Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy/Reducing VfD load

message: The Votes for Deletion pages have steadily increased in size over the past year, and are likely to continue growing along with Wikipedia as a whole. Since VfD is an important process in Wikipedia, it is useful for people to keep track of it. This, of course, becomes progressively harder as VfD grows. Therefore it would be beneficial to attempt to reduce its size. I have put up some proposals for discussion below; feel free to add more, and give your comments. Please bear in mind that this is not a vote.
Radiant_* 11:46, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
:When I first started clearing out VfD/Old last summer there were some 25 to 30 listings per day. Today there are often more than a hundred. This rate of growth is clearly unsustainable. - SimonP 16:23, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
::The number of users of Wikipedia has also grown substantially since last summer. I believe that it has done so quickly enough to keep pace with the number of articles nominated for deletion. The growing size of VfD can only be said to make the VfD process in its present form "unsustainable" for one of the following reasons:
:* The number of people discussing and voting on VfD nominations is too small to create a consensus.
I don't believe that this is the case. Many discussions produce uniform or nearly-uniform "keep" or "delete" results, whether the number of votes is five or fifty. Many articles are kept after being rewritten, which, while a process more appropriate for Wikipedia:Cleanup, hardly demonstrates inadequate attention to the VfD process. Other debates produce no consensus despite the large number of members discussing the nomination, and thus result in the article being kept. This result is usually due either to the contentious nature of the subject of an article, or to the fact that the subject is only marginally useful to the encyclopedia to the extent that any larger or longer discussion would inevitable produce the same result.
:* Closed discussions are not being processed in a timely fashion.
It is my understanding that the "Old Votes" section of VfD can get a bit backlogged at times, but that this is not a major problem. If anyone has information to the contrary, and it turns out that a slew unprocessed discussions is causing an undue strain on the resources of the servers and the attention of the sysops, I will gladly give up the cause.
:* The number of daily nominations is putting a strain on the servers.
It is my belief that since the VfD page was split up into separate, daily pages, the strain on the servers has been greatly reduced. If even a day's worth is too much, nominations can be divided again into half-day subpages or along topical lines. Clearly, this is not a realistic solution in the long term, but I do not think that what it proposes to cure is even a realistic problem in the long term.
:* Editors are spending time dealing with VfD that would be better spent in other areas of the encyclopedia.
I concede that this is a problem, one from which I am hardly immune, but that reducing the scope of VfD is not the solution. If some users have a perverse attraction to deleting articles or to the terse discussions that accompany current discussions, the desire for power and the desire for conflict will manifest themselves just as strongly in a reduced VfD. The solution to this problem is not to limit VfD, but to make efforts to change Wikipedia, and even to change people's hearts and minds, in ways that will focus more on creating and writing the good articles, and less on eliminating the bad ones.
:* Administrators are spending time dealing with VfD that would be better spent in other areas of the encyclopedia.
This is somewhat of a unification of the second and fourth hypothetical causes. If administrators are spending time either processing or contributing to VfD discussions, the solution is not necessarily to en-sysop more users. If this becomes a problem, reducing VfD may become the only viable solution. However, it may be possible to use a bot to process some VfD nominations. I realize that someone would have to run the bot, and I confess that I do not know what is involved in running one (I would be interested in finding out what is, in fact, involved). Moreover, if I were to be able to run such a bot, I would be glad to do so, although I highly doubt that I could actually run a bot. We'll see.
::Wow, this was a lot longer than I intended, but I am sincere in my skepticism of whether this proposal is necessary. NatusRoma 01:29, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: A size issue

message: If you don't know what this is about, read the talk page first!
Lemme get this straight:
* A 3 kB proposal was posted.
* It grows to 22 kB with comments
* And apparently the only way to understand "what it's about" is to go read the preceding 108 kB of unstructured and unedited discussion on the talk page?
IMO, this is an outrageous abuse of supposed participatory decision-making. How valid would any vote eventually taken on this proposal be? 
Let's make this banner clearer:
Important Decision. Average editors need not apply.
--Jerzy·t 10:31, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You lost me there.  What's the problem?  Why do you assume that "average editors" can't just read other people's comments?  How can anyone participate if nobody actually reads anyone else's comments? What's this talk about a vote? We don't usually do votes, we do discussions. Sure you can make a contribution without reading any other part of the discussion, but the likelihood of your having anything serious to say that hasn't already been discussed goes down with time as the discussion grows. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:01, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Good god! I don't think i ever saw that response. Because, as i had just said, reading a previous 100K of comments fairly well guarantees non-obsessed editors (like myself with respect to that discussion) will have no voice in the matter, and i absented myself from it. Perhaps i was naive in considering it remotely possible to elict an appropriate response from those obsessed enough to tolerate that barrier to participating in the discussion. (Whether it would lead to a vote or consensus, on a solution or on terms of reference for a working group, is irrelevant.) Appropriate response would have been refactoring of the discussion, by one or a group of the obsessed, thereby providing ability to participate to the non-obsessed.  Sheesh!--Jerzy•t 19:32, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Comment

