Wikipedia talk:Experimental deletion

message: Experimental deletion is a project to learn more about mediawiki and how it can be used to help deletion. It is NOT a process -extant, proposed, or tentative- , and it is NOT a system to augment, deprecate or replace vfd at this point in time. It is exactly as the name says, a project that does experiments. Kim Bruning 15:56, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Signpost article not quite correct

message: Can I ask a question on the fairly philosphical plane about the various blank-but-retain proposals?
*What do people think about credibility? It is (imo) a key problem with Wikipedia. Blanking pages is all well and good and easy, but I imagine some tech-savvy person looking at the article's history that they just Random Pages-ed to. The article is called "Uggle", and they see that it used to say "Yo! Digg!". "This page intentionally left blank" doesn't quite cut it with them because it would still permit the article "Uggle" to exist, and no credible reference source would. They'll use Britannica instead. -Splash 02:38, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A page like that can go to speedy delete rather than xd2. Also, admins are hard deleting most pages marked with the xd2 template, anyway. They're leaving the ones they're not certain about, and letting the normal editors hash them out (3 revert rule, et cetera). All that works fine, and uggle-like entries don't hang around long. Babajobu 09:10, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Questions 

message: ====Lighter than VFD====
*VfD requires a new page to be created for discussion, this does not.
*VfD requires the new page be linked(transcluded, but it comes to the same thing for this purpose) to another page.
*What else?
===Discussion===
*As a way of preventing Wikipedia from being a free webspace provider, pages could be deleted with normal, admin-only visible deletion after they have been unedited for some number of days(maybe 30).  If there is disagreement, the objector only need edit the page to prevent it from disappearing. (suggested by JesseW 21:29, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think XD2 works great. I've blanked about 20 pages would have just clogged up VfD before an inevitable consensus for deletion. After a couple days Usera:Ambi hard deleted a few. Babajobu 11:38, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I have just deleted several pages with that template, and all were clear speedy deletion candidates, thus they would have never belonged to VfD anyway. So what is the point of reinventing  and its variants? andy 11:45, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, I noticed that. You're right, some of the articles I tagged with XD2 were candidates for speedy delete. Most were just transparently non-notable vanity articles. For now on I'll try to restrict the XD2 template to the latter type, and use  for speedy deletion candidates. Babajobu 11:48, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

text: The original content is not visible, very much like deletion works today. (except normal editors can view the "deletion history" and restore in this case). No admins are needed, and no central location is needed, consensus and 3RR can take care of it. Kim Bruning 14:31, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copied from XD2 discussion page

message: *As a way of preventing Wikipedia from being a free webspace provider, pages could be deleted with normal, admin-only visible deletion after they have been unedited for some number of days(maybe 30).  If there is disagreement, the objector only need edit the page to prevent it from disappearing. (suggested by JesseW 21:29, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think XD2 works great. I've blanked about 20 pages would have just clogged up VfD before an inevitable consensus for deletion. After a couple days Usera:Ambi hard deleted a few. Babajobu 11:38, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I have just deleted several pages with that template, and all were clear speedy deletion candidates, thus they would have never belonged to VfD anyway. So what is the point of reinventing  and its variants? andy 11:45, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, I noticed that. You're right, some of the articles I tagged with XD2 were candidates for speedy delete. Most were just transparently non-notable vanity articles. For now on I'll try to restrict the XD2 template to the latter type, and use  for speedy deletion candidates. Babajobu 11:48, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

text: The original content is not visible, very much like deletion works today. (except normal editors can view the "deletion history" and restore in this case). No admins are needed, and no central location is needed, consensus and 3RR can take care of it. Kim Bruning 14:31, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: Proposal by Xiong. While he says it's not an XD (as it does not involve deletion), it sure sounds like one to me. Strongly rejected so far, but I'd appreciate comments from the hardcore new-deletion-ideas crowd. ~~ N (t/c) 03:15, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Zap]] 

