Wikipedia talk:Deletion reform

message: I have an article I wrote that is currently under consideration for deletion.  I wrote an article about a writer I think has great merit and who was deserving of an accurate record of his accomplishments and recognitions in his field.  But I admit, it's not a huge author or anyone known by the person on the street.  But there are a lot of authors like that similarly recognized by Wiki articles.
I guess my worry is that I see that the first person to vote for its deletion isn't even a registered user, just a name added to the end of their terse note.  And when I did a search for this person, the only reference I find for them is on the article of another author who is a known and vocal critic of the person I wrote about.  
It just seems kind of transparent that with recent vandalism of my stub and now, after months since I wrote it, suddenly a request to delete from someone who isn't even willing to register and log-in with some integrity like other members of the community, that maybe Wiki should be more actively using the vandalism-blocks and other tools to ameliorate these issues prior to outright considering removal.  We already have some pretty comprehensive policies about reversion, editing, expanding if you think an article is incomplete, warnings for contributors who are just adding nonsense, etc.
I really think a clearer definition of some of the more vague aspects of what is 'vanity' or deletion-worthy could help, and maybe not "jump the gun" straight towards deletion just because a small determined mob of internet jerks have decided they want to abuse the Wiki system for their own "fun." --Zeppelin85
** Zeppelin85 is lying (or perhaps simply clueless?) when he says that I'm not a registered user, nor am I a vandal. On the other hand, he is most likely the person who has been accused of running a vanity entry, the one currently under discussion for removal. --Kynn 14:55, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A similar concern regarding "mob mentality" 

message: These will be removed unless someone provides evidence that this is actually a problem and occurs 
frequently enough that we should actually do something about it. This is the place for discussing broad issues, not for anyone's personal pet peeve. ''
:Text removed as this is not a valid approach. The potential for abuse needs to be considered as well as abuse that is currently occuring. That is the basis of, e.g. trial by jury:  all the judges in the land may be fair-minded at the moment, but they may not always be without it. OTOH, moving these to another page for comment is not a bad idea. Further, these suggestions need to be refuted before they are thrown out. Mr. Jones 12:20, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Threat to remove assertions 

message: My comments on the proposed cons. Because others may like to place counterarguments piece by piece, I've signed all my comments. 
*VfD promotes factionalism and strife among editors.
** Large number of people rarely come into complete agreement. That's we why debate. If editors begin to really squabble, put them in arbitration.- Skysmith 08:18, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Piece by piece - a list

message: #We say vfd is not "voting" but "consensus"
#*Yet vfd means Votes For Deletion (which involves voting).
#*Also the method for determining consensus always includes counting votes
#Criteria ought to be simple enough that admins can be trusted to apply them, according to their judgment. After all, becoming an admin "should not be a big deal".
#Often voting on an article's vfd page becomes a nasty political contest, exactly the sort of thing "consensus" was supposed to avoid.
#There are are only two ways to make a decision in a group: we count the votes, or someone just takes action. The myth of "consensus" conceals this dichotomy poorly. There IS NO THIRD WAY. Uncle Ed 15:45, August 2, 2005 (UTC)
:I have seen productive action being taken during long and contentious VfDs. I wish I had an example off the top of my head, but I can't seem to think of any. (Maybe GNAA, which is now a serious FAC?) But one thing that makes your dichotomy somewhat shaky is the assumption that the decision is the only possible or desired result from a VfD. This is false. A VfD does not have to reach consensus in order to be productive, nor does an editor have to take unilateral action and delete the article. —HorsePunchKid→龜 19:06, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: These are interesting themes. However, (1) is fixed by renaming the process in any number of ways, the wording is not important compared to the effect. (2)is important: we should harden the deletion threshold to e.g. two-thirds or some compromise like 72-75% or something. Clear guidelines cause less agony. On-the-threshold cases, and only those, can be decided by reading the votes: a job I'd suggest handing to the bureaucrats since there would be statistically few such cases. Hands up, Bureaucrats! (3) is unfortunate: there is no such thing as pure consensus; we can have either a majority or unanimity. We rarely make unanimity and the minority will always feel tyrannized, no matter how small they are. Such is the way of the world. (4) is true (although in fact, the present operation of VfD is combination of the two outcomes listed: we count the votes and then someone takes action). But there are 3 principal outcomes for a VfD, and more as far as most editors are concerned: keep, delete, no consensus. The no consensus discussions usually result in work being done on the article, however small, and that can only have done good for the Wiki. There are of course other outcomes (merge, move, redirect without merge etc) that also result in improvement, if we trust the voting editors' judgement. And we surely do? -Splash 03:01, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Themes 

