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Oft referenced pages

• Misplaced Pages:Deletion policy (talk)
• Misplaced Pages:Deletion log (talk and archives)
• Misplaced Pages:Deletion guidelines for administrators (talk)
• Misplaced Pages:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal (July 2005 proposal to expand WP:CSD)
• Misplaced Pages:Criteria for speedy deletion/New criteria (Summary of suggested changes as of November 2005)

New image deletion criteria

In an effort to reduce the number of copyvio images on Misplaced Pages, I'd like to suggest the following new criteria for speedy deletion:

• CSD I6: Missing fair-use claim. Any image tagged only with {{fairuse}}, with no fair use rationale, may be deleted seven days after it was uploaded.
• CSD I7: Invalid fair-use claim 1. Any image with a clearly invalid fair-use tag (such as a {{logo}} tag on a photograph of a mascot) can be deleted at any time.
• CSD I8: Invalid fair-use claim 2. Any image that is from a company that makes money off of providing those images (such as Google Maps) may be deleted at any time.

--Carnildo 03:32, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The first two seem fine (although you're going to hear massive screaming if you don't grandfather in existing {{fairuse}}-tagged images), but I don't think the third one is correct. My impression was that using, say, an example image from Google Maps on an appropriate article (i.e. Google Maps) could qualify as fair-use, regardless of what purpose the company produces said images for. —Kirill Lokshin 04:58, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Kirill here.Voice-of-All 05:00, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Problem is, people are using arial photos from Google Maps to illustrate articles on geographic locations, and are using images from the Associated Press and other news services to illustrate current events. --Carnildo 06:24, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

This would have to be opened up for wide community examination before it could even think about being made into a CSD. If someone is using an AP photo inappropiately but claiming fair use, remove the photo from the article in question with a note that it "may not be" fair use. The burden in on them to show that it is before they replace it, and we've already got a blocking policy to enforce that. I don't see that we need another CSD for this. - brenneman 22:09, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

IP talk pages

I just saw User:Tawkerbot add a Talk:IP that I watch to Category:IP talk pages for speedy deletion. It refers to WP:CSD#U2 on this page:

Recycling IP pages. User talk pages of non-logged in users where the message is no longer relevant. This is to avoid confusing new users who happen to edit with that same IP address.

1. Adding the category sends them a "new messages" box, doesn't it? If this is to avoid confusion, then any list of to-be-deleted pages should be managed externally, not through category edits to the talk pages.
2. Is deleting the pages going to be at all necessary in the first place? I think the history of an IP may present useful information. After all, the edits of those IPs are preserved in the edit history. The related warning messages should be too, even if years old.

Shouldn't irrelevant old messages simply be removed by blanking the page (thus essentially archiving it)?

Femto 12:58, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

In reference to your second point, I've always thought that CSD criteria U2 was odd for the same reason, i.e. old IP talk pages should simply be blanked. That fulfils the stated purpose of avoiding confusion for new users of that IP address, whilst also keeping the history of the page if needed. Petros471 13:44, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Femto's propositions and resolution seem perfect. Any objections?? --Gurubrahma 13:50, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I have no objections to blanking, it probally is easier on the admins too (those 2500 pages are less than 1% of the bots run) -- Tawker 19:30, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

After giving this some thought, page blanking would be much preferred over speedy deletion of a talk page. Some of our best vandal fighters are anonymous editors, and if we delete these pages outright, they and other non-administrators will have no way of to telling if there is any relevant history associated with a recurring vandal. Best regards, Hall Monitor 19:46, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree; blanking makes a lot more sense. android79 19:49, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Likewise here, blanking is better, and asked a few other admins as well, there's no need of deletign the talk page (and thus hiding its history). I'm removing U2 since consensus seems to be that blanking is better. -- ( drini's page ☎ ) 20:06, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Yep. Mainly because I think it's impossible to determine when an IP talk page message has become "irrelevant"; I've often seen IPs repeat the exact same kind of vandalism after gaps of several months or more. Postdlf 20:44, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Also, tawkerbot has been adding this to user pages with useful templates on them such as User talk:213.84.230.131, which has an informational sharedip template. --DDG 22:41, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Why were we deleting in the first place? Blanking makes so much more sense. In fact, we could probably add a header that says something like "This IP Talk page has been/is periodically recycled by blanking. To see older comments, please view the (link to history page)history(/link)." We'd need some good constraints on what constitutes a talk page that needs to be recycled though, to avoid unscrupulous vandals blanking their talk pages to hide previous warnings. Werdna648/_C\ 08:26, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Users blanking their own talk page (when it contains warnings) is generally considered vandalism anyway, I don't see why this should change. Talk pages should only be blanked by RC patrollers and include a good edit summary for reference. Petros471 11:02, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I can only echo the sentiments expressed above. It makes no sense to delete (rather than blank) IP talk pages, and I just noticed that Tawkerbot tagged my college's talk page (which only contained a notice identifying the IP address as a shared entity and advising users to register accounts) on 3 March (the day on which this discussion began). —David Levy 14:51, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Proposal for blantantly unencyclopedic articles

I want to propose CSD A9, which states

9. A page that is blatantly unencyclopedic, i.e.:

• • Clearly a blog
  • A discussion of what happened in school
  • An obvious hoax, including facts that are impossible to happen in reality
  • An attempt to start up a website on a Misplaced Pages page

-- King of Hearts | (talk) 19:53, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

The term "unencyclopedic" is too vague. Also, some blogs are clearly notable. —Guanaco 20:00, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I suspect (correct me if I'm wrong) that King of Hearts means a page being treated as a blog, rather than an encyclopedia article about a blog. Right? Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 08:23, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with this CSD 9. It seems to imply one thing that I like: topic's merits=/=article's merits. One problem is that a BS article on a worthy topic is kept as a "potentially good article" and then nobody does anything (fixes it). Either fix it now, get a taskforce, or delete it and put it on Request for Creation, but please lets not just leave blogs here. And when he said blog, I think that he meant the article IS a blog, not about a blog.Voice-of-All 20:02, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, by "blog" I meant some guy writing a blog on Misplaced Pages; basically almost everything that has nothing to do with writing an encyclopedia. -- King of Hearts | (talk) 01:21, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely not. Again, the more we speedy, the less chance encyclopedic topics can be reviewed by other authors and fixed, even if they're being used incorrectly to start. {{prod}} is perfect for this. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 03:08, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm with King of Hearts on this one, except I'd reword it as "Articles that are blatantly and unredeemably not suitable for an encyclopaedia". Basically, a page in articlespace that is not an article. This could cover Resumes (most of these can be speedied under A7 anyway, but for the resume of a notable person we need something), source texts, instruction manuals, et cetera. Interestingly enough, perhaps many of these should be "speedy transwikied", as many of these types may not be useful on Misplaced Pages, but may be interesting on Wikibooks, WikiSource, et cetera. An interesting proposition, but one that needs to be objectively defined. Werdna648/_C\ 08:18, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Speedy-transwiki used to be the normal interpretation of transwiki. Any page that was moved from one WikiMedia project to another was not considered "deleted" because it could easily be recovered (by transwiki in reverse) with no loss of content or history and without the use of any special administrator powers. The leftover page in the source project was immediately deleted by default unless there was a compelling reason not to. In fact, that was the origin of speedy-deletion case A2. It standardized what had already been the existing practice. (The case is worded specifically to the foreign language projects but remember that at that time the only other WikiMedia projects were the alternate language encyclopedias. We hadn't yet created Wiktionary, WikiSource, etc.) Over time, that meaning got lost and people began to believe that we had to both transwiki and go through a formal deletion process to get rid of the leftover. I would like to return to the original interpretation of the transwiki process. Rossami (talk) 20:26, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I just reverted this addition. I did not think this discussion ended in a consensus to use this, otherwise I'd've expressed my opposition while it was current. I just don't see having so many speedy criteria that I can't memorize them. Use prod. NickelShoe (Talk) 05:49, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I was trying to revert this addition, but NickelShoe beat me to it. I think the criteria is to vague. Also, now that we got PROD, we have an effecient way of eleminating obvious cases, that don't fit a speedy criteria. -Rob 06:06, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Propose to change template db-empty

Please see this proposal to add the A3 reasons to the db-empty template here. cmh 06:19, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of image uploaded for speedily-deleted article?

