Wikipedia talk:Proposed deletion/Archive 6

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Why does prod cover only articles? Why not any page? It's faster than starting a IFD, MFD, etc. 72.139.119.165 22:55, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

It would be a very bad idea for images. People rarely go look at the actual image page, and the image deletion tag wouldn't show up on pages where the image is used. Mangojuice^talk 00:44, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

The bug was fixed, images can now be undeleted. 72.139.119.165 00:52, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

No, no, what I mean is, if someone happens onto an article page where the article is proposed for deletion, they notice, because of the obvious notice on the top of the page. If someone happens onto an article that includes an IMAGE that is proposed for deletion, they wouldn't notice at all. But in any case, prod is rather unnecessary for images, since WP:IFD debates hardly ever get any participation; basically, when no one comments, unlike an WP:AFD debate, the image is deleted and no further time is wasted. Mangojuice^talk 02:20, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I know this, I once nominated an image for deletion, and there was no responce, and it was deleted. However, there is no point wating time on two edits, one putting the tag up on the image and the other on the ifd page, it is in fact not so easy to fill out {{ifd2}}. Using prod will make deleting pages simpler. 72.139.119.165 18:12, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Hm.. I dunno, it might be a reasonable idea. I for one would like to see copyvio-based deletions replaced with a PROD-like process. I might bring this up on Wikipedia talk:Images and media for deletion; folks there are more familiar with the pros and cons of the IfD process. Oh, and registering an account would probably be a good idea. :) Mangojuice^talk 23:02, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Make that 3+ edits, you are supposed to notify the uploader on his talk page and put a notice in the image caption of articles that use the image (if any) when you list on IFD too. The caption thing is usualy treated as optional, but if you fail to notify the uploader the closing admin will usualy do it and re-list the image rather than deleting. Anyway for copyvios I generaly just strike out the false license tag with an apropriate explanation and tag it as "no license and drop a note on the uploaders talk page (and if I forget OrphanBot will usualy do so after a few days), it works pretty much like prod after that. --Sherool (talk) 16:32, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I usually do not, and I suspect most users would not as well notify the uploader (unless it is a controversial case or the uploder needs to be notified). 72.139.119.165 19:35, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

PROD on categories

I've noticed a recent trend toward applying PRODs to categories. As these are not articles, it doesn't seem to be an appropriate procedure. (C.f. WP:CfD.) But there are some categories that are warded by bots, so if you try to remove the prod from the category it does a revert. What approoach would you suggest in this case? Thanks. — RJH (talk) 15:55, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

We should consider whether we wish to allow prodding of categories. Meanwhile though I don't think it's a good idea to prod them. I don't know what you mean about bots automatically reverting the category - why would they do this, how are people supposed to edit them, and how'd they get the prod tag on it in the first place? Deco 19:56, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I cant reacall any bots that have been approved to remove PROD tags, if you see this please elave me a talk page message with the difs. Thanks from the Bot Approvals Group. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:00, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

As for PROD'ing categories, off the topic it seems ok to me for sparsley populated categories (maybe under 5 pages, no sub cats), but would need a lot more discussion before implementing. The major downside is that either bots will be requried to process the change, or editors will be required to do it so we dont leave redlinked categoreis on pages. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:00, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Prod was originally proposed to reduce the grown of AfD, which was considered excessive. As far as i can tell, there is no such problem for CfD. Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 11:40, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, categories get a lot less traffic than articles. Even on highly used, good categories, no one might notice a prod. —Centrx→talk • 00:50, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Bots seem to revert tag removals on categories, because many categories lack much of any bytage, and the subbed PROD tag greatly increases the size of them, but removing it will cause a vandalism alert due to the massive size reduction. Should bots process categories the same way as articles? If you tried to clean up a category with an excessive article sized header, the same thing would happen. 132.205.44.134 02:47, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I would not support PROD on categories. As it is, few people notice maintenance notices on categories. If you don't generate some noticable events to categories, no one will notice. As for sizes of categories, I've noticed that some WikiProjects promote the use of categories down to two entry (with no possibility of growth) ones... As WP:CFD is not overloaded, there would be no need for it. Besides we already have a CSD for empty categories. 132.205.44.134 02:45, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

• Easiest way to prod a category is empty it. If it stays empty four days it can be speedied per WP:CSD. Slightly quicker than a prod and amounts to the same thing. If someone refills the category you know it needs discussion, a la removing the prod. Hiding Talk 20:22, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

  I had a similar idea, but under WP:CSD it only works if the category does not contain any descriptive text (beside parent categories). Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 20:36, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

{{importance}}

Would there be a way to have article marked with the importance template for 6 months automatically switch to prods? --Peta 06:27, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

How many articles are in the respective category? Wait, let me count: 200, 200, 200, 200, 200, ... still C... OMG! Seriuosly, tagging prod requires IMO a change to the template, as deletion could not be the original intention of the taggers for the articles currently in the category. I could generate a list of articles in that category ordered by the last time they entered the category, so that tagging can be done manually. Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 11:35, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I've spent a lot of time sifting through importance tagged articles, some just need improvenemt, but there are lots of cases where people have put the importance tag on it rather than a speedy or prod tag. There are so many there that its almost impossible to shift the backlog. If you could generate a report of anything that has had the tag for more than six months or more I can try and go through the (hopefully) smaller batch and sort them out. --Peta 00:33, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps making it a sort of "pre-Prod" so that after 6 months the template changes to something that says "This article will be deleted unless it is improved, etc.", and then a month after that change it to a 5-day prod. That would give plenty of warning and they could be in their own category for a month and only after all that would it go to the regular prod. These do require extra care because the tagger may not have intended for the article to be deleted, but the tagger certainly did question the notability of the article and, if after 6 months of the article not being improved by regular means, and then after a month (or maybe 2 weeks?) of the article not being improved while under a warning spotlight and then still going through the regular 5-day prod, that is a long period of time and a lot of eyes in which any concerned party could remove the tag (or 'reset' it to the original importance tag). After all, someone could just go through the category and prod them all right now if they wanted to, and most of them would be deleted, but this is a proposal for an automated process. —Centrx→talk • 00:46, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

• Although it's what I originally suggested an automated process might get rid of ok article and people have always been reluctant to support any kind of automated deltion; I'd be quite happy if there was a way just to sort the really old articles into a category so that they could be dealt with. I've also asked User:Dragons flight if he could work out a way to track the old ones on his backlog tracker. --Peta 00:57, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
  • By automated process I do not mean that they would be automatically deleted, only that they would be automatically prodded. Whereas with prod someone decided they thought it should be deleted, with this someone only decided it didn't have an indication of importance, but they may or may not think it should be deleted depending on the importance. The waiting period is to allow time so that someone, anyone at all, interested in it can do something about it. If, after 7 months no one improved it or even angrily untagged it as their favorite "celebrity", then that is good reason that someone such as the original tagger would now nominate it for prod, and then it goes through the normal prod system. —Centrx→talk • 01:04, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
    • It's a sound idea. And six months is a fair amount of time. If someone can work out how to do it, I'd support it. --Peta 01:11, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The list is at User:DumbBOT/TimeSortedImportance. There is a problem, however: the category (with its current name) was created on June 20, 2006, so the oldest articles in the category have this date. As for an automated conversion from {{importance}} to {{timebomb}}, and from {{timebomb}} to {{prod}}, this is technically feasible (and also quite easy IMO). Whether doing this will be approved, that's another story. Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 13:38, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't much like the idea of automatically escalating {{importance}} to prod. It would make the importance tag into a badly veiled threat of deletion, and leave no good way to ask nicely for importance to be clarified without implicitly claiming that the importance does not exist at all. For example, I once added an importance tag to Hester Adrian, because the only information it gave (and still gives) about its subject is that she has been decorated. She has presumably done something noteworthy to get that decoration, so it would be wrong to delete it for lack of notability, but the article does not say what that noteworthy thing is. The creator of the article reacted extremely aggressively to the importance tag, as if I had marked it for CSD. Such behaviour would only be encouraged if importance tags automatically turned into prods. Henning Makholm 21:51, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

You have misunderstood the concept we are discussing and the acutal problems with having these article languishing unattended indefinately. The idea is to have the tag changed to prod if the importance tag hasn't moved in 6 months (which is a long time! and there are probably very few articles that have the tag on them that long). We should also accept that importnce isn't only applied to articles that don't demonstrate notability, it is stuck on all sorts of articles. There are number of very good reason for this:

• Removing potentially libelous BLPs that haven't been identified due to lack of categorisation
• Removing content that is technically speedy deletable anyway
• Moving a giant cleanup backlog that there is no practical way to clear

The prod tag also means that someone will have to review these articles and they could recommend other remedial action (like merging and so on), it does not mean that they will necessarily get deleted.--Peta 00:19, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't really see how your reply addresses my misgivings. Could you elaborate, please? Henning Makholm 22:15, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Because the importance tag would be on a footing equal to or less than prod, anyone so inclined can reset the timer on the importance tag by re-tagging it. The deletion is for the hundreds of articles that have no one interested in them; where, not only will the article languish for 6 months without any improvement, but there isn't even anyone angrily brooding over it in that time. Also, someone being annoyed about something does not mean it shouldn't be done. AfD annoys article creators a lot more and they can't do anything about it. —Centrx→talk • 01:30, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

In the past day, I took a look at some of the articles in the list. As far as I can see, they fall more or less in three categories:

• articles that should have been tagged prod, merged, or redirected from the beginning, but the newpage patroller was "feeling nice"
• articles for which importance is unclear (these should go to AfD, except that of course you will be blamed as a destroyer of the wiki if you turn out wrong)
• articles that appears important, but the tagger was unable to include it.

