Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 26

message: Don't know how to deal with this.  has three times today posted a glowing puff piece about himself under different titles, which have all been speedied.  Now he has uploaded "Image:Shoudie.jpg", with the puff piece tacked on as text.  How to get rid of it? Can one speedy an image? JohnCD (talk) 16:38, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a whole section for it: Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#Images and media. Not sure what this would fall under though. J-ſtanTalkContribs 16:42, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

text: (edit conflict) Yes, you just place the speedy tag on the image description page. The criteria you can use are different for images, though, so it's probably worth reading WP:CSD again before doing so if you aren't used to that.  seems like it may be justified here. --ais523 16:44, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

text: WP:ANI would probably be a better place to bring something like this up in the future, but easy enough deleted under G11, blatant promotion. The "G" criteria apply in all namespaces, certainly including image namespaces. The spammer was also warned plenty of times, so received some help in finding the exit. Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:23, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Images of text likely are copyvio even though that same text posted in an article might not be. -- Jreferee   t/c 16:06, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to speedy an image 

message: I seem to remember that at some time in the past there was a statement included in the introduction of this policy that indicated something like "if the deletion is potentially controversial, speedy deletion should not be invoked".  Am I remembering correctly?  The closest thing to this in the current policy statement is:
These criteria are worded narrowly, so that in most cases reasonable editors will agree what does and does not meet a given criterion. Where reasonable doubt exists, discussion using another method under the deletion policy should occur instead.
This statement refers to the applicability of a CSD criterion to article content and not to a judgment about the perception of the deletion by editors.  I can understand not wanting to include a statement that relies heavily on the individual judgment of editors, as this would amount to making the policy more ambiguous.  In practice, however, "potential controversy" as a non-criterion is used; for instance, schools are generally not subjected to speedy deletion due to consistent controversy over their deletion.  This particular question here arises from a question at WP:AN (see permalink). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 14:27, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I'm sure the phrase you mention did appear there at one point. I think it was largely removed because WP:BLP deletions can be controversial. Libel and copyright issues requiring deletion can be nearly non-negotiable at times so it is problematic to have a clause that says "Never delete if someone might object". Obviously I should be able to delete an image that says "{C) 2007 Corbis" even if it's a "controversial" decision because a bunch of people object for invalid reasons. But beyond copyright and libel issues, I don't think it's a good idea to make controversial speedy deletions, especially if the person objecting is an established user. Speedy deletion today addresses problems that didn't exist (or we didn't think of as existing) when CSD policy began... but beyond those libel/copyright issues, I think it's a good idea to stick to the original spirit of CSD: Uncontroversial deletions. --W.marsh 15:42, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Potential controversy as non-criterion 

message: Could I request that the following condition be added to the list in I8 (Images available on Commons):
*Where possible, the original uploader has been informed.
This is common courtesy, but does not always take place. – Tivedshambo (talk) 08:05, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Stifle, how would it gum up the process? By increasing the number of inappropriate holdons? Admins would still judge them appropriately.  By causing people to remove notices? that's almost as easy to follow up. It would however make clearer to posters of illegitimate articles and images what was happening, which is all to the good,  and to posters of possibly legit ones, give an opportunity to rescue, which is even better. Just what =scenario do you envision that we could not deal with. (I note that there is no problem clearing CSD these days--there are now enough admins following it closely. At this moment it contains only 14 pages and 17 articles).DGG (talk) 13:09, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That is a rare occurrence. I've seen times when it's run into the hundreds, and having to notify everyone that their article has been speedied, why, and what to do about it just takes too long in those situations to be justifiable. A lot of those accounts make a few throwaway edits to write an autobiographical article and then never login again. Stifle (talk) 22:28, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal for CSD I8 

message: Just thought I'd let people know that I've added a small script to MediaWiki:Sysop.js which will replace any autogenerated deletion summaries for articles tagged with  or related templates with a boilerplate summary that doesn't include any part of the article's content.  This should reduce the chance of offensive or libelous content ending up in the deletion log by accident.  Please let me know if you observe any problems.  (I've also fixed the code already in Sysop.js so that it should now work on IE again.)  —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 02:39, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is pretty brilliant... what would people think about doing this for all CSDs? It would make CSD a lot easier to do. --W.marsh 14:50, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No! This would make it very difficult to include an excerpt of the article source in the deletion summary at all. Ok, for db-attack as I've manually removed the auto-gen summary many times, but for the others, sometimes the article excerpt containing the template is all that is needed. Splash - tk 15:02, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know... someone created the page with that excerpt, so they probably didn't know it was speedy deletable. Then someone adds  and I'm sure that's incomprehensible to most people. So I don't think the current default edit summary is very informative except to experienced editors. I prefer the summary's generated by demon's script, which I use. --W.marsh 16:06, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There have been complaints in the past that only offering the CSD reason itself does not allow non-admins any chance to guesstimate whether it was correctly deleted or not. An excerpt of the article often does allow them that. Obviously the CSD citation should be included as well. Personally, I do not much like the current bot-like generic reasons as they do remove that possibility from non-admins and hinder or prevent effective patrolling of deletion logs. I would prefer it if they would add their reasons to the start of an excerpt of the content, with the exception of G10 and similar. Splash - tk 16:18, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've never seen a case where a non-admin found a bad deletion purely because of the auto-quoted excerpt in the deletion log. I know that's the theory, but I've never seen it work in practice. Everyone complaining about a bad speedy deletion on WP:DRV seems to have evidence other than the excerpt from the deletion log. In a perfect world, each admin would write a well-referenced essay for every deletion... but most admins who use the auto-summary generate much less informative deletions than those who use demon's script, in my opinion. They just tack on csd-A7 or something to the end... I'd prefer the bot-like summary, at least it's written in english and links to the relevant policies. --W.marsh 16:49, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

text: For easy-to-use boilerplate deletion summaries in general, I'd recommend ^demon's excellent CSD AutoReason script.  Its only disadvantage is that you still need to pick the right criterion from a drop-down menu; conversely, its major advantage is that you get to pick the right criterion from a drop-down menu, or leave the default summary alone if you prefer.  —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:17, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See also bugzilla:9633; the functionality of that script has been added to the software, it's not live just yet, but when the shell-access devs update the live code with that part of the code, it'll be possible to AutoReason without using a script. --ais523 15:06, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Javascript fix for G10 deletion summaries 

