Wikipedia talk:Proposal to expand WP:CSD/All

The talk page Wikipedia talk:Proposal to expand WP:CSD was split into individual talk pages for each proposal, to limit the size of the talk page and facilitate individual discussions on each proposal. The history and attributions for the comments made before the split can be seen by following the history link on the /General talk page.

This page contains all of the talk pages.

Do not add talk to it, follow the link to the appropriate page.

General talk

The talk page Wikipedia talk:Proposal to expand WP:CSD was split into individual talk pages for each proposal, to limit the size of the talk page and facilitate individual discussions on each proposal. The history and attributions for the comments made before the split can be seen by following the history link on the /General talk page.

Good article potential

I would support I, II and IV if there was a clause like "and the article is not likely to ever become an encyclopedic article" or words to that effect. One of the thing that makes wikis work so well is that you can only add a little at a time. Take a subject where wikipedia should have a good article, and where it would be possible to write a decent-sized article eventually. Maybe all I know about the three-toed sloth is that it's a sloth with three toes. Maybe all I know about Mithras is that there's this one website that talks about him. Maybe adding this info is such a small step on the path to making a decent article that it's barely worth my time to do it. I still don't see why we should delete this positive (though marginal) step in the right direction.

However, if it's a subject that has no realistic hope of ever becoming a good encyclopedia article, then it should be deleted. – Quadell ^{(talk) (help)}[[]] 23:52, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that an article consisting entirely of content like "A three-toed sloth is a sloth with three toes" is practically as bad as no article at all. Ten minutes of research would yield enough facts on most subjects to make a decent article, although perhaps not a spectacular one. Joyous 03:07, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)

I agree, an article that is absolutely no use to a reader is worse than no article at all. It should also be noted that Prop I and Prop II articles are today routinely speedy deleted, and adopting these propositions would merely be updating the rules to match reality. - SimonP 17:38, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)

Okay, we disagree. If you don't think that clause should go in, then that's fine, but I'll vote against them.

Here's my reasoning: Let's say all Arthur knows about subject X is that there's a good website on the topic. He's lazy, and doesn't want to add more than that. So he makes the article, and it's just a link, and it's about as good as useless. Betty sees the article, and can add a basic dicdef, but doesn't want to add anything else. Chris adds a template, Debbie adds a see-also link, Ernie add a category, and Francis adds info which is obvious from the title. At this point, the article is a reasonable stub. Greg sees it, and realizes there should be more info in the article, and he fleshes it out to a good article. But Greg never would have started the article on his own.

I don't think this is far-fetched. I find articles all the time marked for deletion that I expand on enough so that they are obviously not deletion candidates. Others see them in Recent Changes, and add their own two cents. That's how the wiki works.

Certainly I would agree that Arthur's work alone is just about pointless, and I would encourage him to add more. Betty, Chris, Debbie, Ernie, and Francis also are contributing so little, that it might not be worth their time to start an article with only that info. But do you believe it's actually worth someone else's time to delete that info, when there's a good chance it will end up in a good article? Even if Greg had made the article from scratch, he would have had to re-create all of Arthur's and Betty's (etc.) work. Why not accept the contributions these people made, no matter how minor? – Quadell ^{(talk) (help)}[[]] 18:24, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)

Let us take the example of an article I just created: Judaism in Canada. It meets no current deletion criteria, but has no real content and is of no use to readers. It took me about thirty seconds to create it. The question is whether annoying readers by presenting them with this article that is of no use to them is worth saving a future editor the hassle of redoing the minimal work I have already done. I personally believe that the encyclopedia should always serve readers first and editors second, and that deleting useless articles is thus necessary. - SimonP 23:13, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)

• We're never going to be complete -- encyclopedias are always a work-in-progress. Remember too that readers and editors are, hopefully, largely the same people. It's not hard for me to dig up some info on Judaism in Canada and add it to an existing article, and the existance of the article in some sense is encouraging to me to fill it in. I'm not quite as likely to think of random, encyclopedic topics like that as I am able to fill them in. That's why I judge articles for deletion primarily on whether the topic is good. Sadly, people often write articles on the worst topics, and I'm keen to kill those. I figure eventually we'll fill in the stubs on good topics, there's no hurry. --Improv 17:58, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Why not accept the contributions these people made, no matter how minor?

I cite Wikipedia:Your first article. It states: "...please don't create... A single sentence or only a website link." Also, "...be careful about... Extremely short articles that are just definitions." I also cite Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not: "What Wikipedia articles are not... Dictionary definitions. Wikipedia is not a dictionary, so please do not create an entry merely to define a term." "...Mere collections of external links." BLANKFAZE | (что??) 21:59, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Those are good reasons not to create articles like that. But in my opinion, they aren't good reasons to delete those pages, once created. Which should we spend our time doing: deleting these sub-sub-stubs, or improving them? – Quadell ^{(talk) (help)}[[]] 00:53, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

IMO? Deleting them. That way the article will be a red link somewhere, and someone knowledgeable might notice there's no article and create a decent one. For instance, we have a Wikipedia:Requested articles, a place listing uncreated articles... but we don't have a Wikipedia:Articles with very little content, or something of the like. Additionally, if a reader were to click Special:Randompage and get a page with only a template or a see also section or a external links section, it makes us look less credible as an encyclopaedia. Coz such articles aren't USEFUL. Sometimes an article with practically no content is worse than no article at all. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 00:59, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Why create extra load on the server and waste the time of people reading recent changes and/or monitoring Category:Candidates for speedy deletion when we can improve these articles? Brianjd

Simply because improving something like that takes maybe 10 minutes to become a reasonable stub - deleting takes ten seconds. And in the 10 minutes that administrator will not perform the RC patrol, and more garbage comes in. Of course, if I notice something such bad which I care about I do the fixing, but normally starting from scratch is better. Sometimes it seems users throw in substubs to make someone else work on a topic they want to learn about, like a requested article. andy 14:31, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What should happen is anybody else on RC patrol should be able to hide that edit because somebody (preferably we would have enough admins that it doesn't matter) is working on it and look at other changes. If nobody feels like working on it, they should add the appropriate tag to it at least (cleanup, stub, substub, bio-stub, etc). Brianjd 05:19, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

"but we don't have a Wikipedia:Articles with very little content, or something of the like. " We actually do have stubs, substubs, very short articles, etc :) --Sketchee 02:21, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)

Here's my take on this. Sure, there are certain topics that could be very good articles, but just because someone has written something, anything, under that heading does not mean it's essential that it's kept for improvement. Many times the existence of a contentless article is less likely to be made a real article than nothing at all. A redlink will draw attention to a lack of content. Someone could write only the word "The" as an article under a worthy title and it seems some people would argue that such an article should not be deleted but expanded, as it is the start to many an article. I think it can be both: deleted as useless, but later rewritten as an expanded article. A puerile substub that says nothing is generally worse than no article at all. I think by now, with nearly half a million articles, there are very few topics whose absence here is really an unforgivable oversight. By now it seems that if we don't have an article on it, it's likely a realtively obscure topic that many encyclopedias don't cover, or is at least covered briefly somewhere else in WP. If someone sees we have no article on something, they are likely to be more forgiving of that than of a nothing article. Besides, deleting an article does not mean it can never be created. I think if, in order to write a proper article on a topic, the first thing a person would have to do is delete all current content then we might as well do it for them. Too often people argue "this should be kept and expanded", then do nothing to expand it, as if voicing their opinion alone somehow improved the article, or they add an "Expand" template that is then ignored, as they so often are. If no content is deleted, then, in effect, nothing is really deleted. Most of these proposals deal with deleting contentless articles. -R. fiend 23:37, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Addendum

I think the biggest concern that everyone has about expanding the speedy deletion requirements is that good content will be deleted and no one will notice in time to restore it. It has previously been discussed at Wikipedia:Viewing deleted articles that any logged in user should be able to view deleted content, this idea was rejected last month.

I do, however, think adding a limited form of this idea would make expanding speedy deletion far more palatable to users who are concerned with the idea. Giving any logged in user access to deleted pages for a seven day period after deletion would make the material that no more accessible, as under the current system the content sits on Copyright problems or VfD for that time, or longer. This would also increase the pool or users who can check up on admins and ensure that articles that were deleted in accordance with procedure.

I thus propose an addendum to the vote:

If two or more new categories for speedy deletion are adopted in this poll then the software will be changed so that all logged in users will be able to view deleted pages for a period of seven days after deletion. After seven days has elapsed the material will only be visible to admins.

This addendum would automatically be seen as approved if any two of the proposed criteria are adopted. This provison will help maintain the same level of accountability that now exists despite far more material being speedy deleted. - SimonP 19:34, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)

• While I respect the idea, I don't like it. Not here. The vote is going to be complex enough, with five subsections. I really don't want to add this on. I think it'll just make a mess out of everything. I'd really prefer that were done seperately, at a more appropriate location. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 21:21, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Yeah, sounds like a good idea, though making it a consequence of some function of the acceptance of a set of other proposals is just plain evil. I fully agree that whether that 7-day deletion viewing gets accepted or not would influence how a lot of people vote, I suggest we either add it as a separate proposition and allow people conditional votes based on whether that proposition passes (complex), or that we vote on the 7-day deletion viewing proposal before voting on these proposals. --fvw*† 22:21, 2004 Dec 5 (UTC)
• I concur with the proposed addendum -- our acceptance of the proposal is based on acquiring this, and it is related, so it's not a bad idea to have it be part of this proposal. --Improv 22:55, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • If this addendum were added would it convince you to vote in support of more of the proposals? If the addendum fails to allay the concerns of those, such as yourself, who are understandably wary then I don't see it being worth complicating the present poll. - SimonP 23:31, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)
    • It would have a chance of swaying me. More I cannot guarantee --Improv 02:18, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • The ability to view deleted articles for 7 days would change my vote from no to yes for all but proposal 3, where it would change my vote from no to no vote. anthony 警告 21:04, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I would maybe support adding this if it were made a seperate proposal, not contingent on the success of the other proposals. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 02:27, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely. And everybody who thinks about this, please read Wikipedia:Viewing deleted articles if you have not already done so. This idea is very controversial, it got a clean 30-30 split in the last vote. The main problem is that this allows copyvios to remain visible, and that's just not acceptable for many. When you've got people like Angela and Anthere opposing this, you know there are some serious issues at stake, regardless of what you think about it. If you really think we cannot allow these proposals without first increasing accountability, then make that a separate issue and get back to this later. Don't do it the other way around. JRM 20:16, 2004 Dec 10 (UTC)