message: I've added  to this page and all subpages.  If you look at WP:AN#Blogs/podcasts/websites and XD2 you can see people are confused about this. Superm401 | Talk 21:00, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for promoting experimental deletion to proposed status. However, I must decline at this point in time. I do not feel that experimental deletion should ever be proposed as policy. Kim Bruning 21:22, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Maybe we agree in spirit; I'm not sure.  I don't think it should ever be policy.  I have no objection to a proposal for them to be, which this page essentially is.  However, right now, the page says these are "experimental policies."  To me, that implies they are policies that are agreed upon for experimental use.  However, they are not policies at all (experimental or otherwise).  Therefore, it is wrong to call them such.  Clearly, people have been getting confused about this.  I don't think the uncertainty's acceptable. If you feel "experimental" is somehow less formal than "proposed", we disagree.  To me, policies that haven't even been proposed (let alone accepted) shouldn't ever be used, even temporarily.  However, as you can see on WP:AN people are using this as if it were (accepted) policy, which is a serious problem.  If you object to my solution to that problem, please suggest an alternative. Superm401 | Talk 00:40, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've just reverted 2 related edits to the article.  Kim's taking the article back to some ancient version refering to VfD and omitting xd6 entirely (thanks).  Also  Redvers' changing the intro warning/comment about it being experimental back to the extended version.   The edit description stated 'per kim bruning', yet kim's article revert had included the extended version.  I think more explanation than simply Experimental use only is warrented on the main page. Feel free to discuss if you feel otherwise. ∴ here…♠ 21:58, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed 

message: If you leave your experiment open (ie, forget to reset and send items on to CSD and AFD) , you will cause people to distrust and attack the XD project (see above.)
We'll be checking the XD "bins" on thursday, be they cats or "what links here" pages. Any pages still there that are older than 48 hours and have no adequate explanation for being there...  will be removed.  And I shall smile at the people who left them there.
: :-) Kim Bruning 05:00, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dear experimenter: Consequences of leaving experiments open 

message: I have some basic difficulties with the idea of this "experiment", as you may be able to tell from my above comments. :)  Please humor my ignorance of the history behind this.  
: Well, the entire history is self-contained on these pages, but I'll summarise for you :-) Kim Bruning 00:45, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.  You know it's a drag to read through the entire page history, and try to figure out where else the idea was discussed. Superm401 | Talk 04:01, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Done! :-) Kim Bruning 00:45, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Please see my further comments above.  I appreciate what you've said so far. Superm401 | Talk 04:01, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I appreciate this clarifying edit a lot.  Thanks. :) Superm401 | Talk 21:48, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Central Questions 

