Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 13

message: Can we please allow common sense deletions? I'd like a number of orphaned images to be deleted as they are renamed/moved to commons for instance. Orphaned and unused images with better/similar/identical versions should be deleted under this. --Cat out 17:36, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We do. We don't allow common sense speedy deletions. Have you heard of rouge admins? We need failsafes to allow other editors and admins alike to review deletions that do not fit into narrowly-defined CSD categories. Otherwise, any one of our near-200 active admins can delete whole projects in a whim, especially the not-so-mainstream material. There is nothing wrong with letting an orphaned image sit for a week while its IfD discussion has two votes—both for deletion. We don't need to recover the space the image takes (as far as I know, deleted items take as much or more space in the DB as if they were never deleted). BigNate37(T) 18:22, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes and we also say that we are not a burocracy. The fail safe is undelete. Images moved to commons should be speediable. --Cat out 00:27, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe they should, but "Images moved to commons" and "Common sense" are two seperate things. You've still not pointed out what exactly is wrong with having an unused, duplicate image remain available for an extra week with a deletion template on it. There are four guiding qualities for a speedy deletion criterion: objective, uncontestable, arise frequently, and nonredundant. Common sense is not objective, and it would spill over into some already-existent speedy deletion criteria. "Images that are duplicates of images on commons", on the other hand, is objective (though it is probably redundant with I9). BigNate37(T) 03:03, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

text: We do have a common sense policy. WP:IAR. I do think we need to have "reviewable" deletions (so that the deleted material can still be viewed in the history for X period of time), but that requires a software change. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 14:02, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Common sense 

message: Current wording of A7 is:
*Unremarkable people or groups/vanity pages. An article about a real person, group of people, band, or club that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject. If the assertion is disputed or controversial, it should be taken to AfD instead. 
I would like to change it to:
*Unremarkable people or groups/vanity pages. An article about a real person, group of people, band, or club that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject. If the assertion is disputed or controversial, it should be taken to AfD instead. Note many articles assert the importance of their subjects, while not asserting that their subjects meet Wikipedia notability guidelines such as WP:BIO or WP:MUSIC.  Such articles should not be speedily deleted under this criterion.
Simple idea; basically, many of us are familiar with the idea that "asserts importance" and "asserts Wikipedia notability(TM)" are distinct and should not be conflated.  It's probably a good idea if the criterion's wording includes a note about that.  There is precedent; see G1 and G4.  Thoughts?  Any other wordings?  Mangojuicetalk 04:26, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is already explained in the "non-criteria" section, and a reminder in the rule itself might help, but frankly I think this problem won't go away until A7 is repealed. Deco 09:58, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed change to wording of A7 

message: There seems to be some disagreement as to the intent of the 'A1' condition.
Specifically, do this and this constitute articles which should be speedy deleted under A1?
My understanding and past observation, were that A1 applied to situations where there was not sufficient information in the article to determine what the subject was unless you were already familiar with it. I had never heard of either of these, but could clearly see that one was a language spoken in a specific area and the other a written script used by a particular people. Is something more required for 'context'?
On a similar note, if someone puts nothing but an 'inuse' template on a page it clearly 'lacks context', but does it make sense to delete the page within minutes (causing them to get an edit conflict and lose their work if they don't know how to temporarily store it off wiki)? Couldn't we just wait a while and delete if nothing were forthcoming? Again, I think of the intent... A1 exists to get rid of articles that make no sense. Not to play 'gotcha' with people who are actually working on developing valid articles. --CBD 20:21, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: These don't look like speedies to me.  It'd be nice if they had references so we could tell they weren't just made up, but other than that they look like legit stubs to me.  —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 05:25, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

text: These are misapplication of A1. Legitimate stubs. People tend to mistakenly apply A1 to very short articles, which is why we specifically warn not to do this. Deco 09:01, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Agree that these do not look like legitimate candidates for speedy deletion. older ≠ wiser 12:13, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What constitutes 'context' for A1? 

message: This is reposted from the  talk page, I've moved it here where there is some similar discussion, and someone might be able to comment. Basically, I need some help with the 48 hour aspect of this. I just noticed that this Country Radio Broadcasters, Inc. article is identical to this  site. It is older than 48 hours though, it dates from 17:46, 24 August 2006. It should still be deleted under A8 even though it is past 48 hours, right? DVD+ R/W 02:52, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I feel strongly that the 48 hour rule should be rewritten so that instead of exempting, it says to be aware that if the article was posted more than 48 hours ago, suspected copyright violations may actually be mirrors of Wikipedia. There's no reason why true copyvios shouldn't be deleted on sight, and true copyvios aren't contestable anyway. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 13:57, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  48 hours 

