Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy/Archive 42

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No editor opposing...

"Poorly sourced biographical articles of unknown, non-public figures − where the discussions have no editor opposing the deletion − may be deleted after discussions have been completed." I'm not sure of the reason for adding this. Surely in any case, if no editor opposes the deletion, then the article may deleted?--Kotniski (talk) 10:30, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

• For normal articles, "the deletion of a page based on a deletion discussion should only be done when there is consensus to do so. Therefore, if there is no rough consensus the page is kept." In other words, in case a nominator noms an article and no editor comments, would you say that this constitutes silent consensus? It's a grey area, that's why the policy to ensure BLPs are handled clearly and specifically. Wifione ^Message 10:36, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
  • So you're suggesting that, where in another case the admin might have relisted the nomination for further discussion, with these "unknown" BLPs they should be more inclined just to close it and delete? That seems reasonable on the surface, though I would have expected some discussion leading to consensus for this change of practice (unless you're saying that this is the practice already, and you just want to document it).--Kotniski (talk) 10:42, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
    • Actually the discussions have started now; so at least part of what you want is there. I'm sure others would chip in about this. Also, even in case of such unknown BLPs, admins would generally relist it for max 21/28 days before using this policy measure. If in max 21/28 days nobody opposes the deletion of such unknown non-notable BLPs (due to which they've come to the AfD), deleting such BLPs is the suggestion. In the case of normal articles, after 28 days, if nobody's commented, the articles will be kept. Wifione ^Message 10:45, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Filters if deletion templates are removed from articles?

Yes I know that there are bots that can restore removed deletion templates, but sometimes it may be sometime before they revert the edit. Wouldn't it be better if, for example, if the author of a page removes a speedy deletion tag, it would say something like "Tag: Speedy deletion tag removal by article creator", or if an AfD template is removed, it can say "Tag: Removal of AfD template". Most importantly, if an article is PRODed, and it was de-prodded unless it was for a good reason, then the original problems and lack of notability may remain for a long time. Wouldn't a filter that says "Tag: Unexplained removal of PROD template" make things easier? The filter would only appear anyway if there is no deletion summary. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 09:06, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

We do already have filters for removal of speedy deletion templates and AfD templates. Hut 8.5 11:24, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

But what about PRODs? Those really need filters, but they don't. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 11:33, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Since anyone is allowed to remove PRODs for any reason (or no reason) such a removal is not problematic conduct. Hut 8.5 11:41, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I know that. What I mean is, can't a filter be placed so that, if the PROD is removed and the reason was appropriate, then it could be sent to AfD. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 12:12, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

The edit filter is only used to identify potentially harmful activities. Removing PRODs with no reason, or any reason at all, is not considered harmful. There was once a filter which identified removed PRODs, but it was disabled for this reason (see here). Hut 8.5 12:25, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

AFD vs. Speedy

"If a page has survived a prior deletion discussion, it should not be speedy deleted except for newly discovered copyright violations"

This IMO needs a fix. Take for instance, Pete Holly. This screams "A7" to me, but it's been denied due to it having survived AFD before. However, the first AFD was "delete", with two "no consensus" AFDs after it — both "no consensus" AFDs having shaky keep rationales at best.

I think this is silly that anything that's been AFDed before can never be speedied. Pete Holly would most likely be A7'd if not for the previous deletion discussions. I've seen this happen before — an article gets kept at AFD with lousy !voting rationales (e.g. a flood of WP:ITSNOTABLE or WP:ILIKEIT). It sits for five years as an unsourced nanostub without any assertation of notability. Someone tags it for speedy. It gets declined due to the previous AFD — even though it would clearly get speedied if not for the prior AFD.