message: *Withdrawn, archived here.
Per WP:NOT a crystal ball, most people tend to agree that speculation on future events doesn't belong here. Would this make a suitable speedy? Radiant_* 10:58, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
*Disagree. Take a look at Potential Bush administration nominees to the Supreme Court of the United States. That article was kept after an extremely contentious VfD debate, and if there are cases where future events should have an article the articles on them should not be speedily deleted. Sjakkalle 11:08, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Future events

message: Okay, let me try again... CSD proposal for "any work of fiction (book, game, movie, etc) not yet published". This probably needs refining though. Radiant_* 14:36, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
*Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is most definitely not a speedy candidate. Also Catch Without Arms has been kept (Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Catch Without Arms (album)). Yeah, I know, I'm just sitting here criticizing all the suggestions and not making any constructive ones. Sjakkalle 14:43, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Future fiction

message: :The January poll saw 57% in favour of a proposal for speedy deleting vanity articles. With the continued growth in VfD it is possible that with revised wording this proposal could win consensus. Vanity articles are by far the largest class of pages that garner unanimous delete votes. - SimonP 16:20, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
:I think managed deletion would be preferable to expanding the speedy criteria. I've taken "vanity" speedy tags off many things which have gone on to survive Vfds. Kappa 17:43, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *I'm assuming you meant Wikipedia:Preliminary deletion (the evolved form of managed deletion). Anyway - that could of course be solved by strictly defining what kind of vanity is a speedy criterion. Radiant_* 17:46, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
*Just a humble suggestion - a new speedy catagory of 'vanity that does not assert notability'. That would get rid of the 'John Smith is 23 and studies at UCLA' quickly, but would leave those who claim to be band members, authors, or have doen something significant to be considered through VfD. --Doc (t) 19:36, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you guys too. If we can define a tight definition, I'm all for expanding vanity speedy deletion criteria. Mgm|(talk) 13:44, May 31, 2005 (UTC)
*Sounds good. Could someone dig up a couple examples and list them here? Radiant_* 14:30, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
**Anthony James Cartwright Sahand Soufivand Emily Bradford Brian Fechter Howard Lieberman Azzelarabe Taleb-Bendiab Matthew Heroux Suzanne Rowntree Simon F Baarbé Mareth Collins-Wooley Lauren Ashley Wolfe would all fit a 'not asserting notability' criteria - that's just from today - and as of now they don't have a single 'keep' vote between them --Doc (t) 23:35, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

text: * Not that any process will work 100% of the time, but the 'not asserting notability' criteria would not have kept the Jerry Hairston, Jr. article off the VfD list because the stub was just plain bad (and Kelly is obviously not a Chicago Cubs fan). DS1953 04:08, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

text: Speedy deletions shouldn't require too much research beyond knowledge of the CSD rules and applying this knowledge when looking at the article. If the admin has to do more than this to check for an article's validity, I don't think the article should be speedied: other editors should also do their research and vote in a VfD instead of only having two editors responsible for a speedy (nominator and deletor). That's the reason why the CSD rules are very narrow and specific (and why the VfU exists). If an article is speedied incorrectly, we waste even MORE time as it's put up on VfU and, if it's undeleted, some time on VfD. --Deathphoenix 02:15, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

