Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy/Archive 16

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Relisting AfDs

Apologies in advance if this already been discussed, but...

In the section on Wikipedia:Deletion_policy#Deletion_discussion the AfD process the policy currently says, "A nomination that gets little response after five days can be relisted if the closing editor believes that more time would be likely to generate a clearer consensus." This in general seems well reasoned to me, except for situations in which editors—albeit very few—have agreed with the nom and !voted delete and no one has opposed deletion. In situations such as these, the AfD is equivalent to a PROD: an editor has proposed deletion, 5+ days have passed, and no one has objected. (In fact, it's sort of an über-PROD, since not only has message been sitting atop the article saying "This article is being considered for deletion" but it's also listed at WP:AfD and possibly also at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting, so all interested parties should be well aware of it). It therefore seems to me that the debate should be closed as "Delete." Relisting, on the other hand, would allow more editors to potentially weigh in—and that's not inherently a bad thing—but the cost is increasing the number of active AfDs. Now maybe there's not a huge backlog—perhaps this a solution for a non-existent problem—nor have checked to see how many of the 100+ AfDs that get filed each day are relistings that would fit the above criteria. But not relisting these types of AfDs would mean at least a less work for closing admins, and a few more eyes available to look at the AfDs that actually are disputed.

I propose that the section be amend to read (new text in italics): "A nomination that gets little response after five days can be relisted if the closing editor believes that more time would be likely to generate a clearer consensus. If, however, a deletion discussion that has received little attention has at least one editor agreeing with the nominator and no editor has opposed deletion, then the discussion should be closed as "Delete", since this situation is essentially equivalent to an uncontested proposed deletion"

Thoughts? Yilloslime (t) 05:07, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

A prod doesn't have the effect of allowing WP:CSD G4 if the content is recreated. I'd rather trust closing admins to use common sense than add more WP:CREEP trying to clarify the situation. Jclemens (talk) 06:16, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Even notable subjects have been deleted by prod because the right person/people didn't notice. IMHO, we shouldn't be so quick to delete, if something is obviously going to be deleted who cares if it happens in one week or two? Many articles have been saved and some initial research would have shown they were notable enough but, it is easier to delete. Banjeboi 09:08, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Prod'ed articles are immediately restored on request, though, so it's quite a different situation to an AfD delete close. --Stormie (talk) 10:04, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can tell most newbies wouldn't even think to ask but that's a good point. Banjeboi 10:11, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Heh. I didn't even realize the restoration process for Prod'ed articles was different, and I should have known better. Jclemens (talk) 01:07, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that the problem could more easily be solved through a quiet note to the closer that relisting in those kinds of circumstances is generally unproductive. If no one showed up to defend the article in the first five days, our history has shown that a few more days rarely changes things. Personally, I only advocate relisting when there is continued discussion with new facts being presented and where there is actual evidence in the discussion that more time is likely to be productive.
Or you could just close the discussion yourself. The discussion has, after all, been listed for the requisite time period and is subject to closure anytime after the 5 days are up. Rossami (talk) 14:39, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Respectfully disagree. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Diverse Harmony is a good example of an article given a last gasp - sometimes are found to be notable enough in the extension period. There are other articles that I found out after the fact had been deleted in similar circumstances - we need more editors looking at these articles with a variety of backgrounds and experiences. I'd much rather err by keeping an article around an extra week. Banjeboi 00:58, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose no reason to invoke an AfD with two participants automatically. The process works better with fewer mandated outcomes, rather than more. Protonk (talk) 01:14, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Auto-archiving

How about setting up automatic archiving on this talk page?--Kotniski (talk) 10:18, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I've boldly added a 30-day auto-archiving. Banjeboi 10:39, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Much better, thanks! Hobit (talk) 16:13, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

You're quite welcome! Banjeboi 21:43, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Summary Deletions by Wiki Clique