JRM, how hard, in your opinion, would it be for us to have a special deletion for copyvios that's separate, so that articles deleted for that reason won't be visible for 7 days, but articles deleted for other reasons remain there? I know it's an additional complication, but I think it's a price worth paying for this functionality. --Improv 02:52, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well, you're asking the wrong person, really—I'm not a developer, so I can't judge how hard it would be. :-) Speaking as I do from my comfy chair, however, and assuming you actually meant "have everything visible for 7 days except copyvios" (your wording was a bit unclear), it's something that would get my vote. Unfortunately, looking at the page (hey, people are still voting! I thought it closed!) I see that a lot of people are not just concerned about copyvios (which this would solve) but also that "deleted" should be "deleted" (I don't get why this is supposed to be a rational objection rather than an article of faith, but maybe that's just me). You need to sort out what's really motivating people here, besides keeping copyvios, linkspam, and providing free hosting for vanity articles/hoaxes (all of which admit simple technical solutions).
However, this should all really be taken to Wikipedia:Viewing deleted articles. It's a separate issue. If Blankfaze cares, it might be worth considering postponing the CSD vote until an amended and rebooted VdA vote is sorted out, because a lot of people will be more positive about these proposals if it gets implemented. I don't know. I do know that I will (would) vote on the proposals here independent of whether people get to view deleted articles or not, because I basically trust our admins. Maybe that's just crazy, I don't know. :-) JRM 03:48, 2004 Dec 25 (UTC)

Here is the question, from Wikipedia: Viewing deleted articles: Should non-admins be given access to view deleted articles (except those that Wikipedia is legally required to remove)?
As I understand it, Wikipedia (Should that be the Wikimedia Foundation?) is legally required to remove copyvios, so the outcome of that vote would have made no difference as far as copyvios were concerned. Brianjd 05:29, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

Quarantine

Some time ago at several policy pages I proposed to introduce the notion of quarantined pages. I am a bit surprised at lack of interest. Here it goes again, with some changes.

• This idea comes from my understanding that the urge for speedy deletion comes from the desire to keep garbage away from wikipedia.
• At the same time, the primary opposition is that the notion of "garbage" is well-defined only in extreme cases. Other cases must have a fair share of benefit of doubt, if only because of limited experience of any of us. Even "no google hits" criterion is not always valid, e.g., for notable persons from non-notable countries that are still far behind on the road to computerization.

Possible solution: AFAIK, wikipedia has a means to exclude certain pages from search engines. These are the thingies which make nonsense propagate, not the silly articles themselves.

Hence the suggestion: The articles that may be reasonably classified as garbage must be moved into a non-searchable space, so that people may see them and deliberate whether they are garbage or not, without rush, say, for 2 weeks. All keep/delete discussion is to be at their talk page. Once a reasonable number of non-anons vote to keep, it is moved into a regular VfD. etc....

Mikkalai 03:35, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Once a reasonable number of non-anons vote to keep, it is moved into a regular VfD. Sounds unnecessarily complicated to me. I don't see how this would reduce the need for VfD which is the thrust of this proposal. I think it would be a great aid for VfD as it is now, though. Johnleemk | Talk 03:48, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't insist, just an idea to discuss. Mikkalai 03:56, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Kind of quarantine or "editing limbo" for articles that come from anons could be appropriate. Of course, it would not solve the problem of the most persistent trolls and POV-pushers who would just create new accounts. However, that is probably a separate issue (like "speedily deleting user accounts" or "probationary editing rights"). - Skysmith 11:47, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I must agree that this is unnecessarily complicated. I hope nobody comes up with the idea of "speedily deleting user accounts", speedily deleting articles is bad enough! Brianjd 05:32, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

Proposals II, III

It seems to me that proposals I, IV and V will probably pass fairly easily. I think that these are rarely challenged now. However, II and III are extremely contentious. They are far too "interpretable". Take "X Smith was an opera singer". It can be argued that anyone looking up "X Smith" knows they are an opera singer, so this is obvious. However, it can also be argued that this is just a stub. I don't think I'm alone in not feeling we should give a licence for the deletion of stubs. I personally believe a stub encourages expansion, while a redlink can be a bit daunting. Proposal III is out of the question. There will be endless fighting over it. It would allow deletionist admins to delete articles that they think are "notable" by claiming they are "extremely blatant vanity". There are already articles listed on VfD that are listed as "vanity", when in fact they were articles in good faith and were kept as such. I do not think either that any proposal for expanding CSD should a/ mention Google or b/ mention notability. Just my 2c and worth what you paid for it. Dr Zen 06:42, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think you are misunderstanding Prop II, it applies to only articles with no information not explicit in the title. The tile "X Smith" does not tell me they are an opera singer, so this article cannot be deleted under this rule. What this tells me is that the wording of this proposal needs to be changed. Any suggestions? - SimonP 06:49, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

I agree, I will certainly be voting for Prop II. Recently I have deleted a lot of articles whose contents consists solely of the title of the article. I'm told they are created by some kind of vandal bot, and that certainly needs to be stopped. Deb 18:07, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

We should have a speedy rule for blatant vanity articles, but it needs to be more specific and objective than Prop II. First, the band vanities. It's not hard for an unknown group to record and sell an album these days, so that point is not useful. Also, the rule for wikipedia is that someone has to be notable, not famous. How about band articles that

1. do not name an album by the group, or
2. say that interest in the band is limited to some local area

the rest would have to go to vfd. Gazpacho 18:26, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't think notability should be limited to locale. Otherwise, we would be basically saying we don't want bands that are local to say Detroit. It wouldn't be a far stretch to say that a band popular in Peru isn't notable. So what level would make the threshold between notable and not notable under the limited local area suggestion? International acclaim? Winning an American award like a Grammy? Many of the opera singers I've made articles on were local to Chicago opera houses, others were local to Broadway and others were local to Italy. Interest in these many of these types of performers would similarly be limited to local areas. --Sketchee 02:37, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)

Personal vanity articles: I think this should be limited to

1. self-admitted vanity
2. stubs about a person that give no indication of notability, or only speculative or nonsensical claims of notability

I'm totally against having "blatant" as part of a speedy rule. I once saw an article nominated as a vanity when the article said the subject was dead. It's just not workable. Gazpacho 18:26, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What are we achieving here?

Now I think about it, most of these are already speedy delete candidates. Going through one at a time:

• Proposal I: Already seems to fall under criteria 4 "Very short articles with little or no context" and often also criteria 3 (vandalism) "Adding inappropriate external links for self-promotion".
• Proposal II: Already seems to fall under criteria 4 "Very short articles with little or no context".
• Proposal III: Not already a candidate, but seems unlikely to gain consensus (in my opinion).
• Proposal IV: Already seems to fall under criteria 4 "Very short articles with little or no context" (at least, most of the time).
• Proposal V: Putting copyrighted work on wikipedia is a form of vandalism, see criteria 3.

So what do we have left? A slight expansion through proposal IV, and a big expansion through proposal III that doesn't seem very likely to pass in its current form. Shane King 07:41, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

It's helpful to clarify some of the cases, Shane, don't you think? I agree that I is already covered. IV is an expansion because it would allow deletion of longer dicdefs. I don't agree with your view of V because a person just might not be clear on the copyright policy and do it accidentally. II would allow the deletion of "Red Rum was a racehorse" as it stands, which would be no good. III surely won't pass. However, you get Blankfaze's point. As Simon pointed out, none of the articles it's aimed at are at all controversial. We'd all delete Shumaker, I think. Something that allowed CVs to be speedied might be useful. Perhaps Blankfaze would consider withdrawing I and V and suggesting them on the CSD talk page as simple additions to clarify the text? Dr Zen 08:10, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Is this really clarifying though, or just adding more instruction creep that actually complicates things? I'm starting to wonder, that's why I posted.

As far as the copyrighted works issue goes, I give people enough credit to know they're not allowed to just copy stuff from websites. Especially since the edit page says "By submitting your work you promise you wrote it yourself, or copied it from public domain resources — this does not include most web pages. DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION!". How else should we interpret someone who flagrantly violates that instruction other than that they're acting in bad faith and hence vandalising the site?

As for II, I don't believe it says that we can delete "Red Rum was a racehorse" if it's at Red Rum (the racehorse bit isn't explicit in the title). If it's at Red Rum (racehorse) it can be deleted, and I think that's fair enough. For it to be disambiguated like that, there must exist a Red Rum page that's a disambig page, and hence already tells us Red Rum is a racehorse. We lose no information by deleting such pages.

Anyway, I'm just grumpy that everything seems to be about voting. Policy pages are editable by everyone for a reason I'd think. Perhaps policy should be ammended by being bold and making the change, and only resorting to a vote if the change is contested on the policy talk page and a consensus can't be reached on how to resolve the conflict? It seems at the moment we reflexively go to a vote as a first, rather than last, resort. Shane King 16:41, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

I think Blankfaze opened the vote because the proposed changes were and then contested on the policy page. Then they got very little discussion on the talk page.

Your point about instruction creep is a good one. Unfortunately, I do not agree with your analysis above that proposals I and II already qualify under case 4 though many admins do agree with you. I have come to the conclusion that case 4 is being stretched way beyond its original intent. Speedy deletes should always be completely obvious and non-controversial. They should not be dependent on how you or I interpret case 4 differently. Judgement calls belong on the full VfD page. An unambiguous clarification of the cases will allow us to focus on improving the encyclopedia instead of arguing over the interpretation of case 4. That's my hope, anyway. Rossami (talk) 17:45, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

As to proposal V remember that we have a certain definition of vandalism laid out at Wikipedia:Vandalism and to include copyvios would require expanding that page, which is no easier than adding a new speedy delete criteria. - SimonP 17:54, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

One thing worth noting, from a skeptic on the proposal, is that if you fail to get a clear mandate confirming current process, it might be construed as causing you to lose the ability to execute what currently might be vaguely current policy. Be careful what you ask for. I suspect that, to draw an analogy, if the U.S. constitution needed unanimous revalidation every four years, it would've expired sometime between its formation and now. --Improv 18:09, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In response to all this:

First of all, I can understand Shane's apprehension to voting. However, there was a not-so-small edit war at WP:CSD not so long ago over changes that someone added. I'm afraid being bold simply won't work here.

Secondly, I really don't think that any of the proposals are reasonably covered by existing WP:CSD rules. See Rossami's comment. And even if they are, it's debatable. Why not clear things up? I don't see this as instruction creep. I see this as making things less complicated. "An unambiguous clarification of the cases." BLANKFAZE | (что??) 22:06, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Improv makes a good point though. Deb 18:07, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Dangerous ground

I believe that in expanding CSD that we should be very cautious. WP is to some extent developed under the notion of consensual direction rather than cabalistic or elitist direction.

Speedy is a method of deletion where there is no room for discussion. Consensus cannot occur if there is no room given to assess the consensus i.e. to discuss it. Speedy subverts the consensual imperative in the interests of efficiency.

