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In light of the discussion at WP:CLN it is apparent that lists and categories complement each other on Wikipedia, and are often used to do many of the same things. There is much overlap and duplication between them, and that's good. It is not good when deletion discussions involving them are not handled by the same people. Which is occuring now.

When somebody has a problem with a category they don't like, they come to category-for-deletion WP:CFD, because the criteria are not the the same as for articles (we also have separate deletion discussion boards as you see in WP:XFD, eight in all, for other things). However, when people want to delete a list article (list of ships, List of trees, List of birds), which is essentialy the same thing as a category, but in list-form, they go to the article deletion discussion page, WP:AFD. That's not good, because the criteria for notable articles are not the same as those for list-articles. The latter only need a header paragraph to explain themselves (see WP:LIST), and then elements which are individually notable. As in List of birds. But other kinds of wiki-articles normally put up for deletion have more stringent notability requirements, and their verifiability methods are not of the same type (a list article many only have hyperlinked elements and nothing else).

All this produces very WP:LAME edit wars, as you see on the WP:DRV page. For example, List of bow tie wearers has been up for deletion 4 times, and has only survived by now having many, many in-article cites, which makes it look very much unlike List of birds. All that because nay-sayers demanded article criteria for what is essentially a category in list-form. You can see much the same type of problem with List of notable people who wore the bowler hat, which is now up for deletion review on WP:DRV on the grounds that some people are arguing that the existence of the list itself needs defending as a point of WP:V, when in fact, this is really a "what categories are natural?" discussion.

• I propose that a separte page be created for proposed deletions of list-articles.

• OR I propose that WP:CFD be renamed Categories and list-articles for discussion in recognition of WP:CLN and the need to treat lists in line with category criteria on WP. Deletion discussion for list articles would then go on HERE.

Comments? I'm going to repost this around on the several TALK pages which deal with this matter. SBHarris 01:25, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

• This is a problem. Part of the reason some lists get policed heavily is because they may represent (like categories) a trivial intersection. Without sources, it is easy to see the list of bow-tie wearers becomes an "I spy" of biographies. Anyone can put on a bow tie (I can even tie one...after a few tries), so some consternation and discussion occurs around which entries get included. Likewise there are lists like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wealthiest families in history. The construction of the list represents original research. Or Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional Alumni of Real Universities, where some demands for sourcing akin to articles may be appropriate. So I'm not sure that we can declare lists to be more like categories than articles unilaterally. Protonk (talk) 02:32, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, some are, and some are not. If you want to boggle your brain, consider what is happening at List of Chinese people. But I still think we need a separate page which discusses list articles WP:LAFD, so we can deal with this odd (neither one thing nor the other) category. SBHarris 23:31, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

One thing should not be done, which is created an additional XfD. There might be some point in moving many list discussions to Cfd to increase the traffic and the visibility there, but I fear that in practice it will restrict the discussion of the list articles also to a small self-selected group. DGG (talk) 05:44, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

As we all know or should know, the subsections of the subject-specific notability guidelines, such as WP:ATHLETE, WP:POLITICIAN, WP:COMPOSER, etc. are suboordinate to the general/basic standard each of the guidelines begin with, which general/basic standards recapitulate WP:N. To put a fine point on it by example, there is no additional need in WP:BIO to meet the subsection, WP:ATHLETE, if the subject already meets the basic standard of "being the subject of published secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject." I found this Afd debate a bit disturbing in that not just the nominator, but others failed to understand that meeting WP:ATHLETE was irrelevant because the subject was already the subject of multiple, reliable, independent, secondary sources.

I am thus wondering if all of the general/basic standards in the subject specific guidelines need some express language explaining right after the basic standard that if an article meets it, the additional criteria set forth later in the guideline do not need to be met; that the subsequent bases are suboordinate to the basic standard. That topic as a whole should be addressed at WT:N, but I'm here because I'm wondering whether there really is a problem. Because I have not been a regular at AfD for over a year, I cannot gauge well whether the AfD debate I linked was just an idiosyncratic misunderstanding, or typifies a common failure in parsing the guidelines. So what I'm after here is identification from AfD regulars of whether the problem I've identified is common or not. Do you see this misconstruction of the guidelines cropping up in many debates?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 07:18, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

• It's not unheard of. More common is the misperception that CSD-A7 requires an "assertion of notability", though that could just be from colloquial use of the term. The daughter guidelines and parent guideline are also not clearly spelled out. While we can says that if something meets the GNG, it need not meet the daughter guidelines, we can't say that something which does not meet the GNG can be kept solely on the basis of the daughter guidelines (in practice however, this is usually the case). A clear case where the daughter guideline is more restrictive than the GNG is WP:NB. A clear case where one is much, much less restrictive is WP:ATHLETE. Given this ambiguity, it doesn't surprise me that people just say "Athlete yes/no" or "PROF yes/no" rather than trying to weigh the existence of secondary sources against this. Most of the time people do pretty well. Protonk (talk) 07:38, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
• Fuhgettaboutit, are you sure you are reading the Afd correctly? Only the nominator and the second !voter made this mistake, and both didn't push it very hard (so they probably learned something). There was also a discussion about changing WP:ATHLETE, which made sense to me (although it should of course be continued in the proper place). This subject specific notability guideline is often more inclusive than the general one, and the fact that the GNG had to be used here even though the notability was entirely sports related indicates that it produces counterintuitive results in the area of American college football. --Hans Adler (talk) 08:48, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
• You should look over Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise, specifically the raft of proposals under B. I tend to disagree with you, personally: I think that articles have to meet both the general and subject-specific guidelines, but it was actually more common to believe that once a subject-specific guideline was in place, the general guideline could be ignored. It's educational reading, and it's clear to me that no one can authoritatively state the relationship between the guidelines.—Kww(talk) 12:41, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Exactly so. In general, "As we all know or should know" are famous last words in Wikipedia. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:24, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
    • I don't that often agree with Kww, but I do agree with him here, that the issue is unsettled and not likely to be soon settled. Personally my choice is not the same as his, but I and he agree that there is no use pretending there is any real consensus here. That leaves each case to be argued separately. The specific problem that gave rise to this, Athletes, could probably best be resolved by reworking the specific guidelines so it agrees more with the general consensus. It remains true that no one small group can long impose their guidelines on the general community, they have to propose something that will be in practice accepted. DGG (talk) 05:41, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
• I've seen a wide range of understandings of this issue. My personal take on it is that the more specific guidelines, such as WP:ATHLETE (which has some problems that really need to be addressed), are a shortcut for deciding when there's a good chance that there will be enough secondary sources out there to meet WP:N. I'll use baseball as an example, since that's the area I'm familiar with. Even a guy who gets one at bat in one game in the majors often has several newspaper stories written about him. But many historical newspapers haven't made it to the web, and some that have, such as The Sporting News, are such poor scans as to be almost useless. So WP:ATHLETE lets us say "hey, we know it's very likely there are dead tree sources out there that show notability, so let's not get our panties in a bunch that someone hasn't dragged their laptop down to the newspaper archive to root it out yet."--Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:37, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
• See User:Uncle G/On notability#Secondary notability criteria. Uncle G (talk) 02:22, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, an analysis of the Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise is underway, by someone relatively outside the dispute. (It seems there was too much mistrust from the most passionate voices to trust each other's analysis.) But even without an "objective" view of the RFC, I think it's safe to say that there's a consensus against a "one size fits all" notability guideline. There's also a consensus supporting SNGs that can relax the overall GNG. The only outstanding question is how relaxed. But safe to say, they can't totally obliterate the GNG. Randomran (talk) 05:49, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to add rows to this table. Flatscan (talk) 02:02, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

After reading discussion at #Mergers at AfD and elsewhere, I have become aware of various metrics that distinguish AfD outcomes. I have collected them into the table above. I think a table like this could be useful in Wikipedia:Guide to deletion. Flatscan (talk) 02:02, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I proposed adding a subsection including this table at Wikipedia talk:Guide to deletion#Outcomes subsection. Flatscan (talk) 04:39, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I just found in my watchlist that a page I spent weeks creating was turned into a redirect, even though the AFD result was to merge. No content was actually merged. I notice that there is no longer a requirement to notify the creator or primary contributor. Why was this change made? It would have been nice to find out prior to the AFD discussion being closed that there was going to be a discussion, so that I could have been involved in it. Instead it was wiped out by drive-by edit accumulators with no discussion. — BRIAN0918 • 2008-12-12 18:47Z

If you spent weeks creating it, why wasn't it on your watchlist?—Kww(talk) 18:51, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

You apparently don't know how big watchlists can get. It was in my watchlist, however I was away for the last few days and it was pushed off the bottom. And again I'll reiterate that I was never notified about it. — BRIAN0918 • 2008-12-12 19:12Z

I don't think it was ever required, but it's considered a courtesy. That said, just because it was merged with very little content, it doesn't mean you couldn't add in some more of the content to make a more perfect merge. Randomran (talk) 18:58, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

No, it wasn't merged at all. The AFD result was merge, but it was just deleted and replaced with a redirect. Nothing was merged and the editor who turned it into a redirect even says so in the edit summary: "nobody is merging this... redirect for now". Isn't the proper action to do nothing until the merge actually occurs? — BRIAN0918 • 2008-12-12 19:12Z

There are any number of good faith or bad faith reasons someone may have done that, but either way it's a mistake. And either way, the article wasn't deleted, only redirected. It should be easy to fix. Feel free to revert the redirect, even. Ideally, someone should complete the merge properly. Randomran (talk) 19:25, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

• There never has been a "requirement" (AFAIK). It is considered a courtesy and a well attended one at that. To top it off, twinkle does it for you if you use that. Protonk (talk) 19:31, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

comments several of them, some are personal opinion: 1) No, there's not a requirement to notify anyone that a page has been nominated for deletion. 2) As a courtesey, they should. 3) If they are butt-heads, they might not. But Wikipedia is for everyone (including the butt-heads). 4) I wish it was a requirement because I've been in that boat too! 5) This "twinkle" thing looks pretty darned cool. 6) You probably shouldn't call anyone a "butt-head" on Wikipedia or anywhere else for that matter...--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:37, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know, alongside other insults, "butt-head" seems kind of quaint :). And twinkle is very helpful. Protonk (talk) 19:42, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

You punk kids and your newfangled gadgets! Back in my day we had to submit our edits through pony express! It took 3 months to check your watchlist, and edit conflicts were resolved through pistol duels at 15 paces! — BRIAN0918 • 2008-12-12 20:46Z

Uphill, in the snow, both ways. And talk page communications were handled over RFC 1217. Protonk (talk) 21:11, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

• Oh, and Brian, if you'd like we can either revert the redirect or your can edit an old revision of the page to merge content to the target article. Protonk (talk) 21:11, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Already done. Thanks! — BRIAN0918 • 2008-12-12 21:23Z

The merge is now complete. Given that there is no evidence of notability for any individual on the list, the only material which needed to be transferred to the target article was a list of references to justify the figure of 250 casualties. I really hate it when people argue for merging when there isn't any information to be merged ... that's what causes messes like this to happen.—Kww(talk) 21:29, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

That's your argument. I would have provided my counterargument, except I was never given that chance. This list has been kept in the past. — BRIAN0918 • 2008-12-13 01:16Z

No one has deprived you of anything. If you believe that there is more information from the article that should be carried over in the merge, it's all available in the article history.—Kww(talk) 01:30, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

But back to the fundamental complaint. It is altogether absurd that creators of articles are not notified. Unlike speedy, many if not most articles that come here have long histories, and it's difficult to program a bot with the intelligence necessary to notice whom the main contributors are -- and this is really the only reason against having it totally automatic. I however do not see why a first step could not be made by having a bot that notifies at least the original creator. Even if it was 3 years ago and the person is no longer around, no harm would be done. I've never learned how to program these--any volunteers? This won't deal with the problem of notifying all significant contributors, but that can be discussed a little later on. DGG (talk) 03:33, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

A bot that notifies the creator, at worst, wouldn't do any harm. I'd support that. Randomran (talk) 18:46, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Do any current deletion tags mention: Wikipedia:Userfication#Userfication_of_deleted_content? Most wikipedians don't know this option is available to them. travb (talk) 05:01, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Heck -- I didn't know about it until I found it pretty much by accident. Well -- not really accident, I had run into the term on AfD and MfD before, and figured the article had to exist somewhere. As for likelihood of current tags mentioning it? Nil. Collect (talk) 14:38, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment I'm a big fan of userfication of deleted articles. Why? See the West Essay. Had 62 articles bombarded with AFD'd in a short period of time. So far, 30+% have been restored through additional research, editing, and even merging to existing articles of the same subject but slightly different titles. More than one admin actually refused to "userfy" because they said that the articles were hopeless.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:58, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

And to be fair, more than one admin offered to userfy them for you if they were deleted.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:25, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

What do I do and what do I do with the templates to nominate several articles in one entry?--Ipatrol (talk) 16:23, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Go through the process on the first article. Edit the AFD, and then add a list of

*'''((la|article name))'''

to it. Then, go to each additional article, add the AFD notice. Place a redirect in each subsequent AFD to the main AFD.—Kww(talk) 16:27, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Some shameless promotion...nah, not really. But I noticed a problem at AFD today that I saw often before, so I wrote a short essay at Wikipedia:Somebody Else's Problem. I think it might echo the concerns of some people here, so I am kindly asking for input. Feel free to update, change and add to it as much as you like, it's a wiki after all. Regards SoWhy 16:42, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

It actually goes further, and the cases where only sources are missing are the easy ones. It has recently happened to me more than once, that "articles" without any useful content that I had submitted to afd were kept on the basis that "theoretically, a useful article about this topic could be written". Of course, none of those who voted such stepped forward to actually do so, and if I had had the resources to do it myself, I wouldn't have started an afd in the first place. The result: Users looking for information on those topics will find a page on Wikipeida, but no information, which leaves them with a much lousier impression than if they hadn't found anything at all. It surprises me again and again that what would be mercilessly eradicated on dewiki as "article requests" and to make room for something better is preserved on enwiki as purportedly valuable. --Latebird (talk) 01:38, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I take a somewhat different view. The responsibility for fixing an article should remain with the nominator. That is, if you think an article sucks enough to nominate it for deletion, you should "own" the cleanup if you're wrong. Kind of like "loser pays" litigation. Frankly, the issue I have with deletionists is that they seem much more eager to nominate something for deletion than they do to actually improve it, even if it's been demonstrated worthy of inclusion. This would solve that, but I doubt such an expectation would ever be ratified. Jclemens (talk) 02:07, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

So if I don't have the resources or the time to create something better, I should just leave the existing crap alone? Reality is, that very often it is not shown that the actually existing article is "worthy of inclusion". It is only shown that the topic might in theory allow a decent article. In fact, many keep votes completely ignore the actual article, and simply say "this is an interesting and noteworthy topic". Shouldn't those folks own up to their convictions according to WP:BURDEN? Note that when I see the possibility to rescue an article nominated by someone else with material available to me, I will immediately do so, usually while the afd is still running. I have also happily withdrawn many of my own afds when someone else managed to do that. Reducing this to a war between "deletionists" and "inclusionists", just so that you can point a finger at someone, is really not very helpful. Asking that a nominator should be forced into some kind of "ownership" also seems rather strange. --Latebird (talk) 02:58, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

If the article is encyclopedic in topic and the current content isn't worthwhile, then the responsible thing to do is remove as much of the content as needed to render it appropriate--stubs are perfectly fine to have. If someone says "this entire article is crap" and nominates it for deletion, they're really declaring that the article should be nuked because they can't be bothered to clean it up. I, for one, think that the proper response to such an irresponsible nomination--that is, when a nominator has nominated an encyclopedic topic for deletion because the current article stinks--would be an obligation for the nominator to go fix the article in question. That is, it takes a nominator who can't be bothered to delete the bad parts of an article to create such a "somebody else's problem" in the first place, so the best response is to explicitly make it their responsibility. Problem solved! Jclemens (talk) 03:41, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I think it unlikely that any blanket "rule" can be created to be fair to all editors and to the encyclopedia itself. I think most responsible and thoughtful people will agree with Jclemens that there exists a problem with editors being more willing to tag and run than to put in the work. (For myself, I am actually concerned about this happening with cleanup and other tags more than AfD, because at least AfD has a process in place to make sure something happens. Cleanup tags routinely sit for over two years before they are dealt with.) But anyway, while I share Jclemens antipathy for tag-and-running, I cannot endorse the notion that a tagging editor automatically should have responsibility. I may recognize, for example, that an article on some obscure physics topic is shit, but I may lack the knowledge to make it an acceptable article. In one such case I went to the relevant Wikiproject and found an editor who was willing to fix things up, and that was gratifying. But that isn't always possible.

On the other hand, sometimes the answer may be just what Jclemens said: Hack away until you have a stub that is clean and accurate. I totally endorse the notion that there is nothing inherently wrong with stubs. And again, while I have not done this to save an article at AfD, I have gone to clean up an article and found that only a stub was needed and/or was possible (by me). And that quality stub looks better for us than the heaps of dung that occasionally show up as articles. Unschool 04:00, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

So I should first blank an "article" (= "delete the bad parts") that only contains trivialities before submitting it to AFD? The idea of placing the blame on the person who noticed the problem really runs counter to the whole volunteering idea of Wikipedia. In a way, that's also a symptom of the "someone else's problem" attitude, only that you have an easy scapegoat to pont at. Throughout history, it has often been considered the easiest "solution" (and always a fallacy) to shoot the messenger. Assuming that AFDs are submitted because people "can't be bothered" to do real work also runs directly counter to WP:AGF, and offends me personally.