Surely we all must realize how badly the reputation of Wikipedia has suffered as a result of editorial bias and forced "concensus" by various Wiki Cliques who dominate the subject matter they've claimed as their turf, with their biased point of view rather than a NPOV. Sometimes this activity seems more like a Dungeons & Dragons gaming board than a truely free encyclopedia. Let's work together to make it better. Sincerely, Rusty Dr. B. R. Lang (talk) 14:22, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

It's hard to respond to this without specific examples. justinfr (talk) 16:04, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

His specific example is the article that he is attempting to write about himself, that just got deleted for the nth time, this time at the administrators' noticeboard. Dr. Lang, please don't take this the wrong way, but you are not notable enough to be on wikipedia as an unreferenced article. You need references to reliable sources that talk about you, that aren't written by you. Keeper ǀ 76 16:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I should have assumed as much--I've been reading the AN debate. Thought maybe there would be something else :) justinfr (talk) 16:33, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

No third party sources

I think "no third-party sources" should be an explicit reason for deletion. I would put it immediately below:

• Articles which cannot possibly be attributed to reliable sources, including neologisms and original theories and conclusions
• Articles for which all attempts to find reliable sources to verify them have failed

and above

• Articles whose subject fails to meet the relevant notability guideline (WP:N, WP:BIO, WP:MUSIC, WP:CORP and so forth)

The complete lack of third party sources is a simple violation of WP:V, not needing any reference to "reliable" sources, and is an accurate but far simpler interpretation of many failures in meeting notability guidelines. If this has been explicitly discussed before, I would appreciate being pointed to such discussion. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:53, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Wait - what are you proposing? If an article does have sources, but they aren't "good enough", that has to be sorted out at AFD. There's no hard and fast rule that can cover it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:27, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I hope you do not mean 'no third party sources in the article'. We surely do not to encourage people to put articles up for deletion where they know sources exist but they are just not in the article at the moment. If instead you mean 'article where all attempts to find third party sources for verification have failed' that would be fine but seems to be virtually a duplicate of the one above. Davewild (talk) 16:27, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I am proposing an entry to focus on the existence of “independent” or “third party” sources as a reason per se for deletion (for listing at AfD), without needing to refer to nebulous concepts of “notability”. Notability is a mess, and it would be better if reasons for deletion could be couched in references to core policy, such as WP:V. Whatever the reason for deletion, it still has to be sorted out at AfD.

An article may have sources, very reliable sources, but they may not be third party. For example: An article on a person where the only sources are from the authors publications; or an article on a company where the only sources are from the company website. These are cases where the article fails WP:N or some notability subguideline, but more fundamentally, they fail WP:V, specifically – “If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it.”

Proposed wording:

• “Articles for which all attempts to find third party sources have failed”

Is it not the case that articles must have both third-party sources and reliable sources, in cases where the third-party sources are not entirely reliable and the reliable sources are not third party?

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:27, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

selective deletion

It has probably been discussed before, but we regularly have to temporarily delete pages with a long history to remove vandalism. A selective deletion, similar to oversight, but working like classic deletion, would help to reduce the strain on servers (triggering read-only modes, etc) and the disappearance of high visibility articles (e.g. BBC) for a few minutes. Has a bug been filed about that ? Cenarium ^Talk 17:00, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Two Questions About Deleting

• How can I delete a page that I made? I'm speaking specifically about one of my talk pages but I am also curious about any page that I myself have created. It seems really odd that we have the power to create pages but not remove them.
  • Write {{db-author}} on it.
• How can I get a deleted page back?
  • Ask an administrator to restore it for you.--Kotniski (talk) 11:40, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

meinsla ^talk 11:31, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

proposal for the policy modification.

Because there are many inexperienced users adding content to the Wikipedia, I suggest that if 'experienced' editor (experienced as it takes some experience to know about deletion and similar tags...) proposes an article for deletion, editor should place in deletion proposal few sample queries from Google Books, Google News, and Google Scholar searches that he/she conducted trying to find relevant sources. This will show that an editor really had assumed good faith but didn't find reliable notable sources. I know that burden on proof is on the editor who adds content, but I also know that many editors WHO SIGNIFICANTLY CONTRIBUTE to Wikipedia do not know about this.