I argue that there are two types of "obvious deletion" -- objectively obvious deletability, and subjectively obvious deletion.

• Objectively obvious deletion candidates are cases where the invalidity of the article is without any doubt. Fundamentally, any such definition should be conceivably automatable by a computer program. Random junk characters, previously VfD'd topic strings and article content, empty articles, banned user submissions, foreign language articles, etc.
• Subjectively obvious deletion candidates are cases where an article or topic flies directly in the face of Wikipedia policy. Content policy of this sort is (should be) clear to most humans, but is not clear to a computer program, as it involves integral knowledge of the English language and of human thought. But as a result of all human policies, there are or can be exceptions, considerations, reasons for pause, etc. In order to be determined, they need to be assessed via human understanding.

CSD is not a suitable Wikian solution to subjectively obvious deletion, because it by definition excludes the forum of human understanding from the process. We should then take care to ensure that CSD only applies to objectively obvious deletion candidates, and that subjectively obvious ones continue to be dealt with by some assessment of consensus.

Regards, [[User:KeithTyler|Keith D. Tyler [flame]]] 18:27, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

I think you are misrepresenting the current CSD criteria. There is a great deal of subjectivity in terms like patent nonsense, vandalism, and "very short articles with little or no context." - SimonP 18:42, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I think that much of the current CSD criteria as written is often misunderstood in a broader sense than intended. I know I did at first. While in general use the term "patent nonsense" may be subjective, the term is explained at Wikipedia:Patent nonsense in a fairly narrow sense and with many exclusions.

I agree that vandalism has the potential to be subjective. I'm not sure I agree that it should be a CSD case, unless it falls under the other categories such as patent nonsense.

As for "very short articles with little or no content", note that the line item for it on WP:CSD also includes a caveat to err on the side of redirection rather than deletion.

Even abuse cases should be dealt with in a consensual manner. Some might decide that my creation of first grade through tenth grade stubs after the failed VfD for fifth grade ended, was abuse, but its actual intent was comprehensiveness. Speedy shouldn't be used for this, either.

Perhaps you're right, using the entirety of current CSD criteria to defend my argument about the appropriate Wikian place for the concept is flawed. For the most part, though, the overall spirit of CSD cases is to expedite the removal of articles whose invalidity is obvious beyond a shadow of a doubt -- regrettably a concept that most legal systems have had ample opportunity to prove is a difficult one for humans to fully appreciate.

Ultimately, CSD is summary judgement, and therefore it shouldn't apply to cases where room for objection exists.

- [[User:KeithTyler|Keith D. Tyler [flame]]] 20:34, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

Your concerns are appreciated, but please keep in mind that unlike, say capital punishment, deletion in wikipedia is not totally destructive and irreversible. First, there is an option to appeal and undelete. Second, if the topic is really important, someone sooner or later will recreate it. In the broader view of the totall summa of knowledge I don't see much difference between deletion and merciless editing of some articles, when 100% of content of the original article is eventually replaced. Mikkalai 05:53, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

First, there is an option to appeal and undelete. Yes, but this option requires a majority in favor of undeletion. anthony 警告 21:22, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Alternatively, we could just greatly lower the standards for undeletion of articles which are speedily deleted. Then admins can be as subjective as they want, but if someone objects, we can reverse their action. anthony 警告 21:20, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Any admin can, and should, immediately undelete a page that was deleted out of process. Perhaps we should have a separate page listing candidates for speedy undeletion, so that these cases can quickly be brought to attention and perhaps moved to VfD. - SimonP 21:34, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)

The current policy is that an article must be "obviously deleted 'out of process'" to be a candidate for speedy undeletion. That's a bit too high of a standard, in my opinion, as it implies that the benefit of the doubt should be given to the admin making the deletion decision. I think the benefit of the doubt should be given to those who want the page kept. After all, admins aren't supposed to have any authority. anthony 警告 02:11, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

New Proposal

If it doesn’t get a single ‘keep’ vote from any editor having more then 100 Edits (excluding the original author) with in a day or two. Or alternatively we can chose the thresh hold of 4 ‘delete’ vote from ‘non-sock puppets’, without a single ‘not delete’ vote excluding original author. If within 5 days (may be more time) any ‘non-sock puppet’ asks for undelete. It should be voted for deletion by normal method.

Zain 14:40, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You probably want Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion. This is speedy deletion we're talking about. There's no voting on that (hence the "speedy"). Unless you're talking about votes for undeletion—in which case, use Wikipedia talk:Votes for undeletion. In any case, I don't understand what this new proposal has to do with the current ones. JRM 19:12, 2004 Dec 21 (UTC)

I definitely think we need a procedure for expedited deletion of articles that is faster than the full VFD process, but slower than speedy deletion, but that isn't what we're discussing here. --Carnildo 22:38, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Obvious hoaxes and pranks

Obvious hoaxes and pranks listed on Category:Articles which may be hoaxes at least for 3 days without any improvement or dispute.

It would only codify existing practice of speedy deleting hoaxes as a vandalism. (Propable reasoning - adding pranks to wikipedia is inherently bad faith behaviour.) --Wikimol 20:28, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• I agree that adding hoaxes and pranks to wikipedia is inherently bad and I do consider it a form of vandalism. Unfortunately, I do not believe we should try to turn them into speedy deletes. As individuals, we have a very poor track record of identifying the "obvious hoaxes and pranks". Many are truly hoaxes but a significant minority of these articles have turned out to be true (though obscure) topics. As a group, on the other hand, we are very successful at sorting them out. The VfD notice at the top of the article's page is an inherent disclaimer that no reader should trust the content during the discussion period - at least not without reading the VfD discussion thread. Five days on VfD is not too high a price to pay for the very good articles that have been saved but which would have been deleted without review if hoaxes were speedy candidates. Rossami (talk) 06:41, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Is 70% consensus?

I wish we could talk out our policies instead of insisting that the majority should get its way. Still, it would hardly be Wikipedia if we actually did try to get things done by consensus!Dr Zen 02:55, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Consensus is when the people who think there isn't consensus aren't numerous, loud, or persistent enough to shout down those who think there is consensus. :-) Seriously, the truth is that waiting for decisions to be near-unanimous can take forever. Poland used to be governed by consensus among the nobles, and it's one of the reasons they were conquered so often; they couldn't get anything done most of the time.

In answer to your actual question, I'd say that 70% is consensus for some purposes but not others. For something like speedy deletion candidates, I'd say it's too low, because speedy deletions are supposed to be uncontroversial. You don't want an article speedy-deleted when 30% of Wikipedians think it shouldn't have been. Isomorphic 08:07, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Protection of the proposal page

Protection is completely unacceptable. The original author (User:Blankfaze) and another admin (User:Neutrality) have reverted and protected it to prevent addition of a new proposal which both of them personally disagree with. According to Wikipedia:Survey guidelines, "Consensus must be reached about the nature of the survey before it starts." Assuming the mantle of "author" or "owner" of this proposal is a direct slap in the face to the wiki process. -- Netoholic @ 06:45, 2004 Dec 30 (UTC)

You're talking to the hand with those guys. If they were interested in the "wiki process", we wouldn't be having a vote. On a protected proposal at that! So much for you can edit any page!Dr Zen 07:44, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Firstly, the proposal was protected (I assume) because voting starts in less than 72 hours and it will only make things messier if the content of the proposal is flopping around right before the vote. Secondly, my opinion as to your proposal's merit has nothing to do with anything. I've only stated that I don't believe it belongs here. No one "owns" this proposal. No one owns any page on Wikipedia. I didn't make the decision to protect; you'll have to take that up with Neutrality. I do, however, see his reasoning, and I don't think it's "unacceptable" in the least. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 07:54, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If there is question about the format of the vote, the start should be postponed. There is no provision in the protection policy for protecting a vote page for any amount of time leading up to the start. -- Netoholic @ 08:05, 2004 Dec 30 (UTC)

The obligation is to find consensus before adding a proposal. - SimonP 16:15, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)

Sure, which I did by adding a discussion about it to this talk page above #Tag and bag proposal about two weeks ago. Noone objected at all, and even the "author" of the original proposal said "I don't like the idea, but that's just me. I can't stop you from taking a vote on it". I made the effort, and now a few days before the vote's scheduled start, I added it. Now is not the time to moan, unless we postpone the start date of the vote. -- Netoholic @ 16:29, 2004 Dec 30 (UTC)

Why would we demand consensus before the vote? Isn't that defeating the purpose? ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 13:19, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Even a quick read of this page would show something at least as important as the holy grail of consensus... goodwill. Clearly (Blankfaze) and many others on this page have only the intent of improving internal process. Protection of the final wording of a proposal is as old as Robert's Rules of Order and I'd warrant that even in our enlightened age we can use a few established principles to guide us. --Bookandcoffee 18:03, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I may be wrong but I don't believe Robert's Rules of Order was a wiki.Dr Zen 23:31, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't see any reason not to include this proposal (although, at first glance, I shall probably vote against it myself). I certainly see no good reason to edit war over it - why not just include it and let the votes decide? -- sannse (talk) 20:23, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• With seven sub-proposals, this vote is already more complicated than I wanted it to be. Netoholic's cause is a complicated one in its own right and would be better suited for discussion and voting on a separate page. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 23:43, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't see that another proposal added will make a lot of difference, and this addition may be a part of peoples decision on the current suggestions. If someone has concerns about increasing the criteria, this suggestion may change their mind. The two seem too closely linked to me to make this a new page. More importantly in my eyes - this is an unnecessary dispute - surely there is some way to come to an agreement here -- sannse (talk) 00:22, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This is silly. We don't need a separate Wikipedia:Proposal to expand Wikipedia:Proposal to expand WP:CSD, do we? The page belongs to Wikipedia now, not to Blankfaze. If you object to the proposal, simply do not vote on it. ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 13:12, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Individual talk pages?