An example of the former category is Inada conditions. A quick Google/Google search reveals that these conditions are widely used; they appear to be necessary to guarantee a theoretical result in macroeconomics; however, I could not add an explanation of notability because I am not an expert of the field. This article should be probably left tagged {{importance}} for as long as it necessary. Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 13:25, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

{{hangon}} revamp / somewhat major {{db-meta}} modification

(snip)

Support this. However, I'm not sure why this discussion's on WT:PROD; make sure nobody objects on, say, Template talk:Hangon and Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion before you make the change. --ais523 14:44, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Good point. Why did I put it here? -- Omicronpersei8 (talk) 15:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion; sorry for the confusion/waste of space, and thanks for the help, ais523. -- Omicronpersei8 (talk) 15:50, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

AntiVandalBot reprods

AntiVandalBot reprods by reverting things... I don't see why this should happen. 70.51.10.144 08:28, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

This is one of the unusual bot interactions that comes up from time to time. If a prodded article is blanked (for instance), one of the TB2 clones will revert the blanking, restoring the prod tag (which many editors will argue is correct behaviour anyway; vandalism is often seen as not an attempt to deprod). Then DumbBOT will notice that the date on the prod tag doesn't match the time it was added (the time of the revert, from its point of view) and complain... --ais523 08:33, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

In fact, I had the feeling someone was actually monitoring these "date mismatch" articles! Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 13:27, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Useless Talk pages

I've noticed on occasion some Talk pages that appear to have been created simply as an act of vandalism, i.e., the vandal clicks on the Talk tab, enters some gibberish, then saves the page. I've usually just deleted the entire contents of the page, with a comment like "removed entire useless contents as vandalism". Examples: Talk:Order of the Holy Spirit, Talk:My Left Foot (book). Is there a way to delete these pages entirely so that they can be properly created when the need arises? Or is simply leaving an empty page the appropriate thing to do? If so, will this confuse the bots? — Loadmaster 00:16, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

If 1) it is clearly and obviously not a genuine attempt to discuss the article and 2)there is nothing else in the talk page history then I'd propose it for speedy deletion under one of the WP:CSD criteria G1, G2, or G3, using {{db-nonsense}} {{db-test}}}, or {{db-vandalism}} respectively. GRBerry 03:38, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Or just blank it. Blanking articles is a bad thing because the lack of a redlink may confuse people.. but a blank talk page is no big deal. The worst thing that can happen there is that someone may feel they should check the discussion, click on it, and see nothing there. Frankly, deleting such pages is a waste of admin time -- there's really no need for it, and it's a burden on us. Mangojuice^talk 12:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Nozomi_online

I PROD'ed this article and it was immediately unPROD'ed by the creator and only contributor. Does this now go on to 'AfD'? Alternatively if you don't think it needs deleting at all I will shut up about it :) JPilborough 16:17, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

This is a blatant advertisement. I have deleted it. See Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion for the sorts of things that can be deleted immediately. —Centrx→talk • 17:36, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Question from a new admin

LEts say an article was prodded at 16:00 on Oct 29. It is now something like 20:16 on Nov 3rd. Is it now ok to delete the article, or should I wait until 00:00 Nov 4? Thanks in advance for your help. youngamerican (ahoy hoy) 20:17, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The discussion above at Wikipedia talk:Proposed deletion#120 hours? produced no obvious consensus. Normally, there is enough backlog on other administrative tasks (speedy deletion, AFD, etc...) that you could keep busy on those until any arbitrary cushion time limit was exceeded. But neither will anyone care if you go ahead and delete it, after all, more than 120 hours have passed, provided both times are UTC or both are your local timezone. GRBerry 20:52, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Delete it even earlier if it is complete crap. —Centrx→talk • 06:42, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

In this case, it has been a full 5 days, so go ahead and delete. But when it comes to processing the Oct. 29 *category*, I think it's better to wait until Nov. 4 so you don't have to check each one to see if it's been a full 5 days or not. Mangojuice^talk 19:04, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Or use User:DumbBOT/ProdSummary which is time order. -- JLaTondre 19:32, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, The above bot is exactly what I was looking for. Cheers. youngamerican (ahoy hoy) 13:13, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Question about deletion of pages

I have started to use my own "namespace" to create a sandbox of sorts. Is there a way for me to delte those pages, User:Tecmobowl/bonus rule for example, when i am finished editing? // Tecmobowl 09:39, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

You could use WP:CSD#U1 to delete a user subpage; place {{db-user}} on it. --ais523 09:50, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks so much. There were so many options on that page i just didn't know which one to choose.

Unable to contact creator of article

Does it matter too much if I can't contact the creator of an article I have just proposed for deletion? In the page history their username is redlinked, so I can't get to them. Is this a problem? The article I have proposed is Tom littler, in case you were wondering.--CarrotMan 16:21, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Post on their Talk page, regardless of whether it's blue or red. The 'new messages' banner works for both old and new users. --ais523 16:36, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, but when I looked in the list of pages I found the article in (so I could find out the creator), it had gone! I think that's because some admin carried out my proposal, so it no longer exists.--CarrotMan 19:58, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

It seems to have been speedily deleted as WP:CSD#A7 and WP:CSD#G1. There's no need to give a warning now the article's been deleted. --ais523 10:51, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Extend PROD to other namespaces?

A suggestion to extend PROD to other namespaces was made by User:Tgheretfort here. Comments welcome. (Radiant) 12:38, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Prod tag on article versus talk page

If possible I would like to request that this page be completely clear about where the prod tag should be placed. I.e. whether it should be on the article page versus the talk page. Right now I read the text as inferring that the tag should go on the article page. However some users still insist on placing prod tags on the article talk page, with the likely result of hiding it from most visitors who wouldn't bother to read the discussion. Thanks. — RJH (talk) 22:30, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it's fairly obvious that it should go at the top of the article page. The directions say that you should put the notice on the top of "it," where the antecedent is "article." But there's no reason we can't amend "it" to read "the article." (I'm sure some people put the prod notice on the talk page in good faith, not realizing they're hiding it, but certainly it's a bad idea.) NickelShoe (Talk) 23:31, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it should be on the article, because this encourages people to improve the article to address the concerns given. Feel free to clarify the page if you think it helps. (Radiant) 00:55, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it's better on the article, as it's more likely to be seen by someone who would remove it if it deserves removing. New users often don't know about the talk page, and prod is meant to be non-controversial, not non-noticeable. -- nae'blis 05:49, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Well it's not obvious to everybody because I've received complains from prod-ers when I removed the prod tag from the talk page for precdural reasons. :-) Some people apparently need it in black-and-white. But I'll go ahead and modify the instructions. I just wasn't sure if that would be reverted. Thanks. — RJH (talk) 20:14, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Miscellaneous prods for miscellaneous pages?

Please see Template talk:Prod#Miscellaneous Prod for a discussion on expanding the scope of Proposed Deletions. -- nae'blis 05:49, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

• Per that discussion, and precedent on WP:MFD (which recently focuses mostly on userpages of people who have no edits outside their userspace), I've added this clause: Pages in the User and User_Talk namespaces may be proposed for deletion if the user has no recent edits and has made little or no contribution to the encyclopedia. Simply put, if someone isn't here to work on the encyclopedia, we have no obligation to let them keep a userpage that is usually self-promotion. The 'no recent edits' clause is to avoid newbie-biting and should probably be thought of as a month or so unless the user is already permablocked. Comments please? (Radiant) 15:23, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree with the expansion, and I confess that I've never really understood why PROD isn't supposed to apply to all namespaces. I'm not sure if the time qualifier is necessary: we don't add WP:BITE reminders to the other deletion policy pages either. (Or do we? I haven't checked.) And the bad-contributor qualifier I'm also not sure I like - so if I'm a prolific editor my userspace cruft is immune from PROD, but presumably not from other deletion processes? Why? Sandstein 18:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I also updated Wikipedia:WikiProject proposed deletion patrolling. If this change doesn't last here, that page will also need to be updated. GRBerry 19:30, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

A portion to which I object

"*Any deletion via this process which is taken to deletion review is implicitly a contested deletion, and the article may therefore be immediately restored by any admin without discussion."

This statement was added a few months ago [1] by User:RobertG ( a great editor, btw) with what seems to be no discussion. To me, this seems to take some of the power out of PROD, especially as Wikipedia grows and grows and grows and more people try to dump articles about their non-notable whatevers on here. This could lead us to revisiting tons of deletions from whenever. If this comment is to be kept, maybe there should be an expiry time (perhaps one month). youngamerican (ahoy hoy) 17:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• He didn't add a new clause; the first version of this policy already stated that "any page deleted here can be undeleted without further argument". (Radiant) 17:04, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the clarification. I would counter, however, that the statement was in the first draft of what was then a proposal (thank you for getting the whole thing started, btw) and likely removed for a good reason. youngamerican (ahoy hoy) 18:27, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
• The idea is that this is simple. Why make it complicated? Why are we against discussion of controversial deletions? DRV should simply have a section for disputed prods and streamline the process and be done with it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:05, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • That is not a bad idea, about streamlining DRV. That being said, my concern deals with the fact that the number of articles on Wikipedia is growing at a rate faster than the number of serious, experienced editors. Alot of new editors seem to be SPAs that stop by, write an article on whatever they are trying to promote, then vanish into the 'net. I am not saying that we should allow for speedy deletion of recreated prods under G4 or anything, but my concern is that if PROd doesn't get stiffened a little bit, we will be in the same mess that we were in in 2004 (only with a hell of a lot more articles). youngamerican (ahoy hoy) 18:27, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
• I understand Youngamerican's concern - there have been a lot of uncontested {{prod}}s. But, as Radiant! says, the clause is implicit in the policy that a contested {{prod}} is not to be deleted without AFD consensus. I think this policy is sensible, and achieves exactly what {{prod}} originally set out to do. {{prod}} is an {{afd}}-lite, not a {{db}}-if-nobody-notices! Whether the article's deletion is contested before or after it is actually deleted is irrelevant. --RobertG ♬ talk 17:31, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
• Followup comment Seehere for a good solution. I just have to remind myself to be bold and not so techincally-minded when clearing out prods. Thanks for the imput. youngamerican (ahoy hoy) 18:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Notification and abuse problems

As it currently stands, any user can PROD an article, and not long after, if no one watches, or missed it in their watchlist, it disappears without question. Presently, nomination guidelines merely suggest contacting an article's creator. This opens PROD up as a tool of abuse. Not only should notification of the creator be mandatory, I feel that all editors of a nominated article should be notified, as well as any WikiProject that has tagged the article. --AlexWCovington (talk) 09:26, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

There is no notification requirement under any deletion process. This gets discussed ever so often (here's the last time I recall) and each time there has not been consensus to make it a requirement. Prod is actually a safer one to miss than the other deletion processes. You can still object to a prod after the article has been deleted and it will be restored (see WP:PROD#Contesting after deletion). Deleted articles still show up in your watchlist as redlinks if you use the edit option (Special:Watchlist/edit). -- JLaTondre 14:34, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with User:Alexwcovington. This can be used/abused as a way of deleting articles with low traffic just because no one's checked said articles in a few days. It flies under the radar, since only those who check the article will see it; it is not listed under the list of articles to delete, so only one person is making a judgment as to its notability. Notability is not the presence of an article on an active user's watchlist, but the effect of this project is to make that a de facto notability requirement. Calbaer 02:45, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

There is a project to monitor proposed deletion, see Wikipedia:WikiProject proposed deletion patrolling. I'd say most PRODs receive a check from the project members, although I can't prove that. And the closing admin is another set of eyes; they are supposed to check that the article is a legitimate PROD. We regularly get articles at AFD that were either PROD'ed when they should not have been or where the closing admin decided that an AFD was needed. And any PROD deletion is automatically overturned upon request - in addition to the pointer that JLaTondre gave, see Wikipedia:Deletion review#Proposed deletions. There really isn't a significant risk of abuse. GRBerry 09:28, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I still think that it's less visible than AfDs and that the period of review should thus be longer. I see why having AfDs for everything would be overkill, but I do believe that there are users biased against certain types of articles, who want to delete articles that are obviously notable (to relatively unbiased users who would take a minute to check, which I doubt all closing admins do). Such users count on those with interest in the topics not checking a watchlist or the article on a weekly basis. I just removed a PROD on such an article (about a blog more popular than Andrew Sullivan's) just after the end of its 5th day. Calbaer 17:40, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Compare Uncyclopedia:Uncyclopedia:NRV, a similar procedure one grade above speedy deletion. The difference is that it is only permitted for recent articles. Alksub 22:06, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Since any page deleted under PROD can be restored by saying, "Yo, undelete that puppy", I'm not seeing the problem here. And I've also not heard anything about any actual abuse: were there specific examples someone cares to cite? --Calton | Talk 05:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Backlog issues...