message: I've written up a short essay on my views of deletionism at User:Malathion/deletionism. Maybe it would be of some use to consider what I wrote there. --malathion talk 20:09, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Deletionism

message: Is this about Wikipedia:Deletion policy? So it should be discussed there. Nabla 22:59, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fork 

message: It was driving me a little nuts that the same debates were taking place between different people over different pages. Therefore I've had a bold stab at centralising this debate.
I know the page is now huge, but isn't better that we're all "reading from the same page"?
I didn't move anything from other pages - I only copied - but left pointers on the pages I copied from alerting people to this central debate. 
I hope people understand why I did this, and I apologise to those who will not like it. Dan100 (Talk) 10:21, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
*Excellent idea, and most of those other pages should redirect here for simplicity's sake. No sense in rehashing the same discussion in a dozen different places. Also for the record, the referenced discussion on meta is two years old so not particularly relevant. Radiant_>|< 11:41, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
**Looks like I get overruled in this case.  Oh well!  Looks OK.  humblefool®Deletion Reform 18:57, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merged discussions 

message: I think VfD could be reduced by a substantial proportion if non-encyclopedic articles could be made ubto redirects when possible. The inane content would be out of WP and no admin would have to spend time deleting. Therefore I propose to remove the word merge from the VfD template, and add to the page: if you convert the article into a redirect, put a link to the previous content on its VfD page.
Ideally vapid articles would be made redirects instead of coming to VfD, but that's not being done,  Septentrionalis 02:52, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good. Where is it? Septentrionalis 20:47, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: A proposal

message: Many of the items that show up for deletion are new articles, and many of them get nearly unanimous delete votes, but would not strictly fit the criteria for speedy deletion.
Furthermore, Vfd are used for two different kind of reasons, either: there should not be an article on the subject, or there should be an article on the subject, but this content is not salvagable
Therefore I would like to suggest a cleanup deletion
option, which would apply to the latter case, for any article
that seems to fit the ordinary reasons for deletion, where the speedy
deletion criteria do not seem to apply.  
And let Vfd be for making decisions when a controversy arises
-- in other words, a cleanup deletion would be the default.
If someone objects to a deletion, other than the author of the
article and/or any sockpuppets, then the article has to go to 
a full Vfd.
---
Step 1: Nominator for cleanup deletion, places a cleanup-delete
tag, similar to a cleanup-rewrite, etc, but called cleanup-delete,
with a message explaining the reason.
Step 2: [3 days pass]
Step 3: If the tag is still on the article, and the article was
younger than 3 months when cleanup-delete was added, then any 
admin has the option of deleting the article (except the nominator, 
if the nominator is an admin).
Anyone who objects to a cleanup deletion other than the
author of the article may replace the cleanup-delete tag with
a vfd tag.
Cleanup-delete tags would not be allowed to be removed, except 
by a person nominating the article for Vfd.
In this manner, less time is wasted -- if noone objects to the
deletion, obvious deletes just happen, like they should.
It should be possible to categorize Vfd, too, if needed, but is there no way to stick with a simple solution to deletion that doesn't involve massive code changes or institution of pages and pages of new rules? --Mysidia (talk) 17:09, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This is Wikipedia:Countdown Deletion, except that their period is 7 days. (I have seen 30 days in other discussions.)  I approve in general, but three days is much too short; give the writer time to notice.  And what's the rush? If the article has genuinely been abandoned, and most of these have been, any time-limit will kill it. Septentrionalis 14:00, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletes for new articles 

message: I have seen dozens of VfD votes where people vote to keep because they value the topic of the article, but they condition it with something like "if cleaned up".  They don't plan to do the work themselves and so the article is kept but in an unacceptable form.  We need a real "cleanup" vote and a "cleanup" outcome which says that the article will have 14 days to be cleaned up and then be subjected to VfD again.  The second time, it's either voted up or down. –Shoaler (talk) 14:56, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: We usually give people more than 14 days.  Other than that, we already allow what you suggest.  If an article is not cleaned up in a reasonable time (usually months), it is acceptable to renominate it.  If you do so, please be careful to provide a link to the prior deletion discussion.  Also note in the nomination that a majority of the prior opinions were conditional and that those concerns were not addressed.  Rossami (talk) 15:43, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Keep vs. Delete vs. Cleanup