message: Does anyone else think that 2005 Rose Bowl and several similar articles fits WP:CSD#A3 or another WP:SPEEDY reason? -- Jreferee   t/c 06:39, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think so. There is a small amount of content but the context is clear. There may be an argument for a merge/redirect to Rose Bowl. Catchpole (talk) 13:05, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

text: another comment For future reference: questions of this type can be taken to Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion.  In my opinion, the article really doesn't fit the WP:CSD process in general because it is a potentially controversial deletion; I believe there used to be a statement to this effect in WP:CSD ... I'll drop a note on the talk page there to ask about that, because I think it should be there.  To address the question of specific speedy deletion criteria: It does not fit WP:CSD#A3; I've had at least one conversation in the past (sorry for not putting a link here) about whether articles that consist entirely of transcluded or subst'd templates are covered under A3 and I believe there is a leaning toward the feeling that if the templates are substantially filled in that A3 does not apply; however, I don't think there is is a strong consensus position on this point.  In the specific case of 2005 Rose Bowl, the WP:CSD#A1 criterion might apply as there is no contextual statement that would provide information for someone unfamiliar with American Football information on what the content means. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 14:16, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

text: It technically meets the criteria, but this is an obviously notable topic so I don't think it's very productive to delete the article. Hopefully someone will add prose before too long... --W.marsh 15:19, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Each individual Rose Bowl is notable, and requires a separate article? I don't think so. There's an article on the Rose Bowl, and, if everything in the article can just fit into one short and sweet table in the main article, that's where it should be. This is just as ridiculous as having a separate article for every Pokemon monster, because the information on each Rose Bowl is essentially identical. That said, it doesn't quite seem to meet any speedy criteria. I think that's a better argument for coming up with another speedy criteria than it is for keeping the article or having 30 different AFDs.Kww (talk) 15:58, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:N dictates only that a topic have substantial coverage by multiple published sources... I'm pretty sure a lot of papers and magazines write about the Rose Bowl every year :-) --W.marsh 16:03, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

text: *A3 does apply, but then there is a question of whether an admin should speedy delete such an article. Probably not, but they don't have to be happy with such a result. I personally have a problem with these no content/one sentence "articles" that meet WP:N. In a sense, the posters merely are reserving article space for a future article that they have no plans of writing and that no one else has expressed an interest in writing. I also think it is wrong to intentionally post stubs without a genuine intent to further improve the article within a reasonable time. There might be good reasons to post stubs/no content/one sentence "articles" that meet WP:N, but I don't think it is appropriate to create them just for the sake of creating them. Too many people engage in such non productive behavior (in my opinion) to start speedy deleting the results. And I'm not going to sent a topic that meets WP:N to AfD. I try to justify the situation by thinking that such posters are only eight years old and this is the best that they have to offer WIkipedia. I'm not going to come down hard on some eight year old and prefer to encourage their participation. -- Jreferee   t/c 16:25, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

text: *Hi W.marsh. Adding  sounds like a good solution. I revised CSD A3 to read "For very short articles such as valid stub with context that likely meet WP:N, consider adding ." -- Jreferee   t/c 16:42, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Agreed, A3 does not apply to articles consisting of only an infobox.  It applies to articles with no content.  Information in an infobox is certainly content, and in the case of a fully filled out infobox there is a lot more content than a one or two sentence stub.  However, such an article is woefully deficient in other ways.  We improve such articles; we don't delete them.  Regarding the notability of sporting events, nearly any sports match can meet the general notability criteria.  Whether we really want to fill Wikipedia out with coverage of every significant event or not, and if not, which events should be included and which should not, is an interesting policy matter.  But certainly not the stuff of speedy deletions.  Notability gets handled at AfD, not speedy.  Wikidemo (talk) 22:44, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

text: As long as W.marsh's solution to add  is in A3 somewhere, I'm happy with the changes. I really like this  solution. It provides a good compromise between A3 speedy delete and no action in the situations we are discussing. It's better than prod, because it is a way of telling the authors to include some prose with out threat of deletion and it instructions them to include the most important prose (the intro). -- Jreferee   t/c 23:16, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I've often seen cases where a single editor creates numerous infobox-only articles (usually about sportspeople) in quick succession. The tag is a good way of prompting them to add some text in addition to the infobox, both to articles they've already created and to ones they intend to create. – Black Falcon (Talk) 23:20, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the tag.  Threatening people with deleting articles they have worked on is an excessively high-handed manner of  of persuading them to improve them--especially when the articles deal with subjects that are obviously notable. WP has refined the use of infoboxes to a level where many of them do contain sufficient material, that when repeated in prose would make a fully acceptable stub. An alternative would therefore simply to expand the meaning of WP:STUB to include an adequate infobox. DGG (talk) 23:31, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't care how it is worded, but I think "" should be included A3 somewhere to remind the deleting admin of a great middle ground option between A3, prod, no action, etc. -- Jreferee   t/c 21:35, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Speedy delete "content" question (copied from [[Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Speedy_delete_question|here]]) 

message: :: "Talk pages whose corresponding article does not exist, except for deletion discussions that are not logged elsewhere[...]"
I created a page at talk:list of triangle topics informing people of the prototype page at user:DavidCBryant/List of triangle topics.  There is an obvious reason why I did that.  I propose that this sort of thing be made an exception, for the same reason there's an exception for "deletion discussions not logged elsewhere". Michael Hardy (talk) 03:53, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Given how rare it is for someone to encounter the talkpage of a non-existent article (except someone specifically seeking out such pages for deletion), I think such messages are more likely to be seen at the talk page of a related article or WikiProjects. – Black Falcon (Talk) 04:35, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: On the other hand, page titles like List of triangle topics that A) can reasonably be expected to have an article in the future, and B) already have multiple incoming redlinks (so that there's a nonzero chance someone not connected with a wikiproject or single related article might make it) can benefit from such notes too.  On yet a third hand, we should be able to assume administrators have enough common sense not to delete these without codifying every little exception; that a page is a candidate for speedy deletion does not mean it must be speedy deleted, and never has.  Administrators who do so should step back and ask themselves how exactly their actions are benefitting the encyclopedia. —Cryptic 06:46, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added "or any other talk pages that otherwise serve a valid and useful purpose for the encyclopedia (use common sense)" to the criterion.  Technically that's redundant, since one is supposed to use common sense when applying all the criteria, but perhaps an extra reminder could be useful here.  In any case, the existing list of specific exceptions to that criterion is already long enough that a "catch-all" clause for the remaining cases may be useful.  —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 12:29, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: (use common sense) is, perversely, not a useful exhortation because as anyone will tell you, it's not at all common and reasonable people disagree about what, exactly, was the 'common sense' approach. As you say, it applies to every action anyway and we cannot have people adding 'useful reminders' of that sort at the end of all the other CSDs that people periodically get wrong. Mistakes happen - telling people they have no 'common sense' in such situations is generally only used as an insult. I took it out, and compressed the phrasing more generally too. Splash - tk 14:21, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

