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I think it's time we got rid of "Unambiguous", and let it simply read: "Advertising or promotion". It's more in line with common practice. My reading of G11, as well as the essay Wikipedia:Identifying blatant advertising gives me the (apparently mistaken) impression that G11 is exclusively about the language or tone of the page, not who wrote it. Draft:Messiah DuPont seems to have been G11'd simply because it's an autobio (it's worth noting that when I last checked, creating autobios wasn't actually prohibited, only discouraged; there's a difference), not because the language was promotional (because it wasn't). Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Kauser Konok proves (as if more proof was needed) that "unambiguous" is purely subjective (at the time of this writing, there are two editors who are saying basically: "How the hell is this G11", and another two (possibly three) saying the exact opposite), in direct contradiction to WP:NEWCSD#1 (or does that only apply to newly proposed criteria and not existing ones?). I'd also suggest that we remove the neutral point of view clause, but I see that was rejected a year ago (edit: and I see that I actually opposed that at the time, lol). That said, I'd be in favour of expanding G11 to state that other factors besides language may be taken into consideration in determining whether something's advertising. This would also make it easier to remove the flood of fake "drafts" that obviously have no hope of ever becoming articles (like the two I've linked to here). Thoughts? Adam9007 (talk) 19:23, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

While your suggestion does have some merit, removing "unambiguous" may not be necessary, as the who wrote it and other clear indications of motivation can contribute to the the judgment that the page is "unambiguous advertising." Here's an example: If a run of the mill non-notable person wrote what amounts to a "notwebhost" draft, that's enough of an "ambiguity" to avoid G11, or at least make the case for G11 weak (case in point from earlier today: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Davit ratiani). On the other hand, if a person who, based on on- or off-wiki evidence, was seeking self-promotion or had a good reason to do so (say, to boost his career), then nearly-identical text would cross over the line to be "unambiguously promotional", at least in my mind. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 19:56, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

That's why I said we could expand G11 to make that clear. Adam9007 (talk) 20:25, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) So the argument boils down to "people keep violating policy, so let's change the policy"? We already tell people with a COI to create a draft instead of an article. Shouldn't we instead try to keep G11 out of draft space as much as possible to keep these people confined to that area where their promotion won't appear outside the project? I have to ask again: What exactly is the problem with waiting for these drafts to be eligible for G13? Instead of considering to expand G11, shouldn't we instead make a rule that you should not nominate any draft for deletion that is not actively harmful? All the hours spent on these MFDs for such drafts could really be used much more efficiently, like reviewing the backlog of drafts. Regards SoWhy 20:00, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

people keep violating policy, so let's change the policy Policy should reflect common practice, not vice versa. We cannot force editors to abide by policy, and if a practice becomes common enough and, it's arguably unofficial policy anyway (I'm not saying I agree with it; I'm just saying that's how it is). All the hours spent on these MFDs for such drafts could really be used much more efficiently, like reviewing the backlog of drafts That is precisely why drafts that obviously haven't a snowball's chance in hell should be speediable, but the current letter of CSD policy suggests they can't be, even though they are sometimes speedied anyway. Adam9007 (talk) 20:13, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

But that is the problem, isn't it? Saying there are drafts that haven't a snowball's chance in hell requires at minimum two editors to make that assessment, wasting these editors time. If we exempt them from speedy deletion as Thryduulf suggests below, these editors could focus their time on something else and those drafts, snowy or not, will be deleted via G13 in due time anyway. The real question is, how does the project benefit from more people spending time on speedy tagging and MFDs for drafts? Regards SoWhy 08:30, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Filtering through the shit in draft space takes more cumulative editor effort than the cumulative editor effort it would take to CSD the shit. For every 2 editors looking at 1 shit draft to CSD it, 10 have looked at it to see if it is of any value. --Izno (talk) 19:20, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Then what you need is to change the work flow so that you aren't duplicating effort. The solution to wasting time is not to waste more time and bite newbies. Thryduulf (talk) 03:26, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

NB I'm not arguing for/against this proposal.

you need is to change the work flow Would you like to make a useful suggestion as to how to change the workflow, or are you just going to throw ideal words at the problem as if that will make the problem go away? Have you actually done any meaningful work in draft space? How was it? What tools did you use that made it easier to not cover the same shit twice by multiple people? --Izno (talk) 04:35, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

How about a bot adds a template or category to all drafts, saying this is unreviewed. When an editor takes a look they adjust the category to say that they've looked at it (giving it some sort of rating at the same time). A bot monitors the changes to pages in that category and if there are significant changes (to be defined what "significant" means) then the bot flags it for review. When a human reviews it they remove the flag and either adjust the rating or not as they see fit. It should be possible that each of these actions by a human requires only a single click (options to speedy delete it is G5, G10 or G12 with the same single click . Hey presto, no unnecessary duplication of effort. This is probably not perfect, but if I can come up with something that probably solves the problems with about 5 minutes thought then better minds than mine can surely do it with a bit longer to think about it. Thryduulf (talk) 11:36, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

• There seem to be two distinct proposals here: removing the word "unambiguous" from G11, and allowing G11 when the text is not promotional based on factors other than the text. Removing "unambiguous" by itself wouldn't allow non-text factors to be taken into consideration. In theory it wouldn't have much effect at all, given that all the criteria are only supposed to apply "in the most obvious cases". However I don't think it's a good idea to allow "factors besides language" for G11, because those would not be objective standards. While all the criteria have an element of judgement, determining whether something is promotionally worded can be done fairly objectively. Criteria based on why we think the author wrote the page, by contrast, are not objective at all. We can't read other peoples' minds and any attempt to do so will involve a large dose of guesswork. The fact that policy was misapplied in a few cases is not a good reason to change it, and if people are arguing over whether something is "unambiguous" then it probably isn't. Hut 8.5 21:01, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
  • However I don't think it's a good idea to allow "factors besides language" for G11, because those would not be objective standards. Criteria based on why we think the author wrote the page, by contrast, are not objective at all. But "unambiguous" is objective? How's "unambiguous" defined? As evidenced by the above MfD (as well as who knows how many other disputes), the definition of "unambiguous" depends entirely on whom one asks. That way, way too much of an element of judgement for any reasonable person to describe as objective. Also, there are many who I have no doubt would say that allowing non-text factors to be taken into consideration is well within the spirit of G11. Adam9007 (talk) 21:20, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
    • All the criteria have some sort of judgement involved and reasonable people can disagree about whether some cases qualify for each of the criteria, all we can do is keep the criteria reasonably objective. And yes I agree that "unambiguous" is reasonably objective. If a bunch of experienced editors are arguing about whether something is unambiguous or not then it pretty clearly isn't. Given that the motivation for proposing this is to delete more drafts, I have to agree with the other commenters here that combing through drafts to find ones which can be deleted before the G13 clock is a waste of time and people should be discouraged from doing that, aside from copyright violations and BLP violations. Hut 8.5 08:48, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
      • I agree that "unambiguous" is reasonably objective I don't; as evidenced above, what's NPOV to some may be "unambiguous advertising" to others (yes, differences of opinion are sometimes that extreme). I think considerably more of us can agree on what constitutes "advertising" than on what constitutes "unambiguous advertising". Adam9007 (talk) 02:54, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
        • That would very significantly broaden the meaning, which is the exact opposite of what needs to happen as it is already being used to delete pages that are not exclusively promotional. If "unambiguous" is really being interpreted that differently in good then we need to find some other way to convey the intention that it only be used for pages where removing all the promotional wording would leave a blank page. If you can reword it and arrive at an article that is not exclusively promotional then it does not meet the criterion, even if that means most sentences need to be reworded. It's also worth reiterating that the intent (proven, suspected, inferred, whatever) of the author is completely irrelevant. If there is any doubt that a page meets the criterion it must not be speedily deleted - anything else is an abuse of admin rights. If it is not possible to get this across in language reasonable admins can agree on then we need to repeal the criterion. It is infinitely better for the encyclopaedia that we speedily delete too little than too much. Thryduulf (talk) 03:23, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

          It is infinitely better for the encyclopaedia that we speedily delete too little than too much I suspect that a lot of users don't understand that the reason the speedy deletion criteria are so strict is so that we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. However, there are those who'd probably say that some bathwater needs to be thrown out so badly that it's worth risking throwing the baby out with it. This is why I think it's highly unlikely G11 will ever be repealed, even if we can't agree on what it's supposed to mean. That said, I still think "unambiguous" is too subjective. Adam9007 (talk) 04:30, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

          You think "unambiguous" is too subjective, pretty much everyone else thinks removing it will make the criteria too broad, so you need to come up with some other suggestion for alternative wording that makes the criteria at least as strict as it currently is. What is it? Thryduulf (talk) 11:25, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

          Thryduulf, You're asking me to come up with a synonym of "unambiguous" that isn't unambiguous? Perhaps the word "indisputable" would make it clearer that if it can be or has been disputed, the criterion doesn't apply? The fact that some are saying Kauser Konok is unambiguous even though that's been disputed, to me at least, makes it clear that the spirit of the wording isn't being followed. Adam9007 (talk) 16:40, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) I agree with Hut 8.5, with the exception of putting his last comment even more strongly - if there any good faith doubt or dispute about whether a speedy deletion criterion applies then, by definition, it does not. I also agree with SoWhy's comments about why people are wasting their and other's time nominating these drafts for CSD and/or MfD. If a draft does not pose any immediate harm to the encyclopaedia (and BLP or copyright issues are really the only time they can) then the only things worth your time are either improving it or ignoring it. Indeed it might actually be rather helpful for the encyclopaedia as a whole if we exempted draft space from all speedy deletion other than G5, G7, G8, G9, G10, G12 and G13 with explicit instructions not to nominate drafts at MfD other than in truly exceptional cases. Thryduulf (talk) 21:31, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

• • While I agree with you myself in principle, Thryduulf, at least on the applicability of CSDs, DRV has constantly reaffirmed A7s where commenting editors said they wouldn’t have A7’d it, the creating editor asked for it I deleted / sent to AfD, yet editors (who themselves say they wouldn’t A7) decide to endorse as being valid admin judgement on what could plausibly be A7 (a nonsensical approach in my eyes, but it happens successfully nevertheless). So it appears we may be in the minority here, or that there’s enough of a problem with speedy deletion that what should be the common practice determined by consensus isn’t actually being done in our deletion processes. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:38, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support breaking it into two halves:

(a) Unambiguous advertising or promotion, even if well sourced; or

(b) Advertising or promotion, including native advertising, if the page and its history contains no independent sources.

I think (b) type promotion has become common with the abundance if unskilled paid editors.

However, I think (b) would be more palatable, and in general "better", if it were a stickyPROD. If PRODded, it has 7 days to add a reliable independent source. This should apply to drafts. No acceptable promotion-liable article is based on zero independent sources. Promotion-liable articles are companies, their products and their CEOs. Zero independent sources means they can never pass WP:CORP. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:11, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

• Zero independent sources means they can never pass WP:CORP No it doesn't; notability is about the existence of such sources, not whether they're used in the article. Adam9007 (talk) 03:16, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

• Yes it does, "exists", or "can be found" was implied with "StickyPROD". If it can be found, the author should add it. They have seven days. The onus should be on the author for a promotional unsourced topic. If the source cannot be found by the author, then isn't there a bigger question: What were they doing? Making it up? Writing first hand knowledge. WP:V failure. That's an even better reason to delete. What if they were using a silent unreliable or non-independent source? That's also a reason to delete. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:40, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

• The whole purpose of draftspace is that people have unlimited time to write an article without it needing to meet the requirements for being in mainspace by any particular arbitrary deadline, as long as they make at least one edit every six months. Something like this might be OK if you are prepared to teach every editor whose work is prodded the details Wikipedia policy, including the nuances of what is and isn't a reliable source. And by "teach" I don't mean throw links full of jargon at them, I mean explain it to them so they understand. If you are not prepared to do that then just wait for G13. Thryduulf (talk) 11:22, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

  Thryduulf, The whole purpose of draftspace is that people have unlimited time to write an article without it needing to meet the requirements for being in mainspace by any particular arbitrary deadline The G11ing of Draft:Krozover seems contradictory to the purpose of draftspace; what concerns me is that WP:RS, WP:COI, and WP:Notability were cited. Yes, they're valid concerns, but they're nowt to do with whether a page is written promotionally, nor do they seem sufficient justification for deleting a draft at all, let alone speeding one. This has me wondering if this discussion and/or the one below should be made into an RfC, because I don't think it'll matter one jot what is said here if it's not; nothing will change (at least in the long-term) and it'll only be a matter of time before we have yet another discussion like this one. Adam9007 (talk) 16:26, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Based on the discussions above, and other previous discussions here about speedy deleting pages in draftspace it is clear that many editors are wasting their and others time by nominating drafts for speedy deletion and/or MfD (before they are eligible for G13) contrary to the purpose of draft space. There is also some evidence of speedy deletion criteria being misused to delete some drafts in such circumstances. It is outwith the scope of this page to deal with the MfD issue, but we can reduce the number of pointless and/or incorrect speedy deletions. Accordingly, I wonder about adding "This criterion does not apply to pages in the Draft or Draft talk: namespaces" to the following criteria:

• G1 (patent nonsense - this should just be ignored)
• G2 (test pages - testing is a valid use of draft space, speedy deleting such tests may discourage new editors and there is also some evidence presented of this criterion being used to delete what are clearly intended to be encyclopaedia articles)
• G4 (recreations of deleted pages - working on a new draft for a page that was previously deleted is a valid use of draft space)
• G11 (unambiguous promotion - pages in draft space may be worked on to be less promotional, are not indexed and will be deleted by G13 after 6 months of inactivity. Previous discussions suggest this is the most misused criterion in draftspace).
• G14 (unnecessary disambiguation pages - such pages may be being drafted because another draft will mean a currently unambiguous title will become ambiguous when the draft is published).