That's my proposal. 216.80.119.92 (talk) 19:05, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

What you're basically proposing is an addition to WP:BEFORE and/or WP:ATD requesting that a nominator expend that effort. Having seen perhaps 5-10% of AfD's be truly and egregiously bad, and maybe 20% of AfDs already document that some effort along these lines has been done, I'm generally in favor of this for non-speedy, non-prod deletions. It would go against the general sense of WP:BURDEN, but I worry that the sheer volume of AfDs make it unlikely that !voters will take the time to look at things themselves. We've had a mess of AfD's be reposted 2 or 3 times because no one really seems to care strongly about them one way or another. That, itself, is a strain on the signal to noise ratio in AfD. Jclemens (talk) 19:13, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

• I'm really neutral on this. The outcome for most of these deletion debates started without proper sources is a keep result. Unles we want to just change the Afd2 template to include the "find sources" template (which I'm fine with), I don't really think we need to force editors to show they searched google for something. Protonk (talk) 19:18, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

'Forcing' individual editors would save HUGE time AND space wasted on deletion debates where dozens of editors are involved. Otherwise, individual editor 'forces' dozens of other editors to debate often unjustified debates. My 2 cents. 216.80.119.92 (talk) 19:56, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

But there is a remedy for this. I won't nominate something for deletion without looking around google first. Most other long time afd contributors will not either. The reason we don't is because a nomination like that usually doesn't result in delete. It results in keep or speedy keep. I honestly don't want to have to check a box indicating that I have done something before listing an article on AfD. Besides, what do we do with editors who just say "i searched for it" and didn't? Protonk (talk) 20:14, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Most newbies don't read WP:BEFORE, and most veterans already know that searching first is good for everyone. I think it's possible to add something instructive, but not coercive, to WP:BEFORE to document that the preferred method is to take a minute and do a search before deletion. I'm going to be WP:BOLD and put something in--critique, praise, or revert as you see fit. Jclemens (talk) 20:35, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

So long as it is suggestion and not instruction creep, I'm all ears. Like I said, I think we should include {{Find sources}} inside {{Afd2}} just as a quick and easy link/reminder. Protonk (talk) 20:39, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

It's there now. I agree with your idea, as well--no reason a brief reminder can't be in two appropriate places. Jclemens (talk) 20:45, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem with your proposal is that AfD is started and already consumes time of many other editors, and even if the sources are then found, editors need to keep discussing them. There is no need for check box, but simply posting few links of relevant searches will be enough. After all, if you are already doing searches, doing a copy/paste into AfD will not take much time. 216.80.119.92 (talk) 20:44, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

An AfD consumes time, period. I'm worried about weighing the lost time of adding those searches into the AfD for fear of a bureaucratic early close against the lost time in responding to a good faith AfD carried out with an insufficient search. As I see it, the harm from an AfD initiated without a search is real but small. Compare that with every single AfD from now on having to have an editor included search testimony and I don't see why policy should be changed. There are very real impacts from AfDing contributions from new users, I don't think that this exact issue is one of them. Protonk (talk) 21:07, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposed changes to WP:PROD and WP:AFD

Current policy for AfD and Prod allows nomination at any point for an article. Consensus at AfD for articles nominated within the first few hours of creation is mixed, with many editors voting to close the deletion discussion early and other editors voting to keep or delete the articles on its merits. Adding a speedy keep clause for articles nominated early (or other mechanisms to disallow early nominations) have been proposed before, but usually as an element of a larger policy change which did not reach consensus. Reasons for rejecting this proposal in the past included criticisms of the arbitrary time limit, suggestions that the policy may be gamed and (most compelling) the claim that an added time requirement was process creep.

