Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal/Archive

message: These look good, but I have some concerns. Getting some variant of 1 passed is to me the highest priority and its wording thus needs to be immaculate. I question whether it would pass in its current form. One concern is that it relies on the amorphous notions of importance and significance rather than something more easily defined such as verifiability. It could allow say an article on a random shepherd, such as that on Pierre Maury, to be deleted.  Two avoids this problem with the mention of press coverage. That addendum will prevent bands like The Electras from being deleted. Three is also problematic, especially because the factors that make a website notable are ill-defined. Listings of websites certainly make up less than one percent of the deletion load so just dumping this criteria might be best. - SimonP 14:36, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
*There is one problem with that. Most people treat the word "verifiable" as "something that can be verified", even if that is not entirely what it means by Wiki definition. For instance, an article that reads "John Doe is a student at Albuquerque high school" is verifiable by anyone who holds a yearbook. "Xargh473 is a l33t us3r at t3hforums.com" is verifiable by anyone who logs in to those forums. Both, however, are likely not encyclopedic. I'm afraid we're going to need an appeal to common sense somewhere, and wikt:important and wikt:significant are reasonably well defined for most people. Radiant_>|< 19:19, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
For articles created by logged-in editors, maybe we could offer an intermediate step?
*Flag the article with a notice that significance has not been asserted/established.  The notice (presumably a template) will include the date it was applied.
*Add a message to the talk page of the editor who created the article, requesting additional information.  This too can be a template.
*After a short period (24 hours or so), templated articles that have been unimproved can be deleted per Props 1, 2, or 3.
The proposed speedy criteria can be applied immediately to articles without logged-in authors.  I would suggest only applying them to articles at least an hour old, in case an editor is still working on expansion.
I'm not sure if this is too Rube Goldberg a process; any thoughts? At least it's less work than VfD, still.  --TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:48, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Propositions 1, 2, and 3

message: There may well be a way to dump this proposition #1 entirely. I am currently performing an initial study on a hypothetical speedy deletion criterion that does not rely upon concepts such as "vanity" or "importance" for precisely these reasons, but instead relies upon two metrics that can be applied objectively and that are relatively easily defined.   The study is not complete (I want to run it for a few more days yet.), but the data so far indicate that this criterion would allow 75% of the personal vanity articles at VFD that garner a unanimous consensus to delete to be speedily deleted, whilst not allowing the speedy deletion of any articles that proceed to a definite consensus to "keep" or "merge".  Pierre Maury would not qualify for speedy deletion under this hypothetical criterion, as a matter of simple subtraction.  The proposal is at User:Uncle G/Proposal to expand WP:CSD/Unsourced biographies.  See the talk page for the study in progress.  Uncle G 19:13, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)
*First question that comes to mind - why 25? Why not 30? Or 21? Radiant_>|< 19:21, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
** It was an arbitrary choice.  But a quarter of a century is simpler to remember, and less systemically biased, than picking any one country's age of majority.  One of the things that the study is intended to study is whether it's a good figure to pick. Uncle G 23:08, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)
*I'd drop the entire age criterion. Older people write vanity too. - Mgm|(talk) 19:46, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
**They do.  But empirically (You can see the actual study data and discuss the proposal at User talk:Uncle G/Proposal to expand WP:CSD/Unsourced biographies by the way.) this turns out to be nowhere near as much of a problem.  Moreover the study so far shows that the age limit prevents quite a few false positives, and that a criterion without an age limit would allow the speedy deletion of articles that in fact receive a unanimous consensus to "keep" at VFD (such as Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Nicholas Bachynsky, which cited no sources at the time of nomination but which was excluded by the age limit). Uncle G 11:25, 2005 Jun 25 (UTC)
*That is some really impressive work. I think it could really help reduce the load on VFD. Mybe it should be added as a choice to this poll as this appears to be a higher traffic one? - Taxman Talk June 28, 2005 18:43 (UTC)
My first thought on Proposition 1 was a recommendation to tweak the wording from "people such as college professors or actors are individually important in society" to "... may be individually important in society".  Articles on actors should not be speedy-deletes but we ought not to accidentally imply that no article on an actor is deletable. On reflection, though, I worry that we are further institutionalizing the bias in favor of pop-culture.  I have always been uncomfortable with the belief that entertainers are inherently more encyclopedia-worthy than other business people.  However, that's a bigger worry than this one proposal which is, by the way, a close description of the current standard.  Rossami (talk) 20:46, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposition 1 

