Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 16

message: Some of the votes are getting huge, cluttered with alot of debate and campaigning for an article and such.  Obviously this isn't a problem with most votes, but for some it is a problem.  I cleaned up one page and seperated the votes from the debates, that would be the vote on Genital Integrity.  What does everyone think of that for some of the larger votes?  It makes it easyer on mods, everyone can see plainly how their vote is going to be interpreted, and there can still be debate on the subject. --Starx 21:48, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Debate about an article's validity belongs in that article's Talk page. on VFD, I'd like to see an explicit notice to the effect that the /PAGENAME only contain simple votes, one line of comment per user only. Could be easy to also modify  :Template:Vfd to route discussion to an article Talk page or sub-page. -- Netoholic 05:44, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd be surprised if a "one line per user" rule could be made to work.  Are users suppose allow comments they disagree with slide and not add a rebuttal, or are they suppose to delete their previous comment when they add a rebuttal? I can see restricting the "discussion" to votes only, but not one comment line per user.  Not that I disagree, just that I'd be surprised if you could make that work. --ssd 13:04, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Large Votes 

message: Is there a policy on relisting something that has survivied VfD. The ever charming Mike Church is seeking to relist Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Minions a couple of days after it survived VfD. This feels like an abuse, but I cannot find any policy on it. Thoughts? --Tagishsimon  13:55, 17 Aug 2004 
: Several people have called for such a policy. To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever drafted one.  The general pattern that I've read from the various VfD discussion threads is:
:# 2 months is about the minimum before a nomination will get summarily shouted down
:# 4-6 months seems to be an acceptable grace period for most people
:# Regardless of the time, the previous discussion should be disclosed so anyone can go back and read it.  Failure to do so in the nomination will be interpreted as an attempt to be sneaky.
: I'd like to add my own caveat that anything should be eligible for relisting if there is new evidence that was not available during the earlier discussion but I can't say I've ever seen that situation come up.  It's usually just new opinions. Rossami 22:33, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Policy on Re-listing?

message: See Wikipedia talk:deletion of user subpages#The vote, and please leave this subheading... I've used it as an alternative to starting a new section on this already overlong page. It's important that this gets noticed. Andrewa 18:33, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Vote is now open

message: Yes (names only here. all comments below}
# Rossami
# Ferkelparade π
# Pedro
# Morven
# Sean Curtin
# Chris 73
# Kim Bruning
# Jallan
# The Steve
# Benc
# Chriscf
# Bishonen
# Dpbsmith (talk)
# ··gracefool |☺	No (names only here. all comments below}
#
Comments
* Yes, authors and other contributors are allowed to vote in VfD discussions.  They have no less voice than any other member of the community.  (They also have no more voice.)  It is a point of courtesy to disclose if you have a vested interest in the article but that does not make you ineligible to vote. Rossami 13:27, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Are authors allowed to vote on VfD? 

message: Someone wants a heading reading "VfD Header section" to be the first thing on VfD, explained as follows (in a comment following that heading):
:Please leave this section header here.  Yes, it is inconsistent with our normal format but this is the only way to enable section edits of the front section which we need for maintenance in order to minimize edit conflicts. 
That's nonsense.  Copy 
eVfD0  onto your personal bookmark page, if you'd like the convenience of going straight into the edit without the delay of loading the full page.
Or, if you don't want to bother getting to your bookmarks, use the link like this one
:(edit) 
that i've added to the section itself, now that someone's aware that newbies feel a need to participate in this form of maintenance.
Style is not a significant issue in this; the reasons for not having this page start with a heading are
# The heading puts the exceptionally long ToC before the header, increasing the likelihood that users will jump into the page without reading the header.
# The only kinds of maintenance the section requires are
## changing the header and front matter, which being transcluded does not entail editing VfD, 
## the daily adjustment to the index into the entries for each day, which is a short job once you have some practice at it, and (barring neglect) gets done soon after midnight UTC, which is a fairly low-traffic time for VfD (Tonite, the interval between the preceding and succeeding nominations was one hour, 47 minutes), and
## removals, even shorter, of dates that have been closed out on /Old, which occur on average less than once per day.
# The whole purpose of those roughly twice-a-day edits is to provide a means, handier than the extraordinarily long ToC, of getting to the point where you want to resume reading & voting on VfD. With the initial heading, the index would never even get noticed by many users, and it would be significantly less accessible to those who know about it.
--Jerzy(t) 01:29, 2004 Aug 20 (UTC)
* Thank you.  I never knew that kind of link would work.  (I wouldn't consider myself exactly a newbie anymore but there are many technical tricks I haven't learned.  Now I have one more.)  With that tip now recorded, we no longer need the header.  By the way, I'm sorry I screwed up the TOC.  I have them routinely turned off and never noticed.  Thanks.  Rossami 22:17, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why no "VfD Header section" heading 