I feel it is time to reopen discussion and change the Speedy Keep, AfD and proposed deletion guidelines and policies. I am holding the discussion here because it is central to each of these guidelines and watched generally. Notes on the other relevant talk pages will be made.

Rationale

There are three primary reasons why the benefits of offering a window for article creation outweigh the costs:

1. There is no rush:AfD is a discussion that lasts five days. Prod is a proposal which last five days. Neither exists to protect Wikipedia or its readers from immediate harm. Articles which do not meet the deliberately narrow criteria for speedy deletion may eventually be found to be outside out guidelines or policies for inclusion. There is no harm for this determination to occur six days following the articles creation rather than five days. While (see below) some burden may increase for nominators, we face almost no harm from the actual article itself.
2. Biting newbies is worse than burdening new page patrollers:While some real cost is incurred in forcing editors to review page creation logs before each deletion nomination, this cost is much less then the harm of biting a new editor who is adding content to the encyclopedia. Often new editors (or even relatively experienced editors) are unaware of how quickly the new page patrol works and may create articles in stages. We in the community are used to the norms regarding page creation and attribution but new editors manifestly are not. Wikipedia is seen in the outside world as a primarily collaborative resource. New editors often express dismay that someone doesn't help them improve their article but rather introduces it to a deletion debate immediately. The speed at which this occurs is often a cause of those negative feelings. Even if someone's first article is on a non-notable subject or otherwise unacceptable for Wikipedia, they are still a valued potential contributor. Our internal policy and practice should exist to ease them into editing.
3. The time element is important:Related to the second point is another important element. New editors have no idea how our rather complex deletion policy works. They don't know AfD from WMD. They do not know how long an AfD runs or who may participate. They do not know (even though it says so on the template) who may remove a prod or how long a prod may be attached to an article. They may be rocket scientists on the outside world but in Wikipedia they are neophytes. As such, the apparent speed of the nomination is compounded. They don't know that they have 5 days to improve and argue for an article. They think (often) that they have 24 hours or less to contest the deletion. This leaves newbies with the sincere impression that their article will be rejected from the Wikipedia community within a day.

There is no complete protection from this. Editors new and old will create articles outside our policies for inclusion and be upset when those articles are deleted. New editors who choose to ignore the copious amount of warnings and advice and make their first edit on a new article will eventually be made unhappy by the community response. But we can reach consensus as a community to ameliorate some of these problems without adding too many new problems. I feel that a 24 hour limitation will blunt some of the worst issues while not unduly burdening the rest of the community.

While I feel that local consensus and practice basically supports this issue (with a hasty nomination being a good recipe for a SNOWy close), there have been valid concerns raised about this proposal. I'll list a few here in an attempt to dispense with them, but these are obviously not exhaustive:

• This is instruction creep. The AfD/Prod system works reasonably well and forcing new page patrollers to mark the time of creation and return 24 hours later is an undue burden.

• I agree that this is a burden to new page patrollers and editors working with XfD in general. It will be harder to nominate new pages for deletion and as a result (as a rather direct result), more pages that do not meet Wikipedia guidelines will be kept. One of the advantages of striking while the iron is hot is that you tend to have the motivation to write a nomination—add 24 hours and that motivation might melt away. But I feel this is the right kind of policy change: one which reflects basic current practice. While we can nominate articles at any time, we usually don't. We collectively crow about it because the articles nominated as new pages are so salient, but the vast majority of articles sent to AfD are older than 24 hours at the moment of nomination. If our practice is already to generally avoid nominating these articles and to (usually) criticize their nomination by others, then we should talk about policy accurately describing that practice. Further, the burden to editors will be worth it in order to keep new editors who might otherwise be lost.

• 24 hours is arbitrary. Why not 10 hours? Why not a week?