Wikipedia is long past the point where the number of articles should be of any concern. We should direct our focus primarily on quality now. If you have a quick way to fix the problem, by all means do that (as do I). But an AFD must be valid (and have a chance of succeeding) if for whatever reason that doesn't happen. A non-article should not be kept just because someone claimed it could be fixed in the debate. If by the end of the AFD the problem isn't actually fixed in the article, then it should be deleted. That would eliminate the absurd "this topic could be a nice article" keep votes. AFD debates must be about the text that actually exists at the time of debate, and not about something that only exists in someone's imagination. Before submitting an AFD I always put myself in the shoes of an unsuspecting reader and ask: "If I was interested in the topic, would this page help me?" If the answer is no, then it is harmful to the Encyclopedia and should not be left there in that form. --Latebird (talk) 14:44, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Latebird, my endorsement of taking a machete to an article (I don't like calling it "blanking", and that's not what anyone has suggested, as far as I've noticed) does not equate to endorsing Jclemens's position on mandating that the tagger must fix the problem. I'm simply noting that some people appear to live just to tag articles, and it would be nice if they could also do some of the work some of the time. I would not mandate it, I would just encourage it. Unschool 01:02, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Blanking an article would also be a demonstration of laziness. If it's really meritless and shouldn't be in Wikipedia in the first place, the nominator has nothing to fear by just nominating it outright. If the article has some content worth keeping and some not, for about any value of "some", it's a simple matter of reading and editing to excise the not-worthwhile content. Without the automated AfD tools, it should take about the same amount of time to WP:BOLDly remove the fluff, cruft, or whatnot as it would to nominate the article by hand, and that is the basis by which I call the failure to do so laziness. It is, in fact, WP:AGFing, in that it doesn't attribute malice to such an action. I'd be surprised if any participant in this discussion hasn't run across someone who engages in deletion nominations that, if uncritically accepted, would have the net effect of POV pushing. Requiring articles to be fixed at any point (aside from promotions like GA/FA, and legal issues) violates WP:TIND. Making it the nomintor's obligation to fix a nominated article places the obligation in line with GA/FA work: you make the nomination, you inherit the work. Jclemens (talk) 19:46, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Submitting an AFD is among other things both an admission of defeat and a call for help. If then some other editors jump in and tell me "hey, I think that would be an interesting topic, now you have to write an actual article about it whether you like to or not", then that only adds insult to injury. You keep turning WP:BURDEN on it's head, without a good reason to do so. This line of thought renders the AFD process ineffective, because it will prevent valid and necessary nominations, hurting the quality of Wikipedia overall. On the other hand, "if you want it kept, make it worth keeping" is proven to work very well. --Latebird (talk) 23:47, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I've never seen an AfD nomination that was an admission of defeat or a call for help. WP:BURDEN applies to specific clauses in an article, WP:BEFORE applies to the articles existence, or lack thereof. Jclemens (talk) 23:55, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

So what is it then if someone says "sorry guys, I can't see anything useful in this"? Maybe you expect that declaration of defeat spelled out a little too literally... WP:BURDEN applies to everything in an article, and WP:BEFORE (a ser of procedural recommendations) does not replace it. Of course we should keep articles that are likely to be improved. What we seem to do instead, is to keep articles where improvement is only theoretically possible, no matter how ununlikely. --Latebird (talk) 08:59, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

The article on Kosher tax is a canard in itself. This article makes a political statement and is therefore, not an encyclopedic entry, and should be deleted.--68.220.226.199 (talk) 18:43, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Sounds more like an editing issue than a deletion issue.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 19:11, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I just took a look. It's a well cited article, and the one major claim that was in no way supported was easily removed. I see nothing wrong with an incerdibly thoroughly cited article which completely and handily dismantles a lie. ThuranX (talk) 04:14, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I checked into it as well, and agree, there's nothing majorly wrong with the article. This post looks like an anon editor with some POV issues of his own. Unschool 04:44, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Most likely someone who feels that any writing about the lie is propagating the lie. I've seen the mentality before. ThuranX (talk) 07:38, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

All articles here should be so well cited.--RandomHumanoid^(⇒) 21:36, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, is anybody keeping track of the "longest AfDs"? —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 10:18, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I think it might be worth changing the "AfD Wikietiquette" section about nominating multiple articles for deletion. In all the time I've been involved in AfDs, it's been a very very frequent occurrence that big group nominations get speedy-closed for one reason or another, and almost always with the suggestion that the nominator re-nominate each article separately. While I'm not sure what the wording should be changed to, I feel the current wording may be misleading to someone unfamiliar with the process. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 14:21, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Quick suggestion: replace "a large number" with simply "a number", plus a hint to carefully evaluate homogeneity. Flatscan (talk) 04:45, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Probably good. "A few" or "several" might also be good, but I'm sure there are cases where mass-noms of 10 or more articles would be appropriate. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 09:15, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I made a change in line with my suggestion – feel free to polish as necessary. Flatscan (talk) 05:05, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

This happened today - and I noticed a similar thing happening yesterday. The number and name of the case appears outside the box after I close the case. My process is to add ((Closing)), then remove ((Closing)) and ((REMOVE THIS TEMPLATE WHEN CLOSING THIS AfD)), and paste in ((subst:at)) '''RESULT'''. ~~~~ at the top with my comments inside '''RESULT''', and paste ((subst:ab)) at the bottom and save. Is there something in that process that is incorrect? SilkTork *^YES! 01:16, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Just place the ((subst:at)) '''RESULT'''. ~~~~ above the section header and you're fine. --Amalthea 01:25, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. SilkTork *^YES! 08:50, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Is this closure by American Eagle legitimate? Can an involved party simply pre-empt an AfD by redirecting the articles under discussion? This would not appear to be legitimate (such consensus as there was was for deletion, not mere merge & redirect). Is it something that needs to be taken to WP:DRV to be corrected? Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 09:06, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

• Redirecting/merging during an AfD is acceptable though rarely done (As it tends to prempt discussion). Any administrator can revert the closure and he probably should not have closed that debate (though I have made that same exact move many times before I realized it was frowned upon). As for the outcome, ask yourself if deletion is really necessary. Will redirection/merger improve the encyclopedia? Is there some portion of the page history that needs to be removed? Protonk (talk) 09:12, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

• If this was just a one-off, I'd probably let it slide. But it is part of a pattern of copying material under AfD to new articles & unilaterally denominating articles nominated by myself on a related AfD. American Eagle has turned these AfDs into a farce. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 09:19, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

There are a number of issues with this. Wikipedia:Non-admin closure indicates that American Eagle's actions were wrong both in that the user was involved, and in that the decision wasn't clear. Even if American Eagle were an admin the closure was inappropriate because of the user's involvement, and because it is not clear that the decision is to merge. Added to which the closure was too soon. I'm not one for wikilawering over points of procedure, and if the end result was what everyone wanted, then there wouldn't be an issue - but in this case we have the nominator objecting. I don't think this is a case for DRV, but there are sufficient concerns for the closure to be overturned and the AfD allowed to run its course. SilkTork *^YES! 10:03, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

• Someone reverted the closure. Seems like the right thing to do (Rather than DRV). Protonk (talk) 17:31, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, sorry I should have mentioned that here. I did inform those concerned: [1] and [2]. SilkTork *^YES! 17:42, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay. I apologize for creating this mess. The reason I did so was, it appeared that merge/redirect was the consensus, so I did that. The nominator himself didn't oppose to my doing it. Then, all pages were redirecting and there was no reason to continue the discussion. However, if more users would like to comment, that is fine. Sorry. TheAE talk/sign 18:25, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

American Eagle: how can you possibly interpret "I see no need for them to continue as redirects" as that I "didn't oppose" your proposal for redirects? What possible good faith reason can you have for making this gross misrepresentation of my comment? Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 03:30, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Assume good faith. Also remember that if a title is a common or probable search term a redirect is preferable to deletion. Protonk (talk) 03:31, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

(i)The assumption of good faith is an erodable quantity, and a barrage of claims and actions in questionable faith cannot help but reduce it. (ii) As I said in my !"didn't oppose": "I see no need for them to continue as redirects -- as I see little probability that anybody would look for them independently of the main topic of Adventures in Odyssey." Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 04:03, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Hrafn, I honestly didn't think you were opposed to it. I saw your message as, "I don't see the point of redirecting them, but go ahead." It was my mistake, but it wasn't bad faith. It's over now, let's move on. Okay? TheAE talk/sign 04:11, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

American Eagle: reading a subtext into a statement that is directly contradictory to the statement's explicit text is problematic and would generally be considered tendentious. I would suggest that you strenuously avoid doing so in future, particularly in AfDs (where the convention is for participants to bold their !vote opinions to make their positions clear) and particularly when you are contemplating a non-administrative closure on the basis of this interpretation. Doing so has a tendency to stretch WP:AGF well past breaking point. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 04:36, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

How many times does he need to say it was a mistake? The close was reverted. Life goes on. Protonk (talk) 04:51, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

If an AFD appears to be heading to redirect after a few days, I think it's acceptable for the nominator to redirect wait a day or so to see if anyone undoes the redirect then withdraw if it's unopposed. I also think it's okay for any other editor to boldly redirect and wait for someone to revert or for the nominator to withdraw after a day or so. However this should be done loudly, with a bold note at the top of the AFD indicating the time of the redirect and the time of any revert, if any. The redirecting editor should post a comment saying what he did, why he did it, and remind everyone that they can revert it. The nominator should follow up with a comment saying he will withdraw at insert time here, typically at least a day after the redirect was made. If the AFD is about over, the nominator should ask that it be closed with a result of "redirect" but not withdraw it. Of course, since this isn't documented in any process, nobody but me will follow it. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:36, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion was intiated about a week ago but procedure was not followed. I fixed the formatting of the discussion page but upon checking saw it had never been transcluded to the actual AfD list. Given that in the normal couse of events it would be due for a close, what would be the best course of action here? The options I see are: Close per normal; relist and include existing comments; start a new discussion. Cheers, Mattinbgn\^talk 04:05, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

• Transclude it with a comment noting the late transclusion date and let it run 5 more days. Protonk (talk) 04:30, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

 Done -- Mattinbgn\^talk 04:39, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

• I adjusted your formatting so someone doesn't skip over it and close the AfD accidentally. Please revert me if you feel this is untoward. Protonk (talk) 04:53, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

No worries :-) -- Mattinbgn\^talk 06:02, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

If a non-admin thinks a AFD should be speedy kept and does a non-admin closure, can another editor re-open if they they think there isn't a consensus? Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of anime series by episode count was closed after only 1 day by a non-admin. 8-1 in a 21 hour period is not enough to be speedy kept IMO. Since it did not go the full 5 days (or even 1) and was not closed by an admin, I don't think a second nomination is needed. TJ Spyke 03:56, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

The AfD does not meet the recommended WP:SNOW criteria at WP:Non-admin closure#Appropriate closures, but it is pretty close. I prefer when the recommended criteria is exceeded, but I've seen a few similar NACs that were not challenged or reopened. If you have a more detailed rationale that you were prevented from presenting, I suggest that you attempt discussion with the closer. Flatscan (talk) 05:36, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

To clarify my stance, I see this close as somewhat inappropriate, but not enough to reopen. Flatscan (talk) 21:01, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

It can be reopened, but doing so would be WP:POINTy and pointless, make the person re-opening it look bad, and probably result in a blizzard. Unless there was good reason to think there would be a different outcome, I wouldn't try it. Would you be happier if an admin endorsed the early closure? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 16:59, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the article should be deleted, but if an admin endorses the closure I would feel better (I may work on a second nomination to present in a few weeks, I know its too soon to do right now). TJ Spyke 18:53, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Deleted? Huh? The result was speedy keep by a !vote of 8-2 including the nominator. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 19:00, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

It was open less than a day and was not closed by an admin. IMO it was pre-maturely closed. TJ Spyke 00:19, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

So you are saying you think the listing should be re-opened for further discussion and that you would probably say delete? That's understandable. For a moment I thought you were saying the the article should be deleted without further discussion, which didn't seem logical. Sorry about the confusion. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:36, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion. Yes, I would prefer the discussion be re-opened. TJ Spyke 02:41, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, you could boldly re-open it, or, if you wanted an admin stamp on it, go to ANI and ask that it be re-opened on procedural grounds. The preferred first step is to ask the person who closed it to undo his own edit on the grounds that WP:SPEEDY and WP:SNOW arguably haven't been met. He may stick by his decision, in which case ANI is the way to go. Think though before you do this. As the odds of a different outcome are slim, it would make you look awfully POINTy. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:54, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• Seems like a reasonable SNOW close. A good check is that most of us here think the odds of a different outcome (were the close reversed) are, well, slimmer than a snowball's chance in hell. Protonk (talk) 04:08, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

  The nomination in question would most likely have been closed "keep" if allowed to run the full five days so reopening it would be pointless but it should not have been closed early. This is just my opinion but (assuming a good faith nomination and good faith !votes) if the nominator or someone else arguing "delete" is actively participating in the discussion beyond their nomination statement/!vote then the nomination should be allowed to run for at least 96 hours. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 04:59, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

  And I just realized that I recently violated my own rule. I feel like a hypocrite :( --Ron Ritzman (talk) 05:06, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

  Over 24 hours between last comment and closing – it looks fine to me. I would have suggested waiting if the nominator had been actively presenting arguments. Flatscan (talk) 21:01, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Here's another AfD with a questionable NAC: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/January 7th Riots, Oakland, California. The closer closed as a SNOW keep, mentioning the possibility of a merge. There was a little disagreement over the merge here and here. I think that reopening the AfD to establish a stronger consensus would be helpful. Flatscan (talk) 04:51, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Hello all, I noticed this page Global linker and was wondering as it seems to be just advertising if it should have a place in the encyclopedia. I am new to this area so I wasn't too sure. Your advice would be welcome. Thankyou.18:04, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Londonfella (talk)

You were correct, it was deleted WP:CSD#G11. Flatscan (talk) 04:50, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up for me.Londonfella (talk) 16:26, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

An incorrectly formated AfD discussion, closed as a speedy delete per G10, unsourced negative BLP article. Can someone tidy up the formatting please? -- Mattinbgn\^talk 11:10, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

 Done Protonk (talk) 17:39, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

How do I link to a VfD deletion discussion archive? I tried to use the ((oldvfd)) template, but discovered it has been deleted. The problem is that the deletion archive for Chinese imperialism is at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Chinese imperialism, which I can't seem to link to with the ((oldafdfull)) or ((oldafd)) templates. So no box is on the Talk:Chinese imperialism page. 76.66.198.171 (talk) 12:44, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I suggest you use ((Multidel)) which allows free configuration. Regards SoWhy 12:47, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Ok, so I found that there's an ((oldvfdfull)) (didn't know that, I thought there was only the oldvfd). I used that. Can someone create a redirect from ((oldvfd)) to ((oldvfdfull))? 76.66.198.171 (talk) 12:50, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Nice find, I created the redirect. Regards SoWhy 13:27, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

This AfD dated December 25, 2008, was apparently not listed in that day's log. Now the article has been nominated separately here. What should be done? Should the earlier nomination be closed as no result? ^LeaveSleaves 17:29, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oh. This is slightly more complicated than the above issue. Protonk (talk) 17:31, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Ok. I will close the old AfD and make a note in the new one. Protonk (talk) 17:32, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
  •  Done. Protonk (talk) 17:36, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Can someone close: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nordine Zouareg?

As per:

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion "If the reasons given in the deletion nomination are later addressed by editing, the nomination should be withdrawn by the nominator, and the deletion discussion will be closed by an admin. "

Several editors edited the page mightly,[3] and the nomination has been withdrawn[4] by the nominator.[5] travb (talk) 03:04, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

 Done. Cheers. lifebaka++ 03:53, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

A recent discussion here clarified that the nominator's withdrawal is not necessarily a sufficient condition for an early close. Early closure following nom-withdrawal is covered by Wikipedia:Speedy keep clause 1, which requires no outstanding non-keep !votes. There were 4 delete !votes in addition to the nom, none retracted, with a good amount of rationale and continued participation.

This issue arises pretty often – should the pages be reconciled? Flatscan (talk) 05:41, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Everyday large amounts of well referenced material gets deleted with WP:Articles for deletion. I propose that all articles which do not have copyright violations, biography violations, etc. be moved to the creator's user space with a link in the AfD closing edit summary.

So for example:

• If I created the article The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2009 film) the article,
• after AfD would be moved to User:Inclusionist/The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2009 film), and
• the closing administrator would write in the edit summary:
  Deleted "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2009 film)" ‎in AFD and moved to User:Inclusionist/The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2009 film).

The benefits of moving deleted material to user space are numerous:

1. Future authors would not have to create content which was deleted before.
2. Deleted articles could be improved upon and eventually be resubmitted for recreation
3. AfD's would not be as hostile, since the contributors to the article would know the article could still be improved upon and submitted for recreation later.
4. Users' activity on the wikipedia is falling. New editors, who naturally do not know wikipolicy, often create new articles that do not satisfy wikipedia's stringent Kafkaesque bureaucracy, and those articles are swifty deleted. These deletions deter new editors from contributing to Wikipedia. [6]

Caveat: In my experience, policy pages are frequented by veteran editors who fervently believe and enforce that policy page, and are resistant to change. So when deciding the merits of this suggestion, please keep in mind that these negative responses are not necessarily reflective of all wikipedians, but more reflective of supporters of the stats quo on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. Thanks. Inclusionist (talk) 18:44, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Anent this see [7], the talk page on userfication appears to be exactly what you wish to discuss. Collect (talk) 20:13, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

thank you so much collect. You deserve the barnstar I gave you. Thanks again. Inclusionist (travb) (talk) 20:47, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

• Counter-proposal: Notify authors pages can be userfied, but don't USERFY automatically.