message: This proposition is arguably too vague. Any thoughts on what might substantiate a website's suitabilty for inclusion in an encyclopedia? This accounts for ~5 pages per day so it would be worthwhile to reword it. Radiant_>|< 12:10, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
*It might be worthwhile to spin this off and develop some inclusion criteria for websites, fora and phenomena along the lines of WP:MUSIC or WP:FICT before jumping straight into determining what constitutes a speediable website article. I wouldn't have a big problem with discussing web-related articles on VfD if there were a clear set of guidelines for inclusion. Too often, the discussions for such things degenerate into "Wikipedia has an article on website x or flash animation y, why can't it have this one?" with an inundation of sockpuppets and new users. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 12:19, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
*On another note, how reliable/useful are Alexa rankings? Would a hard limit on Alexa ranking be too draconian? AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 12:19, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
**Good idea. See Wikipedia:Websites, which has been linked from the Policy Consensus VFD list. Radiant_>|< 12:35, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
**Also see Wikipedia:WikiProject Webcomics/Notability and inclusion guidelines. Uncle G 12:41, 2005 Jun 24 (UTC)
*Alexa rankings aren't entirely reliable, just like Google hits, but including it as one of the possible criteria is a good idea. I much prefer inclusion guidelines than jumping straight into what constitutes a speedy deletable website - Mgm|(talk) 19:49, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
**I'm not comfortable with the idea of adding things like Alexa rankings or Google hits to the speedy criteria, even for articles on websites. The whole point of speedy is to get rid of articles that an admin can determine are deletable at a glance; if it requires research, it should go on VfD.  — Gwalla | Talk 30 June 2005 03:44 (UTC)
How about if we slightly expand this one to say "any article about a website or a website's user..." (or some better word for user)? It seems to me I've seen a lot of obvious vanity pages about message board/forum users. As these tend not to be real biographies, but about their persona, perhaps this could clear up any confusion that might result from trying to apply the first criterion. --Dmcdevit 22:31, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposition 3 

message: I feel that four has little hope of passing in its current incarnation. There are unquestionably some occasions where a Wikipedia page will duplicate a page in another Wikiproject. A dict def is very similar to a stub and various Wikibooks overlap all manner of Wikipedia articles. While this criteria could perhaps be reworded, these sorts of listings are again not a major burden at the moment. - SimonP 14:36, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
*By my count, about five per day, mostly for wiktionary. A weaker version of the proposal would be, for instance, to not require a second pass through VFD for an article that had consensus to transwiki. Radiant_>|< 19:19, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
* I like the current wording.  Don't weaken it.  If the occasional dicdef-stub or Wikisource left-over is deleted, it can be easily re-created (cut-and-paste) by the person who wants to create a new non-stub article.  I would, however, explicitly propose this as a revision to existing case A2, not as a new case.  Rossami (talk) 21:38, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposition 4

message: "Extremely short articles which contain no information other than a rephrasing of the title" should be considered for the speedy cleanup template.  I suspect many objections based on the article could have been fixed it there was time if it is an out right speedy. Vegaswikian 18:25, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  wrong. There are indeed people out there who do not seek articles to write, but faced with one lacking which they know something about, then they will consider writing it, instead of doing something entirely different. Like me.Sandpiper 4 July 2005 02:23 (UTC)
*I'm sorry but this is not a good example. If people create an article on any famous person but the article has no content whatsoever, then deleting it is not going to harm anyone. The article can always be recreated with content. Or, an admin with common sense (e.g. all of them) would not delete it but instead add a couple of words. You have to look at the reality of the encyclopedia - people regularly make pointless or empty articles about unencyclopedic subjects. That is what we're trying to get rid of here. People only extremely rarely make pointless or empty articles about someone famous. Bottom line? Yes, it can be abused. It's a wiki. Everything can be abused. The relevant question is, is the tradeoff worth it. Radiant_>|< 10:53, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
**When I have the time, a lot less with all of the VfDs and discussions, I will look at the new pages or canidates for speedy.  On ocassion I have seen something there that sounded like a reasonable topic.  My approach is to add a little more, go to the talk page and say being fixed and then work a little more on the article.  On at least one ocassion, I was fighting other editors to improve the article, edits not accepted because of other changes.  So, I think that there are editors looking at this an fixing articles that need to be kept.  While not finishing the job, they do enough to keep them off of a speedy and VfD.  Vegaswikian 19:07, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposition 5

message: :""Any article in a foreign language that has been listed on Pages needing Translation for fourteen days, and has not been translated""
I might be inclined to expand this one to include Any article which is an unrepaired machine translation of an article from another language Wikipedia.
Such articles are easily identified by their identical structure (to the foreign wiki article), tortured grammar and word usage, and occasional untranslated word or phrase.  They are troublesome for a number of reasons:
*They are often worse than useless for someone trying to find out about a topic
*It's usually more work to clean up these articles than it is to rewrite them from scratch
*Often there is no credit to the original authors, in violation of the GFDL
That said, if the translation has been cleaned up and wikified to a close semblance of proper English and Wikipedia style this criterion won't apply.  --TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:38, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposition 6

message: Any article that asserts to describe a character or story from fanfic
* I wonder if this is too subjective of a definition.  Maybe if the text that follow explains that these should be included in the main article would help. Vegaswikian 18:29, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposition 7

message: Any image that is already present on WikiCommons
*I concur.  Vegaswikian 18:29, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposition I1

message: "Any newly created template that serves the same function as an existed template, but has different layout or wording"
Would this include the four speedy delete templates? After all, they are exactly the same template, only with different wording. What about the welcome templates? They all serve the same function (to welcome new users) but offer different options (especially since more than one user may welcome the same newbie). The warning templates would fall under the same rationale; they all serve the same function (to warn out-of-line users) but use different wording: don't blank pages, stop inserting nonsense, bow down to Jimbo whenever the trumpet sounds. (Okay, maybe not that last one.) 
I checked TfD, and it doesn't look like they have a backlog (between five and ten a day). I think this proposal should be abandoned (or at least, drastically reworded, to recognize that there are legit reasons for having multiple similar templates). -- Essjay ·   Talk 14:03, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
I'm a bit torn on this one.  Essjay has a point about the multiple speedy delete templates, for example.  I presume that it was proposed in response to the spate of "narrow" template boxes that were created because an editor felt the existing cleanup tags were too large/ugly/obtrusive.  
In my experience, these templates aren't created all that often, so the expansion to SD criteria to account for them isn't worth the collateral damage.  To take a current example, Template:Whedon-spoiler is about to be deleted as redundant with Template:Spoiler—but that TfD discussion has led to the creation of Template:Spoiler-other to cover a more general set of cases.  The ?fD pages aren't just about deletion; they tend to result in informal article (and policy!) review, too.  --TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:25, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposition T1 (formerly 9) 

message: Not quite sure about the precedent for this, but it strikes me that single-use templates that have been subst'ed into their intended articles should be speedyable. After all, they are orphans, and unlikely to ever be used again. It seems like a waste of effort to have to list them on TfD. --Dmcdevit 22:48, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure that every single use template that can be subst:'ed is an automatic speedy delete candidate. There are a few of those templates where the information changes fairly regularly, and editing the info going into a template is much easier than editing the the plain wikicode and html. BlankVerse ∅  16:36, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What I mean is not single-use templates that can be subst'ed, but ones that have been subst'ed and are now orphans. Of course, before subst'ing, the relevant editors should discuss if its controversial. --Dmcdevit 21:29, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposition T3

message: Speedy deleting articles that promote illegal activities also seems like a bad idea. In general Wikipedia should not have articles promoting anything, but the solution is not to delete them but rather to rewrite them in a NPOV manner. Any articles promoting illegal activities should simply be rewritten as neutral articles describing illegal activities. - SimonP 14:36, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
Yep; the "illegal activities" umbrella is a bit too broad.  The line between 'promotion' and 'discussion' will be placed differently by different admins who may have political axes to grind.  Many of our admins may not be familiar with Florida or U.S. law—and I'd be concerned about the misunderstandings likely to flow from that.  (To draw a random example mostly from thin air, an article about closed court proceedings might be subject to gag orders in one jurisdiction but not others.)  Perhaps if the language of the criterion were tightened up–I can see where it's coming from–this could be okay, but I can't figure out how to write it. --TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:55, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposition 10a

message: A copy in article space of an article that is nominated for deletion, to prevent people from forking an article to save it from deletion 
*Seems reasonable.  Vegaswikian 18:39, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposition 10b

message: Short articles that serve no purpose but to disparage their subject 
*I think this might also need to be a speedy cleanup to get enough votes to pass.  I worry about it being too subjective.  But then an admin can always move it to speedy cleanup or VfD... Vegaswikian 18:39, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposition 10c

message: This is a wiki, so I added a proposal. Many people mistakenly believe that once an article is deleted via VfD, no content may ever reside at that article name again. We run into situations where legitimate articles are speedily deleted because a previous article under that name was subpar. I propose that we clarify CSD to make this distinction clear. It seems odd to judge a completely new article based on the merits of an unrelated predecessor. Rhobite 16:12, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
*This is a problem. Some VfD debates are judging the subject, and basically conclude that no article on the specified subject could ever be notable or with including. Others judge msotly the existign content, and a rewrite would change the votes, so logically a new articel with significantly different content should not be up for speedy deletion. How should these two cases be distinguished? DES 16:54, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposition G1 (formerly 11)

message: Unenhanced copies: Unencyclopedic articles that have been directly copied from an existing web page.
This developed out of a discussion at User_talk:Cutler#speedy_garbage about an example of advertizement: CEO reputation.
The gray text is obsolete or not relevant to the proposal because it was based on an altered version of the original proposal. 
 
Often true but not always. In a number of cases the person postign the info to wikipedia is also the person who wrote the text on the website, in which case there is no copyright issue at all, and the only question is the general suitability of the text. it may need rewrite, it may need to be wikified, but neither of thsoe are grounds for speedy delete.  Besides as currently written, this would qualify all the 1911 EB articles for speddy deletes. DES 19:39, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I argued that if an article was stated to be posted with permission, it should not be speedied just because it was a copy of a web source; and that people should be eduacated that if posting with permission they should so state -- i think this later is already policy as part of the copyright policy, but many don't know it. What do you have in mind as a separate policy? Neither of the above quite fits, i think. DES 19:28, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yeah, it probably wouldn't be a good policy for deletion (although I think it could fit into #4, see my comment above). I have to go, so I can't look up if it is already part of the policy; if it isn't it should be. — Sebastian (talk) June 28, 2005 06:49 (UTC)
*You are arguing that an internet copyvio or original research or whichever should become a speedy delete, wheras a book copyvio etc. should not? Why make such a distinction? How does the source being on the internet alter things? Sandpiper 09:29, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposition 12

message: *I corrected the altered proposal and subtitle that got this started on a wrong foot. I made out the following concerns. Some of them are fixed, but others may still apply:
;Often true but not always: Based on altered version. I agree that a significant number of copied articles are no copyvios. Thank you for the examples! 
; the only question is the general suitability of the text: Please see corrected, specific criteria. 
;Redundancy: While we already have policies for original research and copyvios on (WP:DP) and advertisement (on WP:soapbox)), my impression is that none of these policies allow for speedy deletion. So I don't see any redundancy. 
;Is copyvio a good criterion?: Maybe we should leave this one out. I may be a bit biased because that is what I usually use in such cases (e.g. in Xanthone), even when I'm actually more concerned about the other points.
I really like DES's argument for stating permission; how about moving it into its own section as a proposed policy? I'd vote for it! — Sebastian (talk) 06:09, 2005 Jun 25 (UTC)
:I argued that if an article was stated to be posted with permission, it should not be speedied just because it was a copy of a web source; and that people should be eduacated that if posting with permission they should so state -- i think this later is already policy as part of the copyright policy, but many don't know it. What do you have in mind as a separate policy? Neither of the above quite fits, i think. DES 19:28, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yeah, it probably wouldn't be a good policy for deletion (although I think it could fit into #4, see my comment above). I have to go, so I can't look up if it is already part of the policy; if it isn't it should be. — Sebastian (talk) June 28, 2005 06:49 (UTC)
*You are arguing that an internet copyvio or original research or whichever should become a speedy delete, wheras a book copyvio etc. should not? Why make such a distinction? How does the source being on the internet alter things? Sandpiper 09:29, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposition 12 (corrected)

message: "short articles with little or no context". Okay. What exactly does that mean? The intent of some of the above proposals is to clarify it (thus also limiting it to prevent abuse). Could some people please give examples of articles speedied under this criterion (that aren't patent nonsense and such). Thanks. Radiant_>|< 08:26, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
*Well, it wasn't speedied, but this was the original version of the Havoc (2005 movie) article. I tagged it for speedy, but changed my mind and turned it into an almost-as-useless stub. Should something as poorly-written and nearly content-free as Its this movie with anne hathaway aand other people be speediable? I think so. Sure, Wikipedia could use an article on this movie, but in writing that stub, the original contents of the article were completely useless. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 12:27, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
*I've got one myself, sort of. We sometimes get articles like 5478934 (number) or Binilnilium or septenquinquagintillion or even chemical compounds like 3,1 trichloro-ethene. Those names are all formed by a predictable schema and their (theoretical) existence can generally be verified. However, unless the article explains what's so special about this particular instance, it sounds pretty much like a short article with no context (e.g. "5478934 is a number, created by adding 5470000 to 8934"). Radiant_>|< 15:14, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
*In my experience anything that's one sentence long is a likely speedy candidate. Yes, we could often use an article on the subject, but one line of text isn't going to help in writing the full article. - Mgm|(talk) 20:03, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
**Funny you should mention that. In the older discussion I had 'any article of one sentence or less' as a CSD, but people objected to it as too mechanical. Still if we're going to deprecate CSD#1 (which seems good) then this is about as objective as you're going to get. Radiant_>|< 22:55, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
*I offer you a recent example: "Platinum single" (content was: 'more than 400.000 copies in USA') --cesarb 20:31, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: What is CSD #1 ?