Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Deletion/archive1

Initial Project Outlines

First of all, I want to stress : This is not the Deletionist Cabal. That's down the hall, to the right.

Secondly, and seriously, I created this project because I feel right now Wikipedia has three problems. The first is that POV is increasingly beginning to affect deletion efforts. There is increased deletion of pro / anti articles on everything from alleged massacres and torture allegations to abortion to political figures and 9/11 conspiracies. Several administrators have been stripped of their power, and dozens of long-standing users and editors have left the project forever. POV has the potential to truly make deletion a cabal, and we cannot allow that to happen.

There are other problems, and unfortunately, no one is trying to fix them. There is too much reliance on civility, and gentle consensus, and passing around the buck, to be bold. No one is asking WHY these problems exist.

I will list the outline of my thinking out, and I would like feedback from anyone who wants to do so. Please state your thoughts in a sectioning started with "thoughts by User" .

Problems

• The political infection of POV into deletion debates, and in deletion rationales.
• The effects of continual reverts and alterations to articles that weaken their quality and nature, and the resulting degradation in sourcing, until a once well sourced article becomes disjointed and seemingly OR.
• The long-term effects of minor edits and so-called "clarifications" to WP:N, WP:V, and WP:RS, that continue to further mudddy the water rather than actually clarify

Issues

• Deletion has become a complete partisan battleground between the roughly 800 or so active members of the Inclusionist-Deletionist War. Outsiders who do not consistantly take a positition do not take part in enough XfD to realize the only people consitantly voting on deletions are the two camps (Inclusionists and Deletionists) who probably shouldn't be voting on them.
• Deletion policies are coming under increasing outside pressure as external media mocks and belittles Wikipedia's exclusivity and resistance to original research, with the result that the consensus for looser, weaker deletion policy may result over time.
• Deletion review has a huge upswing in participation since more and more admins are not relying on policy to close debates.

Analysis

• The primary problems we need to analyze are the effect of policy changes on deletion. Does adding new notability guildlines like WP:SCHOOL lead to better articles, or just more deletion? Are increased deletions wiping out things that shouldn't be?
• There is a complete fucking lack of any initiative to source and expand articles. I can literally hit the random article button ten times and be guarnateed to find an article I could get deleted. This is ridiculous. Deleting these articles won't help, too many new ones keep pouring in.
• There is a need for better automated tools to identify, classify, tag, and sort articles that meet deletion criteria.

Solutions

• We must find a way to augment policy to maintain the spirit of verifiability, notability, NPOV, and no original research while resisting the POV attempts of people to use deletion as a way to remove the opinions of their enemies.
• We must find a way to turn deletion into a tool to encourage expansion and sourcing of articles so that the number of eyes we have doing NP Patrol and Speedy Deletion Patrol can also be a Sourcing Patrol and Wikifying Patrol.
• We must find a way to automate both the way we can look at deletion information and process deletions, as the volume of crap being put on the Wiki is beyond the capacity of even a human gestalt like Wikipedia to analyze. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 23:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Thoughts by NeoFreak

• Admins that are either unfamiliar with or apathetic about the application of policy while closing an AfD. Admins often simply look at a "vote tally" to close an AfD is unacceptable. Standards for adminship need to go way up; they are the public face and the keepers of wikipedia and its policies.
• The very nature of open source. Any time any one can add anything at the snap of a finger that then requires a lengthy process to remove results in a back log of crap. Only registered users should be able to edit.
• Sources tags: they're all bark and no bite. Placing a problem tag helps attract a little attention and serves as a notice to parties interested in the article but they don't actually do anything. Any article that has a sources/notability/etc tag because the article is totally lacking in those categories for a specific amount of time, with no fixes, should be subject to a speedy deletion. Otherwise everyone's time is wasted fighting protective editors or explaining policy over and over again in a unneeded AfD.
• Subjects with only internet sources: they are a huge problem esp with subcultures, trends, obscure sexual inclinations and the such. People need to get serious about WP:V and WP:RS and delete these articles on sight. Even though they no doubt exist in some form they are not verifiable by encyclopedic standards and need to go. NeoFreak 14:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Thoughts by Elaragirl

• Admins can be broken down into three camps: Admins that close AfD's based on policy, good. Admins that close AfD's based on vote numbers, bad. Admins that close AfD's based on personal opinion, fuckery. Increasingly, admins that are seen as too deletionist are being slapped around and overturned at DRV and then the AfD's are mobbed. Some of this is WikiProject listings and organizing through backchannels to "save their articles". (IRC is rife with this bullshit, and we can expect email is too.)
• Cleanup is completely fucked, with a backlog that is growing. When people see an article that needs a LOT of work and is hard to find easy online sources for they just skip it. These are zombie articles, neither alive nor dead, and while possessing not a jot of useful information they clog up the cleanup queue. We need to kill the deadwood.
• Subjects such as internet memes, with no paper sources and no offline credability or notability, are hard to call. Certainly some struggle to meet WP:V. But so did "All your base are belong to us" at one time. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 17:31, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Thoughts from Moreschi

• DRV is becoming increasingly unlovable. There are too many "I don't like the result" noms that waste time and space.
• CAT:CSD IS 95 PER CENT OF THE TIME HORRIFICALLY BACKLOGGED. FOR SOMEONE WHO DOES A FAIR BIT OF NP PATROL, THIS IS VERY, VERY, ANNOYING. It would be nice if there were more admins who kept on top of CSD.
• Too many AFD votes are ILIKEIT votes - often quite literally. Cruft is quite often justified on the basis that it is useful to the fans of that piece of cruft. The question of encyclopedicness is too often completely ignored.
• Page protection. Even after 3 recreates, admins still won't salt. Is there a reason for this, or do people not just look at the page logs?
• The concept of what actually does and does not constitute "reliable sources" needs to be greater popularized, and that if something has no reliable sources it should be deleted is not understood. WP:V and WP:RS are too often taken as negotiable. They aren't. Moreschi 17:56, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Thoughts from TheronJ

• Need for clean-up/verification as a ground for deletion: A lot of people respond on AFD that AFD is not a request for clean-up. I used to agree, but now I say, why not delete pages that are currently worthless, or even very nearly worthless? If there is literally nothing in the page that is verifiably sourced, then what use is the page? I say stubbify to anything worthwhile, or, if there is nothing worthwhile, delete it and let someone write a good page in its place. Maybe we need some policy innovation, like Delete and re-list at WP:Requested_Articles or Delete if not substantially improved in N days. There is no purpose in keeping worthless junk around for a year just in case someone eventually decides to write a worthwhile article with the same name.
• WP:ILIKEIT: On the other hand, I don't think "I like it" is necessarily an invalid vote. If the subject of the article is verifiable by reliable sources, then, IMHO, a substantial base of loyal editors should be one fact that is relevant to the more nebulous concepts of notability and encylopediosity.