message: Criterion R2 allows for speedying redirects to user space, but I just ran into a redirect from article space to a category, namely List of Townlands of Ireland -> :Category:Townlands of Ireland.  Is there a reason that CSD R2 doesn't include redirects to category space.  Does this need to go to RfD?  My instinct is that this is speediable but I can't find policy to back this up.  Thanks! --- Deville (Talk) 08:22, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep, article->category redirects are for RFD, and (any)->userspace are speedies. There are few cases I can think of where an article->category redirect is useful, but some people might say they benefit readers and they should be given a chance to voice their opinion. In addition, always check the history before proposing a redirect for deletion because sometimes people convert articles to categories. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:41, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the advice.  Actually, while looking over the RfD page another question comes to mind, because a new RfD is in the form Template->User.  You mention above that (any)->User is a speedy, but R2 specifically says only Main->User, so I was wondering if that would be CSD R2 as well?  -- Deville (Talk) 05:46, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, that was me commenting on something without reading the policy well enough. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:24, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cross-namespace redirect 

message: I would like to find out what the is the appropriate message used in user talk pages for  and the rest of the messages which do not have any guide to notify the user who uploaded the image in question. For example, for CSD A8, this message is used - Please notify uploader on their talk page with:  Any comments would be welcomed. 
Another eample is for CSD A7. The rest of the deletion templates do not show any guidance on what kind of messages which are to be used in the usertalk pages. -- Siva1979Talk to me 04:41, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proper note to user? 

message: I would like to know if anyone else sees the conflict between the criteria listed on the project page, for  and what it actually says. The main page here says the criteria is:
same or better image exists on Wikipedia (not for now on Commons)
while the template itself says something very different:
This image is a redundant (all pixels the same or scaled down) copy of :Image:, in the same file format, which is on Wikipedia (not Commons), and all inward links have been updated 
It mainly came to my attention just now when I added the tag to :Image:HiltonHotelsCorporation.gif because I removed the white background to replace it with transparency, and also cropped the ridiculously large margin. Other than that, I did nothing (except convert it from GIF to PNG since it uses partial transparency) The criteria here, it meets - the new version is better than the obsolete one. However, the criteria on the template, it doesn't - the new version is not a bit-for-bit copy in the same format or a scaled-down, but that's not the criteria here. Which of them is the official policy? Because one has to be changed. - Рэдхот 23:09, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not familiar with the template, but the CSD page should take precedent over all CSD-intended templates.  is a good example, it detailed the speedy deletion of websites with no claim to notability created recently. There is no speedy deletion criterion to accompany it, and it was deleted. BigNate37(T) 00:26, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well I'm not sure if I should alter the template. I assumed this page would probably take precedence, but I want to see what others say before I alter it. - Рэдхот 11:22, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have now, just to get a quicker reaction. It's not a huge edit, just makes some bits a bit more vague and therefore applicable to more images. But I also noticed that earlier on this project page, it says it should be in the same format. Would anyone have a problem with changing it to a lossless conversion or something like that. For instance, if you add partial transparency to a GIF image and save as PNG (since GIF doesn't do partial) then you haven't lost any info as they're both lossless formats, but it isn't the same format. - Рэдхот 12:43, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conflict of wording with {{tl|Isd}} 

message: What is the "indentation hack" code for?  All of the sections after "Articles" are indented and it makes them all look like they are paragraphs under "Articles".  laurap414 21:04, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It prevents that paragraph from looking like it's part of the bulleted item.  I've fixed it and replaced it. —AySz88\^-^ 14:18, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Question about "indentation hack"

message: I think I3 is not very clear about images which can be used commercially but prevent derivatives - "No Derivatives" licences. The Jimbo email does not mention them , the  and  templates redirect to  which is only about non-commercial licences, and the templates  and  point to a non-speedy template. There is nothing about ND in the explanations. It appears to have been put back in recently despite not apparently being there before. I am seeking clarification that licences which prevent derivatives are actually speediable (even though they are currently mentioned), and if that is the case, consensus to change the wording to explicitly mention CC-ND licences (and possibly establish on this talk page where this policy comes from). And perhaps a more appropriate speedy template for  and  as well. For example . Your thoughts, thanks. -- zzuuzz (talk) 00:32, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I cannot seem to find anything about ND licenses before I "replaced" it, but could have sworn that it was part of CSD at one point.  Sorry for any confusion.  ND licenses are clearly not free licenses, but I suspect that there hasn't been a lot of discussion about them; the issue comes up for userpage photos, which a lot of people would like to license ND, and for images that people want to watermark.  If you're inspired to clarify the ND case in those places we discuss unfree image licenses and Wikipedia, that would be great; you've already tracked down some places where it probably should be mentioned.  Jkelly 22:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I asked about that once on Jimbo's talk page, but didn't get a lot of response. I have since concluded that we should indeed treat them the same way as "by permission" and "non-commercial" images though. The reason those are not allowed (as I understand it) is the lack of compatability with the GFDL and since the GFDL explicitly allow modificaitons "non-derivatives" type licenses are equaly incompatable with it. --Sherool (talk) 11:09, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's a clarifying diff from User:Jimbo Wales.  Jkelly 21:51, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: I3 no-derivatives image licences

