Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 18

message: :I agree this is one area in which VfD needs serious work. Would it help if we were a bit bolder in creating talk pages for VfD subpages, and moving any slabs of conversation there?
:Very few VfD subpages do have talk pages, but it's where a lot of this discussion belongs IMO. It's then not included in VfD. VfD subpages should contain only votes and brief comments, which can of course include see the talk page preferably with a link to make it clear which talk page (tutorial advice on wikilinks gladly given).   
:I guess this a counter proposal, but it might achieve the same thing, and all within existing policy. And it doesn't have to be a sysop who does this of course, although IMO it should be a signed-in user. Andrewa 19:05, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting idea, might be worth a trial run or two. One issue I have with this though: it's a form of m:instruction creep as it creates more work for everyone involved. First, the voters who want to discuss will have to post in two places. Second, it creates work for maintainers cleaning up after verbose voters who forget to be brief on the main vote page (leaving maintainers to move long comments to the talk page). Third, it creates more work for sysops when archiving older discussions (two pages to juggle instead of one). • Benc • 01:25, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I've had a go at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Tran Van Ba which seemed a good candidate. Points taken about instruction creep and extra work! This technique should only be used when it's the lesser of two evils. Maybe there's a better way, but until someone comes up with it let's consider this an experiment. Andrewa 20:29, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: And there now has been some feedback, both at my talk page where one user commented I dislike the "experiment" of moving comments from VFD to talk pages (where they will never be read). Despite the name, the purpose of VfD is discussion, not votes, and also at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Tran Van Ba. It seems to me that Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Commenting on a nomination for deletion is worth a look in this regard. Andrewa 00:53, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

text: In reply, what I'm talking about is not a sub-sub-page, but the talk page of an existing subpage, and in the default skin there is a tab linking to this (generally non-existent) page already. My proposal is not to move any votes or even brief comments there, only lengthy discussion. IMO the problem is not that there's anything wrong with existing policy, the problem is it's being ignored, and the solution I'm proposing is to follow it. Andrewa 01:03, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Counter-proposal

message: I said "Certain size" -- I didn't define the length...  What I meant was to use the template after the discussion was too lengthly.  We'd still do the same thing as we do on the VfD page.  But when someone thinks the discussion is too big (anyone care to define 'too big' in this case?) then the template is used.  Several examples for candidates to use this template is like "Gay Nigger Association of America" or "Elros (and other rulers of Númenor)" (which this template example has been borrowed from) discussion. --AllyUnion (Talk) 05:47, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  First proposal clarification 

message: Have the people who keep arguing for the suspension of VfD actually seen what's on Cleanup and Wikipedia:Pages needing attention?  Those pages are enormous, and very little is getting done about the items listed on those pages.  RickK 22:09, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)
:To be fair, I think we ought to all be looking there more often.  But cleanup of unfamiliar articles takes research and time; it's not the easiest thing in the world to do.  In a perfect world, newbies wouldn't be giving us substubs to clean up, but I guess it comes with the territory.  I've only cleaned up John C. Stennis Space Center so far, and that took the better part of a day.  --Ardonik.talk() 04:57, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)
::Yeah, I know.  I work slowly!  --Ardonik.talk() 04:59, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)
::I would have to agree with Ardonik. All experienced Wikipedians should take a little time to work on the Cleanup and Pages Needing Attention pages, but having even experienced Wikipedians working on articles they do not understand is no good to anyone. It will only result in more need for cleanup and possible inaccuracies. Personally, I think we need to form some sort of grouping system for Wikipedians who are interested in and/or knowledgable about a certain subject to collect their ideas and work on the articles within their respective fields. However, until something like this happens, the best we can do is keep VfD as an outlet for getting rid of what is not needed and will (most likely) not be cleaned up in the near future. Skyler 13:07, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)
:::I only disagree with you in that I think any article can benefit fron the touch of an experienced Wikipedian, even if he or she knows nothing about the subject at hand.  That's what wikification is all about--making articles conform to our guidelines, adding links, copyediting, improving sentence structure, categorizing, adding to lists, formatting articles to look like articles on related subjects, and so on.  After all, don't we all troll Special:Recentchanges every now and then, looking for a new substub to pounce on?  (Or ....)  --Ardonik.talk() 00:22, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)
::::A short, grossly inaccurate article does not benefit from being wikified and improved stylistically and grammatically. Obvious advertising is not improved by someone who knows nothing about the product rewording making it unobvious, actually aiding sneaky insertion of advertising material in Wikipedia. Vanity articles don't improve with polish. I've seen also seen many articles "disimproved" by people adding one piece of misinformation after another. It's depressing to come accross articles that have been given bits of spot editing, a stub notice added, minor bits of cleanup, categorized three different times, had links added to it, and so forth, and through all this have remained fundamentally crap. Jallan 13:40, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Wikipedia:Pages needing attention]]