I've seen two prods removed after the time period expired, with no edits made to improve the articles. What's the policy on this? Should the articles be deleted or not? MSJapan 16:34, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

No deletion via prod (the article can be AfD'd at any time, of course). In fact, you can even 'remove' a prod after the article has been deleted by requesting it at WP:DRV. --ais523 16:40, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I am confused... what do you mean by "No deletion via prod"? Are you saying that the removal of the template that MSJapan refers to means the articles in question were judged by the admin to be not worthy of a delete? Or are you saying that articles are no longer deleted by prod at all (in which case, why have prods at all)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blueboar (talk • contribs)

A proposed deletion can be contested by anyone at any time. Anyone can remove a prod notice while the article still exists, even if the time period has expired. In addition, any user can request that an article deleted via prod be undeleted. Such requests must be granted, though the undeleting admin may choose to immediately list the article at AfD.

In response to your specific questions: (1) The removal of the prod template means that whoever removed them did not think they qualified as a candidate for uncontroversial deletion, but not necessarily that they didn't think the article wasn't worth deleting. Removing a prod notice does not necessarily constitute endorsement of the article. (2) Articles are still deleted by prod ... and I hope it continues to stay that way. -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 08:51, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Just to be precise, an admin can choose not to undelete a prod if they think it's a valid speedy candidate (in which case they're effectively undeleting and immediately deleting agin), but ought to otherwise. --ais523 13:58, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletion seems not to appear on watchlist

As I observed (correctly?) the tagging with template:prod seems not to appear on the watchlist. Is that ok.? --ThT 23:46, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

It should show up, and prodders (is that a word?) should be using good edit summaries to show their intentions. An article that is deleted through prod will not show that fact on your watchlist though, as the watchlist does not track deletions of any kind at this time. Is that what you're referring to? -- nae'blis 15:03, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you have set minor edits not to appear in recent changes? People shouldn't be marking additions of prod as minor, but it can happen. Mangojuice^talk 16:58, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Minor edits appear in my watchlist. I'm referring to this tagging. It doesn't show up on my watchlist. I tested with other articles which have their tagging visible in the watchlist, but I cannot see why there's a difference. Could somebody check this? --ThT 20:42, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Remember that the watchlist shows only the most recent change to an article. If there are later changes that don't remove the tag, those will show up instesd. But in that case "doubles" is IMO a very unhelpful edit summeryu. i try to always use the summery "Propose deletion (prod)" when addign a prod tagDES ^(talk) 22:24, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Stub articles

I'm concerned that PROD is being used to wipe out stub articles before they can begin (which seems rather anti-wiki to me). Could we clarify this? - jc37 19:48, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Sure, what is your concern? Alternatively, since you're an administrator, are you seeing entries in the deletion log that are specific examples of article stubs you think should be preserved? If so, that counts as contesting the prod and you may undelete unilaterally. I'm unclear as to what you want clarified, otherwise; the page seems to be clear that articles with promise should not be deleted through PROD. -- nae'blis 21:30, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

"...the page seems to be clear that articles with promise should not be deleted through PROD." - I guess I don't see the "clear" as you do. What am I missing? (And btw, I never thought about speedily undeleting PROD tagged articles as an option. Perhaps that should be clarified as well?) - jc37 09:30, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Clear to me is this in the opening paragraph, "This process should only be used for articles that are uncontroversial deletion candidates that obviously do not belong in the encyclopedia but do not meet the criteria for speedy deletion" (bolding mine). A good stub already fails the part I bolded. The How it works section also carves out several exceptions to trying to use PROD. I have reworded the "Contesting after deletion" section to mention that administrators may contest a prod themselves ex post facto, hopefully the language is clearer now. -- nae'blis 15:01, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and thank you. And while I agree with your interpretation of the introduction, unfortunately not everyone seems to. It's something that should go without saying, but unfortunately apparently needs to be said. Can we add something saying that stubs should not automatically be considered PROD fodder? Something like:

• "A stub is an article containing only a few sentences of text which is too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of a subject, but not so short as to provide no useful information. Stub articles should not be deleted through prod."

The first sentence it directly from Wikipedia:Stub. I don't know about the second. I didn't initially intend to exclude prod from all stubs, but I'm not sure where we should draw the line. Any thoughts? - jc37 08:12, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

It is true that being a stub should not in itself be a reason for prodding, but it would be wrong to exclude prods from all stubs. A stub may well obviously not belong in the encyclopedia. For example, if I write a long article about the (unremarkable) street I live on, with loving detail about the number of road trees and the color of each house on it, it can be prodded as obviously non-notable. But if I limit myself to stating it is a street in Rødovre and such-and-such bus runs along it, and then slap on a stub tag, it should somehow be immune from prodding and have to go through AfD? Perhaps you suggest that "not so short as to provide no useful information" would exclude my hypothetical street stub, but "no useful information" is an extremely fuzzy criterion. If stubs were absolutely protected from prod, I might go wikilawyering and claim that knowing which bus goes here is useful to somebody, which makes my stub a legitimate stub that has a right to a full AfD hearing. Generally "useful information" is a larger category than information that belongs in an encyclopedia, which is why we sometimes need to remind people that WP:NOT an indiscriminate collection of information. –Henning Makholm 11:47, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikilawyering is indeed one of my concerns with this. Though, if someone goes through the effort to put a stub tag on to avoid prod, that person could just as easily remove the prod tag and force AfD... So like I said, I'm not sure where we should draw the line. Maybe we should force all stubs to go through AfD. I'm not sure, and appreciate others' insight in this, obviously : ) - jc37 18:43, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I really don't see the point. For any editor, a useful stub deleted through prod will be made available on request, so there's not much damage there. And admins ultimately have to make a positive decision to delete any article with a prod tag, so a prodded articles that have some worth at least won't be deleted blindly. Mangojuice^talk 18:48, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

The advantages of leaving a stub includes that of making it easier for creation of adequate articles by other eds. by giving a starting point, and as an indication that the possibility of an article on the topic has been accepted. I don't think we should discourage them. DGG 04:07, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Sure, obviously. But part of the reason Prod works the way it does is that there are no rules for it: propose any article for deletion if you think it should be deleted. WP:DP is pretty clear that stubs shouldn't be deleted just for being stubs. If there are some editors who are misusing Prod, find them and try to correct their behavior. We shouldn't change the process over this point, though: it's a good process, nice and simple. Mangojuice^talk 15:40, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I certainly agree with the general idea of keeping it very flexible,and encouraging its use. I do not think that a clear statement that being a stub is not itself a reason will do that, just encourage people to think along appropriate lines. DGG (talk) 03:03, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of {{prod2}}-ed articles by original nominator

The page says at the end: <quote>To ensure an extra pair of eyes, an article should not be deleted by the same person who placed the tag on it.</quote> I think this shouldn't apply to a page that also has a {{prod2}} tag from an other user, since that is an extra pair of eyes which looked at it. Od Mishehu 11:45, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Sure, that makes sense. Let's not bother putting it in the policy, though, it's kinda instruction creep. Mangojuice^talk 11:54, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Robert Rosner

After the article Robert Rosner was un{{prod}}ed (see here), Oscarthecat reinstated it. After it was removed a second time, Oscarthecat re-instated it again. In the edit summary, he said please do not remove until issues discussed on talk page. I think that this article should be AfDed, not PRODed. Od Mishehu 13:40, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, your understanding of policy is correct; after a contested proposed deletion, the article should be brought rather to Articles for deletion. However, prod tags are occasionally reinserted, e.g by mistake or by misunderstanding. In such a case, I would simply remove it and notify the editor directly, either with the template {{subst:deprod-reprod|(pagename)}} or a personal note. There would only be a reason to raise the issue further if the clarification is ignored or contested or if prod tags are reinserted repeatedly.--Tikiwont 14:24, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Took it to AfD, said something to Oscar. Mangojuice^talk 15:09, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Does {{hangon}} count as contesting a deletion?