Have the closing admin notify the principal authors that the page was deleted through AFD and that it is eligible for temporarily userfication upon request from any administrator. The message should include instructions for contacting administrators, a link to WP:Userfication, and a statement that says such articles should not be kept in user space indefinately, they should either be improved to the point they could survive AFD, or if that is not possible, deleted.

Many AFDs are due to notability issues, and unless something happens to change the subject's notability, there will never be an article that could withstand AFD. In these cases, the only reason to USERFY is so the editor can copy the content to another location. For this reason, anyone getting USERFIED deleted content should also be told they must copy the edit log for GFDL purposes should they republish the content elsewhere, and they cannot republish it elsewhere except in compliance with the all of the terms of the GFDL.

In some cases, the subject is not notable now but will likely become notable later if certain things happen. In these cases, the editor may want to preserve the article and its history on his local drive, update the local copy as the person's notability rises, and when it gets high enough to survive AFD, upload the new article. In this case, he'll have a choice: Either request a 2nd un-deletion, as his userfied version will be long-re-deleted, and upadate it, or update his version as a new article and put the previously-copied history in the talk page of the new article. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 00:47, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I like that 99% of your suggestion a hell of a lot. I would give you a barnstar too, but that would cheapen collect's barnstar I gave him today, so I will wait until your next wonderful idea. :)

Mind if yourself or I move this suggestion to Wikipedia_talk:Userfication? I could create a link to it there. Either way--whatever you perfer.

There is a very interesting conversation going on their about how long userfied content should exist. It is very similar to your suggestion. Inclusionist(travb) (talk) 05:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I would think that as long that it is clear that userification of an article bound for deletion is certainly possible, and that users have to be aware that a CSD is recreation of a deleted article without significant change, there really doesn't need to be any significant change to the process. If there is requested userification, then yes, a link in the admin closing to the user page would be good to have. --MASEM 05:28, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree Masem, I was thinking the same thing. Which leads me to the next question (next section) how can we let users know about the userfication option? travb (talk) 14:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Inclusionist: No, I don't mind. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 15:59, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

comment upon just a cursory review, I think there is something here. I've had admins refuse to userfy articles that were deleted, and later through editing & research have much of them restored. You can review the progress of a project I have going at theWest Incident page within the College football project.--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:35, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I think it is time for us to relook into template voting.

I know this has been rejected before but there are advantages in making people vote using templates rather than current text base votes. However a critical part of the rationale was forgotten in the past discussions.

Current method of voting is not machine readable. This makes it difficult to detect foul play. It is highly inefficient to parse the pages as is. Mind that this is less about vote counting consensus and more about identifying sockpuppets, meatpuppets and other kinds of foul play we do not want in AFD.

I am trying to develop a tool that parses afds to detect meat/sock puppetry.

-- Cat ^chi? 12:43, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Last I checked, no machine can examine the reasons behind each comment, as this is not, strictly speaking, a "vote" at all. And since sockpuppets can not actually provide stronger reasons than already presented, their presence should be ignorable. What is more to the point, moreover, is that a person closing a discussion should note the strength of reasons considered instead of just stating "consensus says" something. Collect (talk) 13:17, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Templates, no templates... sock puppets and meat puppets can use or not use templates like any other wikipedian, so the permittance or disallowance of usage of templates doesn't change anything. – sgeureka ^t•c 13:22, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

To expand a bit on the previous two comments, using templates will make it harder to detect sock/meat puppetry at AfD, not easier. And why should AfD be machine readable when admins are supposed to be reading all of the discussion and weighing strength of arguments and how they match policy in determining consensus? This would move us further from that, not closer.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 16:08, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it's incumbent upon the administrators to ignore spurious reasons. Not to mention the participants at AFD. If someone says something patently false, refute it. Randomran (talk) 17:03, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

For the naked eye a ((Oppose)) would look no different than Oppose. For a machine it is hard to tell if the word "oppose" was used as a comment or as a vote. In addition it is very hard to tell who casted the vote or comment as there are too many flavors of casting your vote. The template would leave an invisible and machine readable signature. I am not talking about vote counting mechanics to determine the outcome of one AFD but scanning all afds for foul play. There is a difference.

Aside from a template there also is numberlist option with one section for support votes, another for oppose votes and another for discussions and etc.

-- Cat ^chi? 22:54, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Why do you still want to have machine-readable vote templates in discussions that aren't votes? And what has this got to do with abusive sockpuppets? This looks like a solution looking for a problem. – sgeureka ^t•c 10:52, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Against templates to !vote I'm against this, and here's why: the templates can give undue strength to the users that use them, especially if they have color, checkmarks, ex-outs, etc. It can add a visual impact to the discussion that will take away from the discussion itself. And, it's not a vote.--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:38, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I started a discussion on the applicable scope of WP:Speedy keep#Applicability at WT:Speedy keep#Applicability. Flatscan (talk) 04:36, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2009 January 16

For some peculiar reason, there's a gap in the listings and two deletion requests have blended into each other. The Squicks (talk) 20:37, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Which ones do blend together? I didn't find anything unusual in my scroll-through. – sgeureka ^t•c 20:45, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

'Gruntville' and '2008-09 Israel–Gaza Foreign involvement' blend togther, despite being separate when I click at "edit this page" and look at the raw text. The Squicks (talk) 21:10, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

There was an issue with the formatting of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2008-09 Israel–Gaza Foreign involvement, which I fixed. It might take a page purge, but it should be fine now. Cheers. lifebaka++ 21:15, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. The Squicks (talk) 21:21, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

(withdrawn)

If articles were userfied instead of being deleted, contributions might just begin to rise again, and the process would be less controversial. travb (talk) 09:24, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I think it's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure it's necessary. There are plenty of admins, including me, who will upon request provide a userspace copy of a deleted article to improve or transwiki (provided that the deleted article did not contain copyvios, BLP issues, etc.). Why would userfying everything, rather than simply doing so upon a good-faith request, be an improvement? Most things deleted for notability can't pass notability, because the required amount of sourcing doesn't exist. On those things that are an exception, and sufficient sourcing is found after a deletion has occurred, we userfy upon request. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 10:47, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

As I said here, it's impractical. Not everyone wants a userspage copy of a deleted page, and really, it's only warranted for those who are going to make serious contributions to the content in the future. People already can get userfication of deleted pages with no questions asked (unless, of course there's a WP:COPYRIGHT or WP:BLP problem), so making everything userfied is a bit pointless. Also, per Seraphimblade, there are instances of content that will never be appropriate for inclusion (i.e. stuff that obviously fails WP:NOT#DIRECTORY or WP:NOT#INFO), so there's no point in putting it in someone's userspace for it to sit there forever. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 10:52, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Userfying everything except the above exceptions, rather than a request, is an improvement for several reasons:

1. Most editors don't know that userfication is even available, especially since the majority of Articles for deletion are made by new editors. I have been an editor for almost 4 years, and only a couple of months ago learned about this option.
2. As I mentioned above, many articles can pass notability, nominating deletion editors simply do not do the required investigation. Then there are articles such as upcoming movies, which are not notable now, but will be notable in the future when the movie is in production.
3. Future editors have an opportunity to see the edit history of the article, and do not have to start again from scratch.
4. Much of the animosity and hostility found in deletion arguments would be lessened.

RE: Not everyone wants a userspage copy of a deleted page

If an editor creates an article on wikipedia, why would he not want that information kept on wikipedia? Sure, there are a handful of cases when an editor would not want a userfied copy of his deleted page, but that is seldom. And even if that user does not want that page, it does not mean that the content maybe valuable to a future editor who wants to expand the article.

RE:...there are instances of content that will never be appropriate for inclusion (i.e. stuff that obviously fails WP:NOT#DIRECTORY or WP:NOT#INFO), so there's no point in putting it in someone's userspace for it to sit there forever.

The reason is editor retention, and the opportunity to expand articles which may not be notable enough now in current form, as I explained above. travb (talk) 11:35, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I have serious doubts that even a significant portion of the articles deleted for notability issues should have been kept. And it seems to me that the userfication of a good deal of that content would be in plain violation of WP:NOT. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 12:09, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Although my own research is still being collected on the subject, and all I can definitively say at this point is the majority of the Article for Deletion were created by new users, User Balloonman has done extensive studies on Speedy deletion and found that the majority of cases should not have been deleted. User:Balloonman/Why I hate Speedy Deleters. As I mention above, User:TonyTheTiger has had five formerly deleted articles promoted to Good Article status. My biggest concern, and the reason I brought this up, is the plummeting editing statics and the retention of new users. travb (talk) 12:22, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Er, the studies that I have done are studies that I would use to encourage further research, using them to reach a definitive conclusion is risky at best. On the days that I looked at the various categories (G1, A1, G3, and A7) the majority of the cases I looked at should not have been speedily deleted. They are good for showing that there is a definite problem with CSD, but I can't make any solid conclusions about the over all population of data. It wasn't scientific purely random study done. The results are further highlighted in the study that I did whose results are linked in my sig.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloonCSD Survey Results 16:25, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

The two fundamental problems with the current AfD(eletion) are:

• It's title implies a request to delete, not improve. This is contrary to WP:DELETE's statement that improvement is always preferable to deletion - where possible of course.
• It's fertile ground for wiki-lawyers, which is bad in itself, since this puts less experienced editors at a disadvantage and makes it appear that skill in wiki-lawyering and corridor politics is more important than improving articles. This leads to the troubles listed in the "Problems with current Articles for deletion policy" at the top of this thread.
• I've seen AfD(eletion) used as a weapon in vendettas.

I prefer an alternative proposal raised elsewhere by Randomran, that AfD(eletion) should be retitled "Articles for Discussion", and that the options, in descending order of preference, should be: improve; merge & redirect; userfy; delete. I suggest the priorities should be included in the template that creates these discussion pages, to remind participants is the last resort. --Philcha (talk) 12:37, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

So your proposal, effectively is Discussion and Userfication, with no place then for proposed deletions to be made, thus ensuring nothing's thrown out? STRONG OPPOSE. How about the editors who keep writing deleted junk jsut read our policies and take a writing course? anyone CAN edit, not everyone SHOULD. ThuranX (talk) 13:03, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

The list of options in my last post (12:37, 16 January 2009) was: improve; merge & redirect; userfy; delete.

Re "How about the editors who keep writing deleted junk just read our policies and take a writing course?" our policies are unreadable to newbies, because they're the product of thousands of person-hours of wiki-lawyering. Elsewhere I've advocated providing / linking to a 1-page summary of key policies in "welcome" messages and at the tops of discussion pages. --Philcha (talk) 13:23, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

There are WP:ENC and WP:SIMPLE. Cheers. lifebaka++ 15:31, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

STRONG OPPOSE the beauty of *not* automatically providing articles is that it weeds out a lot of time wasters. Anyone who feels strong will ask (and generally without problem) find an admin who will provide a copy for them to work on. AFD has problems, this isn't a fix for any of those problems. --Cameron Scott (talk) 13:27, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Wikipedia:Your first articlelooks good until you pretend to be a new user and try to use it. I guess there are about 10 faults just in the top bullet-list and the the first section, "Search for an existing article". Things that jumped off the page at me include:

• No link to "mark-up" in bullet 1.
• Links in the bullet-list go to the full versions of WP:N and WP:RS, instead of to the simpler version below.
• "Search for an existing article" links to a page about WP's search facility. WP's search facility is poor: not good at mis-pellings and typos; it recommends checking out Wikipedia:Naming conventions, which really is WP:TLDR. A link to a Google site search would be much more useful - I still find more WP articles via Google than via WP's search.

In addition I can't remember what wording of the "welcome" message that new registered users get, but if the wishy-washy vandalism warning templates are any guide. the welcome template is bland and uninformative. --Philcha (talk) 14:53, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I think there's confusion in understanding what exactly userfication stands for. The primary reason for userfying content is for such content which is unacceptable in its present nature for the article namespace, but not a blatant violation of any policy that would make it unacceptable anywhere on the project. Now this is an !vote used in AfDs in cases where there's a possibility that the creator is serious about the subject and there is scope for improvement, but hasn't exactly been able to put it forward it up to the required standards.

Now, for the newbie editors. I think it is acceptable when genuine new editors make early mistakes as long as they are willing to adapt to required standards. But the failure to this sometimes begins at the source. I wonder how many new editors consider reading Wikipedia:Your first article before creating their first article. And that's not exactly a WP:TLDR page. There are clear-cut bullet guidelines given at the start of the page. And I'd expect a person creating an article to be familiar with them. Just as I'd expect every user voluntarily participating in an AfD to be familiar with WP:GD, which describes possible alternatives to deletion including userfy, no matter the user is an inclusionist or deletionist. I don't think that is to much to ask for. And I certainly don't see creation of another set of red-tape procedures which might be seen as an obvious way out of following primary policies and guidelines a solution to this problem. ^LeaveSleaves 13:48, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

The founding principles of WP did not envision requiring new editors to read reams of electronic paper before participating. We have fairly concrete evidence now that wiki-participation is actually declining, with an actual reduction in the number of genuinely active editors and admins. I see no reason why a simpification of the process (which appears to be what is envisioned, unless I misread all the notes above) to the benefit of inexperienced editors is in any way going to make life harder here. By my count, I have now read well over a thousand pages about guidelines, rules, possible guidelines, the implementation of such guidelines and rules, Arbcom rulings concerning guidelines and rules ... and I would hope that making things simpler would actually get a huge positive response. Collect (talk) 13:55, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

A major concern here is possible ganging up on new users facing deletion of their first or early article. Now for such contribution a user is not expected and also does not need to go through huge set of guidelines. You don't need to read ArbCom rulings to understand basic expectations from an article. But if you intend to grant leniency towards not understanding fundamental policies, then that's an entirely different matter. I believe the solution to that problem won't lie in altering the deletion policy but to improve the first impression of Wikipedia. ^LeaveSleaves 14:07, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

As deletion policies have changed a great deal over time, I would suggest they are not "fundamental." Collect (talk) 14:23, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I was not referring to deletion policies when I said fundamental. I was referring to policies/guidelines that are to considered while creating an article, e.g. WP:N, WP:RS etc. ^LeaveSleaves 14:27, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Let me back up the AFDiscussion support from the other direction, from actions outside of deletion, merging being the most common. The current process for initiating merge discussion is basically to add tags to the page one is merging from and to, and create a section in one of those respective talk pages to discuss it. The merge tags get a bot to tag it to a category - which of course is not useful for tracking new updates to a list of merges. Alternatively, Wikipedia:Proposed mergers can be used, but if you look at the current state of that , there's almost no tracking of the options. Basically, unless you actively seek out outside comment (from a Wikiproject, say), the only people aware and will be involved with the merge are the editors of the affected pages. And there will be times in no matter how good faith you merit the merge, if there are editors here fanatic about the material on the page, they will resist it. Given how many AFD(eletion)s result in merges, it seems to make complete sense that merge discussions will benefit everyone when discussed at the larger scale that AFD enjoys.

The only issue that I see is that AFDs are generally targeted for an action that requires admin duties (deletion), while merging does not. In other words, if merging and other possible aspects were added to AFDisucssion, there would be no need for admin closures, though I would strongly recommend that an approved list of editors is formed to act as closures, which should include some admins, so that if a non-admin approved closer decides "delete", these admins can perform those actions. I'd recommend a process like Wikipedia:Bot Approvals Group for this. --MASEM 14:37, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

And also to iterate one more point; in the AFDiscussion manta, bringing an article to AFD means that the article has some type of problem that you, the nominator, believe should be removed (whether merged or deleted) unless specific problems can be fixed. Thus, the AFD approach should be strongly advised only to be taken after attempting to resolve the issues with the editors of the page. The merge tags above, for example, should still be used and attempted to be done before going to AFD. Using the various notability tags to give editors time to correct articles before send to AFD for deletion, and the like. I don't think we can ever make those required, but those that refuse to work with the page editors first before initiating AFDs ultimately need to learn that missing this optional step is not recommended. --MASEM 14:47, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Strong Oppose: more process wonkery is something we most definitely do not need. – ukexpat (talk) 15:29, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Re "more process wonkery is something we most definitely do not need" (ukexpat, 15:29, 16 January 2009), I submit that the current AfD(eletion) process is itself "process wonkery" since it relies on participants' skill in interpreting WP policies to suit their cause, a game in which the would-be deleters are usually more experienced. They regularly use their legalistic skills to interpret WP:N, WP:V & WP:RS in ways that lead to violation of WP:DELETE's "improvement is preferable to deletion". --Philcha (talk) 15:50, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, is this a place to discuss improvement in the current process or to vent anger at deletionists? ^LeaveSleaves 15:55, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

None of "my" articles has been deleted, so I have no personal anger towards deletionists. However I've seen AfD used as harassment, and the top box in this discussion provides independent WP:RS statements that deletionism is harming Wikipedia. --Philcha (talk) 16:17, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I think these opinions may not be reflective of wikipedia as a whole, I have seen that those who enforce a particular policy, congegate on certain policy pages. I maybe wrong though.travb (talk) 15:36, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

As mentioned before, changing the name to "Articles for discussion" has been suggested before, I think I would support such option, what is the next step? travb (talk) 15:39, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd actually support the use of the more netural "articles for discussion". --Cameron Scott (talk) 15:44, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

SUPPORT. As someone wrote, Most editors don't know that userfication is available. I certainly didn't. A NEW IDEA: If there was a tag we could put on a page, like Userfy instead of Delete that would be useful, and ONLY those articles with that tag would be saved. Of course, people would have to know about this new tag, so a write-up of it should go on the Wikipedia:About#Contributing_to_Wikipedia page... MithrasPriest (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 15:45, 16 January 2009 (UTC).

