Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy/Archive 10

message: I spent 1 month on travel. When I came back there was a msg for me, nominating one page I created for deletion. I hurried to look, but it was already gone! That was super fast! How could one expect to improve any page this way? I wanted to complain to the author of the nomination but this user no longer exists. How do I recover the data from the deleted page?? Vae victis 22:14, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Super fast deletion gives no chance for improvement!

message: The page on Faye Turney was recently redirected (protected) to 2007 Iranian seizure of Royal Navy personnel although its content was not merged.  This took place following the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Faye Turney.  Without going into details, I wish to contest this.  I have two questions:
*Can a deletion review be used for this situation?
*If so, should this article be amended to make it clear that deletion reviews can be used for merged articles? Thanks. Greenshed 15:05, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Protected redirects

message: I just found Wikipedia in nine words and think the following should be place in the policy: "Wikipedia : neutral and unbiased compilation of previously written, verifiable facts." -- Jreferee 18:32, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Wikipedia in nine words

message: The "including, but not limited to" language besides sounding legalese is a horrible use of weasel words. So the policy says these reasons, and any other, so this list is just superfluous. Proposed rewording:
==Reasons for deletion==

Reasons for deletion:
* Advertising or other spam without relevant content (but not an article about an advertising related subject)
* Content not suitable for an encyclopedia
* Copyright infringement
* Hoax articles (but not articles describing a notable hoax)
* Images that are unused, obsolete, violate fair-use policy, or are unencyclopedic
* Inappropriate user pages
* Inflammatory redirects
* Inability to Attribute the existence or notability (see below) of the subject, where: 
** Article subject matter cannot possibly be attributed to reliable sources or
** All attempts to find reliable sources to which article subject matter can be attributed have failed
* Newly-coined neologisms
* Overcategorization
* Patent nonsense or gibberish
* Redundant templates
* Subject fails to meet the relevant notability guideline (WP:BIO, WP:MUSIC, WP:CORP and so forth)
* Vandalism that is not correctible
* Possible defamation of living people that is not otherwise correctable
* For legal requirements or the article violating a Wikipedia policy.
This limits deletion to the list which includes at the bottom legal requirements (whatever they may be other than defamation which is missing from the current list or copyvio), and violation of a WP policy. If an article can't be deleted under any of these provisions why are we deleting it? WP is not paper. Carlossuarez46 22:11, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Because sometimes it's still just not something appropriate for the encyclopedia.  You may think that this is a comprehensive list but we've often thought that before... and then the vandals go and prove how creative they are and find something new to try to shove in that's still not part of an encyclopedia.  Any attempt to create a definitive list will only tie our hands as we continue to react to the ever-adapting vandals and editors who just don't understand (or care about) the purpose of the project.  Rossami (talk) 19:23, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If it's not appropriate for WP, doesn't it necessarily violate some policy, such as WP:NOT? Otherwise, it's purely in the eye of the beholder: there are many who would say that articles on each pokemon character, sexual position, porn star, t.v. episode, or high school are not appropriate for the encyclopedia. Carlossuarez46 23:40, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

text: *The purpose of the list is to show the most common reasons for deletion, not enumerate all of them. If there was a strict enumeration, that would lead to replacing productive debate about articles, with meta-debate about whether certain deletion reasons match those in policy. There have been a few movements over the year to "speedy keep" everything that did not clearly and explicitly cite a rationale from the enumeration; these have been soundly rejected as instruction creep. >Radiant< 08:18, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal to eliminate the weasel words in the deletion reasons section