text: In addition to CSD G8, the deleted page may have met CSD R2. -- Jreferee   t/c 21:29, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It wasn't a redirect and it wasn't in the main namespace.  How is R2 relevant? —Cryptic 23:32, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  G8 

message: Surnames and given names pages aren't disambig-pages. there are very short articles with little statements. However, in English Wikipedia they look like not targets of speedy deletion. Could you tell me thats reason?--Ræv (talk) 22:18, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Because the relevant criterion is this one which hinges on no context. Little content is not particularly important from a speedy deletion point of view. If you can understand what it is talking about reasonably well, then it is not a candidate for deletion on the grounds that it is very short. The fact that you know it is a human (sur)name and it presumably contains some links to famous people with it, means that you know what it is and it probably contains minimally enough stuff that it is not merely "[This] is a surname". (It may be deletable for some other reason, however). Many human name pages where the  tag, marking them as disambig pages, however.  Splash - tk 23:02, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  human name pages 

message: I foresee a massive, uphill, bloody battle, but they always begin with one proposal. If I were to try to get WP to adopt an objective standard for television episode articles, where would I start? Ideally, I'd like to end up with a new speedy criterion: "Article serves to summarize a television episode, and does not assert that the episode was a premiere, a finale, or nominated for a widely-recognized award such as an Emmy or a Hugo."Kww (talk) 12:16, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: just to clarify ... I fully recognize that they cannot be speedily deleted todayKww (talk) 14:28, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: CSD is the wrong place to try to get in controversial changes to policy... CSD is just for uncontroversial deletions, or deletions deemed necessary due to legal reasons (copyright, libel). --W.marsh 14:31, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Which is why I asked where to start, because I know it's not here.Kww (talk) 15:10, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Aside from a major rewrite of WP:V to allow, among other things, deletion of some current featured articles (see below), there really is no way your proposal could work. This is the place to start but it's not a realistic proposal. --W.marsh 15:12, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

text: I have to ask - why 9% or is that just a typo? Davewild (talk) 14:34, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops... Corrected to 99%, thanks. Fram (talk) 15:14, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

text: My 2 cents on the question of where you would start: you would start with Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Alternatively, you would create a proposal page in your user space, slap an RFC on it and note at VP that it exists. Since you propose to make this a CSD category, you might also leave a pointer to the discussion here. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oppose - proposal trying to undermine WP:EPISODE and WP:FICT. Look at You Only Move Twice: not a premiere, not a finale, not award-winning. Your proposal would make a featured article eligible for speedy deletion. Will (talk) 14:51, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where to start with episodes? 

message: Does this page really need this new paragraph?.  It just seems to me a cumbersome IAR-based disclaimer. If it's felt that this is really needed, I think it should just be replaced with something more straightforward like: Speedy deletions may be declined by administrators if doing so could undermine the goal of improving Wikipedia.  Please consider this possibility, and ignore this rule if necessary.  Someguy1221 21:12, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Honestly I think what that paragraph describes is clearly implied by the very first sentence of the policy: "The speedy deletion policy specifies the limited cases where administrators may delete Wikipedia pages or media without discussion." may is the operative word there. I would not mind removing this whole paragraph in question. --W.marsh 03:53, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it bears saying / repeating because many people get so involved in the process that they forget the goal.  But it definitely was wordy.  I edited to make it shorter and more direct.  Hope this helps.Wikidemo 15:48, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

text: There is really no need for standalone ... well ... what was it?... trumpeting? on a deletion policy page. So I took the useful half of the addition and put it somewhere useful, simultaneously dispensing with the rest. In general, we should encourage the removal of policy-cruft that people tend to add as an attempt at 'solving' the 'problem' of one editor/admin getting a speedy wrong. (Remember after all that people never read more of the instructions for anything than they absolutely must). Splash - tk 23:27, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New additon 

message: When an article is deleted under A7, the explanation currently displays as "CSD A7: Article does does not indicate why its subject is important or significant..." The word "does" is repeated. Could someone who knows how please fix this? Thanks. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:05, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I fixed it.  The text can be found at MediaWiki:Deletereason-dropdown.  Mangojuicetalk 04:26, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A7 explanation (duplicated word) 

message: This post is, perhaps, a kind of branch-off of a post a few threads back, but anyway, I'll get on with it. Currently, the topic matters which are formally encompassed by this criterion are very specific and relatively limited, when one considers the fact that "A7" is pretty much the most-used and predominant CSD criterion relating to notability, and lack thereof. I propose that we need to add "...or subject matter" to the A7 description, and formally broaden the scope of this criterion in order to, and in an attempt to, embrace and recognise both the large number of possibly non-notable subject matters that
# Should, by reasonable logic based on a combination of, and the general trends, of Wikipedia policy.
# Do not fit the current description of band, company, group, person, organisation, or website,
and the fact that A7 is pretty much the only notability criterion, for the article namespace, that allows speedy removal of non-notable articles, and how this affects, and frequently impairs, an admin's ability to speedily delete articles while conforming to the corresponding criteria or sub-criteria. -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 08:28, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, I would disagree that there is anything wrong in admins not being able to legitimately delete anything they personally think doesn't make the grade. We have AfD and consensus for a good reason, and A7 serves partly to mandate that this two things be respected. Admins are not lone rangers, after all. Splash - tk 19:36, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How about a minor expansion?  I have never understood why bands are subject to A7, but not albums or songs, and why companies are subject, but not products or brands. UnitedStatesian (talk) 19:39, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's partly historical (a proposal to include bands when A7 was created failed; later work therefore focussed on bands) and partly necessity: less so now, but a while back AfD was facing large numbers of band-vanity articles ('bandity' as it was known). It was not facing large numbers of pointless albums or songs, and by way of being restrictive with a shoot-on-sight licence, they are not included. Same for companies: AfD deals with many of those, but far fewer individual products and probably fewer still brands. Basically, there's no need to speedy that of which we receive relatively small amounts because a sanity check via PROD or AfD is worthwhile as a rule. Splash - tk 21:47, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