Would it be useful to set up individual talk pages for each proposal, to make discussion simpler when the vote begins? It would be similar to the recent arbitration vote's pages. As it is now, people are going to start a new thread each time they have a comment, rather than reviewing this entire page. --Ben Brockert < 04:42, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)

Done —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 01:51, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

Some of the comments couldn't be moved easily because they address more than one proposal. If you authored one such comment, your assistance in cutting it and pasting it into the appropriate page in chronological order would be most appreciated. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 01:59, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

I really wish the vote pages hadn't been split into the same articles as the talk pages. I know it makes sense from an article creation standpoint to do it that way, but it makes watching the talk impossible as the votes keep bumping up my watchlist. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 05:25, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)

General comment

Most of this is a codification of existing administrative judgement, however it will be good to have these existing "as law", so to speak, though these measures will not really impact much on the Monster That Is VFD... Dysprosia 06:08, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There is a bigger issue at hand

While the goal of adding what is a CSD is admirable, I find that the bigger issue at hand is the one of Votes for Deletion. A proposal regarding VfD was struck down recently, b ut that doesn't change the fact that it is a monster that is ineffective due to its massive size. While no one can agree on HOW to solve it, the fact that there is a problem there is almost universally accepted; this will slightly remedy the problem, but I still feel that this only adds as law a few interpretations that have already become standard practice anyway. I think that the attention of the 'pedia at large needs to be focused more on VfD than on CSD. Just my 2 cents, though. [[User:Mo0|Mo0[talk]]] 07:28, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I surrender

Despite the fact that this proposal has turned into a circus and a free-for-all, with the unilateral additions of ridiculous, poison-pill amendments, I'm not going to fight the addition of anything anymore. I don't have the time. I wanted this vote to remain simple and on-topic. I was not able to do that. Whatever happens, happens. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 21:27, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree, the vote should have been protected (however effective against admins that would be) and made stable once the vote was announced and upcoming. --BesigedB ^(talk) 21:47, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The problem is that this project wasn't very well publicised until the vote was announced. I've been a strong supporter of expanding speedy, and I didn't hear about this proposal until yesterday. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 21:50, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)

Think of it this way, Blankfaze: the newest additions are the least thought-through and the least discussed beforehand. That makes them the least likely to pass. And once they have failed once, they will be difficult to bring up again. Prematurely putting them to vote may kill them more permanently than your attempt to exclude them from the vote. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 02:26, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

Heh. I wasn't really trying to exclude them based on their content. I just wanted to keep the vote simple, and now it seems like a big, complicated mess. But we'll see what happens. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 05:51, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It is a big, complicated mess. But it seems to be working, to some degree. I didn't mean my comment in a negative way, it came off wrong. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 01:44, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

Many-in-one proposals

I think this multi-pronged proposal structure should just be abolished. Outlawed. Hooted out of town. This is like passing amendments, with everyone tacking on rider bills when they feel like it, even at the last minute when there's scant room for discussion. Even Blankfaze's original, which seemed innocent enough, might have been too bold. Let's not pretend these proposals are completely independent — especially proposal IX. Vote on one thing. That everyone can edit a proposal is dubious enough as it is (what are we voting for, then? To get community consensus on a proposal that was edited to consensus by the community? Huh?), let's not make it even more confused by throwing together everything that's fit to print.

One proposal. One thing to vote on. Even if it's a lot of small things. If you want, put all the small things together and have the thing pass as a whole or not at all — your choice. But no subproposals. Not policy, just advice. It's too late for this proposal, but let's not do it again. JRM 22:41, 2004 Dec 31 (UTC)

"Reject" is rejected.

There's no need to add 50% more options to the voting. Having two no votes and one yes vote is a bad idea and will only result in debates on how to interpret the ensuing vote. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 00:40, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

Having a vote in the first place was a bad idea. Allowing even qualified majorities to set policy means that policy is never consensual. This means that those that oppose changes to the policy, if it's opposed, are not heard and still oppose it. Dr Zen 01:40, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Maybe we should have a new proposal on whether proposals supported by the majority should become official policy. :-) I see your point, though. Getting it done by consensus is always better than getting it done by majority. Then again, you should just vote "no" on everything if that's a concern — and I have a feeling quite some people will do just that, especially since we're talking speedy deletion. JRM 01:53, 2005 Jan 1 (UTC)

I agree with that since I think we should be creating policies that we can all live with by discussing what should be included in the first place. In that case, would it be better to vote on smaller pieces of policy than larger ones all at once such as this proposal? --Sketchee 02:25, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

It was a little more subtle than "two no votes and one yes vote" — it was, rather, one positive, one neutral, and one negative vote. Since it was clear that both the positive and negative votes required a majority, there was really no ambiguity. A 30% minority of disagree votes would have blocked both agree and reject and led to no action being taken. But I'm comfortable with proposal IX as it now stands.

I admit I hadn't quite noticed at first that the agree vote required a 70% majority; if I had, I'd have made that proposal mirror the main vote properly. JRM, thanks for catching that.

By the way, why does this proposal ask for a 70% majority rather than a simple two-thirds majority? It can be quickly determined whether a vote has the two-thirds majority; one need only check whether one side has twice as many votes as the others combined. ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 03:49, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Disagree" is hardly neutral. As you point out, a third choice would easily poison the vote, and it will be impossible for any of the option to truly pass or fail. On 2/3rds, the objective is to have "consensus", and the consensus on Wikipedia is that "consensus" is roughly equal to 70 or 80 percent. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 04:06, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

It was neutral in that it was essentially a vote to keep the status quo. I doubt the third option would have affected the vote; it was just a subset of disagree anyway. It isn't "poisoning" to split the neutral position. If the positive side was going to receive a majority, it would still get the majority (see Independence of irrelevant alternatives). It has always been the case that the vote was biased in favor of the status quo: that side does not need a majority, but it can overrule the majority with only 30% of the vote.

...We don't even have a policy on Wikipedia:Consensus. How ironic.

If it really is consensus you're after, you should probably read consensus decision making. What we have here falls far short of a consensual process; there's considerable reluctance to even consider new proposals. Can't we admit that Wikipedia hardly ever actively tries to develop consensus? ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 06:45, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I am taking the consensus is that consensus is roughly equal to 70 or 80 percent home and framing it. Only on Wikipedia, a place where consensus supposedly rules, could someone say that and mean it! Thanks for the link, Eequor. Should be required reading for everyone here. Dr Zen 11:40, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There may have been a small amount of jest in my statement. I sometimes forget that Wikipedia has no sense of humor. :) —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 20:08, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

That was jerkish, JRM. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 01:50, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

Erm... What on earth are you referring to? The only thing I can imagine is creating sense of humor. If so, I must point out that I created it in response to exactly just such a link on User:Eequor's user page. I wasn't trying to ruin your joke, or something. (This reply wasn't even directed at me! How low would I have to go?) I do realize I'm basically screwed because I'll never be able to "prove" this. Take my word, which I have never given lightly, and which I have never broken once given: I did not do anything to anyone here with intent to insult or annoy. That's the best I can do. We hardly know each other, and based on what little we have interacted, I think it's altogether too soon to start off as enemies. :-) See also my other comments on my unshakeable faith in everyone's good intentions here. JRM 02:30, 2005 Jan 7 (UTC)

"Accordingly U-3 and lesser degrees of unanimity are usually lumped in with statistical measures of agreement, such as "80%, mean plus one sigma, Two-Thirds, 50% plus one" levels of agreement. Such measures do not fit within the definition of consensus given at the beginning of this article." So say the people in the Wikipedia article. Dr Zen 11:46, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Oh, there is actually one place where Wikipedia works toward a real consensus! I'd forgotten.... It's Wikipedia:Featured article candidates, of course. ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 14:04, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The articles Eequor mentioned are really good stuff, especially if you think you know what "consensus" means. Now combine this with the nature of WP:CSD, and consider again whether a majority vote is the way to go here. Damn. I'm going to have to abstain from all votes; I need to mull this over first. JRM 14:46, 2005 Jan 1 (UTC)

^_^ ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 15:03, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Postponement

I've postponed the vote four days so we can resolve the differences between proposal III and proposal XI. Offering two choices may lead to neither proposal receiving enough votes to pass — and if both of them pass anyway, we would be in the awkward position of having to incorporate elements from both into CSD. Better to work toward a satisfactory version of proposal III now, rather than instate a version nobody officially voted on. ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 23:15, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've reverted this. This vote has been scheduled for weeks and should not be postponed over an amendment that was added mere hours before the vote was set to begin. If there is a problem with the amendment, it should be removed. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 23:17, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hm, Wikipedia talk:Proposal to expand WP:CSD/Proposal III (Vanity articles) shows that Wikimol proposed this on December 20. Never mind. ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 23:23, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Bringing it up on a talk page is one thing. Ideally he should have added it to the official proposal days or weeks ago. With less than an hour left, there's no time to discuss any issues with it. However, the entire vote should not be held up because of Wikimol's procrastination. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 23:25, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Can I ask what the general rush is? If there are any questions as to the format of the vote, there is no harm in a postponement. That is a far better option than getting it off on the wrong foot. -- Netoholic @ 23:31, 2005 Jan 1 (UTC)

No rush, it's just that this vote has been discussed and mulled over for almost a month. It's unfair to derail it thanks to a very last-minute addition. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 23:34, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Postponement won't "de-rail" anything. It is fair to all to delay all of the open questions as to the format. Let's combine the measures which deal with similar items and stabalize the format. -- Netoholic @ 23:38, 2005 Jan 1 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Blankfaze. Wikimol had most of two weeks to change proposal III to sen liking; se didn't have to wait until hours before the vote. ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 23:39, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Other concerns about ther format of this vote (and even the need for it at all) have been raised. By not postponing, everyone of us is saying, in effect, that we believe there is a reasonable chance of each proposal passing (regardless of our individual views). If that is not how we all feel, then why put them to a vote? Why not work on them until there is consensus at least with that thought? -- Netoholic @ 23:46, 2005 Jan 1 (UTC)

First - I'm very sorry for adding it to "official vote page" so late. I've been offline for a week. Proposals are conceptualy different, I dont see how they could be "merged". --Wikimol 23:51, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I see. Why do you feel they are conceptually different? ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 23:58, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Prop III relies on the competence of admins, IMO too mush for CsD. Prop XI relies on the community, and the work of admin could almost be automated. (Of course the admins judgement remains as a last check).

Other motivation for adding it was my guess Prop III won't pass. --Wikimol 00:14, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Nnn. Neutrality reinserted XI. I don't see how we can reasonably vote on both proposals. Who feels XI should be considered? ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 00:07, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Request for Comment

I see that Eequor has listed this proposal on Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment#Article_content_disputes - I would just like to make it clear for users coming here from there that there is no disagreement. There is only Eequor, who has numerous times attempted to unilaterally postpone this vote. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 00:27, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Nonsense; see above. Netoholic also objects to the vote. I see that my inclination to agree with you was in error. ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 00:30, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

blankfaze.. .will you please stop with the snide attitude? -- Netoholic @ 00:32, 2005 Jan 2 (UTC)

Snide attitude? I'm only stating the case. Either way, all anyone has to do is look at WHO is opposing the start of the vote. That tells a lot. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 00:34, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In anycase, I'm not in agreement with the content either. I was actually pretty suprised when I came here and the voting had started. I know it was supposed to start to day, but I certainly thought it would be postponed until consensus. :/--Sketchee 03:12, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

Me too. You've got to also look at who is pushing the vote ahead. That tells a lot.Dr Zen 05:29, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Listing of possible sock puppet voters

According to Wikipedia:Sock puppet, it is typical to not count votes for accounts with less than 100 edits, or a questionable contribution listing. Please list here any accounts which may fight these guidelines. This will be easier than marking them under each voting sub-section.