message: Maybe I've just misunderstood the way that old VfD discussions are archived, but is Template:VfD-Blimey really supposed to be there? - RedWordSmith 23:52, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I've moved it to talk:Blimey. -Sean Curtin 04:05, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)
This is a hold-over from before we developed the current archiving process (see Wikipedia:Deletion process).  Yes, the discussion pages are supposed to hang around forever.  For kept pages (including kept as a redirect), they are linked to and referenced on the article's Talk page.  For deleted pages, the link is recorded at Wikipedia:Archived delete debates.  We formalized the archiving process after several articles were deleted then recreated but no one could find the record of the debate, forcing us to go through the whole mess again.  We also had some articles that were kept, were renominated and no one could find that debate either.  It's relatively cheap to keep the discussion around forever. Rossami 13:58, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template:VfD-Blimey 

message: Copied from the Village Pump:
Lore Sjoberg, a journalist at Wired Magazine (and who is mentioned at Lightbulb joke) has an entry on his [site] about Wikipedia and specifically the VfD pages, which he finds "endlessly fascinating".  Nothing too earth shattering, although he classes Wikipedia as a guilty pleasure equal to Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion.  --Roisterer 02:24, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Short and thought-provoking IMO, nothing too radical perhaps but very well put. Recommended reading for all those who wish to discuss whether VfD should change, and how to achieve the desired result either way. I copy it here becuase it's relevant and my experience is there are far too many active talk pages on Wikipedia to regularly read all the relevant ones even to a single policy issue. Andrewa 03:59, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wired article 

message: It is convenient to edit only the first section of the VfD page when updating the date links (for example, removing a date when all entries have been processed off the /Old page).  Section edit reduces the chance of an edit conflict.  It's also a lot more usable on a dial-up connection.  I've added a (somewhat) discrete link to edit the first section.  It is at the end of the "Current Votes" line.  Rossami 03:35, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  header maintenance 

message: I've created a guide to "un-including" large and/or unanimous discussions at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Maintenance. Comments and edits are welcome, of course. • Benc • 09:13, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Note that this guide is still applicable under the new process for easier listing and editing. :-) • Benc • 07:10, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Un-including discussions 

message: To counter page move vandalism, VfD history is now archived at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion history archive 2004-09-20, talk at Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion history archive 2004-09-20. For those unfamiliar with it, history here is large enough that it's inconveniently slow to just move the page back, so periodic archiving is done instead.  Jamesday 00:17, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: VfD history archived

message: Somehow there was confusion about a page, Mountain Region of the Alps that had an edit link that pointed to a different page. I did an edit to the main VFD page to try to fix it, changing the name, and that entire entry disappeared. I'm not sure exactly what I did wrong (if anything) -- things have been somewhat more confusing here since the subsection magic was turned on. My apologies -- could someone fix my blunder? --Improv 19:47, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oops! Help! 

message: Gay Nigger Association of America has just been listed on VFD for the third time now last time two weeks ago, is there no limit to how often pages can be listed on VFD and how frequently and if not should a policy be formulated which states that they cannot be listed again for say 6 months or so? --  Ævar Arnfjörð [ Bjarmason]   09:13, 2004 Sep 27 (UTC)
:Just speedy delete it if it's identical to a previous vfd post which was agreed to delete. If it's different, then it may merit a new discussion. I'm assuming it is identical though. T.P.K. 11:13, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: For the record, there was no consensus on whether it should be deleted or not. -- Schnee 12:08, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Template:VfD-GNAA - Conclusion: Keep.Second time - Conclusion: Keep.Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Gay_Nigger_Association_of_America - Forecasted conclusion: stop adding to VfD, clean up again, keep. Goat-see 14:47, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gay Nigger Association of America 