message: What is the policy regarding saving finished VfD vote subpages? Is it to move the contents to the relevant article's talk page, or is it to make a note on the talk page linking to the VfD subpage? I kind of prefer the latter—it's cleaner—but I see both happening.  — Gwalla | Talk 01:17, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archiving finished votes 

message: I've just added Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Radiohead.com and only my original edit is showing up on VFD. Why is this? Theresa Knott 04:55, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm it's woking just fine now. Theresa Knott 05:06, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion not showing up

message: Technical question to the experts: please, what are the objective rules and criteria to declare a wikipedian vote as invalid? What would become the validity of the general vote in the - of course purely theoretical - case that those criteria wouldn't not be respected? --Pgreenfinch 11:52, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: See Wikipedia:Sock puppet#Sock puppets forbidden from voting Mintguy (T)
What if there is a "stockpuppetship suspicion" error? For example, when the decision to attribute it to some votes comes in a rush, without looking further, when the vote is going to its end, and that it changes the direction of the vote? Theorical question of course ;-)) --Pgreenfinch 12:33, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

text: You can always list something on Wikipedia:Votes_for_undeletion if you think it has been deleted wrongfully.  However, since a "rough consensus" is all that's needed for deletion, it seems unlikely to me that one or two falsely accused sockpuppets are going to make enough of a difference. —Triskaideka 15:56, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

text: EuroL, i don't know what controversy you were in, but i urge you to consider that the situation could be unfair w/o being outrageous.  If you haven't asked to have your former edits attributed to your registered name, no one can verify your previous work.  I hope you'll consider asking to have them transferred over, so that you don't get called a sockpuppet in similar future situations.  If you think your discounted vote might have made the difference, it might even be worthwhile to consider WP:VfU, tho here, as in the rest of the world (1) there are honest disagreements about what is adequate evidence to decide necessarily subjective matters, and (2) not every legitimate grievance has a remedy. --Jerzy(t) 01:51, 2004 Aug 24 (UTC)
Hmm, I understand your appeasing words and clear explanations. But it happens that the controversy was not just about one voter, as 5 of them were deliberatly eliminated, by stiking their names and putting "sockpuppet", without any explanation in the discussion page, and btw changing the direction of the vote. The thing has ben reverted now by an admin that tries to be objective, subject to further examination of the cases involved. But I understand that Eurolusitanian took it as an agression, as well a some other voters, and that it created some surprises and worries about fairness of the vote evaluation, at least it was my own reaction. I think this socksuppet thing should be used moderately, with a lot of care and full explanation. Imo, striking the name goes too far, a mention such as "possible stockpuppet, checking needed", would be amply enough. --Pgreenfinch 09:04, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  from a discussion thread 

message: ...instead of, say, "Editorial Review?" Dpbsmith (talk) 16:08, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Why do we call this "Votes for Deletion..."