• Sure, it is arbitrary, but so are lots of things. Why 5 days for Prod? Why 7 days for RfA? 24 hours is basically (in my mind) the minimum time delay that is meaningful. Editor activity is basically cyclical. We tend to edit at the same time each day (usually) and a time delay of 5 hours might not be enough to catch an article which would be improved the next time the editor logs on. In reality, editors may not log on every day. An editor may create an article and then not return for 3 days. Or 7 days. The way I see it, the time delay can't be arbitrarily large. And it shouldn't be zero. So we pick a value that is much closer to zero than ∞. :)

• This policy could be gamed to leave articles which violate policy up.

• I think that gaming is a matter of editor behavior. I also think that speedy deletion for articles created to disrupt the encyclopedia may be appropriate. There are also merges, redirect and WP:IAR.

Implementation

The following are the exact policy changes I'm looking for. Please edit these as the discussion progresses or as you see fit.

• An additional speedy keep clause will be added with some variation on the below text:

• An article was nominated for deletion less than 24 hours following its first creation and does not concern biographies of living persons. These debates may be closed by any admin or any non-admin who is not involved in the article itself. This closure does not prejudge any future nominations.

• To Wikipedia:Deletion_policy#Deletion_discussion and an appropriate part of WP:AFD:

• Articles which have been created for the first time within the last 24 hours may not be nominated for deletion unless those articles are seen to violate Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy. If these articles meet the speedy deletion criteria they may be tagged or nominated for speedy deletion. After 24 hours has elapsed following the article's creation it may be nominated for deletion.

• To Wikipedia:Deletion_policy#Proposed_deletion and Wikipedia:PROD#How_it_works. The BLP and "for the first time" caveat aren't in here because PROD for a BLP violation is bad and because PRODs aren't used for articles previouslt deleted under any process.

• Articles which have been created within the last 24 hours are not suitable for proposed deletion or nomination for deletion.

Enforcement

I am a strong believer that incentives are a good enforcement mechanism. When an editor finds that their nominations for deletion are closed quickly they will usually change their behavior. However, this doesn't always work for Prods (which do not immediately go to a noticeboard) and may not work for editors who skirt or ignore consensus on the issue. I think that we may respond in the same way to an obviously inappropriate CSD tag. The reviewing administrator (or another editor) should gently counsel the nominator and repeated actions should merit formal warnings. What happens after that is beyond the scope of this policy change.

Errata

It came to my understanding that you can actually nominate an article for speedy deletion in the deletion discussion (Xfd) procedure. I don't know how to reconcile this without being too wordy.

Discussion

What is right about this proposal? What is wrong? What needs to be changed? What isn't covered? Do you support it? Oppose it? Want to tar and feather me for making it?

• Support As proposer. I should note that I am what is referred to as an "evil deletionist", so keep that in mind before you accuse me of rank inclusionism. :) Protonk (talk) 04:13, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. Instruction creep. We don't need to give blatant hoaxes, idiosyncratic silliness, things made up at school one day, or the other sorts of obvious deletes-at-AFD that aren't quite speedies a day before we dispose of them, and anything borderline gets kept anyway. There's no need to carve every good-sense general practice in stone. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:41, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
• Sorta' half-oppose. I don't think requiring it for WP:PROD is terribly useful, as PROD is supposed to be for uncontroversial cases only. I can't really think of any good reasons not to require it for AfDs, but at the same time I really don't see much net benefit to it. So, meh either way for that part. Cheers. lifebaka++ 04:55, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
• Absolutely not, speedy deletions are meant to be speedy. AfD and PROD already give 5 days to marginal cases, speedy covers obvious and unsalvageable ones. There's no reason to wait before starting any of these—right here at the bottom of my screen it says "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed for profit by others, do not submit it." Editing can include cutting. I understand that every time I submit my work here it is subject to change or, yes, deletion. Deletion, when called for, is not any more "biting newbies" than correcting their spelling errors is. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:13, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

