of handling the rare instance of a genuinely duplicate template. – Uanfala (talk) 17:08, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A per the reasons above. Arsonxists (talk) 02:02, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

Expanding on my opinion above: I don't do a lot of T3 tagging, but when I do, it is almost always because some new editor has (a) created a direct copy-paste of a template and called it "Citation needed JohnnyFive" or (b) attempted to create a template whose function already exists because they couldn't find the one they were looking for. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:31, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

I would consider (a) to be a test, and (b) to be a reasonable redirect (if someone thinks it would be useful, others might). Primefac (talk) 19:56, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

That's exactly what I'm seeing as well. Scenario (a) is best handled by G criteria, while scenario (b) would be best resolved at TfD. My only concern would be if this added to the caseload at TfD to the detriment of that board, but the dearth of T3 usage indicates that would not be the case. VanIsaac_WS^cont 14:19, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

I think the most I've ever seen in one go is about 15 in the category, but they weren't all nominated in the same day (and I would say there are usually well less than half that in a normal week). An average of 1-2 extra TFD nominations per day isn't the end of the world. Primefac (talk) 15:02, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

• For reference, I dug up the original discussions from 2007-2008 when this criteria was added: here and here. — Earwig ^talk 00:04, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

• A few random comments:
  1. That we end up with no CSD for templates is *not* strange, it just means the general criteria covers them well enough. And we do not have criteria for help: nor wp: though those are kind of different not writen for readers but for editors.
  2. A few of the "A" votes really sound like "B"s (I prefer "B", so that may be me reading it my way...)
  3. We have several "duplicates" criteria: A10. Recently created article that duplicates an existing topic, F1. Redundant, and the one discussed here T3. Duplication and hardcoded instances. Maybe they could be consolidated in a general criteria for (obvious) duplicate content?
  • Nabla (talk) 11:29, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

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

Non standard deletion processes

Is there a simple explanation for, as being revealed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Talk:Sarah Cooper/GA1, WP:GAN running its own deletion process?

Is it appropriate that GAN admins may delete per G6 a review that they don't like?

It's occasionally been said that CSD#G6 is a catch all that is easily abused. Is this an example? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:09, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

G6 is for uncontroversial maintenance - no more, no less. It is a catch-all, and that's a good thing, but it's also one that should never be used if there's a reasonable objection that could be made. I can totally see that "deleting clearly unhelpful GA reviews" is potentially uncontroversial in that project's context, and if it's genuinely uncontroversial outside of people demanding process for process's sake, then I wouldn't have any particular objection to it. This is probably an example of a poor use of it: it was a low-quality GA review, but well above the threshold of "unambiguously unhelpful". :Ultimately, I'm not seeing a systematic problem here - if a terrible GA review does get shuffled off because it's clearly uncontroversial, then that's a valid G6 to me, but if there's uncertainty, it ending up at MfD is correct. If there's a pattern of certain GA-active admins aggressively deleting stuff in this way, this might be something worth clarifying, but this particular incident doesn't look like one. ~ mazca ^talk 00:32, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Mazca, A similar thing happens at WP:SPI. Sometimes there's a case opened which is clearly not worth archiving. These routinely get deleted under G6. For example, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/73.97.254.42. Deleting obviously bogus GA reviews (i.e. Talk:Sarah Cooper/GA1) seems like the same concept. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:05, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Roy, I have long wondered whether that is the case. Bogus SPI and LTA cases disappear, and only weird cases come to MfD, nominated by non-SPI people. I think these deletions are decidely contrary to the wording, spirit and intention of G6. These deletions are being used to for tidying, quiet suppression of trolls, arguably good deletions, but they are not G6. SPI is probably quite competent handling their own deletions of subpages of WP:SPI, and LTA, but they should not be doing it under G6. SPI freedom to delete outside of deletion policy would appear to be providing an example to other groups that they too may delete outside of deletion policy. I see good reason to create a CSD criterion to cover SPI cases, but I do not see a good reason for GAN admins to have near-arbitrary authority to speedy delete substandard GA reviews. Deleting obviously bogus GA reviews is the same concept, that concept being that some groups of people are not bound by deletion policy. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:21, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, Um, people actually nominate SPIs for deletion at MfD? I'll get the popcorn. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:47, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