What we do for orphan images which were obviously uploaded solely for an article which has now been speedily deleted? In particular I mean this one which was only placed on a non-notable vanity page, now deleted. Do we speedy these images too? And should we consider adding this as an explicit speedy deletion criterion for images? --RobertG ♬ talk 17:07, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I generally use common sense and just speedy them. Unless they are definitely free images. Those *might* some day be of conceivable use, so it's probably best to leave them alone. Johnleemk | Talk 17:16, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Huh. I'm surprised this isn't already a CSD. It seems relatively non-controversial an idea (though I've always been surprised at what turns out to be controversial). What's the proposed language? Something like "Pictures which were used or explicitly intended for use on pages that have been speedily deleted, and which have no reasonable use on undeleted pages"? (Obviously, tweak as you will...) Of course, Johnleemk is right: common sense typically does prevail here. JDoorjam Talk 17:20, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I thought it was common sense, and I'm pleased to see others agree. If no-one objects, I propose tweaking JDoorjam's wording thus: "Images used on speedily deleted pages may themselves be speedily deleted if they are of little encyclopedic value" which removes the requirement to guess at the uploader's motives. Meanwhile, I'll speedily delete the image in question per Johnleemk! If this gets approval I'll add it as a criterion some time next week (unless someone else gets there first). Thanks. --RobertG ♬ talk 17:52, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

That image looks like a probable copyvio anyway. While I'm not opposed to a more general criterion such as suggested by JDoorjam above, simply waiving the seven-day requirement of I4 and I5 for "images uploaded for use in a deleted article" would probably suffice in most cases like this. Generally, if an image is free and properly sourced, we might as well let it be and see if anyone finds a use for it. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 17:59, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Porposal for expansion of Articles item #7

I've just been told that an article dealing with obscure elements of popular fiction which have no notability on their own are not speediable. I've re-read the criteria, and shockingly, I have to agree. To address this terrible loophole that allows for torrents of non-notable cruft, and yet allow for "valid fancruft" which is notable in its own way, I propose the following ammendment:

7.

a.

Unremarkable real people or groups. An article about a real person, group of people, band, or club that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject. If the assertion is disputed or controversial, it should be taken to AFD instead.

b.

Unremarkable fictional subjects. The determining factor between remarkable and unremarkable fictional subjects is the question of notability relative to the genre or work from which they arise. Non-notable subjects would include characters or places in a story which have no impact on its plot or the establishment of the setting or tone of the story. However, if the article title refers to a discrete character, event or setting, it may be of value as a redirect. If this is the case, the article should be merged and redirected to the appropriate work of fiction rather than deleted.

Without this additional criteria, the door is left wide open to waste the time and effort of those debating truly controversial notability of other articles in the AFDs. It also wastes the time of those who, like myself, attempt to patrol new articles. -Harmil 19:36, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Or, you could see if it has no chance of becoming more than a worthless stub and merge with the article for the work of fiction, or you could use {{prod}} to see if anyone's capable of expanding. Why rush to speedy? --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 19:48, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, you bring up a valid point, and I'll modify the above inline to reflect it. However, as an example of an article which explains my point, see Typical Earth Alliance Permanent Space Colony. I'm almost tempted to request a new criteria: so many separate violations of Misplaced Pages policy that cleanup would present a serious mental health risk. ;) But aside from my distaste for the article, it is clearly about a topic which, even as a redirect, would have no value for Misplaced Pages. -Harmil 20:12, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

What makes you think it holds no value? Genuinely curious. I dunno, I just feel like we're looking for excuses to speedy stuff, as opposed to fixing these things. Fictional information only exists via a fictional universe, and most works of fiction that would have individual articles for characters, major and minor, would at the very least have a page for its source material to redirect to. The smaller ones can be redirected to that article or to a list of characters, the larger ones kept. Speedies just tend to create ill will and warring, when a redirect with merging worthwhile info keeps the info and discourages recreation. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 20:29, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm with BDJ on this one. I find that crufty stubs (which sounds like a skin condition) are better as redirs if the articles don't warrant standing on their own. JDoorjam Talk 20:23, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree that it's sily to speedy them. Just redirect. I don't see what the deal is with people wanting to speedy delete everything, like it's the end of the world if it exists as a redirect or takes five days to get rid of. NickelShoe 21:34, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Jeff as well; redlinks encourage recreation of crufty stubs (how's that for a medical condition?), whereas redirects encourage people to find the main article. -- nae'blis _(talk) 23:22, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Tooootally already made that joke three postings ago. ;-) JDoorjam Talk 23:34, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

First off, I think someone very much missed the point. I know that there's a lot of the same coversations over and over here, so I imagine it's easy to assume that you can categorize any request and give a standard answer. However, you've missed the mark here. We're not talking about deletions that would cause redlinks here. Let's throw out some examples. I might create a page called, Earth Alliance Space Colony. Ok, now that clearly meets the above criteria for redirecting. It's just not terribly notable within the genre nor impacting on the plot of the show (though there are specific colonies that are notable and have pages, as they should), but it's something that people might link to or otherwise reference. On the other hand, Typical Earth Alliance Permanent Space Colony is not referenced external to Misplaced Pages. It borders on (but isn't quite) original research. We could create hundreds of thousands of this sort of article per genre, I'm sure, but they have no encyclopedic value, even as redirects (since no one is going to be looking for that name). Next: to the point of hyperbole. I do not "want to speedy delete everything, like it's the end of the world if it exists as a redirect or takes five days to get rid of." Please lay off the hyperbole and evaluate suggestions on their own merits and the contributions of their suggestors. Thanks. As for the question of why speedy vs. AFD/prod? I like to think that we involve the community for articles where their value is in dispute (or could be), not just to serve as a distraction. How many users respond to the average {{prod}} these days? How many {{prod}} are added on a typical day? Could a user reasonably visit and read them all? half? -Harmil 21:26, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

If it borders on OR, then start hunting people down who can give sources? The more we use prod, the more people will respond and the more useful it becomes. No need to speedy most stuff whe it can be prodded. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 23:21, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

neologisms / protologisms

I see that this has been discussed before, but without apparent result / consensus.

I'd like to add a CSD criteria to make articles about unambiguous protologisms / neologisms speedyable. This would not include new words with very limited usage. I'd like it to focus only on the various "this is a word we made up last Friday" or "we're trying to get this word into common parlance" type articles.