message: This was crossposted, and has probably least to do with CSD. Please discuss at Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy#Informing the creators is being ignored. I've moved the comments that were here, over there. >Radiant< 16:34, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Informing the creators is being ignored 

message: Would an article that consists solely of an image fall under ?  I want to make sure I'm tagging articles appropriately, and if there's a better tag I'd like to use it.  Thanks!  -- Merope Talk/Review 13:49, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I certainly think so.  I can't imagine any such article being one it would be controversial to delete, and {db-nocontent} seems like the most accurate tag to describe it.  Mangojuicetalk 17:53, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, it certainly would qualify. —Centrx→talk • 01:37, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification of {{tl|db-nocontent}} 

message: For me, the P2 seems totally useless. almost as a joke. →AzaToth 01:18, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  CSD P2 

message: This is reposted from the  talk page, I've moved it here where there is some similar discussion, and someone might be able to comment. Basically, I need some help with the 48 hour aspect of this. I just noticed that this Country Radio Broadcasters, Inc. article is identical to this  site. It is older than 48 hours though, it dates from 17:46, 24 August 2006. It should still be deleted under A8 even though it is past 48 hours, right? DVD+ R/W 02:52, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See . —Centrx→talk • 06:14, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  48 hours 

message: Articles that are transwikied over here into the pseudonamespace "Transwiki:" and then moved into the main namespace leave behind an unneeded redirect in the pseudonamespace. I propose that such redirects be speediable. The proposed wording is "redirects created from the result of a transwiki to Wikipedia and a move to the main namespace". MER-C 13:07, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transwiki to Wikipedia and CSD 

message: I6, the "Missing fair-use rationale" criterion, currently says:
"Any image or media tagged only with  or , with no fair use rationale, may be deleted seven days after it was uploaded."
When really it should read:
"Any image or media tagged only with a generic fair use template, with no fair use rationale, may be deleted seven days after it was uploaded."
The reason is that it is not only  and  which require detailed fair use rationales; all of the generic boilerplate fair use templates require detailed fair use rationales. An image ought to be deleted (after a week) if it lacks such a detailed rationale, regardless of which boilerplate template was used.
Feel free to alter my wording if you think the point can be conveyed more clearly. --bainer (talk) 03:06, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've now updated the text. --bainer (talk) 03:30, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I6 needs clarification 

message: Is there a way to disable the talk page in wikipedia for pictures in wikicommons? --Gbleem 10:53, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not that I know of. If people are using the Wikipedia talk page, you could put up a note that says to make your comments on the Commons talk page. However, people would have to sign up for a Commons account and people are probably more likely to see comments on the Wikipedia talk page, although image talk pages on Wikipedia are still virtually dead. More discussion goes on at the pages that they are used on, but even that often does not get much response, if any. Very controversial and high-profile images get the most discussion, but I have never seen more than several medium-sized paragraphs. -- Kjkolb 11:08, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  You could create a cross-wiki redirect from the wikipedia page to the commons page in the format #redirect .  I've seen that tactic used on some of our policy-pages when the policy is a clone of a page from Meta.  It seems to be reasonably successful at consolidating the discussion.  Rossami (talk) 11:57, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what the best way to make a feature request is but an automatic redirect would be a good thing I would thing. Maybe after all the usrids are combined. --Gbleem 12:59, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

text: The redirect worked great. Can we make it part of the speedy deletion policy to use the redirect instead of deleting the talk page? --Gbleem 13:04, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Jeff. The  only appears to work great, whereas actually cross-wiki redirects are disabled. Still, the redirect syntax does display a pretty dignified marker to the commons imagespace. -- nae'blis 22:28, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikicommons 

message: "The word "speedy" in this context refers to the rapid decision-making process, not the length of time since the article was created."
With an obvious vandalism or copyright violation I can see the need to delete something immediately after creation but it is not necessary to delete or even tag other things immediately after creation.
I don't want to say that something has to be up for a certain time period before speedy deletion. I however think that even the templates are a hassle when I'm trying to edit something.
Is there something else that can be put in the policy for clarification?
--Gbleem 05:00, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what you're suggesting as a solution. Many new pages are found via Recent Changes, and so will be quite recently created. If they are ignored due to age they may be missed and forgotten altogether. Deco 05:04, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not suggesting as much as I'm asking for suggestions. I'm thinking you could look at the new posts for vandalism only and then review one day old posts for other things that might need more time. I don't know how easy it would be to do that. --Gbleem 15:00, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: User:Deco brought up the same reason I had mentioned earlier. A giant amount of new topics are usually empty, left empty, nonsense, and some sort of non-notable bio. I would say almost 40% of all new posts created. In a single day thousands of posts are created daily. Categories for Notability, Needing References, and Speedy Deletions are often back logged. New Post Patrolers and Admins cannot afford to double their workload by checking New Posts, One Day Old New Posts, and mark each for different criteria. The current method of disputing, hangon's, and AfD's are a good system. Every once and awhile we will come across an article that was right to be marked at the time but is edited and is suitable to remain. Those incidences are far fewer than the marked and rightfully deleted topics. I strongly feel it would be impractical to change the entire system just to accomodate that.Mkdw 15:25, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's the same number of article regardless of when you delete them. When a TV or radio show has a five second delay the show is still the same length. --Gbleem 20:35, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Same number of articles but twice the number of views and twice the volunteer labor.  Rossami (talk) 20:42, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