message: Now each vote is on a sub-page it is possible to make the format of each vote easier to follow and count. I propose that each sub-page have 4 sections: Keep, Delete, Abstain and Comments. The first three would appear in a table above the last like this:
I have tried to minimise the complicated bits, but more expert coders might manage better. What I would really like is an extension to Mediawiki which mechanises vote-counting, but that's better left for MediaZilla. --Phil | Talk 12:33, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)
:Sorry I don't really like it. The table looks too complicated. Also, there are many more options in VfD: Merge, Redirect, Move to Wictionary, etc. My favorite would be to just have the vote at the front in bold like:
:*Delete because .... (sign)
:*Keep. Reason is ....  (sign)
:--Chris 73 Talk 13:57, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)
:I reckon it's much better, but perhaps the Abstain should be an Redirect column (counting the number of people abstaining is pretty pointless and they usually comment anyway). violet/riga (t) 17:11, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't say I like it. Usually when somebody comments, they're replying to a vote (or another comment), and this would separate them. Plus it doesn't allow room for votes like "transwiki and delete", move, merge/redirect, etc.  — Gwalla | Talk 20:19, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Only the voters name would appear in the keep/delete/other column - all comments would appear in comments section.  As for "transwiki and delete" the name could appear in the delete column and "transwiki" could be mentioned in the comments or "transwiki [name]" in the delete column. violet/riga (t) 09:49, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

text: I strongly oppose this.  Call me a dreamer, but I think VfD should be more about discussion and less about counting votes. anthony (see warning) 05:23, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Though seeing a majority in one column may bias the outcome I'm sure people will still comment and that the admin will be read them before making a decision.  violet/riga (t) 09:48, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

text: More instruction creep. -- Cyrius|✎ 11:46, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed new format for sub-pages 

message: I restored the notice "If you were looking for an article on the abbreviation "VFD", please see VFD." to the top of the page. The problem is that vfd in the main namespace redirects here, so if someone is looking for information on, say, Volunteer Fire Departments, they could be very poorly served without that notice. It seems to me that we should either keep the message or change the redirect. I'd prefer to keep the message, since typing in "vfd" is so convenient. - RedWordSmith 03:29, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Just add "wp:".  wp:vfd goes here. I've fixed the redirect.  Should we now remove the notice? anthony (see warning) 05:21, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: VfD still redirects here, so the notice should stay. At any rate, the Talk:Vfd page seems to wish vfd redirecting here, so I think it will redirect here in the future, again, confusing more people. 132.205.15.4 07:31, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  "If you were looking" notice 

message: Can Wikipedia have a separate section for articles that need to be deleted to prepare a page move?? I put sweetheart on Vfd for this exact reason, but it was objected to easily. 66.245.64.202 20:58, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Try Wikipedia:Requested moves. This page is still in the process of being set up, though you are welcome to add requests to it. • Benc • 03:32, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

text: Put a request there by all means, but there are already ways of achieving this particular move/merge without needing VfD, and just incidentally, there's no consensus that this particular move/merge is a good idea. See Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Sweetheart and talk:boyfriend, where several people have replied to your proposal. A request for a move should point to these previous discussions. Andrewa 11:31, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vfd to prepare a page move 

message: While the instructions at the bottom of the page can be followed (with some difficulty), the link provided there as "this edit link" is not functional and should be removed or corrected - Marshman 01:16, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bad Instructions 

message: In this latest bit of vandalism, an anonym created several medical articles which referenced real, difficult to check phenomena in subtly wrong ways, and used these bogus articles, plus another bogus article on a different editable web site, to support the final bogus article, Fred Ashley White. These vandals are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and spending more and more effort to slip in bogus articles. Fortunately this series was spotted by R. S. Shaw, who had the knowledge to smell a rat. With such determination, I wonder if some of these sophisticated vandals don't have a commercial interest in discrediting Wikipedia? If so, they will only get slicker and slicker. Also, we are supposedly getting 2,500 new articles per day. How many of this type are we already missing?
I have now swung to the view that not only is deletionism necessary for the health of Wikipedia (think white blood cells), but that it needs to become much more aggressive. Possibly we should be deleting several hundred articles per day, rather than the present average of 40; and VfD in its current form cannot handle that load (which will only continue to increase). Either that, or make it much harder to create new articles. With over a million articles already, but most of them stubs, I really don't think easy article creation is necessary or even good for WP at the moment. At least, anons probably should not be able to create new articles. Or does anyone have any better ideas how to deal with this problem? Securiger 00:47, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fred Ashley White 