• To be clear. This is meant to exclude speedies explicitly. Protonk (talk) 05:15, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. I think the current process is not broken and therefore doesn't need to be fixed. My experience with CSD, PROD, and AfD is that articles that should be deleted get deleted; articles that should be kept get kept; and users who are truly interested in Wikipedia whose early attempts were deleted go on to write better ones. This is instruction creep with no easily-demonstrable benefit. --MCB (talk) 06:07, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. Obviously, it's bad form to tag something for deletion the minute after it's created, before looking to see if the author is planning to make some quick improvements to the article, improvements which might moot the deletion rationale. But in several cases, the situation is clear enough that it's too bureaucratic to add an artificial 24-hour hurdle. Most bad articles are caught at Special:Newpages, and we shouldn't add new policies which undermine that function. Preventing one-minute-after-creation AFDs is better implemented through social pressure than policy creation. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:44, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. I also don't see the problem with the current process. Articles on non notable songs, records, books, ... can not be speedied, even if they are self-published or unpublished. Why should we wait another 24 hours before starting the deletion process? And as a counterargument: when you nominate an article soon after creation, the chances are that the original editor is still around and will notice what you have done. When you wait 24 hours or longer, many newbies are no longer around and will not be aware of the proposed deletion. Fram (talk) 07:24, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

As an example: why should I have waited 24 hours (or even 24 minutes) to prod Airchiving? Fram (talk) 15:07, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't seem that anyone prodded it. It was speedied twice, which wouldn't be impacted by this proposal. Protonk (talk) 15:20, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose for the various reasons given above - but there ought to be a new speedy keep criterion (I can't find one if there is) for when the article has been developed in such a way that the grounds for the nomination no longer apply. That way we stop pointless discussion concerning an article which has been expanded or improved such as to make the nomination effectively irrelevant.--Kotniski (talk) 14:15, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

All the speedy keep criteria are laid out at WP:SK. Cheers. lifebaka++ 14:28, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

And none of them cover this situation, do they? Does anyone know a good reason why they shouldn't? Maybe I'll go over there and propose one.--Kotniski (talk) 17:55, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