message: Perhaps would-be deleters should also study the following relevant commentary:
Not Notable: Wikipedia's Arbitrary Deletion Policy  
--AVM 16:30, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The author of the commentary is obviously a frustrated person who just don't understand wikipedia yet, as seen from, eg. two his major items. Pokemon: it is a fictional universe, and it may be described as such basing only on Nintendo sources, as long as it is a description, and no conclusions are drawn. For conclusions you have to resort to secondary sources, of course. How to make your article kept. I don't know the intentions of the article (somehow I got an idea that the author thought of it as a kind of "subversion" of wikipedia or "gaming" its rules), but the advice is perfectly sound: as long as you manage to make a topic visible outside wikipedia in reliable sources, there is nothing wrong with having an article on the topic. And the author's advise "to make edits in a course of several months, bertter, a year" is absolutely perfect: the author obviously doesn't know that making positive contributions can become as addictive as vandalism and trolling, especially keeping in mind that in a year a person becomes a year older and often wiser :-). Mukadderat 17:11, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Criticism - External Link

message: Some of you may have noticed the pointless nomination for deletion of articles on Wikimedia projects. Though this will obviously result in a clear and fast "keep" there should still be a way to prevent trivial, yet disruptive nominations for deletions of clearly relevant articles that have been worked on for some time.
I suggest the following addition to Deletion policy:
:A senior article may not be nominated for deletion unless there is support for doing so at its talk page.
Defining seniority for such an article would involve taking into account age, number of edits, number of contributors. Here is a first stab at some possible numbers:
A senior article:
*is a full year old or more;
*has been edited 250 times or more;
*and has been edited by over 25 different registered contributors.
Perhaps these numbers might even be doubled (two years, 500 edits, 50 different contributors). Please feel free to respond to the idea. Dovi 17:46, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tool to eliminate pointless nominations for deletion 

message: A modification to the deletion policy regarding biographies of living persons has been proposed. The proposal seeks to reverse the default retention of biographical articles that attain "no consensus" results at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. That is, it seeks to make deletion the default action for AfD discussions of biographical articles that do not reach consensus. Comments regarding the proposal are welcome and may be made here. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 19:34, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed policy change at [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons]]

message: There is a discussion in WT:LIVING about speedily deleting AfD and DRV pages. See Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#Blanked_or_deleted. Kla'quot 15:49, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleting AfD and DRV pages 

message: Can someone clarify for me why anyone except the article's creator can delete speedy deletion tags? My understanding was that these tags are messages intended for administrators so that they may judge whether the article should be deleted or the template removed. If other editors are removing these, they are passing judgment on the proposed speedy deletion and removing the possibility of administrative action. Beyond that, the language is open enough that anyone who might be the article's leading contributor can remove the tag if is not the article's creator. --Chris Griswold  (☎☓) 23:34, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm pretty sure that's the intent. If a speedy deletion tag is disputed by someone other than the author of the article, speedy deletion is probably not appropriate. -Amarkov moo! 23:40, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Adding to what Amarkov wrote, speedy deletion is intended for cases where the page obviously should not exist. If someone without a vested interest in the article (i.e., anyone except the creator) contests deletion, it deserves further scrutiny (at AfD). -- Black Falcon (Talk) 23:45, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That makes more sense to me now. The admin makes the deletion decision based on an understanding of what is generally accepted, and if someone unaffiliated contests a speedy deletion, that means it is possibly not generally accepted to be redundant and deserves further investigation. Still, I think the wording should cover not just the article's creator but anyone with a vested interest, including main contributors. Thanks to Badlydrawnjeff for pointing me here, and to the above for having this discussion, which has made all of this much clearer to me. --Future Fun Jumper (TIC) 00:05, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of speedy deletion tags 