I am unsure about whether G3 (vandalism and hoaxes) and G6 (technical deletions) should be excluded - on the one hand there might be valid uses, on the otherhand there is much potential for them to be abused to speedy delete pages now excluded from other criteria..

I am explicitly not suggesting drafts should excluded from G5 (creations by banned editors, G10 (attack pages) or G12 (copyright violations), as pages meeting these criteria should be speedily deleted..

This is a discussion not a vote so please do not add bold !votes (for or against) the idea. If there is support for the idea in general then it will likely need an RFC, but I expect tweaks will be needed before then at minimum. Thryduulf (talk) 17:04, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure about these:

• G1 and G2: drafts aren't supposed to be sandboxes, they should be for attempts to write encyclopedia articles. Genuine tests or patent nonsense don't have any place in draft space.
• G4: a draft which recreates an article previously deleted at AfD is a valid use of draft space, but that wouldn't qualify for G4 anyway. On the other hand if a draft is deleted at MfD then recreations of that draft could be reasonable G4 deletions.
• G11: spam is definitely less harmful in draft space than in mainspace, and I personally apply a higher standard when considering G11 deletions in draft space than I would in mainspace. I'd be happy to see something on those lines written into the policy. However spam in draft space can still be harmful and I think we should allow some G11 deletions in draft space.
• G14: fair enough, I'd support adding that one.

Hut 8.5 18:35, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

• G1 - Won't change much; true nonsense will probably just be deleted under G3 instead.
• G2 - What's wrong with Draft:Sandbox and the other sandboxes? That's what they're there for.
• G4 - I assume your proposed exclusion excludes MfD-deleted drafts?
• G11 - This could lead to mass spamming of draftspace that we can't quickly get rid of.

Adam9007 (talk) 18:40, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

This could lead to mass spamming of draftspace that we can't quickly get rid of. Even if, who says we need to quickly get rid of it? Those pages are not indexed and no one outside Wikipedia will see them unless they have a direct link, making them essentially useless for real spam purposes. In fact, not deleting them immediately might be more helpful in the long run. If a UPE/COI editor sees their draft deleted, they might well create more drafts using different accounts or try to directly place their spam in mainspace. If they believe it will be reviewed someday, they might just wait and G13 will handle it at a time they no longer actively monitor the draft. Regards SoWhy 11:47, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

• G11 is used a lot on drafts, I believe. Now, generally crap in the draftspace isn’t hurting anyone (WMF hasn’t complained about the disk space). However, some pages are obvious autobiographical nonsense by SPAs, and worded as such, and never going to make it into main space. The issue with these is it clogs up AfC cats (like “eligible for G13 soon”). If the cat is clogged up with crap, it makes it harder to find the gems which should be saved from G13 (and many good drafts are unfortunately G13’d, and obviously will never be refunded).
• I think the bigger issue is MfDs for drafts. They’re a waste of time. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:42, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

  I agree with that but I'm not sure how to solve it, and certainly this is not the place to solve it. Thryduulf (talk) 11:44, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

• Also, ((db-spam)) (G11) is often used for spambots. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:51, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
• Regarding G4 and MfD, that's fair. I think the best way to solve that would be to still exclude G4 from applying in draftspace but have a separate criterion, D1 maybe, with similar wording but which only applies to draftspace pages that are recreations of drafts deleted at MfD. The other option would be to do with with a two-clause G4 (clause 1 everything except draftspace, clause 2 draftspace) but my preference is always for a longer list of simple criteria over a shorter list of complicated ones. Thryduulf (talk) 11:42, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

• G4 already excludes "content that has been moved to user space or converted to a draft for explicit improvement". That covers draftified versions of mainspace articles deleted at AfD. Hut 8.5 12:41, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

  It doesn't however cover drafts written afresh without being moved from anywhere and which have not been explicitly authorised by AfD/DRV. Thryduulf (talk) 12:51, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

I think you'd find it very hard to justify deleting one of those under G4, as a draft is not substantially similar to a mainspace article, and since the article has been rewritten it probably wouldn't qualify anyway. I do remember taking part in a DRV discussion about a case where an admin deleted a draft under G4 on the grounds that an article on the same topic was deleted at AfD, and the discussion was overwhelmingly of the view that this was a bad deletion under the existing policy. If you do want to change the wording of this exemption to make it stronger then OK, but a separate criterion is overkill. Hut 8.5 20:02, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

• G11 hmm, I think the answer here would again be to exclude G11 from draftspace and add a new draftspace only criterion (D2 for the sake of discussion) with much stricter requirements codified. G1/G2 I'm still thinking about. Thryduulf (talk) 11:42, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
• G1/G2: Draft space is not a general sandbox. Draft:Asdf has been speedily deleted a couple of times, but usually not soon after creation. Draft:Test is create protected, which is a bit sad: seems like the perfect title where you could test page creation, but that only works if the page is regularly deleted. I don't see how keeping nonsense pages or test pages around for six months saves time: that is only true if nobody ever looks at them. Every time someone clicks on a nonsense page to check whether it can be salvaged, they are wasting time that could be saved by a timely speedy deletion. —Kusma (t·c) 22:08, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

I came to a case where I considered nominating a page creator by blocked user User:UniverseMan69. UniverseMan69 is a blocked sock of User:1917 Darwin, who, according to their userpage, is checkuser blocked and globally locked. The global lock checks out (April 2018), but according to the block log, 1917 Darwin is not (and apparently never has been?) locally blocked. Since the page was created by the blocked sock the month after the master was globally locked, I feel like this should be G5-able, but given that the master technically never received a local block, things get to be a bit ambiguous here. Am I just not comprehending something that should be obvious, or does G5 need a slight wording clarification to more directly indicate that global locks are also G5 stuff? Hog Farm _Talk 07:20, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• Avoiding a global lock should be treated the same way as avoiding a local block, since the effect is the same. And it would be pointless to apply a local block given that the global lock does the same thing. Hut 8.5 08:29, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• I am inclined to agree that global blocks should be considered like regular blocks. FWIW, the CSD policy does not specify local blocks and the blocking policy it refers to has Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Global blocks. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:31, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• Agree with Hut 8.5 and Jo-Jo Eumerus here. The point of G5 is to enforce WP:BMB. If you are not allowed to edit this project, your contributions are eligible for deletion. Whether (and how) the user is technically prevented from editing is irrelevant. After all, G5 also applies to topic-banned editors creating pages in the area of their topic ban and those users are usually not technically prevented from editing. That said, I would not be opposed to clarifying G5, e.g. by changing the wording to This applies to pages created by banned or blocked users in violation of their (local or global) ban or block, [...]. Regards SoWhy 14:55, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
• I agree with everyone above, G5 does apply. I'm not sure there is a need to clarify but I'm not at all opposed to doing so if others think it will be of benefit. Thryduulf (talk) 16:11, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, Izno, because your revert made me check the documentation, which has been updated. According to the documentation, that template now uses a default width of "30em", so there is no longer a need to set the |colwidth= parameter to that setting. Curious that you saw a difference, though, because if "30em" is now the "default", then my edit shouldn't have changed anything. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 15:50, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Paine Ellsworth, I didn't look for a difference, I simply knew the wikitext versions were effectively the same. (Well, not really, one uses inline style and one uses TemplateStyle.) The revert was to let you know. ;) --Izno (talk) 17:06, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Well, you were explicit in your edit summary, "this is not 2 columns", and of course it is two columns for some editors. Anyway, thanks again for the heads up! P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 17:32, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Right now the first three paragraphs are directed towards admins, and not until the fourth paragraph are other users mentioned. At first glance, a reader might think (as I did) that CFD only applies to admins, which is not the case. I propose to move the user info up, specifically "Any user can request speedy deletion by adding one of the speedy deletion templates," and reorder the paragraphs.

Current:

The criteria for speedy deletion (CSD) specify the only cases in which administrators have broad consensus to bypass deletion discussion, at their discretion, and immediately delete Wikipedia pages or media.

Deletion is reversible, but only by administrators, so other deletions occur only after discussion, unless they are proposed deletions. Speedy deletion is intended to reduce the time spent on deletion discussions for pages or media with no practical chance of surviving discussion.^[1]

Administrators should take care not to speedily delete pages or media except in the most obvious cases. If a page has survived its most recent deletion discussion, it should not be speedily deleted except for newly discovered copyright violations and pages that meet specific uncontroversial criteria; these criteria are noted below. Contributors sometimes create pages over several edits, so administrators should avoid deleting a page that appears incomplete too soon after its creation.

Anyone can request speedy deletion by adding one of the speedy deletion templates. Before nominating a page for speedy deletion, consider whether it could be improved, reduced to a stub, merged or redirected elsewhere, reverted to a better previous revision, or handled in some other way (see Wikipedia:Deletion policy § Alternatives to deletion). A page is eligible for speedy deletion only if all of its revisions are also eligible. Users nominating a page for speedy deletion should specify which criterion/criteria the page meets, and should notify the page creator and any major contributors. If a page needs to be removed from Wikipedia for privacy reasons (e.g. non-public personal information, a child disclosing the child's age, possible libel), request oversight instead.

For most speedy deletion criteria, the creator of a page may not remove the deletion tag from it; only an editor who is not the creator of a page may do so. A creator who disagrees with the speedy deletion should instead click on the Contest this speedy deletion button that appears inside of the speedy deletion tag. This button links to the discussion page with a pre-formatted area for the creator to explain why the page should not be deleted. If an editor other than the creator removes a speedy deletion tag in good faith, it should be taken as a sign that the deletion is not uncontroversial and another deletion process should be used. The creator of a page may remove a speedy deletion tag only if the criterion in question is G6, G7, G8, G13, G14 or U1.^[2]

Proposed:

The criteria for speedy deletion (CSD) specify the only cases in which administrators have broad consensus to bypass deletion discussion, at their discretion, and immediately delete Wikipedia pages or media. Any user can request speedy deletion by adding one of the speedy deletion templates, but only administrators may actually delete.

Deletion is reversible, but only by administrators, so other deletions occur only after discussion, unless they are proposed deletions. Speedy deletion is intended to reduce the time spent on deletion discussions for pages or media with no practical chance of surviving discussion.^[3]

Before nominating a page for speedy deletion, consider whether it could be improved, reduced to a stub, merged or redirected elsewhere, reverted to a better previous revision, or handled in some other way (see Wikipedia:Deletion policy § Alternatives to deletion). A page is eligible for speedy deletion only if all of its revisions are also eligible. Users nominating a page for speedy deletion should specify which criterion/criteria the page meets, and should notify the page creator and any major contributors. If a page needs to be removed from Wikipedia for privacy reasons (e.g. non-public personal information, a child disclosing the child's age, possible libel), request oversight instead.

Administrators should take care not to speedily delete pages or media except in the most obvious cases. If a page has survived its most recent deletion discussion, it should not be speedily deleted except for newly discovered copyright violations and pages that meet specific uncontroversial criteria; these criteria are noted below. Contributors sometimes create pages over several edits, so administrators should avoid deleting a page that appears incomplete too soon after its creation.

For most speedy deletion criteria, the creator of a page may not remove the deletion tag from it; only an editor who is not the creator of a page may do so. A creator who disagrees with the speedy deletion should instead click on the Contest this speedy deletion button that appears inside of the speedy deletion tag. This button links to the discussion page with a pre-formatted area for the creator to explain why the page should not be deleted. If an editor other than the creator removes a speedy deletion tag in good faith, it should be taken as a sign that the deletion is not uncontroversial and another deletion process should be used. The creator of a page may remove a speedy deletion tag only if the criterion in question is G6, G7, G8, G13, G14 or U1.^[4]

Thank you for reading my wall of text :) Cheers, Fredlesaltique (talk) 12:09, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I like it. The only thing I would suggest is swapping paragraphs #4 and #5 to keep the user-related parts of the lead together. Regards SoWhy 13:19, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree completely with SoWhy. Thryduulf (talk) 14:30, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Good idea, but I'd maybe go further and remove the admin-specific stuff altogether. The vast majority of admins will be familiar with CSD by the time they get the bit and those that need a refresher won't mind scrolling down. Precious real estate at the top of the page (i.e. the only thing most people read) should be reserved for information relevant to most/all editors. – Joe (talk) 14:56, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

@Thryduulf, Joe Roe, and SoWhy: Nice; glad to hear it wasn't just me. If one of y'all can edit it I'd appreciate it. Cheers, Fredlesaltique (talk) 12:21, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Generally agree but if the admin stuff is the last paragraph, I don't see a problem with real estate. Regards SoWhy 12:34, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

@Thryduulf, Joe Roe, and SoWhy: Could one of you please edit the article for me if you think the changes would be good? Cheers, Fredlesaltique (talk) 13:10, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

@Fredlesaltique: Patience. Since this is a change to a widely used policy page, we should allow a few days for more people to give their input. Regards SoWhy 14:42, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Ah ok will do. Don't mean to be pushy, just that since I can't edit myself I wanted to make sure it didn't get forgotten. Fredlesaltique (talk) 03:08, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

There haven't been any comments for a few days now so I'll implement this in a day or so unless there are some new objections or somebody beats me to it. Thryduulf (talk) 13:38, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

A1 and A3 currently have the following at the end: Don't tag under this criterion in the first few minutes after a new article is created.^[1]

I suggest that the same text be copied to the end of A7 and A9. If an article has some minimal context and content (e.g. "John Doe was born in 1949 and lived in Townytown"), while somehow omitting (",a Nobel prize winner") for a few minutes, the same logic behind hasty in A1 and A3 applies.