text: companies actually pose a good deal of a problem there--the criteria are not very clear, and I often change such tags to G11 spam. But the sort of a company meant by A7 is a corner store. Products and bands have given problems at Afd--what one person thinks it obviously not notable is often strongly contested by others, and many such articles are kept. They too are good examples of where more than one or two people to look at it helps. How can an American and a Canadian even together recognize what brands might be notable in Australia? -- that's the typical problem. DGG (talk) 20:12, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, and to be more precise on your first point: the underlying assumption is that those [items] that can assert notability will if anyone is making even the most token effort. In reverse, those [items] that do not assert notability do not because they can't. That is the basis for A7. The proposed expansion is disconnected from that for the reasons I set out above, in conjuction with Iain99. Splash - tk 21:52, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

text: It has to do mainly with the criteria at the top of this page: the subject areas must be subject areas which average people with no specialized knowledge can recognize a possibly implicit assertion of notability in, and it must be something that can't be handled through other processes due to sheer volume. Everything that feasibly can be driven through AfD should be - there's no prepondance of people creating articles on their favourite flavour of jello. Dcoetzee 03:49, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

text: To add my two cents, I don't think that the A7 list should be expanded. As it stands there are areas in which I am not comfortable deleting already. I, as a rule, won't delete companies or most web content because the criteria are too subjective. Dsmdgold (talk) 13:46, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A7 should, quite simply, read "An article which does not assert the importance or significance of the subject in terms understandable by the average non-expert." Even if the subject is notable, one of the very, very basic questions any piece of writing must answer is "Why should I care?". "Anyone can edit" doesn't and shouldn't mean "we have no minimum standards", and those standards need to get higher. If those one-sentence examples above got put up, they're worthless anyway. A "stub" should contain, at minimum, a brief description of the topic, including its significance in layman's terms ("Why should I care?"), and one independent source. (In some cases, the simple fact of being a basic chemical element, an ocean, or a recognized species might be sufficient assertion of significance, but the vast majority of our articles are not on a chemical element, an ocean, or an officially-classified species.) People who write sourceless one-liners should be told (and shown, by use of the delete button), kindly but firmly, that this is not acceptable. Seraphimblade Talk to me 17:14, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem with that wording is that it would, in my view, include nearly every TV episode article. That would be a good thing, but not something to accidentally include in a rewording of A7.Kww (talk) 13:06, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

text: The problem I have with this idea is that many times a non-expert is unable to to identify an assertion of notability. Example, any work by a winner of the Noble prize for literature (along with several other prizes) has an assertion of notability. But unless you follow want to claim "East of Eden is novel by John Steinbeck." does not have an assertion of notability and can therefore be speedy deleted, but "East of Eden is a novel by Noble laureate, John Steinbeck." does and is therefor safe from speedy deletion, this will not work. Dsmdgold (talk) 14:02, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A7 expansion of encompassed topics 

message: Many articles fit multiple speedy deletion criteria. Pages tagged with G10 would also fit A7 in most cases, and possibly A3.
But I was thinking, what could be the greatest number of speedy criteria that could be validly applied to a single page at once?
I came up with
:'My (worst enemy) is a (generic insult) yeah he is the worst guy in the world see this here Bold text yeah look at me my website is here'
as an example of a page, in the article namespace, that could fit the following criteria:
*G1 - nonsense
*G2 - test page (because of the Bold text and )
*G3 - vandalism
*G4 - recreation of deleted material (someone in good faith nominated this for articles for deletion without knowing about the speedily deletion criteria, and was deleted then recreated)
*G5 - banned user (possible but unlikely)
*G7 - author requests deletion (again possible but unlikely that they would add db-author to the top)
*G10 - attack
*G11 - advertising (where the part after the Bold text is advertising for the author's website)
*G12 - copyright violation (where the generic insult against the worst enemy of the author has been copied from that website linked)
*A1 - little or no context
*A7 - unremarkable people, groups, companies, web content
This extreme example just goes to show how often these overlap. G1 often overlaps with G3 and/or A1, and G10 often overlaps with G3 and A7. G11 often overlaps with G12. It just goes to show that we probably don't need any more speedy deletion criteria right now given the wide applicability of these. The only one that I think could be added is an extension of A7 towards WP:NFT things that don't precisely fit it - what are your thoughts on that last idea?--h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 16:29, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What about a criterion for an article that asserts non-notability? Hut 8.5 17:08, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: it might be wrong--I've actually seen that on such things in school articles. People say all sorts of weird things on such articles, which is why schools (and churches and similar institutions) are not one of the types for A7.  DGG (talk) 04:42, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Uh, yes they are, they're an organization. I've certainly A7'd such before, and never been challenged. Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:50, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the idea of a criterion for something that asserts non-notability, as an extension of A7, for the WP:NFT stuff.-h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 13:02, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Why worry about overlap? Just pick the category you're most certain is uncontroversial and get the thing shot down. --Alvestrand (talk) 19:24, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Applicability of multiple speedy deletion criteria 