This is a misrepresentation of Wikipedia:Sock puppet, it does not say that "it is typical to not count votes for accounts with less than 100 edits". What it does say is this:

"If it appears that sock puppets are being used as part of an edit war or to distort the outcome of a vote or survey, one possible rule of thumb is the 100-edit guideline. This suggests that any account with more than 100 edits is presumed not to be a sock puppet, but accounts with fewer edits are considered doubtful, especially if there are unusually many of them participating.

This means that If there is evidence to suspect a sock puppet campaign, then such a possible guideline could be used. I see no evidence for such a sock puppet campaign here.

Paul August ☎ 16:05, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

• User:Max rspct (contribs, talk) - slightly over 100 edits, but about 40 are to his own user page, and he's got less than 20 article edits. -- Netoholic @ 00:47, 2005 Jan 2 (UTC)
  • User:Max rspct is relatively new to wikipedia and low edit numbers should be understandable. who are you suggesting User:Max rspct is a sock puppet of? Xtra 01:05, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • I dunno who or even if for sure, which is why I listed here. The guideline is about 100 edits, and this user's light contributions make me question his votes. Why would someone so new become involved with voting so soon after hitting 100 edits? -- Netoholic @ 01:12, 2005 Jan 2 (UTC)
      • i dunno. my first ever edit was a vote. Xtra 01:16, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• User:Ral315 (contribs, talk) Votes on these proposals seems to have been this user's 100th edit. -- Netoholic @ 08:00, 2005 Jan 2 (UTC)
  • I am the user referred to here, and I'd like to confirm that I am NOT a sock puppet; I recently took an avid interest into Wikipedia, and that's why my edit amount is so low. I guess it's just a statistical anomaly that the vote was my 100th edit. Ral315 00:17, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

• User:Lee S. Svoboda (contribs, talk) - less than 100 edits, with lots of recent votes. -- Netoholic @ 08:00, 2005 Jan 2 (UTC)

Why I voted disagree on everything

I'm going to vote "disagree" on all proposals, because I don't think the proposal process is proper to begin with. I think we should go for proper consensus, and not a majority vote, especially since we're talking about something individuals must act on. Looking at the CSD talk page, I see no real attempt at working towards consensus, just the usual "here's why you're wrong" back-and-forth arguing. That's a good start, but hardly the prelude to a full-blown vote. The current page has quite a few proposals that didn't seem to get any consensus on the talk page — what's a vote supposed to establish? If it's merely a handy way of getting lots of people to state what they think, it's going overboard by immediately stamping the things the majority likes as policy.

We need more discussion. A vote will get more eyeballs, but a vote, and especially a majority vote, is not discussion. Unless someone tells me we have officially abandoned consensus as a realistic way of getting to policy, I can't in good faith agree with this. I have thought about abstaining, but decided against it; as that sends no signal at all. I must stress that my "disagree" votes are not meant to express spite or dissatisfaction with any individual proposer, and I'm not even trying to express opinions on how the CSD policy should look — just that I don't think it's good to change it in this manner. I have no doubt that these proposals will see enough voters to ensure my votes won't "sabotage" the process. JRM 01:03, 2005 Jan 2 (UTC)

• If your complaint is with the process rather than the content, the proper thing to do would be to abstain. Just my opinion. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 01:22, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  Generally, you would be right. But in this case, voting "disagree" on everything is expressing the opinion that the current policy should not be changed in any way — and that's about right, if not for the reason that the subproposals themselves are bad. I can hardly start an after-the-fact meta-proposal on whether this proposal is appropriate. :-) Eequor's "maintain the status quo" alternatives were removed (and probably rightly so), but that's what I'm voting for. "Abstain" simply doesn't cut it — remaining silent is agreeing, as the majority is over all voters, not over all Wikipedians. JRM 02:26, 2005 Jan 2 (UTC)

Voting no on everything hardly helps to make consensus. Some of these would go through without a single "no" vote if there weren't people like you voting against the process, rather than the proposition. And no matter what your own definition of "consensus" is, I would think that a unanimous vote would fall into it. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 21:03, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

Let me repeat your edit summary here, because I think it's rather important: you're disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point. I will agree to a lot, but not to tacit accusations that I'm wilfully breaking policy (even if it's just proposed policy — I happen to agree with it). Let me put it this way: I stand behind all my disagree votes. I do believe none of these cases should be added to WP:CSD, and that is what this vote is about. Questioning my reasons for voting this way (reasons which indeed stem from the process) is one thing. Going so far as to imply disruption because such votes fail to go with the presumed unanimous flow is a bridge too far. Your logic is backwards: if only I (or others like me) kept silent, we might have a unanimous vote, which is definitely consensus, so I shouldn't vote this way because it breaks consensus? That's not my understanding of consensus. What next? Asking all people who object to these proposals passing by vote to please not vote so the people who "really stand for something" get their say? Isn't the whole point of this vote to determine whether there is a majority in favor? If the majority really is in favor, how can my vote possibly be taken as disruptive? How could a majority of people who feel the process is inappropriate make their opinion known, if not through voting? Do you really think this vote could be challenged any other way? Wouldn't there be massive pressure to accept the outcome of this vote as policy, because "the majority wants it this way"? Again: the majority spoken of is the majority of voters, not of Wikipedians. If I don't vote, I don't get a say, and I want a say. It's as simple as that. A true consensus acknowledges this; a vote cannot. I might agree that I'm "disrupting" the vote, in some sense, but I'm not agreeing that this works against consensus, and certainly not to disrupting Wikipedia. No, sir. JRM 22:21, 2005 Jan 2 (UTC)

I disagree. If he's against the process, then he is not supporting that these proposals be passed. In which case, it seems the appropriate vote is against the proposals. YMMV --Sketchee 22:19, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps he's not voting against the process, either, but against proponents of the proposals who are incapable of believing that anyone could disagree with their opinion of them. Keith D. Tyler [flame] 20:33, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

And perhaps he also thinks some people are better off voicing their opinions as their own, rather than implying that others are thinking just the same way. ;-) For the record: I think Blankfaze (and everyone else who added a proposal) is acting in perfectly good faith here. I just think more could have been done to reach consensus. Ben is just annoyed at what he probably sees as petty filibustering; we are at odds there, but that's all. Don't try to recruit me in some personal crusade, please. I don't know anything about it, and frankly I don't care. I care about the way we're building policy, here, and that's as far as it goes. JRM 21:15, 2005 Jan 3 (UTC)

I think JRM's actions are perfectly reasonable, and he is in no way engaging in "disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point". Making such an allegation is out of line. Paul August ☎ 20:54, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

It was hardly an accusation; it was a flippant remark in the edit summary. I had some strong arguments to make here, but I procrastinated adding them and they matter not now. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 03:50, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

I feel a great deal of conflict about it. I think this is altogether the wrong way to change policy. It's extremely anticonsensual to have a majority vote win the day. Policy that a third of the community does not agree with is not going to be good policy (and yet it will still be bandied around as though it were the will of God, as other policies are). There is already far too much of a "like it or fuck off" attitude here, and I'm not at all sure that's the spirit. However, if I and others who feel the same abstain, we allow proposals we really don't want to have pass to become "policy" and, not being an admin and not likely to become one, I can't do a thing to stop bad policies from being misused (if they are bad policies -- the point with a consensus is that effort is made to convince everyone that the policies in question are good).Dr Zen 05:35, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

IMO there is a strong concensus deletion policy has to be changed somehow to relieve VfD. The general debate was ongoing for months, with outputs such as Preliminary Deletion proposal. CSD policy is not respected like the will of God, many admins are deleting articles more or less out of the current policy. Because usualy everybody agrees the deleted article should be deleted, there are very little complains about it. (And those complaining, like me, usualy dispute only the fact it was deleted out of the policy, not the deletion itself.) --Wikimol 14:00, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That's all true, Wikimol, and I think Blankfaze could simply have made a proposal on the talk page of CSD, dealt with objections and adjusted the policy. Had he publicised his policy change on Village Pump, the mailing list etc, and perhaps by personal messages to editors he knows are interested parties, he could have received views that way.Dr Zen 23:12, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Many of the proposals were dicussed on the talk page of CSD; in fact, that's what prompted me to start this proposal. This proposal was publicised ... on Village Pump, the mailing list etc, around a month ago when it started. Also, it's been publicised on Wikipedia:Goings-on for about two weeks. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 17:13, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Yes I know. I contributed to the discussion. But the discussion was, I believe, all aimed at crafting proposals for a vote, not towards making a consensus to change policy. I don't recall any message that said "let's get together and think about how we can change policy".Dr Zen 23:02, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It seem pretty obvious that despite all shrouds of equity, the method of determining policy in the deletion sphere latel has been crafted such that CSD expansion would be assured to pass, and Wikipedia:Preliminary deletion would be assured to fail. Preliminary deletion had to reach a 70% consensus (that's a higher margin than Congress has to make to veto the President!), not a simple majority. And of course, plenty of people objected -- after the vote -- to the stated way the votes would be counted (which I agree was unorthodox and inadvisable, but it was clearly stated in advance). There is a terrible lack of rules here to determine how policy should be made. We shouldn't be making any policy until we can come up with a policy on changing policy -- and sticking to it! - Keith D. Tyler [flame] 20:39, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

As the original crafter of Preliminary Deletion and its two votes, I don't see any overt move by the cabal (if such a thing exists) to guarantee the passage of certain policies. Policy crafting operates on consensus. The problem now is that we've grown so big, achieving meaningful consensus grows harder and harder. As we grow larger, so does the number of extremists in our midst. Achieving a middle of the road or common sense policy grows harder as Wikipedia grows, because the extremists will staunchly oppose such measures. It's no longer the good ol' days where we could make policies that just make sense. Nowadays everyone has a gripe with the policy and to achieve consensus, policy writers have to try to please everyone. I seem to recall one of Aesop's fables (is that it?) of the man and his son with the donkey.

The problem now is, if we don't use consensus for creating policy, what do we use? We've come up with a middle of the road method, commonly known as voting. The problem is, voting is inherently bad. After watching several polls, I'm not too convinced it would be a bad idea to outlaw voting entirely. It's a slipshod process that destroys discussion. However, voting originated because of no discussion. Preliminary Deletion had got few complaints, and a lot of positive feedback. After a while, they stopped trickling in, so voting was opened. Then people came up and mouthed off about the policy a little bit and took off. No matter; if the vote didn't pass, we could try working it out through discussion. The proposal was listed on the pump, mailing list (twice) and RfC. Only two people stepped up to discuss, and one came away with a changed opinion.