text: PROD can work very well for these instances, I think. If editors were less quick to slap CSD on article subjects that had merit as possibly encyclopedic, it would stop some of the biting going on when articles are nominated minutes or even seconds after their first edit by someone engaging in progressive saves, or who does not know our policies. -- nae'blis 21:00, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is, for newly created pages the vanity user just removes the prod and continues along his merry, awesome way. —Centrx→talk • 17:46, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  speedy deletion for new pages 

message: I was on AN/I recently asking about how to help and get practice with the speedy deletion process even without having admin tools, and it was suggested that I come to CSD and make sure that speedy candidates were legitimate speedies. I immediately noticed that a lot of articles tagged with some criteria don't actually meet those criteria, but do meet others. My question is: would admins find it helpful if I were to replace the incorrect criteria with the correct ones? Or would this just be obnoxious and a waste of everyone's time?
Secondly, when an article doesn't meet the narrow speedy criteria but would almost certainly not survive prod, is it worthwhile to remove the speedy tag and put it in prod, or is this a case where one should just ignore all rules and let it be?
I ask these questions because I would like to get practice with the CSD, in prepration for the unlikely event that the community decides to entrust me with administrator tools, but don't want to get in everyone's way and piss people off in the meantime. Captainktainer * Talk 01:37, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Because of the need to carefully and strictly enforce CSD to prevent abuse, I think this kind of careful management of CSD tags is both welcome and appreciated. As for whether to PROD it, I'd leave that to your discretion on an individual per-article basis. Deco 02:08, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wrong criterion or likely prod - should it be changed? 

message: Unless someone can come up with a reason not to I plan to expand A8 to cover everthing not just articles.20:27, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And the need being? --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:14, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: People listing recently uploaded copyvio images at CSD which in thoery can't be speedied. Simular issues for stuff in the wikipedia and user namespaces.Geni 21:33, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Turning A8 into a general criteria

message: There are a few templates and categories that are recreated in some form every month or so, and usually deleted per G4 since we've seen them before. The most obvious examples are voting templates and disclaimer templates. I think it would be useful to make a very brief list of those perennials here. Any thoughts on this? >Radiant< 21:34, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To the contrary, I think that justifying deletion of these templates would require new criteria; G4 should only be used on content that is recreated by the same users without addressing any previous objections. Deco 21:57, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The idea is to be able to get rid of templates like  and  without going through the hassle of TfD. --Carnildo 04:08, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think, if  is deleted and then someone makes  with very similar wording, it can be called a repost and deleted.  But that doesn't mean that  would be deletable as a repost.  However, I think there's a new policy we should make here: warnings, other than spoiler warnings, are deleted VERY regularly.  WP:SPOILER mentions a quote that says that spoiler warnings should be the only warnings, but I think this is an unwritten policy of Wikipedia that should be formally written.  Mangojuicetalk 18:09, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: N/m, scratch that, I found WP:NDT.  Mangojuicetalk 18:30, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:NDT is a guideline, not a policy. To claim that G4 applies to all such templates would be to effectively elevate it to policy, and under a dubious interpretation of G4 that contradicts its spirit. Any such deletions that have already occurred are out of process, as far as I'm concerned, and should have gone to TfD. If you're interested in unilaterally deleting this type of template, I would suggest you first garner support for making WP:NDT a policy, and then adding speedy deletion criteria to support it. Deco 20:32, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

text: *Yes, NDT is a guideline, and so? The spirit of G4 is to avoid discussing things that we've discussed before. We've had plenty of discussion on voting templates and disclaimer templates, and so we now speedily delete them. We might as well update this page to reflect that; not doing so will not in any way stop those deletions. >Radiant< 21:02, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's true, but it's not always possible for an individual to conclusively establish that the arguments posed against a similar template in the past apply equally to a new template, which may have a similar purpose but notable differentiating factors that could alter the outcome of the argument. And "we do it anyway" is never a good argument; you could just as easily argue that the page should be updated to clarify that it shouldn't be done. Deco 23:20, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  G4 corollary 