message: IMO, far too many of the entries listed here are for the reason of the entry being about a "non-notable" person or thing.  I think that this is overdoing things.  While I will admit that some entries of this sort (those lacking any significance or purely created for vanity) should be deleted, I would error on the side of caution.  Notability is relative, and can develop over time.  If there is any doubt, I don't think articles should be deleted for this reason.  Disk space is cheap.  --L33tminion 07:05, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)
*Disk space is not *that* cheap. Remember the recent upgrades we recently saw a drive for. As for notability developing, let it do so, and *then* an article can be created. Otherwise, we may as well accept articles about everyone born ahead of time because maybe notability will happen. --Improv 07:07, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: See User:Geogre/Talk_archive_3#Hmmm... for an interesting in-depth discussion between two Wikipedians on this topic. On a side note, deletion has nothing to do with saving disk space. Remember that old revisions are still stored, and can be undeleted in an instant by an administrator. If anything, deletion consumes disk space. — David Remahl 07:11, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

text: Some time ago, I developed the  template to mark articles with doubtful notability, to help lighten the load of VFD, but it has since been deleted.  I am thinking of reinstating it.  Peter O. (Talk) 07:21, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)
**Perhaps it should have been  :-) Nicholas 12:11, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability is Relative 

message: I have proposed on Wikipedia:Preliminary Deletion (it's a bad name, but I was pressed for time when I wrote it) something that will cut down the size of VfD by listing "dubious" articles that aren't clear speedys nor clear VfDs on a separate page (for more, see the page). Comments appreciated (preferably on its talk page). Johnleemk | Talk 16:22, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to reduce size of VfD 

message: Here's my current proposal. WIthin the VfD template, I propose to add this link at the end:
Alternative outlets for rejected articles
Read it and see what you think. We don't do anything automated. We don't promise anything. We don't do anything on the contributors' behalf. All we do is put something in the VfD notice that links to a description of Wikinerds' Jnanabase and tells them how to submit their article. Hashing out licensing, etc. is directly between the contributor and Wikinerds (or McFly, or...)
Help me wordsmith this to keep it legally in the clear. Does anyone have any suggestions for any phrasing that is shorter or clear than "Alternative outlets for rejected articles?" Dpbsmith (talk) 00:41, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sending rejected articles to Wikinerds' JnanaBase, round 2 

message: Okay, I added my entry (Glossary of matrix theory) following the instructions, but I forgot to put a link in the section heading! (Being a good Wikipedian, I'm not used to doing such a thing! ;) So how do I change the header to have it linked on the VFD page? - dcljr 09:54, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yet more problems with editing 

message: I ask this question because Bawlf, Alberta. I listed it, and although I personally have no problem with it staying, I felt it was worth listing due to the standard of "notability" that usually gets used. It's a small town of 370 people: which seems to make it as notable as a lot of the people and websites that get deleted for being vanity.
To my surprise, every single vote was to keep. Some people even said things along the lines of every real place should have a page, and that wikipedia isn't limited due to constraints like paper.
I ask this question then: If we apply that standard to places, why not people? Websites? Crackpot theories? I personally think consistency is important above all else: it's really the only concrete thing anyone has to fall back on when resolving disputes. So I ask, why the lack of consistency here? Shane King 23:33, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
:Part of it's history, related to the Rambot's creation of stubs for all counties and incorporated cities in the United States. Part of it is that places are more easily verifiable, have lower probability of disappearing, and are completely unlikely to write vanity articles about themselves, their cats, or their high school bands that are looking for drummers.
:If you're looking for consistency on a project run by an ever-changing group of a few thousand people voting on stuff, you're going to have a hard time finding it. It's especially hard when you're trying to come up with criteria for including a particular subject. There's no "absolute scale of encyclopedia worthiness" where you can say "everything above a 5 belongs in Wikipedia". -- Cyrius|✎ 00:40, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Settlements are notable because something drove someone to set up the town.  They are geographical entities, as are counties, countries, and continents.  This is as opposed to social or ecomonic entities, such as people, schools, businesses, individual streets, etc., who need good reason to be here.  Comparing towns and schools is rather like comparing apples and agent orange.  Chris 05:48, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why are places held to a different standard than people? 