I'm now quite sure voting is, more often than not, bad, and voting should be expressly banned except where otherwise permitted by some authority. Because the possibility to vote exists, people save their feedback for the poll. Then they complain about it and vanish until the next vote. Worse still, some may just vote and not explain why. Repeat ad infinitum. If we removed this possibility, people would have to discuss a proposal, or it would never pass/fail.

I of course realise this is an opinion not shared by many, if any, Wikipedians. It's just that atfer Preliminary Deletion I've been so utterly frustrated with the manner of working out policy here. I looked for discussion and got none. Then when the second vote opened, I was berated for not seeking discussion. After the first vote anthony told me there surely must be some way of drawing discussion. The problem is, nobody cares. It's easy to cast a vote. It's much harder to defend your stance in a protracted debate.

I close with one last thing to say. Jwrozensweig explained on Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship that he never casts a vote without stating his opinion and reasons for casting his vote, because he views a vote as a manner of working out consensus, not some construct that determines numerically whether something fails or passes. If every voter took that attitude, it would be much easier to craft policy, if not pass it. Sadly, many, including myself, don't. Johnleemk | Talk 10:26, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

John, thanks for that cogent comment. I agree wholeheartedly that votes are bad. Whenever I do vote, I try to engage in a discussion (to the frustration, sometimes, of those who just want to vote, get their way and leave) because I truly believe that it is good at least to try to work for a consensus.

I'm very sorry that your proposal on preliminary deletion did not get the discussion it deserved. I think you've hit the nail on the head. People just hang out for the vote, don't bother talking it out, and you're hit over the head with a mass of criticism and negativity in one chunk.

I think I will dig out the policy and look at it properly. I think I voted against it, but I would happily discuss with you why. I think I was probably too new when it was being discussed. But I feel sorry that you did not get the fair shake you deserved, having put the effort and thought into it.

If we ever have a vote on votes...Dr Zen 11:30, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Talk message

"To keep this page from becoming confusing and difficult to read, please direct all discussion to the proposal's talk page."

We might want to move this to somewhere more prominent. The contents and jump to vote messages easily let me skip past it. =o --Sketchee 03:51, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

I've tried twice to make the message more prominent, but both attempts have been reverted by User:blankfaze without explanation. -- Netoholic @ 04:23, 2005 Jan 2 (UTC)

Oh, so YOU were the chap doing that? Sorry. The big gray box with double-border looked really bad and unnecessarily large. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 07:31, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Early withdrawl of failing proposals

The vote is big, I don't think anyone will disagree with that. Would it be possible to remove proposals that have already failed? What would be necessary to do so, the agreement of their submitters, or just common sense? Proposals three, four, five, seven, eight, and nine all furthest from consensus, all having more disagree than agree votes, and are very unlikely to swing the other way in the next ten days. Proposals 7 and 9 are currently (and have been since the start) the worst off, at 8:74 and 2:75, respectively.

Withdrawing before the end of the vote is certainly not unprecedented. It would streamline the process significantly. The withdrawn proposals can get an early start on reformulating for the next attempt at this, in six months or whenever. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 04:11, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

• I wouldn't oppose the withdrawal of any proposal with less than 40%. However, anyone who would take it upon themselves to remove them would have to be willing to assume any possible ensuing flack. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 04:18, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• No, it's bad enough there were major concerns with even starting this vote on Jan 2, it is not right that we change the parameters of the survey mid-stream. -- Netoholic @ 04:24, 2005 Jan 7 (UTC)
  • Not right, how? What is the harm that offsets the benefits? —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 05:01, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
• Let it be. The minimal benefits of streamlining for the few remaining days aren't worth the future heartache when people start screaming that they were disenfranchised. Rossami (talk) 05:04, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• I oppose withdrawing any vote which has not been given the opportunity to run its full course. Xtra 05:06, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Darn. Now I can't withdraw the proposal to withdraw failing proposals. FTR, things are withdrawn before the vote concludes on VfD, RfA, and presumably every other voting-based doodad on Wikipedia. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 05:34, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
• Let them die a natural death. I don't think it's hard to see that people don't like it when you try to change the "rules" in the middle of the "game". Paul August ☎ 06:17, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

Proposal I (Amount of content I)

The talk page Wikipedia talk:Proposal to expand WP:CSD was split into individual talk pages for each proposal, to limit the size of the talk page and facilitate individual discussions on each proposal. The history and attributions for the comments made before the split can be seen by following the history link on the /General talk page.

Slight amendment to Proposal I

Could it also include articles that are just interwiki links? This may need some discussion because soft redirects do exist and are ok, however some users like to create articles that are just an inter-language link and this, in my opinion, should also be listed as a candidate for speedy deletion. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 01:38, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Damn, I've been speedy deleting all those already. :-) Danny 01:44, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

So have I but it'd be nice if it were actually in policy somewhere :-p -- Graham ☺ | Talk 01:57, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Inter-language links? If there's a relevant article in another article, there should be a relevant article in English, so these should be changed to the relevant article in English, which should have the inter-language link. No relevant article in English because it hasn't been created yet? These should be tagged, not deleted. Brianjd 05:45, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

Damn, interwiki link was already part of the proposal when voting started. Brianjd 05:52, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

Proposal I

Could "taxobox" be listed to the items which can cause an otherwise empty page to be deleted? 172.169.21.14 22:03, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Taxboxes are templates. If I remember correctly, templates were always part of this proposal. Brianjd 05:53, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

Amendment

Might this be generalized to Any article which contains no sentences? ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 03:19, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No, you could do a "See also:" as a sentence. --—Ben Brockert (42) UE News 03:43, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

The criterion should be based on information

instead of how this information is expressed. Say I'm a spammer interested in promoting ACME Inc. I create an article about ACME with contents "acme homepage: http://acme-inc.us/ [[Category:ACME]]" (assuming the ACME category didn't exist before). Arguably, this doesn't provide any more information than just the link to the ACME homepage, yet it cannot be deleted under the proposed policy. IMO it should be possible to speedily delete such articles. The current proposal is useful (in fact, I'll probably vote for it), but I'm afraid it's too narrow since the proposed policy can easily be circumvented. --MarkSweep 00:52, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This would be counted as vanity. I'm afraid I don't think I could ever support something like that because it's subjective and therefore belongs under Wikipedia: Votes for deletion. Brianjd 06:00, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk: Proposal to expand WP:CSD/General talk#Dangerous ground. Brianjd 06:54, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

Good article potential

I think some of the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Proposal to expand WP:CSD/General talk#Good article potential is relevant here. An article with one of the things on the list is a good incentive to write more, a far better incentive than a red link. Even a blank article is better than a red link but it does make Wikipedia look bad. Brianjd 06:53, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

Proposal II (Amount of content II)

The talk page Wikipedia talk:Proposal to expand WP:CSD was split into individual talk pages for each proposal, to limit the size of the talk page and facilitate individual discussions on each proposal. The history and attributions for the comments made before the split can be seen by following the history link on the /General talk page.

Substubs

If I'm not mistaken, Proposal II refers to what some people call a substub. Whether you agree that these are appropriate as a concept or not, you at least need to make the connection explicit, because the term is current and there's plenty on the talk page of that article, including plenty of reasons to influence your vote on this proposal. Note that I'm not advocating the unqualified use of the word "substub", because that rakes in the whole "controversy". (My tongue is firmly in my cheek here, "people deftly talking past each other" is more appropriate.) Nevertheless, when I saw Proposal II the first thing I thought was "substub", so sweeping it under the rug is pointless. (And I agree with the current version of the substub page, incidentally: expand them into stubs or SD them, as you see fit. Just as long as you don't clog VfD with entries that are longer than the articles they're nominating.) JRM 15:51, 2004 Dec 10 (UTC)

I think you are mistaken. Proposition II doesn't match the definition of a sub-stub presented at Wikipedia:Substub. The example on that page is "Airplanes are flying machines with wings", which certainly would not fall under Proposition II. A quick check of a dozen articles in Category:Substub found that none of them could be deleted under Proposition II.- SimonP 17:15, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Alright, then I'd like that written out explicitly:

Extremely short articles which add no information beyond what is obvious from the title (e.g. Swazi embassy to Mozambique which said "The Embassy of Swaziland is the home of Swaziland's representative to Mozambique."), but not any other kind of substub (e.g. "Airplanes are flying machines with wings").

Otherwise I'd have trouble believing that everyone would interpret this policy correctly. Point in case: I for one made the mistake of not doing that, and I don't consider myself particularly silly or misguided here. JRM 18:40, 2004 Dec 10 (UTC)

I don't believe the definition is the same and I don't believe a qualifier needs to be added. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 21:51, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What's wrong with adding a qualifier? Paul August ☎ 21:05, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

What's wrong with adding a qualifier? I think there is no change to the meaning. Of course, the example should not be part of the policy. Brianjd 07:17, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

Actually, it's Category:Substubs, not Category:Substub. Brianjd 07:26, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

Contradictory example

Proposal II has an example which provides information not self-evident from the title. It's very common for ambassadors to live somewhere other than at their embassy, so saying that it is the home of the ambassador as well as the embassy is additional information. Jamesday 19:30, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• {{sofixit}}. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 00:49, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"Obvious"

(response to Netoholic's disagree vote)

• For your benefit: Obvious adj. Easily perceived or understood; quite apparent. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 00:25, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • I find your comment mocking and snide. I am aware of the dictionary meaning, but the word "obvious" has been used as an open door to abuse in the past. What is "obvious" is too often questionable. -- Netoholic @ 00:37, 2005 Jan 2 (UTC)
    • Agreed! Brianjd 07:35, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

The answer to All of the objections is that every little bit helps. -User:Lee S. Svoboda

(I added the attrib above so we know who said what. Hope that's okay).