message: Someone must have thought of this before, but I couldn't find it anywhere, so...  Why not give everyone some form of deletion/undeletion powers, effectively bringing deletion into line with everything else people can do to an article?  Of course, it's not quite so simple, and I'm certainly not proposing that the current powers be given to everyone.  What I propose is this:
*Anyone can flag an article as 'deleted' by clicking a little tab at the top.  The tab will bring them to a page asking them if they're sure they want to do this, suggesting that they check for consensus, and giving the current hints to deleting admins (e.g. check what links here), but nothing stops them from going right ahead.  Doing or undoing this just adds a flag to the article, and doesn't put much load on the server.
*Anyone else can still view or undelete the 'deleted' article for set number of weeks (or some other predetermined unit of time); if nobody rescues it within that month, it automatically goes into 'real' deletion, and can only be accessed or restored by an admin.  This is when all of the real behind-the-scenes moving and housekeeping takes place, the stuff associated with deletions today.
*Going to the page during that month will not immediately show the page, but will bring up a brief explaination of what's happened to it and offer a link where you can see the deleted page, browse its history, and, perhaps, choose to restore it.
*The 'deleted' page cannot be edited during that month, nor can a new page be created at its old place (which is occupied by the deletion notice.)  If someone wants to create a new page, all they have to do is restore the deleted one and edit it into what they want.
*Speedy real-deletes would still be available to admins to use when appropriate.
Although at first glance it might seem that spurious deletions would be a problem, they really wouldn't be; they'd be no more of a problem than random blankings today, and just as easily fixed.  The real impact of this change would be to eliminate all of the current methods attached to deletion, and instead channel them into the existing Wikipedia dispute resolution process.  Yes, there would be deletion-wars and troublesome editors who make it difficult to reach consensus; but I would argue that Wikipedia has survived those problems with regard to everything else related to articles, and that the same dispute-resolution methods we use for any other dispute can be just as effectively applied to disputed deletions. Aquillion 22:04, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Another proposal

message: An issue where an article's editors and their friends gang up and vote vanity "keep" votes (often unexplained or laced wit hthreats or insults), and the resulting vote ends in "no consensus". See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (Mariah Carey song), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Do You Know Where You're Going To? (Theme from Mahogany) (Mariah Carey song), and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Billie Frank. The AfD process is worthless if we've got little Mafias preventing the deletion of unneccssary articles, and moderators not working around such. --FuriousFreddy 07:55, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  Voting is flawed when it is able to be manipulated in this way.  The only fair vote is when everyone has an opportunity to vote.  Whilst theoretically this is true on Wikipedia, realistically it is not, as most people do not vote on a given article, and hence, as you suggested above, people can get friends to gang up.  Consider my suggestion below as an alternative that I believe would work around this problem.  Zordrac 01:01, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vote stuffing/tampering 