Conversely, I have seen speedy trump AFD at least once. Fanny Grace was AFD'd twice. The first AFD was slanted by people glomming onto Kmweber's misguided "Speedy keep, it clearly exists, nothing else matters" mantra, but speedied via A7 only 15 minutes into its second AFD and no one contested.

tl;dr: Why should "it's been AFD'ed before" always be a reason to deny a speedy deletion after the fact? Does this not seem broken to anyone else? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 16:39, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

If there was no consensus to delete after an AfD discussion, it shouldn't be speedied. As long as sufficient time has passed since the last AfD (5 and half years in this case, which is plenty) you can always take it back there, which somebody did, and the AfD was still in progress when you slapped the A7 on it, so why not just let the AfD run its course. No individual's opinion should override the outcome of a community discussion, however 'shaky' you may feel the rationales in that discussion were. --Michig (talk) 17:45, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

• Speedy-deletions are only for those narrow circumstances where the issue is so clear that every reasonable admin or experienced editor will automatically and immediately agree that deletion is appropriate. If there has been a prior AfD that was properly closed by an admin or other experienced editor (the only people who should be closing debates) as anything other than a "delete", then by definition the case is not sufficiently clear to support a speedy-deletion. At least one other person has looked at the page and determined that speedy-deletion is not appropriate. Where there is anything less than unanimity, the case goes to AfD.
  So, no, the process is not broken. This is exactly how the process is supposed to work. And, yes, there are some bad prior decisions. They get fixed by good subsequent decisions proving consensus, not by the imposition of a single admin's will and interpretation. Rossami (talk) 19:38, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
  • If I could find it, I'd click like button on this reply. :) Well said. - Eureka Lott 20:04, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
    • I believe that if a page has had a notable change since the AfD, then it should be able to be CSDd. But posting an article for a speedy immediately after a AfD, then it should be removed. --Nathan2055^talk 19:27, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
      • You mean it passed an AfD, was changed to be garbage and now is tagged for speedy based on the current content? That would not be eligible for speedy-deletion regardless of the AfD. That would be a candidate to revert back to a non-garbage version of the page. CSD may only be applied when every version in the page's history also qualifies for speedy-deletion. Rossami (talk) 21:14, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
• I'm agreeing with Rossami here . Pesky (talk) 21:59, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
• Yep: Ain't broke, don't "fix" it. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 17:15, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
• If a deletion discussion fails to delete an article that actually fails criteria A7, then the deletion discussion must have been seriously flawed or closed erroneously. To be eligible for A7 there must not be even an assertion of importance, without which an article should never be able to survive an AfD on notability grounds. If people were making good faith aurguments that the article passes the much stricter notability guidelines, then certainly it passes the much lower standards for A7 deletion. If it really doesn't, the solution should be an immediate return to AfD. Monty₈₄₅ 15:57, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Policy text

Reminded by its quotation above, I was planning to sync the text here with the lead of WP:Criteria for speedy deletion, which was loosened slightly by adding "generally" following WT:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 44#G4 and subsequent XfDs (September–November 2011). SmokeyJoe just edited the sentence here, making it stricter by changing "should" to "must".

In October 2011, prior to the CSD discussion, the sentences were the same:

• Old revision of WP:Criteria for speedy deletion
• Old revision of WP:Deletion policy

I think that the sentence here should be overwritten with the one from WP:CSD. Flatscan (talk) 04:51, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. I'd missed the addition of "generally" in that edit. While the rest of the change is substantiated by the archived discussion, the proposal to add the word "generally" was made late in that discussion and was not, in my opinion, adequately discussed. My preference is to revert the wording at CSD back to the explicit wording by removing the "generally". If there are more exceptions than just newly-discovered copyvios, we should itemize them (unless they are so uncommon and obvious that WP:IAR can reasonably apply). Rossami (talk) 15:23, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Slower is better. Too many POV or just AfD Jockey deletions going on anyway. CarolMooreDC 16:58, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

The late proposal and thin discussion of "generally" is a reasonable objection, but the edit has been unchallenged for a few months. Would you like to discuss at WT:Criteria for speedy deletion? Flatscan (talk) 04:52, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

This page shouldn't be changed to match the CSD one: the change has not been discussed anywhere, was made with a misleading edit summary, and contradicts longstanding principles. I've opened a discussion about it at WT:CSD. Hut 8.5 10:11, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

"generally" was removed as a result of that discussion, WT:Criteria for speedy deletion#Pages which have survived deletion discussions. Flatscan (talk) 04:08, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Exceedingly narrow BIODEL interpretation

[|Jim Hawkins (radio presenter)]

To summarize: the person who closed this discussion concluded that, given the way that WP:BIODEL is worded, it only applies to non-public figures and does not apply to marginally notable people. The closer then states that he would have preferred to delete the BLP but could not by his interpretation of the policy, and suggests that various editors work to change the policy so that it applies to marginally notable people as well.