message: Content that is unquestionably unhelpful to the encyclopedia is speedily deleted - in fact, it has been for quite some time. I believe such a statement should be made clear in this policy, and seek comment. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:10, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is really untrue, and, with the recent HD-DVD key controversy, extremely controversial.  If something is unquestionably unhelpful, WP:OFFICE takes care of it fine. No need to introduce more subjectivity into the mix, especially in response to a separate dispute. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:12, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That is simply not true. Lots of content that is online is by any rational standard unhelpful, and If I saw a speedy for that reason, i would probably undelete as a matter of course. DES (talk) 20:32, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sorry, so I fully understand - you would undelete an article that was unquestionably unhelpful to the encyclopedia, if the only reason it was deleted was that it was unquestionably unhelpful to the encyclopedia?  Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:49, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Stepping in to help Jeff, I would like to point out that once someone questions a speedy, then that article isn't unquestionably unhelpful to the encyclopedia anymore. But that's not how speedies work. Speedies stay gone unless they can get through a firefight on DRV. Vadder 20:57, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Content that is unquestionably unhelpful to the encyclopedia should be deleted. Fortunately we have a way to do that. Speedy isn't it. Hippocrite's change should be reverted (and has been). Admins engaged in such practices should stop. Vadder 20:53, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Hoaxes are one case of content that is unquestionably unhelpful but doesn't fall under one of the speedy criteria. ProD and or AfD work here of course, but for obvious hoaxes, speedy is of course very tempting, as the other two only waste time (certainly an AfD, which is often spoiled by trols and sock- and meatpuppets of the original "joker"). Fram 07:48, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The reason hoax is not a speedy deletion criteria is that the longtimers have seen too many things nominated for deletion as a hoax but on further investigation found to be merely obscure.  Thus "hoax" is not a speedy deletion criteria, but "vandalism" would cover things like "Colepatra, second mistress of Julius Caesar, was the first woman to walk on the moon."  GRBerry 13:21, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I absloutely agree about hoaxes. In more generaly terms, my position is that I doubt that the existance of an article that is not vandalism (already speedyable), does not fall under any of the specified criteria for speedy deeltion, and yet its unhelpfulness is so unquestionable that I am absolutely sure that no discussin on afd, or waiting time on Prod,  has no chance at all of either establishing its helpfulness or improvingt it enough to be worth keeping. And even if in a particualr case i were so convinced, I think the increase in transparancey would be worth the cost. is AfD being flooded by articles that are so unquestionably unhelpful that everyone says "delete" but that don't fit any speedy? I don't see them. Is any article so harmful that we can't afford to wait 5 days on prod while we see if someone does question its unhelpfulness? Few are, and most if not all of those can be speedyed as vandalism or copyvios or advertising. DES (talk) 14:54, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Speedy for unquestionably harmful content 

message: Please see Wikipedia:Categories are different from articles. -- Kendrick7talk 20:12, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Soliciting [[WP:ESSAY|WP:Essay]] feedback

message: Please restore my artice called "TINKLECOMM Mail". I added all acuarate facts to the page and had it set up the way it is supposed to be, I even listed a website and everything! I know that my page was deleted because of the administrators ignorance and stupidity. I know that everything was the way it was supposed to be so that they wouldnt tamper with it or alter anything. You can even look and see for your self and check that everything is in place. Please restore my article. 
Thank you'''
--Muriness 00:08, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As you have been informed on your user talk page, Wikipedia:Deletion review is the place to request a review of a deletion decision that you feel has been taken incorrectly. Although I would suggest that "I know that my page was deleted because of the administrators ignorance and stupidity" is unlikely to be a well-received argument. --Stormie 04:24, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  TINKLECOMM Mail 

message: Can somebody give me an advice on nominating multiple articles for deletion as there is a total eight pages I am nominating altogether, I will be very grateful if somebody comes forward with any advice. Willirennen 16:36, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Multiple page AfD nomination 

message: I proposed two articles for deletion, Champlain Heights Annex, and Shapour Mirzadeh.  The latter came up in the category, but the former is not listed on today's proposed deletions.  I don't know where the speedy deletes are.  Where is the list of steps of the process of AFD?  Thanks.  KP Botany 04:27, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi. You have tagged Shapour Mirzadeh for speedy deletion, which places the page in :Category:Candidates for speedy deletion. You have proposed for deletion Champlain Heights Annex, thus placing the article in :Category:Proposed deletion as of 27 May 2007. Proposed deletion is a different deletion process than speedy deletion. AFD, or Articles for deletion, is the third process, and the steps for that can be found here. I hope that helps. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 05:18, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it's not helping.  I put the AfD header on already, but it doesn't have any preloaded discussion page, which it did last time I did it (I realize and intended to speedy the one).  I don't know what I'm supposed to do, replace the header I used that is listed on the page about AfD or leave it or what.  Why couldn't I just find these instructions every time, where are they hidden, and why isn't there just a link to them on the AfD page?  Well, I don't care about the article, someone is adding tons of non-notable elementary schools to Wikipedia, and I thought it should be deleted, and it should, but I don't have the time, energy or inclination to try to find which of the different instructions are the correct one.  Thanks for trying.  KP Botany 18:50, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where does it list the steps for proposing an AFD? 

