Fixing Votes for deletion: A technical proposal
editTim Starling mentioned to me a few ideas he had about someone making a wikimedia plugin that automates the listing process on vfd. I've said to him I'm interested in coding up such a scheme, but my idea is to take it even further, and see if we can automate the process as much as possible. I thought I'd be best off running this by people first before developing it and finding nobody likes it. :)
The major problem I see with vfd at the moment is it's too painful to add a new page, and the page itself is way too long. This isn't good for anyone, even if you're a deletionist or an inclusionist. If you're a deletionist, it means that people aren't listing pages that would probably get deleted because they can't be bothered. If you're an inclusionist, it means that admins are probably speedy deleting borderline things simply because vfd is more trouble than it's worth. So I hope that people will think making vfd work better is in everyone's interests.
Tim's idea was that the delete link admins get could be extended to give an option to list on vfd instead. I'd go further than this, and say that all logged in users should get such a link, but for non-admins, it automatically chooses the vfd option. The page would let you provide a reason, from which the vfd subpage could automatically be created.
There would also be the option to unlist a page, which should archive the vfd debate appropriately. When a page is deleted for real, it probably should close off the vfd page appropriately too. I'm sure all this can be done.
The more radical proposal I have is that the content of vfd itself be automated off this data. Instead of the "list on vfd" code manually adding the content inline, I'd suggest the vfd page include a special template that automatically generates links to the past 5 days of listings. I say links rather than including them inline, because the page is too damn long, having discussion inline just makes it take too long to load for anyone not on broadband, and it's only going to get worse.
We could also automatically generate an archive of pages that are listed, older than 5 days, and not yet actioned. This should simplify the administrative task of following up on votes after they've completed.
Any thoughts on this idea? Am I on the right track, or is this not something people would like to see? Shane King 23:15, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
- Shane, be sure to take a quick look over prior discussion at meta:Deletion management redesign. What I've always wanted to do but haven't gotten around to is to have a community-based deletion system that's a little more like how the c2.com WikiWiki or UseModWiki works: anybody can mark a page as 'to be deleted', and if this marker doesn't get removed or changed after some period of time, *poof* off it goes. We can have a nice clean automated page which lists the pages on track for deletion (rather than attempting to maintain a VfD page via edits) and discussion simply can take place on the talk pages. --Brion 02:37, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- I think you're on the right track. Simplifying the nomination system would be a big help in controlling our problem with instruction creep. I have a couple of additional thoughts that I'd ask you to consider as you build this out. Thanks for taking this on. Rossami (talk) 16:57, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- The page should not merely allow but require the user to specify a reason before the nomination is accepted.
- I feel strongly that we need to keep the inline version of the votes page going. It is the only efficient way for me to participate in all the discussions and to review my previous votes to see if new evidence has been added to make me change my mind. By the way, I connect on dial-up (and usually a pretty poor connection). Even with that, the load time is acceptable.
- I have resisted the idea of discussing the nomination on the article's talk page because I believe that it will create a subtle bias that will lower the number of impartial editors joining the conversation. Holding the discussion on the article's talk page is easier for the page's current author/editors but does not actively bring in new perspectives.
- Unlisting should be a controlled activity. A partisan author of a nominated page should not be able to hide the evidence of the nomination. I'm not sure if that would best be accomplished by making that a "sysop-only" function or if there is a way of controlling it through logs and history.
- I am also concerned about nominations made in bad faith. If we make nominations easier, it will increase the number of VfD nominations which are made as a form of protest or vandalism. When identified, we should be able to make those disappear easily. (This need is in dynamic tension with the need above.)
- Automating the cleanup process after the discussion is done and the decision is made would be great.
- I think Rossami has some excellent points. For me the last is the most important: post-voting processing is not too complicated thanks to his Wikipedia:Deletion process, but is somewhat time consuming, and would be most excellent to automate. For me, VfD nominations currently are a piece of cake, especially compared to some of the previous, quite cumbersome methods. I always have a text file (vfd.txt although it also includes my seldom-used 'welcome' message, and similar boilerplate as below, but for copyvios) open with:
{{Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Nexum}}
===[[Nexum]]===
Another apparently lost/orphaned VfD nom, as the tag was added November 8, but it doesn't seem to
have ever been placed on the main VfD page, and doesn't appear on "old".
<Procedural/'''abstain'''--currently dic def. Can it become encyclopedic? ~~~~
- at the top, and just cut & paste the article title in the two places, update the comments, and cut & paste into VfD and the article. In other words, I would prefer the effort be applied to automating the processing first--we're back to close to a full week's backlog. Niteowlneils 20:50, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)