Wikipedia talk:Pure wiki deletion system/Archive 1

message: Pros:
#Because soft deletion can be trivially reverted, it is less of a big deal. All users could do it, dramatically increasing openness and democratic nature of WP.
#Decisions to soft delete could be made the same way as all other wikipedia decisions... unilaterally if the change is 'obvious' or through discussion on the talk page if more tricky.
# The whole community can come together to deal with pages created by vandals, test pages, and other detritus.
#The workload of administrators will be dramatically reduced, allowing them to get on with the real work of writing brilliant encyclopaedia articles.
# Less strain on sysops to be in the "front line" against vandals.
# The current need for sysops to excercise their best judgement in judging consensus is divisive and creates arguments, suspicion and resentment, placing additional strain on sysops
# The central VfD page gets lots of edit conflicts, discouraging discussion and discouraging listing of pages that should be deleted.
# The lack of space on VfD hinders proper debate and discussion of options available, leading to stereotyped keep/delete arguments and no real attempt at consensus.
# Deletion discussion could take place on a page's talk page.
# Someone who finds the information useful (either for another Wikimedia project or for a non-Wikimedia project) can still use it.  In addition to the direct benefits to Wikimedia and society, this will have the indirect benefit of lessening the animosity between many of the inclusionists and deletionists.
Cons:
#More potential for damage? Vandals who decide to blank pages wreak slightly more havoc as they cause red links to appear on other pages.
#*Vandals already blank pages. The high number of red links would cause a more rapid response, thus reducing the potential for damage, not increasing it.
#*A Special page listing of recently blanked pages could be kept.
#More strain on server, with more pages for it remember/linkify
#The disappearance of VfD would amount to the loss of a real community page where lots of users interact, and get to hear about recent developments. A lot of discussion on VfD gives people a good idea of what should or should not appear in Wikipedia.
##The best thing for an open content encyclopedia is to encourage as many people as possible to contribute their knowledge.  While communities are nice for the people that live in them, by definition they are exclusive.  So the more "real community pages" there are, the less effective Wikipedia will be.
#May add extra strain to another oft-edited page, the Village Pump, as people rush there to say... blanking of X is being considered... please come and support/deny it at the talk page... maybe we'd end up with a pages where blanking is being considered page which could (given how built-in the VfD way is) become a de-facto VfD
##Mitigating factor: The number of controvertially deleted pages would presumably be significantly less than the total number of deleted pages, so this discussion page would be more wieldy.
##Restoring a page you believe should not have been deleted would be as trivial as reverting an edit you believe shouldn't have been made.  You don't get people rushing to the Village Pump to say "the word English has been used on such-and-such a page instead of British.  Please come and help me change it."  There's no need.  You just do it yourself.
##Yes, but as with any significant change, there might need to be consensus reached in order to decide whether the page should live as a blank page or as a page with content - and deletion isn't like English/British, it's a big thing. But that said, yes, another page might become a de-facto VfD. But that's displaying more trust in the wiki system than de-jure VfD.
#Some developer work required.
#Pages begun as patent nonsense, test pages, and vandalism would never be permanently deleted, even though they will often never yeild a real article.
##Deleted pages would not be visible to visitors, so this wouldn't matter.
##Blatant cases could still be "hard deleted". Besides, harddrive space is cheap (says the guy who doesn't have to pay the bills).
##Note that the possible change where long-blanked pages are hard-deleted automatically would address this concern (although it would also limit some of the advantages.)
#Opens door to severely disruptive varient of the edit war: the delete/restore war.
#:The 3RR etc would still apply. We have edit wars over sentences. At least with a whole page, the issue is much clearer.
#Articles that one or two people feel very strongly should exist and that most editors consider useless and deletable but not a great evil (i.e., most vanity pages) would be harder to remove. If one nut keeps on restoring a blanked article, concerned editors with other things to do may give up.
#:If someone loves the article more than you hate it... 
#:Anyone repeatedly reverting blanks of their vanity page is likely to see that page proposed for hard deletion on grounds of edit-war resolution long before their vanity page becomes permanent through their own persistance exceeding that of the editors who are deleting them.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.222.45.234 (talk) 21:43, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Pros and Cons (please add/edit this)