Looking at articles where DumbBOT says have different tagging times from the times written in the tags, I founds a few cases where a user had placed a {{hangon}} on these articles. Although in these cases the users who did this also removed the {{prod}} tag, I think that the fact that this was done repeatedly means tyhe question needs to be asked: Is the adding of a {{hangon}} tag considered a contesting to the deletion? Od Mishehu 06:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

The usual way this happens is that someone places a speedy; the author places a hangon and gives an explanation. The admin reviews it, decides that the article doesn't meet speedy or has potential merit, but that it cannot meet the usual criteria as it stands, and changes it to a prod to give time for improvement. At this point the hangon should be removed, because it no longer applies. The prod can now be contested by the author simply by removing the prod tag if he improves the article--he doesn't need anyone to concurr. Normally, the admin who did this would keep track and check if the article actually did get improved--if he or anyone else thinks it has not, then the course would be AfD. (At least I think I have it straight) The reason not to go to AfD directly, as I see it, is to 1/give time and 2/given the author a chance to decide that the article wasn't a good idea after all and let the prod expire--that happens quite often and solves everything with minimal fuss. DGG 07:11, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, but sometimes article creators think they aren't supposed to remove prod tags and use hangon instead when speedy was never applied in the first place. Usually I would just notify that editor that they should actually remove the prod tag. NickelShoe (Talk) 13:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Agree. Personally, I would wait for the user to actually remove the prod tag, not take the hangon tag as a form of contesting. In some cases, I've found that new users are willing for articles to be deleted if they don't fit Wikipedia policies, and just want to say something in defense without going to the level of disputing deletion. Mangojuice^talk 16:20, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Opinion needed about something

Is this contesting a prod? I think so, but the anon who PRODed the article thinks otherwise since PRODing isn't vandalism. Od Mishehu 10:49, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

And what about this, which claims to have a better tag? Od Mishehu 10:51, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

The guideline says that Editors removing the tag should explain also in the edit summary or elsehere. Both above mentioned removals have been reverted, maybe because the edit summaries were misleading or not clear enough. At this point, I would see this still as a discussion between the involved parties whether the removal of the tag was based on a misunderstanding or actually implies a contestion. Furthermore, you could look at the article itself and see whether you yourself see a reason to contest the deletion or would want to bring this to AfD either endorsing deletion or simply for wider discussion. --Tikiwont 11:27, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Let me just add that the reinserted PROD on Jenaveve Jolie was contested once again together with a number of related ones. This lead to a lot of discussion on the respective user talk pages and at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(pornographic_actors)#Adhering_to_standards. In the second case, I contested the proposed deletion myself. --Tikiwont 10:23, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

there's no point in arguing whether something amounts to a protest. A removal of a tag is a protest, and even if unexplained, the proper course to follow if one continues to disagree is Afd. Of course, removing without explanation is not very sensible, since one is more likely to carry the point if one explains. But rather than put tags on or off, discuss it properly where things should be discussed if discussion on the talk page fails,, at afd. 07:40, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Templates

I have a new proposal for the proposed deletion system. I propose that templates be added to the prod system because many are better off at PROD than TfD since what happens is that TfD may get rather backlogged with foreign language templates (today's log, for example) which will eventually result in "Delete per nom" comments 20 times... What do you think? --Evilclown93_(talk) 13:55, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not convinced this would be an improvement, the backlog at TfD is manageable and useful templates could get deleted. For exampe, I usually ensure the articles I'm editing are on my watchlist, but don't normally include all of the templates I use. Addhoc 14:13, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. There wouldn't be many templates in that category, and one or two admins could manage it easily. It's just a waste of time having a deletion debate over a foreign language template. Why I'm proposing to use the PROD system is because I'm think CSD wouldn't accept this. --Evilclown93_(talk) 14:16, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Could we add a speedy delete criterion of foreign language templates? Addhoc 14:22, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe. But I thought that PROD still give some time to the creator (who usually doesn't respond, and TfD is a waste of process. Evilclown93_(talk) 14:25, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

TFD already speeds through some cases, I don't think prod is the right venue for this, because you're either a) going to spend five days looking at the ugly/huge prod template on every page the template is used, or b) it will be recommended that we not transclude the prod template on every page it's used, and there will be accusations of sneaky deletion. -- nae'blis 15:22, 22 June 2007 (UTC) (not signed in at present)

Not only is there a <noinclude>, you know, but also an <includeonly>. Gracenotes^T § 14:49, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

As a TFD regular, the only type of person who would essentially be dealing with template prods, I'd be willing to try the system out experimentally. TfD does not have a large load because people do not regulardly templates pages from Special:Unusedtemplates, Category:Deprecated templates, and Category:Uncategorized templates into it. If someone actually tried a non-admin clean up of the template namespace... whew.

The thing about prod is that it's too formal. As I suggested on WT:TFD, something a bit more informal, like a list, might work. It would be a non-process.

Finally, obligatory see also: Wikipedia:Proposed deletion/Template prod. Gracenotes^T § 14:49, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Image copyright violation

This image was uploaded today and added to Apple Inc. advertising. The image compares two images under copyright, one by Apple (top), one by Louis Psihoyos (bottom). The image was added to illustrate the fact that Apple is being sued by Psihoyos for copyright infringement (see here). The image was uploaded without a valid copyright tag, by an editor new to Wikipedia. Given the litigious situation surrounding the images, is the seven day waiting period for deletion the minimum for what is pretty much a given copyright violation? Justen 23:02, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

PROD or AFD ?

Hello, could someone please direct me to the part in the policy which states that AfD should be used instead of PROD, if the article has been around for a while or there have been several editors. I couldn't find it, but I may not be looking at the right pages. Thanks. Jackaranga 12:38, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Here? Sr13 is almost Singularity 21:53, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I must be having a really hard job, I looked where you said but still can't see it. What I wanted to see was the specific policy that says to use AfD instead of PROD on old articles or articles with several contributors. If someone could copy paste it here and tell me which page it came from I would be very gratefull, sorry for being so thick, maybe it's a phrase I read but couldn't understand. Jackaranga 11:21, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

"If you think that an article is an uncontroversial candidate for deletion [use PROD]", otherwise use AfD. If deletion has already been contested, then it's not uncontroversial. Other than cases like this, there is no sure way to tell whether deletion will be controversial or not in general. Tizio 11:39, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

right, it's a matter of judgement--if there is something clearly unsuitable that doesn't fit within speedy, it may be worth trying q prod in the hope that it won't be defended--if a clear enough reason is given, about half the time people realise that the article won't make it, and then it saves a good deal of trouble all around. As long as you keep track to send it to afd if prod tags are removed without improvement, no harm is done by trying. But if it is obviously going to be controverted, then prod is just a waste of time and effort. I would never blame anyone from trying one not the other--just a question of efficiency. DGG (talk) 05:55, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok thanks, for the answers, I was asking because one lot of articles I had proded were deleted, and the other lot reviewed by a different admin were converted into AfDs, because he said several people had edited them. But several people had edited the ones the first admin deleted on expired prod too so I was confused. It seems some admins do different things, so I was wondering where the policy was that said precisely like after how many edits I should use AfD instead of Prod. Jackaranga 21:16, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

• The easy solution is, when you're in doubt, to use PROD. If it turns out that it was in fact controversial, somebody will remove the tag for you. If at that point you still believe the article shouldn't be here, you can use AFD. Doing it this way around saves the most time for people in general. >Radiant< 09:11, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Pseudo-contested prod on Alberta Cerebral Palsy Sports Association

I prodded this article, and the admin Xoloz who handled it sort of "pseudo-objected" - while the five days for prod contesting were up, he declined to delete the article, but did not start an AfD, and did not otherwise edit the article. Therefore, I don't think the burden of proof to keep the article was met (either in principle or in timeframe), and the article should be deleted. However, there isn't anything in the policy to handle this sort of occurrence. What's the precedent? MSJapan 01:51, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

When an admin declines to delete an article tagged with {{prod}} but does not actually edit the article's content, it's usually because they feel a full discussion may be needed. Since, a {{prod}} can be contested at any time and for any reason (or even for no reason at all), you can take the article to AfD if you still think it deserves to be deleted. Cheers, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 02:03, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:PRODSUM

Is PRODSUM broken? The last entry is from August 20. 70.55.87.43 06:15, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Policy needs tweaking

I think the prod policy needs tweaking. Far too often, I've prod'ed a new article that clearly shouldn't be in WP, but for which there is no speedy deletion criteria. Usually articles that cover clearly non-notable topics, fancruft, the like. The original author comes along and removes the prod, but leaves no edit summary and makes no improvements to the article. Now it has to go through the whole AfD procedure, which is a nuisance (editing three different pages).

What about changing the prod policy such that the original author can not remove the prod? Or that prod-removals with no explanation, either in the edit summary or on the talk page, can be restored? eaolson 05:23, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think either of those are good ideas. In the first instance, often the only person who will notice that a new article has been prodded will be the article's author. If he/she wasn't allowed to remove the prod, it's extremely likely that the new article would get deleted, whether or not there was a case to be made against it. As to the second, you're then getting into some dangerous territory about what constitutes an "explanation". I think we need to accept the fact that a great many prod tags placed on articles will be deleted, even if the article in question deserves to be deleted. AfDs are a little more work all around, but they're also a means by which consensus is established. Sarcasticidealist 10:27, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Part of how we got PROD at all was the agreement that it could be stopped if anyone disagreed. The extra work of an AFD isn't all that great when the call is obvious. GRBerry 13:00, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

• The speedy deletion templates, arguably more draconian that the prod policy, state that they should not be removed by the original author. I just think it would be a good idea of the prod policy is in parallel with that. eaolson 23:20, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

There parallel between CSD and prod that you suggest does not exist. Articles that get speedied get deleted because they satisfy some narrow and "objective" criteria. The creator of the article cannot make those criteria any more or less satisfied by the article by removing the tags; he can only obstruct the mechanism that calls the existing fact to the attention of an admin. A prod is entirely different - an article gets deleted through prod because nobody appears to want to keep them. If the creator of the article disagrees with deletion, it is manifestly untrue that "nobody wants to keep it", and therefore it simply is not a suitable candidate for delting through the prod process. –Henning Makholm 21:47, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

• Are there really a lot of cases where the originating author of an article would not want to keep it? Barring minor things like accidental duplicates, misspellings, etc. eaolson 22:24, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

There are plenty of autobiographical/vanity/promotional one-offs, where people create articles and then never bother maintaining them, and therefore don't notice that the article's been Prodded. Besides that, we know that an article's author won't always remove a Prod notice, because plenty or articles get deleted as a result of the Prod process; this shows that the process is useful and there really are a lot of uncontroversial deletions. For controversial deletions that don't fit the speedy criteria, there's AfD. Sarcasticidealist 22:36, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Hoaxes

Should obvious and certifiable hoaxes, which are not covered under a speedy criterion, be prod tagged first, rather than tediously go through an AfD? I was wondering this, as I have seen a few hoaxes at WP:AFD, and wondered why they can't be speedied. AfDs, while they do get rid of particularly bad material, can stir up major controversy, harming reputations, starting flamewars, and leading some to oppose certain RfAs. Hoaxes, when outright disproven, don't cause as much controversy as other material on AfDs, so why take the risk? J-stan ^Talk_Contribs 02:45, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

PROD can be tried on anything. No reason not to try, no reason to require trying. GRBerry 13:01, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, just wondering. J-stan ^Talk_Contribs 14:04, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

If of case of prodding an obvious enough hoax you may want to consider to place a {{subst:uw-hoax|articlename}} tag instead of a standard prod notice. It alerts the creator to the content problem and the article tag already explains that they could remove the tag.--Tikiwont 07:58, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Removing/restoring prod tags in articles

I added {{prod}} tags to several related articles, then the edits were later reverted by the page's creator. I left a message on the user's page that they cannot simply be removed without giving a reason why (on talk page or in edit summary). Is it permissible to restore the templates in this circumstance? –Dream out loud (talk) 17:27, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

A {{prod}} tag can be removed by anyone, including the creator, with or without providing a reason and without any change to the article. Once removed, a prod tag should not be restored unless the removal is a case of blatant vandalism. If you still think the pages should be deleted, you may list the articles at WP:AFD (if the articles are sufficiently related, you might wish to consider a bundled nomination). Cheers, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:37, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

The only time a PROD tag should be restored is if it is removed in obvious vandalism, such as a total page blanking (by other than the creator) or replacement with graffitti. Otherwise, the prod removal is correct, restoring is wrong. GRBerry 19:43, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes I have removed prod tags, and then been persuaded to replace them myself. Kappa 22:47, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Images

Is there a particular reason that images cannot be prodded? If so, please mention it on the main page. Kappa 22:46, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

The main page is the wikipedia front page (Main Page, but assuming you meant the project page, I am guessing it's because WP:IfD is in many ways similar to a prod tag for images. If an image has been tagged for more than 5 days, (and correctly registered in the IfD log), then it can be deleted if no objections have been raised. Just like a PROD tag for an article. IfD provides an easy way to delete images, combining the advantages of PROD and AfD.

advantage 1: with IfD there is a specific place to discuss the deletion unlike for PROD

advantage 2: with IfD an image can be deleted if nobody shows any interest in it being kept, unlike AfDs which are relisted if nobody voices an opinion.