According to User:Barkeep49 this is considered best practice already, and this is codified at WP:NPPCSD. I suggest that the policy be updated to reflect best practice. This has little effect on the evaluation of the speedy by an admin as that is generally well after ten minutes for A1/A3/A7/A9, but will influence CSD taggers to be less hasty.--Eostrix  (^{🦉 hoot} _hoot🦉) 18:18, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Generally, I agree, however, there are actually cases in which the eligibility is already clear at creation (unless A1 or A3), e.g. if the article is clearly already finished but the subject fails A7 or A9. If we add such a warning, it should be modified to encompass this situation, e.g. Since articles are often created in multiple edits, don't tag under this criterion in the first few minutes after a new article is created, unless further editing by the creator cannot reasonably be expected. Regards SoWhy 14:47, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Eostrix completely. While I understand where SoWhy is coming from, I disagree that the added complication is worth it - unlike a G10 or G12 no harm will come to the project if these pages stay around for 10 minutes or even a few hours without improvement before being tagged. Also, "Unless further editing by the creator cannot reasonably be expected." feels like inviting arguments about what can and cannot be reasonably expected and why. Thryduulf (talk) 16:08, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

• I'm not especially sure adding piles more words will change the behaviour of new-page patrollers. Stifle (talk) 09:15, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

This is technically eligible for G2, but it looks like it might actually be of some use to the project. I'm wondering if G2 ought to exempt pages like this? Adam9007 (talk) 02:25, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

• It looks like a sandbox, and sandboxes are explicitly not eligible for G2. Also, speedy delete means that admins can delete the page, not that they must. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 02:34, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

  Oiyarbepsy, It's not specifically designated as a sandbox. The page has been G2 tagged before, so this needs to be clarified. Adam9007 (talk) 02:47, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

• I think the easiest solution here would just be to stick a sandbox template on the page or it's talk page to make it clear what it's being used for, rather than rewording G2 to account for edge cases. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 13:27, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Currently, the last sentence of A1/A3 and its explanatory footnote read Don't tag under this criterion in the first few minutes after a new article is created.<ref name="Hasty">Consensus has developed that in most cases articles should not be tagged for deletion under this criterion moments after creation as the creator may be actively working on the content; though there is no set time requirement, a ten-minute delay before tagging under this criterion is suggested as good practice. Please '''do not''' mark the page as [[Wikipedia:New pages patrol/patrolled pages|patrolled]] before that delay passes, to ensure the article is reviewed at a later time.</ref>.

That seems like a lot of words just to say "wait 10 minutes before tagging under this criterion." Also, when new page patrolling, we are not supposed to mark any CSD page as patrolled, so that may go without saying. To keep it simple and crystal clear, is there interest in shortening this to Don't tag under this criterion until 10 minutes have elapsed since creation.? Thanks. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:59, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

I would keep the current wording. I think the current explanation is helpful. It clarifies that it is not a requirement, but a good practice suggestion reached through consensus. Also I don't think the last sentence refers to articles already tagged for CSD. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 16:30, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

No need to change anything. Placing arbitrary barriers in the way of improving the encyclopedia by removing inappropriate content is not helpful. New page patrollers don't need to start setting 10-minute timers before coming back and seeing the same one-sentence article. Stifle (talk) 10:01, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

In order to help deal with getting rid of drafts that are pretty much never going to be approved no matter how much effort is expended on them, I am suggesting we adopt a new set of speedy criteria. These criteria would fall into a new general category, D# (for draft) and should apply only to pages actually in the draft namespace (userspace drafts falling under U# criteria). Here are the criteria I propose.

• D1: Business profile/cirriculum vitae drafts for which no reliable sources exist. This would apply to drafts that are written more like a business profile as one would see on Bloomberg or a cirriculum vitae, but are not so obviously promotional G11 applies. The sourcing requirement serves as both a WP:BEFORE check and as a bright line between "unsalvageable" and "Needs a lot of work but could be made acceptable."
• D2: Drafts about living people which would fail basic biographical requirements if they were articles and have remained unsourced for seven days. A large number of drafts we deal with in -en-help are of people who are not notable and whose articles have no sources and no chance of being sourced due to being virtually unknown. The seven-day requirement is for parity with WP:BLPPROD.
• D3: Drafts which have not been edited for six months. This would basically be renaming G13 to D3. Whether or not this is a good idea is dependent on how we want to treat userspace drafts. This should be refundable, as G13s are.
• D4: Drafts primarily written by undisclosed paid editors with no significant edits by other editors. Note that this criteria can, and should, be contestable at WP:Requests for undeletion provided the editor(s) disclose(s) and is unblocked. The key here is undisclosed; disclosure should instantly negate the criterion. We should not be making undisclosed paid editors' efforts at getting work anything but impossible.
• D5: Drafts that have been repeatedly resubmitted and declined/rejected (3+ times) without any significant work being done to improve them. At present a draft that has been constantly resubmitted without improvement is usually rejected and (often) sent to MfD where they get deleted; this would allow us to get rid of drafts whose writers aren't taking any criticism on board and are just blindly resubmitting in hopes of getting a credulous reviewer. The key here is repeatedly resubmitted and declined/rejected...without any significant work; a summary rejection as the first one or evidence the author(s) are trying to improve the draft should negate a D5.

Opinions? —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^{Takes a strong man to deny...} 18:40, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

• What problem is this trying to solve? Why is it necessary to delete these drafts before they are eligible for G13? Do you have evidence that MfD is overloaded? How is D4 compatible with editor privacy and with editors who are incorrectly accused of UPE (note that a speedy deletion criterion for UPE has been rejected multiple times previously)? How do you propose to make D1, D2 and D5 objective (they are not currently)? How is D2 compatible with WP:NODEADLINE, especially as the purpose of draft space is to allow articles to be developed over time without needing to meet all the sourcing requirements immediately? Do these proposals meet all the WP:NEWCSD requirements (note at least three of them fail the objectivity requirement as written)? Thryduulf (talk) 18:58, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
• As per Thryduulf; also, you should not choose CSD codes until a criterion is approved for use. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:20, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Meh. If someone's proposing multiple new criteria at a time, it makes it easier to discuss them individually. —Cryptic 23:57, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
• D2 is misplaced; it should be discussed instead at WT:BLPPROD. (As, as it happens, it already is.) —Cryptic 23:57, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
• These are either unsuitable for speedy deletion or miss the point of draft space. Draft space is intended for articles which aren't up to scratch yet, the fact a draft is badly written or doesn't meet mainspace standards doesn't mean it should be deleted.
  • D1: "more like a business profile" isn't a very objective standard, and processes which require people to search for references should not be done through speedy deletion. Editors disagree about what constitutes a reliable source all the time. The fact that a draft is written like a business profile is also not a good reason to delete it in itself, as it's a content issue which could be addressed.
  • D2: if you really want to do that then it should be an expansion of BLP PROD, but as I said when this was proposed there it also misses the point of draft space. It's perfectly reasonable to start a draft without putting the references on straightaway. Drafts are vastly less visible than mainspace articles.
  • D3: this expands G13 to include userspace drafts which aren't AfC submissions, which is a huge expansion which goes against previous consensus.
  • D4: this is asking the reviewing admin to judge whether a draft was created by an undisclosed paid editor, which is difficult to judge accurately. Previous proposals to delete all content added by undisclosed paid editors haven't gained consensus so the fact that a draft was written by an undisclosed paid editor doesn't necessarily mean it should be deleted.
  • D5: I don't think this is much of a problem. If someone stops working on a draft for six months then it will be deleted under G13 anyway. If they keep working on it then then the draft may come up to scratch. The fact that an AfC reviewer has declined something doesn't mean the draft is unviable, and deleting something after the third decline would be very harsh to the editor who worked on it as they would have any chance to address the third decline (they might not even see the reason before the draft gets deleted). There don't seem to be many cases like this at MfD.
• Hut 8.5 08:42, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

  I agree with all of what Hut 8.5 says. The whole point of draft space is to avoid overzealous deletions that might otherwise happen in article space. Regards SoWhy 09:16, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

• I think we need to consider this, and I am not sure that some of the objections are valid.
  • D1: the distinction should be whether there is any conceivable chance that the article might be improvable. For drafts meeting criteria D!, some of them are conceivable sourceable and notable, and I have even seen some which can be expanded into decent articles, eithe by the contributor of someone else. But some are so clearly not that we might want to have a deletion criterion of this sort. But unless we can devise clear-cut criteria for this, this is not something for speedy. If we do anything of the sort, it would need a time delay, and be refundable.
  • D2 is worth discussing. Quite a few of these are just names, and will remain so forever. But , as for D1, unless we can devise clear-cut criteria for this, this is not something for speedy. If we do anything of the sort, it would need a time delay, and be refundable. This could be either part of BLP PROD or as Draft -- there are existing speedy criteria with a time delay.
  • D3 I personally would include userspace drafts, but I do not think there is consensus. If we do establish a separate Draft section, there would be a point of moving G13 to it.
  • D4 Although previous proposals to delete all material by undeclared paid editors have not been approved, a great many of them are covered by provision G5, editing by previous blocked editors and their sockpuppets. This applies only to edits made after the principal or one of the sock accounts was blocked, but some admins have interpreted it more liberally, on the basis that this is an technical distinction (it is not just a technical artificial distinction, but a good and real one for people blocked for most other reasons) . I haven't done it, but some have, and I would not blame any who did.
  • D5. I think this is valuable and ought to be included, with some cautions. The primary caution as I see it is that about 10% of drafts are still being wrongly declined--for reasons of style or slightly inadequate sourcing or incompleteness that could be fixed in mainspace, and for which an article would never be deleted. (There's a much higher percentage of drafts being declined for the wrong reasons) There's some real benefits in doing this: repeated submission afddd to the backlog and the work, for those articles which in general simply aren;t worth the effort. It is extremely rare that someone after repeated declines will suddenly start wmaking sensible improbvements. I've seen it, but very seldom. However I would use a more restrictive level than the suggested criterion: 4 or more times, including declines by at least 2 different reviewers, and without any attempt to address the problem.
• I'm one of the very few people who try seriously to rescue drafts at G13. If something is not done to remove the large percentage of hopeless ones at an early stage, I am likely stop working in that area altogether. It's difficult to screen a large number with any degree of accuracy, and if my colleagues will not even indirectly assist, that's not something likely to encourage me to continue DGG ( talk ) 01:30, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
• Generally support development here. NB. First preference is to delete draftspace and to tell new editors to edit mainspace before creating drafts. Newcomers should not be directed into AfC, but should be directed to mainspace. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:43, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
• D1. D1: Business profile/curriculum vitae drafts for which no reliable sources exist.

  Support but reword to "D1: Business profile/curriculum vitae drafts for which no independent reliable source is provided.

  This should be Sticky PROD style, 7 days. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:43, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

• D2. Support, BLPPROD should apply to drafts. In the meantime, send all unsourced BLPs straight to MfD. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:43, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
• D3. G13 -> D3. OK, no opposition. Assuming that this covers AfC drafts in userspace? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:43, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
• D4. Oppose in favour of Wikipedia:Quarantine promotional Undeclared Paid Editor product. Many UPEs are socks of experienced editors. Deleting their work clears the slate for them to try again better. Rapid deletion prevents non-admins from joining the dots, and so it a losing strategy. Content-blanked archived UPE product titles will make it very easy to spot the next paid attempt. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:43, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
• D5. Oppose. Continue to send these to MfD. The numbers are not so great. Repeated declines often are cases of bad decline comments. Repeated Rejects are rare, which I attribute to the clarity of the Reject message. "Repeated" implies an active disagreement, and all active disagreements are worth an attempt at discussion. Often these are well held at MfD. Often they are better held at user_talk as a editor behavioural issue. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:43, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
• Why not blank? It seems that simply blanking such pages would solve the problem here, maybe with some kind of notice template. Then, after 6 months, the abandoned draft criteria kicks in. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 05:39, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
• Given that we appear to be !voting now, for the record I strongly oppose all the criteria as proposed (and at most of them in principal too). As this has been open a couple of weeks without any attempt by anybody to rectify any of the insurmountable problems identified with the proposals as written I'm not sure why this section hasn't been closed as a waste of everybody's time yet? Thryduulf (talk) 13:15, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

  because people are continuing to comment and add suggestions . Since my posting just yesterday there have been two new ones, both worth considering. Dealing with drafts is a problem, and the way to fix it is not to give up on. it. DGG ( talk ) 17:00, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

  As I noted out of band to SoWhy, this forum tends to the bold-oppose-support rather than lending itself to idea-level discussion. I do not think it fruitful to perpetuate the former and certainly do not think the latter should be chased away. --Izno (talk) 17:53, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