text: *I tend to double-check with Google, even when I'm positive something is rubbish.  Just to be sure.  I would rather spend a minute or two of my own time so I don't make myself look foolish and so I don't waste the time of others on VfU.  Take the example above, for instance.  I highly doubt that a man is so beautiful he wins beauty pageants.  Let's check the article out, though, just to be sure.  "Dharma Bombs" gets 50 hits.  Okay, the band exists.  "Dharma Bombs" + "Daniel Britt" gets zero.  Hmm... not good for the band vanity assertion.  "Muswell Hill" + "beauty pageant" gets 15 hits.  A place called Muswell Hill exists, and it has a beauty pageant.  "Muswell Hill" + "Daniel Britt" gets zero hits.  One of the most effective ways to lie is to mix a lie with truth, and it seems that is what was done here.  It is highly unlikely that a man would win a beauty pageant.  The assertions of the article are not supported by any easily referenced source.  I would delete that article as an indisputably bad faith addition.  If the vandal person who submitted an obvious joke wants to dispute it, fine.  I would rather make them work hard than to waste the time of a lot of people who are honestly committed to this project.  SWAdair | Talk  06:09, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *Yeah, it's a good idea to check even an obvious speedy, but I'm saying that if such checks are required (ie, I absolutely will not be able to delete it without a check because it's not an obvious speedy), it shouldn't be a speedy in the first place. The above example, while nonsense, attempts to establish notability by explaining why Daniel Britt is notable. If it were merely "Daniel Britt - a local celebrity from north London Muswell Hill", or something like that, I would argue that the article can be speedied because it doesn't explain why he's a celebrity, but the above example, as written, cannot be speedied because it attempts to establish notability and therefore needs to be up on VfD. I'm not saying this out of a desire for rules lawyering and instruction creep, but out of a wish to avoid false positives and people electing more and more articles for VfU because something was deleted out of hand. --Deathphoenix 13:40, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

text: *I think that we need to trust people on this, if it looks like a speedy delete then they should have 2 check it quickly on google, for the amount of time it takes it can avoid a lot of hassle if the thing is just obscure, for example an all male beauty pagent. Anything that is important enough to get on Wikipedia is important enough to have a little web space. Given how cheap it is to put up a page and how much help is out there for building a page. In the case of the beauty pagent guy if he is that much of a local star you would expect something on the web, if only some pictures from the pagent. Maybe the other thing that should be checked is who wrote the page, if its anon or the same person then its speedy, if its a different person then its VfD --Shadow Dancer 994 22:49, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

text: I'm afraid this is a sticking point for me.  Articles that don't "assert notability" are often cleaned up and kept on VfD.  I don't see any reason to switch from this to speedying them.  In my view it's a criterion capable of very wide interpretation--some people would speedy many university professors and sportsmen on such grounds.  Then we'd lose the entry altogether just because of the ignorance of one individual. VfD is useful precisely because it brings several pairs of eyes to bear. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 07:55, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: * Is it not possible then to create a separate Wikipedia:Votes for vanity page, where all debates about whether an article is vanity or not are listed, and if consensus is that it is vanity, it is deleted? Hiding 15:27, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Vanity

message: How about a CSD criterion for "any article on a non-official fictional character" (e.g. anything from fanfic, any player character from MMORPGs or regular RPGs, stuff like that). Probably needs refinement, please comment. Radiant_* 14:42, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
*Sounds more like an "any editor can merge and redirect" situation to me, per WP:FICT.  Let the lunatics fans of a particular whatever-it-is argue about it over in the articles dealing with the subject and not on VfD.  Soundguy99 13:08, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Vanity corollary

message: How about a CSD criterion for attack pages? (e.g. "John Doe is a moron and a terrible actor") These kind of reverse vanity pages happen occasionally. Radiant_* 07:59, May 25, 2005 (UTC)
*Aren't those already speedies? I certainly tag them as such, and I think they generally get deleted. -R. fiend 19:43, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Vanity corollary #2

message: Or, CSD proposal for "any building not yet built" (e.g. planned radio masts, stuff like that). Radiant_* 14:43, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
* Actually it puzzles me that planned masts are here even regarded as deletable.    It doesn't help to consider them speediable, since the determination that a mast has not been built requires research and therefore scrutiny.  --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:38, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Future building

message: On the matter of brainstorming once more - sometimes we get weird articles like 5478934 (number) or Binilnilium or septenquinquagintillion or even chemical compounds like 3,1 trichloro-ethene or whatever. WP:NOT a crystal ball has a clause against "articles about words formed on a predictable numeric system". Speediable?
:I tend to disagree, as some of these articles might be valid.  For example, 262537412640768744 (number) might seem like a completely idiosyncratic topic, but there is in fact something encyclopedic that can be written about it.  Deleting it would then require a judgement call, which is something that can better be done at VfD.  JYolkowski // talk 01:11, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Extension of schema