I don't know if this needs a brand-new section, it could easily be a subsection of CSD/A7, a la CSD/A7(1).

Basically, without causing instruction creep, I'd like to avoid having prolonged debates on WP:AFD about clearly unremarkable and unused new words, of the type that are caused by words made up on Internet forums, and defended solely (but extensively) by forum denizens. Policy shouldn't require a week of that :)

The language I'd like to add is something like:

• Neologisms: Articles clearly created for the sole purpose of injecting a new word into circulation, that do not assert the importance or common usage of the word.

What say you? — User:Adrian/zap2.js 23:22, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I still think this would be better handled by prod. There's enough quibbling on some words that might be notable where I think speedying is a poor idea. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 00:44, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I have to disagree. The description calls only for the speedy deletion of words that are unambiguously non-notable or contrived. {{prod}} and WP:AFD would remain the venues of choice for controversial deletions, as is right and proper. This wouldn't make speedy deletion of questionably notable / legit words a discretionary function.

— User:Adrian/zap2.js 01:19, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

And I'm saying that speedying tends to bite newcomers that may not be aware of our notability standards, as well as doesn't allow for the possible expansion of articles that don't initially look notable. prod is for uncontroversial deletions, not controversial ones, and if a word is truly non-notable and worthless, it'll get deleted as such. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 01:45, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback. There's a balance between not biting newcomers and maintaining an orderly community. If the priority was *always* to avoid displeasing newcomers, we wouldn't speedily delete anything at all. Your arguments work against every speedy deletion criterion, but the existence of WP:CSD in the first place is a nod to the needlessly laborious nature of some elements of deletion process. Since you've evidently put some thought into this, I'd be interested in your take on why plainly nn people or organizations have speedy deletion criterion, but words don't. Cheers! :)

— User:Adrian/zap2.js 02:40, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah. I note now your generalized opposition to multiple parts of WP:CSD, per your userpage. If you have thoughts on this that aren't raised there, I'd still like to hear them, but I'd be more interested in your feelings on the question: If words *had* to be included in WP:CSD, what would be the least harmful way to do it?

Thanks! — User:Adrian/zap2.js 02:50, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that I disagree with the premise outright. Certainly, CSD is useful in SOME cases, but it should never be used for things that may be notable or may not have proper sourcing and could be better served by a larger community review. Save CSD for nonsense, for libel/slander issues. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 14:22, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. I don't see why we can speedy NN people and not equally-obviously NN words. --Fang Aili 20:17, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Personally I'm in favor of a general increase in ease of deletion; obvious neo/protologisms should easily fit the bill. In the mean time though, {{prod}} should be more than sufficient. --Cyde Weys 21:22, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Handling it by PROD should be good enough. Also, it is difficult to say a priori as to what a notable neologism is. For example, I have seen the word "titsup.com" used many times on en-wiki mailing list. Had I not been on the mailing list, I would not have come across that word and would have probably speedied the article, if the rules ncluded that. Thanks to the exposure I got to the word on the mailing list and to my subsequent secondary research, I have started it instead. --Gurubrahma 10:52, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Having read it, I believe that you should not have started that article in Misplaced Pages. It is an entry about a word, not a real company or a broad social concept. What you have is a definition that belongs in our sister project, Wiktionary. I mention it not to criticize your motives but because that has been true in essentially every neologism case that I've reviewed. They are articles about words (or sometimes phrases). They cause controversy in Misplaced Pages but would have been perfectly acceptable in Wiktionary. I believe the right answer should be to transwiki any neologism article to Wiktionary and immediately delete (or redirect) the Misplaced Pages version.
Note: Wiktionary does not keep protologisms but they are better equipped to make the determination when a word is reaching wider acceptance. Rossami (talk) 14:53, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm be a little hesistant about adding this because, based on various AFDs, even experienced editors don't fully grasp Misplaced Pages's policy on neologisms. I'm not against a CSD for it, but it should be very, very explicit. I'd say at the minimum it should have no Google hits outside of Misplaced Pages and its mirrors before being speedied. Turnstep 04:35, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

New image criteria proposal

Hi all. While working on the untagged images project, I've come across a number of images that were uploaded to the Commons, and then had their description page here modified. In some cases, this is warranted, such as adding the image to a category on Misplaced Pages. However, occasionally there are images (for example, Image:Platform Sandal wood Buffalo brown.jpg) whose description page replicates the Commons description, or does not include any new information.

I think that we should add a criteria for speedy image deletion that would allow administrators to delete such images (presuming that they would look through the history and ensure that there hadn't been any vandalism, removing categories and such) since I can't really think of any reason not to delete them. Thoughts? ~MDD4696 22:40, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

That particular image is a special case: it has never been uploaded to enwiki. The image is only present on Commons and the page here is redundant entirely. I have deleted it since having, effectively, a fork locally means that any updates to licensing/soucing/wording will not appear here. That is bad for obvious reasons. Perhaps this very particular case needs a CSD to make it clear, or perhaps it's just occasional enough that (what I hope is) common-sense is enough. Note that what I just did is very different from deleting the image: I am not able to do that, since it is not present on this project. -Splash 22:53, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. I would think that admins would know enough that it qualifies for speedy deletion, but it might help non-admins to have a specific item addressing this issue when determining whether or not to add the {{db}} tag. ~MDD4696 23:34, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Proposed CSD

How about articles that are patently original research, and by that I mean they explicitly state that that is the case in their text? I have seen a few of these lately and they seem like common sense speedys to me. Has this been discussed before? Ramanpotential (talk | contribs) 00:02, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Why not use {{prod}}, with a note as to why? I've seen some of these, and the authors often don't know about WP:NOR, and apologize when they find out. The trolls who post OR should probably see the consensus of AfD anyway, so they don't come back. Septentrionalis 15:58, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Handling G7 and A3

I think admins have to be alerted that while deleting under G7 one has to make sure no other editor has edited the page, and while deleting under A3 one has to make sure that earlier versions of the article also satisfy some CSD criteria. As explained in User talk:Wavelength, List of environment topics:F-G was deleted after the page was blanked but other people (including me) had edited the page and hence it didn't fall under G7, and its earlier versions didn't satisfy A3 and are actually important to preserve the history of List of environment topics:F and List of environment topics:G. -- Paddu 09:01, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

This is in the order of "stop or I'll say stop again." Admins are already meanto to do everything contained in the new notes. If they aren't then telling them to do so again when it's written everywhere else (templates, admin how-to, etc) isn't going to help.
brenneman 01:25, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Non-notable articles

I've seen a couple of pages that I've tagged as 'db|non-notable subject' (or something more specific under subject, ie website or comic) that were rather plainly non-notable moved over to prod recently on the grounds that there is no CSD criteria. Besides the fact that I think that the basic db template exists. Moreover, the CSD criteria currently doesn't include anything on notability, despite the fact that the various A7 templates (db-bio, db-group, db-band and db-club) all argue for speedy deletion on notability grounds. This seems like a minor oversight more than anything else, but it also seems that there's room for an additional consensus to speedy delete articles that are clearly non-notable but non-human subjects under A7 as well. --DMG413 15:39, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Notability is contnetious, and will never command general consensus as a deletion criterion nevermind a speedy one. What is notable? Is a school, a company, a church, or a verse of the Bible? Actually A7 does not allow the speeding of non-notable bios, it only allows a speedy where there is no assertion of anything which anyone might regard as notable, and other decision must be reached via prod and AfD. The following are often given as reasons for speedy, but do not qualify: 'advert' 'spam' 'not-notable' 'essay' 'rant' 'neologism' 'not on google'. Having said that, there are some obvious cases where deletion is not in doubt and admins will use common sense. --Doc 15:47, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I echo Doc, but add that WP:PROD is a good alternative to a technically invalid speedy. Most times people try to speedy delete for something not in CSD, you see where they're coming from... but those aren't speedy delete criteria for a reason. PROD gives everyone 5 days to improve the article, so there's less chance of deleting a potentially good article. It's a good choice when there's a chance the article can be improved.