On occasion, yes. Usually, ill-advised. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:03, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, Hmmm. I found Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Danielipforsecretary, but that's the only one I can see. -- RoySmith (talk) 02:08, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

[5] Random MfDs are not the problem or the point. The problem is Speedy Deletion "per G6" for cases where WP:CSD is lacking a line, and for this setting precedent for others to delete broadly "per G6". I think G6 should never be used for a page with a non-trivial history. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:24, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, G6 is also routinely used to delete talk pages of deleted pages, regardless of the history of the talk page. -- RoySmith (talk) 02:27, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

That would be a mistake. WP:CSD#G8 should be used. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:28, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, Ah, my mistake on the talk page thing. You are correct on that. -- RoySmith (talk) 02:31, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

• I think these deletions of pages with non-trivial histories, including signed comments by other editors, should be invalid under G6.

Past practice, eg Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Stonemason89

speedy delete. CSD G6, uncontroversial maintenance for SPI. T. Canens (talk) 22:24, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

implies that these deletions have consensus in practice, and so to make WP:CSD catch up with practice, "Checkuser or SPI clerk maintenance of SPI subpages should be assigned its own CSD criterion.

I am not sure that "uncontroversial maintenance for GAN" would be as easily justified. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:39, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

To note I and other clerks have deleted IP only sockpuppet investigations under G6 in lieu of archiving the case. These IP only cases have always (from my understanding) been deleted when there are no other archived cases for this case page and where its not a deliberate sockpuppetry by the person behind the IPs (i.e. dynamic IP addresses being dynamic). Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 12:57, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

That sounds sensible. WP:CSD should catch up with accepted practice. A new CSD criterion for SPI business. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:00, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Also I more often delete empty sockpuppet categories under G6 too. The idea for both is that they both are uncontroversial actions. For the deleting of case pages, if it meets another criteria (like due to G5, G10 etc.) I will delete under that criteria instead. Sockpuppet categories are deleted early because they are only filled when they have tagged userpages. If the tags have been removed / changed such that the category is empty it is very unlikely that the category will be re-filled with socks.

However, creating a separate criterion for SPI deletion of cases and/or sockpuppet categories seems unnecessary. G6 works well for cases where the deletion is uncontroversial and does not meet any other criteria. If the deletion is questioned and there is good reason for the question, then the case request should be restored as its not controversial. Such a criteria would still be used, but I just think as long as G6 can cover the cases where no other criteria apply it should be fine without an extra one. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 13:09, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

G6 should not be used to delete others’ non-trivial contributions. It is an abuse of G6. SPI doing it has provided poor example for admins in other areas where they too take a liberal interpretation. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:24, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

I referred Talk:Sarah Cooper/GA1 to MfD because I felt it wasn't an obvious G6. Given the number of conflicting opinions above, I think there should be an RfC to determine whether such pages are actually eligible for G6. -FASTILY 00:19, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

@Fastily: If there are any reasonable objections that a page meets a CSD criterion then by definition it does not and cannot, no RfC needed. If there is a desire that these SPI pages be speedily deleted then there needs to be a specific criterion added to allow that as they do not meet any of the existing ones. Thryduulf (talk) 12:52, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Placeholder/explanatory text for templates

Should there be a placeholder section with explanatory text that explains that all template (T) criteria have been deprecated, similar to what we already have for exceptional (X) criteria? --SoledadKabocha (talk) 18:46, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for raising this question. I agree that T and X should be handled the same. However, X is not handled well, IMHO. It is currently covered in two (sub)sections: Exceptional circumstances and Obsolete criteria, of which each has its shortcomings. The first can't be found by searching for “X1” or “X2”, and the second one has no mention of the common topic, the meaning of “X”. My suggestion therefore:

1. Change “Exceptional circumstances” to “Obsolete groups” (actually, the name “groups” is ad-hoc; we never gave a name to the groupings introduced with the letters), mention both X and T there, and refer to Obsolete criteria for details.
2. Obsolete criteria: Put a link under each first occurrence of a letter to the corresponding subsection.