• Oppose as well. Pointless process creep. Editors can request userfication of any deleted article from any admin if they can demonstrate that improvement is possible. Why introduce a bulky new process to replace a simple one? Resolute 15:49, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

How many inexperienced editors know that userfication is possible? How many know how to find an admin from whom to request userfication of a deleted article? How are they supposed to demonstrate that improvement is possible when the article's gone and they can't refer to it? The whole business is full of Catch-22s. --Philcha (talk) 15:53, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Not really. That becomes a simple case of including these options somewhere where an editor will find it easier. Perhaps even in the AfD notice itself. There is no need whatsoever to create a bloated process to compensate for a brief bit of information that needs to be better displayed. Resolute 16:13, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

• Support with qualifications It would not be "process creep" to have a template informing users that the article up for deletion can be userfied, in fact it could be done with a trivial modification of the current template, thus incurring not one whit more work, and benefiting inexperienced editors to boot. It might be worthwhile to have the nominating admin be the default admin to ask about userfying, as that could also be placed in the template. It also would not be "process creep" to place the onus on the ones who wish to delete, instead of initially suggesting actions short of deletion. And it would scarcely be much process creep to have those proposing deletion make a good faith effort to notify the editors who had worked on an article that it is nominated for deletion. Lastly, renaming "XfD" as X for Discussion" would make it clear that "Deletion" ought not be the default for material where other solutions exist. Collect (talk) 16:01, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose Ridiculous proposal. Articles that will never meet our guidelines and policies should be deleted, and trying to add some restrictions that would make that nearly impossible to achieve are unnecessary and damaging. Our userspace is rife with examples of bad articles that are simply lingering ... I'd be more inclined to put a 90-day limit on userfication than try to make it the norm.—Kww(talk) 16:05, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

When did you last vote for deletion of an artcile, and when did you last improve an article that appeared at AfD? --Philcha (talk) 16:20, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose as not necessary. Far better would be an essay encouraging AFDers and PRODders to either improve the article outright or work with recent editors to address the issues leading to deletion. Sometimes, there is no solution other than deletion, such as "Jim Jones is a manager at Wal-Mart store #2 in Little Rock, Arkansas. He graduated from Central High School..." but sometimes things can and should be fixed. This doesn't require a change in policy. Instead, it's best addressed by editors leading by example and using an essay that encourages this behavior as a reference point. Later, the essay can be promoted to a guideline. On a side-note, I've non-administratively userfied more than one expired or about-to-expire PROD. Sometimes these get improved, sometimes they languish forever in user-space. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 16:25, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Far better would be an essay.. to misquote Hugo Dyson - "oh no; another fucking essay". --Cameron Scott (talk) 16:30, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Have nothing particularly against this proposal, though I don't quite see the potential benefit. The direction to go in has to be better communication, I think. Firstly to make sure new editors get the key information they need, in language they understand, so they don't waste time working on something in good faith that is just going to get thrown out. And if an article has been created in good faith, then instead of just going straight to AfD or via prod, other editors should be encouraged to discuss its tenability with the article creator, and raise other possible solutions than deletion (remembering that the creator, if a new editor, might not be aware of the other solutions until they are pointed out). I'm not saying we should go through such hoops for all the thousands of obviously trashy articles that pop up every day, but the more marginal deletes deserve proper discussion, with experienced editors using their experience to help find the right answer and not just to beat the other party over the head. In fact the whole !voting procedure is often counter-productive - we should be trying to work things out and reaching conclusions after civil discussion, not making up our minds with the very first word we write. I propose no more delete and keep at the beginning of comments - they breed entirely the wrong mentality.--Kotniski (talk) 16:31, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Kotniski, it looks like you should be contributing in the 2nd half of this discussion too. --Philcha (talk) 18:23, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

• (ec x 2)*Oppose. I definitely sympathize with the sentiment, but my personal experience says it won't work. When I close an AfD where there's even a remote chance that the article can be brought up to snuff with more work, I specifically put an offer to userfy in the closing statement. Gut feeling is that offer is only taken up about 25% of the time. Of those, I can remember only a handful where any work was done afterwards, and only a single article where the issues at AfD wound up being addressed and the article was saved. --Fabrictramp | talk to me 16:33, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment There is a technical problem with userfying articles that have many editors or no primary editor. Namely, where to userfy it to? "User" space is typically viewed as "owned" by the user whose name it is under. They can request deletion or page protection inside their "own" space, for example. This will have to be modified if we start userfying articles with no primary editor. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 17:31, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose I already userify articles by new editors that show good faith but are clearly speedy-eligible. I think that would be a good thing to recommend to other admins, and I think userification might be a reasonable outcome for deletion discussions, but I don't like this process creep as written. Jclemens (talk) 18:52, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose - Just because an article isn't blatantly illegal doesn't mean its ever going to be inclusion-worthy. Evidence I've collected suggests that userfication is ineffective. Based on an analysis of the last 75,000 move log entries, 358 appeared to be userfications and only 51 were moved back to mainspace and several of those were re-deleted. Most are almost never edited after being userfied and some are deleted in userspace. The results are at User:Mr.Z-man/userfy. Mr.Z-man 22:57, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. AfD fills a highly important purpose; removing it for a userfication/ discussion page would gut Wikipedia's immune system, which keeps toxins from building in the blood to the point where they poison the body. I argued more about this above. ThuranX (talk) 00:46, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose for one thing, I think the additional fragmentation of process will just add to confusion. But more specifically, of the articles deleted t AfD, a considerable number of them are essentially promotional, either of oneself or one's organization , book, or whatever. It is all of WP , not just mainspace, that should be kept free of promotion--I think this a much greater danger to the encyclopedia than wt we do about articles of borderline notability. Anything reasonable to userify can be requested for this, and a reasonable request is generally granted. We need more effort in trying to rescue articles, but we should go about it more directly. DGG (talk) 01:54, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
• Withdrawn travb (talk) 14:06, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the above, it's difficult to tell who is supporting or against the "Articles for Userfication" suggestion, and the "Articles for Discussion" suggestion (Which are two different things). I'm making a separate section to discussion "Articles for discussion", which would including bringing articles that may need massive cleanup, that may need to be userified, that are to be merged or possibly transwikid, and other actions including deletion, since all of these are potential outcomes of AFD already.

Basically, to summarize, we simply rename AFDeletion as AFDiscussion, and allow these additional cases to be included (it needs to be presumed that the nominator has tried to work with the page editors for correct these first, as per WP:BEFORE). Closures here do not necessary require admin action, but I do recommend an approval panel of both admin and non-admins as the only ones that can close such discussions, with the non-admins requesting admin help for any deletion results that are needed. The general process otherwise doesn't change, only naming, templates, and various instructions around the p/g pages. This makes the case for newer editors feel less like a do-or-die aspect, and also helps to overcome trying to achieve cleanup or merges of certain articles when stymied by the editors of it that feel they have a passion for it. --MASEM 16:35, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not exactly in favor of this change. While it is necessary that the author and participants of the discussion should be aware of the possible alternatives to deletion, bringing in articles for miscellaneous issues would simply overburden this section. When an article is nominated for deletion, that clearly indicates that there are, according to the nominator, no alternative left. Now it is the part of the creator to convince and community to assess the credibility of this nomination. Converting "Deletion" to "Discussion" would simply mellow the appearance of this place, that's all. In fact, I've seen cases where such a desperate situation has actually helped improve an article stagnating for a long time. The extremity of the title is justified and serves the purpose of informing the participants the measures that need to be taken to keep the article. ^LeaveSleaves 16:45, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Let's take, for example, a theoretical AFD discussion that's been open for 10 days (relisted once). Some are saying "keep", some are saying "merge", some are saying "redirect" but nobody but the nominator is saying "delete". Right now that can be closed "keep". ("redirect" and "merge" outcomes are "keep" variants) Under an "articles for discussion" scheme, you would have to relist a second time, and then perhaps a third time. When a call is eventually made, one of the "losing sides" might take it to "deletion review" er make that "discussion review" and we go through this mess all over again. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 17:16, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it's time to get away from the AfDeletion order of keep:=(keep -> merge -> redirect) -> delete. Some editors (I am one of them) just care about the suitability of a topic as its own article, i.e. keep -> don't-keep:=(merge -> redirect -> deletion). If there is no consensus between the four options, but there is a significant consensus that the topic shouldn't have its own article, then the AfDiscussion should be closed with a merger as the least drastic result. – sgeureka ^t•c 18:00, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, the title can be one thing, but as long as the AFD process (whatever D stands for) is understood to be a final binding decision for the article, it will prompt editors to participate on correcting and defending it. --MASEM 17:00, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I think I understand ^LeaveSleaves's reservation about "bringing in articles for miscellaneous issues". Perhaps we should do a more radical retitle, e.g. "Unacceptable Articles Forum"? Hopefully that would indicate that articles that don't shape up are likely to be shipped out, without implying that the primary aim is deletion - which it should not be, per WP:DELETE. I also think "Forum" is accurate because it's a free fight, anyone can join in. Nominations that fail to show prima facie non-notability can be met with WP:DE warnings. --Philcha (talk) 17:01, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) (to Masem) So you are implying that editors do not defend strongly enough at present, or am I reading something wrong here? ^LeaveSleaves 17:06, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, let's take the current situation. I want to merge an article I feel is better covered elsewhere (AGF). The method to propose this merge pretty much restricts the discussion to the article of interest and the merge target, assuming I do nothing else. Those editors of the article I want to merge, given that there's no binding decision on the merge discussion, may not participate strongly in it, or just say "no, don't merge, we'll make it better", and the merge dies, and yet the article never gets improved. Thus, there's no incentive to have them improve the article. If this was a process like AFD that had some type of binding resolution, there would be a bit more effort, I think, from those wishing to keep to either defend it better and/or improve it. That said, I don't want AFD to become the first place that if you want to force someone to improve an article to use (it's not going to be "AFImprovement", though certainly that's a worth-while project that could be made as long as the end goal is to encourage improvement but in no way involves binding decisions at the end of the day) If AFD is expanded to AFDiscussion, we may have speedy closures if there's no obvious effort to try to get improvement first; eg if I take the above article to AFD to have merged but have not suggested this on the article's talk page, it should be closed speedily. It's the balance between encouraging improvement to articles while dealing with stagnant articles and those that have dedeciated editors that fight against general WP improvement policies. --MASEM 18:35, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) (to Philcha) Basically, though, I think the overall effect would be to try and harvest the sheer number of editors who follow AFDs and get them to look at situations that belong at WP:EAR or WP:3O, with the possible outcome of the article being listed for deletion. While another way of looking at it is a peer review process for notability-challenged or quality-challenged articles, I don't think the change would take, and it'd just end up being AfD in all but name. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 17:08, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Re "AfD in all but name":

• In terms of how it operates, it will be different if the rules make it plain what the objectives are, and that deletion is a list resort, per WP:DELETE.
• OTOH I would agree that many articles will still be deleted, because many really are indefensible (a few months ago I tried scannig through each day's AfDs, and it was depressing).
• The point of the proposed changes is to make sure that alternatives to deletion are given a serious try in each case, so that the process ceases to be Death in the Afternoon. --Philcha (talk) 17:15, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

So the whole point, as I see it, is to highlight alternative solutions to deletion. I guess a way to do this could be in modifying AfD notification sent to the creator, highlighting how s/he can rescue the article in different ways. As for the volunteers, as I said above, they are expected to be familiar with WP:GD. At least those who frequent in AfD debates. ^LeaveSleaves 17:25, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Strong supportAfDiscussion would certainly help to determine a binding decision for subarticles. Subarticles have a parent article by definition, but with the current AfDeletion process, subarticles that fail deletion-worthy inclusion policies and guidelines (e.g. WP:N and WP:NOT) can technically not be brought to AfD without abusing the process because there is a parent article where they could theoretically be merged or redirected. But the merge discussions can be(come) a problem when they are dominated by editors with unencyclopedic interests. Still, I agree that even AfDiscussion should only be used as a last resort to get some more objective eyes on a matter (you can't always start an RfC for each merger, and Wikipedia:Proposed mergers is a waste land). – sgeureka ^t•c 17:38, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment There is a technical problem with userfying articles that have many editors or no primary editor. Namely, where to userfy it to? "User" space is typically viewed as "owned" by the user whose name it is under. They can request deletion or page protection inside their "own" space, for example. This will have to be modified if we start userfying articles with no primary editor. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 17:31, 16 January 2009 (UTC) moved to above per Philcha and me being in a hurry earlier davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 17:56, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

davidwr, I think your post belongs in the top half of this discussion which fosusses on userfying. This part is about making sure AfD or whaterver it is renamed to complies with WP:DELETE. --Philcha (talk) 17:34, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

^LeaveSleaves, I think something stronger than a notification to the article's creator is required, since the creators are seldom experienced wiki-lawyers. I'm suggesting it should be made crystal clear at the start of each and every "AfD" discussion that voting for deletion before reasonable attempts at improvement have been made is totally out of order. I don't remember any AfD disussion I've seen going that way. In other words, if the participants are familiar with WP:GD and its governing policy at WP:DELETE, they habitually violate it. --Philcha (talk) 17:40, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll drink to that; it is exceedingly rare that the article creator provides a cogent reason to keep. It's even unusual for the creator to get involved in many cases; either because they're inactive, don't know they're permitted to comment, or because they simply don't understand the process. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 18:06, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

In a related discussion Colonel Warden drew attention to WP:BEFORE. So we have WP:DELETE, WP:GD and WP:BEFORE. How come the place is crawling with deletionists? --Philcha (talk) 18:46, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't see the need to start bringing out the divisive terms. If we're going to get anything done, it's not going to be by telling people who identify with group x to fuck off and leave things to group y. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 18:52, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Support: There are several reasons this is a good idea:

• It would emphasize other outcomes such as merging, redirecting, and userfying
• It would reflect the common practice of closing AFDs with outcomes such as merging or redirecting. Practice is our main source of WP:POLICY (see our policy on policy)
• It's less WP:BITEY to newbies, while still accomplishing roughly the same thing. A lot of newbies react negatively to the vibe of saying "for deletion", which suggests a foregone conclusion that kills their article entirely. Discussion can achieve other compromises.
• It has the support of more inclusionist critics of the AFD process. If we can reach out to them and still keep the basic process in tact, why shouldn't we?
• It would be consistent with WP:Categories for discussion and WP:Redirects for discussion

We should go ahead and do it. I see no evidence that this would lead to an unmanageable level of articles at AFD. Randomran (talk) 19:04, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

So are you suggesting a mere name change and highlighting of alternative results without changing the existing deletion policy or AfD priniciples? Because the premise for this section was rather different. ^LeaveSleaves 19:10, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I think User:Masem made a big mistake grouping it in with User:Inclusionist's proposal. If you take a close look, User:Masem is basically suggesting a change that is meant to emphasize other outcomes, rather than tie up the existing process. Randomran (talk) 19:16, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Yea, sorry, I know the idea was based on what Inclusionist included on the WT:FICT page, and thought it bore out the same, but the "AFUserification" was not what I meant to be including. This is an entirely separate approach from that. --MASEM 19:32, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

It's cool, I figured as much from what you actually wrote. I split the discussion, to clarify the distinction. Randomran (talk) 19:37, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

• STRONG SUPPORT I support this name change proposal travb (talk) 19:27, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support - wonderful idea, and something that for a long time, I've felt should have been in place already. This should be a natural extension of when an article's talk page yields no results, especially in the case of RfC's and 3O's that did not reach consensus. The small number of people debating an article would be increased to include anyone in the community who notices and wants to jump in the discussion to reach a rough consensus. A nominator could have any motivation for bringing it there, from considering deletion, to being a neutral party trying to resolve a dispute, to someone who worked on the article and just wants honest opinions. This process would be used to determine what sort of cleanup needs to take place to improve the article, and could be reasonably expected to happen, and failing that it would move on to discussion about merge, redirect, or even deletion. Yes, if you nominate an article for discussion saying "I want to fix this one, but I just don't know what to do; I can't find sources for notability, and I have no idea where to start cleanup" and all you get in reply is several responses saying "nothing you can do - delete" then that's the result borne out by consensus. The current AfD process could stay in place, but it should be reserved for less controversial deletion discussions such as potential copyvios, irredeemable original research, possible hoaxes, and Articles for Discussion subjects on which no positive results were yielded after discussion was attempted; cases where speedy deletion is inappropriate, or proposed deletion was contested, and when it's a case of questioned notability or article quality, that discussion has at least been attempted on the talk page or some other venue before the AfD is filed. BOZ (talk) 19:36, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Also, this would be an attempt to move past the "no consensus" results from the current AfD process - some result would come of it, even if that result is "cleanup original research" and/or "trim in-universe plot summary", and if these things are not fixed in a resonable amount of time, that would reflect on a subsequent Articles for Discussion... BOZ (talk) 19:39, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

• Support with proviso that all XfD pages get the same renaming. And that wherever practicable, active editors on the page being discussed be notified of the discussion. Collect (talk) 19:38, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
• Comment It's not clear to me how this would interact with and impact other forums for dispute resolution such as Request for Comment. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:54, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
  • This would only apply to when an entire article is considered at issue - not a specific point of contention that RFC is usually reserved for. --MASEM 19:56, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
  • The length of AfDiscussion would likely stay at five days. In contrast, dispute Resolution and Request Comment can take up many months, and sometimes it just takes that long to find a compromise. – sgeureka ^t•c 20:27, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
• Okay, if we also extend the length of time. It takes more than five days to allow for a reasonable merge discussion to take place. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 20:28, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Not really. Sometimes, the lack of notability is evident to beg for a speedy-merger, and sometimes articles have been orange-tagged for months. On the other hand (as I've had to learn the hard way myself), shoot-and-demand-a-merger/deletion rarely works in AfDeletions if some claims of notability can be found or if the articles haven't been properly warned with cleanup templates before. AfDiscussion would be the same and also have a no consensus for such cases. – sgeureka ^t•c 20:41, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
  • I don't object to extending the time for AFDs. But keep in mind that the merge discussion would probably have to continue after the AFD closes. The administrator never actually completes the merge, but expects the community to use the WP:BRD cycle to work out the logistics. What we get at an AFD isn't a merge discussion, but a decision in principle to merge once we work out the details. Randomran (talk) 20:44, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support, although I think that there are a few things that need to be addressed. Articles with just cleanup issues such as needing a copyedit, footnotes rather than just a list of refs, or wikifying, shouldn't be discussed like this. Secondly, the terms of WP:BEFORE would need to be used fully; there have been times when a person has voted delete due to non-notability without searching for references. Instead, in this sort of format, someone can mention the need for reliable sources, without saying that the article should be deleted due to it.