message: A wise man once said "he who has a deep semantic theory can claim to be truely blessed".  Sounds like fun, let's try it. :-P
As articles grow, they tend to split up and take up multiple wikipedia pages, but these pages still sort of form a loose whole.
Think for a moment,  semantically, what is the difference between the results of a perfecly merge-ing these pages back into one, and the results of a keep all ?
Right! There's very little difference at all.
So far, so good.
Ok, let's give a name to this. Say you have:
* a single page,
* a page that has just been split up,
* a set of pages that was designed together,
* a set of pages that once might have only been one page,
* etc.
Let's call that an aggregate.
 
So what happens if we have such an aggregate article, and only one sub-part gets deleted ? . This often happens when people claim that a sub-part is non-notable, even if it is part of a notable whole.
Okay, now semantically, something has changed. The whole has lost part of its cohesion perhaps (if there were crosslinks), and the whole, while notable, has now lost some of its data. 
Hmm, if this section of the whole is deleted, shouldn't we really actually be considering all of the aggregate for deletion? Hmm, possibly!
In either case, partial deletion seems to be a bad plan to me.
ok, descision table:
                       | final consensus
                       | merge          delete
-----------------------------------------------------------
 vote  merge           | mostly merged  partial deletion       < Action
 vote  keep/delete all | fully kept     full deletion          < Action
In the real world, merges aren't always perfect, and sometimes loose information as well. 
People might want to consider clarity considerations, is it clearer to have a single massive block of text on one page, or spread out across multiple pages?
If one person decides to spread an article out, he might inadvertantly cause sub-parts to get deleted, since individual sub parts might not meet "notability guidelines" posited by some of the vfd regulars. Also then, keep/delete all might be the superior option.
So put together, this is why I'm going to be using keep/delete all instead of merge whenever such a vote might be appropriate.
Kim Bruning 20:19, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Merge" vs "Keep Or Delete All" 

message: Things appear on VfD far to often for these reasons:
* Notability:  Now, I don't mean some class clown or some pure vanity or advertising.  That deserves deletion.  What I'm talking about are things that clearly have some notability, but not necessarily enough for some people to consider them notable.  Nothing is gained by deleting somewhat notable articles.
* Fancruft:  Yes, the body of all obscure knowledge about fictional works is huge, but once again, nothing is gained by deleting it.
I think that, in all but extreme cases, deleting hurts Wikipedia, and deletion should be done only if deletion, in and of itself, helps Wikipedia.  Storage space is cheap, and Wikipedia is not paper.  --L33tminion 17:17, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)
: What is gained by deleting crap is the overall value of WP, and particularly the average value per article.  Think of it as a means to promoting "natural selection".  Someone comes along, hits "random page", and goes to a beautifully detailed description of architecture in London, and finds themselves gripped, with rather a good impression of Wikipedia imprinted on their brain.  Someone else comes along, hits "random page", and gets some trivial detail, such as "John Wotzisfase was a character appearing in one episode of a TV series" or "Michie Nursery School is a school in the middle of Nowhere, Yorkshire", then they think "My, this place is useless.  I'm not coming here again."  Every visitor turned away by these pitiful articles is a potential contributor lost.  Now, if the subject of a stub is notable, then someone will have something to write about it.  This is a Good Thing, as it results in encyclopaedic articles (note the correct spelling there) about important people or things.  However, if the subject of the article really is that bland that you can't say anything beyond the basics that you could say about other similar entities, then the hope for expansion is misplaced, and effort in creating and researching articles wasted.  I for one would rather be spending hours writing about things I know about, and finding out about useful things I don't know, rather than voting to get rid of patent crap from WP.  I consider myself to be neutral in the inclusionist-deletionist debate - I am in favour of the inclusion of articles that maintain the overall profile of Wikipedia as a quality source of information.  I am in favour of expanding articles with useful information.  But I am against pointless articles which duplicate generic descriptions.  I am against articles that for which someone would not look in an encyclopaedia.  On the matter of schools, someone might look for Eton College - it is well-known, and people not in the know will hear the name "Eton" in conversation, and want to know what people are talking about.  For this, I would look in a reference dictionary, and finding that it's a reference to the school, I'd look it up.  Parents of children who are designated a school anyway would not be looking in an encyclopaedia for information about their local schools (which in most sensible education systems is something beyond the scope of parental choice from secondary level onwards).  In particular, if a school is partiularly good or bad, to say so in WP would be un-NPOV.  </rant> Chris 06:09, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: This is such crap. What you mean is that you want more people who are interested in things that interest you (London architecture?) and fewer people who are interested in a character from a tv show you don't like. That's your POV, and your right to hold it, but don't thrust it down other people's throats by deleting things just because you are not interested. 211.100.249.98 22:55, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: TV shows produce large volumes of information that we know will be useless once the fans of the show disappear, which for most shows takes about 3 years after cancellation. They don't merit inclusion in an encyclopedia. As for encyclopedic judgements, they are essential to running the encyclopedia here. You can't claim that others are enforcing their POV without noting that, by insisting that every piece of fancruft be kept, you would be enforcing yours as well. keep is not a privileged position. --Improv 18:03, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why So Delete-Happy? 