message: Normally I'm an engineer-type who sneers at marketing and "image" and branding, and believes that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. But I do have to wonder whether a VfD by some other name might have less sting.
In practice as I know it today, Wikipedia is not quite as radical a departure from traditional publishing practice was outsiders sometimes think. In particular, there is still a process by which articles are "accepted" or "rejected." The big difference is that everything takes place in the open and happens in the order ready-fire-aim.
Normally an article would go first to a closed group of editors who would accept or reject it, and nobody sees it until it gets accepted.
In Wikipedia, an article gets published first. In almost every case, an article gets glanced at very promptly within a very short period of time after it appears. Contributors don't realize it, but if it survives twenty- four hours without a notice having been placed on it, it has already been "accepted."
Borderline articles get subjected to a process. The process is called "Votes for Deletion." To someone unfamiliar with Wikiprocess, this sounds like "someone want to delete my article" or "someone is trying to delete my article" or "someone hates me" or "someone hates Dartmouth."
Normally, the nomination language reinforces this question, because, unlike the sometimes-phony practice of softening a statement by phrasing it as a question, phrasing it as a question, VfD nominators traditionally harden a question by phrasing it as a statement. E.g. (GROSSLY caricaturing an actual VfD debate for purposes of illustration) instead of saying "I've never heard of Lehman Brothers, what do you know about them?" a nominator is more likely to say something like "Vanity, some non-notable insurance company, delete spam." Typically there will be a more comments like that until someone with _some_ topic familiarity runs across the VfD entry. THEN someone chimes in "The firm is really quite large, unless I'm very much mistaken." Then there are follow- ups "It's a Fortune 500 company," "Definite keep," "Keep article on major financial force of the twentieth century," "Need more articles like this," etc.
A newbie who joins the discussion at an early stage does not understand that his article is not in imminent threat, that there will be a full week for people who have knowledge of the topic to notice and join in, that the curt dismissiveness tone is shorthand, etc.
To Wikipedians, "Votes for Deletion" means "even though several hundred people can delete articles, we take deletion so seriously that we hash over everything for a week."
It really does seem to me that there might be ways to make the process more intelligible to newcomers. I honestly believe that the :current process _induces_ bad behavior from new contributors who might not naturally show it.
I'm thinking something like this:
::a) Change the name of Votes for Deletion to something like Editorial Review.
::b) Every article when submitted automatically gets a tag at the top, saying something like "New article, not yet reviewed."
::c) Like any other edit, anybody can remove this tag, but, by custom, it is removed by someone knowledgeable who has made a judgement that it does not need to go to Editorial Review.
::d) If the article looks like VfD-worthy material, the tag gets replaced with a tag saying, you know, "This page has been listed on Wikipedia:Editorial Review and may not be accepted. Please see its entry on that page for justifications and discussion. If you want the page accepted, please read the acceptance guidelines and vote for its acceptance there. Please do not remove this notice or blank this page while the question is being considered. However, you are welcome to make improvements to it."
::d) The VfD notice itself could be reworded to something like this: "An editor has requested an editorial review of this article to see whether it can be accepted under our guidelines. Please see [its entry on in Wikipedia:Editorial Review] for justifications and discussion. If you want the page accepted, please read [this guide] and partipate in the review process. Please do not remove this notice or blank this page while the question is being considered. However, you are welcome to make improvements to it."
Yeah, I know, flipping it around from "deletion" to "acceptance" makes me gag, too.
There is a disconnect. Many newcomers do not and never will read all the scattered policy documents (and it is in the Wikinature that they always will be scattered and not perfectly clear or consistent). Many newcomers have the misperception that everything is allowed in Wikipedia unless it's outright false. Warnings about "ruthless editing" don't really convey the way it works.
Everybody understands the concept of submitting an article for review and possibly having it be rejected. If newcomers perceive Wikiprocess as a variation of that model, fewer of them will be unnecessarily shocked or offended by the VfD process.
Maybe.
Thoughts? Dpbsmith (talk) 12:31, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice analysis. I like your proposal, even though b) doesn't feel very much in keeping with wiki spirit. Yet, it ensures that at least 2 different people edit an article early on (assuming we enact the policy that the tag can't be removed by the article's creator). Also, I think that this Editorial Review shouldn't be only a replacement for VfD but should also cover what is currently done at Wikipedia:Cleanup. _R_ 15:13, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