They don't cover the situation because a wide variance of views exist as to what constitutes "improvement". Editors have made statements in AfD in the past that an article had been "fundamentally improved" (or words to that effect) where nothing of not really had changed (but some diffs existed). I don't want that to automatically trigger a speedy keep. Besides, most articles improved considerably get kept anyway. Protonk (talk) 17:58, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose, but agree in principle. Slapping a delete tag on the article within minutes of creation shouldn't be done...it's rude, and very unfriendly. Plus, it can be counterproductive if they're still editing. But I don't like the idea of an arbitrary window where an article is "safe"...I can envision an AFD close like this: "Keep. This article was created only 22 hours ago". I say encourage more use of the {{notability}} template on recently created articles, and "strongly discourage" new creations to be tagged unless they're clear-cut deletions that aren't being improved. --UsaSatsui (talk) 17:34, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
• Sorry oppose. Too much instruction creep. Spartaz ^Humbug! 17:53, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
• Sort of agree but the current wording is too creepish. In particular, the exclusion of CSD makes this more workable than the previous proposals and far better than the perennial proposals to expand the "speedy-keep" page. If you could say the same thing without four paragraphs of discussion and qualifiers, I think it would be easier to swallow. Rossami (talk) 18:21, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
• I agree with the base principle (to give articles a chance to develop before tagging them for deletion), but I oppose this suggested implementation. My main concern is with the proposed restriction on proposed deletions, which is a relatively bureaucracy-free process (and ought to be kept that way). I think stronger emphasis on having editors follow the steps highlighted at WP:BEFORE could be a less bureaucratic alternative. –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 18:30, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm happy to drop the PROD bit if it is a dealbreaker because prodding something that just got created is a great way to get the prod immediately contested. I'm opposed generally to making BEFORE policy because there are too many burdensome elements there. Protonk (talk) 18:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
    • While certain elements of BEFORE can be burdensome, it usually takes less time to follow those steps than to write an informative deletion nomination. I'm not suggesting that we close AfDs where the nominator did not follow BEFORE, but instead that we gently and (if necessary) repeatedly nudge AfD nominators to follow those steps.
      On the issue of this proposal, I wouldn't object to a procedure to speedy close AfD discussions for articles that are less than 24 hours old as long as the closure was temporary, so that if the article had not seen sufficient improvement, the discussion could simply be reopened after the 24 hours had elapsed. –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 19:14, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
• Regretfully oppose. While I myself was hit with a prod quite a few times and I know how annoying it is to be prodded by a bot operator who prods, like, 17 pages per minute, but... "Prod" may be easily deprodded; also admins are supposed to be reasonable enough not to blindly delete each and every prodded page. On the other hand, AfD actually attracts many inclusionists who, as an AfD-paradox, actually improve the a decent candidate article to a keep state much faster. Mukadderat (talk) 00:42, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose I can't see this changing anything. If I wanted to manipulate the PROD process in favour of deletion I actually would wait a while before prodding it, because then the original author isn't around to contest the PROD. Most of the complaints I see from new editors along the lines of "why did you delete/try to delete my article?" complain about the fact that the page was deleted, rather than the process by which it was deleted. On the other hand this slows the process down unnecessarily and is instruction creep. Hut 8.5 18:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose, BUT... What I would actually LIKE to see is that the same editor who CSD's an article CANNOT be the same one who does an AfD nomination ... that is an action that is extremely WP:BITEy, and makes it look like that editor has a bone to pick. It therefore protects creator, CSD'er and AFD'er from some civility attacks. BMW(drive) 16:33, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose all attempts to prevent new page patrollers from nominating articles. In fact, in the case of intermittant SPAs, this will make it more likely the article will be deleted, as the author will not be around to see the deletion request if delayed. Suggest, perhaps more strongly, that the original author be informed of the PROD or AfD, although we seem to have bots which do that. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:44, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose Adds nothing to PROD takes 5 days to completion anyway. The creator can simply improve the article and remove the PROD tag any time within five days. AFD takes (nominally) five days also, same applies. Improve the page, add a note to the AfD indicating article improvement references and in such cases any admin worth his/her/its salt will consider the consensus with relevance to when the opinions of deletors/keeper voiced such. If you are really concerned about your pride and joy page being deleted, create it in user space, make it good and referenced, ensure it meets criteria, establishes notability or whatever and then migrate it. --ClubOranje^Talk 08:51, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• 'First steps suggest by someone who is simultaneously prone to rescue article but also does a lot of speedy deletion. 1 the exemption must be not just blp but attack pages in general, copyvio, and vandalism. We are not going to leave clear vandalism around for longer than we can help. 2 I don't think it need be appliedto PRPOOD or AFD at first--they have built in safeguards--dealing with overhast deletions by those routes is a little less urgent 3 The point of 24 hours is so someone can finish the next day. I think its a good time. But I propose that at first we implement it as one hour which will eliminate the worst abuses, and then we can see how it goes. 4 we need a reasonable way of catching after the 1 or 24 hours. DGG (talk) 23:48, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose Current system works well enough. MBisanz ^talk 17:36, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
• Tack-on oppose. I appreciate the sentiment behind this, as it is true that overzealous new page patrollers often seem to want to swoop in and zing a 2 minute old article with tags prior to giving the original editors ample time to bring an article up to standards, and that can be bitey. That said, the 5 day window built in to both PROD and AFD mean there is still plenty of time for improvement. The real problem are newbie editors who start a barebones article and come back within a few hours to find their work erased due to a CSD that got tacked on, and this proposal does nothing to address that issue. It would be nice if new page patrollers could be bothered to take a bit of extra time and try to distinguish between a work-in-progress and material that's likely to never meet inclusion standards - but you cannot legislate this level of "being nice". The system we have now, while imperfect, is adequate. Shereth 22:09, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