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: In my opinion, there should be set criteria made for what qualifies an article to either be kept or deleted, and voting should be *ONLY* in cases where the article in question does not automatically either meet or not meet the criteria.  I think that this would make things a lot easier.  I believe that the process for determining qualification should be based on a legal process, in that examples of prior decisions made through voting can be used as precedents and hence be used to determine the changing in the rules.
My opinion for criteria should, essentially, be quite simple:
# "Could a teacher feasibly set a research question for a student in which this article would assist them with their research?"
# "Could a person with an interest in this topic learn something new from this article that is better than they would learn elsewhere?"
# "Could an author learn from this article and use it in order to write a book, magazine or other published work?"
If an article meets any one of those criteria, then in my opinion it should automatically be kept, and should not be able to be deleted.  Thus, I believe that articles on topics that have been proven to have met this criteria should be blocked from being able to be deleted.
Conversely, if the topic does not meet any of these criteria, then it should be automatically deleted.
The issue of "verifiability", "notoriety" and "original research" should not be a factor in the deletion process - the topic should be the only criteria, not how it is written.  If an article is poorly written, or is factually inaccurate, then it should be improved - it should not be deleted.  
In cases where there is some debate about an article's ability to either meet or not meet these criteria, then and only then should a Vfd take place (thus meaning that an awful lot less Vfds take place).  However, if an article is proven to be of the same type as another article that has passed a Vfd (or failed) and a confirmed precedent is set, then I believe that the article should be automatically either kept or deleted, thus making this a legal process.
My case in point was an article that I wrote as part of a history of talkers, which was about an influential and important talker, planes of existence.  The page was nominated for deletion after 30 seconds, with a note that it was a "non notable dead talker".  Yet no assertions were made as to what qualifies it as being non notable.  It easily meets WP:WEB per its Alexa rating alone, influenced society outside of its core user base (indeed, outside of talkers generally) in at least 4 major areas, and was both the most popular of its type as well as the first of its type.  It is also of historical importance because it was a big part in the death of talkers, and why talker users moved to instant messenger programs like ICQ.  
So per the criteria above, could it be used as part of a research project?  Answer is yes.
Consider the question that a teacher might ask students.  "We all know that instant messenger services are what people use today on the internet, and before that IRC.  But 10 or 15 years ago people used talkers.  Investigate what they were, how they came about, and how and why they ended".  Answering that question, you could feasibly just say "ICQ came" and end it there.  But if you want extra credit, you'd include the above article.
It also meets criteria 2, in that it is important with regards to the history of talkers, so a person who had an interest in talkers, or who used them, would learn something from it.
And of course if an author was going to write about the internet generally, or about say the security of using the internet, they would probably want to include talkers, which are the most secure method yet invented for chatting on the internet (no chance of hacking, you were totally anonymous, etc).
And then of course there is a precedent set, with the voting for the Star Wars MUSH which passed, on a similar kind of article.
So if we used simple rules like that, then Vfds would not be required.  As it stands, the Vfd for that article has focussed around assertions about whether or not the references are able to be used, whether they were personal homepages and so forth, but really that is not relevant to a vote for whether or not to delete it - arguments like that are relevant with regards to cleaning up the article.  Thus the article should have had a cleanup tag added to it rather than a Vfd.
The problem is that a lot of people who vote do not know what they are doing.  Some of them are deletionists who just like to delete things as some sort of exclusiveness uppity manner.  Some of them will do things like check new articles created and randomly delete them if they don't automatically agree with them - just seconds after creation, as was the case here.  Some of them will start reeling off wikipedia rules, without any kind of verification that they actually apply.  So they will write down - "doesn't meet WP:WEB" yet refuse to say why not, and then influence other votes.
The voting thus becomes a matter of who can argue the best and who can manipulate voters the best.  It should not come down to this.  It should not be a matter of us all being required to spend a long time looking at the article and researching everything before voting.  Nor should it be a matter of us writing so quickly.
If we had a simple case of law, whereby rules could be directly applied, then things would be a lot simpler.  We could still argue things if we liked, but then it would take a lot of the pressure off and we wouldn't have to worry about spending so much time voting.  Zordrac 19:17, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Just adding a bit here.  I obviously missed out things like Copyright breakings as well as cases of Libel.  Whenever an article makes assertions about someone, they should be able to be backed up with facts.  Case in point is Encyclopaedia Dramatica which in my opinion should be deleted solely due to it being used to advertise a place that takes part in slanderous activities and hence it is not encyclopaedic.  That they use parody to try to justify it is irrelevant.  By including it in wikipedia, thusly we are using Wikipedia to spread lies about people, which is not the aim of wikipedia.  However, that one was kept solely on the basis of user numbers and notoriety.  Should that be the only criteria?  I don't think so.  I think it should be wiped.  Places that advertise sites that are patently non-encyclopaedic should not exist, in my opinion.  But again, a strict set of rules would clarify this. Zordrac 19:25, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Slander is a crime, and notorious criminals are a notable matter. So if a Web site is infamous for being used to commit slander (or rather, libel), that would make it more notable, rather than less! :) --FOo 22:30, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it makes it notable, I am not disputing that, but does it make it encyclopaedic? Zordrac 00:58, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  My opinion on how Vfd should work 