Articles that genuinely assert notability generally shouldn't be speedied. The exception is obviously false claims, like "Joe Blogs was just elected King of England", etc. But something like "Joe Blogs is a famous professor" should probably not be speedied, PROD, then AfD, is a better choice ultimately. --W.marsh 16:03, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

The points above are valid, but it still remains confusing why a human subject on which there is no assertion of anything regarded as notable can be speedied but a non-human subject on which there is no assertion of anything regarded as non-notable cannot. For pages that clearly violate WP:WEB, for instance, and have no assertion to anything resembling notability, it seems reasonable to speedy them to me. I realize the uses of WP:PROD, but my concern about it is that it allows someone to come back and remove the tag a couple of days later before deletion, and unless someone is watching things very closely, it may slip through. --DMG413 22:25, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Well that's what watchlists are for, yes? If you prod an article, put it on your watchlist if you're concerned about the idea of it not getting deleted. NickelShoe (Talk) 22:28, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Don't forget the list of previous nominations. It's easy enough to use to keep track of previously prodded pages. howcheng {chat} 06:15, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

And Special:my contributions is useful too: If you're still the top edit 5 days after the PROD, it hasn't been fixed or removed; if you're not, go see what happened. Septentrionalis 15:15, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

G5 clarification

G5 is for banned users. But what about proven sockpuppets of permblocked users? Shouldn't they be speedied as well? (example: User:Doe, John) `'mikka (t) 20:32, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes. It's the user that's banned, not the account. --Carnildo 02:40, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

G9?

Any objection to a G9 criteria for legal threats (where the only page history is legal threats). In the case where the history contains other page history that is not riddled with legal threats, it may be possible to do a full deletion/partial restore without the legal threats. —Locke Cole • t • c 09:22, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good in principle. We already have an "I-know-it-when-I-see-it" criterion in A7, so perhaps this wouldn't be too bad. I think there are many edits which are borderline on this rule though. (ESkog) 11:16, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

k, I'll wait a bit more for comments before adding it. For those curious, this was suggested as a result of Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Daniel Brandt (which was closed as delete). —Locke Cole • t • c 20:43, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Here's a rough stab the language I'd use:

9. Legal threats. In cases where legal threats are intermixed with good content, the page can be deleted, and then only the non-offensive revisions undeleted.

Though I suppose, if we want to cut down on instruction creep, we could just use:

9. Legal threats.

And leave it up to the acting sysop to decide how to handle it/deal with it. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:07, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

It would be well if the language made it explicit that the intention is that articles containing legal threats can be speedied, not that an article can be speedief if somebody makes a legal threat about it. (Yes, this should be obvious, but never underestimate the stupidity of human beings). On a more general note, is this really a sufficiently widespread problem that prod/*fd cannot handle it? Henning Makholm 14:56, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh I'm certain that this is uncommon enough that *FD/PROD could handle it, the idea is that people shouldn't have to wait a week (or have it put to a "poll") whether or not the page should be deleted. CSD not only makes it possible to speedy these things, it also determines that there is no need for discussion or debate. (As we wouldn't, for example, debate whether or not a page created with only the word "penis" on it should be deleted or not). —Locke Cole • t • c 00:03, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Needing to poll/discuss the deletion is a cost, yes. But adding a new CSD criterion is a cost too, in form of instruction creep (as then every admin patrolling the SD category would have an item more to remember). All I'm saying is that these two costs ought to be weighted against each other. Henning Makholm 00:17, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Proposed CSD criteria for Portals

The CSD currently has no criteria for Portals, although the policy page for these states that "Portals are not appropriate for every topic. Only create portals for broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers." However, we currently have on MfD Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Malaysian expressway system and Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Famous Slaves (both leaning heavily towards deletion as inappropriate for a Portal), and we have recently deleted Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Arlington, MA and Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Family Guy as too narrow (compare Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Oz, kept). In Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Kenya, the Portal was deleted for being a stub which had not been touched in months (compare Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Uganda, kept). In light of the much higher standard imposed on Portals as opposed to articles, I propose the following criteria for speedy deletion of Portals:

Portals

For any Portals that are not speedy deletion candidates, use Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion.

1. Any topic that would be subject to speedy deletion as an Article.
2. Any Portal based on a topic for which there are not a non-stub header article, and at least three non-stub articles detailing subject matter that would be appropriate to discuss under the title of that Portal.
3. Any Portal created as a skeleton, a stub, or a simple collection of links for which no other work has been done in over 60 days

This is more or less a seed, and I seek the consensus of the community in this proposal. Cheers! BDAbramson T 15:50, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

One and two look good, but I don't quite like number three; simply because something hasn't been worked on shouldn't automatically qualify it as something that should be deleted. Perhaps take off number three as a speedy criterion and instead ask that such portals be taken to MfD? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 20:11, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

For articles I would agree with you completely, but portals are supposed to appeal to a community of interest. If no one cares enough to work on them, they should disappear... however, I see your point. How about putting portals under #3 in prod (presuming they have no sub-pages)? BDAbramson T 23:51, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I support the first two proposed criteria. I would hesitate on the third one. Most portals in such a state should probably be deleted, but probably isn't good enough for speedy deletion. --TantalumTelluride 21:33, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I too support the first two, but would not include the third in its present form as a CSD. Sure, most portals it describes ought to be deleted, but most =/= all; let WP:MFD handle them. --CComMack 11:49, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll support all three. We had a crude Portal:South Park hidden away for ages that was a no-brainer that couldn't be no-brained.Steve block talk 17:51, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm inclined at this point to say definitely post the first two, and seek greater community input on handling apparently abandoned portal skeletons/stubs. BDAbramson T 18:43, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I have posted the first two criteria. The third I've raised for discussion at WP:PROD. Cheers! BDAbramson T 20:21, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Random underlines?

Maybe I'm missing something, but in the guideline

"Very short articles providing little or no context (e.g., "He is a funny man that has created Factory and the Hacienda. And, by the way, his wife is great."). Limited content is not in itself a reason to delete if there is enough context to allow expansion."

is there a reason for the underlining? An explanation would be appreciated... >> \\/\//esleyPinkha//\/\\ | 00:46, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Basically, it's ok for an article to be short, i.e., to have little content. It'd be nice if it could be expanded, of course, but shouldn't be deleted just because it's small. However, and article that doesn't explain what it's about isn't very useful. If you read the article and have no idea what you just read about, then there's not enough context, not enough grounding the article in such a way that it can be understood by people who aren't already familiar with the topic. The underlining is to express the important difference in changing that one little letter, from content to context. I hope that helps, JDoorjam Talk 00:57, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

See the various discussion starting about here for the need to emphasize the difference between a lack of content and a lack of context. Until we added the underlines, it was a source of considerable confusion. Rossami (talk) 12:46, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

A modest proposal

The following statements on userboxes are all, I believe, consensus:

• There is no consensus on userbox policy
• All the other speedy criteria are intended for cases where all reasonable admins are likely to agree that something should be deleted; that's why they're so narrowly phrased.
• Speedying userbozes can, and has, caused division and ill-will.
• TfD'd userboxes tend not to be taken to WP:UBD; and if they are, deletion tends to be quietly and quickly endorsed.