message: I came across The Pasture, which should be deleted as it is a copy of the poem available on wikisource. I was going to speedy delete it per A5 (transiki'd articles), but that says that it is only appropriate for transwikis to wiktionary, not wikisource (except for AFD discussions). Am I right that there is no CSD criterion that would apply for this? Rigadoun  (talk) 20:32, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm. This happened to me once before, and it was deleted due to an expired PROD. Maybe PROD it for now, until we see more consensus to change it. I agree that it shouldn't only be Wiktionary or AfD based arguments. J-ſtanTalkContribs 20:43, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is already prodded (I discovered it reviewing prods), I was just surprised it wasn't a speedy deletion candidate. Rigadoun  (talk) 21:06, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yeah, it really should be changed. J-ſtanTalkContribs 21:14, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of A5 for non-dictionary transwikis 

message: I guess someone else has to fix even the little things on such an important page... Under 1.2 Articles #1 the last sentence says: "Care should be take to ensure..." and should of course be: "Care should be taken to ensure..."
This edit has taken me well over an hour. UnRheal (talk) 00:28, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:39, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minor typo 

message: A7 presently claims that its "importance/signficance" idea is somehow distinguishable from notability.  I dispute this claim, and suggest that the word "notability" should actually be used here, as I'm almost dead certain it was a while back.  One of the most common ways to refer to A7 is to note that an article "does not assert notability", so this change to A7 is pretty nonsensical.  We have a mountain of past history, at Wikipedia:Notability/Historical, demonstrating that subjective ideas like "fame", "importance" and "significance" were directly abandoned by the WP community in favor of a "notability" concept rooted in the objective primary notability criterion (signficant coverage in multiple, independent, reliable sources), so we can't suddenly reverse ourselves on this, willy-nilly. A7's wording needs to return to a criterion that articles that do not make a notability claim for their subjects are speedily deletable. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 04:31, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: states in edit summary: "A7 is about assertions of importance in the text; notability is about coverage in reliable sources)". I do not believe this distinction to be valid.  Notability isn't really "about" coverage in reliable sources; it is demonstrated by coverage in reliable sources.  That fact does not do anything to militate against requiring that articles assert their notability in order to not be speediable.  The argument I'm making is that we already have long-standing precedent against both "importance" and "significance" as any kind of deletion criteria, but a strong consensus for notability, as defined at WP:N, being a valid one, so we should use it here, not reintroduce problematic, subjective variants that have already been shot down. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 04:45, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

text: PS: See actual usage of G7 in WP:DRV debate, e.g. at WP:DRV#White House Museum; it clearly is precisely what is meant by "notability" at WP:N; the difference is what is done about it.  An article at WP:AFD on notability grounds is up for deletion on the basis that it cannot demonstrate notability by citing multiple, independent, reliable sources.  An article nuked on WP:CSD#A7 grounds is deleted on the basis that the article does not assert notability, of the sort that will be (now or later) demonstrated by citing multiple, independent, reliable sources.  There is no conflict between these usages, so the vague terms "importance" and "significance" that have clearly been deprecated for a couple of years now should be abandoned (again). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 05:06, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Going once: Barring any substantive objection about using what I suggest is "Wikipedia-standard" wording, I want to remove the references to deletion criteria that have already been rejected and replace them with notability. I think the case explained here is solid that it is reasonable to use the term, and it not a confusion issue when it is used correctly in two different ways so long as the wording is clear. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 00:19, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that importance and significance are equivalent, and notability implies both of them. I think that requiring "importance and significance" in articles about people, groups of people and web content will help reduce the number of unnotable people, groups of people and web content; and that requiring claim to notability from the start will be more of a "blocade" to prevent creation of articles about notable people, groups of people and web content. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 07:00, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: New proposal language below (esp. the second of the two options completely obviates this potential problem, I believe. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 22:53, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dispute on "importance/significance" wording 

message: Historic note - I wasn't around when A7 was added, but I think I can see it's reasoning. It's specifically intended to lower the barrier for speedying items of a kind likely to be self-promotional, without going through AFD on each occasion. The requirement for an article is indeed notability. A7 adds that if an article is on a very tight range of subjects of the kind where promotion is very common (eg, people, groups of people, bands, businesses, websites), and the article doesnt give any reason why that person, band, website is important, then it can be deleted. It's to make it easier to delete new pages of the form:
* "John Smith is a student at X school. His hobbies are WoW and reading", or 
* "Y group are an australian band. They are inspired by Def Leppard and like pizza", or
* "Michael Andrews is a programmer and owner of a consulting business covering engineering design. He has written two commercial programs listed below....."
That's I'm fairly sure why A7 exists. Previous wordings:
* Unremarkable people, groups, companies and websites. An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject. If controversial, or if there has been a previous AfD that resulted in the article being kept, the article should be nominated for AfD instead. Don't delete if you simply don't understand the assertion of importance or significance; delete only if you know that there is none." May 2007
The criterion "unremarkable" was used historically all the way back, but A7 has been around in the above form or similar, for a long time (2006).
What might work is unless there is some other reason I'm not seeing, merge this into G11, "Blatent advertising, including promotion of a person, group, band or website with no indication of grounds for notability"? But we really do need to check why A7 exists in case there's more to it. Shouldn't be hard to do.
Thoughts? FT2 (Talk | email) 05:20, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That all sounds entirely plausible, but doesn't change my proposal, which is based on very solid proof that the community specifically rejected both "importance" and "significance" as deletion criteria, in favor of "notability".  I.e., it's just a simple wording change that will have no effect upon how A7 is used, but which may forestall any resurrection of two bad ideas that have historically tried to compete with WP's notion of notability. I don't see any reason to use "[un]remarkable" instead, since we don't have a WP definition of that term, but do have one for "[non-]notable". — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 05:27, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

text: I also agree that A7 and G11 seem to be partially redundant, and that this could be clarified.  If we agree that G11 is to prevent spam articles (like your third example above), then we can probably agree that A7 shouldn't try to repeat this but should instead address junk articles (like your first two examples, though I suppose the band one could be more G11 than A7, depending on precisely what it said and how spammy it was). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 05:31, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is why A7 only works for specific categories of things.  If you start having A7 apply to all articles, then, yeah, why should articles on abstract concepts, words, last names, et cetera, have to make a claim of significance or importance?  But for the categories of articles A7 does apply to, there are myriad potential subjects, most of which are not encyclopedic, and all the encyclopedic ones should be able to at least have some claimed significance.  I might not quite agree that's true for companies (what are they supposed to say to claim importance, without making the article look like spam?) but that one was sort of mandated from above.  Mangojuicetalk 05:39, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

text: (EC) I don't think merging into G11 would really work. "John is a student at Somewhere Middle School. He likes sandwiches." is not really an ad for anyone or anything, but would fit A7. Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:30, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Right. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 05:32, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Restatement: Can A7 be slightly reworded to make it clear it is not a rehash of G11, without messing with its applicability? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 00:21, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Redundant in part with G11?