Additionally, I think that Articles for Discussion shouldn't be entirely binding... certainly it should if there is a strong consensus to merge/delete/etc. (although such decisions should be typically be undone, restoring deleted articles, etc., if the material will shortly be fixed), but for things such as a need for cleanup, the problem(s) found in the discussion shouldn't need to be dealt with immediately to avoid the article's deletion. Maybe a single cleanup template, similar to ((articleissues)), which lists all of the unresolved problems brought up in the AFD. That way, they would be given more weight to be dealt with promptly be various users and WikiProject.

I would also support "userfication" as an excellent alternative to merging/deleting. For articles that don't have a particular major editor, maybe they could instead be moved into a subpages of a WikiProject for more work?

Finally, this would be an excellent way to handle merge discussions. Category:Articles to be merged has a massive backlog, which is only getting bigger. Bringing merge discussions here, rather than tagging them and letting them go without much of any comment for months on the talk page, would be much more productive. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:16, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

• Support - I especially like the idea to have a *Auto-Userfy* flag, so only articles with that flag would be moved to user space, in the event it is deemed to be deleted. I didn't know there was user space until some nice admin took a lengthy article I had written but was then deleted, and moved it to my user space and notified me of that. Geĸrίtzl (talk)

• Better proposal Put these non-deletion discussions on the article talk page or a sub-page of it and list or transclude them in a centralized location. Call it "Articles being discussed" or something so as not to confuse it with AFD. If the discussion reaches clear consensus, including a consensus to do nothing, let anyone close the discussion. If it's near-consensus after a week or so and discussion has died down, then any admin can declare it closed and implement the change. If it's no consensus after a week or so and discussion has died down, he can close it as no consensus for change. SNOW and speedy-no-change rules would be similar to AFD, to prevent abuse of the system. Oldabdfull templates would need to be made. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 22:36, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

If these discussions are trancluded to a single central list, your proposal looks functionally much the same as AfD evne if the techical details under the covers are different. The real key point is making it absolutely clear in every single case that deletion is the last resort after all other approaches have been conscientiously explored.

What do you mean by "Oldabdfull templates "? --Philcha (talk) 22:54, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

If a new type of discussion such as Articles Being Discussed gets started, a template similar to ((oldafdfull)) will be needed. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 00:17, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 1

• (ec) RfC Should I start an official request for comment on this? So far it appears (with a cursory glance) that everyone supports this idea. Someone give me the word and I will start a RfC. travb (talk) 00:19, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that everyone supports it, but the support/oppose tally is virtually flip-flopped from the previous proposal. I think an RfC might be a good idea, to see what the larger community thinks. We should have someone draft up a proposal (Masem suggested it), using the best ideas that have been suggested in this section, and then we'll have a look at the greater response. BOZ (talk) 00:52, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, please. This proposal is a significant change, if not in policy, then in how things are actually done. So it needs wider discussion and, hopefully, support. Do you intend to put up a draft anywhere for comment? --Philcha (talk) 09:02, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

(To BOZ above) I'd be happy to write up a proposal but there are two details I want to make sure are clear and acceptable to send this to RFC:

1. A panel of trusted editors for AFD closures need to be made. Such editors need not be admins but we need a handful on it to take care of necessary admin actions (deletion, deletion for merging, etc.). Editors for this should be selected in a process like the WP:BAG uses - not as laborious as a request for adminship, but more than just signing your name on a list. This is a semi-significant change and some metrics on being on this panel needs to be made
2. There needs to be some adherence to WP:BEFORE suggestions - one cannot take an article up to the new AFDiscussion if there is no attempt at recent (last 2-3 months) discussion to resolve issues, and if this is done, the above panel has the right to speedy close with "no action". For deletion, we still need to be able to accept the result of a fail CSD/PROD, but for any other anticipated action, it should be clear from looking at the article and talk page that something was tried and was contested (with strong recommendation that the nominator link to the attempted discussion) So if you AFDiscussion an article for merge but there's no merge tag, or a merge tag but no associated discussion section, that's a speedy close as "no action". There's probably some amount of guidance that needs to be given here for special cases, but to prevent an editor from spamming AFD with articles they just don't like, this is a necessary step.

I don't think either of these are showstoppers but before I'm comfortable writing something I want to make sure these aren't out of line. --MASEM 01:28, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

On the first point, I'd say that there shouldn't need to be a process to determine who can close discussions... after the alloted time, anyone who hasn't been a participant in the discussion can close it. If the result is contested, another impartial reviwer can take a look. If administrative attention is needed to properly close the discussion, maybe the AFD could be flagged for attention. As to the second point, I think that there does need to be some mechanism in place to stop massive spamming, but I think that all merge discussions should probably go to AFD, since they typically get left behind without comments from anyone other than the nominator, in my experience. Honestly, though, I don't think that there should be too many nominations that don't have a valid reason (that is, something other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT). -Drilnoth (talk) 02:24, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Masem, I think your point #2 fits in just about perfectly with what I said above, as well as things I was thinking but left unsaid. I would say the nominator should provide at least one diff or link to show that discussion was attempted, assuming said discussion would not be patently obvious from a cursory examination of the article and/or its talk page. So yeah, no problem from me on that one. :) (This, Drilnoth, should prevent spamming AFD discussions, since a minimum amount of effort and research is required.) Point #1 sounds fine to me, but I have no strong feelings about that subject. Although, I would allow non-admin closes in non-deletion SNOW cases (as is allowed on AFD now), and withdraw could possibly be an acceptable result in certain cases. BOZ (talk) 03:24, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I support the requirement for the nom to provide evidence of a conscientious attempt to improve the article.

The RfC text should perhaps point out that the objective is not to prevent deletion of genuinely bad articles but to prevent deletion on auto-pilot from removing significant numbers of potentially decent ones. --Philcha (talk) 09:06, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I am still concerned is towards increase in pressure on existing AfD process, or as Drilnoth puts it towards massive spamming of articles here. There are already cases where editors who have genuinely worked on merger of articles choose AfD as last resort. But creation this process may lead to any editor who disagrees with existing consensus may go ahead and file the nom. Now I know it is said above that particularly bad faith nomination would be speedy closed, I doubt that the editor would so accepting of such situation. The bottom line is, the renewed process should not in any way overlap with existing dispute resolution processes viz. RfC, 3O etc. ^LeaveSleaves 05:01, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this is an attempt to usurp the functions of RfC, 3O, etc. Don't know about 3O but generally RfC takes a lot longer than AfD. In really disputatious cases the amended approach to deletion would give more time for RfC, etc. --Philcha (talk) 09:13, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not calling this an attempt of usurpation. I am just worried that people might choose this as a quicker fix in cases of genuine dispute resolution. ^LeaveSleaves 10:42, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how people might choose this as a quicker fix in cases of genuine dispute resolution. It makes AfD less available as a way of pursuing personal or content disputes. --Philcha (talk) 11:27, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Am I understanding this right: the new AfD would effectively be a kind of noticeboard for ongoing discussions about articles with serious problems, right? There's no reason for such discussions to take place anywhere other than on the article talk page. In fact, I don't understand why deletion discussions don't take place on the article talk page at the moment. We don't really need AfD at all; we just need to make sure that all major proposals concerning articles (like deleting them) are publicized to the appropriate audiences. If a course of action that requires admin assistance is believed by someone to have achieved consensus in a talk-page discussion, then an admin can be asked to carry out the action (e.g. with a template along the lines of ((editprotected))). The admin would then examine whether consensus is really as it is asserted to be, and whether the discussion has been properly advertised, and engage in dialogue with those involved if there is any doubt.--Kotniski (talk) 10:53, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

No, essentially it's an attempt to make the AfD process, by whatever name), comply with WP:DELETE: deletion is a last resort, after conscientious attempt to improve the article (especially its notability) have failed. Deletion should not even be discussed, let alone voted for, until other avenues have been exhausted. --Philcha (talk) 11:27, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I certainly support that objective, but do you agree that these discussions would best take place on article talk pages?--Kotniski (talk) 11:55, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

There's suggestion provided by Davidwr which I thought was pretty good. It somewhat supports the existing system and keeps the discussion within the article talk namespace. But I guess there's possibility that this may go down, if editors do not show sufficient interest in participating in the new system. But I guess that's the part of taking a new initiative. ^LeaveSleaves 12:18, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for pointing out David's suggestion, that's pretty much what I had in mind. We could dispense with the central AfD location altogether in fact, just have a tag called something like ((major discussion ongoing)), let a bot date the tags to create categories enabling people to find these discussions by date, then if at any point someone wants to bring an admin in to judge consensus or enact a decision, they change the template to something like ((admin action required)) (which would work a bit like ((editprotected)) to attract admins' attention). There wouldn't have to be any deadline, and many discussions would hopefully end with agreement among the participants without any admin action being required, in which case the template would be removed.--Kotniski (talk) 12:33, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem with eliminating a central location is that article Talk pages will generally be dominated by fans of the subject:

• They will scream blue murder at deletion and even merge proposals.
• In some cases they will be inexperienced editors who are unaware of what is needed or how to achieve it. --Philcha (talk) 12:43, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't see that these things will happen any more than they do now. In fact I don't mean there should be no central location - there still would be one, at least in the form of the category pages (and bots could be written to provide more customized lists) - I just mean we don't need to give editors the extra red tape of having to write up proposals manually at an additional location.--Kotniski (talk) 14:15, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, there's slight problem in the system, which somewhat you pointed out yourself: many discussions would hopefully end with agreement among the participants. But what if they don't? There's a need of rough timeline to be applied every discussion. I believe one of the strong points of current AfD system is the suggested five-days limit. That limit encourages the participants to move on from the discussion and devote their time elsewhere. In absence of such limit, there is possibility that a discussion may go on forever, the ball being tossed from one court to other, with no solution in sight. ^LeaveSleaves 12:46, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi, ^LeaveSleaves, sorry about the edit conflict - but it's not often I win one :-)

The problem with current AfD is that an experienced editor can sometimes find the necessary sources in a few minutes, but the artciles nominated are mostly by inexperienced editors who haven't learned what's required or the techniques to meet the requirments - and the inexperienced editors are left to deal with the 5-day deadline. The point of the proposed change is to make experienced editors help instead of just pushing for deletion. --Philcha (talk) 12:53, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not saying we put in a five days limit, but just some limit. May be five days, ten days or even fifteen, if that's what we agree is a healthy period for sufficient involvement and research. And I know we don't have a deadline here, but I feel there's a need to stop at a certain point and evaluate all the comments made so far in order to judge possible outcome. Otherwise people will keep hammering on the same points leading us nowhere. ^LeaveSleaves 13:12, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that discussions need to be brought to a tidy close at a certain point. But it's for those taking part (or at least one such person) to assess when a given discussion has reached such a stage and call on an admin to do the necessary - I don't see a need for a strait-jacket in the form of a pre-defined limit, any more than we have set time limits for any other discussions (such as this one).--Kotniski (talk) 14:03, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

While the talk page of the affected article or even subpages (along with transculation to deletion lists) seems right, the quick answer of why this isn't done is that if the articles ends up deleted as a result of the AFD, the discussion that led to it goes away. Keeping the discussion in WP project space allows for automatically logging of such conversations for future review (which, for example, has been very helpful to have at hand for the WP:FICT rewrite). Since this new AFDiscussion process could result in an article going all the way to deletion even if it came in due to, say, cleanup issues (a very rare, but necessary case, I hope), we'd still want that recorded for review. --MASEM 13:56, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Good point, but the talk page could be renamed before deletion, so it's not a real problem. More valuable is to keep all past discussion about a given article on that article's talk page (or its archives), so that people can easily find it, particularly since we seem to agree that there should be no cut-and-dried boundary between "deletion discussions" and discussions on other measures to address major problems with an article (and major problems and minor problems form acontinuum anyway).--Kotniski (talk) 14:03, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Break 2

I don't know about that. Despite the intention to include non-deletion discussions, the majority discussions in this system would be related to deletion. And even if we consider 25% of the articles entered being deleted, that's nearly 20-25 articles per day. Moving the finished discussion for such articles could be a cumbersome task and probably won't be well received. ^LeaveSleaves 14:20, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Is it really that cumbersome? Maybe it's not even necessary - you can delete a page without deleting the associated talk page, can't you? --Kotniski (talk) 14:29, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

RE:"A panel of trusted editors for AFD closures need to be made. Such editors need not be admins but we need a handful on it to take care of necessary admin actions (deletion, deletion for merging, etc.). Editors for this should be selected in a process like the WP:BAG uses - not as laborious as a request for adminship, but more than just signing your name on a list. This is a semi-significant change and some metrics on being on this panel needs to be made"
At first glance, this seems like more bureaucracy (even though I support it), and I think many wikipedians will see it this way, I think this should be dropped for now, and instead #2 WP:BEFORE and the name change should be proposed only. travb (talk) 14:23, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

• Hold on please Masem, I strongly support ALL of your ideas, but if we want unanimous or near unanimous support from the diverse wikipedia community, why not just only propose a name change for now?
  Articles for deletion >> Articles for Discussion.
  This alone may change the dynamics of the Articles for Deletion process.
  Once this change is made, we can immediately address the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion#Before nominating an article for deletion issues. At the very least, in the Wikipedia:Request for Comment, we can ask editors to vote/comment on each proposal separately.

1. First AfD (proposed this weekend): Change the title from Articles for Deletion to Articles for Discussion.
2. Second AfD (one month after first AfD): Editors should adhere to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion#Before nominating an article for deletion suggestions - an editor should not take an article up to the new AFDiscussion if there is no recent good faith discussion to resolve the article's issues first. If no attempt was made to resolve the issues, the administrator can speedy close with "no action" or "please resolve issues first". Example: If an editor posts an article on Article for Discussion, asking for a merge, but there's no merge tag, or a merge tag but no associated discussion on the talk page, the administrator can then speedy close the AFDiscussion as "no action" or "please resolve issues first". travb (talk) 14:12, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

There a slight divergences even among people who basically agree. I've been banging the drum for making clear in every Af(whatever) that deletion is the last resort. However we all agree that the current system is harmful. --Philcha (talk) 14:29, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

RE: There's no reason for such discussions to take place anywhere other than on the article talk page. In fact, I don't understand why deletion discussions don't take place on the article talk page at the moment.

The way I see it, a lot of discussions about cleanup or merging that are put on the article talk page don't really get anywhere... they aren't seen except by the few people watching them, and then a consensus almost never becomes clear. Even if we categorized such discussions so that there was a list, I doubt that there would be much input from outside parties. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:49, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Harmful? Are you ignoring the cases when the AfD has resulted in desired outcomes? Has the current system really deteriorated to the extent of creating primarily foul results? And Inclusionist, please note that an editor would rarely file an AfD just to get a merge or redirect result. An AfD filed directly refers to deletion of article. And speedy closing AfDs on issues that are previously not discussed can't be seen as a good practice. There are cases when there is obviously nothing to discuss and they are obvious failures in terms of notability. Why should an editor consider discussing these issues with possibly no or unsatisfying response for over 2-3 months? ^LeaveSleaves 14:52, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Question on the requirement for 2-3 month discussion. I run across a lot of albums that are little more than a track listing. Let's say I do a good faith search for individual notablity, and find none. WP:MUSIC says this should be merged into the artist article (or discography article). I drop a merge and notability tag onto the article, and the article creator removes them. I drop a nice note explaining the issue and replace the tags. The next tag the creator removes them again. Should this dance really go on for 2-3 months, especially when the article creator almost never communicates in any way except to revert back without comment?--Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:16, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

LeaveSleaves and Fabrictramp, the 2 to 3 months was taken from Masem's suggestion. I think there maybe a misunderstanding what Masem is saying: he is saying that there should be some recent effort to clean up the article (within the last 2 to 3 months before), if I read it right, he is not saying that editors should wait for 2 to 3 months to get an article deleted. I will refactor this so it is clearer. My apologies for not being clearer.