I thought that BIODEL was supposed to be about marginally notable people in the first place. Ken Arromdee (talk) 19:25, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

• Ken, perhaps one should wait till the deletion review of the AfD is over before discussing this issue. Regards. Wifione ^Message 17:00, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry. I wasn't aware that there was a deletion review going on. Ken Arromdee (talk) 19:03, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Okay, since that deletion review is now over, I would like to ask:

• Is BIODEL already supposed to apply to marginally notable people?
• If it is, should we reword it to make that clear, since it obviously wasn't?

Quote:

"What is the way forward for this BLP subject? One way forward could be editors like SlimVirgin, Dweller, DGG, Youreallycan etc working towards creating an addition to BIODEL or to BLPDEL that confirms that marginally notable people, irrespective of whether their BLP is an attack page or not, may request successfully the removal of their BLP from our project."

Ken Arromdee (talk) 18:44, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

• In my view, "marginally notable people" covers it best, and we should simply amend the wording. JN466 19:42, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

  I agree with "marginally notable people" covers it best, but I don't see why or how that needs to be amended at all. What's the actual problem here (is this purely coming from the fact that Jim Hawkins (radio_presenter) wasn't deleted)?
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:53, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

1. The Jim Hawkins BLP wasn't deleted.
2. The closing admin said that he wasn't deleting it because we're not allowed to delete biographies of marginally notable people upon request. In fact, he suggests that one way it could be deleted would be to amend the deletion policy so that biographies of marginally notable people can be deleted.

If the existing policy already allows deletion of biographies of marginally notable people, then the admin acted based on a misunderstanding of the policy. Ken Arromdee (talk) 17:42, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Existing policy does allow deletion in cases like this when there is no consensus. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:13, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

(ec) The better standard, rather than individual request, is whether or not they are non-public figures or low-profile individuals. Someone who's in the public sphere has no particular expectation of privacy of the material covered in reliable sources, so the better and more objective standard is the person's own behavior. That way, we don't have to authenticate any sort of a request--we just look at how the person handles his or her publicity, and do the same to Wikipedia. Of course, nothing in this statement should be taken to be in any way weakening the rest of the BLP considerations: high quality sourcing, getting it right, etc. are the basis on which we don't need to look at the subject's own wishes, because our standards are already set sufficiently high that any reasonable individual would be satisfied with them if we did 'em right. Jclemens (talk) 18:15, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Suggested text:

"Discussions concerning biographical articles of relatively unknown, non-public and/or marginally notable figures, where the subject has requested deletion and there is no rough consensus, may be closed as delete. Poorly sourced biographical articles of unknown, non-public such figures, where the discussions have no editor opposing the deletion, may be deleted after discussions have been completed."

Do I need to do a poll to add this? Ken Arromdee (talk) 18:37, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Of course an RFC would be needed for policy changes such as that. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:56, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Is it a change, though? Or just clarifying what's been there all along? Ken Arromdee (talk) 21:14, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's a change. The person in the AFD that recently occurred was a public figure, as a BBC radio announcer, although there was no consensus at the AFD whether he was "marginally notable". I am not expressing an opinion on the change, but it pretty clearly is a change. For example, a mayor of a medium sized city is also a public figure, but might be marginally notable; historically consensus was not to delete such articles for lack of notability. 01:28, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I disagree with the entire BIODEL policy as I've discussed at length elsewhere, but if you took out the "or" in your "and/or", I'd support that change. Jclemens (talk) 20:09, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The and/or is for idiot-proofing. If I only use "or", someone will take it as a declaration that "non-public" and "marginally notable" are different things and use this as an excuse to reinterpret the words "non-public" in some other policy. If I only use "and", it will be even worse: the policy will get reinterpreted to mean that someone has to be *both* non-public and marginally notable to be excluded on this basis. People will then argue "this guy is marginally notable, but he's not non-public, and the policy says they have to be the first *and* the second." Ken Arromdee (talk) 21:12, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The point that Jclemens made above is really important here, though. "Someone who's in the public sphere has no particular expectation of privacy of the material covered in reliable sources", and the proposed change is rather explicitly refuting this principle.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:18, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I am also very intentional about the and. I want to see it only applied to people 1) who aren't that notable anyways, and 2) weren't trying to be notable in the first place. Hawkins meets 1 but fails 2. Other people meet 2 but fail 1, which is the classic BLP1E. I don't want one-or-the-other; I want to see both met before we deviate from our tried-and-true deletion policies for people who actually have been previously behaving in a manner to earn an exception on humanitarian grounds. Jclemens (talk) 04:55, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I also think it should be just and. Silverseren^C 19:00, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to take an informal poll here, right now. Do you believe that the existing policy already covers marginally notable people? (Note: I'm not asking whether you think the policy is a good idea, nor am I asking if you think it should cover that but doesn't. I'm asking what you think the current policy includes.) Ken Arromdee (talk) 19:50, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes. For me of course, but what do other people think? Ken Arromdee (talk) 19:50, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Of course. Is this really in question to anyone? I don't think this issue is about "marginally notable people", it seems to be more about whether or not administrators are required delete articles which go to AFD where the subject is determined to be "marginally notable" from what I'm seeing.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 18:56, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes. I've always read it that way. In other words, it includes people like the mayor of a small town of 10,000 people – while a mayor of a small town is a public figure, his notability is marginal: he'll only be known locally. These are precisely the sorts of people who should be able to benefit from this. JN466 17:26, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