message: One of the main reasons for me rarely visiting the VFD pages is that the main project page is enormous due to the VFD subpages being included into the main page.  Can't we just have them as a list?  Surely people would be able to scan through the list much better than having every single VFD nominee on one page? violet/riga (t) 12:20, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: But then the actual contents of each VFD debate will be hidden. It's much easier to take part if everything is available in one hit, rather than having to click through to find out what something is, then click back, then go to the next, then back, ad infinitum. I think it would severely reduce the level of contribution to VFD. T.P.K. 12:47, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: I think this is one of the reasons for the existence of :Category:Pages on votes for deletion.  Ideally, the "this page's entry" link in the template should link directly to the discussion subpage, so that way you can browse the list, jump to an article, read it, and then go and vote.  Sometimes, of course, the subpage ends up having the wrong name and so it doesn't work, but it usually does. - 15:09, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  List, not include 

message: A new user wants to ad 4x4 Offroaders Club Karachi, but has had some problems. I tried to help, and I had problems too... Here is where he asked me to help: User_talk:Sam_Spade#Howdy. Thanks for the assist, Sam [Spade] 22:58, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problem 

message: Please don't try and organise VfD votes like they are, thanks! :-)
* overriding comments (such as invalid vfd or copyvio) don't show up, or look like they are only one vote among many (which they certainly shouldn't be!)
* You make it look like merge or redirect votes are actually valid  or so, while they are actually merely tolerated on vfd (I'd better write a merge considered harmful text sometime ;-) )
So whoever is doing this, please stop!
Kim Bruning 21:20, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hey dude! this isn't RfA! :) 

message: I don't think VfDs that are long should be moved like Chris did. I've rolled back. - Ta bu shi da yu 06:14, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Long histories 

message: I've got some ideas about Votes for deletion that I'd like interested people to take a look at and comment on. Please see Fixing Votes for deletion: A technical proposal. Shane King 23:19, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
Seems like a band-aid on an inherently non-scalable system.  VFD needs to be fixed so that we don't have to keep arguing the same exact questions over and over and over again.  Making VFD slightly easier will accomplish as much as using templates, it'll buy us a few extra months.  anthony 警告 02:03, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fixing Votes for deletion: A technical proposal 

message: I removed vfds on Ununbium, Ununtrium, Ununquadium, Ununpentium, Ununhexium, Ununseptium, Ununoctium.  User:Trollminator has replaced them.  Since they blatantly are not following the Deletion policy, there is no reason to even leave them for 24 hours.  Just wanted to make my reasoning clearer.  —siroχo 22:33, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)
:I put them back. If this precident is allowed to stand I hope I can remove all of the vfds I disagree with. Mark Richards 22:34, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed some vfds which did not comply with deletion policy