text: The name "Editorial Review" doesn't explain what it actually is and what it actually *does*. Between confusion and clarity I will always vote in favour of clarity, no matter whose feelings may be bruised. So, no, I'm against removing the word "deletion" from this page. Also I think I'm against putting *all* new articles through this process -- I think this would make Wikipedia a bit more hostile and elitist and newbie-unfriendly. Aris Katsaris 16:48, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

text: I like it.  "Editorial Review" as a name, and the basic notion of rephrasing for greater neutrality.  Perhaps VfD can become "Editorial Review:Deletion", and cleanup "Editorial Review:Cleanup", since there is a significant distinction between the two;
then the second part of making VfD more friendly would be to get people to use Cleanup for salvageable articles. +sj+ 21:10, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

text: I was concerned about the overlap with Wikipedia:Peer review more than Wikipedia:Cleanup, due to the similarity in names, but I really like David Remahl's point about ER as a shortcut. Next I look forward to seeing people declare a page DOA (bad humor, I know, but some of the problem with comments on VfD is that it's a lot like a patient overhearing the morbid remarks common among medical practitioners that weren't intended for the patient to hear). --Michael Snow 21:32, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

text: Sounds good. ··gracefool |☺ 09:22, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Rebranding VfD

message: I dislike renaming from a definite and clear name to a vague name. While it may not be your intention, a name change sounds like an attempt to also change VfD policy to support a stronger retentionist viewpoint. After all Wikipedia:Cleanup is also an editorial review. And, against _R_, there is a great difference in purpose between VfD and Wikipedia:Cleanup, though that VfD sometimes results in a cleanup and retention is a good thing. 
I mostly otherwise approve the suggested wording of the new tag. Incuding the words "editorial review" is good regardless of whether VfD is given a new name. I would suggest that "can be accepted" should be changed to "should be retained" since there is not now and never has been any official acceptance procedure in Wikipedia either for new articles or edits.
Dpbsmith stated:
Contributors don't realize it, but if it survives twenty- four hours without a notice having been placed on it, it has already been "accepted."
Not true and should not be true. Older articles also often appear on VfD. There has never been a time limit on "acceptance" or "rejection" for either new articles or changes. Anything can be changed by anyone at any time though it may have sat unchanged for years. Nothing is necessarily permanently accepted or rejected.
Dpbsmith stated:
Like any other edit, anybody can remove this tag, but, by custom, it is removed by someone knowledgeable who has made a judgement that it does not need to go to Editorial Review.This invites gaming and futile debate about who is knowledgeable.
I agree that some kind of easy editorial rating system would be good, but surely that is a separate issue from any changes made to VfD. Also, editorial rating should apply as much to changes as to original articles. Are you suggesting that once an article has this tag removed, it could not ever be sumbitted to VfD? (or cleanup). If so ... that is unacceptable. It would put  absolute power to force acceptance of any article forever into the hands of any single Wikipedian editor, not matter how POV or ignorant that editor might be about the subject of that particular article.
If this is not your intention, then your "new article" tag idea should be a separate proposal since at any time an article would still be placible on VfD (or cleanup), just as it is now (and just as it should be). And it should not be restricted only to new articles. Changes can be far more radical than a new article.  Jallan 17:25, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree that Editorial Review actually is too vague to be useful. But I do support perhaps renaming Vfd something like "Consideration for Deletion", but it's important for the title to be clear, accurate and descriptive. Votes for deletion is. Editorial Review isn't. So I fear it's softening the language just for sensitivity's sake, and gives less information about its purpose than before. Yes, it can be jarring for newbies to see their new work being voted on for deletion. But I don't think this rebranding is the answer. Fuzheado | Talk 23:52, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Some Disagreements