message: I've seen many Elementary and middle schools at AfD (some I've put up myself) that assert zero notability whatsoever. I'm not against having certain school pages here, but maybe we could extend A7 to include these school pages that don't assert notability. I've heard some rationalize that schools fall under organizations, but if CSD applies to certain schools, it should be explicitly stated. J-ſtanContribsUser page 03:44, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess the question is whether or not schools qualify as the same kind of general article type that is likely to be subject to hype, which seems to be the point of G7.  I understand and have personally witnessed some SD and AfD activity with regard to secondary schools in which "the G7 aspect", however we want to define it, seemed to be at play, but it doesn't seem to be habitual or a predictive quality.  Lots of kids are proud of their schools, but that doesn't presently seem to translate into a preponderance of trivial school articles being created by POV-pushing boosters.  If (see my struck objection to G7's exclusivity in another sub-topic here) I understand the rationale correctly, the G7 set of exceptions have been written specifically to address vanity articles. If school articles are mostly good-faith attempts at article-writing (it seems to me that they are), then they probably should not be enumerated in the G7 section.  That said, I have no problem at all with schools being added to the list of types of organizations in G7 if consensus holds that schools are too often the subject of such POV exercises.  I'm just saying I am skeptical that they are. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 05:14, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

text: A7 specifies it is for non-controversial, and at this point at least the deletion of such articles generally is not. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:23, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Fair enough, I see the point about generally not being POV attempts, but even if good-faith, they do seem to be vanity articles, in that they are generally trivial. A lot of band articles who qualify for A7 aren't promotional, and are generally neutral, just giving info about the band. Many of these school articles follow that same pattern. And about being non-controversial, these schools almost always end up being unanimously in favor of deletion at AfD. J-ſtanContribsUser page 02:54, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sure there are many schools the deletion of which is not individually controversial, but the deletion of schools as a class seems to be. I find reference to that as far back as archive 17. (Another topic worthy of reading in archive 18: A7 & schools) I suppose the idea may be that, like products, wider review may be necessary to determine if a school is notable. Someday maybe :Wikipedia:Notability (schools) (or some guideline on the subject) will pass, and then they may be easier to assess in terms of speedy. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 03:04, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, A7 could possibly be expanded to include individual schools that do not assert notability. As with the rest of A7, if the topic is controversial, it could be brought to AfD. J-ſtanContribsUser page 03:08, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Elementary and middle schools 

message: Criterion G8, for orphaned talk pages of no particular use, strikes me as the sort of thing that could be reasonably merged with G6, for general housekeeping. Not a matter of importance, of course, but if there is ever a drive to cut down on the large, occasionally redundant, number of criteria we have, an expanded G6 could probably supersede G8. Any reasons why this wouldn't work? Picaroon (t) 01:05, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess to avoid G6 just becoming a long laundry list of miscellaneous reasons for deletion. G8 deletions do have a few privosos to remember, 3 lines worth at present... merging would seem to make G6 too bloated. That's the practical reason for keeping them separate now... if you want the actual reason they're separate, traditionally CSDs were kept very narrow such that each rule dealt with very specific situations, creating a list of literally all the specific reasons it would be okay to speedy delete a page. That has gradually changed, but it explains a lot of the relics. It still makes sense, to me at least, to keep G6 and G8 separate. --W.marsh 01:47, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've always viewed G6 as kind-of purposefully ambiguous. I use it occasionally when there isn't a need a for a page, but there isn't a specific appropriate CSD reason. Some people would disagree with that interpretation of G6... I agree with W.marsh about them not being joined and the reason for them being separate for such a long time. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:41, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Regardless of bloating issues, I don't believe G8 is non-controversial enough to be merged with G6. Talk pages of deleted articles often contain discourse or dispute over the CSD tagging of the article itself, and on occasion IPs or even registered users create articles in talk space.  It's good to have a seperate and specific criterion for this very limitted circumstance.  Someguy1221 (talk) 06:32, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In support of that, I recall several talk page deletions have been challenged at DRV, suggesting controversy. I can't recall a pagemove redirect or history merge deletion ever being challenged... --W.marsh 15:41, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

text: I think we should keep G6 down to the bare minimum - there are a few examples listed there and I think that adding more is a bad idea. In addition, in all the examples there, there is 0 content removed - any talk page is likely to have some content in the history. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 07:13, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  G6 and G8 

message: Could someone advise me on the following? We have :Image:Gaston motel 1963.jpg on Wikipedia. I recently fixed the license tag, but as it needed cropping, I went back to the original, cropped it and uploaded it Commons, ending up with :Image:04293v cropped.JPG. My question is whether :Image:Gaston motel 1963.jpg now falls under any of the image CSDs? It feels like I1 or I8, but doesn't quite fit the criteria. Can it be deleted under G6 (housekeeping)? Should this kind of thing be specifically covered in the image CSDs? I know a common process on Commons is to upload the original and the cropped version. Maybe I should just tag the uncropped version for transfer to Commons? Carcharoth (talk) 18:14, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We can probably just add something to I1 or I8. Although this really only works because the image is PD. If it were GFDL, I assume we'd want to keep past versions? I could very easily be wrong, since I'm a bit confused on how the GFDL is applied for images. -- Ned Scott 05:46, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's an idea. A history merge would solve a lot of problems. Can that be done with images? Of course, one being on Wikipedia and one being on Commons makes this difficult. I think some people would prefer to have the uncropped version separate, but it is possible that a lot of uncropped versions are sitting in image histories. Carcharoth (talk) 11:50, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleting uncropped originals of cropped images 