message: was recently nominated for deletion as a unapproved wikipedia process and violation of consensus.  I would like to focus on the recurring consensus issues.  Please limit responses in this section to ideas about consensus relating to XD process.  I have one primary question, How is using a reversible-by-everyone process like XD6 different from removing partial content from an existing article?.  Again, please limit this discussion to issues with consensus if possible.  Thoughts appreciated.  ∴ here…♠ 16:43, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no part of your bolded question that asks about consensus, unless you're really after the discussion at WP:PWDS. -Splashtalk 16:51, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Blanking an article is a form of vandalism, and use of the XD process as it currntly stands amounts to article blanking, as all relevant content is removed. As such I have recently reverted all uses of  on actual articels, and taken such further action on the articles as seemed appropriate and in line with current policy. DES (talk) 16:53, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I wish you wouldn't do that.  Applying XD6 is not vandalism, it's a good faith attempt to improve the encyclopedia.  Treating it like vandalism is inappropriate and unhelpful. Friday (talk) 16:59, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, my position is that actual use of this on real articles should be reverted on sight, and i will continue to do so until and unless there is a consensus supporting its use. Repeated use I will report on WP:VIP. DES (talk) 17:10, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I agree.  All policies should be continually evaluated by all editors for their usefulness to improving the encyclopedia.  Those that fail should not be enforced (minimal) and should be changed (ideal). Tedernst | talk 17:16, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Where is this supposed consensus documented?  Zoe (216.234.130.130 17:47, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Er, which supposed consensus is that?  Friday (talk) 19:27, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You said, XD enjoys approximately the same amount of consensus as Afd.  So where is this supposed consensus that XD enjoys?  Zoe (216.234.130.130 21:17, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for clarifying.  To me, the evidence is clear: XD is controversial.  So are Afd, and the various CSD's.  My point was that I don't see much consensus on any of these things.  Friday (talk) 22:52, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: AfD is used by a large number of Wikipedia users.  XD has had zero publicity (I only knew about it because of running across an edit using the XD6 tag) and is used by what, five people? Zoe (216.234.130.130 23:40, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I think the problem is, people don't want to hear "common sense" arguments.  What they're saying (I think) is that because XD has not been specifically blessed, it shouldn't be used.  I don't consider this a very valid argument, since that's just not how things work around here.  Much of what is now "policy" arose naturally from people just doing what they thought made sense.  Friday (talk) 19:28, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It hasn't been "blessed" because it's blatant vandalism.  Zoe (216.234.130.130 21:18, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Please answer the question.  How is reversibly removing improper content as an entire page any different from removing improper content as an entire paragraph. As has been mentioned before, Zoe's position is a slippery slope to any edit being blatent vandalism.  What you appear to be saying is that as long as I leave a two sentence stub, you are fine with this process.  In fact, we are leaving a detailed description of the process and how to retrieve the content thought improperly included.  ∴ here…♠ 22:11, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: How is blanking an article without letting anybody know you've done it not vandalism?  216.234.130.130 23:40, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you actually seen the X6 template?  It tells exactly what happened and why and what to do about it if you disagree. Tedernst | talk 01:18, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  There is, however, no notification anywhere else, and in the uses I found the "reasons" whre often sigle words and in several cases clearly incorrect. Regardless, ther is no community support for the use of this on actual articles, so it is revertable on sight. DES (talk) 01:22, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  You're absolutely correct, it is revertable on sight, as are most other edits.  And, like every other edit, if anyone thinks they might want to revert it, they should consider whether they think it makes the encyclopedia better or worse.  If you want to be able to find them, they go in the XD6 category.  Maybe the should go in the pages for deletion category as well?  That's easy enough to fix, I think.  Friday (talk) 01:39, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  XD and consensus 

message: Come to think of it, why don't the XD methods use :Category:Pages for deletion?  Sorry if this has already been discussed, but I didn't see it on the talk page anywhere.  Friday (talk) 01:43, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: seems a harmless and potentially useful addition.  ∴ here…♠ 04:21, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I agree with here. Tedernst | talk 06:28, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Thanks for the feedback.  One thought tho- I hate to balkanize unneccessarily.  I wonder if that category should be added to some of the other XD methods also.  This may go a long way to appease the people who object that XD'd pages can't be found by normal means.  Friday (talk) 14:29, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I fully agree.  If you aren't opposed, I'd say just add the :Category:Pages for deletion to xd6 or vice versa and remove one of them.  I would also recommend addition of the category to xd5.  Beyond that, I try to stay out of it to avoid Kim's wrath ;) (ha-ha).  I'd also like to move the log out of the xd6 subpage to Wikipedia:Experimental Deletion/log.  Any other wacky different ideas to try with xd7?  ∴ here…♠ 17:34, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I added a few words on XD7 talking about different approaches to disposing of XD'd pages.   I'd previously been thinking about the idea of an XD that specifically includes "do not list pages on Afd or otherwise delete them" as part of "how to delete a page", but this may be controversial.  Altho, actually using any XD methods is apparently pretty controversial anyway.  Friday (talk) 17:47, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that's a great idea, even if only to have on paper.  It will of course be met with even harsher criticism than xd6 and the other so called blanking methodes.  Another variation would be to completely blank the page without leaving any explanation or link, at least then we could compare the relative value of using an explanatory template.  I've moved the log and updated with DES's recent reverts.  If anyone would like to summarize some stats on how many afd's, edits, etc this process has saved, go for it.  You may also attempt to find the harm this has caused, but I wish you good luck ;).  I'd say make xd7 specifically permanent and possibly xd8 a true blanking.  ∴ here…♠ 18:54, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added :Category:Pages for deletion to xd6, and created xd8 as a true page blanking.    I'm like the idea about xd7 being explicitly permanent, but not sure how to word it.  Ideally, either xd5 (delayed) or xd6 (instant) could be used to arrive at the eventual permanence of xd7.  Any thoughts?  If you're reading this and haven't yet, check out Meatball:PlayingDead for additional context. ∴ here…♠ 01:30, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Use of :Category:Pages for deletion has been severely frowned upon by Cryptic, see explanation here, here and here.  I am removing the category from xd templates and procedure. ∴ here…♠ 23:21, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categories/XD7 