message: For those of you suffering Dartmouth headaches...  (well, this might go for tfd, but hey, I guess some of you might get a good laugh out of it) a new template, "Dartmouth-vfd" has been created for that purpose.  - Allyunion 23:02, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: IMO one of the problems with the Dartmouth class assignment was overreaction to it, and this is just more of the same. My suggestion is that when you feel the joke has been appreciated by those who will, you nominate this template and also the category you created for deletion yourself. Andrewa 17:40, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dartmouth Headaches 

message: A few of us have written an article called Wikipedia:Votes for deletion phrases that explains the meaning behinds some short, seemingly rude phrases people use on vfd.  I've linked them off the current template, and think they should be linked to regardless of what the page or template becomes, because people are going to continue to use the same words to vote, regardless of what its called.  —siroχo 20:01, Aug 27, 2004 (UTC)
:A good idea and a good page. I don't like your explanation of "patent nonsense," though, and in fact am concerned about an apparent expansion in the scope of that term lately. The definition of Patent nonsense is very, very narrow. It includes things like "asdfasdfasdf?!!!" and "dan rulz! this site rocks" and "riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs." It does not mean "an article that is so bad that I can confidently predict that VfD regulars will give it a quick and unanimous vote to delete" Dpbsmith (talk) 14:53, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Seconded, many thanks to siroxo et al for the useful guide. That's also a good point about the growing misuse of "patent nonense", Dpbsmith. Unfortunately, the only way to stomp it out is to consistently point it out to those who throw around the term too loosely to the policy page. More work than it's worth, I think. :-/ • Benc • 01:47, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Votes for deletion phrases 

message: A new template, VfDSection has been added.  I found manually replacing PageName to be annoyance, so I decided to try something.  If anyone cares to test it out, you can use it by:  where PageName is the name you wish to delete.  One thing I haven't figured out is why the link is red... - Allyunion 00:53, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Notice: Not working right, but if anyone cares to mess around with it, please do. -- Allyunion 00:58, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

text: If it did work it still couldn't be used on VfD, since the same template can only be included up to 5 times in a page. (You can't get around it with subst: either, since parameters don't work in subst) Goplat 02:06, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The bug in subst parameters is  bug #89, BTW.  — Gwalla | Talk 04:34, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template:VfDSection 

message: We currently have a work, a minor work in some ways but a catalogued and acknowledged work, by Beethoven listed on VfD. Um, I'm dumbstruck.
And it seems to be part of a pattern. Many users new to VfD seem to list a large number of borderline and not even borderline cases, such as this one, in their first month or even their first week here. I wonder whether there is some way of encouraging them to lurk a little first, and to list just one article per week for their first few until they get the hang of it? Andrewa 13:40, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Well I like to think it's because the standard of many of our articles is so high now that newbies don't realise just how crappy some of them started out. I think the best way to encorage newbies not to list articles innapropriately is to just ask them not to. A quick note on thier userpages should do it. Theresa Knott  (The token star) 14:04, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that's a couple of good points. I do write them notes from time to time. I was wondering whether something more proactive would be good... a note in the head or foot text of VfD, or in the deletion policy, say. Andrewa 14:28, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be good. IMHO there's an increasing tendency to delete articles (especially stubs), a tendency which is (for the most part) against the spirit of Wikipedia. ··gracefool |☺ 09:23, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

text: I share that analysis, although the phenomenom is not general. Deletion wars are rarer in other languages wikipedia, people think a little more before rushing to the VfD button. There, VfD is considered as the last resort ...WMD. The community prefers, tacitly, first to try make the articles better, and to find balanced solutions. Maybe because those other languages wikipedia are more recent, then, to put it mildly, lesson givers had less time to emerge ;-)) --Pgreenfinch 10:58, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: I'm fascinated