◅ Sebastian 10:08, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

I like this plan. --Izno (talk) 14:59, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your thumbs up. So I'll just go ahead and do it. ◅ Sebastian 16:48, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

I like the new setup. Primefac (talk) 18:14, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Do redirects avoiding double redirects to deleted redirects fall under G8?

Say A is a redirect to B, and C is an alternative spelling of A. C is redirected to B to avoid the double redirect to A. If A is deleted via an RfD discussion, I expect that C should fall under G8 as a redirect that's supposed to point to deleted page A, even if it wasn't listed in the RfD. Is this the case, and if so, can this be clarified in the policy? --Paul_012 (talk) 20:54, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

I think it depends on the rationale at the RFD.

• In scenario X, page A is nominated because it's an unlikely alternate spelling, but happened to be created first which is why C originally pointed there; I would argue C should not be deleted without its own RFD.
• In scenario Y, A is nominated because the term doesn't appear at B, and thus is an improper redirect; in this case, C should probably be deleted with {{db-xfd}} (i.e. WP:G6) as essentially-the-same rationale.

You could probably make the argument that G8 would also apply for Y, since C used to redirect there, and I don't think anyone would argue that point, but I think it would be improper to do so for X. Because of this I don't think we should be pigeon-holing ourselves into problematic scenarios. Primefac (talk) 21:03, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

I doubt a G8 tag is likely to be honoured, even in the more obvious cases. That's why when sending a redirect to RfD, it's best practice to also include in the nomination any derived redirects. – Uanfala (talk) 21:24, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

I think the implication is that C was somehow missed. Primefac (talk) 22:03, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

• No. As Primefac says, it depends on the relationship between all three pages and the reason why page A was deleted. Given that this is not going to be clear without reading the RfD and making a subjective judgement about how similar the redirects are it is not suitable for speedy deletion. This is especially true as there are many other reasons for avoided double redirects than just alternative spellings. Thryduulf (talk) 00:38, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
• Thanks for the responses. Yes, I was pretty much thinking of scenario Y where a redirect was missed in a previous RfD. Maybe {{db-xfd}} would indeed be a better choice. I guess it's going to have to be a common-sense judgment call. --Paul_012 (talk) 09:14, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Unless the redirect was explicitly mentioned in an RfD discussion and that discussion came to a clear consensus to delete the redirect {{db-xfd}} would be incorrect. Common sense judgement calls are, by definition, subjective and so not suitable as a basis for speedy deletion. Thryduulf (talk) 14:00, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Do and/or should the R criteria apply to soft redirects?

Currently the policy page is silent about whether soft redirects qualify for speedy deletion under the R criteria for redirects. This rarely comes up, but did in part at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 December 28#SP:Random. Personally, I do not think they should apply as most of the reasons hard redirects to other namespaces, implausible typos and those shadowing Commons files either do not apply or cause significantly less harm for soft redirects. They are also far less common and so would fail the frequency requirement if proposed as a new criterion. Soft redirects are currently elligble for deletion under any G criteria that apply and I do not propose to change that.

If consensus here agrees with me, I propose to add the sentence "These criteria do not apply to soft redirects." at the end of the first paragraph at WP:CSD#Redirects. Alternatively, if consensus is that some but not all criteria do/should apply, the sentence "These criteria do not apply to soft redirects unless explicitly noted." would be added instead, with "including soft redirects" after "this applies to redirects" in the relevant criterion/criteria. Thryduulf (talk) 14:56, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Pinging the logged-in users who contributed to the linked RfD: @Fastily, PorkchopGMX, Seventyfiveyears, LaundryPizza03, Uanfala, Soumya-8974, Godsy, and HotdogPi:. Thryduulf (talk) 15:01, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

I don’t have an opinion on this, but noting for the record that SP:Random was deleted under CSD criterion R2 by Fastily. After I closed the RFD, they re-deleted it under CSD criterion G7. GMXping! 15:13, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

I have queried the R2 deletion on Fastily's talk page (given the time of day they normally contribute to Wikipedia it is likely they have not yet seen the message) as the discussion clearly showed a consensus against speedy deletion under R2. Thryduulf (talk) 15:17, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

...Wait, actually, SP:Random (I think) actually was eligible for G4 because SP:RANDOM (which differs only in capitalization) was deleted nearly 11 years ago at RFD. GMXping! 15:27, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Fastily’s response GMXping! 23:10, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