message: Brad Patrick, the foundation's legal counsel, has just made comments related to this very issue, that I thought people would be interested in. From Foundation-l:
:This means the administrators and new page patrol need to be clear when they see new usernames and page creation which are blatantly commercial - shoot on sight.
Full comment here. I think there is a bit of a sea change going on, used to the attitude was "Just slap a tag on it and someone will clean up the spam eventually", not it's becoming more well, I don't even have to exagerate, "shoot on sight". --W.marsh 17:28, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice, since I don't think AfD can possibly keep up with the amount of spamvertisements. I'd also like to see a policy change (and maybe some kind of monitor bot) for users who stick their URLs on multiple topics. I've seen cases of someone putting their website on more than 50 articles, and getting away with it for a long time before being caught. --ArmadilloFromHell 17:38, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Might I mention another part of the email: "Some of you might think regular policy and VfD is the way to go.  I am here to tell you it is not enough.  We are losing the battle for encyclopedic content in favor of people intent on hijacking Wikipedia for their own memes.  This scourge is a serious waste of time and energy.  We must put a stop to this now." There you have it from the office. AFD and prod can't deal with this crap. MER-C 01:28, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Except since he is talking about vfd it is quite posible he hasn't really considered prod.Geni 12:47, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You can't seriously be implying that prod can effectively deal with spam? -- Steel 12:51, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It often does.  If not, then it should go to AfD to possibly be cleaned up if it should exist, and deleted if not.  There's no reason to speedy it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:21, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: While prod works well for hit and run articles involving neologisms or hoaxes, spam articles tend to be defended by their creators against quick and simple actions.  This is because placing a vanispamcruftisement on the #14 website on the Internet proclaiming the virtues of "Bob's Gently Owned Autos" is a marketing value not equaled since the development of the Make money fast e-mails.  As a result of this value, the creators of these articles have increasingly taken to reverting speedy deletion tags, prod labels, and even spelling corrections.  With current trends it is just a matter of time before spammers become savvy enough to routinely request that AfD discussions be removed due to the their inevitably pointing out that the business is a small time operation that lacks relevance outside its local community or some similar information that does not show the spam subject in the best possible light. --Allen3 talk 14:23, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Then it should be sent to AfD.  Not a big deal. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:47, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm under the impression AfD is needless bureaucracy for something which is clearly going to be deleted. -- Steel 16:50, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

text: *The argument to send everything to AfD also ignores one of the basic principles behind Wikipedia: Removing vandalism must be no harder than adding it.  The process of nominating an article at AfD requires three edits and, when done correctly, a well reasoned and properly researched explanation for the deletion citing appropriate policies.  Closing the AfD as a delete requires examining and editing the discussion, performing the actual deletion, dealing with any possible talk page, checking for links to the deleted page, and fixing any issues caused by the links.  Thus both the nomination and the deletion may each involve as much effort as creating the spam and this does not include the time and effort invested by other discussion participants.  Unless you are arguing that a project based on volunteer effort is able to consistently exert more than twice the effort exerted by for-profit based spammers just to reach equilibrium, then your thesis that everything needs to go to AfD appears to be a prescription designed to render WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a soapbox irrelevant. --Allen3 talk 17:48, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Yes, discussion.  Something that's a basic principle of Wikipedia beyond deleting articles because they look like ads.  Opening that can of worms?  Not a great idea, although it seems like we've happily done so anyway. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:38, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How would "shoot on sight" per WP:CSD work now that  has been turfed? --Rrburke 21:36, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

text: **Personally, I do delete the most blatant advertisements on sight, on the ground that spamming is listed as a kind of vandalism. (Interestingly, I remember that the speedy deletion criterion used to be phrased as "Pure vandalism, such as spam".) Some of the advertisements also get nominated as copyright violation (the contributor may well be the copyright holder, but when he makes no claim of that, I don't examine the issue any further). I have noticed that somebody has just added spam as a speedy deletion criterion - when and by whom was it decided? - Mike Rosoft 13:10, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

text: ***According to WP:VAND, spam as vandalism is "Adding inappropriate external links for advertisement and/or self-promotion. Note that this applies only to placing links on numerous and/or unrelated pages. Adding self-promotional links to a few related articles may be inappropriate, but is not vandalism." This is quite different from what is discussed here (creation of even a single article that is only used for advertising). Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 13:19, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

text: ***Radiant! implemented it, and it's been fiddled around a bit by me and a few others. I'd wait until tomorrow so it settles down and all the related templates are created. MER-C 13:15, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

text: ****Thanks for the explanation. I would just like to comment that WP:VAND doesn't say that  the list is exhaustive (it just gives an example of what kind of spamming may be regarded as vandalism), and that WP:SPAM lists many more types. It is my opinion that any kind of deliberate misuse of Wikipedia or damaging of its contents constitutes vandalism. - Mike Rosoft 14:06, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