Basically Ifd = XfD + PROD so you can consider PROD exists for images but under a different name, and different formalism, however the outcome is the same. Jackaranga 02:57, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• So I can't use PROD because a specific place to discuss the deletion is required. But if I thought there were going to be any objections I wouldn't be using PROD in the first place. Kappa 01:25, 18 September 2007 (UTC) Also the prod tag could at least tell me what I'm supposed to be doing instead of just saying "don't do this" Kappa 01:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

You can't use PROD on an image because it only works in the article and user namespaces. PROD does not exist for images because the IfD process already has all the advantages of a PROD tag. If you need to learn about deleting an image go to WP:IFD. If you know a way of improving the template so that it gives instructions about deleting an image when placed by error on the image namespace, then you could propose changes on Template talk:Prod See below . I'm not sure this is needed though as everyone should read the page about the template before using it, and it clearly says it's only for articles or user space pages. Jackaranga 02:21, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually it would be Template:Dated prod, that would have to be changed, in particular the following lines:

 It is proposed that this {{#switch:{{NAMESPACEE}}
 |{{ns:0}}=article
 |{{ns:2}}=user page
 |{{ns:3}}=user talk page
 |#default=page <font size="+2" color=red>Please do not use PROD except on articles, user pages and    user talk pages. </font>

I would suggest something like:

 It is proposed that this {{#switch:{{NAMESPACEE}}
 |{{ns:0}}=article
 |{{ns:2}}=user page
 |{{ns:3}}=user talk page
 |{{ns:6}}=image page <font size="+2" color=red>Please do not use this template on images, use the [[Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion|Images for Deletion]] process instead.</font>
 |#default=page <font size="+2" color=red>Please do not use PROD except on articles, user pages and    user talk pages. </font>

You can go to Template talk:Dated prod and use {{editprotected}} to draw attention to your request. You can't change the template yourself because it is indefinitely protected due to it being supposedly "high risk". Jackaranga 02:35, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Looks complicated, I think I'll stick to the PROD tag. Kappa 17:14, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Automatically notifying creator / other editors

It seems discourteous to mark an article for deletion, without also notifying the creator, and perhaps other editors who have contributed to it. Surely it would be relatively simple for the addition of a {{prod}} to an article to automatically add {{subst:PRODWarning|Article title}} ~~~~ to the talk pages of relevant editors. IP editors cannot have a watchlist and many editors with user names don't understand how to set one up, so a message is a good backstop. (My angle on this: I've proposed articles for deletion without seeing the bit about the Author(s) notification template.) Nunquam Dormio 08:06, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

No, it is not relatively simple. It would require coding from the developers, which just isn't going to happen. If you, as an editor, wish to write and run some java code to do it for your own nominations, feel free. In trying to do so, you'll discover just how non simple it is. GRBerry 12:15, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't this sort of thing be done by a bot (see WP:BOTREQ)?? --ais523 12:30, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, a bot is the sort of thing I envisage. See Wikipedia:Bot requests#AfD notification bot and Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion#Notification as part of deletion process for some similar previous discussion on this topic. Nunquam Dormio 12:47, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I've thought about that myself; can't we code a human scprit, ie write somewhere in the policy "it is considered very courteous to notify significant contritubors that an article is proposed for deletion"?--victor falk 19:34, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

 Done - Good point. It was mentioned already, but I have added more emphasis in the policy. - Fayenatic (talk) 19:52, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

User and User talk exception

"The only exceptions to this rule are pages in the User and User talk namespaces which may be proposed for deletion if the user has no recent edits and has made few or no contributions to the encyclopedia" section heading refactored by Splash - tk 16:46, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I discovered this while participating in Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Leana Risa. It is extremely WP:BITEY so I deleted it[2]

I understand why it may be necessary not to leave a user page as is if abandonned, but unless there is a reason such as disruptive behaviour (and who can say if a user is disruptive based on their first few edits?) this can be achieved by blanking it or putting a {{this page has been abandoned for a long while by the user}} template. You never know when an editor might wish to activate a dormant accout, and discovering that their page, on which they may have spent a considerable amount of time, has been deleted is certainly not a friendly way of welcoming them back. And, from wikipedia's perspective, there is the rather untrivial issue of institutional memory.

Myself, I only started editing this year, but I got my account in 2005 or 2006. I started in one go, but actually I had planned to edit my userpage step by step to learn the wiki markup language before editing articles. If I had done my first edits then, to later discover that my userpage had been deleted in the meanwhile when I wanted to start editing articles, that would had left me with a very bad impression of wikipedia indeed.--victor falk 19:22, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

If you search for "user" on the page User:DumbBOT/ProdSummary from time to time, you will see that the above policy is used in practice to remove user pages for editors who were using Wikipedia mainly for self-promotion. The policy is there to allow implementation of WP:NOT#WEBSPACE and I therefore believe that it should be reinstated. - Fayenatic (talk) 19:38, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Consensus for this addition was created at Template talk:Prod#Miscellaneous Prod in November-December 2006. Notice was given here, see Wikipedia talk:Proposed deletion/Archive 6#Extend PROD to other namespaces? and #Miscellaneous prods for miscellaneous pages?. I can't this many months later remember whether there was a Village Pump comment about it.

We have a reason for it; WP:MFD was wasting a lot of time on unanimous deletion of user pages of non-editors. The issue isn't generally that the editor was a disruptive troublemaker; it is for User pages of people that weren't editors, they were taking advantage of the "anyone can edit" feature to spam or gain free webhosting.

As to the "unfriendliness" of PROD deletions, it is severely limited by the fact that PROD deletions are automatically overturned if there is a good faith request. The deletion log should always reflect that it is a PROD deletion. Having in my past used some open access sites, gone away for years, and returned, I expect to find that the entire user account has been recycled - garbage collection is a basic process in user community/website maintenance as much as it is in programming. GRBerry 20:00, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree, and support the use of prod for unused pages by editors who have never come back. There are a significant number consisting only of a greeting--many people here as everywhere register and never actually do anything. Perfectly normal, but unnecessary and these pages diminish the importance of the active people. I hope they are not being used to eliminate a page from someone who has made any significant contribution, even years ago.

But I am afraid that for articles removed by PROD, too many people may go away disappointed in us rather than stay and ask. Contrary to common opinion, most new editors are probably unduly modest. But I don't know how to establish a better balance here. DGG (talk) 04:20, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Any guidelines for Proposed deletion vs. AfD?

I have a few questions on what's considered a "uncontroversial deletion", and tend to err on the side of AfD. Are there certain things that make an article lean more towards PROD? Thanks Amaryllis25 ^{"Talk to me"} 16:12, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I think there are three types of factors that determine whether deletion of a particular article would be uncontroversial.

Page history: This includes mostly the technical constraints laid out in the policy page itself. For instance, if the proposed deletion of a page has previously been challenged, or if a page survived an AfD debate, its deletion is no longer uncontroversial.

Article quality: On average, the poorer the state of the article, the less controversial deletion ought to be. This includes all of the factors that determine article quality, including sourcing, writing style, page design, formatting, and so on.

Subject matter: If the subject of the article may be notable (an online search unearths some coverage in reliable sources), is generally presumed to meet notability guidelines (e.g. inhabited settlements), or whose notability it the subject of controversy (e.g. high schools), AFD may be the better choice, unless the article is in such poor condition as to be virtually unsalvageable.

There are, of course, other particular issues that I've not mentioned, but I think most or all could be classified into one of these three types. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:06, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

the other significant factor is whether anyone is likely to dispute it. If they are, then there is no point doing a Prod, since anyone can simply remove the prod, and then it must go to afd to be deleted. This is especially relevant with older possibly abandoned articles. But even for new ones, very often the author will realize it may not be suitable. But if it's the sort of article usually contested in AfD, then, regardless of its actual merits, it saves everyone trouble to send it there in the first place. DGG (talk) 06:44, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

10 days

Even in AfD many people who have other things to do could look at AfD, but only once a week or so. The regulars come every day. This deprives the editors with specialized interest of a chance to look at all the articles. -- but I will bring this up again there.

This is much more the case in prod. Relatively few people do it, and specialized articles will get missed unless more do. I've been coming more regularly now to make sure I see the stuff I think needs saving, but I will probably not be able to keep this up long. To cover the variations in weekly, I would support the suggested 10 days there. I find 1 or 2 in each day's batch that I think needs more discussion, but I think they are usually important ones, and most of the time they survive AfD.

To ask for a reconsideration is rare, and there are few inexperienced editors who do it, and very few people indeed ever go there. I just did for the first time.