message: I'd like to remove this line from A1: "Care should be taken to ensure that valid articles in progress are not deleted."
Rational: Long tradition of keeping advice like this out as it constitutes instruction creep and is not very useful anyway. Snippets like this are usually added after a specific bad deletion, and if we did that every time there was a bad deletion, CSD would be 500 pages long with reactionary advice. Ultimately, if A1 is applied correctly, nothing useful towards a "valid article" will be deleted. An article "lacking sufficient context to identify the subject of the article", which is what A1 calls for, will require a total rewrite anyway to be useful. Bad deletions should be dealt with by explaining the issue to the deleting admin and then taking it to DRV if necessary... we shouldn't be tacking stuff on to policy every time someone makes a bad deletion. It doesn't work anyway.
I'll make the change eventually if there are no objections, but just want to propose it here first since the page is full-protected right now. --W.marsh 16:15, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Still, it is useful advice and should be on a subsidiary page. No need to avoid learning from the wisdom gathered from numerous examples of the policy in action. Keep the main page short, but add useful longer explanations and examples somewhere else, like Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Explanations. Carcharoth (talk) 17:24, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems to already be covered there, just with different wording. --W.marsh 17:40, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Precisely. The synchronisation between policy and explanation should be kept up-to-date. Maybe something like the situation at WP:NFC could work, where the policy bit (WP:NFCC) is transcluded above the guideline/explanation bits. That keeps the policy and guideline separate (in terms of watchlists and editing), but also keeps them better synchronised (in theory). Carcharoth (talk) 18:49, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree with proposal - there are plenty of editors (myself included) who create articles incrementally.  Having some incomplete article fragment whacked while the creator is working on expanding it does not strike me as an optimal situation.  This clause just reminds taggers to tread carefully when tagging such articles.  Actually, if I had my way, A1 and A3 would not be valid rationales for the first 24 hours of an article's existance at all.  Lankiveil (talk) 05:52, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Use your userspace. A 1-sentence article can provide enough context to identify the subject... there's really no excuse for creating articles that fail to do even that, they need a full rewrite, which often never occurs. If it is a "valid article", the article shouldn't be deleted under A1 anyway... the language right now is really tacky and ineffective. You might agree with the sentiment, but the wording I want to remove isn't a criteria, it's just extraneous advice that is unenforceable and doesn't belong there. --W.marsh 05:58, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would agree with the proposal. If this is really a problem, we are probably overstretching A1. It is supposed to be about an article with almost no context whatsoever. "John Doe is an important person" is speedy deletable, "John Doe is a well-known microbiologist" should not be, it provides enough context to get the most basic idea of who he is. Mr.Z-man 06:12, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

text: A good point, but one that I don't think many newbies would know.  It seems bite-y to just slap a tag onto such an article because it might technically meet A1.  By all means, if the user has an extensive contribution history, or it's been lying about for a week or so with no improvement, but articles that are ten minutes old and might still be being worked upon probably should not be speedied.  Lankiveil (talk) 07:30, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think the wording particularly helps newbies understand the policy... as it's advice directed at people actually making the deletions, who aren't newbies. I'm not making this proposal with the intent of making it easier to delete stuff under A1... it's about making sure the criteria are criteria, not advice on the criteria. A well-written rule shouldn't need to be bogged down in documentation to ensure people apply it correctly. --W.marsh 00:56, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protected edit proposal 

message: Am I crazy, or doesn't this qualify for G6, housekeeping? When I added a speedy delete notice to the page, an admin removed it, citing the MFD that gave the indication that it was speedyable. -- Ned Scott 06:24, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That would almost be db-author, where the author is the WikiProject. I had a similar case when setting up the assessment pages for another project. Different names. I ended up creating redirects to avoid confusing people. This case is slightly different, as the bot has started working on the page, but as it doesn't seem to have actually recorded anything, you could probably just delete instead of doign a redirect (and the bot will probably overwrite the redirect). Letting the MfD run its course is probably simplest. I wouldn't have objected to a speedy in that case. Talking of which, does anyone want to comment on the section above, and answer my question there? :-) Carcharoth (talk) 11:41, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I routinely use the housekeeping criterion to delete maintenance pages created by the math project that are no longer needed. It's hard to claim with a straight face that it isn't housekeeping - the mop metaphor is particularly appropriate. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:55, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Housekeeping 

message: I'd like to suggest an new category, articles that appear to be about living persons but provide no sources. WP:BLP says such material "must adhere strictly" to our policies, including WP:V. A7 candidate articles frequently make notability claims that require subjective evaluation (is "best high school soccer player in Nebraska" notable enough?). The criterion I am proposing is clear-cut and automatic: about a person, no source, no death date or other indication the subject is no longer alive --> gone. It would add teeth to BLP and sharply reduce the number of situations where we are, in effect, telling people they aren't important enough to be in Wikipedia.--agr (talk) 11:16, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Living biographies already are treated differently by this policy. A biography of a living person that is negative in tone can be speedy deleted under G10, whereas if the article was negative in tone and about something else it couldn't be speedied. Hut 8.5 17:18, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *There's also a parallel track within BLP to handle bad sourcing, but it's not subject to CSD.  Unsourced or poorly sourced information that is derogatory or controversial can be deleted on sight, and articles consisting entirely of that may be deleted.  Poorly sourced neutral articles get handled the usual way.  If we start making rules for BLP here we're creating a policy fork.  Further, I don't see any special issues arising over the intersection between BLP and the other reasons for notability.  For example, copyvio, failure to assert importance, advertising, foreign language translations, and housekeeping, are already pretty clear and (other than the fact that there are special notability guidelines for different kinds of people) no reason to treat the BLP cases differently.  Wikidemo (talk) 17:47, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *I agree with W.marsh and Wikidemo that this criterion is unnecessary and unhelpful, constitutes rule-creep, and is even a bit WP:BITE-y. WP:CSD is not a replacement for Wikipedia:Deletion policy; it is intended for uncontroversial cases, and when content is not worth preserving. A deletion is not uncontroversial when it can be avoided by adding a single unreliable source to an article. (What we should do is modify the article creation interface to place more emphasis on soruces, but that's not an issue for this talk page.) Black Falcon (Talk) 18:44, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