message: I wasn't quite sure where I should post this, but I just wanted to voice my opinions on the whole "only users can create pages" thing that just got put into effect. I'm not entirely sure that's going to help too much, because although less bogus new pages might crop up, I think it'll be harder to catch them. For instance, I often scour through the edits made only by IP users when I look at "Recent Changes." Sorry I'm not articulating myself too well, I haven't slept in a day and I've got three finals tomorrow before driving 12 hours the next day. I hope you understand what I'm talking about. Adios JHMM13 (T | C) 08:29, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand exactly hat you're talking about, and I think the best way to do it is to scrutinize more closely the articles from users that don't have a user page (the names in red). worthawholebean talkcontribs 23:20, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry for getting back to you so late, but I agree wholeheartedly. Over the past few weeks, I have seriously looked at all pages with "N" next to the page in RC, but if I've been short on time, I've filtered my searching to only those with red names. This has helped a lot with catching nn-bios and other candidates for afd. The tough thing is catching the vandals with a user name and a user page (name shows in blue), because obviously not all vandals are either IPs or non-userpage-having users. Fortunately, those guys are caught sooner rather than later through other means, and not necessarily RC Patrol. JHMM13 (T | C)   04:29, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Page Edit Reform 

message: I am a new user to Wikipedia, and I wished to voice concern that having started work on a few inserts, the first thing I find is "Deletion". Now if I knew how to complain, I wouldn't be writing here!	 
		 
I don't believe it serves Wikipedia for new users to receive notices of deletion without as the very first feedback from Wikipedia - I at least expected an email to say hi - and if someone didn't like a post - perhaps they would do the courtesy of contacting me to say! In particular I felt it was wrong not to:	 
1. Any reason given for deletion (or at least difficult for new users to find)	 
2. Advise actionable help - just saying "improve" isn't helpful if you don't know how you have infringed someone's idea of what is "right" - much better to point to another insert and suggest using that as a template!	 
3. Give any contact details to contact those who have made the request for deletion	 
Remember You may think it is rubbish - but the author has spent time and effort to try and put together something they think others may be interested to read. Rubbishing an article by simply pressing "delete" is bound to be detrimental to Wikipedia in the end
(unsigned comment left by User:Haseler on Wikipedia:Deletion reform/Uncontested deletions, 11:30, December 10, 2005)
:I thought I'd put this here as an example of what I think is the biggest problem with deletion: it's a really crappy welcome for newbies, most of whom thought they were improving the encyclopedia. I've tried to address this a bit with my User:Rspeer/AfDnewbie welcome template, which I've been leaving on the talk page of registered new users who get articles listed on AfD. But if AfD were decentralized, with only conflicts going to centralized discussion, I think the result wouldn't be as hostile and impersonal for the newbies. Remember, every Wikipedian was a newbie once. rspeer 19:13, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A few comments here.  Firstly, I think that as a new user it is only natural to think of "trying it out" to make a new article about a topic that you know about that doesn't already have its own article.  You have likely previously tried to edit an existing article that had errors in it only to have your edits reverting, with you being accused of vandalism, right?  That's usually how it works.  Firstly you are told that your opinion doesn't matter, and you are accused of vandalism, and then after that, when you are off by yourself doing something harmless, someone comes in and tells you that your article is nonsense and deserves to be deleted.  This is very bad.  Really, I mean I am of the opinion that a newly created article that was a good faith attempt at an article should have a 1 month time limit where it cannot be deleted (the exception being nonsense articles and those that otherwise qualify for speedy deletion).  I see far too often that people's articles are nominated for deletion 30 seconds after creation.  I would much rather see people sent some friendly notes on their talk page first.  The reality is that Wikipedia is elitist and snobbish.  This is how people go about things.  And the reality also is that, due to the situation with accounts, a lot of people go around with new accounts of new IPs to try to vandalise pages and disrupt Wikipedia.  Whilst probably 95% of people are genuinely trying to do the right thing, 5% are not.  There are people who go around writing rubbish, some obviously so, and some more subtly.  And there is a growing belief that newbies should not be trusted - they could well be old people in disguise.  So my tip for newbies is to not create new articles - wait until you have edited other articles for a while first.  Sure, your edits might be reverted and you might be called a vandal, but just go to the talk page and argue your point as to why your edits are legitimate.  You will soon find out that you are expected to do such things as have web links to prove that what you are saying is true.  Then, after you have fixed up a number of articles, then look at making new ones.  But then look at following red links that already exist in other articles - in other words implying that someone wants the article to be created.  This is much safer than just having you by yourself creating an article.  It also helps if you make a user page to describe who you are before making your own page.  Zordrac  (talk) Wishy Washy  Darwikinian Eventualist 23:43, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "It's a really crappy welcome for newbies, most of whom thought they were improving the encyclopedia." I can't agree with that statement more, but new users need to be taught the rules. Ever since I have come back to Wikipedia a little more than a month ago, I have tried to be as pleasant with new users as possible, but some of them simply don't want to understand the idea of a nn-bio and that if an article "isn't interfering with other pages," then it should be kept because it is "true information." Unfortunately for the welcoming process, we have to maintain some standards at Wikipedia, and the sooner users are told those standards in a respectful manner, the better off for them and Wikipedia. JHMM13 (T | C)   04:33, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: First Thoughts