I'm not sure I follow, the answer to concerns about the deletion of possibly legitimate material is that every bit helps? The deletion of every bit or ...?--Sketchee 03:27, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

Reasoning

For many of us, we're more likely to edit a redlink than we are a blue link; therefore, if the contents of Peerage of the United Kingdom were "The Peerage of the United Kingdom is the peerage system used in the United Kingdom", I'd assume there was a half-decent article there (because the link was blue). However, if the link were red, I'd be surprised that an article didn't exist and I would go create it. ugen64 00:41, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• EXACTLY. - BLANKFAZE | (что??) 00:57, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Concur. Mindspillage (spill your mind?) 19:20, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• A red link makes me feel lazy, but a blue link makes me curious - I am more likely to improve the page if there's a blue link there, in general. I don't think we are ever going to get a consensus on this. Brianjd 07:22, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)
  • You follow every blue link in any article you read? —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 01:37, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
• Some of the talk at Wikipedia talk:Proposal to expand WP:CSD/General talk#Good article potential seems appropriate here. See my comment above. Brianjd 07:26, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)
• Don't assume, a blue article is an article that most people would expect to have relevent information. If it does not, than its the perfect opportunity to do so! If a red link doesn't interest me, I bypass it. But if I see an incomplete blue link I'm more likely to edit it for shame that some researching student will spot it and be discusted with the incompletness of the encyclopedia. bernlin2000 ∞ 15:35, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

Three-toed sloth

Somebody once used this example. Suppose an article of that name said "The three-toed sloth is a sloth with three toes" and no more. Well this tells me something - it tells me that such a thing exists. It is also going to encourage me more to expand it (see "Reasoning" section just before this one). Yet it would be deleted under this proposal. Brianjd 07:35, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

• It doesn't tell you that such a thing exists. It could be fictional. You could have gotten more information than that from the context of whatever page linked to it. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 01:37, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

Rewording the proposal

From the time of this comment, it seems that this proposal won't pass (117 agree, 72 disagree, for a total of 62% support), but some people that disagree seemed to support my suggested rewording:

From Extremely short articles which add no information beyond what is obvious from the title.

To Extremely short articles consisting of nothing but a rephrase of the title.

Maybe a future proposal could feature this rewording. --Deathphoenix 15:38, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Proposal III (Vanity articles)

The talk page Wikipedia talk:Proposal to expand WP:CSD was split into individual talk pages for each proposal, to limit the size of the talk page and facilitate individual discussions on each proposal. The history and attributions for the comments made before the split can be seen by following the history link on the /General talk page.

Google

Two Google hits? My almost-unique name (there is one other person sharing it) gets 1950 google hits and there's no way I'd be worthy material for an article. dramatic 23:08, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Yeah. I didn't actually write these, they were suggested by various users at WP:CSD. I agree that 2 hits is too low a threshold, but I don't know how else I would phrase it. Ideas? BLANKFAZE | (что??) 23:30, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• I strongly agree with these changes. When I originally advanced Proposition III at CSD I set the bar at "virtually no Google hits." I think there are advantages to a vaguer statement, "virtually no hits" is a different raw number for a 19th century African politician than for a blogger. - SimonP 01:44, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)
  • I agree. I've changed it. However, I was thinking — would "very few" hits be more appropriate? BLANKFAZE | (что??) 15:02, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • Tying any of our policies to the whims of an external commercial company should not be done. Remove the mention google altogether I say. Shane King 04:53, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)
      • I have to agree, number of google hits is more akin to a popularity contest than any gauge of notability or encyclopedia-worthiness. For example: slightly obscure people from the 17th century, e.g. Richard Hoare, tend to have very few google hits, whereas Star Wars minutae can have literally hundreds of thousands. Google is not always a useful barometer. Rje 02:54, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• I think notability of any given topic should be decided collectively, not individually. Maurreen 05:59, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Suggestion: "also, people where the article makes no claim of notability and the person gets virtually no Google hits, not including any of Wikimedia's websites or mirrors." -> "also, where the article makes no claim of notability, and no references to the person can be found in a reasonable search of resources available (excluding Wikimedia's websites or mirrors)." Christopher^ 05:48, 2004 Dec 8 (UTC)

  What exactly is a "reasonable search"? Aren't these the criteria for speedy deletion?

• I think that the policy used to guide the decision as to the appropriateness of an encyclopedia article should make no references to any organisations - not Google, not Wikimedia. Brianjd
• The fact that an article makes no claim of notability is irrelevant. Whether the person is notable or not is relevant. However, I think that notability is a rather controversial thing - is it really appropriate for a criteria for speedy deletion to involve it?
  • Lack of notability is never a valid reason to delete an article. What this proposes is the speedy deletion of Vanity pages. - SimonP 17:00, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)
• I'm amazed by 1950 hits for your name. There are only 65 Google hits for mine, and most of those aren't for me but some else with the same name. Like all websearches, Google is biased towards people who create websites, blogs etc. And it's not so useful for judging the notability of anything else. For example, I only discovered Wikipedia because it was just about the only website with a good list of mythical kings of pre-Roman Britain... and how many Google hits do they get!?! P Ingerson 11:10, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• This only seems to relate to Proposal III (Vanity articles). What's it doing here? Brianjd 04:35, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)
  • Forgive me, it seems I'm imperfect. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 01:37, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

Prop III

Proposition III seems to be the most controversial of these criteria, and it perhaps needs more explication. The goal of Prop III is to be able to delete those pages that everybody knows won't survive VfD, but which are currently impossible to speedy delete. Some examples from VfD are Shatter, Shumaker, ZTC, and Arthur Wyatt. No Wikipedian thinks articles like this should be kept, yet each article has to be listed on VfD, voted on, deleted, and its debate archived. Overall this process likely wastes at least twenty minutes of our editors' time, when a speedy deletion could resolve the issue in seconds. - SimonP 07:08, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

• I agree. You're welcome to try your hand at explication. I might end up removing that proposal because even I am beginning to think it is too contentious. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 17:02, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Prop III is a natural candidate for my #Quarantine proposal. Blankfaze, what do you think about it? Mikkalai 19:46, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • Now that the discussion has been rearranged, that link should be Wikipedia talk:Proposal to expand WP:CSD/General talk#Quarantine. Brianjd 07:46, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)
• Prop III is of no use, because that proposal is brimming with caveats, conditions and opinions that we're never going to reach consensus on in one broad sweeping policy. That's what we currently have VfD for, to judge on a case-by-case basis instead. This is not useless: if ten people agree that it's a delete, it does not follow that ten people would have agreed if one admin had single-handedly determined, based on "obvious" criteria, that it was a speedy.
  If any general policy is to be established, you're not going to get it squirreled away in an innocuously-numbered proposal that's part of a batch. Unless you want it to drown out everything else, I wouldn't put that up for voting—at least not yet. JRM 16:04, 2004 Dec 10 (UTC)
  • I seem to be out of step here, unless the wording has been changed since the above comments. I think III is quite reasonable, and will vote for it, given the opportunity. Deb 18:07, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • I believe that vanity articles (which I take to include both 'personal' and 'advertising') are generally easy to spot and take around 15-20 seconds to confirm that they are such. I'll also be supporting this. --Vamp:Willow 20:22, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Proposal III

The author should have some time to provide reference establishing the notability. Something like

• anyone spots vanity
• adds {{unencylopedic}} or something similar to the page and notice to the authors talk
• the author responds
  • agrees with deletion (we need generally accepted way how to expres that - anons usualy blank the page, which is instatly reverted)
  • provides further reference / objects
  • does not respond
• anyone can add reference
• after (time period) page is reevaluated by an admin
  • author agrees with deletion => speedy deletion
  • "blatant vanity" AND no further reference by author or other users => speedy deletion
  • vanity OR "blatant vanity" but the author tried to improve the article OR any dispute => VfD
  • notability established => keep

It may sound like instruction creep, but the burden of bureaucratic tasks is on admins. Uninterested users simply add a template.

Thus - proposed change

Extremely blatant vanity articles listed on Category:Articles which may be unencyclopedic at least for 3 days without any improvement. (Examples of blatant vanites are bands that have never released an album, contain no members that are famous for reasons other than being in the band, and have no press coverage—also, people where the article makes no claim of notability and the person gets virtually no Google hits, not including any of Wikimedia's websites or mirrors.)

--Wikimol 09:28, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps simply all there needs to be is a time period after the addition of {{delete}} before it can actually be speedied. This would give anyone watching it (like the author) a little time to contest the speedy.

Furthermore (ugh - feature request!) when the article is speedied, anyone watching it receives a notice on their watchlist. Currently, when an article is deleted, it disappears entirely from the watchlist.

Crazy talk, I know, but still. - [[User:KeithTyler|Keith D. Tyler [flame]]] 22:26, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)

IMO so general solution would have many problems.

Candidates for speedy deletion are often created by novices who dont know whats wrong with the article, how the watchlist works, etc. When simple {{delete}} appears at "theirs" page they usually dont get what's going on.

On the other hand the delay is not nocessary in case of current rules - for example pages re-created after deletion by policy should diasappear immediately.

--Wikimol 22:48, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Many of the votes against say they agree with 'speedy'ing vanity articles but question how they can be recognised as such. One thing that is always a give-away (often in addition to superlative language about the person or group concerned) is the use of "I" and "We" in the text. Sometimes - but *extremely rarely* this can be because someone is not writing in their main language, usually it screams 'vanity!' --Vamp:Willow 17:41, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Proposal XI

We needn't consider proposal XI if it will make no difference to the success of III. The statement "Because proposal XI is a weaker alternative of proposal III, if both pass, Proposal III should be implemented" is no different from saying "If proposal III passes, proposal III should be implemented". ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 23:49, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Blatant"

This word is my main objection to prop III and the reason I hope it will not pass. A new CSD rule should cover only the clearest cases that end up in VfD. For vanities, I would rather add

1. Self-admitted vanity
2. Child vanity (no evidence of notability, or fabricated evidence e.g. "emperor of the universe")
3. Band vanity that doesn't mention an album or indicates that the band is notable only known in its local area

How's this: We send "vanity" articles to VfD just as we always have? You cannot have something this ambiguous in a speedy deletion policy. Brianjd 07:53, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

1. Who's going to admit their article is vanity? Brianjd 07:53, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

   From time to time a new user posts a vanity with first-person references. Or the author of an article confirms in discussion that it is a vanity.

2. What is "child vanity"? What is "evidence of notability"? What is "fabricated evidence"? Brianjd 07:53, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

   "Child vanity" for this purpose is limited to the cases I described. "evidence" and "fabricated" have their usual meanings. Surely you've seen these in VfD. It doesn't take five days and multiple opinions to figure out articles that fall under this case or case 1.

3. So what if it doesn't mention an album? Important information is often missing from new articles. Who decides whether the article indicates that the band is notable only in its local area or not? Brianjd 07:53, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

   So, it can't be that widely known. If the article initially says that the band has not made any albums, or is only known locally, I think those assertions can be taken at face value. Gazpacho

Mozilla seaMonkey

Take a look at the edit history. Why did I put in that warning that seems so ridiculous? Because just previous, an admin had mistakenly deleted it. A quick check of the page it redirects to (just reading the first sentence, I think) clearly shows that it was notable. Admins are well-meaning, but they make mistakes, like the rest of us. Brianjd 08:01, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

FTR, I undeleted the page history for that page. I have to point out that a goofy sounding redirect would have been much less likely to be deleted had you made it while logged in. It's user class discrimination, but it's the truth. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 02:04, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

Organizations

I've said it before (before the rearrangment happened; currently at Wikipedia talk:Proposal to expand WP:CSD/General talk#Google I think) but I'll say it again here: We are trying to determine whether an article is appropriate for an encyclopedia or not - we should not reference any organizations to do that. I'm talking about both Google and the Wikimedia Foundation here. Brianjd 08:22, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

The text is now here. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 02:04, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

Proposal IV (Dicdefs)

The talk page Wikipedia talk:Proposal to expand WP:CSD was split into individual talk pages for each proposal, to limit the size of the talk page and facilitate individual discussions on each proposal. The history and attributions for the comments made before the split can be seen by following the history link on the /General talk page.