I would oppose a change in that manner. For example: redirects covered by R2, e.g. from the mainspace to draftspace, should be deleted regardless of whether they are hard or soft. Furthermore, the plain soft redirect template is not used in the mainspace (specialized templates are used, see WP:SSRT). Such unclarified wording would almost implicitly condone the presence of the plain template in the mainspace. The only way to remedy this particular case simply and without unintended consequences would be to add the special namespace to the list of namespace exemptions. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 16:05, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

The issue I have with that statement is the assumption that all uses of the plain soft redirect template in mainspace should be deleted. In some cases they should be converted to a hard redirect, a specialised soft redirect, retargeted, or moved to a different namespace rather than deleted (and it is not always clear which) so it fails the uncontestable requirement of speedy deletion criteria. I also disagree that not speedy deleting something condones its presence. Thryduulf (talk) 16:51, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

• Putting the larger issue on hold for a moment, the recent deletion per R2 and subsequent deletion per G7 were sloppy. It should have been deleted per the rfd discussion. A G4 deletion per a 10-year old discussion, setting aside that capitalization differences make quite a difference in regard to redirection, of something that is clearly controversial would not have been a good idea either; the criteria for speedy deletion are for uncontroversial cases, which this clearly is not given all this discussion surrounding it. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 15:45, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Ongoing RfC on the scope of G2

I thought that you may be interested in an ongoing RfC regarding if G2 should apply for duplicate templates following the deprecation of T3. You can find the RfC here: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: Should G2 now apply to duplicate templates?. JJP...MASTER!_{[talk to] JJP... master?} 18:48, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

This discussion has concluded with "There is a strong consensus against applying G2 to unusued duplicate templates, unless the duplicate was obviously created as a test edit." [6]. Thryduulf (talk) 13:13, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

New criterion proposed, for creations that avoid WP:SALT

Frequently in the draftspace (less frequently in articlespace) we see pages created with an incorrect title when the correct title in that namespace is WP:SALTed; a current example is Draft:Ramy Khodeir (2), where the correctly titled Draft:Ramy Khodeir is salted. My feeling is, if the creator cannot (or will not) convince an administrator to unsalt the correctly titled page, the wrongly titled one should be subject to speedy deletion. This would not apply to creation of a correctly titled and otherwise non-problematic draft when its manspace equivalent is salted: the editor could defer the mainspace unsalt request for after the draft is complete. I believe this comes up frequently enough, and is clear-cut enough, that a new speedy criterion is warranted and appropriate. Thoughts? UnitedStatesian (talk) 23:36, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

I would be opposed to it being a G criteria but could see it, perhaps, as an A criteria, in other words only in article space. One effective way to convince an administrator to unsalt would be to have a promising draft. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:08, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Salting is largely a legacy feature. Typically, some incident of spam or vandalism from 15 years ago would have rendered a given title protected for perpetuity, and when anyone, at whatever point in the near or distant future, tries to create anything at this title (whether it be an article about an unrelated subject with the same name, or a redirect, or a dab page), they will have to jump through completely unnecessary hoops. I don't think the solution here is to add further hoops to jump through. If something truly terrible has been created, then there will almost always be a relevant CSD. The problem with Draft:Ramy Khodeir (2) is not that it was created at a title similar to one previously salted, the problem is that it's spam. – Uanfala (talk) 00:19, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Redundant. Either the new page is already deleteable for the same reason it would have been at the correct title, or the salting was incorrect. —Cryptic 00:21, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

and B-I-N-G-O was his name-o. If another criterion applies (remembering, especially G4 exists if it wasn't speedily deleted the first time), then it wouldn't be necessary. If nothing applies, then not unSALTing and moving the page to the correct place is just a BATTLEGROUND mentality causing you to pointless BITE the new user unfamiliar with Wikipedia bureaucracy and accelerate declining participation. WilyD 05:47, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

• Stop overquick SALTing of draftspace titles. There is SALT policy documented at WP:SALT, and a formal process at WP:RfPP, that seems to be overlooked unilaterally by admins annoyed by draftspace recreations. As in mainspace, SALTing too easily has the side effect of re-creations under an variant title, which is a bigger problem. Wait for repeated recreations be multiple accounts before resorting to SALT. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:18, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