message: It has been pointed out to me many times that Wikipedia is not a democracy.  Obviously, this is true.  Otherwise, how could we have cases where a vote for AFD had 6 votes for keep and 6 votes for delete, yet it was "deleted by consensus" after the closer disregarded all of the keep votes?
The reality is that policies regarding voting, whether it be for RFA, AFD or anything else, are just that - policies.  In the end, the rules can be totally ignored, and the admin in charge can do with it whatever the hell they want to.  And, in response, the only people who can do anything about it are other admins.
When we are "voting" at the AFD, we are not really "voting".  What we are doing is to try to convince other voters to change their mind.  Indeed, this encourages bullying, harassment and a lot of personal attacks.  And then, ultimately, what we are really doing is trying to convince the closing admin to agree with us.  
So ultimately what is really happening is that all of the votes are meaningless other than to try to sway the closing admin.  So perhaps, rather than trying to convince each other to change our votes, opinions instead should be directed towards the closing admin.
To make this fair, of course, we would have to have a closing admin assigned from the very moment that the AFD began.  This could be achieved by having a "nomination for deletion" be unofficial until an admin opted to take it on, to be the closing admin.  Then, if the closing admin disappeared for some reason, then they could be replaced by a new admin.  Their name could appear at the top of the AFD - for example "Closing admin for this AFD is User:Splash."  That would then prevent the chance that one admin with a totally different POV could come in halfway through and change the result.
This option would be totally fair and transparent, and represent a Wikified example of the heirarchical business model.  Rather than pretend that we are a democracy, as Wikipedia seems intend on pretending to be, we would instead make it much more transparent, and fair.
The alternative to this, however, is to apply strict guidelines of the type put in Wikipedia:Consensus with only minor discretionary powers that were strictly enforced.  But as it stands, it is clear that the discretionary powers are having more weight than the strict guidelines, with no repercussions for admins who go against the set rules, hence meaning that it isn't working.  Therefore, this is why I suggest this more transparent model (the whole point of my earlier post). Zordrac  (talk) Wishy Washy  Darwikinian Eventualist 05:30, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia is not a democracy - it is a heirarchy 

message: I've collected what I could find on the history of wiki deletion process at meta:History of wiki deletion process dating back through c2, usemod, pre mediawiki, etc..  comments and expansion much appreciated.  ∴ here…♠ 08:44, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This is very interesting and I do appreciate the amount of effort put into this. JHMM13 (T | C)   05:06, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  history of wiki deletion process 

message: I propose that Communities get formed such that only people from those communities can Vote on pages for deletion. It may still be open to anyone to propose deletions, but if there is a Yu-gi-oh! community, a Magic the Gathering community, a Star Trek Community, a Star Wars community, etc. so there doesn't appear to be a consensus that originate from, for example, those who hate Trading card games and those who hate Yu-gi-oh! and those who think MtG is the One True Trading card game. for deleting articles in a given category. This could also be fashione in a manner so as to prevent admins that normally make good admin decisions, but have a pet peeve to scratch from abusing their power. Hackwrench 20:48, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This sounds like an instant recipe for fancruft that can't be deleted. It also would ridiculously complicate all of AfD. rspeer 22:10, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

text: This has been proposed several times before and rejected each time.  This kind of structure and ruleset is very likely to exacerbate the balkanization of Wikipedia, creating interest groups with wildly differing standards, etc.  When considered before, it was felt to be incompatible with our overriding goal of creating an encyclopedia.  On the other hand, if someone really wants to create a Yu-gi-oh! specific community (or any other community) that is free from Wikipedia's self-imposed rules, the WikiMedia software is available for free.  Anyone can set up their own community-specific spin-off.  You could even mirror off the existing content as long as the community-specific project was licensed in a way compatible with GFDL.  But creating sub-communities within Wikipedia would, in my opinion, be a very bad thing.  Rossami (talk) 01:51, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Community (moved from project page)