message: VfD is a horrible process. See Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion/Cantometrics and Talk:Swish.Hyacinth 19:24, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, no. Contributors do not discuss the deletion of the page. They discuss my merits as an editor, they discuss copyvio, or they have general discussions about the way wikipedia should be. It is often not respectful, pertinent, or efficient. Hyacinth 15:40, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Hyacinth, I agree with you.  VfD is nothing more than an ocean of ignorance where anyone can nominate an article to be deleted simply because they know nothing about the subject.  The fact is we're destroying Wikipedia with the loss of certain gray-area articles.  I suppose I should back this up by citing some examples... —RaD Man (talk) 19:23, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Me too. I am disheartened by the number of articles listed for deletion with the only reason given being that they're "fancruft", when the article in question merely needs to be clearly labelled as being about something fictional or perhaps merged into a higher-level article about that fictional universe. There is nothing inherently unencyclopedic about articles on fictional entities, IMO. I find it an amusing parallel that Trollminator listed articles on not-yet-discovered chemical elements here as "sciencecruft" and was met with outrage. Bryan 19:55, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Before addressing the gray-area articles, there is a small faction of people who might want to spew nonsense like "the fact that the good articles are voted to be kept proves that VfD is working" -- I strongly disagree.  While there seems to be a growing percentage of naive (and possibly bad-faith) listings recently on concretely notable subjects, the fact that these can be listed "just because", sometimes within minutes of an articles creation (while someone may be working on it!), is sure to detract would-be contributors.  Now to the heart of the problem.  There are a number of informative and factually verifiable articles which are being posted simply because the lister feels they're "not notable".  Then a dozen or so of us get together and vote on the highly-subjective issue  of whether or not something is important enough or not to us using completely inconsistent metrics.  i.e. Singapore Airlines Destinations, Franklin Income Fund, White Dawg, and Beck's Bolero are some currently active examples.  I strongly feel that all of these should be kept as there is nothing wrong with them, and this is the core of the problem.  They might all be kept this week, but there's nothing to prevent someone from relisting all 4 of these articles the day after they "survive" the convoluted and destructive process that is VfD.  —RaD Man (talk) 21:25, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't think that wikipedia will suffer too much from the loss of a few stubs of notable things if they are so poorly written that the notability of the subject is not apparent.  And yes, people can relist things, but if it survives once it will most likely survive again, and I've seen people change their votes to keep because they object to the relisting.  We can always close that particular loophole but its existence doesn't mean the whole process is broken. Gamaliel 21:58, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Again, I must respectfully disagree.  The more people that discover the horror that is VfD the worse off we are.  Every time a biased admin plays with the vote count in order to delete a perfectly valid article, we have failed.  Don't think that the number of those who are bitten and don't return aren't impacting the success of this community driven effort.  —RaD Man (talk) 22:17, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I have no idea what the problem of biased admins have to do with my comment, but that's quite a charge.  Can you provide us with some examples of admins who have "played with the vote count", whatever that means? Gamaliel 23:37, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Take a look at the history of VfU some time. anthony 警告 11:40, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  VfD is painful 

message: Is there a reason that the main VFD page is marked Category:Chess players?
--Calton 01:06, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I fixed it now.  It had to do with a deletion vote on an article in that category.  It was kind of hard to track down. Jayjg 03:02, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Small query 

message: Hi.  I'm uncertain if we should list this vanity article for deletion.  You will notice that the article's creator and only contributor goes by the user name Pinnecco.  The article is most likely about a relative of the user (father? grandfather?), who happens to be a painter.  I don't know if this person would merit an article on Wikipedia, at least the English language one.  If this person is recognized only locally (his home state or home town in Brazil), it might be more suitable for there to be an article in the Wikipedia in Portuguese website.  I may be overreacting, but it always looks bad when someone starts writing articles about their family, regardless of who they are.  And this particular user has already shown some attitude problems (follow the link above to his user page and see what's written there, or see MacGyver's talk page entry on him.  I have also addressed the issue in the Village pump).  Regards, Redux 16:47, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should we vote this article for deletion? 

message: IMO it was totally inappropriate to list these on VfD. I have shifted them to /Old. - Ta bu shi da yu 11:52, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  RFCs listed on VfD 

message: Perhaps some of these problems can be relieved by creating a page to list VfDs that are already at least a day old and have close vote counts. A large number of entries are nearly unanimous, and obviously poor nominations sometimes invite scores of votes, superflously keeping as if to express outrage. The proposed page would be listed voluntarily with no particular stigma keeping or removing entries. Cool Hand Luke 06:12, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Wikipedia:VfDs needing attention

message: I've just altered template:vanity slightly so it's suitable to be given either direct to anon IPs that have created or put it at the top of deletion debates for obvious vanity pages.  The aim of it is to catch some newbies without biting them.  Any thoughts? tis below; Dunc|☺ 23:20, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  userfying pages