message: The point of keeping a copyvio page around is to give someone a chance to rewrite it, but sometimes copyvio pages are posted when there is already  an article on the topic, e.g. someone posting a copyvio about Jean-Luc Picard at JeanLuc Picard or similar (real example). In this case there is no need to keep the copyvio article. Kappa 02:13, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In most cases, those pages first go on WP:CP and then get redirected to the appropriate article. No need for VfDing them anyway. --W(t) 02:20, 2005 May 25 (UTC)
** I do have a problem with use of copyvio as a mechanism of circumventing discussion.  I was more than a little worried to see an old VfD on an article about the literate programming tool FunnelWeb. After a couple of days it was taken off VfD and put on copyvio simply because the latest version quoted a few lines from the website. Copyvio policy is that a copyvio version should be reverted to a previously non-violating version.  That was not done in this case. The article was a perfectly good, if rather brief, stub describing one of the most widely-used and usable literate programming tools. The only reason it can have been listed in the first place was that the person listing it had never heard of FunnelWeb. This is not an acceptable reason for deletion and this kind of problem is normally picked up in the course of VfD discussion. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:26, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Redundant copyvio

message: If an article is voted for deletion 15-0, then it can be deleted after twelve hours from the last vote if no keep votes show up.
If an article has more than 20 votes, less than 10% of which are not delete, then it can be deleted twelve hours from the last delete vote, if no new votes are made that throw it out of balance.
This way, articles that get 30 delete votes and 2 keep votes in the first hour don't have to languish on VfD for a week before getting deleted.  →Iñgōlemo← talk 19:52, 2005 May 25 (UTC)
*Doesn't really reduce the load on VfD since the data will be there.  Also, many deletes happen with fewer votes since you are encouraged to not vote if the outcome is clear and you agree.  So your proposal as written could increase the activity on VfD.  However I agree with the basic concept.  Vegaswikian 23:40, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Quick delete

message: I'd just like to mention that anything that is voted by a majority with speedy delete should be closed once the page has been deleted.  -- AllyUnion (talk) 17:57, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Closure of Speedy Deletes 

message: Any article consisting of one sentence or less. Arguably, even if the topic is noteworthy, the article could as easily be started from scratch as from the single sentence. Withdrawn, because of significant opposition. Moved to talk page. Radiant_>|< 13:08, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)
#*I disagree with this part. Just because an article is short shouldn't make it automatically eligible for deletion. There are many on Wikipedia that could eventually expand on such an article. Deleting it will just take away the opportunity for others to expand upon what is written. Revolución 00:16, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: CSD: short article

message: On average, short articles (or stubs) are more likely to end up on VfD. These discussions may well result in a consensus to merge - particularly in certain categories such as fiction (WP:FICT). It would be useful to get users to consider merging before putting anything on VfD (some kind of mergism awareness plan). It might be useful to create a procedure to 'speedily merge' articles already on VfD, to put an end to the discussion.
: I agree that more widespread use of merge would result in significantly fewer deletion listings. Merging a stub typically takes less initial effort than listing for deletion, and there is no follow-up cost because there is no VfD discussion. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:59, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Speedy merge

message: 
This article will become a canidate for speedy deletion 14 days after  , .  The problem that was identified is, }.  Once the problem is addressed this warning text can be removed.  Do not remove this text without fixing the listed problem.
Will subst freeze the month, day and year of posting if these are in the template? Vegaswikian 23:09, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Possible template outline

message: There will be a lot fewer articles on Vfd, and the debates will be much shorter, if we can get some consensus on issues like "notability" for schools.
*(by User:Kappa)
*Good point, actually. Schools are under discussion at Wikipedia:Schools. "Notability" is a much-disputed word, but there seems to be a rough consensus for using it in the case of bands (per WP:MUSIC) and people (per WP:BIO). It may be useful to get consensus for other areas as well. Roads & streets come to mind, but the VFD/PC for that didn't help much. Radiant_* 07:36, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
*How about Internet-related stuff? Can we set up some guidelines akin to WP:MUSIC on when a website, forum, blogger, l33t h4xxorm4st3r or any kind of cyberpr0n is encyclopedic? Radiant_* 13:34, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
**Or game characters...  Vegaswikian 05:48, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Building consensus