• I would add that the edit-confirmed salt, rather than the absolute salt, probably meets nearly all salt requirements that arise in in draftspace, and should be used more. UnitedStatesian (talk) 21:38, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

  Twinkle has ECP salt as standard for a while now, so people should just use that. As for the proposal, I largely agree with WilyD's comment above. Regards SoWhy 19:58, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

• For salted name changes, Draft:Ramy Khodeir (2) wil confuse no reviewer. The problem is with a hypothetical Draft Ramy A. Khodier, which is likely to confuse any reviewer who does not remember the original, and might well slip though when it shouldn't , or at least take more work than it warrants. I am not quite sure how to handle them. If they are better than the original version, they do need to be considered; if they are not, they don't. Unfortunately, they are sometimes tagged without adequate checking for this--and I must admit that I've done this without sufficient care a few times myself.

There is also a more general disagreement among the AfC reviewers--some us us, including myself, wan tto get rid of the really hopeless stuff as soon as possible, to decreae the workload and apparent backlog--others would rather just rely of the 6 month deletion at G13. It has a connection with a similar disagreement on how carefully and patiently G13s ought to be checked,. I don't like to rely on refund, and will save anything I think potentially savable in those areas I can tell; some equally experienced reviewers think that not worth the trouble. (and this is turn depends somewhat on those disagreement about whether to accept drafts that show notability and are free from promotionalism and copyvio but which have major style erorrs, or to decline them for improvmeent without concern for whether the contirbtor is still around). DGG ( talk ) 07:26, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

• Going back to basics, there are two reasons for using special criteria rather than G6. One is so that there are some clearly defined conditions of when to use them is frequently occurring definable situations, rather than just the vague IAR, which is usually, but not quite always, used appropriates. The second is so the special situations can be isolated and identified so those involved or interested can look at them and nobody else need to --this would be the reason for a special criterion for SPI, or one for GA. As I work in neither, I will be able ignore both just as I do files and categories. If we came up with a suitable one for drafts, similarly: I could focus on them, while those who want to check what I do could focus on them also. DGG ( talk ) 07:26, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Merge U1 with G7?

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

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Apparently, U1 is like G7 because user subpages and userpages are mostly created by it's current user, and basically, it's like when you create your own user page or your own user subpage and then request a deletion, this would be like G7. G7 deletion reason reads "One author who has requested deletion or blanked the page", while U1 reads "User request to delete pages in own userspace". Both of these speedy deletion reasons are similar to each other. Seventyfiveyears (talk) 21:16, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

• There are too many cases where WP:U1 applies but WP:G7 does not to not have both covered by CSD criteria. I don't see how they can be merged without some awkward construction, like "G7: One author who has requested deletion or blanked the page, or page in requestor's userspace" which means pretty much the same as the existing, more logical, separate criteria. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 21:28, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
• This has been discussed and rejected before. While in some circumstances there is overlap there are far more cases where there is not - only when one criterion is identical to or (almost) wholly a subset of another is duplication problematic. Thryduulf (talk) 22:04, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
• @Seventyfiveyears: Did you look at the archives of this page? Merging U1 with G7 is often suggested (but never by a regular of this page), and always rejected. See for example Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 78#Merge of criteria U1, U2, and U5 from seven months ago. @(regulars here): Should we have something like WP:PEREN for this kind of proposal? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:01, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
  • What makes you think anyone would read it? Plugging the literal title of this section into the big honking search box already at the top of this page finds numerous previous discussions, including three of the first four hits. —Cryptic 23:47, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
  • If you want to compile a PEREN style list then please go ahead. I doubt it will reduce the number of proposals (given how few people seem to pay attention to the existing big yellow box) but it will be a useful list to point people to after the proposal is made. Thryduulf (talk) 00:21, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. WP:CSD#U1 covers things that G7 doesn't, where others have edited their user pages. CSD#U1 is important as a clear statement that every user is responsible for every page they keep in their userspace. There may be a small issue of U1 deletions of userfied pages, but that is a problem for userfications, userfication of any page carries the implication that the user may have it deleted at any time. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:45, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

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