• D1, D2 and D5 are all good rationales for deletion. Anything fitting these can and should be nominated for deletion at WP:MfD. A large number of cases resulting in SNOW deletions per an objective rationale is probably well considered to be a pre-requisite for a D* WP:NEWCSD. MfD is not seeing a lot of these, so NEWCSD#3 ("frequent") is lacking evidence. D4 fails on multiple points. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:06, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
• I think drafts such as Draft:Ajay Motkari, Draft:Azam Dahri, Draft:Hurais Khan, and Draft:Pqtrick are good cases for D2 or something similar. Otherwise, as I've said before, some will just abuse an unrelated criterion such as G2. Yeah, I could just take them to MfD, but they'll just say I'm a time-waster. To be honest, they might have a point, even if it has no basis in policy. It may nbot be a massive load on MfD, but it's still an unesccessary one; the conclusion of such discussions are foregone. That is exactly what CSD is meant for. Adam9007 (talk) 17:33, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Why is it necessary (or even beneficial) to delete these before they are eligible for G13? What problem are they causing that speedy deletion is the best/only way to solve? Thryduulf (talk) 16:30, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
    • Thryduulf, It adds unnecessary load to MfD. There's little point in having a deletion discussion about clearly non-notable autobios and the like; that's why we have criteria such as A7. Do we really have to wait 6 months for stuff that'll obviously never pass muster in a million years to be deleted just because it's in draftspace? G13 is meant for serious drafts that might actually one day stand a chance of being published, not stuff like Draft:Pradeep Kumar Singh. There's also the risk of BLP violations (that would be dealt with much more quickly in mainspace because we have things like A7 and BLPPROD) standing for up to 6 months. Adam9007 (talk) 02:20, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
      • The whole purpose of draft space is to give users a reasonable time to work on an article without it needing to meet all the criteria for articles immediately. The consensus of the community is that "reasonable time" means 6 months. G13 is not "meant for serious drafts that might actually one day stand a chance of being published", indeed the opposite, it is intended for abandoned drafts that nobody is interested in. If there is a BLP issue then the following options are all available: (1) remove the part of the draft that is a BLP vio, (2) speedy delete it under G10, (3) nominate it at MfD (in all cases alert the WP:OVERSIGHT team if there is a serious issue that needs suppression). If there is no BLP issue then just ignore the draft and it will be gone in 6 months. There is no evidence that MfD is seeing so many nominations of drafts that a speedy criterion is required to take the pressure off - because drafts get deleted after 6 months routine nominations are just a waste of everybody's time. So I'll ask again, what is that actual problem that requires deletion sooner than G13 that needs speedy deletion to solve? As an aside what are your objective definitions of "clearly non-notable autobios and the like" and "serious drafts that might actually one day stand a chance of being published"? Thryduulf (talk) 03:29, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

        Thryduulf, I highly doubt that G13 was ever meant to prolong the existence of stuff that obviously has no place in an encyclopaedia. By 'clearly non-notable autobios and the like', I mean articles that basically amount to this: Joe Bloggs is a person. He likes this; he likes that; blah blah blah. Nothing to see here; move along. Like the ones I linked to above, which are exactly the sort of things A7 is meant for. If such a page were in draftspace, it wouldn't be incubated on sight, it'd be zapped on sight. Why should it hang around in draftspace for 6 months? Why should drafts be exempt from the same treatment just because they were created in draftspace first? By your logic, we should stick such articles in draftspace for 6 months and only then delete them. I'm guessing Wikipedia:ACTRIAL is the reason why there are now so many drafts that would be CSD-eligible if they were in article space. If so, it has actually been counterproductive in a way: because they're in draftspace, they can't be CSD'd under the current rules. However, the fact that they're being improperly CSD'd anyway under G2 or something else speaks volumes. And by 'serious drafts', I mean an actual, genuine attempt at an encyclopaedia article, as opposed to a load of waffle about something nobody cares about. Adam9007 (talk) 04:13, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

        Once again, draftspace is explicitly intended for things that are not suitable for article space, that it contains pages like you comment means it is working as intended. You have still not explained why them being around for six months is actually a problem (other than you not liking them). Your definitions of what you want and don't want to see in draft space are not even close to objective (they are closer to "I know it when I see it"). If people are using G2 to delete pages like that then they need to stop immediately because they are abusing their admin tools in one of the most serious ways possible. Thryduulf (talk) 11:18, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

        Thryduulf, Once again, draftspace is explicitly intended for things that are not suitable for article space We're talking about stuff that's not only unsuitable for article space, but unsuitable for Wikipedia whatsoever. I've just come across Draft:Andrea fortier. It was tagged as G2 because it was the creator's first edit. Had it been in mainspace, it would be A7'd and A1'd on sight, and rightly so (we do have WP:ATD-I for cases that aren't necessarily hopeless). If my experience is any indication, drafts like that are overwhelmingly deleted at MfD, usually well before G13 kicks in. Why? Because they're junk, and not at all worth keeping, even for the "grace period" afforded to drafts. Adam9007 (talk) 23:31, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

        If there are no BLP, copyright or attack page issues then the only choices you have are (a) wait for G13, or (b) waste your and someone else's time. Literally every other action than ignoring it is pointless. These drafts, in draftspace, are harmless. There is a good reason why applying article space speedy deletion criteria to draft space is rejected every time it is proposed: the purpose of draft space is to allow a time and space for people to write articles that are not suitable for article space (yet). Whether they will ever be is irrelevant. Thryduulf (talk) 00:16, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

• The problem seems to be "drafts on hopeless topics" - that is, draft that no reasonable editor would ever see becoming notable any time in the near future, so it's pointless to continue. With that in mind, how about simply updating G13 to include "Drafts that have been rejected and not edited by a person for 30 days may be deleted under G13 as a soft deletion." The soft-deletion will cover the rare cases where some hopelessly non-notable topic becomes notable for some unforeseeable reason (e.g. in 2015, if someone would've written about some high school poet named Amanda Gorman, it would have been rightly rejected). It will also cover many cases of sock-puppetry when the page is not G5-eligible due to it being created before the first block or ban was issued. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 16:26, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

  I'm going to have to echo Thryduulf's response to Adam above - what harm are these drafts doing sitting around? They aren't indexed, they will be deleted eventually, and if there are any PII issues they will already be handled under existing processes. Primefac (talk) 16:37, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

  I agree, there's no good reason to delete drafts after one month instead of six months just because they've been rejected. The fact that someone rejected a draft doesn't even mean the draft is hopeless or non-notable, it's perfectly possible for an AfC reviewer to decline something saying "This is probably notable but you need to do XYZ". Hut 8.5 18:53, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

• "Hopeless topics" per se are not a problem with being left in draftspace for months. Allowing quick deletion on the sole judgement of a single editor creates more problems than the none solved. What if that sole editor is wrong, or biased, or is biting? "Hopeless & harmless drafts" are what draftspace is for. If it is not "harmless", identify an objective problem, and nominate it at MfD. Many SNOW deletion discussions are important evidence in support of a NEWCSD. At the moment, I think there are two good cases for building evidence. One is something "obviously made up by the author", like CSD#A11 but in draftspace. The other is for BLPPROD in draftspace, an "unsourced BLP". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:19, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
• Strong oppose D2 as written. We have hundreds of drafts at Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/United States judges and justices with rudimentary information. These individuals are inherently notable, and a handful of them may be still-living people, but for the most part, the drafts are currently unsourced. They are steadily being worked through, but at a pace that will take another year or more to complete. There is no good reason to delete these in their current state, as they contain no contentious information. BD2412 T 01:22, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
  • This is a very good point, even if most of them aren't living people. This is a good reason to send things through XfD for an extended period, so as to gather information on what sort of things could be caught. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:57, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
    • However, it muddies the waters for the lots of made up stuff about other people, in draftspace. I think the lists of missing judges and justices belong better as subpages of the WikiProject, where, if there are any questions, the WikiProject can be assumed to be responsible for irresponsible pages amongst them. Also on these drafts, their names surely came from some source, why not add that source to each draft? At least, for sure, for biographies of living people, which again most of your drafts are not. At mfd, I continue to believe that “unsourced BLP” is a good reason for deletion. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:49, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

So essentially, D2, D3, and D5 are less controversial than the others, but part of the issue is essentially a lack of draftspace pages at MfD? I should note that, other than D3 and D5, most of these are based off of situations I've encountered regularly while working wikipedia-en-help, where a good 80% of the questions are "why was my draft declined" and a good 90% of those are drafts on businesses that only cite pressers, or biographies of living people that are woefully undersourced (of which a few are completely un-sourced). I think part of the reason for the lack of MfD is because people are less willing to send a draft to MfD unless the author really just isn't getting it (Indeed, D5 was doped up because most of the draft MfDs I've seen/participated in have been cases where an article was repeatedly resubmitted without any additional effort put into it). —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^{Takes a strong man to deny...} 19:20, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• If people don't see any benefit from nominating them at MfD, why do you think there is a need to speedy delete them? Speedy deletion exists so that regular deletion processes are not overwhelmed by things that will always be deleted. If they aren't being nominated at XfD then they cannot be overwhelming XfD. Thryduulf (talk) 21:10, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
• The Draft: namespace was created in approximately late 2013/early 2014. Is somebody able to go through the last seven years of MfDs in order to find out (a) how many pages in Draft: namespace were nominated at MfD; (b) how many of those closed as "delete" for any reason not covered by the CSD criteria as they existed at the time; (c) if there were any trends in the type of Draft: page that were deleted following a MfD - for example, were many of them autobiographies, garage bands, upcoming records/games/films. If the nomination rate is low, or if the proportion deleted is low, or if there are no recognisable trends, then we don't need new CSD criteria and the existing MfD process can handle any Draft: for which none of the G criteria apply. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:28, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

  Having attended MfD regularly, my comments from memory:

  (a) In the lead up to G13, the number was huge. G13 was created, and there was pushback on weak nominations at MFD, including RfCs, I think linked from WP:NMFD (don't nominate due to notability) and WP:DMFD (teditious resubmitting is a reason to nominate)

  The nature of the pushback on excessive busywork nominations was to "keep" and leave for G13. Most cases are well characterized as "harmless worthless". Nominators tend to stop nominating when most of their nominations result in keep.

  (c) I personally have always !voted "delete" for WP:YAMB cases, as violating WP:NOTPROMOTION. For biographies, I push for "delete" if it is really a WP:CORP failure belong to the set: "A company, its product, founder, or CEO". I usually maintain that a deletion reason is something listed at WP:NOT, and that deletion reasons do not include "hopeless" or "not notable". My !vote matches the result more often than not.

  I think I agree that a new D CSD is not justified. However, I do support sticky BLPPROD in draftspace, and in the meantime I consider "unsourced BLP" to be an excellent deletion reason at MfD. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:50, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

  So basically, since G13 was introduced, MfD is not being swamped with Draft: articles any more and the existing processes are sufficient to handle the other cases without being overloaded. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:11, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

  That’s right. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:31, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

• We should probably go through all of these criterion proposals one by one to avoid confusion. SK2242 (talk) 13:20, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

The idea that any draft that has not been edited in six months is automatically eligible for deletion is patently ridiculous. I thought Wikipedia was about creating content, not just deleting it because nobody has worked on it for a while. G13 should stop immediately. Alternatively, I will be making edits to all old drafts to ensure they are not deleted and remain around for users to work on. 2A01:4C8:496:B51F:647D:63A1:E2F7:FFE0 (talk) 13:21, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Despite my deletionist tendencies, I am in full agreement with this. I find G13s to be counterproductive and damaging. I cannot tell you how many times I have been actively editing (in general) and have had a draft I wasn't prepared to send to mainspace but was taking my time gathering sources/energy to edit the content, only to receive a G13 notification and have the draft deleted within minutes of the tag placement. I can't imagine for editors who don't edit often how frustrating it is. CUPIDICAE💕 13:24, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

I think there is a use for G13. There are quite a few drafts out there that are simply never going to be worthy of an article, yet there isn't any specific reason to delete them immediately. I do believe, however, any draft that has had a modicum of work put into it shouldn't be G13'd (as in, there's a chance the topic itself is worthy of inclusion as an article). See also here, which I occasionally go through and sort by smallest first to look for clearly "hopeless" drafts.

I suppose my point is: I really don't think G13-ing drafts that even have a small potential of becoming an article is worthwhile. Perryprog (talk) 15:14, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

G13 shouldn't be used to get rid of cruft is more the point here. G13 only serves harm to the encyclopedia. If anything, we need to revamp how we do speedy deletions. There is no reason a 14 year old YouTuber should have a draft sit for 6 months about his Roblox channel that will never be notable. There need to be better criteria to get rid of crap than G13, which is worthless. Moreover, I think G13 should be changed, at minimum to allow for a period of time to sit, like prod. And active editors drafts should also be ineligible. CUPIDICAE💕 15:17, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes - I’m glad I’m not the only one. I’ve started editing older drafts to protect them from deletion. If we all do this then no drafts will be deleted and no editors’ work will be thrown away. 2A01:4C8:496:B51F:647D:63A1:E2F7:FFE0 (talk) 15:30, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

There is ((promising draft)), which I doubt anyone would disregard if it's added. Perryprog (talk) 15:40, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Editors routinely remove and/or ignore that template, for what it's worth. Primefac (talk) 17:09, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Primefac, I did not know that. That's rather frustrating. Perryprog (talk) 17:17, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it's one of the more bitter points of contention at WP:AFC, though it's reached a bit of a stalemate in the last few months. Primefac (talk) 17:33, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah... you're right; I hadn't really thought about it before, but that is pretty ridiculous (both on the "cruft" aspect and the harm that G13 can cause). Perryprog (talk) 15:39, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps one way to resolve this would be to add a criterion to G13, perhaps something like "Any pages that have not been edited by a human in six months found in: [...] and which would be speedily deletable under criteria A1, A2, A7, A9 or A11 if they were in the article namespace (all requirements must be met.". Unfortunately G13 is necessary to reduce the number of drafts speedily deleted inappropriately using other criteria (it doesn't eliminate the problem, but it does reduce it) and it's existence is what is preventing other bad ideas like draft prods getting consensus. Thryduulf (talk) 17:00, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

I think the way to resolve this, personally, is to change G13 from a speedy deletion criteria to a PROD. If no one comes along in a week to save it, great let's delete. And if someone thinks its worth saving great. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:48, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm skeptical that doing the same thing but adding a few days makes much of a difference. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:58, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

I will speak from my own experience, but having drafts I created just deleted was frustrating. And I was 100% capable of following the procedures to restore them (including since becoming an admin, refunding myself). What is it like for someone not as well versed in the ways of Wikipedia? I'd rather not create barriers of entry to notable topics being created. If I'd had a chance to remove the tag with "yeah I'm still interested in this" that would have felt better. And might have given me a push to work them. What it's meant practically is that I no longer create drafts in draft space, creating them instead in userspace and this has meant that no one else can come along and help me improve them. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:46, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Agreed, but why is this an argument to still create barriers, but with a few more days added on? Why isn't this an argument not to continue on deleting indiscriminately based only on time? If it's the reminder that's good, we can easily automate that and even invite someone to request deletion if they've lost interest, rather than giving them an expiration date. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:08, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

• Barkeep49's suggested reorientation from G13 to PROD seems a useful way to obtain oversight of impending cases, especially now that User:SDZeroBot/PROD_sorting provides a nicely structured summary of current PROD articles.AllyD (talk) 18:16, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Oh I like that idea. I more or less agree with OP's underlying point -- that an arbitrary 6 month expiration date for everything in draftspace has never been a good idea. And of course these A-level criteria would be added to the G-level criteria that already apply. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:58, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

As an admin who works with many stale drafts, I have a different view of it than most other folks. First, there are anywhere from 150-300 drafts that hit their six month period every single day and probably a half dozen editors and admins who go through them. So, whatever system you come up with has to be able to scale up and we need to recruit more editors, like S0091, who are willing to review and assess hundreds of old drafts.every.single.day.