Thanks, TheronJ 21:56, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Goals query

I applaud the creation of this project and like the statement of purpose quote from Heller, but I'd like to see the goals section beefed up to be more deletionist rather than merely about deletion (which is what it comes across to me at the moment). While I understand the disinclination to be antagnostic with Wikipedia:WikiProject_Inclusion (though I would note that Wikiproject Inclusion is very vocal about its apparently outright opposition to exclusionism and deletionism), I don't see the need for WikiProject Deletionism's goals to worry about inclusionist sensitivities too much. Goal No.2 could be part of Wikiproject Inclusion, for instance: "To review the outcomes of WP:AfD for inappropiate deletions to more correctly identify articles that should and should not be nominated.". But this statement implies that incorrect deletions/nominations are the key problem - surely incorrectly undeleted articles (due to keep/no consensus/reluctance to nominate/restoration through DRV) are just as big or even bigger problem?. More on this theme, later. Bwithh 17:19, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes and no. The main problem with WP:Inclusion is that it is inclusionist to the point of absurdity. In my opinion (and yes, we can discuss this freely and change it if we have a consensus of as low as 25%) Deletionists want proper deletion. Remember, while we want to take out the trash, we cannot accept collateral damage. Some articles are put up for deletion that don't need to be. What I fear is twofold. One, that inclusionists, eventualists, and ilikeitists (who are all growing more rapidly than deletionists and exclusionists) will use these improper AfD's to loosen policy and allow in more crap.

But more important than that is that we are here to build an encyclopedia, and if AfD is killing off articles that can be fixed, it's not doing it's job. I want Deletionists to have the moral and policy high ground here. I am not sure WHAT the key problem is, that's why I started the project. Deletion discussion is usually overrun with people who want to score points, and no one is looking at the results. Still, I look forward to your thinking, and if even a few people think we need to change course we can. There won't be any bullshit extranous "executive councils" or that garbage.--Elaragirl^Talk|Count 17:27, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Opinions wanted at AFD suffering from neglect

At Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mingo ambient musician - I nominated this a while back and there's one proper vote so far and a whole load of socks. Honest opinions, please - yeah or nay, I do not wish to votestack. Thank you. Moreschi 18:07, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Voted weak keep after I found a few possible sources. Should we have a subpage for this kind of thing? By the way, that article is the kind of borderline case that worries me. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 19:12, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Subpage doesn't sound like a bad idea - also could be for people to come and get feedback on what to do and likely outcomes before they nominate articles for AFD, which could save a lot of time and bother. Moreschi 19:48, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

And another

I have one that is sitting alone in the corner as well, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Associated Student Bodies. It's a NN and amateur furry comic book with no sources. The only people that care enough to vote on it are...furries. NeoFreak 13:12, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

An automated list of neglected (less than 5 votes) AfD's is generated by Dragons Flight, and is very useful. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 13:51, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

AFD isnt a vote

This wikiproject (at least that vote section) undermines afds reason. It used to be vfd (votes for deletion), it was changed to afd for a reason. --Cat out 20:06, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

How many pages are you going to spam with this? Naconkantari 20:21, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm hugely disturbed by the messages about the AfD process being put out by this page. Seriously, votes on XfD discussions are never counted on a "points" scale, and admins only very rarely use the vote count method. Wikipedia breathes consensus, and the "checking" process encouraged by this page completely undermines this. Comments are invaluable, and should always be taken into account, and a Strong delete bears no extra weight than a weak delete - it's the arguement behind the opinion which matter to the closing admin. Also, the page suggests that a "merge and delete" should have taken place on a page. Unfortunately, in most cases, such an action is illegal (in real life), as it violates the GDFL. Delete and merge is never a viable deletion opinion - when I'm closing an XfD and see a string of such opinions, I'll honestly ignore the delete bit and instead initiate a merge and redirect, with a sternly placed message about the GDFL in my closing summary. Consensus has to be fairly clear on wikipedia debates, and most debates, in the absence of consensus, default to keep (no votes in some discussions default to delete (TFD, IFD and CFD)), thus the "Keep (no consensus)" close by Shanel in the example cited on the page is perfectly correct, as there were hugely varying opinions on the discussion page. What the votes actually were makes no difference at all in their value to the closing admin! Martinp23 20:42, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

1. The rating has nothing to do with how the closing admin determines it. It has to do with consensus, and it's still being developed. The idea is to create a bot to generate a report. A bot cannot figure out comments. The main point of the bot is to examine contested AfD's and see if a quick overview of the voting process matches what the Admin did. If you think there are admins who don't just count votes and keep and delete, take a gander at some of the things deleted at DRV that were completely out of process. The bot would bring up such contested AfD's. For that reason, we need some way to review the process. I'm using differences in strong and weak for now to see how it models. In some cases, it models well. In others, it models poorly. When I figure out a way to make it model things accurately, I'll finalize it. But we do NOT go around rating deletions and taking them to DRV. I've never taken anything to DRV, and I've only taken a very few completely crap articles to AfD and except for one, they were all deleted by huge margins. I feel you are misinterpreting our intent, and I urge you to read ALL of the project page.
2. You use the example that Shanel closed. OPINION DOES NOT AND SHOULD NOT DETERMINE YOUR KEEP OR DELETE CHOICE. If you aren't using policy, you're using WP:ILIKEIT. Period. There isn't an option here. If you have 5 people voting delete with good reasons and 500 people voting keep with NO reasons, you would keep the article? There wasn't a single policy used in that vote, and that's why it's being reviewed at DRV and getting wrecked. Furthermore, you are missing the main point. It is just as offensive to have things deleted out of process as it is to have them kept out of process. I personally find it hilarious that you have no problem with WikiProject Inclusion and it's assertion that deletion is basically the domain of those who just want to delete, and yet want to attack the idea that we can examine the deletion process ourselves, simply because we are deletionists. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 21:00, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I am more deletionist than inclusionist. I mean, I created WP:NPW, to tag pages for deletion :)! I just tihnk that the whole idea of the vote scores is completely out of line, and so far from the truth of deletion debates that it scares me. I haven't really looked at the inclusionism project, and I'm sure I'd have similar concerns if they have such a scoring system. If you're looking to create a bot to do something like this, I'd suggest that you do something which shows the number of opinions placed (including comments) and that you strongly re-word that section in the page about scoring. WikiDiscussion Manager is a good tool for looking ast which AfDs might need more opinions. Martinp23 21:12, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I've moved it since it's being willfully misinterpreted, to userspace. Opinions, all too often, are either irrelevant or merely discussion. They play a very large role in an admin's decision but since they can't be interpreted by bot or used to decide whether an AfD is valid or not, they aren't my primary concern. A bot would have problems. A vote that had a bunch of deletions and then turned up a few good sources and was kept would come up as possibly improperly closed. But the bot wouldn't change any pages, it's mostly looking to create a table for me to examine, so I can see 1) if my suspicions of trends are correct, and 2) to identify the AfD's ( and by extention, the admins) who are deleting or keeping based on process that doesn't seem to fit consensus.--Elaragirl^Talk|Count 21:23, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