Calbaer's argument seems unrefutable--some articles have clearly been listed in bad faith-- not that we have many editors who would do it, but any one editor can do it. DGG 16:20, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think extending the period to 10 days will improve the quality and accuracy of the process (that is, more reliably deleting articles that should be deleted, and saving articles that shouldn't be deleted). In my experience, if an article is unwisely PROD'ed, that is usually discovered (by the author or by category patrollers) very quickly. As it is, even 5 days is probably longer than needed for the process to work fairly and efficiently. I mean, what is the driver for this? Have we been inundated with complaints that articles were unjustifiably deleted? Or a sharp increase in Deletion Review cases? I think this is a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." --MCB 23:20, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

As I see it, it's broke--and what's broke is not the deletion process per se, but the willingness of occasional editors to do meaningful work here, what with the perceptions that there are vandals on one side and overenthusiastic regulars on the other.DGG 23:33, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

But what is your evidence of brokenness? What is a useful metric? The things I've proposed are:

1. A signficant increase in the number of articles deleted that should not have been;
2. A significant increase in the number of Deletion Reviews requested;
3. A significant number of complaints about PROD in places like the Help Desk, Village Pump, policy/guideline talk pages, talk pages of deleting admin, etc.

I haven't seen evidence of any of those. Even if we were to add what you seem to be suggesting (editors who quit in frustration because their articles were deleted), why do you believe that has increased? It's hard to support changing policy based on what you'd have to agree is a highly vague and subjective metric. --MCB 00:26, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I support extending it to eight days to allow editors who only check once a week to see these. 132.205.93.89 04:47, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Extending beyond 5 days is a bad idea. Any article deleted via prod can always be undeleted easily, and generally the contributors whose articles get prodded either show up right away and de-prod, or don't show up for weeks. Mangojuice^talk 15:36, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I was about to post a section to the talk page suggesting to increase the time to a fortnight or perhaps even a month, but then I saw this section. My problem with WP:PROD is that it is too easy to misuse it to circumvent AfD and I think it would be better to do something about that before this happens than afterwards. Shinobu (talk) 15:40, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I doubt we would get the consensus for that long, but we should try again for 8 days, which will cover those who come to WP once a week. DGG (talk) 03:49, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Redirects

One thing I'm wondering about that doesn't seem to be addressed specifically in the project page, can redirects be prodded, or should they be listed at WP:RFD? Currently Lake Back is an expired prod but I'm not sure that's okay. If it is, then that should be clearly mentioned in this policy (perhaps at the beginning, where it says user and user talk pages are prod-able). Rigadoun (talk) 22:17, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I have solved your immediate problem by contesting the prod. :-)

Beyond that, my impression is that PROD is only for actual articles. Many redirects exist mainly be found by search engines (our own or external ones). Such ones may well survice RFD, even though they may not be visited frequently, especially by users bold enough to contemplate hitting the edit button to contest a prod. Therefore they ought to go through RFD, just to ensure a minimal number of eyes on the proposal. –Henning Makholm 23:32, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Broken process

This process is becoming broken. Several of the articles I written, including one of my FAs (Bob Meusel and a GA) was tagged for prod as a vandalism revenge for deleting the tagger article. Those prods survived for most of the day before I noticed them checking on my watchlist, and I reverted and blocked. Imagine if they survived the whole five days without being checked. This would have been an embarressment for the project. We need more users to check prods more.

Another issue I have are obvious Single purpose accounts removing prod tags for no reason, there should be a note that there needs to give a obvious explaination on why the prod tag is removed, to avoid AFD backlogs. Thanks Jaranda ^{wat's sup Sports!} 21:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

First of all, I think it very unlikely that a prod that was clearly vandalism would survive for five days, especially on an FA. Second, even if it did, I can't imagine that an admin would go ahead and delete an FA - remember, Admins aren't obligated to delete any article with the Prod template on it. As for requiring an explanation, I agree that an explanation should be strongly encouraged, but if you suddenly state that one is "required", then you'll have a bunch of revert wars to decide whether a Prod template should be present (i.e. whether a satisfactory reason was given), when currently such situations are easily dealt with through the AfD process.

Remember, this process is not WP:SPEEDY - it's not supposed to catch all articles whose deletion *should* be uncontroversial, only those whose deletion actually *is* uncontroversial. Sarcasticidealist 21:37, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I know that it wouldn't survive prod for five days, but I'm surpriced that it survived prod for most of the day, and likely longer if I didn't check. Jaranda ^{wat's sup Sports!} 21:54, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay. But how does that equate o "broken process"? Moreover, since you say that this Prod was vandalism (and I have no reason to doubt you), how would it have been different than if he'd simply replaced the page with "Eric is a fag!!!11!!!!"? Vandalism doesn't become any more or less egregious when it's masquerading as an implementation of a Wikipedia policy. Sarcasticidealist 03:49, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

You blocked someone for tagging one of your articles with a prod tag !? Jackaranga 21:42, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Not even I disagree with that block. Look at the prods the user placed. KP Botany 21:46, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

An FA, and a GA, and another close GA, and another article, obvious vandalism. Jaranda ^{wat's sup Sports!} 21:54, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Yah. But why not let someone else block for that? I know, three months ago, but still. Carcharoth (talk) 14:53, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Prod2 tags and substutition

I've been seeing a lot of people using {{subst:prod2}} instead of the normal {{prod2}} tags over the last few days. I kind of wonder why. Anyone have an idea? It really mucks up the WP:PRODSUM listing, at least, I'm not sure if it has any other real effect. --UsaSatsui (talk) 05:24, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

My guess is that since PROD is subst'd, it's assumed that PROD2 is, also. I don't see that PROD2 is mentioned anywhere on the main WP:PROD page, so it's an easy mistake to make. Joyous! | Talk 13:03, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I san see that, but for some reason it's been happening a lot more over the past couple of days. I never saw it before. Now a bunch of different people are doing it. --UsaSatsui (talk) 16:27, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Prod-2 tags should probably be mentioned, as people use them. How about below the "Contesting a proposed deletion" section, having a parallel section "Endorsing a proposed deletion," which would have some text like this:

If you are reviewing proposed deletions and agree that an article should be deleted, you can add {{prod-2}}. You can also give an addition reason why the article should be deleted, by specifying {{prod-2|additional reason}}. The template automatically adds the article to Category:Proposed deletion-endorsed. The prod can still be removed at any time as in the procedure above (if it is removed, the prod-2 tag should be removed also), but if kept it may help the closing administrator in determining whether the article should be deleted. Unlike the Prod template, this template should not be subst'ed.

What do you think? Rigadoun (talk) 16:41, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually I see this was discussed above at #Template:prod-2. I think the wording I said makes it clear what difference it makes (namely none formally, but may assist the admin in deciding, in particular if another valid reason is given). Rigadoun (talk) 16:55, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. Prod2 is more to let people know that at least one other person has checked it. Here's my draft:

If you see a page with a {{prod}} tag and agree that an article should be deleted, you can add {{prod-2}} below the tag.. You can also give an addition reason why the article should be deleted, by specifying {{prod-2|additional reason}}. This lets others, including the closing administrator, know that the article has been reviewed by another person, and can provide additional reasoning for the deletion. If the {{prod}} tag is removed by someone contesting the deletion, the {{prod2}} tag should also be removed. Unlike the Prod template, this template should not be substituted. This template will automatically add the article to Category:Proposed deletion-endorsed. as well.

Put this in it's own section, format it a bit, and I'm OK with it. --UsaSatsui (talk) 17:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Admins undeleting PRODs

"Make a request at deletion review. Any administrator can undelete upon a reasonable request." - as an admin I could undelete a PROD myself as a way of contesting it (I actually just want to redirect the article and merge to a suitable location), but should I do this myself or make a request? Carcharoth (talk) 14:55, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

IMO, that would be a valid use of admin powers and would count as a contesting of a prod, especially given the mentioned circumstance. youngamerican (wtf?) 15:27, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I see no reason to "go through the motions" when there is a zero percent chance of something different happening. Go ahead and undelete them. --UsaSatsui (talk) 16:56, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Question regarding applicability to undeleted content

This situation came up recently (both A and B are Admins) ... Person A finds an article with a Notability-based Speedy Tag and decides it should go to PROD instead based on an assertion of notability and tags it, removing the Speedy tag ... Person B Speedy Deletes the article on the basis of no notability ... Person A objects and restores article back into the PROD workstream. Put another way

1. Article Created
2. Article PRODDED
3. Article Speedy Deleted
4. Article Restored

Is it appropriate for the article to be restored into the PROD workstream if the Speedy Deletion criterion was believed to be incorrectly applied? In other words, if "there is a doubt" (Speedy assumes there is no doubt). This objection to Speedy says nothing about rules-adherence or knowledge of policy, but rather is a judgment call.

I and the other Admin resolved this by agreeing to disagree and let the article stay deleted in the end, but I did want to bring up the matter for clarification of the statement in the "How it works" section that indicates articles that are inappropriate for PROD include those that "Have previously been undeleted". It would seem that the only alternative outcomes here are either a) leave the article deleted or b) take the article to AFD. In the specific case I was involved in, AFD wouldn't be good - I merely "had a doubt" about whether or not WP:CSD#A7 was applicable.

At the risk of stepping into a pile of creep, I would in fact suggest that there be a sole exception to the "have previously been undeleted" clause - "have previously been undeleted, unless all previous deletions have been Speedy Deletions".

Thoughts? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 19:04, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

As the other admin involved, I support Ceyockey's request for comment so the issue is clarified. Best,--Alabamaboy (talk) 22:15, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Prod bot

this was listed above, but re-placed at the bottom due to the 10 month gap between the original post and the follow-up post

Please see Wikipedia:Bot requests#Prod bot. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 12:33, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

The Bot request from Feb 2007 noted above can now be found at Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 11#Prod bot.

There was also a prior, different Bot request from July 2006 which can be found at Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 8#Prod Bot.

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:32, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Question

Is there a reason we limit this to articles? The nature of prod is that it's pretty hard to make a controversial deletion with it - why not use it to wipe orphaned templates and the like as well? Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:33, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

• If I had to venture a guess, it would be that there's really not enough templates being nominated for deletion that we need something like this. --UsaSatsui (talk) 16:59, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• It has been discussed before: see Wikipedia_talk:Proposed_deletion#Prod_for_templates_idea, higher up this page, and Wikipedia talk:Proposed deletion/Template prod. Personally, I wouldn't have any problem with extending PROD to templates, but I don't see any particularly strong need for it either: TFD appears to be handling them fine at the moment. Terraxos (talk) 04:06, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

reprodding unprodded article

I unprodded Jahar Dasgupta, Bengali artist, a couple of months back, and put it on watch, because the rationale given was "non-notable scientist" - which just wasn't applicable. Now it's been prodded again with the rationale: "Non notable artist, vanity page". My understanding is that reprodding unprodded articles is not quite the done thing, but is there a point of procedural principle here or can it safely be ignored? I really have no opinion as to his notability as an artist, I just wasn't going to let an artist be deleted for not being a notable scientist. --Paularblaster (talk) 21:02, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

• I have removed the prod since a previous prod was disputed. I think that the second prod-er simply forgot to check the page's history for earlier prods. The basic rule is: If someone has disputed the deletion by removing a prod tag, argued against it on AFD, requested the articles undeletion, or recreated the article, then it should not be tagged for again, though it may be taken to AFD. There is a bit of common sense around though; if a vandalbot script runs around de-prodding everything with the edit summary "F*** YOU DELETIONISTS!!" then that is not contesting or disputing the deletion, but vandalism, and nobody would raise an eyebrow about reverting that kind of thing on sight. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:10, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

PROD scales, so scale it!