message: This proposal, to me, seems elegant, and quite possibly the "last, best hope for peace". The main objection to its implementation is that if it blows up, it'll blow up big. So why not do a test case?
I mod for a MediaWiki-based wiki. We are beginning to need a policy for deleting borderline case pages. I think we'll keep hard deleting obvious cases, but I'd prefer to skip a VfD system for the borderline ones, given the heartache it has caused here. We're a special topic wiki, which means we have quite a few pages that are marginally offtopic. 
We have not yet come to a decision regarding policy on this issue, but I believe I could convince them of this proposal. But the technical implemntation may be more than our coding staff would wish to bite off.
Assuming that I could get approval, would somebody be willing to implement this proposal at our wiki? Crazyeddie 18:57, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Do a Test Case

message: I believe the main advantage of the deletion process as it exists is that people can't get into deletion wars. In my view, edit wars represent a failure of consensus: disputants become emotional and cease communicating in a productive manner. The protection system was designed to force people to take their argument to the Talk page, so that an agreement can be worked out. The present deletion policy effectively makes all deletions protected automatically, so deletion wars can (in theory) never occur. 
To move to the proposed wiki-based deletion process would have an effect that I believe the author of this proposal has not considered: protection by sysops would be able to prevent deletion/resurrection of articles (see footnote). And since the protection system does not operate on consensus, but rather on each sysop's own best judgment, this proposal actually increases the power of sysops to affect the content of Wikipedia!
While some may feel that such deletion wars are simply consensus in the making, I personally feel that edit wars actually block the development of Wikipedia. For me, the proposed deletion system doesn't make sense: sysops are already responsible for cooling off edit wars, and the issue of which version of the article is protected can be contentious; are sysops now expected to make interim decisions about whether an article can exist or not?
On a different topic, I feel that the present system is more transparent than the proposed one, for the simple reason that substantive deletions can be seen and discussed by all users in one place. Bureaucratic? Yes. Complicated? Yes. But you can't beat it for transparency.
Footnote: actually, sysops already have the power to use protection to prevent article resurrection. But it is rarely needed under the present system
-- Cyan
:Admins can already delete pages at a whim. They would just loose their privileges for it (I'd hope). It would be similar with blanking pages and locking the page: it would be an unacceptable, disciplinable action.  
:Edit wars and aggressive use of VfD are two sides of the same coin. There's nothing to recommend VfD in that respect. In fact it's worse, as you can enforce your decision by contacting a few people on IM if the objector can only work on the article occasionally, and hasn't time to persuade people to save their article or make a case within the time limit.  213.162.110.250 12:49, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Critique by [[User:Cyan|Cyan]]

message: As many others have pointed out, the number of controversial deletions is far less than the number of total deletions. The effect of the current VfD systems is to make every deletion a controversial one. Under the proposed system, the few controversial "deletions" could be settled under the systems already in place for dealing with edit wars.
Further, the purpose of the sysop's power to protect a page is to buy time, to allow cooler heads to prevail and a true consensus to develop. Any sysop who used this power inappropriately would highly visible, and would probably be removed. By contrast, the VfD system operates by majority vote (granted, usually a 2/3s majority), not by consensus. Furthermore, the VfD system is said to be controlled by a "shadow tyranny" of regulars, who might not truly represent the will of the Wiki.
Under the proposed system, "deletions" would be visible to the people who actually use the page, and could be "undeleted" by any dissenter. Under the current system, "wrongful" deletions can not be so easily undone.
I would say that the burden of proof lays on the side that wants to delete a page. So in case of a delete war, the sysop should protect the undeleted version, until a consensus can be reached.
Crazyeddie 18:46, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Reply by [[User:Crazyeddie|Crazyeddie]]

message: I like the proposal. I still think a few small things should be tuned up:
*After some period of inactivity (say 1 month) soft deleted pages should become hard deleted - save space
*Severe copyright violations, etc. should be hard deleted through the existent process
*Should be a policy that in the case of deleting wars the article should go through the existent process (say after three deletion and reverting by at least two different people on each side).
*Some articles (e.g. feature articles) should be delete protected.
192.67.248.216 03:59, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Tuning up?