message: I've noticed that nominations made in the last couple hours of a day (UTC) tend to get fewer votes than those made earlier in the day because they're not listed on the "today" list (which gets a lot more browsers than the yesterday list) for very long.  So I propose (if it would be technically feasible) that the nominations from say the last three hours of the previous day be listed in a section of the "today" list (though not in the archives).  I think if this could be done without too much difficulty, it would reduce the need for nominations to be re-listed several days later.  In the mean time, I think it would also be a good idea for the "today" list to have a prominent link to the yesterday list with a note suggesting that people browse through that list too.  Blackcats 01:05, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I often like to go back and vote on those, but they never seem to be too packed with opinions. JHMM13 (T | C)   03:18, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Daily listings proposal

message: I realize that this debate has been going on for a while and I am new to it. It is my belief that there is some gathering of consensus around Wikipedia:Proposed deletion as a way to go -- even if details are still being worked out. I was surprised to discover a page the other day that had been XDed, and when I looked at the proposed experiment it seems to be 6 months old but is still being used by only a handful of people. What is the status of this experiment from the point of view of the community, and should people be continuing to use it without consensus? (What is the definition of an experiment anyway, is there anything official on that? Blanking pages is not allowed, after all, except according to policy, which this experiment is not.) cmh 16:36, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Making policy without experimenting would be far worse than experimenting without policy. Anyway, I think that XD led to PROD successfully, and there's not much point in working with XD right now. Perhaps in the future we'll want to move to something even more radical like the pure wiki deletion system, and we'll want to do an experiment for that, but I bet that experiment won't involve the XD templates. I think XD should be considered historical. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ  19:28, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your perspective on experiments. I agree. Now, however, I feel that XD's time has passed and we should be retiring that experiment in favour of new ways. I suspect that the few remaining XD users like it and want it to continue. Is there a reasonable way to retire an experiment? cmh 19:39, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Yeh, I agree with Rspeer. A lot of random things have led to the community consensus behind the new prod experiment. We'll see if this thing works, but if it doesn't, they'll head back to the drawing board. Hell, even if it does work, there'll be talk soon of ways to improve the deletion process. JHMM13 (T | C)   07:59, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

text: XD remains an established useful testing ground for deletion process experimentation.  I expect further discussion and variations will continue to arise for the foreseeable future.  It remains an excellent low-impact 'show and tell' talking point on deletion concepts and techniques.  ∴ here…♠ 21:05, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Except that certain people still haven't quite accepted the word 'experimental' in the title. Indeed, I see it is now considered to be "established". -Splashtalk 21:27, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm.  All of wikipedia, including the articles as well as the policies and guidelines, are works in progress.  In a sense, everything is experimental.  To me, the important question to ask in whether to use it or not is not whether it's "official policy"- that's a rather fluid concept.  To me, the important issue is is it useful?  I happen to think that it is.  Friday (talk) 21:35, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: (Some things approach completion in a limiting sense.) We've been several rounds on this before, but I've never been persuaded that there is anything wrong with just deleting the articles (which I entirely agree are in most cases patently awful). I've also never been persuaded that anyone, anywhere, actually provides any kind of feedback into the process which they clearly do with PROD. Last time I picked through the blanked articles, I found at least several that were clearly not in need of anything other than a redirect or a stub tag. One of them went through AfD and was kept, so it absolutely shouldn't have been blanked. But I imagine it's been 5 months since anyone actually did that. If you used PROD instead, you'd achieve the same lightness-of-weight (it seems to be scaling fine) and somebody would actually double-check what is done. Not to mention turning the link red and removing the junk from the article count, contributions lists and Google searches. Does anyone even know if XD exhibits the same problem that PROD does: that anyone removing the tag from the article about their girlfriend a few hours after the PRODder went to sleep gets the article auto-kept? -Splashtalk 21:58, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The XD methods generally say "take it to Afd if there's disagreement".  However, I personally interpret this to mean "reasonable disagreement".  A newbie arguing to keep obvious junk doesn't require Afd in my opinion.  Heck, the same reasoning would ideally apply to prod as well.  You're right though, prod can do much of what XD does.  IMO, the biggest thing prod does not currently accomplish is transparent deletion, so those to whom that is important may find they have reason to prefer XD.  Friday (talk) 22:18, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

text:  and xd are complimentary.   might even be viewed as a legitimate and peer-reviewed derivative of xd (and may other preceding) ideas.  regarding template removal -- that  or similar template may be removed without ceremony is a deliberate feature of many xd templates.  ∴ here…♠ 03:58, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Status of Experimental Deletion (XD)