• Personally, I see two issues here. Firstly there is the interpretation of marginally notable against someone who previously was considered inherently notable as a national DJ. The second is that notability isn't temporary. So if you are inherently notable once, you always are. The closing admin is permitted to use their discretion to delete on request when they close an AFD but this is not mandatory and they have to consider the wider discussion and the overall community expectations as well as the wishes of the individual. What does that mean in practice? That I would never have touched this AFD with a 10 foot barge-pole if I were still an admin is one, and I can't see how any outcome isn't going to cause a fuss is another. In terms of policy, the was in accordance with key assumptions even if the admin might well have got away with a different path as first mover. Spartaz ^Humbug! 17:38, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
• I really don't see how it matters. If we change the language, when discussing individual cases people will simply make the same arguments in terms of the new language. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 22:09, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Proposed templates

{{B4!}} = Having conducted [[WP:BEFORE]],

{{B4?}} = Was [[WP:BEFORE]] followed?

...since the statement is frequently used, sometimes not used, and often challenged when not addressed; differentiated from vandalism warning template B4. Dru of Id (talk) 15:52, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

We don't need templates for phrases, especially very short ones, and to be honest the last thing AfD needs is more arguments about whether the nominator followed BEFORE. Hut 8.5 16:53, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely! Topic ban for a demonstrated instance of not following BEFORE, and the question would quickly become moot... </wry sarcasm> Jclemens (talk) 05:02, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Subpages at TfD

Feel free to participate at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Subpages at TfD. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 03:34, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

PROD - dont allow creator to remove?

Should the PROD template be changed so that the creator of the page cannot contest the PROD. We do not allow the creator to contest CSD, and AFD cannot be removed until the process is concluded. Allowing the creator to contest PROD just forces lots of pages which fail notability etc, but do not meet CSD:A7 to be forced to go through AFD, clogging up that system.Gaijin42 (talk) 20:23, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree in principle but in practice it would be near impossible for us to know whether an IP address removing the PROD was also the article creator. Binksternet (talk) 21:02, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Same is true of CSD? I'm just saying change the "good faith" criteria. If people are gonna be sneaky, there is nothing you can do. Gaijin42 (talk) 21:04, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

No, the creator should be allowed to contest a PROD, he's entitled to his day in court if he thinks he can make a case for the article Herostratus (talk) 03:40, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose - Prod is specified to be for completely uncontentious deletions. If the article creator disputes it, the deletion is not completely uncontentious. You can always proceed to AfD if the prod is contested. LadyofShalott 03:52, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Moved from WP:Requests for comment/Request board. If this question has been answered sufficiently, please close the discussion. Thank you. Coastside (talk) 12:36, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