I believe the G13 status was devised partially because there are thousands of old drafts, sitting around, gathering dust. Most that reach the six month point of inactivity were created by new editors who spend an hour writing a draft and who never return to further edit it. A large proportion of aging drafts are simply blank pages with just a page title. If you look at Category:AfC G13 eligible soon submissions, you'll find over 3,000 drafts that are between 5 and 6 months old. We have a few wonderful editors and admins (like DGG) from AfC who go through this category and "save" drafts that have some potential. More help here would be welcome!

As for me, I always honor the Promising Draft tag and delay a G13 deletion when I see one. Now that we have a new bot notifying draft page creators when their drafts are approaching the six month period (YEAH!), I think there will be fewer deletions and fewer requests at WP:REFUND to restore deleted drafts. That's a win-win for everyone and for the project. The goal, as I see it, is to have drafts that are being worked on and I think sometimes a G13 talk page notice is a reminder to editors that they have a draft out there that they have forgotten about. And remember, ANY draft, whether it is an empty page or a few sentences, that is deleted for its G13 status can be restored upon request unlike other types of speedy deletion or deletion discussion. Like a contested PROD, it is one of the few forms of deletion that are reversible upon request and the Twinkle notices tell draft creators exactly what steps they need to take to restore their drafts. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:17, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

This kind of misses the point. G13 is a failure. We shouldn't be deleting drafts merely because of age. If they're unsuitable because they're inherently unenctclopedic with no hopes of ever improving, we need to modify the g-criteria to apply to drafts. There is no harm in a draft that isn't otherwise breaking policy/consensus (ie. not a totally unsourced blp, rotting away or spam or cruft/webhost material) sitting for Wikipedia's existence. The problem with G13 is actually a problem with the lack of ability to reasonably delete crap from draftspace. CUPIDICAE💕 18:25, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Maybe a combination of both might make more sense. After 6 months without changes article space speedy deletion criteria could apply. I agree that if the draft has some value and a chance to make it to main space, the time without edits is probably not a good enough criteria, but if for example an unambiguous promotion article has been unimproved for 6 months I think it could make sense to delete it from draft space. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 18:40, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

G11 applies to draft space. If it's so unambiguously promotional, it shouldn't be sitting for 6 months. CUPIDICAE💕 18:54, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Praxidicae, as someone who has looked over tens of thousands of old drafts, I would guess that the ones that have the potential to be articles that were rejected by AFC is about 10%. And I think that is being generous. The vast majority of stale drafts are self-promotional autobiographies about wannabe singers or blank pages or messages about someone's favorite person on YouTube. If you want drafts to be tagged for deletion based on their lack of quality, then you have to start getting AFC reviewers to tag more for speedy deletion and that would require an change in attitude among reviewers. Most of the stuff I see could have been tagged for deletion as test pages or other CSD reasons earlier than six months but they haven't been. So, if Wikipedia is going to do away with CSD G13, then you to find an alternative like having draft reviewers doing more tagging for deletion sooner.

And I encourage people considering this question to not think of their own experiences with drafting an article but actually look over some stale drafts in Category:AfC G13 eligible soon submissions and make up your mind. Look at actual stale drafts and ask yourself what should be done about them. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:12, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

• I used to be vehemently opposed to WP:G13, but I eventually came to understand that we need some way of cleaning up drafts that stand no chance of going anywhere. I don't know why ((promising draft)) isn't used. What we do instead is just keep gaming G13 by making a nonsense edit every six months, which is silly. A perfect example of where ((promising draft)) would have made sense was Draft:St. Andrews Church which got rescued from G13 several times by DGG and myself, and eventually KJP1 came along, gave the draft the work it needed, and it it is now living in mainspace under St Andrew's Church, Penrice, where it is a valuable addition to the encyclopedia. To directly address the question at hand, I'd be happy if any of three things happened:
  • G13 got turned into PROD.
  • G13 required that you also cite a second WP:CSD which would apply if the draft were in mainspace in its current form.
  • We got back to using and honoring ((promising draft)).

Any of those would still let us clean up the trash while preserving things that are worth preserving. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:10, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

• Suggestion How about a trial period where A1, A2, A7, A9 and A11 apply as "G6" to draft articles that have not been edited in five months. This would give us a sense of what is "left" when the 6-month counter is reached, which will help us make a more informed decision. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 19:12, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Do not use G6 for this. That's the most abused and misused criteria we have (in addition to being overloaded with disparate legitimate things). Temporary criteria should be in the X series. Thryduulf (talk) 19:14, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
• There are several different types of drafts that end up as G13 candidates:

  First, drafts that nobody has submitted. Some of them are so hopeless that apparently whoever saw thought the simplest thing is to let the disappear -- which is OK. except that we should be alert to vandalism and BLP violations, but others are cases where the contributor either didn't understand what to do or wasn't interest enough. Of these, a few are likely to pass AfD as they are, though they may be better with some editing for format in mainspace; when I encounter them, I accept them--in my areasit's about 1 or 2 per batch of 200 G13 candidates, and about half the drafts aren't ones I'm competent to look at, so the real number is about 3 or 4. . Another group are promising article candidates though they need work--in my area there are about 2 or 3 per batch ., so the real number is about 4 to 6. What I would do if I had the time is improve them and then accept them, but I rarely have the time for more than a very few. I usually do a partial fix, and move on, and hope the next time around someone will notice. (This is emphatically not a good way of handling these--we need to not just refer to workgroups, but recruit active editors for them)

  Second, drafts that were declined and then improved, but not resubmitted. They're pretty similar, unless the contributor is still around, in which case they need to be reminded. I accept what I can, and try to at least partially improve the others.

  Third, ones that were never seem to have had a proper checjk for references. I usually just mark them, and hope someone will deal with the,. We need a better way for them aklso. .

  Fourth, and these are the ones that really worry me, are the ones that were declined incorrectly, and not followed up. I am still seeing drafts declined for minor formatting errors in referencing or similar trivia, such as not suggesting categories, or a need to add links. There's also the more understandable cases of ones that just need removal of incorrect material, or addition of the references from other language wikis, or a failure to understand the subject well enough, or to know know our actual criteria in the subject, such as notable academics declined for not meeting GNG, or those where the key element of notability wasn't spotted--the most common is for lack of notability while not spotting that someone is a member of a legislature or holds a major honour. I accept these, unless they need major fixing also, in which case I leave a comment.

  All together, they make up 5 to 10% of the vulnerable G13s. I consider them our fault , and our responsibility DGG ( talk ) 20:38, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

  There's afith class, where the recommendation was to merge , and it was never carried out. This also bothers me. Saying there's an existing article, so try to improve it, is good advice if the draft has nothing important. If the draft ddoes, the user is very unlkiely to be able to merge the content appropriuately, and an experienced editor needs to do it--like one of us. I mark these, buit again I don't usually have the time. We need a better way here also. DGG ( talk ) 20:42, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

• I suggest lowering the G13 time limit from 6 months to 1 month, or something like that. Perhaps then people won't be so eager to misuse other criteria. Adam9007 (talk) 20:48, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

  I strongly oppose this. Firstly the intention of draft space is to give people time to slowly work on articles until they are ready for mainspace. One edit every six months is sort of acceptable for this, one edit every month is very much not. Secondly, the issue we're trying to solve here is that too much is being deleted, this proposal would make that much worse not better. Thryduulf (talk) 22:04, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

• I'd support requiring that G13 tags stay on an article for a week or so (as with C1 and a few of the file categories), or having some process by which drafts marked as promising by an experienced editor are exempt. I'm a regular at WP:REFUND, where the vast majority of the work is handling requests for G13ed drafts to be restored. The workload there keeps increasing, the number of edits to REFUND went up by 44% between 2018 and 2020, and there aren't many admins doing it. Quite a lot of this is drafts which were recently deleted which probably wouldn't have been if the author had been given a chance to object. Sometimes these editors post comments saying that they aren't sure why these drafts were deleted, note that they didn't know the draft would be deleted due to inactivity or they think the draft was deleted because there was something wrong with it rather than just the passage of time. Sometimes REFUND gets G13 restoration requests from experienced editors who clearly know what they were doing, for drafts on obviously encyclopedic topics. I think there is value in having G13 though as there's quite a bit of undesirable stuff even amongst the drafts where someone requests restoration. Serious BLP violations are rare but it's common to see undiscovered copyright violations, obvious corporate spam or autobiographies. Hut 8.5 20:55, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
• I have to agree with Liz, and unfortunately disagree with the developing consensus that G13 somehow harms the encyclopaedia. In my opinion G13 is necessary to deal with the vast number of drafts that are simply abandoned in an unusable state. The query my bot uses to find drafts that haven’t been edited in at least 5 months shows that there are currently over 5000 such drafts. From a brief, unscientific sample large swathes of these appear nowhere near ready for mainspace, and many are never going to be - many are either patently non-notable people (e.g. so and so is an up and coming YouTuber), corporate profiles that come nowhere near meeting WP:NCORP, or simply pure nonsense. There are far too few people willing to review and improve worthy drafts (I certainly will return to doing so at AfC when I’m back on the active list) compared to the number of drafts that exist. Without G13, the backlog would build without limit. For what its worth, I oppose any ‘weakening’ of CSD G13. ƒirefly ( t · c ) 22:58, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

And I think your bot giving editors a head's up after drafts have not been edited in five months is the actual solution here. I think editors just need to be reminded of their drafts and then they will make an edit to them or return to actively working on them. You don't need a week-long PROD-like waiting period if you let editors know a month ahead of time that they drafts are nearing the 6 month point. I think the frustration comes out of Hasteur Bot going out of commission last summer and these 5 month notices disappearing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:18, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

A bot keeps Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Drafts up to date, where declined drafts can be reviewed and be re-evaluated by Women in Red participants to see if there are any "diamonds in the rough" that regular AfC reviewers might have missed. That's one way of avoiding G13. At the other end of the scale, there is no point retaining User:Nicole Atibula/sandbox; I generally err on the site of retention but IMHO that's a blatant G11 speedy and have tagged it as such. Since you have needed to be confirmed to create articles, the amount of "sludge" ending up in draft space has increased and all else being equal, I would expect to see an increase in G11 taggings. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:04, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

• Agree with Liz. Yup, G13 isn't perfect, but some of these new suggestions are magnitudes worse. Folks, I hope you'll actually try reviewing drafts before proposing "solutions". -FASTILY 03:14, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
• I feel like the obvious solutions here are being ignored. Avoiding the deletions of drafts of active editors would address a lot of concerns - and this is already de facto what many people do (users and admins) and moreso what should be done. Getting rid of the criteria altogether does not make sense - it's important to clear out drafts that will never meet inclusion criteria. Also, it's not like it's hard to recover a deleted draft - WP:REFUND isn't too much of a pain. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 20:51, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
• If you don't like G13, don't use draftspace or AfC. Use your own userspace. If you want to rescue a draft, move it to userspace and strip the AfC taggery so they don't move it back. See WP:DUD. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:31, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

  @SmokeyJoe and Elliot321: While this is debatably appropriate for experienced editors, it is unambiguously useless for inexperienced editors who are by far the most likely to be burned by the deletionism. Thryduulf (talk) 15:25, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

  @Thryduulf: this only applies to "new" editors who have been around for at least six months - and have not edited their draft in that amount of time. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 19:05, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

  New editors should not be attempting new pages on new topics in the isolation of draftspace. They should be become not new by editing mainspace. If at six months, they are still new, that proves my point. The problem is the enticements to new editors to start new pages, not G13. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:20, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• Deleting drafts after an arbitrary period of time is pointless. To put it simply and quickly: draftspace and pages within the scope of the AfC wikiproject do not need cleaned-up, deleted, or necessarily disturbed at all in reality. If G13 is causing too much of an overload at the refund counter, then another listing can be added to the litany of reasons to repeal it. Saavy individuals are not subject to the capricious six-month countdown anyhow.— Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 09:15, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
• We seem to be solving the wrong problem. As mentioned above, there used to be a bot warning after five months. Reinstating this seems the most sensible. Stifle (talk) 09:13, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

break 1

• Using the 5 month warning bot seems like an excellent way to handle this. Is it up and running now? I agree with what others have said about the number of low quality drafts. I'm an AFC reviewer that works the front of the queue, and quite simply, a lot of drafts are unable to pass GNG. GNG looks simple when you read it, but is interpreted more strictly than a new user would guess, and has a lot of nuances. In my opinion, you really need training (new page patrol school) or a lot of experience to really master GNG. And therein lies the crux of the problem. Our notability policies are too complicated for a new user or even average user to be able to self-assess their own articles accurately, therefore non-notable articles get created. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:02, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

  @Novem Linguae: The five month warning bot is currently running (it's FireflyBot) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 03:43, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

• Think it’s worth noting that 95% of drafts are created by single purpose accounts with no intention of contributing anywhere else or even going back to their draft. G13 isn’t perfect but it sorts out all the hidden crap. SK2242 (talk) 13:25, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Remove "a. Non-free images or media with a clearly invalid fair-use tag (such as a ((Non-free logo)) tag on a photograph of a mascot) may be deleted immediately." from criteria F7

This criterion allows files to be deleted simply because they have an incorrect non-free fair use template, it takes a matter of seconds to just replace it with the correct template. It doesn't make sense that an otherwise appropriate file would be deleted because the uploader put the wrong template, something which may WP:BITE new users, and if there are other issues which actually concern the file itself, such as its fair use rationale, these should be addressed instead. Files with no fair use tag can be deleted after seven days, but a file with an incorrect tag can be deleted immediately, that seems a bit weird. I would propose removing this or converting to delayed speedy deletion, but I can't see a situation where a file would be deleted solely due to this, so this seems redundant to me. Dylsss^{(talk contribs)} 00:01, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Tweaked the header, as it's huge. No content change otherwise. Primefac (talk) 01:23, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

I think there are actually multiple situations here.