message: THIS IS NOT an official vote. Just a quick gauge of public opinion.
====Yes, good idea (but may need rewording)====
*Good idea. I'd love to see non-disputed VfDs cleaned up much quicker, and would also prefer to see contentious ones in their own section where they receive full consideration. Harro5 10:27, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
*Yes, but hopefully people will start being more descriptive in their reasonings for deletion. Simply saying "NN" doesn't tell me anything. A better text would be "17-year old high school student, doesn't claim notability. Vanity.", which would enable me to know if I wanted to contest the nomination without looking at it. But overall, a good idea. Meelar (talk) 13:54, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
**But then some of these articles don't contain enough information to say much other then NN. Vegaswikian 17:22, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Straw poll: is this a good idea ''in principle''?

message: *Good idea. I'd love to see non-disputed VfDs cleaned up much quicker, and would also prefer to see contentious ones in their own section where they receive full consideration. Harro5 10:27, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
*Yes, but hopefully people will start being more descriptive in their reasonings for deletion. Simply saying "NN" doesn't tell me anything. A better text would be "17-year old high school student, doesn't claim notability. Vanity.", which would enable me to know if I wanted to contest the nomination without looking at it. But overall, a good idea. Meelar (talk) 13:54, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
**But then some of these articles don't contain enough information to say much other then NN. Vegaswikian 17:22, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Yes, good idea (but may need rewording)

message: *As per my comments/summary below (in "A suggestion"), I think there is a problem w/VfD load, I'm just not sure if it's a problem that requires an "official" policy/procedure solution - yet.  2 possible problems I see w/ proposal as it exists:
#Uberinclusionists, vandals, sockpuppets, disruptive users, newbie article creators that get really worked up if their golden prose/favorite subject is up for deletion,  can de facto eliminate the "non-disputed" page simply by running down it and voting "keep."
#"Bot" idea is good in theory, but I could see that force of habit or misreading or misunderstanding the "non-disputed" instructions would cause editors to add "delete" votes to pages listed on "non-disputed", which would cause the bot to move the page to "disputed", even though there's no actual dispute.  I think moving a page to "disputed" should be under human control.  
Willing to give this idea a try, though.  Radiant! makes an excellent point that it is important that we get as many editors as possible involved in/aware of VfD.  Soundguy99 14:44, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Not sure, maybe we should hold a test run?

message: * I don't see how it helps.  It just makes two places that need to be reviewed.  Maybe if the "undisputed" got deleted faster (say 3 days or so) I could agree.  I think Vegaswikian makes a good point in his #1.   I'm not against the proposal, per se, I just don't think we'll be any better off. --Xcali 00:33, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: No, not a good idea (and please tell us why not) 

message: As Wikipedia grows, so should all of the parts of it.  If needed, have them per hour, and so forth.  The more contributors there are, the more administrators, and so forth.  It's only natural for it to grow and there's really no need for it to change. Internodeuser 13:36, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Keep it growing as needed

message: *My 'take' after more than three hours of plodding through mostly vanity on Vfd\Today dutifully trying to cast informed votes last evening was frustration. The people that say there isn't a problem from the flood of vanity pieces must be related to Clark Kent, or never try to wade through Vfd\Today one article at a time, giving each target a fair judicious look, then voting, then proceding to the next is extremely time consuming.  If that's not grounds for a major shakeup, then you and I have very different ideas about the value of time. In reading through this whole document (Even taking a printed copy to peruse and ponder over coffee), I found many places I could 'tack on' or interject, but as an engineer, I began to think of causality.  There seem to be proximate causes wrt Vanity pieces - the perpetuators Act, and the monitors fail to act boldly and decisively (exercising mature judgement) as I suggest below. This suggestion impacts both. This lead to the below trial suggestion that I believe can be tested immediately for efficaciousness:
It was opined humourously in the above section: "Oh, horrors.  The poor servers, how will they... ", etc.  The problem is not to THOSE servers, but to US Servers (or Servants)... but you knew that already.  These vanity pieces are a huge WOT (Waste of Time).  So far as I have discerned in lurking around Vfd the past four or five days, they are usually of juvenile origination... keeping them around more than the bare mininum is rewarding these inconsiderate (I'm tempting to say parasites <G>) youngsters by giving them how many ever days to nudge their friends and point out how They put one over on the serious devotees in the Wiki-community.  My own view is these things need extremely fast and effective deletion as soon as monitors spot them occuring.  
I wrote this sugestion in an UserTalk: Why the heck are the vanity pages tolerated for inclusion into the general Vfd que?  If the behind the scenes 'monitors' would immediately tag such as nonsense. Save, then go through the Vfd tagging process themselves, or perhaps allow the the Next (another agreeing) monitor to tag it (as a check and balance kind of thing) A concurring admisistrator can then Speedy-Delete it within the current guidlines. (Lawyering, I know, but within current guidelines, unless I've missed something.) It would be nice to see this tried for a few days or weeks at least just to see if the impact on Vfd\Today goes as I predict.  
 