message: Please add your name(and date) here if you agree with the proposal.  This will let all of us know how much support there is for this, and give us a group of people to call on for help in working out the proposal.
* JesseW, the juggling janitor 22:36, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Supporters

message: * Jmabel | Talk 00:09, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I notice there's a lack of rebuttals to support votes, but I think there should be more admins (trusted users) to handle the tasks, rather than emphasize our problems we have currently with the wiki. -Mysekurity (talk • cont. • [ logs]) 04:34, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I don't think this is a good argument. Vandalism by this method - as opposed to article content edits, will be much easier to spot and revert. For one it would appear clearly as a red-link in Recent Changes, and for another, it would be easy to tell which are legitimate deletions and which are not simply by reading the article title. A spuriously deleted article would be much easier to check for and revert, and would be much less offensive or dangerous than the sort of article content vandalism we see today.--Fangz 11:56, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Opposition

message: Why would anyone who thinks they're working in a wiki oppose it? Yes, you might have deletion wars -- especially with pages created by anons -- but it would allow unloved pages to slip away. -- Grace Note 4:45 AEST August 2, 2005
I like this, although I would still keep hard delete. It would be used for existing speedy categories on WP:EN, for example. —Theo  (Talk) 17:49, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brilliant idea 

message: It makes no sense to implement this before any policies are proposed. If someone keeps blanking/deleting a page, when is that regarded vandalism and when is it regarded as part of the new deletion process? When can someone revert the blanking? Would they have to get consensus before doing so, or after? The suggestion at :en:Wikipedia:Requests for deletion that this could be implemented within a week is a very bad one if it implies such a thing would be implemented with no policies in place, and no agreement that blank pages should appear this way. Angela 19:04, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It would be considered vandalism if there was no edit summary explaining the action and/or if they page was "obviously" not suitable for deletion. Anyone can revert the blanking if she thinks it was inappropriate - just like anyone can revert any change in Wikipedia. - Haukurth (en:wikipedia) 17:08, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Policy implications

message: One change is necessary, I think:
:"A page cannot be blanked unless the user enters an edit summary of at least twenty characters."
I appreciate the thought behind that rule, but it will only lead to blanked pages with an edit summary of "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" or "blankkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk". --DavidConrad 09:32, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  No minimum edit summary 

message: I really like this idea, especially considering that so many of the other proposals are so convoluted. Controversial deletions should work just like other disputes, and perhaps VfD can have a new life as a more specific version of RfC.
And maybe this will even get people to pay attention to other kinds of disputes. VfD makes it easy to get the community involved when someone adds an unencyclopedic article, but it's hard to get the community involved when someone adds content that is unencyclopedic to an existing article. By making the processes more similar, we can remove this strange dichotomy. w:User:Rspeer 23:36, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: why does the community need to get involved when someone adds content that is unencyclopedic to an existing article?--Alhutch 07:31, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Support 

message: I removed this para:
Deleted pages may be moved just like live pages, except that there will be no re-direct created.  By this means, a live page can be moved on top of a deleted page without losing the deleted page's history.
:It seems to require a lot of complicated coding, and is not particuarly necessary; IMO, moving a page on top of a PWD(Pure Wiki Deleted) page should be the same as it is now to move on top of a page with a history; you need an admin to merge the histories.  We should address this in the Rebuttals section, but not in the introduction.
and this one:
The system will be de-centralised and self-regulating.  There will be no "votes for deletion" procedure, just as there is currently no "votes for re-naming" procedure, no "votes for blanking" procedure and no "votes for this particular edit that I want to make here" procedure.  There will be no deletion log, just as there is no "re-naming log", no "blanking log", etc.
:AFAIK, many of the current supporters of PWD don't want to remove Full Deletion(i.e. hiding the revisions from the general public, conventional deletion), so this paragraph is just wrong.  We could have an argument about this on this talk page, if people want to.
and the whole Possible changes section - we should not have "possible" changes listed on the main proposal page.  They should be discussed here, and only added if and when they are agreed to.
Here's the excised section:
Possible changes
*Administrators' powers to prevent deletion/resurrection of articles will be rescinded.
**Unfortunately, administrators need the ability to prevent the resurrection of articles, as the WP article on the "popularity of Adolf Hitler" - "a great man, admired by many Jews" - shows. It was created, and created, and created, and finally blocked from being created.
*Pages that had been blank for a long time (a month? a year?) should be able to be "cleaned up" by the database, if necessary for the good of the database.
and the bits about the edit summary:
*A page cannot be blanked unless the user enters an edit summary of at least twenty characters.
*When a page is blanked, the word "DELETED" is automatically added as a prefix to the edit summary.
*When a page is revived, the word "REVIVED" is automatically added as a prefix to the edit summary.''
:IMO, this is redudnant with the log of blanking(and unblanking); we don't use technical measures to require a reason for anything else, and as said above, they wouldn't work even here.  The auto edit summary bits are redundant with the log.
66.81.178.169 07:40, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Refactoring 