Thanks for clearing that up. Makes much more sense to me now.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 18:46, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Please lets keep in mind, no one is recommending abolishing AfDs in these proposals. AfDs serve an important and vital function. Although I support Kotniski views in part, Kotniski views are in the definite minority here, and should be given proportional treatment. Please lets discuss what we can agree upon, not what we disagree upon.

Does anyone oppose changing the name to Articles for discussion?

How do you all feel about calling an RfC on the name change this weekend? travb (talk) 15:18, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

• Inclusist, I think there's more than just a name change to make sure people understand the goals of this process is (e.g. its not that simple). I do agree that there's no need for a panel, only a template to help closures that need admin action. But I do think we want to be sure this is the right solution for the issues at hand, which come from both directsion - too often AFDeletion is focused on delete rather than trying to find some method of keeping material, but at the same time, encouraging AFDiscussions will bring in more cases (potentially gaming the system) of material some editors just don't think belong. Sure, assuming good faith and all, the system sounds great, but I'm trying to work out in my mind any gotchas, and the only thing that stands out is the allowance for speedy closes as "no action" when the nominitor has not made any good faith efforts to resolve the issue themselves or are trying to break a strong local consensus. As someone pointed out before, AFD has a specific place on the dispute resolution process, I don't want to change that, and to avoid making AFDiscussions the first place to go to "fix" a page you don't like. None of this seems to have many heavy rules, thus doing little to change the actual AFD process itself, I just want to be sure this really is a benefit. --MASEM 15:16, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Again, I agree wholeheartedly with your suggestions. A couple of days ago I disagreed with the name change, feeling "there's more than just a name change to make sure people understand the goals of this process is", but BOZ's eloquent statement on this page convinced me. Can we consider an incremental approach, instead of an all at once approach? I suggested one month between proposals (#1 name change/#2 emphasis change) simply to make sure there is first solid consensus for the name change, before going on to step two, WP:BEFORE. Regardless Masem, I think your suggestions are igneous, and I will support either approach. If you want to create a RfC with both proposals (a package deal) then I will support that. travb (talk) 15:28, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I think Fabrictramp is getting tripped up on the "2-3 months" part. I read that as "there must have been some form of discussion within the past 2-3 months" rather than "discussion lasting for a 2-3 month span". Certainly, the former is far more reasonable than the latter. :) Requiring that some discussion take place will hope to stem the person doing 10-20 drive-by AFD nominations per day, because now the onus is on them to make sure that an article really should be deleted, rather than making snap hasty judgments on an article's worth and potential. I don't think a long, drawn-out discussion should be a requirement prior to an Article for Discussion, and it isn't even on the nominator to initiate the discussion, but at least show us that something was attempted prior to the nominator saying IDON'TLIKEIT to a whole block of articles. BOZ (talk) 18:11, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Break 3: Proposals for RfC on Deletion

We seem to be wandering around here. So in my usual reckless style I present some draft proposals, which I suggest we present in an RfC when we get reasonable consensus on the content. --Philcha (talk) 15:56, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Though I agree with the intention behind the proposals, they seem to focus almost exclusively on a particularly type of notability discussion, and I suspect they are likely to get dismissed by many as "instruction creep". Notability doesn't really depend on Google hits anyway.--Kotniski (talk) 16:18, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

This is massive instruction creep:

If the article's normal editors are the only people who would support inclusion, its likely it doesn't meet the inclusion criteria anyway. You're saying that everyone who just goes through the AFD pages to comment automatically votes delete on everything, which is blatantly false and rather disrespectful.

If you acknowledge that the "great majority of articles" on AFD will never be inclusion worthy, why are you trying to make it so difficult to delete them? Your comments suggest that articles are never kept at AFD. Most articles that have a remote chance of improvement are kept.

1. This is basically asking people to prove a negative. Its saying we should ignore consensus until someone proves that they jumped through a bunch of arbitrary hoops.

2. Fifteen Google searches? I don't think I've ever taken that many searches to find anything. If it takes more than 5 to find any source whatsoever, its probably not just non-notable, its probably a hoax. Anything after the first 3-5 searches are likely just going to searches for "article title"+"arbitrary word or phrase from the article."

3. And articles nominated for deletion for reasons other than non-notability we do what with?

The purpose seems to be to make it almost impossible to delete anything, regardless of how blatantly non-notable it is. Mr.Z-man 16:57, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

What I've seen is people running on auto-pilot at AfD, with very few attempts to find suitable sources - an da few cases where AfD was used as harassment. --Philcha (talk) 17:28, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't mean 10 separate Google searches and 5 separate Scholar searches, I mean no relevant sources turn up in the first 10 pages of Google or 5 pages of Scholar for an appropriate set of search terms. I chose those becuase thats' wher eI draw the line in my own searches. --Philcha (talk) 17:35, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Mr.Z-man's reaction was what I was afraid of /\ and this is why i suggest we take an incremental approach. Suggest a name change first to Articles for discussion, gain a clear consensus, then go onto step 2, encouraging editors to make deletion the last step. How does everyone feel about creating an RfC only about the name change? travb (talk) 17:06, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Apart from being instruction creep, this proposal also has several faults. The proposal is overly sympathetic towards new users and excessively brunt towards experience editors. What you seem to imply is that even though voters participating in the debate are experienced , they blatantly ignore deletion guidelines, put in false votes, do not perform a genuine check for notability and are in general BITEy in nature. Plus renaming as Articles of Unproven Notability does not exactly cover all the articles nominated here. There are those which are fall under WP:NOT. ^LeaveSleaves 17:10, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Don't know what you mean by "false votes". I wouldn't say all AfDs are BITEy, but some are. Notability is the main grounds for deletion reported in the press articles, and in most of the AfDs I've seen. -Philcha (talk) 17:28, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I have seen hardly any evidence of nominators or "delete" voters making any effort to find sources. Overall I have not seen "delete" currently being treated as a last resort. --Philcha (talk) 17:35, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Just because they don't paste in Google searches doesn't mean they didn't do anything. AGF applies to both sides. Mr.Z-man 17:40, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

If the editor of an article up for deletion said "I can find sources", no-one would AGF, they'd say "well, improve the article within the dealine". This is not about AGF, it's about levelling the playing field.

And that does not mean it will become impossible to delete hopeless articles, it simply means would-be deleters have to paste in a search or two - which is less work than adding a couple of refs to an article. --Philcha (talk) 17:53, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

If the great majority of articles on AFD should be deleted, why would we want to "level the playing field?" The default close for a no-consensus AFD is keep, why push it farther toward that by requiring more evidence by the "deletion side." I mainly just don't like the idea of ignoring consensus because the nominator didn't fill out all the paperwork. Mr.Z-man 18:15, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

"Ignoring consensus"? A proposal for an RfC is an attempt to find out what the consensus is among editors in general rather than just those who participate in discussions like this one. --Philcha (talk) 18:23, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I mean ignoring consensus in AFDs. Under the proposed process, any discussion in which the proper text or links aren't added would be put indefinitely on hold or closed as keep regardless of what the actual consensus is. Mr.Z-man 22:17, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

You might want to re-phrase that. It could be interpreted as meaning that the consensus of half-a dozen people at an AfD discussion carries more weight than that of the Wikipedia community. I would also suggest that Wikipedia policies such as WP:DELETE carry even more weight. --Philcha (talk) 22:38, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I need to rephrase nothing. Where is this consensus of the community you speak of? The fact that we're even considering simply ignoring discussions because they didn't follow the correct process-wonkery steps is frankly, disgusting and the antithesis of WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY, and I want no part of it. Short of someone proving that a significant % of articles on AFD are deleted in error because people aren't properly looking for sources, my opinion on this will not change. Mr.Z-man 22:57, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

If an RFC for a name change is just first step toward massive instruction creep and arbitrary rules as proposed above, then I would oppose that as well. Mr.Z-man 17:12, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

The RfC's would be seperate. The second, more controversial RfC, may not pass, would you support a name change under that situation? travb (talk) 17:21, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Considering it seems to be proposed as a "first step" toward the above, no, I want nothing to do with the above proposal. Mr.Z-man 17:40, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

If we go for "Articles for discussion", that implies to me a move away from bureaucracy and arbitrary rules, rather than towards it. It also seems to be in keeping with what everyone seems to agree on - that deletion is not to be seen as the primary solution to the problems raised in these discussions. And is consistent with "Categories for discussion", which we already have. --Kotniski (talk) 17:27, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes. We have other foo for discussion pages, but when I last proposed this name change it was primarily a simple recognition of existing practice - Wikipedia policy being descriptive not prescriptive. And there is nothing wrong with encouraging more nuanced outcomes. At the moment we tend to judge articles on the merit of the content and of the topic; in many cases the content is thoguth to be acceptable but the topic is not considered independently notable, a merge result. 50% for merge and 25% each for keep and delete is currently interpreted as keep, despite an obvious consensus that a separate article is not justified - or it might be closed as merge but nobody does the merge. All that is what happens now, changing the name won't change that.What I would like to see is an "expedited cleanup" result, like "article rescue" or an Uncle G rewrite. And if not rewritten to an obviously higher standard within 14 days, the article goes, because we really should not be workingon the basis that a crap article is better than no article - it isn't. Anyway, articles for discussion is just an extension of the change already made from votes for deletion to articles for deletion, with rough consensus not vote counting as the guide. Guy (Help!) 20:12, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Break 4

Just to get a clear sense of how things are going in Secondary proposal: AFDiscussion,

*Note: incorrectly placed in "No firm opinion" section before being placed correctly by davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) at 23:00, 17 January 2009 (UTC).

Can I ask the four "oppose/question elements" and "no firm opinion editors" if they would Support a name change to Articles for discussion? travb (talk) 17:26, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

(ec) There are somethings in the draft that I don't quite agree with, although I understand the intentions. I'll try to come up with an alternative draft later today so that there's another option for everyone to look at. -Drilnoth (talk) 17:27, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Would you support a name change alone? travb (talk) 17:30, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, which proposal is this?--Kotniski (talk) 17:29, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

My apologies: Secondary proposal: AFDiscussion travb (talk) 17:31, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I would only support changing the name to articles for discussions, if we 1) allow for longer than 5 days; and 2) require notifying article creators and main contributors, i.e. so that we can have real and legitimate consensus building discussions. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 17:47, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Please realize my intent of moving to AFDiscussion is not solely a name change. There are some pragmatic things to be considered, however, we also don't want to increase bureaucracy. The name change is a good step, but if we're going to change the tone of how AFDs are handled, we need more than just a name change and we need to present those steps in one package. My primary concern that I can't easily work through without weighing down this with rules is how to handle articles for cleanup and for merging/redirection, and when is it ok to "break" a strong local consensus to seek out a larger one without considering it forum shopping. I doubt there's a lot of added rules to be added to support this, but I do want to make sure that AFD still works like AFDeletion, but with the emphasis on retaining whenever possible over outright removal (end of the day, redirects are cheap, we need to use them more often over deletion). --MASEM 18:18, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I think I'm somewhere between Masem and Mr. Z-man on name change. To me name change doesn't mean anything if the actual work done under it does not change. Name change would probably achieve only to mellow the first appearance of this process, clearing out deletion as the obvious result. But let's look at this way. If there is definite intention of pursuing this matter further and making an attempt to improve the process, I'd say that changing the name should be put last on the agenda. If you are able to convince the community about the suggested improvements, it is unlikely that at such point that anyone would oppose the change in name. In fact, most might see it as an obvious change to reflect the new system. If you fail to do the required changes, then again you can move for name change. At that point you can argue that this name change would give out a much more neutral approach to the debate and also highlight that deletion is not the only resort. ^LeaveSleaves 19:46, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I strongly oppose this proposal. Philcha admits that the "great majority of articles listed at the current Wikipedia:Articles for deletion are never likely to meet Wikipedia's requirements" -- but simultaneously asserts that what Wikipedia really needs is to mandate a minimum lifespan of 12 days [one week for "conscientious effort" plus five days for the usual AfD process] and require an enormous amount of useless busy-work to attempt to preserve all those unwanted vanity pages, garage bands, BLP violations, and the like that we're going to delete in the end. This is bureaucratic nonsense.

The net result will be less compliance with WP:N, more proposed deletions, and more speedy deletions. It will also result in a greater presumption of deletion for anything that reaches AfD.

In general, I think that if you want to solve the problem of systemic biases, you need to do it the hard way, which is to say that inclusionist editors need to commit their own time and energy to each and every article that gets nominated. Don't force some other volunteer to create a file full of 15 pages of Google searches (as if so much even exists for every nom'd article!): if you think it's a good idea, then do it yourself.

To every supporter of this proposal: Eat your own dog food before forcing it on the wider community. I suggest that you give the rules you support a trial run. Pick four or five new AfD's from today's list (93 choices there at the moment) that you think are highly likely to end up deleted under the existing system and immediately apply these rules to them (except for the mandatory one-week wait before it can even begin). Try to improve the articles, start a discussion on the article's talk page, and figure out how you're going to present and analyze 15 pages of Google searches. Then please report back here in a few days with:

1. the names of the articles you worked on and what you think their "pre-intervention" odds of being deleted were,
2. how much effort you made (what specific steps you took and how much time/effort for each article),
3. the ultimate outcome of the AfDs (that is, did your efforts make any difference?), and
4. whether you think the effort was proportional to the result (per article).

This is a great way to study and refine the process, if it turns out to be useful, and also a highly practical way to figure out how cumbersome and effective it is. I'll create a section below for your reports.

Please keep in mind that if you're not willing to do this right now yourself, then you have no business imposing this process on every single editor for the future. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:36, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I think there may be some confusion here about what proposal is actually being discussed. The one with detailed new requirements and so on doesn't seem to have got anywhere; people who are listed under "Support" are not supporting that. What I think is uppermost in our minds now is the proposal that Articles for deletion be renamed "Articles for discussion", either as a better description of what it already is, or as a better prescription of what it should be, depending on your point of view.--Kotniski (talk) 21:06, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Whether AfDiscussion is a better description of the current process or what is viewed as the ideal process is a significant issue and, in my opinion, needs to be resolved before we go renaming things. It's okay if the current process behaves this way, but if it's an attempt to mold discussion to an ideal, I think we would absolutely need significant secondary changes in order to back it up. If not, the measure will just plain fail and in a month's time we'll be making policy changes. Let's do it all now instead of making piecemeal changes. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 21:21, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I think this is a swift recipe for failure, but I will go along with any change to the current system. travb (talk) 21:38, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, Kotniski, my post is a direct response to the two comments immediately above it. See for example:

• Masem: "Please realize my intent of moving to AFDiscussion is not solely a name change. There are some pragmatic things to be considered, however, we also don't want to increase bureaucracy. The name change is a good step, but if we're going to change the tone of how AFDs are handled, we need more than just a name change and we need to present those steps in one package."
• LeaveSleeves: "To me name change doesn't mean anything if the actual work done under it does not change." LeaveSleeves then goes on to argue that the name change could be delayed until after the actual process has changed.

So while you (characteristically) don't support additional bureaucratic hoops, other editors apparently do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:44, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I suspect WhatamIdoing has misunderstood the proposal:

• It is that a prerequisite for deletion should be evidence that there is little reasonable prospect of establishing notability, i.e. the burden of proof should lie on those who wish to delete an article. So for exmaple if WhatamIdoing wishes to propse a deltio9n, he should assemble the evidence. Naturally if I ever propose the deletion of an article I will do the same.
• The proposal does not mandate a delay of "1 week plus 5 days". If I were proposing a deletion, I'd search first. --Philcha (talk) 21:44, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Philcha, would you reconcile this claim with the statement in the proposal, "No motion to delete or vote in favor of deletion will be considered valid until one week after such evidence is provided"? It seems pretty plain to me that this means "You cannot file an AfD until one week after you have fulfilled this requirement." Or did you intend this one-week timer to run concurrently with the five-day AfD process? (That is, you can file the AfD, but the closing admin is directed to ignore it until the one-week timer has elapsed.) `WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:54, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for not responding before, there were so many changes between each refresh of my watchlist that I missed this. "you can file the AfD, but the closing admin is directed to ignore it until the one-week timer has elapsed and delete votes before the timer has elapsed will be ignored". In other words those who want to be seen to be doing something should be looking for ways to improve the article. --Philcha (talk) 23:24, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

And this doesn't then require 12 days how?

I find an unsourced, unsourceable, and clearly non-notable vanity page on January 1. Let's pretend it's about the world's greatest middle school student: clearly not an appropriate subject. Prod fails because the student-editor contests the deletion of his autobiography.

No matter what, I then have to wait for one entire week for your "conscientious effort". Even if I file the AfD, all the comments -- and they'll all be to delete, except from our self-promoting teenager -- will be deleted.

Then we get to have the actual five-day minimum AfD period -- because you can hardly start the AfD timer running when all the comments are being deleted as soon as they're made.