text: *****I understand this point of view. G11 could be possibly merged with G3, and WP:VAND updated to reflect the inclusion of "spamming" as a form of vandalism. This has the advantage of reducing the number of criteria; on the other hand, I'm not sure equating vandalism and spamming will be accepted by the community. Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 14:21, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

text: ******And not all apparent spamming is actual spamming, and not everything that looks like spamming is vandalism.  It's why we shouldn't be rushing this. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:05, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Brad Patrick's comments

message: "It is a page created by a single purpose advertising account (csd g11)" MER-C 12:24, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd rather see "It is an advertising page created by a single purpose advertising account". There is a subtle difference; for example such an account may upload an image that is used on the ad page without the image being an ad by itself; in this case, the image may be useful so it shouldn't be speedied. (Tizio, 2006). 12:27, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed the requirement for it being a "single purpose advertising account," because that's a loophole that's easily gameable.  Start an account, make minor edits to a few unrelated articles, and then you can claim that you're not a "single purpose advertising account."  And we're back to square one. Ξxtreme Unction|yakkity yak 12:53, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Why would spam be useful? Some of the spam that comes in is so unsalvagable that I just tag it with a  and the admin on the other end is more than willing to hit delete. (P.S. have you ever been on new pages patrol before?) MER-C 13:36, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Spam isn't useful or necessary, and is only fixable by deleting it. Assuming good faith has nothing to do with it, this amounts to judging an "article" on its merits or lack thereof. We should of course welcome and attempt to reform the "spamming" newbie, but we were asked by Brad Patrick to be "draconian" in ridding Wikipedia of blatant advertising. >Radiant< 13:56, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In an editable encyclopedia where the page histories aren't indexed by google, spam can easily be removed while the article stays intact.  We can be draconian (editing out spam on sight) without being blatantly idiotic (deleting articles that could otherwise be salvagable). --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:02, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How many of the articles we are discussing are salvageable without doing research and rewriting them from scratch? Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 15:17, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No clue, nor should that be an indicator.  If there's a chance that an article can meet our already overboard guidelines, we shouldn't be speedying it, period. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:04, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If an article must be totally re-written—and spam articles must be totally re-written—then the article is not for inclusion in the encyclopedia. If there is someone willing to write a neutral encyclopedia article about it—and there will exist such persons if the subject is verifiable or notable—there is no problem in having an empty space waiting for them to write it, rather than an advertisement sitting in that space. —Centrx→talk • 20:15, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that's true at all.  --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:35, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What's not true? If nobody is ever willing to write an article about a subject, that subject is most likely not important. Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 12:44, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a horrible line of logic.  I mean, I can list off ten articles in a blink that we can use here that haven't been created yet.  Is it unimportant in that case?  Of course not.  If we have a "spam" article on something that's otherwise useful for inclusion, then someone's been willing to write one and simply has not done so to our specifications.  That's not a reason for deletion. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:17, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't say that if someone has not yet written an article then its subject is not important. That would be really bad logic. What I say is that if we delete spam and the subject is important, we are not missing much because someone else will write an article on the subject sooner or later, and that the effort of doing that is probably the same as that of rewriting a spam article. Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 16:35, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That assumes someone will be able to come along, that it won't be speedied G4 by an admin quick on the trigger, that it won't be assumed that it's spam every time it's created, and that the earth won't be salted after it's been recreated a few times.  Too many factors go into it, when we could solve it once by not speedying it and giving it a hearing where we get some consensus on it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:38, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Unless you mean that we will let POV, unsourced articles sit around, this means someone will have to do the work of cleaning them up. Also, anyone can request that a page be unprotected and allowed for re-creation. Admins can easily recognize where the old deletion reason is "spam" that a new, legitimate article can be created on the same subject, just as they can recognize the same where an old deletion reason is "vandalism" or "copyvio", etc. —Centrx→talk • 22:12, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Another more general idea