message: Anyone interested in trying to get more people to support (or at least comment on) this idea?  What would be good ways of doing so?  To me, the argument for pure wiki deletion is obvious: anyone can edit Wikipedia, and removal of undesirable content is a type of edit, so anyone should be able to do it.  Making deletion/undeletion a special case instead of just another edit is a clear case of instruction creep.  The "burden of proof" should be on those who want to do it any other way.
Has it occurred to anyone else that we could (sort of) start using pure wiki deletion without waiting for software changes?  The software doesn't support it directly, but we could attempt to approximate this kind of system.  Friday (talk) 09:04, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:XD#XD4 is a workaround that is very similar to the PWDS - but it works only for logged-in users. -- grm_wnr Esc 21:09, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

text: I've added such a comment to the the  template. —Jwanders 20:38, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Evangelism

message: To get the process started, I filed a MediaZilla request for enhancement at MediaZilla:3843. I haven't done this before, so I hope I did it right. RSpeer 02:39, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks good to me.  I went ahead and voted on it, which I assume makes a difference.  Those interested should visit and vote on the bug as well to increase it's priority. ∴ here…♠ 05:27, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Good idea. I went and voted on it too. Other people who want to see the PWDS implemented should do the same. RSpeer 15:26, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  MediaZilla 

message: It seems we have very strong core support for this project but are lacking many proposals of what to do next.  I figure we should consider:
* Making the XD4 blanking system above an official project strategy (i.e. moving it to the project page).
* Adding something to on deletion reform to indicate the level of support, with the view of moving this towards official Wikipedia policy.
As I'm not sure how either of these would be received by the rest of the deletion reform community and am loathe to start yet another rambling discussion, I figured I'd ask for other suggestions and find a consensus here before proceeding.  Thoughts? —Jwanders 07:58, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I went ahead and consolidated the XD options into one to be refined.  Hopefully well received, and a step forward to using this more widely.  See WP:XD. ∴ here…♠ 18:43, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Sounds good to me.  Friday (talk) 18:45, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moving Forward 

message: Benefits of PWDS:
For deletionists:
* More stuff would be deleted
* Because:
** More people able to do it (rather than just nominate it to be done)
** Easier (one step vs three steps)
** Less work overall (one step vs 10 or so steps for AfD)
* AfD would be smaller, and therefore easier to view
For inclusionists:
* Much less stuff would be hidden from public view
* Because
** PWDS deleted stuff would still be in the history
* AfD would be smaller, and therefore easier to view
* A large amount of deletion could be canceled easily - just undo the blanking, and leave it alone - or list it on AfD to prevent it from going through PWDS again.
(most of these may also be regarded as disadvantages ;-) ) Comments, arguments, spelling corrections? (sorry, it's late at night) JesseW, the juggling janitor 10:22, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thoughts on benefits of PWDS 

message: The main complaint, and particularly the main one that makes sense, is that this will increase the number of edit wars. Possibly dozens per day! But here are two responses:
* Dozens of edit wars per day would be a drop in the bucket for Wikipedia. AfD is not the entirety of Wikipedia discussion.
* I've experimental deleted numerous articles over the last few weeks. Only one was ever reverted. I sent it to AfD where it was dealt with without conflict. I think that it removes conflict to not draw undue attention to every stupid page.
rspeer 14:17, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  On edit wars 

message: Responses to Greg's opposition:
* A perfectly easy way (a Special: page) to see all recent deletions and recreations is a part of the proposal. That's how you would know.
*:Right, but I mean on the non technical side. Right now you can be almost sure that an article being blanked is vandalism, but with this, it takes alot more time. Yes, I know, we shouldn't all be computers, etc. But it puts alot more strain on RC Patrol.
*:: You can be sure that an article being blanked without a good edit comment is vandalism, though. rspeer 21:33, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Response to Greg 