I've just noticed that prod is no longer being touted as a replacement for AFD and SD? That's not good. I'd like to push for both AFD and CSD to be deprecated , and to scale up PROD to take their place entirely. (possibly requires slight tweaks) --Kim Bruning (talk) 14:44, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

+ There is now an entire *FD infrastructure, with different rules for each. For some reason PROD is not recommended for the rest of this infrastructure? I would like to recommend it as a replacement for the entire *FD infrastructure. Are there any foreseeable problems? --Kim Bruning (talk) 14:46, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

• I agree with replacing CSD with PROD (because articles can get deleted so quickly under the former that there's no time to respond) but if we completely get rid of AfD, how will we able to delete articles in contentious cases, since one user can remove the PROD notice? I do think that PROD should be allowed in all the namespaces, as it is a more efficient way of dealing with uncontroversial deletions. Ron Duvall (talk) 14:55, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

For contentious cases you'd need one of those slight tweaks I alluded to. Instead of "remove prod tag once", make the presence of the prod tag a normal talk page discussion, as for any other tag or content on a page. It's a good example of how actually removing a rule can make a system more powerful :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 15:00, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

• Well content like "OMG!!!! WIKIPEDIA IS COMMUNISM!!!!" is not the kind of thing we want lying around Wikipedia for five days, and if the vandal who added it decides to remove a {{prod}}, we definitely do not want a five day AFD discussion on it. More seriously, we certainly don't want libelous attack pages lingering around for five days. Replacing SD with PROD entirely is not going to happen, but we could perhaps have a discussion on whether A7 and G11 might be tightened up. Borderline A7s are a cause for concern, even though A7 does a good job removing a lot of school child bios. I don't think PROD ever was intended to replace AFD or SD, it was intended as a way to take a large load off the AFD process so that people could focus on the controversial or contested ones, and just ignore the no-brainers. Indeed, the functioning of PROD depends on the existence of AFD to handle the controversial cases. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:03, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Opening up PROD for all namespaces, including the Wikipedia: namespace is something I support though. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:06, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

:-D --Kim Bruning (talk) 15:11, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Speedy deletion used to be rather more limited than it is today. I wouldn't mind pushing speedy back to where it was before, without all the alphabet soup ;-) . (ie, limited to things that would obviously be deleted, like the wikipedia is communism comment above). If a vandal removes a prod tag, it can simply be replaced anyway; Wikipedia is not about procedure above all else.

I always understood that PROD was intended to replace AFD, after trials were to show it to be effective. It is fairly trivial to modify prod to be able to handle controversial cases as well, so AFD can be supplanted entirely. --Kim Bruning (talk) 15:11, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Stuff like an article reading "OMG!!!! WIKIPEDIA IS COMMUNISM!!!!" is exactly the kind of thing that a pure wiki deletion system would best address. You just blank the page, and any links to it turn red. Very easy and efficient solution. Any arguments about whether a page should be kept (i.e. not blanked) can take place on the talk page, which is retained permanently, just as we retain AfD discussions.

Kim's idea about making removal of the PROD tag a subject of talk page conversation seems fine, but doesn't that start turning it into a process similar to AfD? I assume that articles with a PROD template will continue to be grouped into a category which users can look through, but unless they are also listed on XfD pages, it seems like some pages might get deleted without anyone but the nominator noticing. And if we do list them on XfD pages, then we basically have a very similar process to what we have now. Is there some aspect of this that I'm not taking into account? Ron Duvall (talk) 15:19, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

(ec)The problem I see with PROD is that the author often removes it willy-nilly without addressing the problems. So then I have to take it to AFD. I'd like to see a rule that the author cannot remove the tag unless there are changes that make the tag no longer warranted and that the changes are explained in edit summaries and/or on talk. Even outside parties who remove the prod tag should explain why they think it is no longer justified. If a prod is removed without justification, an independent editor should be allowed to return it (assuming that it is still warranted). The prod notice should explain that it is not to be removed without explanation. The question then arises about what to do if there is edit warring about the prod tag. I would almost say that repeated, unjustified removal of a prod tag is grounds for a CSD. The end result is that an independent editor who place the prod tag, and an independent admin would evaluate the article and delete it if they both think it should be deleted, without the extra time and effort of an AFD. Many article deletions just don't need the full AFD process. Sbowers3 (talk) 15:35, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this problem certainly exists. When I see a prod, if it's reasonably speediable, I usually go ahead and delete it, not caring how long the prod has been in place. This helps prevent this problem. While we say anyone can remove a prod at will, we should also make it clear that no reasonable editor should remove a prod without addressing the concerns that led to it. Friday (talk) 15:37, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

What if the prod tag was unjustified to begin with? We might tweak this proposal slightly to say that the author can remove the tag if revisions are made to the article that address the concerns listed on the tag, but if no revisions are made, then the author can state his justifications for keeping the article on the talk page, and another editor can remove the tag if he agrees (similar to the current rule with CSDs). Again, though, unless we are keeping the talk pages after article deletion, that discussion will be removed from view of non-admins, which is a disadvantage compared to the AfD system. Ron Duvall (talk) 15:48, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

We're already not supposed to delete talk pages if they contain relevant deletion discussion not present elsewhere. An unjustified prod obviously should be removed on sight. Friday (talk) 15:51, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Presumably the author will tend to view a prod as unjustified; otherwise he wouldn't have created the article to begin with. So he removes the tag, and we're right back to square 1. Ron Duvall (talk) 15:59, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd be OK with a general rule of "authors should not remove prods". If someone does it anyway because the prod was blatantly stupid, that's fine too, but it's the exception rather than the rule. Friday (talk) 16:28, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

So under your proposal, Friday, it sounds like the prod system will be able to handle situations where the author is the only one disagreeing with a prod, but if there is another editor who disagrees, then it has to go through AfD or some similar process? Ron Duvall (talk) 17:23, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to see PROD be self-sufficient if possible. I'd be especially pleased if AFD can be avoided entirely. (though taking things one step at a time probably can't hurt too much, if really necessary). --Kim Bruning (talk) 17:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC) My dream is to have PROD and/or PWD rule the wiki!

Who determines a PROD was unjustified are not? Sounds like a recipe for encouraging edit wars to me. PROD and AFD work because edit waring over whether the tag should be there is not productive (PROD because once it's removed it is not supposed to be readded; AFD because once it's added it is not to be removed until the debate is closed). We have enough disagreements over POV tags and the like. For deletion tags, it would be worse. Terms such as "unjustified" and "concerns listed in the tag have been addressed" are too subjective. -- JLaTondre (talk) 00:36, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I take (and meant) "unjustified" to mean without stated justification, not to mean inadequate justification. If the author removed the tag without providing any justification - just because he doesn't like the tag - then I should be able to reinsert it. If the author again removes it, then I take it to AFD.

And the first thing we should do is change the wording of the PROD message to tell people not to remove it unless they have addressed the concerns, and perhaps say that the author cannot remove it in any case. Sbowers3 (talk) 01:53, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

My first thought is that if the author takes action to address the concerns on some objective issue like verifiability, he should be allowed to remove the tag himself. E.g., a lot of tags say something like "No sources at all," so once you add some reliable sources, it's good to go. But the tag should not be removed by anyone without giving an explanation or making a change to the article to address the concerns. To do that is basically edit warring. On the other hand, if the tag says something like "non-notable," and the author and nominator disagree, that's basically the kind of thing that AfD is meant for, because not only is notability sometimes subjective, but changes to the article will not make the subject itself more notable. In those cases, you need more people to look at it to determine whether it's notable, and AfD provides the mechanism for publicizing the fact that participants are needed for a deletion debate. Then again, the five days of prod do give an opportunity to add facts to the article establishing the subject's notability before people start piling on in an AfD. If the author does that, and the newly-included facts show that it clearly DOES meet notability criteria (e.g. significant mentions in published reliable sources) then why not let the author remove the tag. Anyway, long story short: Anyone should be allowed to remove a prod tag iff they provide an explanation and/or change the article to address the concern; if they just remove it with no explanation or change to the article, anyone should be allowed to re-add the tag. Repeated unexplained tag removals without article changes to address the concerns should be considered edit warring. And in the event of disagreement between the nominator and the remover of the tag, there is also always the option of taking it to AfD (or whatever AfD-like process we end up with if we merge the two processes). Ron Duvall (talk) 02:38, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

• The point of PROD is that it's for uncontroversial deletion, and by changing it to "anyone but the creator of the article can contest it", then you're changing the nature of the beast. It's a change I can live with though. I'd like to see it as "If you created the article, you must provide an explanation for your removal or nominate the article for AFD, or the prod tag can be re-added". Should probably make that apply to IPs too, actually. I'd add a couple other caveats too: You can always remove a prod from your own talk page, for one. And a deleted prod that's asks to be restored must have an explanation as well (but so long as they actually have one, I can't see any reason to deny it). --UsaSatsui (talk) 18:07, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, the thing about AfD is that not only does it provide a mechanism for discussion of debate (which will be kept permanently) but it also publicizes the existence of the debate at a central list. If prods are not listed somewhere, then if an author disagrees with the prod, he will have to find some way to get another editor involved. (Canvassing, anyone?) And if we have a list of disputed prods, in addition to permanently-kept talk pages of the deletion debate, then it seems basically just like the system we have now, of moving disputed prods to AfD.