message: Is there a record for the article with the most number of deletion requests? I know State terrorism by the United States has had five nominations  and is heading for a sixth. Is this a record? ... Kafkaesque Seabhcan 12:10, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A bit of searching has found 2 Six-time nominees Cleveland steamer  and LUEshi . Can't find any Seventh Nominations. ... Kafkaesque Seabhcan 12:19, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Wake up--MONGO 14:55, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 14! Thats incredible. Seems you have a long way to go yet, Mongo. ... Kafkaesque Seabhcan 14:23, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

text: 14 is not the record. GNAA took 18 tries to finally kill: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/GNAA.  There was even a pool on how many nominations it would take, and then the pool page was nominated for deletion. And then the pool page was nominated for the second time... --Tony Sidaway 23:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Most number of Deletion Requests? 

message: Recent changes in BLP allow for the article subject's wishes to figure in deletion discussions.  It makes sense to refer to that policy in some way from this page.  Suggest we add a line about that here. DurovaCharge! 17:26, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, we probably should do a better job of addressing the old reasons for a BLP deletion.  They get brushed past in the intro, and then neglected on the rest of the page.  ("Reasons for deletion include ... and unreferenced negative content in biographies of living persons.")  I think fixing this is more important than something that BLP describes as there not being a consensus as to what to do.  GRBerry 19:24, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That sounds good too. DurovaCharge! 00:53, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

text: We shouldn't modify this page until there is more consistency and consensus about what the change in BLP policy will imply and how it will be implemented. JoshuaZ 01:09, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, would you mind a neutral statement referring readers to BLP?  At least they deserve to be alerted that there's some relevant language at that policy page. DurovaCharge! 17:17, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  That seems reasonable. JoshuaZ 18:38, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hm, it isn't easy to find a good spot for a neutral reference.  The structure of this policy page would seem to slant the link based upon where it's added.  Any suggestions for something along the lines of When considering deletion for a living person's biography, please consult the relevant policy? DurovaCharge! 06:00, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What about in "Deletion discussion", work it in as, "...head count, so people are encouraged to explain their opinion and refer to policy. Policies may also contain relevant deletion criteria, as in Biography of Living Persons policy.  The discussion lasts at least five days..."  Or alternatively at the bottom of Reasons for Deletion include a sentence, "Other policies may also contain relevant criteria for deletion, as in Biography of Living Persons policy."  Just a couple thoughts...   LaughingVulcan  12:14, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[WP:DELETE#Reasons_for_deletion]] and [[WP:BLP]] 

message: Are there procedures in place to deal with possible abuses of user space? For example, if a user page was created to serve as a billboard, how is that handled?
Technically, it is not an article; as such, I thought it improper to take it to AfD. --Aarktica 20:03, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Blatant advertising can be deleted per speedy deletion criteria G11. I deleted the page in question. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:07, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I was wondering if the account itself would be deleted outright, given the sole contribution was the page in question. Will  suffice? --Aarktica 23:47, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

text: See the criteria for speedy deletion.  Those beginning with a G prefix apply to all pages including user space (but G4 is usually not applied to userspace drafts that show evidence of being a work in progress and haven't been around long), and those criteria beginning with U are especially for userspace.  There is a recent extension to WP:PROD, the details of which I don't recall, that applies in some circumstances.  MfD is the right deletion discussion forum for userspace.  If it rises to the level of a user conduct issue, please see dispute resolution.  GRBerry 21:42, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for information.