• I disagree. CSD as a process is allowed because the criteria are narrowly defined to those areas that are easy to identify and have universal consensus that they don't belong in the encyclopedia. An objection to a CSD tag means that either someone doesn't understand the criterion or that the dispute is in bad faith. AfDs are allowed as a process because they depend on consensus. Removing the tag prematurely aborts the consensus-seeking discussion and again is evidence of bad faith. Prod is for uncontentious deletions which don't meet the deliberately-narrow CSD criteria. That ambiguity, however, means that there can be reasonable debate over whether or not the article is appropriate for the encyclopedia. A disagreement (and removing the tag is the only way to express that disagreement) is not necessarily in bad faith. So, yes, creators should be allowed to contest a Prod. If the tagger disagrees, escalate to AfD. It's not "clogging up that system" - that's what the system is for. Rossami (talk) 13:31, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose On the one hand, it seems "obvious" that the creator of an article would contest the PROD, yet dozens of articles are deleted via PROD every day. This aspect of the process works.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 21:02, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Creative Commons licence prevents deletion of certain articles?

In a recent deletion discussion, User:Uncle G pointed out that because some of the text from the article had been previously copied into a different article, it couldn't be deleted. This seems to be due to clause 4c of the Creative Commons licence which requires the name (or user name) of the original author to be accessible at all times.
So, if I understand the situation correctly, if we follow the licence to the letter, then the article can't be deleted because the details of the author of the moved text would no longer be available. Surely this seems a bit over the top. My thoughts on the matter are:

• This rule seems to be unenforceable. Who would enforce it, and what would be the consequences of a breach?
• Will the original author of the moved text care?
• Even if the original article were not deleted, it would still be very difficult for anyone to actually trace the name of the original author of the text in the second article. And who would want to do this anyway?
• The edit history of the deleted article would still exist somewhere, accessible to admins. So if anyone really did want to trace the history then it would be possible for someone to provide this information to them, although not instantly.
• The requirement under 4c only applies where it is "reasonable to the medium or means" that we are using. What is reasonable in this case?
• It will be practically impossible to tell if any of the text in an article proposed for deletion has ever been copied into a different article. Therefore to absolutely ensure that clause 4c is never breached, we can't delete any articles. Ever!
• Does WP:IAR apply?

In this particular deletion debate, I think the outcome is likely be a redirect, so the edit history will be retained. But as a matter of principle, what do you think about this situation? Bazonka (talk) 21:50, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I think that case has a nice clean route to avoid the problem that I've added (redirection) but the general case is something that I'm not sure we're easily monitoring or tracking; how many articles end up deleted w/o redirects that may have been in the same situation? --MASEM (t) 22:11, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Of course, traceability of the original author is only possible where the person copying their text states the original article name, or better, the original author's name, in their edit summary. And that probably won't happen all the time. This is an almost completely untraceable victimless crime. Bazonka (talk) 22:34, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Deletion debates for redirects routinely consider exactly this problem. It's a big part of the reason why redirects are so easily kept unless they are actively harmful to the project.
To your questions above, 1) yes it is theoretically enforceable by the copyright holder (the editor making the contribution) through civil suit, 2) probably most would not care but some will, 3) it is a bit tricky but I've done it many times during anti-vandalism investigations for example, 4) the license requires attribution to be as visible as the content so hiding it in the admins-only area is not fully-compliant, 5) redirects are cheap so it's hard to argue that keeping a redirect is unreasonable and 6) policy says that we're supposed to note the movement of text to make tracing easier but this is an area where reasonableness matters so 7) the interpretation that no deletions are allows is unsupported.
Note: It is not necessary for editors moving content to figure out and credit the original author when making the move as long as you note what page the content came from. Between that and the date-stamps, the original author(s) can be deduced. Rossami (talk) 23:59, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Hypothetical: let's say that we have a page that is about to be deleted without redirect from AFD (for something like notability, as opposed to copyright violations or BLP problems), and while there's no markers that a different article has used content from one being deleted, its suspected that it may have been copied over at one point but the histories make it difficult to determine what "revision" should be credited. Would it make sense at all to have that deletion go to a fully protected redirect to some fixed page to explain that the redirect is in place for CC-BY-SA compliance? This leaves the contribution history intact while the article is effectively deleted. Mind you, this should only be used in cases when there is reasonable cause to presume the deleted article content has been used elsewhere on WP ideally called out during the AFD. If no one brings it up at all, it's not the closing admin's requirement to make this assessment, though if it is recognized as such, that can always be reverted (from "delete" to "full protected redirect"). --MASEM (t) 00:10, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I dislike the phrase "effectively deleted". Deletion as we use that term at Wikipedia means specifically that the pagehistory has been removed. Removing content from a page even to the point of completely replacing the page with a redirect is not "deletion" and we must be vigilant about correcting that misperception.
Okay, soapbox speech aside, yes, you could turn a page into a redirect and protect it. That would comply with the attribution requirements and also honor the hypothetical AfD consensus. However, that would be overkill in almost all cases because it would violate the part of the protection policy which says that we should minimize protection to where necessary to protect the project. Preemptively protecting the redirect would be the equivalent of preemptively salting a deleted page - technically possible but not to be done lightly. In most cases, turning it into a redirect and noting why in the edit history is sufficient. Rossami (talk) 05:05, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia has a lot to say on the matter. Thincat (talk) 23:52, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