message: The new system looks great, but a few modifications should be made in order for it not to run astray. Those I see are:
* The talk page should definitely be available, not only the history, because the talk page is likely to contain the debate and vote that led to the deletion, if any.
* Only logged-in users should be allowed to blank pages, because this would make impeding the vandalism much easier. And people who haven't been long enough on wikipedia to bother logging in have no business deleting pages anyway.
** This seems to complicate the proposal somewhat. What should happen when an anon blanks the page? Does the software not let them save it? What if they type a single character and then save it? If this really does accomplish something, why don't we prevent anons from blanking now? I think that anons should simply be held to the standards of edit comments that everyone else is. rspeer 06:29, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  a few refining points 

message: Lets start using it regularly and see what happens.  :Category:XD is growing slowly.
newpages at least 20,000 old (roughly a week at the moment) is a nice spot I feel comforatable finding pages needing initial filtering.  Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Stub_types is useful to help sort pages not warrenting deletion. ∴ here…♠ 09:43, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *People are using WP:XD right now.  That's a poor man's approximation of PWDS.  It's not vandalism, it uses a template explaining what's going on.  Outright blanking would in fact be a very bad idea until the software changes are in place to make it function as described.  Friday (talk) 14:29, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Start using it! 

message: I think we're ready to publicize this proposal more, so I put it on the Village Pump. rspeer 01:52, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Posted on Village Pump 

message: I blank a page and think it's gone (say I'm not an admin or it's not SDable). Then it's remade. The article won't appear on newpages (since it's not new) and on RC it will only appear as an edit and I didn't put it on my watchlist. How do I know that it was remade? When someone creates an article on a blank page it should appear on newpages (except in the case of senseless blanking where it is reverted). Both cases are bad. Either things aren't caught in new pages or new pages is flooded with simple vandalism reversion. Broken S 03:00, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Just to correct a misunderstanding - the remade page would appear on Newpages(quoting from the proposal: "unblanking of a page would be logged"); the deletion log is already "flooded with simple vandalism"; this proposal would not change that at all, either way. JesseW, the juggling janitor 22:58, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Having remade pages appear on Newpages seems like the right choice to me. It's consistent with the idea that blanked pages act deleted. Newpages isn't going to be "flooded" any more than it is now - we get 3,000 or so new pages every day, and not nearly as many instances of blanking vandalism. rspeer 23:32, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: yes, but the amount of blanking vandalism is prone to change if the policy is adopted. Imagine a willy like vandal blanking tons of pages. Broken S 04:07, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Willy was an issue because it was harder to revert than it was to do.  This is not the case with this proposal.  Other than the lack of reversion problems, it was just the same as any other vandal bot(or spam bot) - block, then revert the damage.  Why would this be any different? JesseW, the juggling janitor 22:52, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but a mass blanking vandal would flood the new articles page beacue all the reversions would be counted as the creation of a new article. This would/could make new page patrol more difficult. This is more of an issue than say flooding recent changes or the move log because there are far fewer pages made each day than edits. Perhaps rollbacks should be excluded from the page. Broken S 03:16, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: To me, that sounds like a solution in search of a problem. I really don't think this will be such a frequent occurrence that it requires another special case in the MediaWiki code. rspeer 06:21, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that Special:Newpages does not currently contain the reversions that Special:Log/moves and Special:Recentchanges contain, and that with this proposal, it would.  However, it would be a trivial job to write a user script to hide rollbacks from the newpage log, if and when the problem came up.  It certainly shouldn't be a requirement of the proposal that this be done. JesseW, the juggling janitor 07:38, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: I like, but

message: Note that experimental deletion method XD4 simulates PWD using a clever trick in your mediawiki user settings. This allows you to try it out right now!
If folks have other ideas or improvements, please mess around with XD4 and modify it as nescesary, or make a new experimental deletion method at Wikipedia:Experimental Deletion
I noticed Here had done some consolidation, but his changes sort of missed the entire 12 byte stub limit trick entirely. (That and the idea is to host other experiments too, PWD is not the only way to do deletion eh? ;-) )
I'm back from wikibreak, so probably I should do more maintenance on XD :-)
Kim Bruning 08:09, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Any solution needs to include average users.  Average users do not edit their red link threshold.  Glad to see you back ;) ∴ here…♠ 08:21, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  DUH! This is a simulation that can be tried out by advanced users, as all XD experiments are. It is experimental. It is NOT the actual PWD, which will require additional PHP code to be implemented properly (whereby scalability is important). Kim Bruning 08:27, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Experimental_Deletion/XD4|XD4]] simulates Pure Wiki Deletion 