• As I said above, I think "I like it" has at least some relevance to the subjective deletion grounds (principally notability and "not encylcopedic"), assuming that an article meets other baseline requirements. (Principally WP:V and WP:CITE). TheronJ 21:59, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

And as I've said elsewhere, when WP:ILIKEIT is used as the reason to keep, you will usually find articles that don't just fail but drastically fail WP:V and WP:RS. I understand the spirit of your meaning , and in some ways I can even sympathize with it. But unless and until there is a willingness on the part of more people to accept that not all things belong in an encyclopedia, I think it ends up causing more discord than consensus. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 00:45, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Yawn. At least this isn't as bizarre as nominating WP:CIVIL for deletion. Check out the link, by the way. It seems to me that Elaragirl's explanation about what this prospective bot might be used for is perfectly satisfactory and should be left there. Moreschi ^Deletion! 10:28, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I really think this is a bad idea

all it's going to do is to inflame passions. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:53, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

• Heaven forbid passions be inflamed. NeoFreak 23:14, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Possibly it is a bad idea, but considering there's a whole bunch of projects specifically aimed at keeping huge swathes of unencyclopaedic and non-notable crap, it's about time there was one aimed at getting rid of them, outside of those user subpages maintained by petty little people. Proto::► 23:17, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
• I think the founders of this are trying to take extra care not to be confrontational or inflammatory. I wonder whether "Deletion" rather than "Deletionism" would be a better name for the project, as it seems to be emphasizing the understanding and process of deletion? Bwithh 23:24, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Irony, mostly. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 00:43, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Also, Zoe, I'm trying very hard not to inflame passions. We're moving very quietly, and so far we're just examining things and , for my part at least, interpreting events and policy to try to figure out what is going on. Could you give me some ideas of changes you'd think that would be good?--Elaragirl^Talk|Count 00:49, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Given that you've written comments like "Admins that close AfD's based on personal opinion, fuckery." you aren't succeeding. Please try yet harder. Uncle G 17:09, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
      • I don't think that comments such as these were written in an emphatically antagonistic spirit - I think they were written in a casual, informal tone. However, I do agree with Uncle G that we should move towards a more formal, neutral language. Bwithh 18:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
• Given the strength of Uncle G & Zoe as editors & overall participants, their comments deserve to be taken very seriously. I agree with much of the above, but Zoe's point is well made. I concur w/Bwithh that the emphasis needs to be placed on improving the overall quality of the project, not blindly deleting stuff because of a vague idea that the servers are rapidly filling up with mindless crap. Deletion is a means to an end, not an end in itself; that end is improved quality of articles and editorial standards. Eusebeus 17:04, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I do think that was the intent of the founders in drawing up the initial statements on the page was to highlight quality issues and editorial standards issues (see my exchange with Eleragirl above). I was just wondering whether the language could be made more consistently neutral (it's very neutral in some places and then gets significantly less so elsewhere) Bwithh 18:48, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Agree completely, although as Proto notes above it is tempting to use less than diplomatic language and a conciliatory tone when faced with some of the stuff that other groups are determined on retaining, often with crusading zeal, that is clearly without encyclopaedic merit. At any event, I don't think this is a bad idea and I feel it should be given a shot with kudos to Elaragirl our fearless leader for taking this latest initiative. If it serves only to arouse passions and suspicions, it can be revisited. Eusebeus 21:30, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

New Random Page Patrol Userbox/category

For those interested, I've just created this. Yeah, I know its just a badge and a category, but hopefully it will encourage more people to do this kind of patrol. You get less frequent hits (needs a bit more clickwork... on the other hand, you're not "competing" with other editors over the same small number of recent/new pages) that need tagging or fixing or nomination for afd than new pages/recent pages patrol but you do usually dig up pages which are old and obscure or fell through the cracks in the new page patrol net.

See Wikipedia:Random_page_patrol Bwithh 02:12, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

sidenote: Monobook Upgrade

Maybe I'm late to the party, and this is old news but for those who don't have it already, I really recommend installing the monobook script recommended at the top of the page here. I just found that when I was digging around creating the Random Page Patrol thingy. Its got way more features than the ordinary popups I was using before Bwithh 02:23, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Does Wikipedia really need its own political parties?

Heck, I'm as deletionist as they come ... I may not be overly active about it on the article side, but I really don't like having kazillions of articles about every two-word phrase that has ever been uttered twice in human history and I don't like having articles about every garage band that has ever put out a CD or mentioned by a local beat writer in need of a story. But really ... this kind of thing isn't a great idea. We're here to improve an encyclopedia, not advocate WikiPolitical objectives. Clean up an article. Tag an unused image for deletion. But do we really need something like this? BigDT 22:54, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

The point of this is that it isn't political. The name is slightly misreading, and possibly should be changed to WikiProject Deletion. Read more of what is said on the project page and you will see it's about improving WP in the area of deletion, not to be a real-life Deletionist Cabal. Cheers, Moreschi ^Deletion! 22:58, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Why not call it Wikipedia:WikiProject Article Standards or Wikipedia:WikiProject Article Quality? Honestly, I'm torn between nominating this page at MFD (a mind-boggling circular reference, I would admit) and embracing it as a great tool to rid Wikipedia of junk. But as it stands now, it's confrontational and it has the potential to be used for vote-stacking. BigDT 23:02, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I think "political party" is rather misleading label. This is a project about bringing together people interested in the process of deletionism and how it is and should/shouldn't be applied. How it can be improved, changed and refined. Just like any other wikiproject this place can and should serve as a place for everyone regardless of their "school of thought" to come together and make the process of deletion better. I think the title might be inflammatory to some and that might deserve a second look but this is not a deltionist clubhouse. NeoFreak 00:24, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