Now how does one week plus five days not add up to 12 days to delete a clearly undesirable page? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:53, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Easy. On day 1, the nominator creates the entry in AfD with good evidence of a conscientious attempt to find reliable sources that support notability. A week of debate. If the article's supporter(s) do not show evidence of suitable sources (e.g. books for which there are no relevant extracts online) and incorporate those into the article, it's deleted - a week after nomination. There is a delay only if there is not good evidence of a conscientious attempt to find reliable sources that support notability. --Philcha (talk) 08:16, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

So this is an effort to discourage AfD nominations by increasing the hassle of filing the AfD (even in cases where any experienced Wikipedia editor knows that the article is doomed to deletion, which is silly), and in the process to extend AfD from five days to seven (about which point I have no particular view). WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:27, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Reports from supporters willing to eat their own dog food

• Please report your practical experiences with this proposal here. I suggest listing the articles you're testing here before you get started, so that we don't have two or more supporters working on the same AfD nom. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:36, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

• I'll start, though I think the proposed process is doomed. I've picked Kanjivellam. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:54, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Report by User:WhatamIdoing

1. Article prospect: Kanjivellam, water in which rice has been boiled, is fairly likely to be deleted as a dicdef stub. If we assume the nom made zero effort to look for sources (the nom doesn't say one way or the other), then believe the odds of it being rescued are low: perhaps a 25% chance of avoiding deletion.
2. What I did to preserve the article:

   Looking for sources

   • Google page 1 is Wikipedia mirrors, blogs and internet chat boards, with the occasional reference to "power drinks". Google page 2 is Wikipedia mirrors, blogs and internet chat boards with one press release about the substance (which it identifies as gruel) being delivered to cancer patients by a charity in India. Google page 3 is blogs and recipes (mostly soymilk related), and the same press release reprinted in The Hindu. Google page 3 is blogs and mirrors about soymilk. Google page 5 is chat boards, more Wikipedia (and mirror) pages, and more recipes. Google page 6 is more chat boards and mirrors, mostly dictionaries. Why am I bothering with this?! Google page 7 is mostly blogs, with a couple of recipes and dictionaries. Google page 8 is all Wikipedia mirrors. Google page 9 doesn't exist (despite earlier promises): there are only 80 hits.
   • Google scholar has zero hits.
   • Google books finds one hit:[12] which defines it in passing as "mere boiled rice-water".
   • Full search of Amazon.com shows zero mention in any books.
   • Search of my own cookbooks (which are not geared to Asian cooking) shows zero mention.
   • The press release says that it's being given to chemotherapy patients, so I searched PubMed.gov: zero hits.

   Starting discussions

   • I left a message on the article's talk page to see whether anyone has any sources.[13]
   • I considered leaving a similar message at the WP:WikiProject Food and drink talk page, but rejected it in this instance as wasting other editors' valuable time (given that this is a test run on an article that I now seriously doubt will survive). If any supporters of this process are F&D members, then please act like you've gotten yet another note about an AfD on your project's page, and reply on the article's talk page.

   Improving Wikipedia

   • Removed error about a rice porridge in Gruel.[14]
   • Add unsourced but accurate statement, "It is a kind of very thin gruel" to the article.[15]
   • I considered, but ultimately rejected, the idea of assuming that this is simply rice gruel. It seems that normal rice gruel is usually called kanji, and its thicker form is congee (rice porridge). I find no reason to think that kanji-water (kanjivellam) is the same as kanji.
3. Final outcome: We'll know the actual answer in four days, but just after doing the Google searches, I revise my deletion estimate to noticeably less than 10% chance of survival, and in fact I'm !voting for deletion. There are apparently no (English-language) reliable sources. Unless an expert on rice gruel appears with foreign-language sources, it's only hope of survival is to get redirected to Gruel.
4. Was the extra work worth it: I can tell you this already: No. Nothing I did could have possibly improved the likelihood of this article being kept.

This was deliberately chosen as a simple article to research, and this has already taken an hour. In my opinion, this was an enormous waste of time and energy. Under the current process, I could have achieved the same end result in rather perhaps five minutes. The result is that I've made ten times the effort for exactly the same end result. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:38, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

A counter-example

Check out the deletion debate at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Precambrian rabbit, and especially its history:

• nominated for deletion 24 October 2008. At the time of nomination the article already two very good sources from which it could have been expanded.
• 2 comments, one by the article's creator and another by an uninvolved editor, showing evidence (including a link to a book) that the phrase "Precambrian rabbit(s)" is well known in evolutionary theory.
• 1 denial of that evidence, which I think was groundless.
• 2 votes for deletion
• 1 merge vote.
• 2 "delete or redirect" votes.
• At this point I entered the debate and pointed that there was at least one other WP:RS that used the phrase "Precambrian rabbit(s)" and described it as well-known.
• Another "delete" vote. This voter wrote "I suggest that those who favour retention of the article would spend their time more profitably doing some work on the article to bring it up to standard and demonstrate how it is worthy of inclusion".
• I pointed out that this was not an attractive suggestion, considering the existing majority for deletion, and asked how many would change their votes if I improved the article.
• Two of those who voted "delete", including the proposer, said they would change their votes.
• I improved the artcile. I admit I went well beyond the sources already mentioned, because it became a detective / Watergate story (who said what and when did he say it?), and I hoped to solve it. But IMO there was already enough in the refs alsready provided to rescue the article.
• Several votes changed to "keep", including those who had said they would do so if the article was improved.
• Discussion closed as "keep".
• Article appeared on DYK.

Any of the editors who voted "delete" before I turned up could have done what I did - I know that some of them are good on evolution-related topics, and the key sources had already been identified.

IMO this article should never have been at AfD in the first place. --Philcha (talk) 13:53, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

In summary, the existing AfD process kept' an article on a notable topic, despite it being nominated for deletion. Where's the actual problem with AfD here? Are we blaming the functional and apparently robust AfD process because an editor made an honest (if perhaps careless) mistake? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:05, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Comments

• Umm, I think you are pushing this a little too far. This is more of a brainstorming session than an actual proposal to change the entire system. You may wish to tone down a little. ^LeaveSleaves 21:38, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Try it out. You support the changes, so try applying the changes to several articles. Take your ideal version for a test drive, and let us know whether you like it in practice instead of just in concept. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:45, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
    • I agree with WhatamIdoing's assessment; I've done this before with articles I've been considering nominating. However I am strongly of the opinion that in nearly all cases (at least those dealing with notability) this effort should at be attempted before a deletion discussion is brought, and that moreover evidence of the attempt (a la the report above) should be made in the deletion rationale. I have done this in the past with borderline cases, especially those where unreliable sources have needed refutation. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 21:50, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
      • • I think it's unfortunate that you're not willing to assume good faith among the nominators, but all I really want from you right now is to go pick several of the current AfDs and follow the steps that you have considered imposing on everyone else. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:13, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate your efforts to save the article, WhatamIdoing. Your example is one side of the coin, the other side is that:

1. User:TonyTheTiger has had five formerly deleted articles promoted to Good Article status;
2. the majority of articles put up for deletion are by new users;
3. as a result, the media is universally negative about our deletion process; (For example, article 2 million was put up for deletion)
4. the number of edits has dropped significantly on wikipedia (The Economist magazine speculates it is because of "self-appointed deletionist");
5. in my experience, most administrators never follow policy before putting an article up for deletion, WP:BEFORE, WP:PRESERVE, and rarely go to the effort that WhatamIdoing does.travb (talk) 21:52, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Straw Man fallacy of Logic argument: A subtype of the red herring, this fallacy includes any lame attempt to "prove" an argument by overstating, exaggerating, or over-simplifying the arguments of the opposing side. Such an approach is building a straw man argument. Examples include the McDonald's coffee burn case and the case of the woman who sued because the CAT scan messed up her ESP to promote tort reform.travb (talk) 21:59, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Travb, these issues do not worry me in the slightest.

1. I see no evidence of any of TonytheTiger's rescued articles having been deleted at AfD. They were nearly all speedied for good cause, and changing AfD won't change that process at all. Remember that some articles are deleted without prejudice. Editors fairly often support the deletion of articles about new companies, possible future drugs, and other products on the straightforward grounds that they aren't notable yet, and WP:CRYSTALBALL prohibits us from guessing which ones will be notable in the future. Or we'll have a potential subject with absolutely nothing salvageable in the text, and no one willing to start over from scratch. Or there simply aren't any reliable sources right now, but they appear at a later date.
2. So the majority of mistakes and vanity pages are created by new users: This is not AfD's fault. The majority of blatant vandalism is done by anon IPs, but we don't blame the vandal-fighters for that. AfD may need to be friendly about it, but the need to comply with the notablity guideline applies equally to all editors.
3. I don't care what the media thinks. I care about compliance with our policies. I am not willing to have vanity pages and other non-notable articles just to make two journalists happy about deletion. (Besides, if we do, then they'll complain that 99% of the "articles" are on garage bands and other worthless topics.)
4. So what? This is not the public relations department. And do you know that this continues to be true (not just a seasonal variation)? And do you know that this is really due to inappropriate articles being deleted, and not due to, for example, the enormous complexity of editing? (Imagine what a total newbie must make of an article that has ((cite journal)) at the end of every sentence.) Has the work on the encyclopedia actually slowed down with fewer editors, or are we just working more efficiently with fewer spammers, disruptive editors, and self-promoters?
5. As a point of clarification, anybody can put an article up for deletion. Admins are probably the people that are least likely to do so sloppily. Furthermore, "failure to follow the existing process because it's hard work" is a lousy reason to create a dramatically more burdensome process (which will have dramatically lower compliance rates).

Again: All I want from you is to right now pick several articles and do exactly what you want to impose on every single editor. If you're not willing to do it yourself, then please don't try to force your ideal process on anyone else. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:16, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) (To WhatamIdoing) You apparently misread my comments right above your first comment and chose to ignore my earlier comments. If you don't wish go through the whole thing, at least check the white table right above. It lists my name first in opposing editors. Like I said this is more of a brainstorming session and I'm providing input to the discussion. The only thing I've so far agreed to is necessity to increase awareness about alternatives to deletion. My comment to which you said to have replied again does not support any of the changes but merely puts out my thoughts on earlier comments. As for your project here, it does not help in anyway to increase the value of discussion. The editors present here are well versed with deletion process and know what it takes to create, improve, rescue and promote an article. ^LeaveSleaves 21:57, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

• I'd like to see some proof of Inclusionist's oft-repeated argument that "the media is universally negative about our deletion process." First of all, it's patently false; I've seen articles in NYT and elsewhere (I'll go looking for the URLs sometime, if you want) that aren't negative at all about it, and talk about how it just reflects a change in WP's maturity (saying that in the past WP was focused on quickly expanding coverage to make it a well-known resource, whereas now that it's gotten its name out there it's more focused on improving the quality of what is here), so so much for "universal." And even if it were true, why does the media's opinion about WP determine how our deletion process should work? The vast majority of people out there don't really understand what goes on at Wikipedia (as evidenced by the fact that most new users, myself included, make mistakes and have to go through a learning curve before they become like you and I are now), so why should we let our workflow be determined by people who don't know what we're doing anyway? Politizer ^talk/_contribs 22:08, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Politizer, I should have said this earlier, please WP:Assume Good Faith, "patently false"? I have learned to never assume anything, especially in a heated discussion, because it often comes back to bite me.

Politizer joins us from the Articles for Deletion circuit, I voted to keep two articles, he voted to delete.

How many articles would you like? Look above, at the collapsed table in the Articles for Userefication. I am not going to provide a laundry list and then have you criticize the list ad nauseum.

Do you think I would go on articles for deletion and make such a bold statement? I was sure this was eventually going to be challenged, and sure enough it has been. I am sure their is some article, somewhere that praises wikipedia's deletion process. Then I will simply change my statement to "Nearly universal"

And even if it were true, why does the media's opinion about WP determine how our deletion process should work?

The media is a reflection of the experience that new users have on wikipedia. The majority of articles that are deleted are created by new users. Journalists, new to wikipedia, come on to wikipedia to write a story about it, and they are treated like shit, like a lot of new users.

I hope this answered your questions, and I hope you had a more positive experience on wikipedia when you first started editing then many of the new users are having when you elect to delete their first contributions. travb (talk) 22:53, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

RE: WhatamIdoing's comments

It all comes down to what User:DGG has on his talk page:

I do not attempt to convert my opponents--I aim at converting their audience.

I think I have adequately responded to your arguments. I think the complete the above indifferent tone to the opinions of others speaks volumes. This is a mindset I see again, and again, and again in editors who delete other editors contribution. That is why journalist call wikipedia editors "bullies".[16][17] The first contact that many users have with other wikipedians is often "self-appointed deletionist guardians"[18]

This is why the number of contributions maybe dropping. travb (talk) 23:02, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Can you help me my explaining what you are basing that statement on? Have you conducted a survey. collected any statistics, has there been a discussion somewhere which came to this conclusion or are you simply just evidencing this statement by assertion? Spartaz ^Humbug! 11:45, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

(refactored) At this point, it is simply an assertion. No one knows for sure why edits have been dropping. I have started User:Inclusionist/AfD_on_average_day, but I am still gathering information. The Economist speculated it maybe because of the deletion policy.

"...the welcoming environment of Wikipedia's early days is giving way to hostility and infighting. There is already some evidence that the growth rate of Wikipedia's article-base is slowing. Unofficial data from October 2007 suggests that users' activity on the site is falling, when measured by the number of times an article is edited and the number of edits per month. The official figures have not been gathered and made public for almost a year, perhaps because they reveal some unpleasant truths about Wikipedia's health."[19]

There has been speculation that user data has dropped because of the new rules to stop anonymous users from creating new articles, but these rules came into effect in 2005,[20] and the user data is from 2007 (it was a scientific study by the way--I can dig up the source).

At this point, I can solidly point to two worrying trends: universal disdain for wikipedias deletion policy by journalists, which I posit is closely related to new editors articles being the majority of AfDs.

Should we act on such trends? I think the answer has more to do with a person's past experiences on wikipedia, and general demeanor, then on the trends themselves. travb (talk) 15:53, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Comments by Davidwr

I am opposed because there is nothing wrong with the form of the existing processes, only their practice.

AFD is and should be for articles that are likely un-salvageable but are too controversial for PROD and are too controversial for or otherwise don't meet SPEEDY requirements.

Those which are likely salvageable should be fixed by normal editing, collaboration through WikiProjects, discussion on talk pages, etc.

Those which likely need to be merged can be done WP:BOLDly, through talk page discussion, or through WikiProjects.

Those needing redirects, such as Joe Nonnotable Public Elementary School, can be boldly redirected.

The problems I see are twofold:

• People are too quick to send salvageable things to deletion, using AFD as a substitute for other existing processes. This can be fixed by essays and leadership by established editors. Leadership comes in the form of fixing up an article, asking that the AFD be withdrawn after it is fixed up, and pointing the nominator to the essay so he and everyone else reading the AFD knows they have alternatives.
• Existing discussions on article talk pages are not listed elsewhere. A category or auto-generated page listing all newly-requested mergers would help, as would a category or autogenerated page listing all newly-placed cleanup tags of a certain type, e.g. notability.

There are other issues but these are the two major ones. Both can be solved without changing AFD. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 23:11, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

davidwr, I totally agree with the principles you set out, especially "Those which are likely salvageable should be fixed by normal editing, collaboration through WikiProjects, discussion on talk pages, etc.", and your diagnosis of the problem, "People are too quick to send salvageable things to deletion, using AFD as a substitute for other existing processes." As far as I can see the only way to resolve the problem is to change the behaviour of those who "are too quick to send salvageable things to deletion" - and they will not change voluntarily. --Philcha (talk) 12:42, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, many of them will change voluntarily if they think they are doing the right thing now and, through discussion and pointers to essays, diffs, guidelines, and policies, realize that they were mistaken. This happens all the time. You are correct that there are some who will always want to do things "their way." But I think we can make a big dent in the problem with education and leadership. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 21:29, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Continued discussion

On the subject of opinions to do things not backed by a willingness to do it onesself: Who, of you supporting it, is going to actually do this name change? I did it the last time. It wasn't trivial. It involved renaming more than 20,000 pages. That was back in 2005. There will be tens of thousands more by now.

If the aim is to get more outside eyes on cleanup efforts and merge discussions, which it in part seems to be from the above discussion, I suggest that efforts would be better spent in improving Wikipedia:Cleanup, Wikipedia:Requested mergers, and Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Request comment on articles, templates, or categories, so that they don't act as list-only areas. We already have processes for handling non-deletion issues and bringing outside eyes onto article talk pages. Stop trying to bundle them into AFD. If they aren't working, fix them so that they are, just as we fixed Wikipedia:Things to be moved to Wiktionary when it was demonstrable that no-one was even reading the listings. AFD has enough traffic as it currently stands, without adding to it cleanup and merger traffic as well, and it is unsuited to discussions where far more than 5 days (and — alas! — not even that sometimes at AFD) is necessary for a proper resolution.

If you want to address the issue of people who, with opinions in either direction, delete or keep, don't ground their opinions in policy, then do some AFD patrol. And since part of the problem is people bringing cleanup and merger issues to AFD, in an attempt to force other people to do the work for them, the last thing that we should be doing is formalizing an extension of AFD to include cleanup and merger discussions. It's a bad idea to turn AFD into the very whip for beating editors with that a few bad editors are trying to abuse it as.

AFD is an overloaded process. Failure to re-visit discussions, zero-effort rationales, closures that ignore article contents, and rapid pile-ons that yield disastrously wrong conclusions are but some of the results of that. All of our efforts within the past few years, from extending our speedy deletion criteria to creating Wikipedia:Proposed deletion, have been aimed at keeping the load off it, so that the discussions here at least have a chance of being properly done. Anything that puts more load on to it is a bad idea.

Indeed, transferring the load elsewhere was what many of our AFD shorthands originally meant. These aren't binding outcomes. They are changes of venue. "Cleanup" doesn't mean "have the closing administrator clean the article up". Closing administrators are not edit-on-demand services. It doesn't mean "Clean the article up or else!". AFD is not a hammer for hitting editors over the head with. It means, quite simply, "Send the article from AFD to Wikipedia:Cleanup, because it should be listed there, not here.". The problem is that Wikipedia:Cleanup hasn't scaled, and no longer functions as it once did. (All of these areas used to be structured in similar fashions, remember. "Votes for deletion" used to be a simple listings page, too. Some, such as AFD, have changed over the years as Wikipedia has enlarged. Others have not.) But that's not AFD's problem.