(There's just been another example of this ill-will on WP:UBD and its talk page.) If these are in fact consensus, they should be added, with a suggestion to consider alternatives. Septentrionalis 21:56, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I propose, therefore, the following:

There is no consensus on userbox policy. Other speedy criteria are intended to cover cases in which all reasonable editors would agree there should be a deletion; that's why they are narrowly phrased. Speedying userboxes has caused division and ill-will.

If a userbox is creating an emergency, other administrative action should be considered, as well as speedying. If it is not, the situation may be resolvable more quickly and calmly by

• Discussing one's concerns with the makers and users of the box; or
• Nominating the box for deletion on WP:TfD. TfD consensuses are rarely brought up, and very rarely overturned, on WP:UBD.

I have not done a exhaustive study on the last point, but I am watching the page. The rest of this I believe to be consensus. Septentrionalis 15:32, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Right. I only just found this section. No, I do not think that the stuff above belongs on the policy page. They aren't part of the policy, which is a 'straightforward' sentence or so. Adding "there is no consensus..." is strange because that then becomes part of the policy, requiring consensus to establish that there is no consensus and consensus to establish a new consensus. It's the sort of material that belongs on a userboxes page somewhere, being essentially an editorial opinion on the policy rather than part of the policy itself. It is tempting to add these things to policy pages; the usual result is an ever-expanding wrapping of cotton wool on the actual policy for little executional benefit. -Splash 22:11, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. These statements belong here on the Talk page (or perhaps a guideline page), not on the policy page. Kaldari 02:20, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Let's try this again

In an effort to reduce the number of copyvio images on Misplaced Pages, I'd like to suggest the following new criterion for speedy deletion:

• CSD I6: Missing fair-use claim. Any image uploaded after April 13, 2006, tagged only with {{fairuse}} or {{fairusein}}, with no fair use rationale, may be deleted seven days after it was uploaded.

--Carnildo 01:31, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

This really needs to happen. Our current system means that any user who knows that those tags exist can upload any copyright-infringing media that they want, tag it with one of those tags, and thereby avoid all of our otherwise automated copyright problem systems. Images with any kind of reasonable fair use rationale would still go to WP:IFD, but all of this media belonging to to someone else that no one here has taken responsibility for need to be treated exactly the same as incompatibly-licensed images. Jkelly 01:40, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree. No need to make this retrospective for now, but we need to stem the tide of new images that have the potential to get us in hot soup. Right now it is damn freaking easy to game the copyvio system by claiming any copyvio to be fair use. Johnleemk | Talk 08:05, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I've suggested an alternate way to bring these images back into our cleanup process at Template_talk:No_license#Extending_template. Jkelly 16:26, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Proposal for new CSD template

I often come across newly created pages which I'm sure are infringing a policy, but due to not being an admin and having not read the policies thoroughly I can't pick the right CSD template. Furthermore, there are often pages which, due to your unfamiliarity with the subject matter, you cannot tell whether they should be deleted or not. For instance, sometimes you come across a brand new stub, and it may not be obvious whether this is a stub on a notable, encyclopedia-worthy subject, or whether its just plain vanity or something else.

The proposed template is: {{db-attention}}/{{db-suspected}} or similar. It places the page either the CSD category or a subcategory called "Suspected CSD's" or similar. The idea is that you are bringing the page to the larger attention of the admins at CSD, because you suspect that it's a CSD, but you dont have the expertise to say exactly why or you require a CSD peer review. In short the proposal is a template that "brings a page to CSD's attention". -- Alfakim --  talk  16:12, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

If prod weren't having technical difficulties, that would be a good time to use prod. Also, you could simply use db-reason. No one should be deleting it if it doesn't qualify for speedy even if it's improperly tagged. NickelShoe (Talk) 16:19, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Clarifying, this is more of an "I'm not an expert on this subject, but someone more knowledgable would certainly know whether this was CSD, so I'm bringing it to their attention"-template.-- Alfakim --  talk  17:37, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

If you can't be bothered to check the speedy criteria, don't use speedy. If you're not sure of the names of the templates or want to be more clear about your concern, use db-reason. If the article looks bad but you lack the knowledge in the relevant subject area to tell, notify the article creator, add maintenance tags, and/or submit to AfD or prod. NickelShoe (Talk) 17:46, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Is there anywhere I can get a list of maintenance tags? Please reply on my talk page if so. -- Alfakim --  talk  15:52, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Template messages/Cleanup. Putting on your talk page too, at your request. NickelShoe (Talk) 16:03, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

With WP:PROD as policy...

...does anyone think it might be worth moving some of the less offensive speedy candidates to a PROD system. What I have in mind is A7, which could be better served (and, in fact, often has been in spite of its speedy candidacy) having multiple eyes look at it via prod? I've had a couple articles, most notably Mark Eitzel, prodded as a nn-bio for a musician, when in fact the article simply needed expansion and sourcing. Instead of speedying these, and given we have a policy in place now that would keep the majority of them from going to AfD (which was the point of the A7 expansion in the beginning), does anyone else think it might be a good idea to at least attempt in practice? A3 could also qualify here, as we could have more eyes looking at articles that may not have immediate context, but could use more eyes looking at it. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 16:29, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I would agree strongly, but you might want to wait a few days and see what happens with prod now that we're not able to use the toolserver...see WP:PROD, and help us solve this problem satisfactorily. NickelShoe (Talk) 16:35, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm assuming a good prod outcome here, I did notice that note, but we're not 36 hours officially down yet, either. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 16:45, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, actually, A3 (no content) is probably the CSD I most frequently use...did you mean A1 (no context)? Probably worth prodding it if it's no context, although usually I'd just give it a {{context}} tag if it looked like it might have potential...I usually go for maintenance tags first and put the article on my watchlist to watch out for removal, but go for deletion (speedy or otherwise) in cases where it's more obvious that there's no hope. NickelShoe (Talk) 16:43, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I kinda meant both, although A1 is harder for even someone like me to justify moving to prod initially, but thanks for pointing that out. I just feel as if the more eyes looking at articles that aren't blatant nonsense or attack pages there are, the better the result could be. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 16:45, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes context is easily fixed. Frequently articles lacking context have incoming links which give context and such can be added to the article. If there aren't any incoming links, usually the author could easily provide context. I've speedied articles under A1, but with prod there's five days for the author to explain what in the world they meant. I've noticed, however, that what I consider context (as far as CSD is concerned) is less stringent than some. I just want the field of study or profession of the person or whatever. A useful predicate for the introductory sentence.