While great in theory, and necessary for license compliance, it is poorly enforced unless one of the copyvio bots detects it. It gets even messier if you consider content that has left en. We have selected a license structure that allows, and encourages copying with attribution. Yet, the copier is at the mercy of en. as to license compliance. If they follow the en. approach, they will link back to the source, but what happens when the source is subsequently deleted? Are they then in violation of the license (and unable to fix it as the atrribution information they would need to create local attribution is deleted from their view)? Monty₈₄₅ 05:07, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Some reusers (usually MediaWiki installations like Wikia, using Special:Export) maintain local attribution. Unattributed copies are license violations. WP:Requests for undeletion should fulfill requests for page history. Flatscan (talk) 04:26, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

We should take a common-sense risk-based approach here. The likelihood of anyone actually taking legal action against Wikimedia due to a 4c violation is incredibly small. We shouldn't be causing problems for ourselves just because of this - we should stop all the hand-wringing and just get on with things, editing and deleting articles as normal. In the highly unlikely event that anyone actually does start to take legal action, then as soon as Wikimedia is notified, admins can undelete the article and turn it into a protected redirect. This would put an end to the action. But as I say, this would be such a rare event that it's not worth worrying about. Bazonka (talk) 06:35, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Bazonka, you say that you want to "just get on with things, editing and deleting articles as normal", but "as normal" is to maintain attribution as we have always striven to do, as documented at "Copying within Wikipedia". Nobody is suggesting that we should refrain from deleting pages just on the off chance that some content might have been copied, but when it is known that copying has happened we need to retain the history to comply with our licence. The usual, and simplest, way is to maintain a redirect with the history intact, but in cases where there is a reason not to do this other procedures are available, such as listing authors on talk pages or via an arcane procedure that only a few technically proficient admins are capable of performing. Not to retain the history would fly in the face of our decision to adopt a licence that requires attribution. We don't follow our own rules just to avoid legal action, but because it's the right thing to do. Phil Bridger (talk) 14:17, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

WP:Merge and delete has a list of alternatives. Flatscan (talk) 04:26, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

• Comment As long as we are actively trying to resolve any issues, then the likelyhood we would have problems with compliance is relatively small. Redirects are certainly one solution. Attributions can also be added to the talk page of the existing article by any admin that can see the deleted article's history. I'm sure there are many other solutions that could be thought of. In general, we should strive to be compliant as possible, which is a judgement call. Many Wikipedians believe we should try to enumerate and define all judgement calls. I, on the other hand, am not one of those Wikipedians. 64.40.54.4 (talk) 07:23, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

When we recently began Wikipedia:WikiProject Merge, the entire situation with attribution became a very important issue to us and other editors. The clarity in this policy is a small problem only in that NOT everything that has been used on another article requires attribution. An admin stated that a summary of a main article on another article is not a merge and does not require attribution. So if this is stopping any article from being deleted...it shouldn't. Attribution is only required when contents has been copied not summarized. Many articles may in fact have attribution for a simple summary and Admin would probably need to be consulted before any changes...but this is probably a part of the problem. If it is just a summary....then the originating article can still be deleted. Or am I incorrect on this?--Amadscientist (talk) 21:19, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

I am not a lawyer but I have read our license pretty carefully and am reasonably well-read on the associated case law. I do not believe that the interpretation that 'a summary does not require attribution' is defensible. The summary is derivative art. The source must still be acknowledged. Rossami (talk) 22:04, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