message: see discussion Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_reform/Proposals/Uncontested_deletions#Uncontested_deletions_vs._Pure_wiki_deletions.
there... ∴ here…♠ 08:19, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Deletion reform/Proposals/Uncontested deletions|Uncontested deletions]] vs. [[WP:PWDS|Pure wiki deletions]] 

message: This rename is a bad thing, IMO.  I think it should go back the way it was.  Friday 17:22, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  The bugzilla entry and the meta page meta:Pure wiki deletion system (proposal) both use the Pure wiki deletion name.  Setup a redirect if you like.  ∴ here…♠ 19:15, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Done.. though I do like the other name.  If you care enough, you could propose a name change on meta?  ∴ here…♠ 22:21, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rename? 

message: I realize people are concernned about developer time, but I'd like to suggest a nontrivial code change, which would probably resolve most other objections to PWDS:
* Compute the average edit hamming distance & standard deviation, and automaticallly tag anything above or below one half standard deviation with a green - for minor or red + for major.  All blanking could be marked with a red 0, irrespective of hamming distance.
* You could change the "This is a minor edit" check box to "Significant edit", thus allowing people to declare their small edits to not be minor, i.e. no greeen -.
Sure, these are code changes which require a number of tweaks in several places, although none are too serious really.  But, they would provide significantly more information to those who look at edit histeries.  JeffBurdges 10:32, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Optimization 

message: It looks like en.wikipedia isn't ready for this proposal. Any support we can give it will be drowned out by the knee-jerk reactions ("but but but VANDALS would take time out from changing numbers and facts to be wrong, and start blanking more pages than they do now! And that would be REALLY BAD!")
I'd love to see it implemented on lower-traffic places like Meta, which has enough cleanup problems without every deletion being a multi-step process.
Maybe for now we should get behind Uncontested deletions, which has some of the same benefits, but also has enough ceremony that it doesn't threaten the AfDers' outlook on life. rspeer 06:36, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well put.  It amazes me the number of opposition comments which seem to be based on a gut feeling of aversion (or fear?) rather than any concrete criticism.  I think uncontested is a nice middle ground.  In the meantime, lets try and clean up the outdated and messy Wikipedia:Deletion reform pages and try out variants at WP:XD.  While not proposing Experimental deletion as a strict alternative to WP:AfD, I would love to see more active participants in developing and using the experiments.  XD5 and XD6, among others, reasonably approximate the two most active proposals ( Uncontested (delayed) and Pure wiki (blanking) ) ∴ here…♠ 07:20, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oh well 

message: I've written up a rationale for an expansion of the power to revert which I think people involved in this page might find interesting.  Just comments for now. At User:JesseW/First version revert proposal. Thanks! JesseW, the juggling janitor 10:02, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alternative 

message: Excuse me if I'm wrong, but I don't think this proposal would cause more vandalism, because, with the right tools in place, we could easily see vandalized pages. However, I'm not entirely sure how blanking a page is very different than labeling a page "nn-bio" or "db|blah" except that with those, a second party (the administrator) can come in and verify the speedy and simply delete the page. If I'm thinking straight, under the current system, the vandal has to rewrite the entire page which might deter him from vandalizing in the future, but under the PWDS, a vandal might be more inclined to simply revert the page back to his edit (which would still be in the page history. I don't really see a big problem with the current system of administrator power in the speedy delete and AfD process, especially since most articles that don't achieve consensus on AfD can simply be relisted to achieve it. 95% of the time, articles either achieve a solid yay-or-nay (or some variation thereof). This proposal seems like a whole lot of work to maybe improve on a system that I don't think is really broken. JHMM13 (T | C)   02:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interesting proposal 

message: Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see how this proposal would affect speedy deletion. Would speedy deletion be eliminated? The proposal did say that AFD would still be used. I don't like that. If most of the time there is a delete/undelete/AFD sequence, then it doesn't really solve the problem. It could even create more work.
If this is an add-on that doesn't replace any existing procedures, then it seems like just a complication with little benefit. Mirror Vax 05:22, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What does this replace?