This is yet another effort to institutionalize conflict and to make conflict resoultion into a process of personal attack against perceived ideological foes. It is an effort, albeit ignorant and unintended, to drive off cooperative editors while recruiting and retaining conflict-oriented editors. Purgeusdhs 16:39, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

"This is a project about bringing together people interested in the process of deletionism" The suffix "ism" implies an ideal, not a process. Perhaps NeoFreak's time would be better spent studying vocabulary instead of using his/her limited vocabulary to influence the literary endeavors of more competent scholars. Purgeusdhs 16:42, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Says he with 4 edits, all of them to this WikiProject. Whose sockpuppet is this? Do tell, please. Moreschi ^Deletion! 16:44, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Avoiding rational discourse, Moseshci goes straight for the personal attack. That gives us a clue what this project is about. Purgeusdhs 16:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Sniffle? NeoFreak 20:49, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppet for government agency

This project was likely started by a sockpuppet of User:MONGO who identified himself within the Wikipedia namespace as an agent of the US Dept. of Homeland Security. The project is primarily a front to develop mechanisms for removal of articles objectionable to such government propagandists. Purgeusdhs 16:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Uh yeah right, how bizarre Bwithh 18:06, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Why MONGO as opposed to any of the other thousands of people who think there is too much junk on Wikipedia? BigDT 21:22, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Over the past several weeks, User:MONGO has been targeted for harassment by a significant number of sockpuppets of a banned user. I would have reverted the initial comment here as blatant trolling except that it had already been responded to. Newyorkbrad 21:40, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I've posted at ANI recommending indefblock for this obvious sock. Moreschi ^Deletion! 21:42, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Name calling is a bad idea

The associations over at Meta are one thing, but we should really avoid editors calling other editors "deletionists" and "inclusionists". Wikipedia:AfD Patrol is explicitly neutral when it comes to those two appellations, largely avoiding mention of either one, and that is a good thing. Part of this Wikiproject, the part that deals with encouraging all editors to base their rationales (in whichever direction) upon our policies and guidelines, appears to have the same aim as AFD Patrol. And the "Whenever possible, FIX. Whenever possible, SOURCE. Whenever possible, FIND THE NOTABILITY." recommendation is also a practice that we need more of (cf. WP:OSTRICH). But the name-calling in both the project's page name and much of the project page's text is a bad idea. Uncle G 17:00, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Organization?

I'm not the single purpose account (please run a check user if you're really suspicious) which tried to modify this :

"We don't have time to waste on unencyclopedic social nitwitery such as governance councils, charters, or elections. There is no leader. Any Wikipedian in good standing is welcome. WE have no positions. We don't have notice boards, and we don't have barnstars. (FFS, giving out barnstars for deleting articles would get us tarred and feathered.)"

Besides the point that Uncle G made about labelling (which I'm still thinking about), the page tries a lot to avoid being confrontational, so why is this particular bit about organization not so sensitive? ("time to waste", "social nitwitery such as governance councils, charters, or elections. There is no leader.", "WE have no positions", "We don't have barnstars."). Is it because its not directly related to the deletion issue which we're trying to be sensitive about? In any case, it seems rather off-topic to me, especially when its unnecessarily strongly-worded. Incidentally, there's already a nicknamed "deletionist" barnstar that has been nicknamed so since March 2005[1] (though its more to do with the cutting down of articles - but that's a very important aspect too) , and I don't think we should make the assumption on the front page that deletionism is a dirty word/scandalous concept ("tarred and feathered"). Maybe it is for some people, but we shouldn't emphasize this Bwithh 18:02, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:RFCU specifies that disruptive and obvious socks sould be blocked on sight, not checkusered ... which is unfortunate, because now everyone who thinks this project is ill-conceived will be suspected of being the puppet-master. BigDT 21:19, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but a checkuser would help determine who the puppet-master is Bwithh 22:14, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, that's not even what I'm trying to talk about Bwithh 22:15, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Userbox issue

The project name has now been changed to "Wikiproject Deletion" (fine by me) but the Userbox still reads "Wikiproject Deletionism". It's in Elaragirl's user space, so I don't want to change it unilaterally myself... Bwithh 06:13, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I think she's been rather busy so I changed it a couple days ago. NeoFreak 22:45, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Experimental Deletion

Herm, whats this? Bwithh 08:35, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

This project should be deleted. --Grace Note.

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:41, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Request for source-searching

Hello, everyone! I don't suppose anyone's got any reliable sources that support the notability of a metasearch engine called Gokita? I'm probably going to AFD this within the next few days if nothing is found. I can't find anything on my own - certainly google is telling me nothing - but I'm not the world's greatest google searcher, so I would appreciate some help. Cheers, Moreschi ^Deletion!

Speedied before I could AFD. Moreschi ^Deletion! 10:52, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Moving along

I haven't been posting much, or getting things moving, but I should, probably by the middle of the month. I'm interested in everyone's ideas so far.

Also, thanks to Editor-at-Large and Gracenotes for fixing up the front page a bit. :) --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 21:51, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Die, articles

Die, articles! Die! I salute you, my deletionist friends. Rintrah 08:31, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Welcome! Nice to have you with us. Cheers, Moreschi ^Deletion! 10:19, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I marked my first article for speedy deletion: Oregono. I hope it goes down in flames. Rintrah 10:22, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Certainly spam: you should probably notify the creator with {{subst:repost-warn|page name}}. Cheers, Moreschi ^Deletion! 10:30, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Rintrah 10:32, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

It's been deleted, but I don't see anything indicating that it had been reposted. Perhaps you meant {{spam-warn}} (which I've put on the talkpage of the author)? Regards, Tonywalton  | Talk 10:46, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Comments about new rule statements

Just wondering about the thinking behind

• "WikiProject Deletionism members should consider recusing themselves from any discussion that is highly controversial."

-- Why should we recuse ourselves? What is meant by "highly controversial"?

• "We are not here to overturn policy against consensus.