message: What can be done to counter the "XD is vandalism" arguments?  I recently XD7'd Rob Hooper.  For those who consider use of XD in article space to be vandalism, does even that one qualify?  It could have been speedied and nobody would have argued.  In fact (contrary to my usual preference), I will speedy it in fairly short order if it doesn't turn into something real.  Is there any possible objection to using such a method prior to a speedy, just in case?  There's been some talk lately about how speedies that are too speedy cause harm.  This seems to address that concern in a fairly painless way.  Friday (talk) 01:41, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "XD is vandalism" 

message: I've collected what I could find on wiki deletion process.  Hopefully this perspective will help demonstrate a precedent for process similar to current xd proposals (see both c2 and usemod, as well as wikipedia's origins).  One of my favs is the original speedy page, Please understand that we mean no harm in deleting your page ... If we misunderstood, just go back and restore your content - it'll still be in the page history - perhaps accompanied by a bit more explanation.  Vandalism?  The history still needs much work, but it's much more than was available.  see meta:History of wiki deletion process. ∴ here…♠ 08:53, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  history of wiki deletion process 

message: I have some major problems with XD7, and probably the earlier versions of this experimental deletion procedure.
On the one hand, the article is not really deleted.  If this procedure were being used on a wide scale, it would result in lots of articles which still existed, which would no doubt have blue links to them on other wikipedia pages, and which, days or weeks later when everyone had forgotten about them, could and would be reverted to whatever their original low quality content was.
The real problem with this is that one of the primary ways, perhaps THE primary way, we get rid of bad articles is the New Pages list.  Lots of people go through the list of the last 50/500/1000/etc new articles, looking for ones to improve/delete.  Once an article's been around for days, it's fallen off that list and off everyone's radar, and may end up staying around for many months.  Having deleted articles that aren't really deleted allows bad articles to be recreated without having to run the gauntlet of the New Pages list, which means nobody's gonna notice that "Bob Johnson Is A Fag" just got its XD7 tag reverted and is now back to tell the whole world about Bob Johnson.
On the other hand, the XD7 message does not tell the person reading it that he can simply revert it if he disagrees with it.  Speedy deletions require administrators and are only done for truly worthless articles, AfD's require debate and administrators and five days, Prods require 5 days and specifically say that the prod tag can be removed by anyone who disagrees for any reason, and then they too require administrators to remove the article.  The XD7 message will give new editors the impression that their article is gone and that's the end of that.  "If a dispute arises, please restore the article's contents and list it on Articles for Deletion" is not a proper way of telling people that they can revert their article if they want, it sounds like just some new way of having their article deleted, especially to a new editor.
This effectively gives everyone the same ability that only Administrators have now, the ability to delete any article.  The most immediate problem with this is that it gives anyone, right now, the ability to masquerade as an administrator, basically.  What's to keep me from making up a fake template saying "This article has been deleted, do not recreate under any circumstance"?  This template would only be quantitatively different than the xd7 one, not qualitatively different.  What's to keep me from making my own reasonable sounding version of xd7, and throwing it up on articles all over the place which I don't personally care for? --Xyzzyplugh 15:46, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We already have a template like what you described, .  I consider the fact that XD may be slightly daunting to a newbie to be a feature, not a bug.  If a newbie makes an article that's sufficiently bad that an experienced editor thinks it should immediately go away, we don't generally want the newbie undoing it, do we?  