message: 1) Wording of WP:CSD#A7: The bolded text that explains the criterion as "Unremarkable people or groups/vanity pages" seems to me at odds with the actual usage guidelines.  Surely it's the assertion of notability, rather than notability per se, that's decisive.  "Non-notable subjects with their importance asserted" are, as WP:CSD says, not eligible for WP:SD.  Surely "unremarkable people or groups/vanity pages," while candidates for WP:AfD or WP:PROD, are not candidates for WP:SD if they assert even an implausible or unverified claim of notability.  Does the wording of of WP:CSD#A7 need to be amended to reflect the distinction?
2) I've been thinking about trudging through band (and possibly album and song) stubs and articles for candidates for WP:SD.  In an earlier discussion, it was suggested that any claim of notability renders an article ineligible for WP:SD, and that stating that a band has an album is a de facto claim of notabilty.  I presume the adjective "popular" would be, too: as in, "X is popular band from Y."  First, is that a consensus position?  If it is, would it be fair to consider putting forward for WP:CSD#A7 any band article that says no more than: "X band exists.  Bobby, Timmy, Twirly and Jethro are its members.  They recently played at open mic night at the Stuckey's on Route 17 to coincide with the release of a single on their MySpace page and are really really sure they're going to be famous" -- or less?  This would probably be enough to eliminate dozens of band articles.
3) If bands are speedy-deletable per WP:CSD#A7, shouldn't it follow a fortiori that albums and songs which likewise lack assertions of notability ought to be so too?  So how to accomplish this?  WP:CSD#A1 sometimes works for this, but even stubs or articles with, for example, full track listings and graphics obviously don't fit the criterion.  WP:CSD#A7 only applies to people or groups of people; it seems odd to me there's no criterion to apply to the things they make.
:a) Are albums/songs by obviously notable bands/performers automatically precluded from being nominated for WP:SD even if the articles on them make no claim of notability?
--Rrburke 21:36, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Miscellaneous questions on [[WP:CSD#A7]] 

message: I have noticed that image talk pages frequently appear in the speedy deletion category, and I don't believe that they should be deleted on the grouds that their respective page doesn't exist (unless the content is truly meaningless, it should be moved to the Commons at worst). For example, I have just declined to delete . The problem is an inconsistency between the image page and  because the latter makes it seem that the image doesn't exist. - Mike Rosoft 11:33, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hopefully no-one has any objections to that. -- Steel 15:39, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Talk pages of images on Commons

message: I feel that the new spam criterion is okay, but I think it needs some clarification.  Different people consider "spam" differently.  I think it's important to make it clear in the policy that speedy deletion of spam should only be meant for cases that are not only blatant examples of advertising, but also ones for which the page in question contains nothing else in its history.  This will hopefully take care of all the most egregious cases, but I thought of a specific case that will probably be uncontroversial, and applies a bit more broadly than just spam:
* A9: Repost of official website.  Any article on a company, product, living person, band, organization, or website, for which the article and all its history consists entirely of material from the official website of its subject, regardless of any assertion of permission.
In 90% of such cases, the article would be a copyright violation.  In 99% of the remaining cases, the only reason a copyright violation wouldn't be an issue is that someone promoting the subject, and working for/with the official website, wants that info hosted on Wikipedia.  I can't see why, in those cases, we should accept such material: Wikipedia articles are supposed to meet certain standards of content, which websites basically don't ever meet.  Thoughts?  Mangojuicetalk 19:04, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't have that the commercial-content restriction any more. It was changed 3-4 weeks ago; read it again. —Centrx→talk • 22:19, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Clarification to G11 & (new) proposed A9.

message: I have started a deletion review of a page deleted under CSD G5 ("delete pages created by banned users"). Comments would be welcomed. My arguments in favour of restricting G5 in cases where useful content has been created can be seen at the deletion review and also at Wikipedia talk:Deny recognition. Carcharoth 01:25, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  CSD G5 case at deletion review 

message: Is it possible that there is something wrong with this page (the WP page, not this talk page)?  For the last few weeks, whenever my cursor moves over a link on the page, I get an error that says A Runtime Error has occurred. Do you wish to Debug? Line: 3096 Error: Object doesn't support this property or method.  I don't remember getting this message historically, so I sifted through old versions and I found the edit in the history where the error first starts happening for me.  If seems to be something in this diff.  Can someone please take a look at this to see if something is wrong (or maybe I'm just having a personal problem? although I can reproduce it at both home and office.) Thanks --After Midnight 0001 02:08, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That edit was faulty, and was corrected in the following edit. Do you get an error on the following version? -- zzuuzz (talk) 02:16, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the fast response. Yes, I do still get the error on that version as well. --After Midnight 0001 02:22, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm unable to reproduce it, even when I try :( There is one major difference between the versions you identify. The newer version has duplicate SPAN ID's for example 'g8' and 'G8'. I think this shouldn't make any difference because ID tokens are case sensitive (this was probably the reason for the change), but it may cause problems with an outdated or poorly implemented browser. Unless anyone else is having this problem, maybe change or update your browser? -- zzuuzz (talk) 03:26, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, thanks for trying.  I'm using IE 6.0.2900.  It happens with VP also.  If it matters, I am also running popups.  I'll probably just live with it, unless I start having other problems. --After Midnight 0001 03:44, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This undoubtedly sounds like a problem with the popups (on IE), pertaining to the issues I mentioned. You should raise it there. -- zzuuzz (talk) 11:11, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Technical error with this page? 