-- I think I agree with the general gist of community discussion... but don't forget core policies ultimately overrule consensus or even community discussion in itself (e.g. this recent example )

• "Before nominating for deletion it is a good idea to check for notability and to make some attempt at finding reliable sources. If there are some, then include them and try to improve the articles. If there is truly nothing there, then and only then go ahead with the nomination for deletion."

-- Well, yes, that's great - I personally always try to do this before nominating, unless its a nonsense article or something. I also always inform the article creator about an afd nomination discussion. Both practices should be encouraged (a minority do the former, and an even smaller minority does the latter) as generally good deletion nomination practice.

But don't forget that this is a much more cautious approach then the one advocated by core non-negotiable policy WP:V which states that at the same time that the burden of evidence is on the editor who creates or adds content to produce sources and assert notability (and not on the remover or deletor), ideally we should all be "aggressive" (Jimbo's terms) in removing unsourced content.

I would suggest softening the "If there is truly nothing there, then and only then..." to "If nothing comes up with a reasonable search for references, then...."

Bwithh 08:50, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

The reason I use such language is twofold. One, as deletion is far more difficult to undo than creation, I prefer to err on the side of caution. More importantly, the more you delete and the less careful you are, the more likely you are to delete something that shouldn't. The more you do of that, the more likely it becomes that there will be a backlash, and the inclusion limits loosened even further. I'd rather have a few crap articles than millions. As for the rest...

• "WikiProject Deletionism members should consider recusing themselves from any discussion that is highly controversial.": This is for the simple reason that controversial discussions and XfD's often involve votestacking. I didn't say you had to recuse. I said you should consider it. Especially if the XfD in question is brought up here.

• "We are not here to overturn policy against consensus. : What I meant by that is simple. If the majority of Wikipedians decide they want crap articles, they should have them. If the majority of Wikipedians want good articles free of crap they should have that. But right now, we don't KNOW because we don't even know if all the things we're deleting SHOULD be deleted. For every skull-shatteringly stupid Gundam article that requires a flamethrower just to kill it cleanly so it won't stain the good articles, we have borderline stuff.

As far as being aggressive goes, I really don't like the way Jimbo puts some things. It takes me five minutes to do a quick Google search. If Jimbo is saying that "No, don't take the five minutes, if you don't see a source delete the fucking thing" then I quit NOW. An encyclopedia isn't a joke, and increasingly it seems like the people at the top of Wikipedia aren't bothering to realize what some of their actions look like to use poor old editors.

If I nom an article , it's because it's a sourceless piece of badly written crap, without the potential to be expanded and with no notability and little if any verifiability. When I vote to delete, I try to hold myself to that same standard. If I can find a source, I should source it. Saying it's on the inclusionists to do it is a nice ideal ,but worthless. Inclusionists don't even know how to WRITE articles, from what I've seen, they just write stubs and expect someone else to come along and source them, copyedit them, clean them, and cat them. (sigh) --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 09:05, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the response, Elaragirl. Its food for thought. (though an initial point - isn't the actual act of undeletion (as happens at Deletion Review) quite straightforward for admins? The main drawback as I understand it in my vague untechnical way is that deleted material, while still actually stored on servers, has a lower level of backup in the unlucky event of a some server disaster Bwithh 09:21, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I was recently made an admin on a smaller wiki, and I have my own wiki , so I have an actual understanding of it. Yes, it's as simple as pressing a link. That isn't really the point. It's straightforward for admins from a technical point of view. From a policy point of view it's horrific, since if you undelete something that was deleted and reviewed and left deleted, and you anger a lot of people by undeleting it, someone will drag you to ArbCom.

To me, before we haul it off to be killed, we should make sure it needs to be killed. Many of these "neglected AfDs" are of articles that could be sourced and made good, but simply don't draw the interest of inclusionists. More to the point, once it's undeleted the only people who CAN see it are admins...and that limits the likelyhood that it will be brought back once it's dead. Out of sight, out of mind, after all. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 09:26, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Candidate?

Cork GAA honours just consists of award names and years listed for each. Should I prod this? Rintrah 16:14, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:NOT a brag list? Certainly WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE. I'd AFD, I'm not sure how much precedent there is for deleting this sort of thing. There's quite a bit of this sportcruft floating around, methinks, someone needs to do a cleanup. Moreschi ^Deletion! 16:45, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll merge it with Cork GAA. If the GAAfans don't want it there, they can remove it. For some strange reason the ladies' hurling honours are not listed here, but in Cork GAA. Poor show. Angus McLellan (Talk) 16:52, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Not sure. It's a list of dates. Can it be sourced or expanded? --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 00:21, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd imagine the GAA WikiProject people could source it easily; they'll have cribbed the info out of some exciting Gaelic sports almanac. Expanding it is surely possible - I imagine almanacs will have the scores, and any decent library (of which there will be a few in Cork) will have newspapers and yearbooks with match reports from 80 years ago, not to mention Flashbacks 1950-2000: A Half-century of Cork Hurling (ISBN 1898256993 if anyone is interested) and the like - but I'm not sure I really want to suggest that. They might take me up on it, and this is not GAA-pedia. So I think a merge is the way to go. I just need to convince Mr Nevin of that. Angus McLellan (Talk) 00:52, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:XfD Patrol

G'day, everyone. I've been reading these pages with some interest - I think the group itself is a great idea, and I was tempted to sign up, but I share some of Uncle G's concerns. Elaragirl goes to great pains to make it clear that this is not a Deletionist cabal, and that Inclusionists are welcome - full credit to her. But if you were an Inclusionist, found a project called "WikiProject Deletion", and saw ongoing discussions regarding what pages to nominate for deletion, what would you think? Would Inclusionists join a "deletion" project just to give it balance? Would Deletionists join an "inclusion" project just to give it balance? (To be clear, I have no interest in joining a group that advocates inclusion or deletion, all I'm interested in here is the process itself.)

I noticed Wikipedia:AfD Patrol sitting around. It was apparently founded solely to spread awareness of existing policy. Just one problem - no-one bothered to join it. You've got a fair few people here already. Why not hijack it? Or make a new XfD group? At least it'd be consistent.

Who watches recent changes? Wikipedia:Recent changes patrol.
Who watches new pages? Wikipedia:New pages patrol.
Who watches XfD discussions? Wikipedia:XfD patrol.
Give it the same logo as all of them - make it clear that it behaves in exactly the same fashion.