Similarly, when the problem is that people reach for ((afd1)) instead of actually editing the article themselves (which, ironically, takes fewer edits than a deletion nomination), the solution is to remind people that there is more than one tool in the toolbox, and to get them to perform Wikipedia triage. It is not to make that template into the first thing to reach for in the event of any article problem. Indeed, that's the last thing that one should do.

If you want something imaginative, consider adding some form of noticeboard/discussion element to Wikipedia:Requested mergers, so that it becomes more than a simple list of "I request this merger.", "((tick)) Merger done." requests and responses. Or think of ways to get Wikipedia:Cleanup working in a scalable way once again. Put your energies into expanding and reinvigorating the areas of the project that have low traffic, so that they see more use, not into overburdening yet further a high-traffic area of the project. Leave AFD to its primary purpose: of determining whether an administrator should hit a delete button on an article or not. Uncle G (talk) 20:40, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

We all appreciate your hard work Uncle G, as you have pointed out, as an encyclopaedist, you responsible for a lot of the policies on wikipedia.

If this is a legitimate offer, I volunteer to do the name change.

I think I can sum up the reply as such:

1. It is too hard to change the system,
2. we already have a system,
3. the system is broken,
4. take the problem somewhere else (Wikipedia:Requested mergers).

Can anyone else see the blaring logical disconnect between three and four?

Fact: There are currently 818 articles tagged for deletion. Editors are ignoring the clean up pages you mention, and instead of cleaning up these pages, they simply go to deletion.

Fact: The majority of articles tagged for deletion are created by new users.

Fact: The media universally condemns wikipedia's deletion process. Calling editors all sorts of nasty names.

Fact: The number one reason pages are sent to deletion are for notability reasons.

Fact: Uncle G has been intimately involved in creating many of the notability pages which editors are now using as justification for deletion. "Yes, I've given Wikipedia...the Primary Notability Criterion that helped with a formulation of Wikipedia:Notability"

So, Uncle G helped create this "overloaded process" and now offers no direct solutions to the problem itself. travb (talk) 21:36, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Uncle's analysis seems to make good sense. But the aim of this proposal is not (I think) to bring requests for mergers/cleanup into the scope of AfD, rather to encourage consideration of those options after an article has already been brought here. (If people want to abuse the process by proposing deletion to force a merge or something, they can do that already.) In fact, if my idea were adopted then AfD patrollers would have less work, since there would be two (automatically generated) lists of pages: those still under discussion and those with admin action positively requested. If a discussion ended with obvious no consensus to delete, then no admin would ever need to look at it. It would also save proposers' time, since they wouldn't have to go to the trouble of listing their proposals in two different places. I would use the same system (but not the same list) for Requested Moves as well. And for apparently obvious deletions and moves, encourage people to go for prod or "uncontroversial moves" to start with, on the BRD principle.--Kotniski (talk) 21:44, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

In fact, I think the thing that went wrong in WhatAmIDoing's example case (assuming you agree it's an undesirable article) was that the person who placed a prod template on it then replaced it with an AFD even though the prod apparently hadn't been contested. It could simply have gone through the prod process, thus depriving our readers of this potentially useful piece of information removing this nasty obscure foreign thing from our encyclopedia achieving the same result without any load on AfD.--Kotniski (talk) 21:58, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, having looked at the kanjivellam AfD, I think it's an excellent example of deletion inappropriately being used as a first resort rather than a last. See my comments there.--Kotniski (talk) 08:52, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Fact: 8200 is not the correct number for the number of articles tagged for deletion. Using the API to count them, there's currently 533 articles in the category. There are currently 29,873 articles tagged with ((cleanup)), more than 50 times as many tagged for deletion. And there are 409,571 articles tagged with some ((ambox)) template. If we subtract 533 from that (the AFD template uses ambox), nearly 770 times as many articles are tagged for some sort of maintenance as are tagged for deletion.

Fact: Requiring people to do a ton of extra work is not going to make the process any better. If it reduces the number of articles, it'll just be because fewer people are willing to jump through the hoops and they just ignore content that should be deleted.

Fact: 3 articles, 2 of which are written by the same person, does not represent the universal opinion of the media. Though the media argument is irrelevant anyway. We do things because they are a good idea, not because the media likes it.

Fact: Deleting an article through WP:NOT is just as potentially BITE-y as WP:N. WP:BITE doesn't mean we exempt new users from the rules, it just means we tell them clearly and politely why their article isn't suitable for Wikipedia and don't act like dicks.

Fact: If a bot request lands on WP:BRFA to rename every single page starting with "Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/" I will personally deny it as a massive waste of resources. There's no reason to move 176,060 pages to effect a name change. Mr.Z-man 22:51, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Fortunately, User:Uncle G's major work 'bot has long-since been approved for the task. I did say that I did the name change the last time. I suspect that the proposal to rename the page will fail, however, because the people proposing it have simply put no thought into the consequences of the idea. I know what the consequences are. I dealt with them the last time. Uncle G (talk) 02:18, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Regarding fact 2: This is your personal speculative opinion. That said, right now the deletion process is incredibly easy, too easy in my opinion, anyone who has WP:Twinkle just pushes a button. (Granted, I have never done it myself, so this maybe oversimplifying the situation.) I don't think you are factoring in how much time is wasted in an AfD, I would love to quantify this time sometime. All those articles tagged for cleanup are not going to be fought over tooth and nail, they can be improved later, articles for deletion cannot, because the edit history is wiped away. Should there be articles deleted: hell yes.

Regarding fact 3:' I touched upon this above, but you are welcome to read Deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia. There are many other articles on this subject. The media is a reflection of the treatment we wikipedians give new users. I think I countered your strongest points. Thanks for listening. travb (talk) 23:13, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Note that I updated the numbers in fact 1 based on an actual count of the pages in the category. Mr.Z-man 23:23, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

"Regarding fact 2" is almost incoherent. Do you agree that the majority of articles on AFD should be deleted? If so, why make it hard to do so? If not, your problem is really more with WP:N than AFD. Using Twinkle still requires people to write a rationale, and people will continue to write scripts to automate things. Adding a cleanup tag is far easier. In fact, if some of these proposals attempting to make AFD harder to use by adding arbitrary rules and steps are implemented, I'll probably be one of the first people to write a script to bypass it. How much time is wasted in an AFD? People aren't forced to comment, presumably it isn't "wasted" time for them, as they're doing it voluntaritly. In any case, you're proposing making it harder to nominate articles for deletion, which will only waste more time... Have you looked at AFD recently? "Tooth and nail" describes about 1% of deletion debates, most are unanimous or near-unanimous decisions resulting from civil discourse. I'd really appreciate you stop misrepresenting the situation to further your opinion. Articles deleted can be userfied, but as I said in a section above, this is mostly ineffective (and that's based on actual research, not half-assed guesses).

And "Editors are ignoring the clean up pages" is your opinion, and is demonstrably false, as nearly 15% of articles are tagged for some sort of maintenance. I fail to see how the media is a reflection of new users' experiences, especially The Economist and the New York Times Book Review. I don't think I've ever seen a news report that I would say reflected my personal experience of anything, except when they actually interview normal people. Again, you point to what's essentially a handful of sources as "universal opinion." I would bet most of the media couldn't care less about AFD. If an article on a marginally notable local band is deleted, and I report it as a news tip to CNN, I'm guessing the odds of it getting even a reply from a human is about 0. Mr.Z-man 23:44, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

As I've said elsewhere previously, what is clearly lacking at AfD and on the project in general is cowbell. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:13, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Wow, everyone, this much for what is highlighted as a name change? I remember when it used to be good 'ol VfD, before it got deleted and then VfD'ed itself. I say keep the name as it is; it accurately describes the purpose of the page (articles that have been highlighted for possible deletion), and if there are qualms with the process, go and change that instead of playing with the name. Just my two cents... 140.247.14.141 (talk) 23:43, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

VfD wasn't deleted. It was renamed. It's still here. I should know. I wrote and ran the 'bot that did the work. Please get your facts right. Uncle G (talk) 02:21, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

The majority of articles deleted are by new users, many of the articles are put up for deletion without even an attempt to examine the notability of the article, or try other avenues first, in clear violation of established policy.

Policy: Deletion should be a last resort

WP:PRESERVE Policy "Whatever you do, endeavour to preserve information." WP:Notability Guideline "If an article fails to cite sufficient sources to demonstrate the notability of its subject, look for sources yourself." WP:BEFORE Before nominating an article for deletion. If it's not already, Tag the article with any noted problems...Consider making the page a useful redirect or proposing it be merged rather than deleted...When nominating an article for deletion due to sourcing concerns, a good-faith attempt should be made to confirm that such sources aren't likely to exist...If the article can be fixed through normal editing, then it is not a good candidate for AfD. WP:Deletion Policy Wikipedia urges any contributor to read the Wikipedia:Deletion policy before deleting or nominating an article for deletion. "When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page." WP:INTROTODELETE "Remember that deletion is a last resort. Deletion nominations rarely improve articles, and deletion should not be used as a way to improve an article, or a reaction to a bad article. It is appropriate for articles which cannot be improved." Wikipedia:Potential, not just current state "In most cases deletion of an article should be a last resort"

RE: Do you agree that the majority of articles on AFD should be deleted? If so, why make it hard to do so?

So no I do not agree with the first question, so the second question is answered:

I agree, "People aren't forced to comment (in Afds), presumably it isn't "wasted" time for them, as they're doing it voluntaritly."

To me this is negative energy which could be used more cooperatively, and the huge number of deletions represents WP:CREEP, and the intolerant attitude that veteran editors have towards new editors contributions. So it is wasted time. We are, after all, an encyclopedia? Why not spend more time writing articles then deleting them?

"[N]ovices can quickly get lost in Wikipedia's Kafkaesque bureaucracy. According to one estimate from 2006, entries about governance and editorial policies are one of the fastest-growing areas of the site and represent around one-quarter of its content...The proliferation of rules, and the fact that select Wikipedians have learnt how to handle them to win arguments, now represents a danger...this [may] deter...people from contributing to Wikipedia, and that the welcoming environment of Wikipedia's early days is giving way to hostility and infighting."[21]

And a counter argument, from Jimbo Wales about the prevalent deletion of editors contributions

"All those people who are obsessively writing about Britney Spears or 'The Simpsons' or Pokémon -- it's just not true that we should try to redirect them into writing about obscure concepts in physics...Wiki is not paper, and their time is not owned by us. We can't say, 'Why do we have these employees doing stuff that's so useless?' They're not hurting anything. Let them write it...I'd be happy to have, in theory, a good, neutral biography on every single person on the planet. I mean why not" ^[1]

I don't know how you see it, but I see the majority of deletions as a missed opportunity to welcome a new editor, and teach them how to become a good contributor, yes yes, there is crap out there, a lot of crap, that should be deleted, but I am not talking about that.

RE: "And "Editors are ignoring the clean up pages" is your opinion, and is demonstrably false, as nearly 15% of articles are tagged for some sort of maintenance."

The number of tags on wikipedia is irrelevant. I am saying that editors are ignoring adding those tags and going to deletion.

Often in these debates two or maybe three editors remain to argue, and everyone else gets sick of it and leaves. I think this maybe one of those arguments. travb (talk) 00:29, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Been watching this from the sidelines but I really do think that you need to rethink your approach to winning people over to your position. You always catch more flies with honey rather then zealotry and I would be much more willing to follow your lead if you actually documented and evidenced your arguments rather then arguing by assertion or through appeals to authority. Sorry, but Jimbo isn't the community, hasn't been for a long time and has no special powers to negate the wishes of the community except in very very specific circumstances. Truth is, the number of articles nominated at AFD has been declining for a long while. The use of merge and redirect to protect article content has been increasing for a similar period so the more nuanced approach you are demanding is already becoming reality. DRV has become as quiet as the grave recently with whole days frequently passing without anything listed at all. This countermands the argument that there is a major problem to discuss. I'd be more interested in clear analysis of the decisions that have been made in AFDs with clear statistics on the numbers of nominations, the proportion of outcomes and then looking at the number of decisions where the consensus was debatable and there were concerns with the closing. That will help us understand whether there is a problem and how widespread it is. Otherwise, I can't help feeling that you are trying to substitute your own prejudices about deletion for the general opinion of mostly uninvolved editors who might represent the wider community. Anecdotally, I would tend to agree that the overall community is broadly inclusionist while the admin community is probably a little bit more deletionist then that. I'd be more interested in widespread reform if you could document that in the ways that I have suggested and then we might have a more useful discussion. If this is a lot of work, I'm sure you could find a sympathetic bot operator to generate the raw statistics for you. Spartaz ^Humbug! 11:39, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

• I've been on vacation (sort of), so I haven't read all this, but I'll say that I will accept placing the NYT/Economist/Guardian (lol) criticism of deletion policies when I can fire Bill Kristol, get the Economist to quit talking about labor unions in Eastern Europe and make some similarly substantive editorial change at the guardian (I don't read them so I have nothing snarky to say). Until then, that crap stays off the deletion page as far as I'm concerned. Wikipedia has an open editorial process (in all senses), so we see what is left on the cutting room floor and everyone has the luxury of examining decisions made by the community. This invites sturm and drang over editorial decisions that don't fit the "anyone can edit" mantra--despite the fact that "anyone can edit" doesn't mean "anyone can determine when a page gets included" and never did. Protonk (talk) 14:00, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
• It is not a fact that the media universally condemns our deletion process - the media for the most part ignores it. It's also the case that the media has in the past printed stories deriding us for failing to remove bad content - it cuts both ways. What is a provable fact is that cleanup tags commonly sit on articles for years without ever being fixed. Cleanup tags are not an indefinite talisman against deletion of crap content. If a subject is good and the article is crap, we should nuke the article until someone comes along to write one that isn't. Crap content is worse for the project than no content, especially nowadays when just about every significant topic is covered along with huge numbers of utterly insignificant ones. Guy (Help!) 09:44, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I think you've bundled together a few issues there:

• A few years ago WP was criticised for allowing too much bad content. Now our deletion process is criticised. It seems we have overshot and need tofind a more balanced aproach.
• "If a subject is good and the article is crap, we should nuke the article ..." is the point at issue. WP:DELETE explicitly says deletion should be the last resort. --Philcha (talk) 10:02, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

2nd proposal

Here's my take on a possible proposal for an RFC (lead partially copied from the first). -Drilnoth (talk) 21:29, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

WikiStats
Main
General info Status statistics WikiStats project WikiProject edit counters
General statistics
Awareness† Editors Total size Size comparisons Growth Records Zipf's law comparison
Breakdowns
Editors by number of edits Editors by article count Time between edits Administrator actions
Notes
† Inactive / archived for history
v t e

You know, all this talk about editors being driven away made me curious. It turns out that it's not true.

The rate of page edits has been essentially stable since the middle of 2006: Ten million edits have been made about every six and a half weeks for two and a half years now. There are fluctuations, as you'd expect (due to where weekends and holidays fall), and there are some interesting patterns, but this assertion that Wikipedia started losing editors after October 2007 because we're all such mean people just turns out not to be true. It could be that the journalist took a short-term normal variation as a permanent trend, or it could be due to the journalist having been fed false information, but it's simply not true.

I encourage editors interested in this to click some of the links in this handy template and see for themselves what the actual data are instead of relying on outdated and inaccurate media reports. (You'll want to pay attention to the dates; some of these pages are not updated regularly, partly because the English Wikipedia's database has gotten too big to dump.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:46, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree that more information would be necessary to prove that a decline was caused by "deletionists," although this does indicate that there has been some decline in general. -Drilnoth (talk) 01:50, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not happy about summarising User:Katalaveno/TBE as number of weeks per 10,000,000 edits, as WhatamIdoing did. It looks like intervals per 10,000,000 edits measured in days declined until and including late 2007, but corresponding periods of 2008 took 2-3 days longer per 10,000,000 edits than for 2007. In other words I think User:Katalaveno/TBE shows a sustained reduction of about 5% in 2008 compared with 2007. --Philcha (talk) 13:12, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

The Economist based this finding on a scientific study. I will find the study. The conclusions that The Economist, linking a drop in editing to deletions, made were its own, based on interviews.

User:Dragons flight/Log analysis, the focus of Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-01-03/Editing stats appears to contradict User:Katalaveno/TBE conclusions, "The most surprising result is that the activity of the Wikipedia community appears to have been declining during the last six months".

What happened in 2007 that made activity drop? What policies were put in place in 2007? travb (talk) 16:40, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Please don't. The likelihood that we will confuse correlation for causation is far too high. We don't have an appropriate instrument to disentangle endogenous effects on editing behavior. Until someone finds one and makes a compelling case for some causal link behind editing patterns, we should refrain from speculating. Protonk (talk) 19:32, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

True: We could easily have a reduction in "editing activity" simply because we have better enforcement of WP:3RR, or fewer edits in the mainspace because more things are being hashed out on the talk pages, or because more editors are using various kinds of scripts and therefore less frequently re-edit to correct typos. (I can't tell you how many times I've had to correct "{[" to the correct double-curly-braces for a template. Someday, someone will write me a script that won't save a page with that error in it.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:58, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

So what would be a good measure? The one that occurs to me would be total volume of "readable prose" as per e.g. Dispenser's Readability Analyzer, although I hate to think of the computer power required. --Philcha (talk) 08:21, 19 January 2009 (UTC)