Lacking content, on the other hand, annoys me enough that I'm probably biased. (Who writes an encyclopedia article that doesn't tell anything about the subject?) If it's not even a dicdef, we're not helping anybody by keeping the article. NickelShoe (Talk) 17:53, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Ammendment to deletion policy

This is a proposal that seeks to change our approach to the deletion process by removing content of a page as a criterion for deletion, only the topic can be judged in deletion debates. Please discuss the proposal at the talk page. Thanks a lot. Loom91 19:15, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

db-web

Please discuss the TFD nomination of {{db-web}} (a newly made speedy deletion tag) at Misplaced Pages:Templates for deletion#Template:Db-web. --Rob 05:19, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Proposal: I1a

Note: It could be I2 if the other are bumped down, but that would probably annoy people who have to rememorize the numbers, so in my opinion I1a is best, since it's very similar.

1. a. Any image tagged with {{NowCommonsThis}} that is public domain, or any image that is GFDL with the description and file history of the page copied to Commons.

This should allay any fears of messing up the license. PD images don't need anything at all, and GFDL just need to show who created what when. By copying the file history, it does meet the requirements. This only applies to {{NowCommonsThis}}, though, because {{NowCommons}} would require that all uses be replaced (though we could add something where "if all uses are replaced then it can be speedied" or something). --Rory096_(block) 21:03, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the proposal, many admins already speedy images that are already in commons --Jaranda 21:11, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I strongly object to the proposal. Until such day as we have a tool to automatically migrate history and information to Commons, I don't trust people to reliably migrate information or the admins to check that it was migrated correctly, which in my experience with my own work, it almost never is (e.g. links to en.wikipedia material are broken, file histories and dates are deleted, attribution is messed up, etc., etc.). Also, I am opposed to the idea that having an image on Commons inherently makes an image on EN redundant, since EN can have an English description and be watched for vandalism here while Commons ought to have multiple language descriptions and can't be watched for vandalism. Dragons flight 21:34, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

As for the first part, I can't make you trust anyone to do things, but right now, it rarely even gets checked at all; it's moved to Commons, well or sloppily, then listed on IfD and almost invariably deleted in a few days. Making it a CSD would help bring an admin's attention to it and hopefully check, rather than just seeing that it was on IfD for 5 days and just deleting it. For the second part, we can still have our own image description if we want, and why can't we monitor it for vandalism? If we see that the image isn't what it's supposed to be, we can just go to the commons page and revert it. If anything, it would make it less likely to be vandalized for long because there are less vandals on Commons AND there would be any countervandals on both Commons and other projects that may be using the pic watching. --Rory096_(block) 23:25, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Going through IFD gives the image uploader time to see the tag and make corrections/protest/etc. Secondly, the way the software currently works, if an image is on Commons but not here, it will display the Commons' image, the local image description page (if any) and then the Commons' image description page which creates ugly redundancy if both places are using image descriptions. Having a full local copy ensures that only the local image description is used. I'm not worrying about the image appearance being vandalized, but rather the image description being vandalized, which is much more common in my area of work (global warming/climate change). Moving an image to Commons makes it much more difficult for me to monitor changes to the image descriptions. I also disagree that it is substantially less likely to be vandalized, since it is just one extra click to get to the Commons page after finding the image used on an article in EN. Dragons flight 23:45, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

author requests deletion

The current policy allows speedy deletion for

Any page for which deletion is requested by the original author, provided the page was edited only by its author and was mistakenly created. If the author blanks the page, this can be taken as a deletion request. Note: Please check the page history to make sure there is only a single author.

I suggest to add, after "edited only by its author", the following phrase:

not counting edits which call for (1) deletion or (2) speedy deletion of the page, or which question the (3) importance or (4) veracity of the page

I think that at least (1) and (2) are uncontroversial -- an edit that adds {{afd}} or {{db}} obviously should not prevent a speedy deletion that is requested by the author. Also editors who add {{hoax}} or {{importance}} would probably be happy to see the page go, if the original author him/herself suggests that. --Austrian 22:19, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

• This is common sense... do we really need to explicitly add that clause? ~MDD4696 22:35, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
• If we must guard against overly literal readings, I think a better choice would be to change "provided the page was..." to "provided the text of the page was ...", with the understanding that cleanup tags, stub markers, categories and so forth, are not part of the text. But I'd really prefer that such common sense could be left to the deleting admin. Henning Makholm 22:57, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
• That clause has always been interpreted as only applying to significant edits. So, for example, (5) correcting spelling or grammar and (6) minor wikification of headers or links also do not count as "edits" for the purposes of this clause. The list of possible exceptions is large. We trusted the user enough to make him/her an admin. Unless there is evidence to the contrary, we should continue to trust them to exercise common sense and discretion. I'll reconsider if you can show evidence that the current wording is creating real problems but in general, cluttering up the page with more instruction creep is a bad thing. Rossami (talk) 22:58, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree that listing situations is not necessary, but perhaps rewording to something like the only "contributor of content" instead of only editor, which is just wrong. NickelShoe (Talk) 04:43, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Adding more examples to A7

I would like to add some more examples to A7's description because I do not feel that the current wording encompasses the full scope of the policy change that was approved in December 2005: "In short, my proposal is to expand CSD A7 to include non-notable groups of people as well as individuals. This would apply to bands, clubs, organizations, couples, families, and any other collections of individuals that do not assert their importance or significance." (my highlighting) Specifically, I would like to add the following words (in bold) to the current description:

7. Unremarkable people or groups / vanity pages. An article about a real person or group of people—for example, a band, club, family, online community, company or other organization—that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject. If the assertion is disputed or controversial, it should be taken to AFD instead.

I want to emphasise that this is not intended to change the agreed-upon policy in any way. But I would like us to use our existing policy to its full extent. Why? Because it's doing an incredible job, but it could do more. About 90% of deleted articles are deleted via speedy deletion. But AFD is still overflowing with 120-150 articles per day, and many of those are obvious deletions with no opposing "keep" votes.

Two of the new examples—families and organizations—are copied directly from the proposal. The other two—companies and online communities—are also included in this policy, but it is useful to mention them specifically:

• A company is "an organization of individuals conducting a commercial or industrial enterprise", but it is also an entity that stands to gain financially from using and abusing Misplaced Pages. As Misplaced Pages grows in prominence, it is increasingly becoming a target for blatant (and not so blatant) self-promotion. Currently the most egregious examples are being dealt with by the (mis)use of the {{db-copyvio}} template, but strictly speaking it is not "blatant copyright infringement from the website of a commercial content provider"—it's advertising material being copied with the full permission of the copyright owner. In A7 we have the appropriate tool to deal with this. Let's use it.

• An online community is also a "group of people", but it is one that can (and often has) mustered its members in an attempt to overwhelm Misplaced Pages's defences. While these attempts rarely (if ever) succeed, they can waste a tremendous amount of our time and effort. We could save ourselves an awful lot of hassle if we could deal with these cases swiftly and decisively, where appropriate.

Please comment, and share your thoughts and opinions below. Thank you. GeorgeStepanek\ 09:16, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose there's no need for further expansion. PROD has now avoided past reasons for repeated CSD-expansion. PROD gives an easy way avoiding AFDs, for straight-forward matters, unikely to be contested. If a deletion is contested, it should go to AFD. Basically, the only reason for expanding a7 yet again, is if you want to speedy more things that some wish kept. That wouldn't make much sense to me. If we get expanding a7, we might as well hand over the keys to admins, and quit pretending the community approves content by discussion and consensus. --Rob 10:12, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Rob this is not a policy proposal, and there is no need to vote. Voting for this finished in December. This is not an expansion of A7: this is policy that has already been voted on and approved. The discussion now is about how it could best be expressed, and explained. GeorgeStepanek\ 10:26, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
    • The policy page has had current wording for a while. So, it will take a consensus to change it. So, what you're asking for now, is in fact, an expansion, and change in policy. It would be different, if you tried for that wording earler. But, any new wording now, requires a clear new consensus for support. And yah, it is an expansion. If it wasn't, you wouldn't have any reason to propose it. --Rob 10:30, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
      • I am not proposing any changes. I just want to improve the current wording so that it fully express the policy proposal that was approved in December. You said yourself that "if anybody wishes to change policy, please seek changes to the WP:CSD page, and try to gain consensus first." I know that you don't like this policy because you originally voted against it, but if you want to overturn it then you'll first have to obtain unequivical consensus for doing so. GeorgeStepanek\ 11:04, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
• I see no reason to expand A7 further. Again, I'll reiterate that I'd much rather see A7 thrown into a PROD situation to allow more eyes to look at such articles rather than deleting them quickly. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEMES?) 12:56, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
• This is very sensible rewording of the A7 policy. I couldn't agree more. Especially companies abusing Misplaced Pages for self-promotion are becoming a nuisance. And it is not always so easy to find out if they fall under the guidelines of WP:CORP, especially if they are situated in countries such as India, Pakistan etc... JoJan 12:59, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

• No. The idea of including website and companies in speedies has been often suggested and uniformly rejected. It was rejected again in December, as evidenced by the fact that it did not manage to remain in the policy as it came to be rewritten. I see no case for not taking such things to AfD at present, or through PROD or copyvio as appropriate. I do not agree with the assertion that the expansion proposed has support already, or it would already be present in the policy. -Splash 13:56, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
  • It's interesting. When I looked through the page's history for the days after the "groups of people" policy was implemented, I see only one person removing criteria from A7. That person removed "This includes bands, clubs, organizations, couples and families." here and "This includes bands, clubs, couples and families" here. These were all criteria that had been specifically mentioned in the proposal. It is simply disingenious to claim that their current absence is due to some kind of consensus.
    This edit was the only clarification to survive, perhaps because it may even help to narrow the criteria further. With it in place the wording actually implies that that only clubs and bands are considered to be "groups of people"—which is a far cry from the broad "any other collections of individuals" that had received 80% approval. That's probably why the only templates to be created were for bands and clubs, and that in turn is probably why bands and clubs are the only groups of people that tend to be speedy deleted nowadays. I am not proposing any kind of expansion. I would just like the wording to accurately and clearly reflect our existing policy: policy that has already been properly proposed, voted on and unequivically approved. GeorgeStepanek\ 09:37, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose This is an expansion, because A7 is not currently used this way even if it could be interpreted this way. I would support getting rid of A7 entirely; I certainly do not support expanding it. As Rob said, with the existence of prod, this serves no purpose except to delete articles people want kept, and there are better ways to handle that than zapping without discussion. NickelShoe (Talk) 14:21, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
  • This is not a vote. Nor is it an expansion of A7, nor indeed is it any kind of policy proposal. You don't have to like A7, but you are always free to put forward a proposal to revoke it. Until then our policy is the policy that was voted on and approved in December 2005: "This would apply to bands, clubs, organizations, couples, families, and any other collections of individuals that do not assert their importance or significance." The question for us should rather be: what is the most thorough and effective way to describe and explain this policy? GeorgeStepanek\ 09:37, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Copyedit

Hi, I rewrote the opening paragraphs, because I found them a bit disorganized and unclear. I was careful not to make content changes; I hope it's an improvement, and my apologies if it is not. Kaisershatner 14:05, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

A7 and companies

A7 is sometimes (wrongly) attributed to companies (see above). This is a Bad Thing (it is far more ambiguous in these cases) however the reason is clear and has a serious point: many articles are created which are blatant spam for companies which are not even in the same time zone as WP:CORP. At present we can {prod} them or take them to AfD, and we can revert the spamminess, but we can't just remove them. And unfortunately many editors forget to undo the spam links and remove the flummery. Sometimes they are a straight copy and paste from the company website, but that is not a CSD copyvio since these are not sites which sell the content.

Is there any support for proposing a CSD "blatant spam" criterion? I am in two minds about it myself. Just zis Guy you know? 15:55, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Try a couple sections up from here. -Splash 15:56, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I saw. But I am not being very clear today. I need to think about it more I guess. There is a difference ebtween spam and non-notable companies, and that's best handled by a separate critrion (in my view), which is very tightly worded to exclude being used for neutrally worded articles on companies of no or doubtful notability. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the arguments above. Just zis Guy you know? 16:00, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't really support this idea, though I understand it. It's just too subjective what is spam, and differentiating between cleanupable spam and unredeemable spam. I'd hatchet it down (Joe Corp is a bubble gum company based in Florida, USA) and stick a notability tag on it and go from there. I don't think speedying is necessary, personally. NickelShoe (Talk) 16:53, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

• I've seen some laughably blatent spam - just off the top of my head, a "Free iPods click here THIS REALLY WORKS" kind of article, and people with links to cheap vi@gra. In the spirit of WP:IAR I deleted these, technically it doesn't meet a criteria, but come on. Perhaps there's some way to codify the difference between outright spam and someone posting a flowery article praising their company (which should probably be prod'd/afd'd). Perhaps "Article exists only to attempt to sell a product, service, or get people to click a referral link"? But this might be so uncommon that we can just go on with the status quo... "rouge deletes" and whatnot. --W.marsh 17:01, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
  • If it's working, why fix it? It seems to me that trying to fix the problem would only worsen things. You can never make a hard and fast rule without striking out the fast part of the equation; right now admins seem to be doing the right thing, IMO. Johnleemk | Talk 17:06, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Well, I'm aware of that... but I also think the optimal system is one where you don't have to break rules to deal with daily occurances. Also... I think people do want to speedy anything deemed spam, even if it's about a notable company, and really the issue is about WP:NPOV... cleanup is often more in order than deletion. I think a rule clarifying what should be speedied and what shouldn't would help there. But I'm mostly thinking aloud... I want to avoid instruction creep as much as anyone. --W.marsh 17:31, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

• Yes, you put your finger on it: it's handling a pretty routine ocurrence (pretty much every time I do a session at CAT:CSD I find some articles tagged as "spam") without writing a special set of rules. Most of the time removing the spam links and {prod} ing is the right thing, but there are a significant number which simply shouldn't be allowed to sit around for a week. Just zis Guy you know? 17:36, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I think you can safely have a speedy for spam if you limit it to newly created articles (say under 48 hours) with major edits by only one user. We need to try to toast the stuff before it gets to Google (and mirrors), as that's the "gold prize" for the spammer. Once a company's page has been around for a while, its best to give it a PROD or AFD (if anybody wishes it deleted), as there's little harm in taking the time for one. As for the definition of spam, I'm not sure of what wording to use. --Rob 17:40, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Is there a basic timing thing for how long it takes for Google to grab an article from here? --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEMES?) 17:42, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps: Articles created within the last 48 hours which serve to promote a commercial subject and which make no assertion of notability per WP:CORP. Actually on reflection I think we should apply the 48 hour limit to all criteria - speedy is designed as a counter-vandalism measure, an article which has been around for a couple of days can probably survive another week, unless it's a blatant attack, in which case it should be stubbed. Just zis Guy you know? 21:40, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there's need of putting a 48-hour limit on speedying. It's annoying to make everything so technical. It's a good idea not to speedy old articles, but let's not make it a rule unless we have to. NickelShoe (Talk) 00:18, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I think 48-hours makes a good anti-spam rule. In general, I would prefer not to speedy unless we have to, or the deletion is a no-brainer. Septentrionalis 02:17, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Suggested addition to intro

Before the last para of the intro I suggest something along the lines of:

If the problem is with the content rather than the subject - for example an excessively florid description of a company, or a highly critical biography of a public figure - consider fixing the problem, perhaps by reducing the article to a verifiable stub, rather than nominating it for deletion.

Jimbo says: "Mostly, if we (any of us! for any reason!) stub a controversial article and demand careful sourcing for rebuilding it, that's fine, EVEN IF THE ARTICLE SUCKS FOR A FEW DAYS." - it didn't apply to this instance, but I think it has relevance here. Just zis Guy you know? 21:37, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I like it. It might not be bad to mention prod there, too, as an alternative in some cases. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEMES?) 21:41, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Interestingly, an early title of what became AfD was "Article names for deletion". I think there should be more awareness that you can do more with a "bad" article than just delete it. If there's anything salvagable, by all means, people should salvage it. My suggest for wording:

If the problem is just that the current version of the article isn't acceptable, but a good article could be written on the topic, considering fixing the problem, even if it means reducing the article to a verifiable stub, rather than nominating it for deletion.

I dunno, probably not much better but it's a thought. --W.marsh 02:57, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

A3 used in a way that hampers my ability to create something useful for the reader

I am an active participant in WP:HOT - the wikiproject to make sure we have articles on topics that other encyclopedias have. As part of this I create a butt-load of redirects from A.N.OTHER naming conventions to our naming conventions. This is all good and helps the reader find the information they are looking for when they come to Misplaced Pages. However sometimes an article title comes up that in a sense needs to be "redirected to two places". Consider for example the topic "Flemings and Walloons" that describes the similarities and differences between the two major groups of Belgians. Now our articles are at Flemish people and Walloons, so at Flemings and Walloons I write a short stub that is more-or-less a pointer to those two articles with the bulk of our content. Now occasionally some well-meaning editor doing about 50 edits a minute slaps an A3 on it - saying "no content". Now I agree that it doesn't have much content, but the page is undeniably useful, because it helps direct the reader to the information they are searching for. It certainly wasn't the intention to delete such articles when we invented A3. Does anyone have any objection if I re-word A3 to make it clear that we don't have this sort of thing in mind? Pcb21 Pete 17:21, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't putting a {{dab}} tag on it alleviate that problem? It sounds like that's what it is, and no one expects a dab page to be full of enriching information. Blackcap (talk) 17:29, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

If it stops others making mistakes then I will use that if necessary.

However it isn't, conceptually, the right tag to add. The dab template says "This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title". The two-or-more things I want to point to people don't have the "same title". There is no ambiguity between "Flems" and "Walloons". Given how big the disambig category is already, it seems wrong to overload it even further. Hence my alternative characterization of "signpost article". Better names very welcome and thanks Blackcap for your input. Pcb21 Pete 17:46, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Maybe we should have a "signpost article" cat and template, as a subcat of the dab cat, thus avoiding that problem. Blackcap (talk) 18:01, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I am in favour of that. And maybe if necessary, we can add "This does not include disambiguation pages or signpost articles" to A3, but that could come later. Pcb21 Pete 18:05, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Added into A3 here. I'm about to go and make the cat. Blackcap (talk) 18:35, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Hey, whaddya know? It already exists. I'll go and make the template now. Blackcap (talk) 18:38, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

All right, here's a start. Whaddya think? (Oh, and further converse should go here.) Blackcap (talk) 21:32, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Pcb21 unilaterally recreated Category:Signpost articles, which was deleted per a debate that he deemed "bogus." (I've re-deleted it.) The corresponding "guideline" page (which Pcb21 introduced without discussion) also was unanimously rejected by participants in its deletion debate.

Disambiguation pages are used to list topics that might share the disambiguation page's title, not merely each other's title. —David Levy 00:12, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

It was a great shame that I was away when that debate occured because it was bogus.

Then take your grievance to Misplaced Pages:Deletion review. That's what it's for.

To repeat, the dab template says "This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title" (my emphasis).

Yes, and that's referring to the disambiguation page's title, not to the individual articles' titles.

You may also care to look up "ambiguous" in the dictionary.

Perhaps we should change the name. Why don't you propose that?

It makes no sense to add further meaning to the category that would take it outside its natural meaning in English, as the category is already extremely large.

It's merely a project category. It isn't used for article navigation, so size isn't a major concern.

To have a sister category that actually says what its makes a lot of sense.

You're welcome to formally propose your setup (a step that you've repeatedly bypassed), but please stop ignoring consensus.

I am very sorry that the purpose of the category was not made clear during that deletion debate.

It was clear. The participants rejected your reasoning.

But now that it has been (I hope!) please do not hinder the improvement of the encyclopedia by process-fiddling.

You believe that this would be an improvement, but others disagree. As a veteran sysop, you know better than to force your viewpoint upon the community.

In addition I notice you have been creating inappropriate redirects to try hide the fact that we need these signpost pages! Pcb21 Pete 01:31, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

No. I replaced some of your inappropriate "signpost articles" with appropriate redirects as I emptied the category. —David Levy 02:09, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

db-absurd?

Why isn't blatant absurdity a ground for speedy deletion? I find it really annoying that a user can create an article about himself, claiming (say) that he invented time travel and is the king of the universe, and there is no official justification for tagging this for speedy deletion (after all, these claims, if true, would certainly make the person notable). Thus we have to go through the prod (and probably) AFD process, wasting everyone's time. It makes no sense to me. dbtfz 19:14, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

There's {{db-nonsense}} and {{db-bio}} for situations like that. --Zsinj 19:24, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

{{nonsense}} covers patent nonsense, which that is not. Blackcap (talk) 19:32, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I don't think anyone's going to argue with deleting articles where the claims to notability are obviously false. If nothing else they can be deleted as vandalism (G3). Of course, this requires being a bit of discretion... absurd claims like you mention can be safely declared obviously false... but seeking out verification, or using Prod/AfD is more appropriate for claims that are merely dubious. --W.marsh 19:31, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I think db-vandalism works for the situation I've described, so I'll use that from now on. dbtfz 19:34, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I am talking only about claims that any sane person could immediately recognize as obviously false. I agree that prod/AfD is the right course of action for other cases. dbtfz 19:36, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

You seem to understand what to do quite well. Don't be afraid to tag common sense speedies, whether they exactly fit a category or not. We don't have an official policy for this stuff but the deletions of obvious junk are fairly uncontroversial. Friday (talk) 19:39, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. --Zsinj 19:44, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the good advice.  :-) dbtfz 19:46, 22 April 2006 (UTC)