The current process lets these self-masturbatory puff pieces hang around for five days as 'A kind of further reward'  (Psycologically) for the juvenile thrill at the minor personal cost of posting the piece.  Five days for them to elbow their friends and say: (wink, wink) look what I got away with!  If they instead vanished inside a half-hour, it would certainly speed the processing on the Vfd/Today page to a more managable number of far more important votes.  It would also hold their satisfaction down considerably, assuming they like writing as much as MOST TEENS. Which is to say, Not! (Like my two boys) The vanished 'joke on Wikipedia will bite them with a joke on them and disuade copy cats in their circle of friends at least, and the word will get around the web as well in general - even if the lesson is relearned locally by many different people. My time is valuable. How about yours? Fabartus 17:51, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: A Trial Suggestion w/o guidline changes

message: Would altering the number of keep votes required to invoke this rule make it more acceptable?  How about five keeps, plus the person who closes the VfD?  We'd still have far fewer of those school VfDs that always end in keep.  On the other hand, VfDs closed in this way would amount to a commitment to regularly maintaining and improving the article over the next six months--if this doesn't happen then the VfD can be reopened.  And of course a new VfD can be called at any time.  We'd have more contested VfD listings being terminated with a commitment to maintain the article. We're still have the hopeless articles being deleted--which is surely the purpose of VfD. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:17, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Altering number of keep votes required for pre-emption.

message: I'm suggesting we expand the speedy criteria to include vanity, advertising, bandcruft and the like, with one small change: remove the "delete on sight" rule for administrators.  An administrator could only remove something someone else (possibly another administrator) tagged as speedy.  This would ensure that at least two people see every one of these articles and agree that it should be removed.  We'd probably still need guidelines/definitions for "vanity," "bandcruft," etc.
--Xcali 16:22, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Expand speedy criteria, limit admin powers

message: Since one thing everyone seems to agree on is that nominators should consider using merge, redirect, cleanup tags, and so on rather than VFD, perhaps a suggestion to that effect should be put on the VFD page itself, perhaps the first thing under "How to list pages for deletion." I'd do it boldly myself, but there are too many people futzing with that page already so I thought I'd better suggest it here first. —Wahoofive (talk) 19:16, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It would be nice to be able to look at a cat sorted by date placed there.  Right now something like cleanup is too large to deal with.  If you could look at the oldest articles, it would be easier for editors to find the stale articles that need work. Vegaswikian 04:57, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggestion for VFD page

message: In an effort to fix a weird screw up my computer did to me I accidentally erased the bottom of the page (I have browser/size issues). Could someone restore it? Thanks, and sorry. -R. fiend 23:20, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Accidental erasure

message: #Fanfic (since it's vanity)
#* We don't speedy vanity. - Tony Sidaway
#:* No, because it's sometimes difficult to define vanity.  Fanfiction is quite distinct however, so perhaps it should be speedied. --Scimitar 22:40, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Fanfic thingy

message: I'm having problems following this on the talk page and the project page since both are so long.  Would it make sense at this time for someone to archive what has been said and start with a small summary of where we seem headed and the curent discussions and proposals?  I suspect that some of the proposals on the talk page need to be moved to the project page. Vegaswikian 18:11, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A request 

message: When an article is deleted by VFD, the creation of another article at the same title is usually not appropriate.  It would be good if the deleting admin had the option of "locking" the title somehow.  Someone wanting to recreate an article at a "locked" title would have to get approval from an admin.  It would probably require some software changes to implement this, but I think it's worth considering.  --L33tminion (talk) 23:04, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)
*A less bureaucratic way around this would be to create a redirect from the article to the archive VfD vote. This wouldn't lock the article title to seasoned Wikipedians (the redirect can always be edited), but would serve as a warning against "accidental" recreation. Physchim62 11:44, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion: Lock Deleted Articles