text: *I did not propose that articles be deleted unless "any information whatsoever regarding living persons" is sourced. Rather I suggested that BLP articles with no reliable source at all should go (and I accept User:Ceyockey's suggestion that this apply only to new articles). WP:BLP does not agree that "completely wrong" information is acceptable in a BLP. It says: "We must get the article right." The statement "Joe Schmoe is a baker who lives in Atlanta" may indeed be offensive to Dr. Joseph Schmoe who is the principal of an Atlanta high school. We get prank articles all the time. This is one area where we can set a bright line criterion instead of a judgment call and I think we should.--agr (talk) 20:41, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *A criterion that requires individual judgments about the reliability of sources is not exactly "objective" and certainly not "uncontestable" (see WT:CSD#Read this before proposing new criteria) or uncontroversial, which all speedy deletion criteria should be. Black Falcon (Talk) 20:54, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

text: * My point is that an article should never be speedy deleted if it can be edited into an acceptable state - where in this case "acceptable" just means that any questionable or potentially offensive assertions have been removed and it's left with some basic information that can be used to identify the person and expand it in the future. If it's deleted, future editors who may have better access to sources will not ever see the article or be motivated to expand it. Keep in mind the difference between the criteria that should be satisfied by an ideal BLP article (correct, well-referenced) and a work-in-progress BLP article (does not contain damaging unsourced claims). Dcoetzee 21:00, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just to note, "We must get the article right" is a typical piece of Jimbo Walesian argumentation.  It's not seriously meant as policy that we have a zero tolerance level for errors - that would be illogical and run against WP:V, among other things (the goal being verifiability, not truth).  It's a statement of aspiration and effort.Wikidemo (talk) 21:11, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

text: BLP does not reverse the general policy that we improve if possible. We do not immediately need a source for noncontentious material that has some appearance of being significant. BLP is about contentious material. In the rare case of a name conflict, it's easy enough to deal with it. if it's a matter of impersonation, there's the BLP noticeboard. When someone adds a negative bio to an article on a teacher, we can deal with it well enough with the present criterion. That deals with the problematic cases. This is an attempt to extend  BLP without there being any real problems to deal with. A stub on a person is still a valid stub. A change in policy of this magnitude shoudl go to the Village Pump, not here. DGG (talk) 07:06, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  BLP with no sources 

message: MZMcBride brought up a good point when saying "WP:CSD is official policy; changes to it are a big deal".  That implies that our agreement here might not be sufficient to adopt the change officially.  What is the path forward to make the policy change? Is there a change control board that needs to consider it, for instance?  Thanks for spelling it out ... though I've been here quite a while, I have not engaged in policy revision discussions up to now. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 04:41, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no formal procedure. I have added a "proposed" message to the CSD page, which will draw the first wave of comments. If that seems positive, the next step is to announce it at the village pump. If it still seems to have consensus after that, it's part of the policy. I think it's worth announcing at the admin noticeboard as well. The main thing is just to give people who are likely to care a fair chance to comment. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:45, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the criterion might have merit if it could be made to work without being overly bureaucratic (i.e. containing a detailed description of numerous prerequisites and exclusions). In its current form, I oppose adoption: although the criterion is supposed to cover cases of uncontroversial housekeeping and clarify a subset of G6 deletions, it is now about as long as and more complicated than criteria G12, C2, and I9. (Moreover, it accomplishes less than is accomplished through the combination of WP:DOT and CSD G6.) – Black Falcon (Talk) 05:37, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The nature of the new criterion is that it will accomplish less than what is currently done under G6. That's unavoidable, since about any speedy deletion of a template for any reason could be called housekeeping. I agree that the present wording is too long. It needs to be rewritten to make it more succinct. But I do think it will cover any template that would actually get deleted under DOT (the requirements for listing at DOT are less, but that doesn't mean that anything that gets listed will get deleted). — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:45, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: With some rewording I have made the criterion at least sound less complicated and bureaucratic.  What do you think now?  Happy‑melon 13:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

text: I agree that "giving notice" is a very good idea.  Consensus needs involvement.  :)  Putting the notice on the CSD page was a good idea (that's how I got here).  Going to WP:VPP next is also a good idea.  Some other ways to "advertise" it include: WikiEN-l mailing list; WP:RFC/POLICY via ; Template:Announcements/Community bulletin board; The Signpost.  I'd suggest using one or more of those, eventually.  —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 04:10, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Now that we have a reasonably stable wording, and a new template () to go with it, I think it's time to open this up to a wider audience.  Does anyone have any suggestion as to the order of events?  I am inclined to go: RFC, then VPP, Signpost and/or community bulletin board.  Objections?  Happy‑melon 19:48, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Path to adoption

message: The suggested text says, in part, "Templates that ... are no longer used ... may be deleted after seven days".  I presume what we're after here is, "If the template seems like a dead idea, and nobody has used it for seven days, just delete it".  I don't have a problem with that in concept; sounds good to me.  But how would one check that?  To the best of my knowledge, there's no way to see a usage history for a template.  That is, there's nothing that will show you when a page used to transclude it, or the last time it was substituted.  (If there's some MediaWiki feature I've missed, just hit me over the head with a cluebat about it.)  —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 03:45, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No it was just worded poorly.  I've reworded it to "after being tagged for seven days."  Happy‑melon 15:46, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, that makes more sense.  And I think the idea is a good one!  •  But now I have a different concern: Every other criteria on WP:CSD is for situations where an immediate decision on deletion is justified.  The deleting admin can just click delete and be done.  Indeed, that's what makes it speedy.  While Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, I am worried that having one CSD situation that works differently than all the others is just an opportunity for confusion and strife.  Would it not be better to fold this into WP:PROT, or work on promoting WP:DOT to guideline status?  I like to avoid inconsistency when there are better alternatives.  :) —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 23:03, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Read WP:CSD#I4, WP:CSD#I5 and WP:CSD#I6 - it's by no means a unique situation.  Note that I actually agree with you that there isn't really any compelling reason for a wait period, but someone said they'd be more comfortable with it in and I'd rather have a CSD with a delay than DOT, PROD or TfD.  Note that it's still clearing the bureaucracy away from the process, which is what this new criterion is really all about.  Happy‑melon 11:07, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right, of course.  I even knew about at least one of those.  I'm not quite sure why they slipped my mind.  Carry on!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by DragonHawk (talk • contribs) 23:26, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Time clarification