of course we can legislate the level of being nice by requiring or automating such things as notices and time delays, and by establishing firm rules that can be pointed out to delinquents. We can't fine tune it, and shouldnt attempt to, but we can build a system that promotes and even requires basic standards of cooperation. DGG (talk) 03:01, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. This will encourage people to inappropriately use bitey speedies instead of prod or nom. Add everything Shereth said, and you have my feelings in a nutshell.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:18, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Further thought. Hypothetical, but frequently encountered situation: An article is created along the lines of "Ant Spit was one of the key bands in the development of grunge rock". Notability is claimed (importance in development of the genre), so A7 speedy doesn't apply. But after gsearch, gnews search, allmusic, metacritic, etc, I can't find any evidence that Ant Spit was anything more than a garage band who played a high school dance once and recorded a demo in someone's basement. Should this wait 24 hours for prod or AfD?--Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:28, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

courtesy blanking

I have revised a couple of sentences in the section on courtesy blanking. No substantive change to policy is intended. Bwrs (talk) 04:36, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Letting establish users able to delete

I think we should let establish users to delete contributions even if they ar not in groups of admins. When a file is delete, it is not erase from the campus, only makes so anonys won't access it. The copy will still exist just incase they have to be undelete. Also I like to let users wait for 3 month after they log in with account fro newcomers, if they have enough exper they we can let them delete. Some files like dupplicate files should be delete quickly.--SCFReeways 22:21, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Restructuring

The readers of this policy is often non-administrators. For them the information on alternatives to deletion is more important that the deletion rules. I also think it should be more important to try to improve the article than try to delete it. Therefore I propose to put the alternatives first. I've also suggested {{verify}} for lack of notability.

My proposal is placed here:Wikipedia:Deletion_policy/Proposal. Hogne (talk) 12:33, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

How about leaving the main reasons for deletion up top (this is the deletion policy, after all) and then segue into alternatives in a clearer way, emphasizing that articles should only be deleted if that's the only way to solve the problem? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 18:49, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the alternatives indeed is part of the deletion policy. An early version of this policy was written by User:Larry_Sanger. In that version it was emphasized to show caution when deleting articles and listed when not to delete. For most readers (that are not administrators) the "when to delete" is of no importance. And also the administrators should sometimes be reminded of the alternatives.

Also mark the nutshell:

-- Hogne (talk) 07:31, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd be in favour of this. Even admins seem to forget that deletion isn't the only solution to an article with problems.--Kotniski (talk) 10:01, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Consensus ?

Not any objections? I then reckon we've reached a consensus on this matter. I'll do the change in a couple of days. Hogne (talk) 11:21, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose It only makes sense that when someone pulls up the deletion policy page, they actually get, y'know, the deletion policy. There's no reason to bury the actual content at the bottom. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 16:36, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

As I said earlier the alternatives indeed is part of the policy. I think it's the main deletion policy of wikipedia: Try to make the article stand first, try to improve it, maybe it could be merged into another standing article and be preserved… . Well, your are an administrator, but for non-administrators the reasons for actually deleting isn't equal important. As an administrator you should be able to find this even if it's placed some inches lower. I think they still are pretty visible with the reference in the nutshell, the title and the content list. Hogne (talk) 21:58, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I actually think the existing page structure is about right (first the potential reasons for deletion, with the proviso that other alternatives should be considered first; then quite lengthy description of those alternatives; then the process). Maybe some of the wording (in particular the nutshell) could be altered to place more emphasis on the need to consider alternatives.--Kotniski (talk) 10:27, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose 1. I think it's possible you're confusing verifiability with notability, to some degree (e.g. [1][2] [3] who, although they're now verifiable still need an assertion of notability). The changed line "{{verify}} for lack of verifiability or notability" will encourage the misunderstanding that reliable sources = notability. 2. I don't understand the premise that alternatives to deletion are more important than the deletion rules for the non admins reading this policy. Why is that so? 3. Wikipedia in 2002 didn't have the same problems that Wikipedia in 2008 does. 4. It should stay as the deletion policy, not the article improvement policy. 5 Apologies for being blunt. Ha! (talk) 04:31, 12 October 2008 (UTC)