1. The fair use rationale provided by the template is invalid, but it is clear that a different fair use claim would be valid. These should just be corrected.
2. The fair use rationale provided by the template is clearly not correct, but it is not clear whether a different fair use claim would be valid and/or it's not clear what that claim would be. These files need to be discussed.
3. The fair use rationale provided by the template is clearly irrelevant and it is also clear that there is no alternative fair use rationale that could be valid. Speedy deletion seems appropriate here.

The intent of the criterion is that it applies only to situation 3, but I agree the language could be tightened. I don't immediately have any good ideas how to do that though. Thryduulf (talk) 02:13, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Thryduulf. To clarify, this criterion refers to the tag below the fair use rationale, the tag below is not a fair use rationale, e.g., this speedy deletion criterion is referring to ((Non-free album cover)), not ((Non-free use rationale album cover)). And it is not feasible that situations 2 and 3 would happen, because if there is none applicable, you just use ((Non-free fair use)). Either 1. Use an applicable template from Category:Wikipedia non-free file copyright templates, 2. Use ((Non-free fair use)) if none are applicable. There is no reason for this speedy deletion criterion to exist, and it makes less sense the more I think about it. Dylsss^{(talk contribs)} 02:44, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

((Db-badfairuse-notice)) even says the same thing

... because it is a non-free file with a clearly invalid licensing tag; or it otherwise fails some part of the non-free content criteria. If you can find a valid tag that expresses why the file can be used under the fair use guidelines, please replace the current tag with that tag. If no such tag exists, please add the ((Non-free fair use)) tag, ...

This is in addition to the fact that this notice is in itself quite confusing and misleading, specifically or it otherwise fails some part of the non-free content criteria, files cannot be speedy deleted immediately due to the fact that it fails a part of the non-free content criterion. As said in WP:F7, Invalid fair-use claims tagged with ((subst:Dfu)) may be deleted seven days after they are tagged, if a full and valid fair-use use rationale is not added. and Non-free images or media that have been identified as being replaceable by a free image and tagged with ((subst:Rfu)) may be deleted after two days, if no justification is given for the claim of irreplaceability. If the replaceability is disputed, the nominator should not be the one deleting the image. These are delayed speedy deletions, not immediate, so this notice is actually incorrect in the fact that it is notifying the uploader for an immediate speedy deletion, not a delayed speedy deletion. The notice also says If you can find a valid tag that expresses why the file can be used under the fair use guidelines ... This also misleading because the tag does not explain why a file can be used under fair use, it simply specifies the license, the type of file, and acts as a disclaimer, a separate fair use rationale is still required. Additionally, if you tag an image because it is from a commercial source and it is not the subject of sourced commentary, the talk page notice explains the A. criterion of WP:F7, and explains absolutely nothing about the B. criterion. Dylsss^{(talk contribs)} 01:34, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps adding "that cannot be repaired" after the parens might make it clearer that it only applies when the tag cannot be fixed? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:44, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Possibly, but would that ever happen? There are 82 non-free tags in Category:Wikipedia non-free file copyright templates, and ((Non-free fair use)) if none are applicable for whatever reason. AFAIK there's no issue with using the general Non-free fair use tag, so that would result in no files ever being deleted for this reason because they would all be trivial to fix. Dylsss^{(talk contribs)} 11:07, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I'd otherwise suggest that the wording be changed to refer to the fair use rationale template e.g., using ((Non-free use rationale software cover)) on a biographical picture, instead of the fair use licensing tag. As I've said above, the fair use tag is just a static template which does not even take any parameters apart from whether the file has a rationale (so that it can hide the instructions to the uploader). The fair use rationale may still have other problems and is not as trivial to fix as simply copypasting a template. Dylsss^{(talk contribs)} 00:41, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

It also appears that only a handful of files are deleted under this criterion. In 2020, 107 files were speedily deleted as F7 according to quarry:query/52087, 85 of those 107 were by Whpq and 8 of those 85 files were nominated under this criterion as having an invalid fair use tag according to their CSD logs. Dylsss^{(talk contribs)} 01:23, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

As one of the few admins that answer F7 nominations, I note that files are basically never deleted for this reason. Swapping out an inappropriate fair use tag is a very simple thing to do. -FASTILY 03:15, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

• The policy does say at the start that people should consider whether a page can be improved before nominating it for speedy deletion. This applies to all the criteria, not just F7. Hut 8.5 12:43, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Deprecate criterion a. from F7

From this sentence "This applies to any recently created article with no relevant page history that duplicates an existing English Wikipedia topic". Sorry I can not get it. Why "with no relevant page history"? Suppose we have page A and page B, this means A and B have not any relevant history or they are independent pages. But in what case, they have relevant page history? And "duplicates an existing English Wikipedia topic" means A and B are not the same topic, what kind of topics are there? Is it the same content? Alphama (talk) 16:41, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Regarding "relevant page history", I will give two examples:

• Page A exists. Someone creates Page B, which covers the same topic as Page A. There is no "history" to Page B so it is deleted via A10.
• Page A exists. Page B is currently a redirect, which was made following an AFD. Someone converts the redirect back into an article that duplicates Page A. As there is "history" on Page B, it should be re-converted into a redirect.

This scenario is by no means the only situation where A10 may or may not come into play, but to me seems to be the most "obvious" as far as your initial question. Hopefully this helps. Primefac (talk) 16:54, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

To be honest, it's been percolating in my brain that we should repeal A10 entirely. There is almost never a legitimate case where it should be used, since 99% of the time, the duplicate articles are at titles that should be a redirect anyway, in which case deletion is neither required or desired. That, and determining whether there is relevant page history is not always a straightforward thing. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 16:59, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

It's fairly common to get non-english articles that are just a direct translation of articles we already have, e.g. ميا ليرر and جان إليز شيفر, A10 is perfect for those cases--Jac16888 ^Talk 17:38, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Though it's an old one, the page Beer belly causes always stood out as the obvious reason to keep A10. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:00, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Well dammit that should be a redirect, I really needed to know what caused that beer belly :) Oiyarbepsy (talk) 18:24, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Normally I'd say it's admin only, but in this case the deletion log shows all there is to see. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:15, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

The "relevant page history" is typically going to mean the copy was copied over to the right page, and the other page needs to be kept for licensing reasons. WilyD 20:59, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Define "recently" for CSD R3. Please comment there, not here. —Cryptic 16:28, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Hello, all,

I don't usually scan this CSD category but when I do, I'm finding probably 1/3 of the requests to delete pages are by editors who are not confirmed to be sockpuppets. I just found two articles tagged for deletion under this criteria and when I looked into it, a SPI had been filed linked to the page creator but neither a checkuser nor admin had even looked at the case yet. Deleting articles just on the suspicion of sockpuppetry seems too eager to me. I have removed CSD tags for this reason when the suspected editor was later confirmed as a sockpuppet so the reason can be valid I just don't understand the rush by taggers to tag articles just because of their suspicions. Does it matter whether an article created by a sockpuppet is deleted right now or tomorrow or the next day? Why not wait for confirmation?

And then I've seen an admin go back years in history to delete pages created by sockpuppets years after they were confirmed and blocked. As if there isn't enough work to do that admins are looking at old SPIs and tracking down sockpuppets from 3, 5, 8 years ago to delete their page creations? I doubt that they are even active any more. I see the point in discouraging sockpuppets from returning and editing here, I guess I don't get the gusto of some to purge the project of their work, both before they've been confirmed and years after they are gone. Thoughts? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:20, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

To your first point, I agree; a page should not be G5'd unless the creator has been blocked as a sock.

To your second point: while not necessarily prohibited, I too have seen a huge amount of "digging through the archives" lately (both with respect to CSD but also with respect to glocks for accounts that haven't edited for years. I don't think it's really worth the hassle, and I suspect the farther back one goes the more likely it is that the page in question would have been created before the master was blocked, but I don't think we should necessarily be telling admins to stop. Primefac (talk) 12:51, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

I disagree that we should not be telling admins to stop. G5 must be applied only to pages that were definitely created in violation of a block or ban and where there is no other reason to keep the page. Tagging based on suspicion is not acceptable, no matter how good your guesswork is, because you will sometimes be wrong. Going back years is almost always going to be disrupting Wikipedia to make a point. Thryduulf (talk) 01:49, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

I can't figure out how to get rid of (double redirect) Draft:Dental dam. A split at Dental dam created two parenthetically disambiguated titles, plus a redirect left over at the original title; so three pages, where there was one before. It was then all undone. To get the article back to its original title, the redirect then occupying the spot was moved away to Draft:Dental dam, opening the way for things to be put back the way they were. However, this leaves the Draft still in place, and I can't see a valid criterion to get rid of it. I considered just leaving it there, figuring it would be deleted in six months, but G13 excludes redirects in Draft space from being removed. Probably just moving it back to mainspace as some redirect would be best, but what one? The two obvious choices are already taken by the former parendis articles, now redirects. So, how do I get rid of Draft:Dental dam? Or should I just do a random redirect, maybe with a change of case, or pick some not completely implausible misspelling, like 'Dentle dam' or something, and move it there? (please  mention me on reply; thanks!) Mathglot (talk) 08:28, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

If it was just a temporary creation in a move shuffle, the G6 will do, as no one would want to keep it. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:53, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

I wish, to reduce G6 abuse, that G6 rationales always include "and its history is trivial". I agree with G6 of trailing redirects that are not wanted, and if there is no non-trivial history. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:55, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Darn, I really thought I read every criterion twice or three times; I don't know how I missed that one. Thank you all! Mathglot (talk) 06:34, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

"and to broken redirects that would qualify for this criterion if they were fixed (e.g., redirects to articles that have been draftified)."

I think some words are unnecessary. I propose "... and to broken redirects (e.g., redirects to articles that have been draftified)."

Broken redirects should be speedily deleted regardless whether it's fixed or not.

If fixed, it points to a draft space = speedy deletion.

If not fixed, it points to a deleted article = speedy deletion. Nguyentrongphu (talk) 18:20, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

@Nguyentrongphu: the point is that some broken redirects can be fixed, e.g. where the target page was moved without leaving a redirect or where the resulting redirect was deleted before this one was updated. These should not be speedily deleted. For example, if List of Icelandic things is moved to List of things off Iceland and then again to List of things of Iceland without leaving a redirect due to the typo, the first redirect is now a broken redirect, but it can and should be fixed rather than being deleted. Thryduulf (talk) 01:56, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Thryduulf The wording doesn't seem to interpret it the way you do. To say what you want to say then it should be like this, "and to broken redirects that would qualify for this criterion if they can't be fixed (e.g., redirects to articles that have been draftified)." Nguyentrongphu (talk) 09:44, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Ah I get your confusion now, but changing it to two sentences is better because I find your wording more confusing: This applies to redirects (apart from shortcuts) from the main namespace to any other namespace except the Category:, Template:, Wikipedia:, Help: and Portal: namespaces. It also applies to broken redirects that would qualify for this criterion if they were fixed (e.g., redirects to articles that have been draftified)." Thryduulf (talk) 12:26, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Thryduulf Everything looks good except it should be "can't be fixed", not "were fixed". Nguyentrongphu (talk) 13:46, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

No, if a redirect can't be fixed then they are speedy deletable under criterion G8. This clause is about redirects that are broken but can be fixed, but after being fixed would be speedily deletable under this criterion and says that there is no need to fix them then speedy delete them under this criterion you can speedily delete them straight away. You are interpreting "fixed" to mean "retargetted to a different page so it isn't a CNR" but that doesn't need to be said here is it always applies to every redirect. Thryduulf (talk) 14:14, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Thryduulf Ah, I finally get it now. The wording is problematic and hard to understand though. I suggest a following change to make it easier to understand, "and to broken redirects that would qualify for this criterion if they were fixed and pointed to a different namespace (e.g., redirects to articles that have been draftified)." Nguyentrongphu (talk) 09:05, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

That's redundant given that pointing to a different namespace is the only way a redirect can qualify for this criterion. Thryduulf (talk) 13:14, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Does WP:G11 cover eulogies, ie, Draft:Zoran Zrnić? --Deepfriedokra (talk) 19:14, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Not unless they are unambiguously promoting the subject or something else. In mainspace they might be A7, but other than that being a eulogy is not covered by any criterion. Nor do I think it should be, as if it isn't exclusively promotional and covers someone who is potentially notable then we should not be speedy deleting it. Thryduulf (talk) 10:23, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

the one in question here was speedy deleted by a very experienced admin; looking at it, I agree with the deletion--this is straightforward praise, would certainly be G11 if he were still alive, continues to be advertising for his enterprises, and would in my opinion have no chance of notability.. I do not generally favor an expansive use of any speedy criterion, but I agree with removing this. DGG ( talk ) 04:34, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

The subject is not notable; the article was created by her son (!!!) in a double marketing stunt to promote the film. Please check edit history and dates to verify. Reference links are mostly self-citing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.56.117.200 (talk) 00:52, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

This isn't really the place for this, but it sounds like you want to create an AFD for this person. I don't see any CSD criteria that apply. The article is not written in a promotional tone, and someone who was portrayed in a major film has a credible claim of significance. A redirect is also an option. P-K3 (talk) 01:05, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I posted my concern in the wrong section. But if 'the film about HER SON' (not the painting, mind you) isn't promotional tone (and this sentence was indeed written by her own son), then what do you mean? :-/ I'm very concerned about all the people using this platform for self-promotion and marketing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.56.117.200 (talk) 01:11, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

• 82, I've redirect the article to the one about her son Randol. Barbara is obviously not notable, but she is mentioned in the article about Randol, who appears to be notable. In the future, a better place for this type of issue is the Conflict of interest noticeboard, where editors specialize in cleaning up article written by people who are personally connected to the subject. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 05:41, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

For a question about revising the ((db-banned))-tag guidance at WP:CSK#4 due to CSD transclusion, please see Wikipedia talk:Speedy keep#Question about CSD tagging for criterion 4. Any input is much appreciated! — MarkH₂₁^talk 01:26, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't get why U4 was skipped :| Thingy-1234 (talk | contribs) 22:08, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

There's a section on the page called deprecated criteria which lists speedy delete criteria that have since been repealed. U4 was a belief that it was okay to delete user talk pages of certain IP addresses, something that the community never consented to. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 22:23, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, there had been an apparent developing consensus that it was worth doing back in 2009 or so, and some admins had been routinely doing it viewing it as sensible housekeeping - but when an attempt was made to codify it as U4, it became rapidly evident in a long and confusing discussion that there was no such consensus to do so, and the plan eventually evaporated. See here. It's another one of the many wonderful examples of how Wikipedians are capable of generating immense amounts of work for no tangible benefit! ~ mazca ^talk 22:27, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

@Thingy-1234: For each of the obsolete criteria, there is an anchor so that you can link to it: WP:CSD#U4. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:05, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Okay thanks everyone! (I changed my signature :D) Thingy¹²₃₄|^{got a question?} _{View my edits} -- 15:07, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

F5 of the speedy deletion criteria specifies that non-free images may be exempt from speedy deletion if they were uploaded for use in an upcoming article. I uploaded an image that I believe qualifies for this exception (File: 2021 I35W Pile-up.jpg), which I intend to use in an article I’m currently developing in my sandbox page. The image will be automatically deleted in 7 days. How do I use this exception to prevent the speedy deletion of this image? Thanks. Nordberg21205 (talk) 17:17, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Get the article into mainspace and once there, ensure that it uses the image. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:15, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

After a recent and ongoing incident at AN regarding 70,000+ mass-created articles about places in Iran, I think there needs to be a formal procedure for rapidly handling unapproved, potentially low-quality mass creations. If we intend to apply the same rules for all content pages currently listed in the bot policy, we would have the following:

G15: This applies to books, content categories, files uploaded locally, mainspace editnotices, portals, and articles which make no credible claim of significance, that were mass-created without community discussion or against consensus, and which have no substantial edits beyond creation.

• Objective: It is possible to identify mass creations from an editor's contributions, and if there is consensus on a mass creation.
• Uncontestable: It is generally agreed that these kinds of mass creation should not be carried out without community consensus, as the pages tend to be low quality and often of questionable notability. For articles, we don't have the time to check every page for WP:N and WP:V, but we should avoid throwing out potentially notable pages with actual substance.
• Frequent: While large mass creations are rare, they tend to create a big mess to be cleaned up. For example, it is estimated that Carlossuarez46 (talk · contribs) has created around 40,000 articles about misidentified or nonexistent places.
• Nonredundant: No criterion currently exists for mass-created pages, unless all the pages happen to meet an existing CSD. The AfD that led to the aforementioned AN, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mazraeh-ye Dariush Baharvand Ahmadi, determined that AfD should not be used to process a very large volume of several thousands of articles. PROD nominations cannot be processed fast enough to handle the sheer number of articles in some batches — at an (already unreasonable) rate of 20 articles per day, it would take around 9 months to delete all the pages in the Mazraeh AfD.

–LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 04:05, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

I will only support this if there is an explicit requirement to have consensus (at a specified forum) that the creations were inappropriate. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 04:08, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

I would support a narrower scope as a temporary "X" criteria. I agree that this is a big mess that requires some serious mass deletions, but suggest instead:

A mass-created article about a place in Iran or California created by Carlossuarez46 (talk · contribs)

I don't see a need to have this as a permanent speedy delete criteria and suggest narrowly tailoring it to meet the current situation. A second approach is to move all to draft space and just wait the six months for G13. The chance of anyone coming by to save them is basically zilch. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 05:40, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

• Strong Support - Articles should not be mass-created without consensus. This is already policy. The problem is that once they are mass-created they are very difficult to get rid of even when made based on bad sourcing. In answer to above commenters: 1) Carlossuarez46 was not the only one doing this, in fact if you look at the list of top 10 article-creators pretty much all of them were doing this to some extent, particularly Dr. Blofeld (who created huge numbers of articles based only on GEONET, an unreliable source), and also Lugnuts (see the two recent ANI discussions), 2) mass-creation requires consensus to create, not no consensus against - people actually have to want these articles. If there was a discussion and no consensus to create was found but the mass-creator went ahead and did it anyway, is that sufficient? I can still support an amended version requiring a prior discussion regarding the mass creations if this is needed for the change to pass. FOARP (talk) 08:15, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
• I agree that it would be helpful to have a general process for handling cases similar to Carlossuarez46. But not all "mass creations" are problematic, by any means, and the proposed wording seems to open the door to anyone being able to simply decide that they are. Annoying as these cases are, we should not be deleting thousands of pages without a strong prior consensus to do so. I'd suggest a CSD template with two required criteria: one describing the set of pages to be deleted, the other linking to a formally-closed discussion. So in this case producing something like G15: Bulk deletion of pages on geographic places created by Carlossuarez46 (link to discussion). That way the reason and consensus-basis for deletion is visible in the logs for each page. There should also be caveats about there being no subsequent substantial contributions by other editors, and an expectation that they are uncontroversial. – Joe (talk) 08:16, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. As Joe Roe points out, not all mass creations are problematic. Hence, there is no reason to have a speedy criterion that allows the deletion of such articles without discussion just because they were mass created. I'm okay with creating a temporary X-criterion for a certain set of articles created by a certain editor after there was a formally closed discussion that resulted in consensus to delete all these articles (like we did with X1). But we don't need a catch-all new criterion. The proposer even admits that these cases are rare, failing the "frequent" requirement of new criteria. Additionally, previous mass creations have not always required CSD to handle them. For example, the mass creation of portals a few years back was handled by MFD mass nominations just fine. Regards SoWhy 08:38, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

I think the statement by Liz at the ArbCom case for Carlos is a very concise framing of the problem written from experience. Remember we still have not only tens of thousands of these Iranian "village" articles written by Carlos, but also e.g., tens of thousands of "village" articles written based on (unreliable) Geonet data by Dr. Blofeld. FOARP (talk) 09:00, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Having two cases does not make it more frequent and Liz explicitly talks about a "Neelix-like solution". As I said, I don't oppose having temporary criteria for a specific set of articles after an extensive discussion that resulted in consensus to mass delete. Regards SoWhy 09:09, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

And a third case? FOARP (talk) 09:15, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Carlos' mass creations were mostly done in 2009 to 2014, Dr. Blofeld's were from 2011 (?) and was deemed "No policy violations" at least back then. The question is not have many cases but in what timeframe. It's not like there are mass creations every week, is it? Regards SoWhy 09:23, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

My honest response is "yes, there probably are". The Turkish "village" case was just last week, and despite everything that was said in it, including, right before the discussion was hatted due to a concerning message being posted on their talk page, a very strong consensus forming to remove autopatrolled from the editor concerned, they are still creating such articles, albeit at a reduced rate. Dr. Blofeld has now stopped and apparently regrets these creations, but the articles they've made are still out there in very large numbers. Moreover the number of such incidents may be less significant than their size (tens of thousands of articles). FOARP (talk) 09:43, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

PS - as another example, this editor's mass-created copyvios, which came to light last month. FOARP (talk) 19:37, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Copyright violations can be speedy deleted under criterion G12 already so that does not demonstrate a need for a general criterion. Thryduulf (talk) 00:13, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

They can't be G12'd unless it literally won't establish notability without it. G12 won't cover everything and I can guarantee that only a fraction of articles will be G12 deleted compared to the mass creation that has to be cleaned up.

Plus I'd rather not shove this responsibility to CCI. CP is already a nightmare for the admins. Sennecaster (What now?) 00:31, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

• Strong oppose a general criterion per SoWhy. There is no way to make such a general criterion meet the frequent and uncontestable requirements. Support a temporary X criterion to deal with the Iran and California articles created by Carlossuarez46. If there are other cases in the future where there is a strong consensus that speedy deletion is required to cleanup specific mass creations then temporary X criteria can be added at that time. Thryduulf (talk) 11:03, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

• Comment- the rapid-fire, partially automated creation of almost contentless substubs typically involves an order of magnitude less time and effort than it does to PROD or AfD them. And if you AfD more than a handful a day, there is a lot of bitter screaming about HOW DARE YOU!?! This tends to make the substub crapflood a case of WP:FAITACCOMPLI: It is inappropriate to use repetition or volume in order to present opponents with a fait accompli or to exhaust their ability to contest the change. Reyk _YO! 12:57, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose a general criterion, per SoWhy and Thryduulf. Support a temporary X criterion, for dealing with the geography stubs created by Carlossuarez46. As others have noted, not all mass creations are problematic. As far as I can tell, the number of situations that has really required addressing at this scale so far appears to be equal to two (Neelix and Carlossuarez46). When such cases do arise, I think they need to be handled as they arise, by creating temporary criteria when necessary. I think there needs to be a clear community consensus that a particular series of mass creations is problematic and deserves to be deleted (such consensus certainly exists in the case of Carlossuarez46 stubs). A permanent general criterion for situations that are so rare is not needed, and it could be easily misapplied and misused, leading to more problems than it solves. Nsk92 (talk) 14:55, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

• Support in some form - We need a systematic way to deal with poorly-sourced mass-created stubs and this fits the bill. I'm all for making stub deletion as quick and easy as possible, but the process might go more smoothly if we followed Joe Roe's suggestion to require community consensus for each case since editors wouldn't be able to challenge individual CSD nominations as easily.

I would be genuinely curious to see a set of articles that meet the criteria (particularly the "no credible claim of significance" part) and shouldn't be deleted. It might be helpful to compare them to, say, Carlossuarez46's creations to find any easily-identified characteristics that set them apart.

We shouldn't underestimate how frequently this would be used. The California GNIS cleanup task force has been sorting and deleting articles like this on a daily basis for almost a year, and that's just one US state. The Geography AfD category shows a steady stream as well. Replacing these processes with CSD would still require a significant amount of work but would also lift a significant burden from AfD. –dlthewave ☎ 16:55, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

• If the criterion requires previous consensus for the specific case, then it's by definition not a speedy deletion criterion. It's a deletion based on that consensus. A temporary criterion is sufficient for Carlossuarez46. —Cryptic 00:38, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support at least the general idea. Community discussions on large-scale creation of vaguely inappropriate pages usually result in some sort of mass deletion, and as pointed out anyone who does large-scale automated or semi-automated page creation without community consultation is already breaching policy. I don't agree with the frequency objections, although this situation only comes up a few times a year each one will likely involve hundreds or thousands of deletions, which would put the overall number of deletions over, say, a year in line with other well-established criteria. Hut 8.5 07:54, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

  What matters for frequency is not the number of articles that will be deleted, but the number of occasions it can be applied. I am extremely sceptical that this will come up as often as a few times a year, given that this is only the second time there has been anything approaching a community consensus that pages created by a single user should be speedily deleted, and the first was several years ago. Thryduulf (talk) 11:02, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

  What matters is how much time the criterion will save, that's why we have the frequency criterion. At the moment the only way you can deal with this situation under policy is to nominate the articles for AfD/PROD one by one, an extremely time consuming process which will also be protracted because you can't nominate too many articles at once. This is exactly what speedy deletion is designed to avoid. The other alternative is to pass a special criterion for each particular case, which will require a lengthy discussion or RfC - again very time consuming. If that is our standard response to such situations then it would make more sense to pass this criterion once. I have personally come across three cases in the last three years or so where this would have been useful to have, and I'm sure there are more I haven't come across. Hut 8.5 12:26, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

To back up what Hut says, I can see three in the past year (Carlossuarrez46, Lugnuts, Ruigeroeland) and another one that has been slowly emerging over the past few years (Dr Blofeld). Lugnuts promised to clean up the thousands of Turkish articles he created based on an unreliable source so maybe they get a pass? But Carlossuarrez46 refused to get involved and has now retired under a cloud ahead of being almost certainly desysopped, whilst Ruigeroeland retired years before their copyvios came to light and is now blocked, Dr Blofeld clearly regrets their mass creations based on an unreliable source (Geonet) but given that they created nearly 100,000 articles just doesn't want the task of cleaning them up and would rather the lot were redirected. It is no coincidence that these are basically a list of Wiki's top article-creators and probably the other ones in the top ten also did the same thing - we're very probably looking at 100,000+ articles that need deleting just between Carlossuarrez46, Ruigeroland and Blofeld. FOARP (talk) 12:39, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

So you have possibly three, all of whom created different sorts of articles and all of whom created articles that should not be deleted as well as ones that should. So for each of them you need to work out what reliably distinguihses the articles that should be deleted from the ones that shouldn't. That cannot be done other than by detailed examination of a large set of articles they created and so will be different for each editor. There is therefore no advantage to a general criterion over specific ones, but significant potential for harm from deletion before consensus that mass deletion is required and from pages being deleted that should not be. The more I look into this the firmer my opposition to a general criterion becomes. Thryduulf (talk) 12:49, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Blofeld and Carlossuarrez46 were both mass-creating copy/pasted Geostubs, Ruigeroeland was mass-creating species articles by copy/pasting field-notes - not entirely clear to me that these were exactly doing different things. The advantage is to avoid having to take every single one of them through the AFD system, a load that will clearly over-load it. FOARP (talk) 15:15, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes, @FOARP, but we need to review these cases and determine that they actually are inappropriate creations, as well as determining which of these inappropriate creations should be deleted and which ones shouldn't. This is why having a general speedy delete criteria is not appropriate. In the past, we've created temporary "X" criteria to address the specific situation, which is how we should handle it this time - Once we've determined how to decide which pages get deleted. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 16:34, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

• This seems like the wrong way around. Our WP:MASSCREATE/MEATBOT articles are unclear on this matter, and should be updated to clarify when deletion is appropriate before creating a speedy category. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 12:41, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

I created this discussion a few days back: Wikipedia_talk:Bot_policy#Cutting_and_pasting_=_"semi-automated_content_page_creation",_right? to try to clarify whether pure cut/paste article creation falls under WP:MASSCREATION + WP:MEATBOT. At least Headbomb seemed pretty clear that it did. But then you have discussion after discussion where people say that they didn't use tools so "WP:MASSCREATE doesn't apply" even where the article creation is blatantly cut/paste creation of an article every 90 seconds for hours.