There's a reason you don't call NPP New pages deletion, or call police officers "arrestors". Sure, a lot of their work involves deleting things or arresting people, respectively, but labelling them that way implies a systemic bias towards that course of action, when in reality they both have a wide range of options to choose from. Also, it's not the job of these patrols to argue the benefits of responsible deletion, or campaign for policy change. They're simply there to ensure that existing policies are implemented.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to see a group that looks for dodgy pages to be deleted, and advocates the benefits of "responsible deletion". But such a group should be totally independent of the XfD patrol. Imagine a structure with these three groups:

Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion - finds encyclopedia pages to nominate for deletion, advocates benefits of responsible deletion
Wikipedia:XfD Patrol - only patrols XfD pages, and ensures that current policies are upheld. Provides a neutral forum to discuss XfD issues, but the group itself is absolutely neutral on the delete/include question.
Wikipedia:WikiProject Inclusion - finds AfD'd pages to keep, advocates benefits of responsible inclusion

There's no reason why someone couldn't be a member of both XfD Patrol and Deletion. Indeed, I'd encourage it. But with this three group approach, the XfD Patrol would provide a "neutral ground" for Inclusionists and Deletionists to discuss XfD issues. The XfD Patrol is also more likely to get a good mix of both groups. Quack 688 00:35, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that your idea is a good one. But the XfD patrol... I don't know. Your three group outline is excellent, but neutrality is what the issue is. I'd actually prefer XfD patrol to have a larger base of inclusionists than deletionists. My earliest analysis (very rough) indicate a large number of pages ARE being deleted incorrectly. (I'll present my results soon enough).

It's a good idea. Are you going to get working on it? :D --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 00:55, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Who, me? If this project just got renamed to "XfD Patrol", and used the same Irish copper icon as the other patrols, I think most of the work would be done already - the page you've written would make a great "manifesto" for an XfD Patrol. The only thing I'd do is fork off some content, to create a second "Deletion" project, and clearly define the areas of responsibility of these two projects.

Primary mission of XfD Patrol: Ensure that due process is carried out on XfD.

Secondary mission: Provide a neutral forum for discussing all XfD related issues, Inclusionist or Deletionist.

Scope: Anything listed on XfD.

Primary mission of Deletion: Find pages which are inappropriate for Wikipedia and either fix/merge them or nominate them for deletion.

Secondary mission: Raise awareness of the benefits of responsible deletion.

Scope: Anything not listed on XfD.

Of course, in reality, there'd be some overlap. But the basic concept is that Deletion looks across Wikipedia for articles in poor shape, with an eye towards improvement or deletion. If they think the page can't be saved, they nominate it. Once the page is nominated, responsibility is handed over to the XfD Patrol. Of course, individual Wikipedians can do whatever the hell they want. Members of Deletion are still free to visit the AfD and say why the article should be deleted. But that's not the responsibility of the group, as a whole.

I cannot believe I am reading this . "Members of Deletion are still free to Visit AfD and say why the articles should be deleted." I would hope they are also free to visit AfD and say why the article should be kept. I would hope there is nobody here who thinks it appropriate to always either not vote on AfD or argue for Delete. It would be just as absurd as choosing to either allways abstain or argue for Keep. It's wrong if even a single individual feels that way for their own individual votes, because it shows an attitude that is not objective. If we have a bot, the bot should partially disregard votes from people who always vote (or argue) a certain way, because they are nor judging the individual articles. (If the meaning was that those in a group should all either abstain or delete, then the meaning is inimical to any concept of fair process.) I respect the people in this project, and honor the understanding that they are independent thinkers. I hope I am correct in that. I would like to join myself, even if I do vote 3/4 of the time for Keep at AfD. DGG 06:22, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they can always argue to keep an article - as I said in the previous sentence,

"individual Wikipedians can do whatever the hell they want"

My point was that just because the deletion group finds a bad article and nominates it for deletion, it doesn't represent a conflict of interest for individual members to go and participate in the AfD itself. Keep, delete, merge, abstain, whatever the hell they want. Quack 688 06:54, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Meanwhile, XfD Patrol takes an interest in the article as soon as it appears on AfD. If issues like vote-stacking, inappropriate arguments, or incorrect closing decisions arise, it's XfD Patrol's job to address them, since that's their exact area of responsibility. Likewise, XfDers can discuss deletion criteria, and pick an example or two in Wiki-space, but it's not their job to systematically find things to improve or nominate - that's Deletion's job. Quack 688 03:02, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

No actual content is lost at MfD, TfD, RfD, CfD, or UCfD [duh!], so full-scale XfD patrol seems to be overkill. I find it really difficult to worry about categories, or templates, and the main problem with redirects is that we don't have nearly enough of them. Only AfD and Category:All articles proposed for deletion really matter for our purposes. Angus McLellan (Talk) 01:24, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: XfD vs AfD. The XfD name just reflects that the group has an interest in all deletion-related processes. In reality, of course, nearly all of the focus would be on AfD, but there's no reason to explicitly exclude other XfD processes from our field of view. Quack 688 03:02, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I am glad to have your response. I therefore take it that, while I may disagree with the AfD and other comments of some of the people here much of the time, I will be welcome, and I have therefore signed up. DGG 01:41, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

No worries, it's great to get as many viewpoints here as possible. Just to be clear, my comments above were regarding my idea to split this up into two differnet groups, a "XfD Patrol" that concentrates solely on due process at XfD , and a "Deletion" group that finds dodgy articles and either fixes them or nominates them for AfD. Those are two distinct jobs - and no "XfD Patrol" currently exists, I think it'd be a useful complement to groups like New Page Patrol, and Recent Changes Patrol. Do you have any thoughts on that proposed split? Quack 688 02:13, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Another Candidate

I'm not sure about this one: Dafydd Stephens, It seems like a vanity page. Rintrah 13:09, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd choose to delete it - he fails WP:PROF. Ultra-Loser ^{[ T ] [ C ]} 09:00, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Vanity is incorrect. If you look at the contribs of the editor who created it, it was written as a result of editing King-Kopetzky syndrome, which relies on works by Stephens. It's true that the article paraphrases Stephens's bio page at Cardiff Uni, but he didn't write that either. He seems to be something of an authority on King-Kopetzky syndrome, on Tinnitus, and on other esoteric hearing-related issues. Whether he meets WP:PROF, and whether the article can be based on independent sources, I don't know. What I'm sure of is that it is not a vanity - or WP:COI - piece. Angus McLellan (Talk) 09:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

A physician with that many research publications, apparently the world specialist in a human disease, and working on major research projects, is notable. Of course this can be based on independent sources, for his papers will have been cited hundreds of times, undoubtedly including citations review articles. Peer reviewed journal are RS.