In cases like that, I try to engage the editor in question in discussion on the talk page, like a civilized editor should, rather than just going stomping off to Afd.  If they're interested in talking about it, they will discover that the "deletion" can be undone, but  frequently they will come to understand why the article isn't suitable and they'll no longer want to try to fight the deletion.  Now, for "Bob is a jerk" type articles, those are a non-issue- they should be speedied, as they generally already are.  The one thing that is a true disadvantage to XD is that links to the article still show up blue instead of red.  This could be fixed by a software tweak, described in more detail at WP:PURE.  Also, to address your last point- you could make your own version of XD- where do you think the various versions we have now came from?  People made them.  Friday (talk) 16:54, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Xyzzyplugh. I understand the arguments you are putting forward, Friday, but I think that one user blanking pages does not helping to come up with a better deletion mechanism. I think that your personal preference to use XD7 doesn't constitute the continuation of an "experiment" but rather one (or a few) editors trying to manage wikipedia in a manner that doesn't agree with consensus. IMO the XD experiment ended long ago, and the result was that it didn't catch on. There should be debate about this process over at the Village Pump if it is to become a permanent way of deleting pages. -- cmh 19:13, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Creating your own xd variation would be fantastic, I encourage you to try your hand.  If it works well, it may even make some waves in accepted policy -- if it is reckless or destructive, concerned editors everywhere will stop you before you can type .  xd certainly influenced the development of proposed deletion -- and has the potential to further aid in wikipedia deletion process development.  You can see from prior discussion on this talk page that these issues have been raised before -- generally to the gain of wiki deletion process. ∴ here…♠ 21:11, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Friday, you're assuming that everyone who will be using xd7 has as much intelligence and common sense and wikipedia experience as you do.  Once it became widely used, though, this wouldn't be the case, would it?   There would be people putting the xd7 tag in places where it didn't belong, either on articles which should be speedied, or on articles which shouldn't be deleted in the first place.  This is why the Prod template makes it so clear that the Prod tag can be removed by anyone for any reason, and why they're all checked by an administator before being deleted.  XD7 removes both these safeguards.  I think it's safe to say, though, that the reason XD7 doesn't say "feel free to remove this tag" is that then it would lose all its power as a deletion device.  It seems to me that this is a fatal flaw in what's being done here - XD7, no matter how the template is worded, is stuck being either too powerful, or not powerful enough, or both at the same time.  --Xyzzyplugh 02:01, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I have some major problems with XD7 

message: With the advent of proposed deletion, XD seems to be redundant. I've moved the few articles that were still tagged as XD7 to PROD candidates. Would anyone object to my marking the page as inactive? Zetawoof(ζ) 03:15, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Evidently not. I'm gonna go ahead and mark this as inactive, and suggest that users use  instead of XD methods. Zetawoof(ζ) 10:00, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

text: XD is for experiments. Duh. :-) Though, the centralised deletion methods are still there :-/ Kim Bruning 14:33, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: XD redundant with the advent of [[WP:PROD]]?

message: In reference to this diff, I dispute the assertion that the advent of WP:PROD has rendered this proposal irrelevant. They are two totally different ideas, and PROD has not obviated the need for this implementation of pure wiki deletion. Aldrich Hanssen (talk) 18:24, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: A number of alternatives to AfD, including WP:PROD, were proposed and discussed. In the end, PROD was the one that had consensus support. –Black Falcon (Talk) 19:11, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical