User:Novem Linguae/Essays/Nuances of CSD

These are my incomplete and non-comprehensive notes on the nuances of the criteria for speedy deletion (CSDs). Here I try to elaborate on or some of the unwritten rules of CSD, and also emphasize some of the written rules.

General notes

• To tag for CSD, you must wait 1 hour after the page has been created, unless the page has an egregious problem (attack pages, copyvios, vandalism, patent nonsense).
  • Some would argue that you should wait hours, but the reality is, there are people that patrol the front of the NPP queue, and they do most of their tagging around the 15 minute mark. There is not much left to tag after that.
• Criteria beginning with "G" (general) can be used in any namespace, including draft. Criteria beginning with "A" (article) can only be used in mainspace.
• The most common CSD's are G11 (promotional), G12 (copyright), and A7 (no credible claim of significance).
• At AFC and NPP, do an Earwig copyvio check before you do anything else to an article. No reason to do the rest of the flowchart if it qualifies for G12.
  • Especially avoid sending G12's to AFD. AFD is a time consuming process for the community.
• You do not need to do WP:BEFORE for CSDs.

Specific CSDs

G1 - Patent nonsense

• May only be used if the words are unreadable. If the words are readable but the grammar is mangled, you should use something else instead. Perhaps "G2 Test Page" if that is a good fit.
• Excludes user namespace.

G2 - Test edits

• Excludes user namespace.

G3 - Pure vandalism and blatant hoaxes

• A "hoax" is basically factually incorrect statements. So this can be a good criterion to use on articles that make (bad faith and serious) incorrect statements of any kind.
• Good criterion to use to delete AI-generated content.

G4 - Recreation of a page that was deleted per a deletion discussion

• The article doesn't have to be identical. But it does have to have the same underlying issue as the AFD.
• AFDs closed as merge cannot be deleted. Must be redirected.
• Only admins can see deleted article text. So a non-admin tagging with this criteria is likely to get some declined.

G5 - Creations by banned or blocked users

• Most commonly used to destroy articles created by WP:SOCKS.
• Seems this CSD is part of a "war on socks". Even articles that have been marked as reviewed by a new page patroller, and articles that are otherwise fine, are eligible for deletion under this criteria.
• There is supposed to be an exception for articles that have "substantial edits by other users", but in practice, articles by socks tend to get mass deleted.
• If the user is not a sock and is not evading a block, user must be blocked at the time they created the article. If they created the article before the block, it does not qualify for G5.

G6 - Technical deletions

• This is a bit of an overloaded CSD, and has lots of sub-criteria.
• One of the sub-criteria is "pages unambiguously created ... in the incorrect namespace"

G10 - Attack page

• An article that states that someone is on trial / accused of a major crime, then states a bunch of negative gossip about them in wikivoice to strongly imply their guilt, qualifies for G10.

G11 - Unambiguous advertising or promotion

• This criteria is often interpreted loosely. For example, I have seen an admin G11 an article for 1 sentence of promo combined with a lack of reliable sources.
• While draftspace is supposed to be where WP:COI is allowed, and some reviewers will not G11 a draft for this reason, many reviewers use G11 in draftspace. And admins will usually delete.

Autobiographies of young people

• Autobiographies of non-notable young people are often tagged and deleted using G11.
• If they are under age 16, also submit it for WP:OVERSIGHT. Young people have a habit of revealing too much personal information, and it is dangerous.

G12 - Unambiguous copyright infringement

• For cases where most or all of the article's prose is copyright infringement.
• For smaller cases of copyright infringement, delete the infringing text, and then tag for revdel using the user script User:Enterprisey/cv-revdel.
• Avoid the complex subst:copyvio procedure specified at Wikipedia:Copyright problems#Suspected or complicated infringement. Use one of the two methods above.
• An article that is all quotes can qualify for G12 and revdel.

G13 - Abandoned drafts and "articles for creation" submissions

• You must wait until exactly six months have passed from the most recent edit, down to the minute. Be aware of UTC time, and make sure to do the UTC to local time conversions correctly.
• While this could in theory be done by a bot, at present it is done manually.
• If there is a {{Promising draft}} template, you are not supposed to G13.
• User:FireflyBot gives 5 month notifications on draft author's user talk pages.

A7 - No indication of importance (people, animals, organizations, web content, events)

Main page: Wikipedia:Credible claim of significance

• If there is an obviously RS source (for example, something green at WP:RSPSOURCES), A7 cannot be used.
• If all the sources are WP:SELFPUBLISH (such as websites and blogs), this fails the "reliable sources" part of WP:CCS.
• A YouTuber with hundreds of thousands of subscribers, for me, would be enough to meet WP:CCS, but this is a gray area among admins. Some will still A7 and delete.

A10 - Recently created article that duplicates an existing topic

• This should be used rarely. Often a redirect is more appropriate.
• Must be recently created.

R3 - Recently created, implausible typos

• Must be recently created.

U5 - A non-contributor's misuse of Wikipedia as a web host

• "where the owner has made few or no edits outside of [non-compliant] user pages"
• An editor with over 100 edits probably doesn't qualify.

Disclosure of information by child editors

While patrolling, you may encounter autobiographies or personal information clearly written by a child. If the child looks to be under 16 years old or gives a birthdate under 16 years old, this information should be immediately submitted to WP:OVERSIGHT. Autobiographical images of children hosted on commons should be submitted to c:COM:Oversight.