How much are you looking for? This very suggestion indicates the present degree of bias against academics in deletion debates. Go look at the guidelines, present or proposed.

There are non-notable academics. Half of academics, taken in a broad sense, publish only one or two papers ever. DGG 00:02, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I've written a few articles on academics that might well not meet WP:PROF. Mere professors emeritus, or people who revolutionise key aspects of a field, they're not notable compared to the insane inclusionism of WP:MUSIC, or the accepted guidelines for notable football (soccer) players. Part of the problem is that there are a lot of vain academics, and CoI is endemic. A lot of the academics who are trying to stuff their biographies into WP have big axes to grind and are not the people we should be including.

I have no problem accepting Stephens as a notable academic of our time. His work is widely cited, he's regarded as an authority. That seems like the basic requirement for inclusion, subject to us being able to write a non-hagiographic article. Since Dafydd Stephens is a pretty bald statement of fact, it probably is neutral, although it would be nice to find a source independent of the subject to confirm it. Festschriften, are only common in some fields, and I don't think medicine is one of them. Anyway, you need to be near retiring to be the subject of one, and you need to be dead to be the subject of gushing appreciations and glowing obituaries. It's a problem, but people aiming to write about living artists and craftspeople face the same problem. I'm not sure that there's an easy answer. WP:NPOV is not negotiable, likewise WP:BLP. Angus McLellan (Talk) 00:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Some do fail NPOV (especially physicians, at least lately). However, mere "Vanity" is not fatal, because articles can be edited to minimize POV and COI. It an be just as easy to remove the puffery as to propose for deletion.

But much more common are those where the article is simply not written to WP standards, though the subject is clearly acceptable. There are articles stating a persons title, saying X books, and no more. It is clear from the position and title that there will be more, but whoever put the article in didn't bother, often from ignorance. (and this happens with artists etc also.) I often know that for about 1/2 hr each I could put enough in, but I did not come here to do just this and nothing else. I do it when there is an outrageous gap, like John Tyler Bonner--the person who wrote it didn't even put in that he was a member of the National Academy of Science. Otherwise if there is a recent author I give him a somewhat more detailed list of what to do than the template message--I have yet to standardize it.

Problems arise from people who are reckless with prod and especially speedy, from those who overrate or underrate the academic world, from those who do not understand there is scholarship in the humanities, from those who use GScholar on everything. It usually over-deletes, but it can work the other way. I've just said delete about an article for someone with 3 papers, all cited, but no professional work since the PhD. 5 years ago--although there was support for him, based entirely on a misreading of Google Scholar results.

DGG 04:24, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Improperly closed deletion debate?

Any thoughts on this [2]?A TfD was closed with "no consensus: keep", even though 13 editors argued delete with 5 in favour of keep (also note: one of the latter gave no argument whatsoever). This is not a headcount, but the few keep arguments were not very cogent. The deletion is now up for review. See, in particular, Coelacan's analysis of the previous debate [3]. --Folantin 09:59, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Mm... I don't know. That one looks very tricky.--Elaragirl^Talk|Count 22:42, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Criticism of this project on a Deletion Review request

Someone seems to think that this project unjustly targeted his/her article for deletion in a hostile way. I find the suggestion dubious, but just wanted to bring the case to the attention of the project talk page. The allegation may be baseless or not - or there may be another situation e.g. someone mentioning this project in some way and the comment being misinterpreted. I'll look further into this. Here's the relevant quote:

"I also feel that WikiProject Deletion or Deletionism caused a rush on the process which was unnecessary. This intentional project can be hostile to developing entries and it make me uncomfortable as a learning wiki-editor and I'll go on record saying that. Brokendoor 03:21, 21 January 2007 (UTC)"

here's the link to the discussion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2007_January_21

Bwithh 03:29, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

The editor in question needs to learn about WP:AGF. There is no basis for that allegation; only two of us took part in the debate and it had nothing to do with this project. It's not really surprising that Project:Deletion members drop by at AfD now and then. We certainly don't have one of those "transclusion" pages that other projects use for vote-stacking alerting their members to items of interest. That people who have their articles deleted don't like "deletionists" and some will clutch at any straw to save their page isn't news either.--Folantin 09:07, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

That editor is just looking for someone to blame for the deletion of his/her article. They obviously didn't read the big bold text on the project page that says "We advocate the responsible use of deletion policy, not the deletion of articles". I'm sure (almost?) everyone here votes keep on a regular basis. Ultra-Loser ^{[ T ] [ C ]} 10:27, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I've even voted keep on a subject raised here.When I have concerns about an article, I stick a template on it's talk page. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 10:33, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

The Erie Pub

The Erie Pub fails the all-important Google test. All that supports the case for notability is that it was visited by a couple of Presidents[4] and King (Larry King?) said it was important[5]. What do you think? Delete? Rintrah 14:09, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

If it's been mentioned by Larry King and visited by presidents, I'd say that's pretty notable. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 16:34, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, as an article, it sucks badly, but in itself that's no reason for deletion. Leave it alone for the while. Moreschi ^Deletion! 16:45, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Or fix it. :D --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 16:56, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Hey, don't look at me. I'm a busy fellow these days: Orfeo ed Euridice for GA, List of important operas for FL, and eventually Agrippina for FA. But someone should fix it. Any volunteers? Moreschi ^Deletion! 17:03, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and the google test is not important, though it can help. You need to read WP:ILIKEIT for that one. Moreschi ^Deletion! 17:07, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Statistics of Interest

A couple days back, I reviewed some December deletion statistics. They may be of interest to this group. (Original posting was on Wikipedia talk:Deletion review.)

I just did some quick analysis of December deletion statistics. Deletion log entries are for all spaces (article, talk, User, Image, etc...)

• Rough deletion log entries (by approximate offsets, should be within 1K): 114,000 entries
• % of entries restorations: 2.02% (111 of sampled 5,500).
• Deletions: ~111,700
• Restores: ~2,300
• Net Deletions: 109,400
• Net Deletions/Day: ~3,529
• Deletion Reviews Opened: 210 (6.77 per day average, high of 15)
• Deletions Reviewed: 0.188% (ignoring the fact that some reviews are of keep decisions at AFD)
• Deletions overturned: 53 (excludes PRODs and overturns by deleting admin while DRV underway)
• Keeps overturned: 7
• Overturn rate: About 30%-33% for controversial items
• Deletions reviewed and overturned by DRV: ~0.05% (one-twentieth of one percent)
• Deletion overturns that were either a redlink or a protected deleted page in mid-January: 11 of 53 (didn't test for redirects), so at least 20% of deletion overturns end up deleted after a(another) round at XfD.