message: Since Danny and Brad have been mentioned above, I'd add that Jimbo also commented on the issue in this post to the mailing list. "Deletion is no big deal" is a novel point of view even for the most extreme deletionist; this gives the idea of how much spam is considered a problem. Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 13:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: On the other hand, the advocation of deletion as an alternative to editing is a big deal. -Splash - tk 13:25, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I wonder how little a deal it will be when an article gets created the fourth time, gets salted, and then no one can create a viable article in its place. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:07, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, they can, the deletedpages template tells them exactly how to create a page. Regardless it is not a significant loss if an article on some random company is absent for a few months. —Centrx→talk • 15:20, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

text: *I should point out there has been a recent effort to unSALT (pepper?) older deleted pages. >Radiant< 15:27, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Salting isn't forever.... honestly, WP is not the Yellow Pages... we can't list every non notable business.  What else are we susposed to do? -- Tawker 15:30, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Salting has that "forever" effect, though.  It often doesn't matter if you can prove notability - if the deleting admin isn't budging and DRV gets it wrong, you're stuck.  No one's saying "list non-notable businesses," we're saying "don't spend so much time rushing to get rid of nn ones that you make it difficult to keep articles on the notable ones."  That's essentially what's occurring here. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:34, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think moreso G11 is for articles similar to "buy or product, we're the best... look at how great we are" more than anything else.  Most notable companies already have an balanced article, we're seeing more and more SEO attemps using WP now. G11 is kind of like a short circut operator for WikiProj No Ads -- Tawker 15:44, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If it works that way, great.  The problems?  1) It won't work that way.  Look at how A7 is used and abused.  2) If an article can be edited as opposed to deleted, we should go that route to lessen possible abuse.  Stubbing and AfDing > deleting outright.  3) If an ad-maker is vigilant, it will be recreated and eventually salted, and that could cause potential problems down the road. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:26, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Any case we create people are going to abuse it..... I wouldn't say A7 gets abused, it just saves us a lot of time.  Sending everything to AfD would increase the backlog and cleanup wouldn't get done.  You win some you lose some. -- Tawker 19:06, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Some administrors routinely check the category :Category:Protected deleted pages or the list User:DumbBOT/TimeSortedPD and delete pages that have been salted for too long. As you see from the list, there are only three articles that have been salted before May and are still salted. Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 16:20, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We are up to June 20 for article space. —Centrx→talk • 16:43, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Deletion is no big deal

message: I understand the need to keep the deprecated A4 and A6 listed to keep the numbering intact; however, I8 and especially U3 are very new and should have few incoming links yet. I think it's a good idea to remove those lines referring to them, as they serve little purpose. The effect is renaming I9 to I8, but also to make the page look less like a book of law. >Radiant< 16:22, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: An alternative is stop merging criteria that don't actually need merging, and then there won't be an instantaneous production of a new piece of bureaucracy. Wasn't broke. Didn't need !fixing. -Splash - tk 17:45, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A note on bureaucracy 

message: I have made a simpler change to this effect which ties the criterion to the value of the content. Also, this and all criteria work together, so that a combination of weakly satisfied criteria is similar to a single strongly satisfied criterion. For example, the more notable a company or person, the more likely we would want to salvage something from a spam submission on it despite blatantly promotional material. Conversely, if an article is only somewhat spammy but contains a tepid or ridiculous assertion of notability and would invariably be deleted at Afd, in combination this indicates a speedy deletion may be warranted. —Centrx→talk • 21:49, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I tightened the language somewhat, because it avoided the key point raised above. The criterion is still ill thought out, however. Your notion of inventing new CSDs out of fractions of existing ones is wrong. If an article doesn't meet any of the speedies, then you can't usefully cite any of them in support of deleting it. If you decide to delete it anyway, you do so with reference only to your own judgement not figleaves of policies. -Splash - tk 22:50, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is neither an invention nor a disguise. Such an article meets the criteria, severally and together. The judgement is whether there is a loss to the encyclopedia in deleting an article that technically satisfies the criteria. —Centrx→talk • 23:25, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

text: *Absolutely agree with Uncle G - spam is a catchall for "I don't want to see it". Advertising is a far clearer description and less of a bite for those on the receiving end - it tells them what they did wrong. Yomanganitalk 01:30, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

text: **I agree, "advertising" is a better term than "spam". >Radiant< 22:42, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Change & CSD combinations

message: A new way to type Db-spam template has been created: Template:Csd-g11 is now a redirect to the CSD template for G11. Shin'ou's TTV (Futaba|Masago|Kotobuki) 04:26, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New G11 redirectemplate 

message: More G11 abuse is being done by User:Improv.  Noted here, it seems bizarre to delete articles on Teddy Grahams and Pepperidge Farms.  I never thought I'd see the day, but G11 is an even bigger mistake than A7. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:41, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've listed them at DRV, but there were over FORTY articles/images deleted essentially at random by Improv, not counting redirects.  This isn't abuse, this is an outright failure of the guideline. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:20, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: More G11 abuse