I'm not sure the policy really is really that unclear and Headbomb (or at least my reading of what they said) was probably right, I just think people don't want to accept that this is against policy unless there is something saying explicitly, in simple words, that it does. Until there is something that says "don't cut/paste create 25+ articles a day without first getting consensus" then it won't change. FOARP (talk) 13:12, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

This is mass creation against policy. But a) a lot of people don't really care what the bot policy says, especially when they're not running "bots" but rather doing semi-automated editing (even though the same policy is used for that). b) there is no consequence spelled out for violating that policy. The policy clearly states that malfunctioning bots are to be blocked, for example (see WP:BOTBLOCK). But what's to be done about editors, and their edits, who are violating WP:MASSCREATION? Policy is unclear. ProcSock (talk) 12:32, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

• Support - I wasn't around for the Neelix or Blofeld stuff, but I was here for the "portal wars" a couple years ago. I'm too lazy to diff this, but I remember the discussion at AN in the beginning about an X3 CSD criteria to delete all those automagically-created portals; the so-called "nuke from orbit" proposal. I remember it was supported numerically by something like 60% of editors but still closed as no consensus by (in my view) a supervoting close. Thus began a more-than-year-long process of hundreds of MFDs of individual and bundled portals. At the end of that process, none of those automagically created portals were saved, and IIRC over a thousand more manually created portals were deleted. We also lost, by my count, four long-standing highly productive editors, three of whom were admins. This is the cost of having a thousand deletion discussions. All because some people, and frankly I recognize some familiar names here, wanted to make sure that no page was deleted without proper consideration. Well, people are more important than pages in my book. A thousand contentious discussions is a recipe for disaster: burnout and blowups. I said then and will always say: if someone takes five minutes to create it, we shouldn't take more than five minutes to decide whether to delete it. So I support in principle a permanent CSD criteria for mass-created-without-consensus pages. The proposal drafted here looks good to me. I also support a temporary CSD and/or something more narrowly focused like the revised proposal below, if a permanent CSD doesn't gain consensus. Levivich ^harass/_hound 15:37, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support a general criterion because we need a way to deal with WP:MASSCREATE violations. The status quo of (somehow) shifting the burden to other editors to sift through mass creations and compile lists for deletion is not really logical and is a time sink. The point of this criterion should be to mostly restore the status quo before the mass creation event that shouldn't have happened in the first place (as it's a policy violation). Without an enforcement mechanism, the policy is toothless. We would, of course, need to devise a system that decides when the criterion may be used. One logical solution may be BAG approval (as mass creation currently seems to require BAG approval too), or a clear consensus at AN like with the Carlos situation would work too (at the cost of consuming a lot more time). ProcSock (talk) 16:37, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

  What you are describing is the current system, i.e. having a discussion at AN(I) or another relevant forum and then creating a X-criterion to handle a specific set of mass-created pages if there is consensus that this set needs to be deletable. Regards SoWhy 18:54, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

  We tend to do these on an ad hoc basis every time the issue comes up, which hasn't been often enough to codify our approach. I think a discussion should be held every time, but I'm not sure that we actually need a CSD for this. But having a CSD might help to settle the fundamental issue "should we do mass deletions?" once and for all and without invoking some degree of IAR. —Kusma (t·c) 21:00, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

  I don't think IAR is required for any mass deletions. If there is broad consensus to mass-delete a specific set of pages after a discussion, then this is by definition a new rule and not the ignoring of rules. Regards SoWhy 08:58, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

• Support. Mass creations are by definition hard to do quality control of. Inaccurate place names in particular (especially from non-Latin-alphabet languages) lead to an entire fallacious online ecosystem of misinformation about the fictitious or misnamed place. We had a similar situation of hundreds of faux placenames supposedly in the UAE created by John Carter, based on a ridiculously inaccurate British guidebook from the 1800s or so. Alexandermcnabb (who lives in the UAE) had to painstakingly go through them, and check and AfD them. It took untold wiki manhours by numerous participants to clean the enormous mess up, and by that time Google had accepted the information as gospel and spawned thousands of fake reports. (One alternative to mass creation could be a form of unwikilinked List Article, with citations.) Softlavender (talk) 08:26, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  None of what you describe requires the creation of a new permanent criterion. It could easily have been handled by consensus at AN(I) to allow mass-deletion of the specific set of articles. Regards SoWhy 08:59, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Revised proposal

How about the following criteria to address this situation, we can call it X3 for now:

A mass-created article about a place in Iran or California created by Carlossuarez46 (talk · contribs) that does not make a credible claim of significance

Would everyone support that? Oiyarbepsy (talk) 21:25, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

@Oiyarbepsy: I think you should have this discussion on a noticeboard or forum which attracts people interested in these topics (e.g. the talk pages of the WikiProjects under which those articles fall). Once there is consensus there that the majority of those articles need deletion, we can implement an X3 to handle it (cf. this discussion that enabled deletion of Neelix-redirects and this discussion that led to the creation of X1 and X2). Regards SoWhy 06:37, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

@SoWhy, There already is a very clear consensus to mass delete at the Admin noticeboard discussion linked at the top of the section. This discussion is merely about how to implement that consensus. What more consensus could we possible need? Oiyarbepsy (talk) 06:50, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

@Oiyarbepsy: The first discussion only lasted four days and later there seems to have been some more detailed discussion, especially after Alexis Jazz requested time to filter articles themselves. I'm not opposed to creating a X3 like that, I just would like to see some indepth discussion on which of those articles to delete and which not before doing so. They have existed for years now, so is there really a problem with waiting a few days? Regards SoWhy 09:21, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

• Unfortunately being a populated place is arguably an claim of significance (because it may well pass WP:GEOLAND), so this will apply to almost nothing. Hut 8.5 07:36, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

  @Hut 8.5 That is a good point. Perhaps setting a minimum population? Discussion above suggests that any place with less than 100 persons will not have legal recognition in Iran. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 16:35, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

  Possibly. I would also suggest specifying that the article can't have any significant contributions from other editors. If other people expanded the article after its creation then it's much more likely to be real. Hut 8.5 17:26, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

  Be careful with this. We specified unedited by others with Neelix redirects at first, found like 50k eligible redirects, checked them all, and then when we were closing out, I asked someone to generate the list that had been edited by others. Lo and behold, 30k more redirects with no noticable change in quality. Tazerdadog (talk) 23:30, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

  I think significant contributions is a better bar than unedited by others. A lot of bots/NPPs make single short edits on articles that aren't really changing the prose. Those should be included in the deletion. ProcSock (talk) 12:32, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

  In this case, it would have to be significant contributions, if done. All of the ones I've looked at include something minor like AWB template fixes or gnoming lint cleanup edits. Hog Farm _Talk 03:40, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

This edit request to Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Would you remove "Corbis" from it's text parameter, which is now part of Chinese-owned stock photo company Visual China Group (via Getty Images). 2001:4452:44D:2800:D45A:54FC:D027:5253 (talk) 01:14, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

• Done. It appears Cobris now sells images under the name Getty, and the Visual China name is not heavily used, so I simply removed Corbis. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 02:13, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

I recently created a needed template redirect that apparently had been deleted previously. It was then tagged for speedy deletion under G4, which I understand. The G4 template says that if you have an objection to the deletion, you should post on the template's talk page, and has a handy link to do so. I posted my objection on the talk page. A few minutes later, my objection was deleted along with the template page.

I was in the middle of adding to my previous comment on the talk page when it was deleted, so I saved the page, apparently creating it again. That talk page was then tagged as G8, since the template page did not exist. I see two problems with this whole experience:

1. Explicit apparently deleted the template page, and the talk page containing my objection, despite my following the instructions to object on the talk page.
2. G8 was then applied to the template talk page by Pppery, even though it contained a proper objection to the speedy deletion process.

It appears that neither of these editors actually looked at the content of the pages before (1.) deleting them or (2.) applying a speedy deletion tag. Or perhaps I am misunderstanding this whole sequence of events.

Was this all just itchy trigger fingers and failure to actually follow process on the part of the editors who deleted and tagged the pages? If the deletion and tags were applied properly, what is the point of offering editors a chance to object to speedy deletion? Should G8 contain an admonition that a talk page should not be speedily deleted if it has been edited within a certain period of time?

The page in question is linked from Wikipedia:Deletion_review#4 May 2021. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:45, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

• Recreating a deleted page is usually a bad idea. Recreating a deleted page mere days after a XFD discussion with a clear consensus is definitely a bad idea. The G4 deletion was within process. If you had a case for keeping the redirect, you should've made it when the RFD was open. - Eureka Lott 01:11, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I did not realize that this template redirect, which was transcluded in article space at the time I created the redirect, had been deleted previously. If I had been notified of the RFD, I would have commented there and actually cited a guideline. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:41, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: Please keep the assumption of bad faith to yourself. As with patrolling any page in consideration for deletion, I did read your message on the talk page and found it unconvincing to unilaterally overturn the consensus that resulted in the redirect being deleted. Objecting to a speedy deletion does not grant a page immunity from being deleted under the criteria. You violated consensus by recreating the page and you abused the objection process by recreating the talk page a second time after the redirect was already deleted under G4. ✗plicit 01:27, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

There is no assumption of bad faith in the above, simply a guess that one or more editors missed a step in the deletion process, possibly because of timing. I followed a process that didn't work. The G4 template implies that a reasonable objection will change some part of a process, or at least merit a response prior to summary deletion of that objection. If that is not the case, please modify the wording of the G4 template. It looks like everything went according to how things go here at CSD, so I will await comments at DRV. Thanks for the responses. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:41, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Deleting pages without having looked at them is a desysop offense. You need to back up your aspersions with evidence or retract them. Right now. —Cryptic 01:53, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Is that comment for me? I posted a reasoned objection to speedy deletion, as instructed by the G4 template, and that reasonable objection was not responded to, then it was deleted without comment, and then it was tagged as G8. Are you saying that a reasonable person is supposed to experience exactly this sequence of events, and is not allowed to ask questions about it? Between this discussion and the DRV discussion in which editors have claimed that nobody follows guidelines or policy at RFD, I feel like I am the victim of an elaborate prank today.

In my ten years of experience editing Wikipedia with no blocks and very little drama, I have experienced something like this only once before, and it was a similar experience at the hands of admins who refused to even read relevant guidelines, let alone follow them. I have been asked to consider nomination as an administrator multiple times, and I have always declined because of my poor experiences in discussions with administrators. I am sure that the vast majority of admins are well behaved, but this discussion is not the sort of constructive interaction that I am accustomed to as a veteran editor. [Edited to add: Having come here to ask a process-related question and having been accused of abusing a process (which I did not; there is no evidence of intent, because there was none) and of assuming bad faith (which I did not do), I have unwatched this page, since this discussion is not leading to a productive outcome. Please ping me or post on my talk page if you need further information from me.] – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:08, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Administrators are not required to respond to talk page messages asking that you don't delete the page. And when an admin does delete the page, you discuss it on the admin's talk page first. You don't air out your dirty laundry to the entire damn community. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 04:25, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I've just become aware that there was a proposal at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Abolishing G5 section of Speedy Deletion criteria to abolish CSD criterion G5. The proposal has already been snow closed as "clearly not going to pass" but it's worth noting here for future reference. Thryduulf (talk) 10:27, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree. Good pages should not be deleted based on the user who created the page. The deletion of good pages is detrimental to encyclopedia building, as it prevents progress. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 20:08, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

I generally agree however, bans and blocks are not effective if they can be circumvented by creating good content. Regards SoWhy 07:34, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

But once you publish something, it is not yours. Nobody owns an article that they create, it belongs to the community. Deleting articles of good quality solely based on the user who created the article is detrimental to content-building and the functioning of an encyclopedia. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 19:10, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

It does belong to the community, who has decided to delete it. If these guys have a problem with that, then they shouldn't have gotten banned. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 19:34, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

However, as long as the page is well made and has many sources, it does not matter who created it. What I am trying to say is that we should not delete constructive contributions by ANY user, sockpuppet or not. Always Assume good faith. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 21:34, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

A non-banned editor is always welcome to recreate the work of banned users. This way, an editor in good standing gets the credit. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 22:05, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

But it just doesn't seem morally right for a user to get credit for another users work. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 16:45, 8 May 2021 (UTC)