GRBerry 14:49, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! Those are very useful. My own research so far has given me the following numbers, mostly inline with that:

• Ratio of Article Creation to Article Deletion is currently almost 1.4 to 1.
• 95% of new articles without a single source are speedy deleted.
• 50% of new articles WITH sources are speedy deleted.

Most things that go to AfD are slain. My rougher calculations indicated that about one half of one percent were overturned...your numbers are significantly lower and worry me even more.

Articles that survive 1 AfD are usually able to survive a second. However, articles that have more than 3 AfD's always eventually die. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 16:39, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I was counting all spaces, not just articles. In theory DRV reviews all spaces, but we usually only get a dozen or two categories, images, templates, etc... each month. And I didn't count those items overturned by the deleting admin during a review or because they were a contested prod (mostly the latter aren't in the archive section). It would be interesting to do the analysis just of articles. I'd say we shed about 50-125 a day via PROD. GRBerry 23:13, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

The statistics are interesting, but if 95% of articles without sources are speedied and 50% with that's a bit worrying. Sure the ones with sources might be G11 and ref to the company website, but surely there are a lot of good stubs going. James086Talk 03:19, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The question of whether the speedies are good or bad has to be done by analyzing the speedies content, even tho obviously there will be disagreements here. Probably we should take a sample and a poll, not under the pressure of having to decide but as a reanalysis. To avoid having to restore all the deleted junk we might want to take it into project namespace.

But first let me add my 2cents. I am probably objecting to more speedies than anyone else here. I dont look as user pages etc. Of the rest, at least 25% are completely obvious and uncontroversial deletes of nonsense pages. Another 50% are attempts to write pages which will clearly never meet WP standards. The other quarter need looking at--without specifying whether they will or will not be kept at the end--many would be abandoned rather than improved, even though they could be improved, because nobody wants to do the work of fixing them, not even the authors.

I have a preliminary suggestion; it is much easier to preview prods, because of PRODSUM--at least there is an immediate upfront indication of what was said. Perhaps speedy could do that as well--regenerated perhaps every 6 hours. There would be a god deal information to try to rescue the rescuable.DGG 03:51, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Something like PRODSUM would need to be almost dynamic to be any use for C:CSD. And what would it say? Apart from the small number of {{db}} and {{db-reason}} tags, the speedy candidates could easily be sorted into subcategories based on the CSD by tweaking the templates and adding the necessary categories. There are not so many speedy deletion candidates which wait six hours so far as I can see. Automatic sampling speedy candidates would need to be carefully considered. We don't want the contents of attack pages or copyvios appearing a list somewhere, and it is not safe to assume that only Category:Attack pages for speedy deletion contains attack pages. Angus McLellan (Talk) 15:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Annoying articles

Aren't there too many articles that consist of a single sentence about some town, then two sentences on its location and size, and finally one long, boring paragraph on the demographics; an example is Sharon (CDP), Massachusetts. It is as if they are all written by a computer program. If I were overlord of wikipedia, I would kill every one of them.

Is there anything we can about these horrible articles? I often encounter them in my random-page rambles. Rintrah 08:38, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Not really. It was decided (in a horrible fucking war that will never be spoken of again) that all towns and villages were notable. This conflicts horribly with WP:NOT a directory...but there's nothing we can do.

Positive recommendation: whenever you run across one, try to add something to it, or clean it up. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 08:46, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

These articles should each be renamed Demographics of Town X, for they only state a couple of non-demographical, token sentences before spewing statistics. I might take this issue up elsewhere, to either have them renamed or have most, if not all, of the demographics section cut out. A link would suffice for such unwarranted statistics. Rintrah 12:38, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I've been running across these garbage articles too. Why don't we see if maybe consensus has changed, with so many of them being in such poor shape for such a long time? Why should they get a free pass on multiple nontrivial source mentions? Seraphimblade 12:40, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Most of them remained in horrible shape for so long because nobody prioritized them. Back at Thanksgiving I found a source that let me improve many of the ones on Maine towns. Sure, sometimes I only added a bit; given that one book was covering Maine history as a whole plus each of the towns, it couldn't go into much depth on most of them. But had I gone to the Me. state library or the Library of Congress and used the various local history books that have been produced, decent articles could be written. The issue isn't that the multiple sources are lacking, it is that nobody has taken the effort to do anything with them since they were created, mainly by a bot. So go find Wikiproject State of X, and persuade them to focus on the towns in their state.

That said, I think most of the ones with a "(CDP)" in the article name are never going to be improved; only the census really cares about census designated places, everyone else cares about the locality that has the same name without the "(CDP)" string. GRBerry 14:19, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I'll request help at the Massachusetts Wikiproject.

No article should have ever been written by a bot. Wikipedia is probably the first encyclopedia to have several articles written by a bot. I am in favour of deleting all such articles, which I think are a disgrace, but I won't act pre-emptively against consensus. Rintrah 15:19, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it is best to delete the Geography and Demographics section and request help at the State Wikiproject, as suggested above. I have done this for Sharon (CDP), Massachusetts. Rintrah 15:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

CSD

Some of the comments on admins above seem a bit harsh. As a CSD patroller, sometimes you find the CSDs coming in faster than they can be deleted by the admins currently on patrol, even doing nothing else and using autocomplete deletion reasons. You can either skip the difficult ones and whack the junk, or get further submerged in the tide. Jimfbleak.talk.09:10, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if I seem contradictory but I think the speedy process is great and would like to become an admin in order to try and reduce the constant backlog. I just didn't know that there was such a large number of sourced articles being deleted. James086Talk 09:55, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm curious as to the meaning of sourced above. If it's the same one used in the "should unsourced articles be elegible for speedy deletion" debate, then it doesn't mean what you might think. In that context, sourced was defined very generously. Any MySpace band would pass, because they'd have a link to their home page, and that would be a source. Angus McLellan (Talk) 13:17, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I hadn't thought of that so it's probably not as bad as I first thought. So many band articles are created that it probably skews the sourced results (if an external link counts as a source). I found an article on a NN band from the early 80's once. Needless to say that one didn't have a myspace page. James086Talk 13:54, 22 January 2007 (UTC)