Even as it exists now, prod is slightly problematic in that if an editor creates an article and then leaves the project, and he was the only one watching it, it might get deleted on the basis of one or two people's opinion. But it's probably worth that tradeoff for the increased efficiency, and because prod gives an editor a chance to make some changes to address the nominator's concerns before a bunch of people start piling onto an AfD. And I'm sure there are some cases where the author sees the prod and says, "You know what, he's right, this article really doesn't meet the criteria for staying here." Ron Duvall (talk) 18:35, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Let me be explicit. I would like to see AFD die. Can PROD take over the role of AFD? If certain PROD corner cases look a bit like afd cases, that's fine, but you would would still not have the massive proliferation of pages and work that you have with AFD today. Also, you would have a system less. This means less complexity. I'm all for less complexity. --Kim Bruning (talk) 19:10, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Simplest thing that could possibly work: use the article talk page, that's what it's for. All our AFD rituals could go away. If we need some way to find and aggregate deletion discussions, I imagine a category could do this job. The prod tag indicates that a deletion discussion is underway. Piece of cake. Friday (talk) 19:12, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

PS. Oh, and yes, ditch those ridiculous CSDs too. Anyone who knows how to interpret them competently already doesn't need them. Those who cannot interpret them competently are not helped by them. Use plain english in the deletion log. I've been doing this for a couple years with no problems I'm aware of. Friday (talk) 19:19, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, so instead of browsing through an AfD page, people looking for AfDs to participate in would look through the deletion discussion category? I don't mind trying that, but there are a few advantages of the AfD page that could be lost, depending on how we implement this. The way it's currently set up, you can scroll down the AfD page and see, from the content of the deletion debates, if there is one you might be interested in participating in. Just a list of titles in a category might not provide as much insight. Plus, on AfD, you can easily observe patterns of how users are nominating articles and participating in debates (e.g. if someone is posting a bunch of schools for deletion) without going to their contributions. The AfDs are sorted chronologically, while categories are typically sorted alphabetically (although we could override that by putting, for instance, [[Category:Deletion debates|2008-02-15]]) There are probably other workarounds that can be used to provide the information currently gleaned from the AfD page.

I don't mind trying this proposal (dumping AfD in favor of prod) just to see what happens. Sometimes it's more efficient to try an idea rather than sit around debating what the likely outcome will be. If it doesn't work well, we can always go back to how it was. It does seem simpler than having two separate processes. Ron Duvall (talk) 20:28, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Page vs. category is not an issue. There is already a bot that lists all prod's on a single page (User:DumbBOT/ProdSummary). It would need be to be enhanced to handle the additional load (subpages by day would probably be one recommendation), but it could be done.

I'm not sure exactly what benefit people expect from this proposal, however. As far as I can tell, the only benefit is that it would eliminate a single template. Deletion debates are still going to need to take place. Contentious deletion debates are still going occur. That means that debates cannot be allowed to be stopped by simply removing the tag. If we create a rule that says a prod tag cannot be removed into the debate is closed, then all that has occurred is that prod has been killed and the afd tag renamed to prod. No benefit in that.

Another major downside I see is that we need to keep a record of deletion debates. If the debate occurs on the talk page, then we're going to have the talk space littered with talk pages for deleted articles (more so than it is today). I think having those debates kept under Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ is much cleaner. -- JLaTondre (talk) 21:08, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I've always supported the idea of extending proposed deletion to all most non-talk namespaces; however, I don't think PROD can take the place of AfD unless we change the nature of the process from one intended for uncontroversial actions only to a process that would often involve controversial choices and decisions. Moreover, we would still need a centralised notice board (such as the daily logs at AFD) to notify other editors that deletion discussions are ongoing on various talk pages. While talk page deletion discussions can take the place on AFD, I don't quite see how or why it would/should involve PROD. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:53, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

La Tondre and Black Falcon summarize my feelings well about trying to up the emphasis of PROD. This experiment, to me, sounds like a bunch of reorganizing that, in the process, gets rid of PROD as we know it and makes it into the new name for AFD. As for other namespaces, I have sincere reservations about that. I think it would be fine for User space, Wikipedia space, and Template space. It should never be used for talk space, just because talk pages should basically never be deleted except when G8 applies or something particularly odd is going on. I really don't want to see Prod used for Image space or Category space: to me such pages need a positive consensus to delete (barring some speedy criterion applying) because the deletion discussion may very easily go unnoticed by most users. Mangojuice^talk 21:15, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd forgotten about the talk namespaces! I also think you're right about categories, since deleting them often requires quite a bit of additional work to empty them. As for images, the current system approximates PROD in a few respects ... the CSD criteria generally involve a waiting period of 7 days and IFD nominations tend to be closed as "delete" if no one objects within a few days. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 21:27, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Centralization is the actual problem. As the wiki grows, decentralized processes grow with it, while centralized processes either fail or become overly byzantine. PROD is mostly decentralized, while AFD is mostly centralized. That's why I'm putting my hopes on PROD (or some variant, and/or pure wiki deletion). --Kim Bruning (talk) 21:41, 15 February 2008 (UTC) If we can also push back CSD considerably, that would be an additional boon

I don't want to see PROD replace AfD or CSD - but it ought to at least replace the more subjective CSDs, like A7, G11, and T1. It's important to retain other CSD criteria in order to streamline maintenance tasks and avoid wasting effort on bad faith or useless contributions.

As for AfD, while the number of articles handled by AfD should be small, AfD is very important as a reactionary policy generation mechanism. In the same way that the US Supreme Court hears interesting cases in order to make broad decisions about the interpretation of law and establish precedent, AfD discusses interesting cases for article deletion to make broad decisions about encyclopedia scope and other policy issues.

As for not permitting removal of the tag without addressing the underlying issues - I agree, as long as we can agree that the issues can be addressed either by improving the article or by responding to the issues on the talk page and claiming that they're not really issues. Sometimes taggers are wrong. Dcoetzee 21:57, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

As Mangojuice said, AFD is no more centralized than PROD. AFD is distributed across as many pages (one per article) as your revised PROD suggestion would be. The existence of transcluding pages does not create scaling problems. AFD has scaled fine so far. Besides, scaling has less to do with the total number of pages then it does with the number of pages created per day. If your only concern is that someday it might start breaking down, then I'd argue we should wait until it becomes clearer such stresses are actually present. Changing based upon fears that it might happen does not seem reasonable to me. If there are specific concerns you have with AFD, then I'd suggest voicing those so that they can be addressed. -- JLaTondre (talk) 00:21, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

AfD is not a centralized process, not really. Arbcom is a centralized process, since there's one small committee that has to handle the burden. FA promotion is centralized. But AfD is massively parallel, all the debates run separately. It's only centralized in the sense that there's a direct way to access the debates from a main page (WP:AFD) but that would be the case anyway, and we ought to make these debates easy to find if we're going to get a representative sample of participation from the community. Mangojuice^talk 23:20, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Do you think that AfD currently gets a representative sample of participation from the community? I want to run an analysis sometime on patterns of participation in AfDs, and then analyze the participants' characteristics to see what insights can be gleaned. Is the subset of frequent participants biased in certain ways, and how has that been changing? It could provide objective facts to use when people say that the system works fine. Or, it might contradict my hypothesis that things have been tilting in a deletionist direction these days. One thing that might skew the results is that if it were to be tilting deletionist, then it might discourage the creation of certain new articles, which would change the patterns of AfDs. Anyway, the point is that if the sample isn't as representative as it should be, then measures can be taken to change that (perhaps new ways of publicizing or getting users involved in AfDs besides the central list). Ron Duvall (talk) 23:57, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

The problem with such analysis is that it requires subjective opinions on the quality of the articles being nominated. It would be a pretty extreme inclutionist who believes hoaxes and the like should be kept. If the majority of articles being nominated are truly junk, then the majority of opinions cast should be for deletions (and vice versa). -- JLaTondre (talk) 00:21, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

This is true; one would need objective criteria. But for purposes of deciding whether it is biased in favor of my views or against them, I could use my own opinion as a baseline, looking at each article and deciding whether I would have voted to delete. Then I can compare those results against the other participants' opinions, and see which editors are typically on my side or the other, and what their patterns of participation are. I.e., as a group, do those who tend to side with me participate infrequently, and those who tend to side against me participate frequently? If we wanted to figure out whether the results are biased against what the overall Wikipedia community would have decided, we might take a representative sample of Wikipedians and ask them to do the same thing – look at some articles from AfD and give their opinion as a baseline, and run those comparisons. Of course, then there is the other question – is it beneficial to have the sample be representative, or does the current system produce better results? Another subjective decision, which if I want to evaluate based on my own personal criteria, I can do by comparing my own decisions, the decisions of the representative sample of the community, and the decisions that the AfD process actually produced. Ron Duvall (talk) 00:33, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Of course, the fact that deleted articles are hidden from view might present some obstacles to conducting such experiments, if one didn't happen to be an admin... Ron Duvall (talk) 00:35, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

yes, it seems like an odd system to in effect let he jurors pick whatever case they wish to judge. But its similar to ballot referenda, where among the many items people vote on those that they think important. Like there, the way to avoid pressure groups is for people to take an interest in examining some of the other items being proposed also. If every active WPedian would take a look at even one AfD a week that he was not directly concerned with, we'd get over 10 additional comments a day on each, which would give a much fairer view without burdening any one person. DGG (talk) 03:15, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the participation at AfD, while somewhat self-selected, is a good representative sample of those interested in deletion issues, when debates get low-level participation... and have good representative samples of the population overall for contentious debates. But regardless, there will always have to be some central way of locating these deletion debates because Admins would be needed to close them, so those interested in deletion can use the same channel to find debates and comment on them. We could make the channel less user-friendly than it is now, but that would only serve to discourage those who are casual about it, and those users are some of the ones we really want to keep involved in the process. Mangojuice^talk 03:58, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

If AfD (and other debates) are already representative, then it kinda shoots down the whole theory behind Wikipedia:Delegable proxy, which is that users who don't participate much in debates should appoint a proxy so that their views can still be represented and participation bias can be reduced. But perhaps it is approximately equal proportions of, say, inclusionists and deletionists, and the other factions of Wikipedia, who don't participate. In that case, really all we need to do is what DGG says, just pitch in on extra xfD a week that we wouldn't otherwise be concerned with. That will also have some of the same effect of drowning out sockpuppets/trolls/etc. that delegable proxy is designed to have. Ron Duvall (talk) 05:43, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

On second thought, though, who knows... Someone was telling me earlier that Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Esperanza may not have accurately reflected what the community as a whole (i.e. if every active Wikipedian had turned out) would have decided. Yeah, proxy expansions on some of those contentious debates would have been interesting to look at... I'm not sure how much it would help in these deletion debates where you have four or five people participating though. Sorry, getting off topic here. Anyway, yeah, keep prodding those articles... that template looks pretty good as is, actually, for the most part... except that it states in recommendatory, rather than imperative, language, "to avoid confusion, it helps to explain why you object to the deletion" which should be strengthened. Ron Duvall (talk) 06:23, 16 February 2008 (UTC)