That contradicts what Dennis Brown stated on ANI. A summary is not copying the source if all original prose is used and no reference from that source. Sorry, but even the merge policy states this.--Amadscientist (talk) 23:59, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

I have not worked with Dennis Brown. Is he a lawyer with expertise in the area of copyright or otherwise of more-than-average qualification? Because, again, that statement is not consistent with copyleft theory. And, no, the merge policy does not say this - or at least, it did not the last time I read it in detail. If it has been changed since, that seems to me to have been an error. Rossami (talk) 01:50, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

WP:Copying within Wikipedia#Where attribution is not needed excludes text that has been completely rewritten. Amadscientist, would you provide a link to that ANI discussion? Flatscan (talk) 04:26, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

This problem is well known: deleting pages removes the contribution history, which might impact other articles to which text has been copied. Our standard practice is to just ignore it. In any case the license does not require the edit history to be kept on the original page, it just requires the original authors to be listed on the new page. We can do that and delete the original article without any worry about copyright. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:44, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand why a redirect is so wrong here. if the article has content that has been copied just merge and redirect. Why delete entirely. If anyone can explain this the subject may be a little clearer to me.--Amadscientist (talk) 00:01, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

The question of deletion is for the AFD to decide. But the issue of copyright attribution is completely separate. I added an attribution note already, actually. The main thing I want to point out here is that the question of deletion or redirection can be made without worrying about copyright. 00:05, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

I disagree with the bold text unless it's qualified. Unsubstantiated assertions of copying should be disregarded, but valid {{Copied}}s should not be ignored. Flatscan (talk) 04:26, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

There must be countless cases where the guidance in Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia isn't followed. Users will need to know that this guidance exists in the first place, and this cannot be expected. And even if it is followed (or partially followed), the attribution (e.g. "Text copied from Foo") could be buried deep in a page history somewhere. How will we know where to look? I think there will only be a small minority of cases where we know that text in an article proposed for deletion has been used somewhere else. In these cases, we can take the appropriate action - redirecting, or detailing the authorship on the other article's talk page. But in most other cases there's nothing that we can reasonably do. We must accept that pages will be deleted in violation of the CC licence, although the licence uses the word "reasonable", and I think this gives us the necessary scope to allow the deletions. At the end of the day, if there is a problem, then pages can always be undeleted. Bazonka (talk) 06:56, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand where you are going with this. If you're concerned that someone will add "Prove that the article has never been copied" to WP:BEFORE, I would oppose it. If a plausible assertion of copying is made, the correct answer is to investigate, not to jump to "might have been copied → cannot be deleted" or "don't care, delete away". Flatscan (talk) 04:08, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

My point really is that this is an impossible rule to follow and enforce, because in most cases the proposers/deleters just won't know that text has been copied elsewhere. It is utterly unreasonable for anyone to check every single page history and talk page to see whether copying has taken place - in fact they should really be searching for copying that hasn't been noted anywhere. Completely impossible, therefore WP:BEFORE cannot apply and we have to accept that pages will be deleted that shouldn't. My interpretation is that the use of the word "reasonable" in the CC licence allows us to make such deletions.

We should only be taking action (e.g. redirection instead of deletion) when we absolutely know that copying has happened. And this situation would be uncommon.

It would be ridiculous to take such a risk-averse and hard-line must not breach licence view that we don't allow any deletions at all, just in case we do violate the rule (no-one is proposing this anyway). And on the other hand, we shouldn't just delete anyway when there are reasonable grounds to believe that copying has taken place. I get the impression that most editors here would agree with this. Bazonka (talk) 06:36, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Neither extreme is reasonable. Policy does not require us to "never delete just in case" but it does put a higher burden than "absolutely know that copying happened". The balance is reasonableness and includes an assessment of likelihood. Rossami (talk) 15:52, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

MindFreakers Networking - Help

Hello, I am new to WikiPedia and want to put information/wiki about my Company. Also This wiki page is related to my company named MindFreakers Networking and i need some help putting all stuff and things and want to learn HOW TO do that all easily. My company is regarding domains,hosting,server,vps,chats etc. so i need a lot of work to do. Please anyone who can help me along contact me at admin@mindfreakers.net

Wiki is : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindFreakers_Networking

Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sgulati31 (talk • contribs) 17:04, 7 August 2012 (UTC)