Proposal IV

Proposal IV makes claims about Wiktionary's submission requirements that don't appear to be accurate — see Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion, Wiktionary:Neologisms, and Wiktionary:List of protologisms, for a start. It would be better to phrase the proposal as simply "Any article consisting only of a dictionary definition (dicdef), which already exists at Wiktionary." Otherwise, there will be problems with admins deleting definitions because they have mistaken ideas about which words qualify for Wiktionary. There are cases where judgment on recently coined terms is in order, but speedy deletion is not the proper venue for that. Factitious 12:26, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

I'd like to see something that describes what a "dicdef" is. Strictly speaking,a dictionary definition includes parts of speech, pronounciation, etymology, etc. What we usually call a "dicdef" tends to be a one- or two-sentence description, slightly less than a stub. Where does a definition cross into becoming an encyclopedia entry? -- Netoholic @ 19:22, 2004 Dec 21 (UTC)

Can we restrict this only to articles which already have a Wiktionary definition? Reason: Either the definition needs to move to Wiktionary, which means that although you'd want to delete the Wikipedia page eventually, it would hardly be a candidate for "speedy deletion". If the dicdef isn't acceptable to Wiktionary, then more thought needs to go into where to store the information, and the process shouldn't be rushed. Grobertson 18:44, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree with the comment above that dicdef should not be rushed through. If it can put into Wiktionary, sufficient time should allowed for appropriate formatting/editing. The appropriate tag then is {{move to Wiktionary}} instead of speedy. Enochlau 03:11, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Take it to Wiktionary instead

I voted against this proposal because dic-defs can always be moved to Wiktionary for evaluation. Peter O. (Talk) 02:57, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

This was my reasoning also. I'm all for an expedited transwiki and deletion here, though. (If transwikis aren't usually "expedited", that is. I haven't looked into current practice at all.) —Korath (Talk) 07:38, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Precedents#Defining_the_Dict._Def. already has some interesting examples of dictionary definition articles which can and can't be kept. It reads: "Should dictionary definitions that have potential to become real articles be kept? - Yes". These were examples kept by vote but would they haved survived as CFD? The Reason page is still a series of definitions of the term with a bit history of history and examples filling out the article. :) --Sketchee 10:55, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

Proposal V (Copyright violations)

The talk page Wikipedia talk:Proposal to expand WP:CSD was split into individual talk pages for each proposal, to limit the size of the talk page and facilitate individual discussions on each proposal. The history and attributions for the comments made before the split can be seen by following the history link on the /General talk page.

Blatant copyvios

I would also like to see some rule allowing the deletion of blatant copyright violations. The percentage of articles that are rescued after being posted on Wikipedia:Copyright problems is minuscule and the danger of losing good content by making them easier to delete is small. - SimonP 17:46, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)

• No harm in putting it up to a vote. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 18:14, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • You'll have to be more specific as to what constitutes "blatant" copyright violation, since generally it's near impossible to ascertain whether a user does or does not own the copyrights or have authorisation to license content under the GFDL, even if you do find the exact same content on some webpage. Of course, in 99.99% of all cases it will be a copyvio, but I'd like to have the proposed CSD policy state explicitly that as long as the content can be found elsewhere and the user has not claimed to be the copyright owner or authorised to license content the policy applies. --fvw* 02:33, 2004 Dec 6 (UTC)
    • Agreed, but it should also be noted that the danger of false positives in these cases is very low, since if the content turns out to have been legitimate it can just be recopied. - SimonP 03:08, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)
      • Yes, I'm all for it, I just want it explicit as vague CSD criteria are causing enough trouble already. --fvw* 13:59, 2004 Dec 6 (UTC)
• Why do we need this, when {{copyvio}} tag is perfectly fine?? Enochlau 03:13, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Proposal V

Any article that consists only of content in blatant, easily verifiable violation of copyright that has not since been subsequently edited or improved by another user and was submitted by a user or IP with no legitimate contributions.

Completely agree with the intent, completely disagree with the wording. Reasons: what's "blatant"? What's "easily verifiable"? And of course, what's a "legitimate contribution"? Don't single out "legitimate contributions", ever, unless you want to explicitly accuse specific individuals of being sockpuppets.

Surely we just want Proposal V to stop enthusiastic newbies and spam vandals from cutting and pasting swaths of text from websites—for anything more, we'll just have to talk it out on Wikipedia:Copyright problems. To that end, I suggest:

Any article by precisely one editor, with content identical to material that exists elsewhere, when this material is not immediately verifiable as compatible with the GFDL. The editor must subsequently be informed on their talk page that such deletion has happened, with an external reference to the existing material, and instructions on how to prevent this from happening again.

A few important points of clarification.

1. The requirement of "precisely one editor" might seem very strong, but is the only workable option. If there are multiple editors, they could all suddenly find their edits gone without indication of what happened, and it's not reasonable to inform every single editor personally.

2. Similarly, "identical to" looks very strong, but is necessary: if the article's content is not identical, but contains edits, it's possible that it is the only existing copy, and you are needlessly making someone's derivative work unavailable because they forgot to say they held the copyright to the original material.

   An alternative is to merely demand that the material is clearly derived from material that exists elsewhere, but only if administrators are prepared to promptly undelete any speedy based on material that turns out to be GFDL-compatible, and only if we're prepared to deal with the shock and hurt of people who suddenly lose their preciously edited article because they were careless. I say it's not worth it: just put it on Wikipedia:Copyright problems if you can only claim clear derivation. Of course, as always, we rely on the good judgement of administrators: if the only difference is that, say, one sentence has been removed in the middle, you should still call it "identical" (or rather "trivial to restore it if you'd want to").

3. Suspicious material might be under a license that's compatible with the GFDL, or it might even be copyrighted material that the copyright holder genuinely wishes for us to have. Doesn't matter, it should still go. Licenses and the way to get permission can be arbitrarily complicated, and we can afford to err on the safe side: for this to apply the content must be identical to suspect material, and then it's trivial to reinstate it.

4. We can discuss limiting the posted notification to registered users only, so as to not burden admins unnecessarily with messages that are likely to never be noticed or go to the wrong person. I do believe we should always inform registered users, just in case it's a clueless newbie problem or a cooperating copyright holder of little words. This can simply be a boilerplate message asking the user to please state why the material is not in violation despite having all appearance of being so, and direct them to the appropriate problem pages; this does not need to be signed and can be automated for admins to the point where they only have to fill in a URL pointing to the material that was duplicated.

Just a few absurdly detailed suggestions to make it more likely to pass. ;-) JRM 18:51, 2004 Dec 10 (UTC)

I agree with all your suggestions and your rephrasing. It is important to stress that Proposition V should only apply to text dumps. Something copied but wikified by its submitter should not be speedy deleted. - SimonP 19:09, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

I'd prefer a mix of sorts of the two: Any article that consists only of content in blatant, easily verifiable violation of copyright that has not since been subsequently edited or improved by another user and was submitted by a user or IP with no legitimate contributions. The editor must subsequently be informed on their talk page that such deletion has happened, with an external reference to the existing material and a friendly reminder that copyrighted material cannot be contributed to Wikipedia. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 21:57, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

So basically, nothing I said, except the notification, which I consider an add-on to the proposal (and has indeed been added-on by you). If you really think your formulation is clearer and better to include in policy, well, that's your opinion. As long as we're all talking about the same thing, which I don't doubt we do. I'm just a little paranoid when it comes to the wording of policy additions—people often act as if they were laws, and a lot of pointless discussion is waged over what a particular word could mean. I just thought my version would avoid such problems. Keep in mind that you're talking about speedy deletion here. I think a little extra care is warranted. JRM 19:14, 2004 Dec 11 (UTC)

No, that's not the way it is, "nothing I said, except"... I think the notification clause is a great idea on your part. I just think the existing version is worded more appropriately. For instance, your proposed version contains neither the word "copyright" nor "violation", which is in my opinion necessary. I'm all for compromise though. Perhaps —

Any article that consists only of content in blatant, easily verifiable violation of copyright or which is not immediately verifiable as compatible with the GFDL, and said article was submitted by a user or IP with no legitimate contributions and has not since been subsequently edited or improved by another user.

The contributor must subsequently be informed on their talk page that such deletion has happened, with an external reference to the existing material and a friendly reminder that copyrighted material cannot be contributed to Wikipedia. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 20:30, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sorry for being snippy. I was snippy. I shouldn't be snippy. Snippy is bad.
Explicit mention of the GFDL may have been overgeneralization on my part. The main problem of the original text is that "blatant, easily verifiable violation of copyright" isn't. You don't know if someone doesn't actually own the copyright and wants to give the material to us. It's possible—we do not require that you advertise this on the page, or something. All you can say is that it's probably violating (i.e. an anon posting the front page of a major site is quite unlikely to be the copyright holder).
That said, I can see why the magic words "copyright" and "violation" would have to be included for people not to go cross-eyed. My GFDL mention might just be semantics nobody's waiting for, and I do not insist on its inclusion.
What I still cannot live with, however, is mentioning "a user or IP with no legitimate contributions". This is silly. If user X vandalizes George W. Bush and then copies a webpage it's speedily deletable, but if user X first adds a coherent article on their favorite comic book character and then copies a webpage it's not? I understand what you're getting at, of course, but the wording could be more judicious. And it doesn't matter whether it's registered accounts or anonymous IPs doing the copying, "contributor" covers all of these. New proposal, minus my GFDL minutiae but without arbitrary distinctions:

Any article that consists only of blatant, easily verifiable violation of copyright, which has undergone no significant editing by its creator and no any editing by anyone else.

This is a reformulation of my "identical" demand above, which should be slightly easier and also uncontroversial: it doesn't really matter whether people have "improved" it (what's improvement?) only if they've edited it. If anyone else has: hands off and report as copyright violation.
Note that copyrighted material can be contributed to Wikipedia. I wager you do it all the time, my friend. You maintain copyright over all your edits, unless you specify otherwise. The GFDL just allows others to use the fruits of your labour, under certain conditions. The notification should thus not be a reminder that something we all do is not allowed. I propose to keep my original here:

The editor must subsequently be informed on their talk page that such deletion has happened, with an external reference to the existing material, and instructions on how to prevent this from happening again.

The "instructions" would be simple enough, namely, to inform someone that you are the copyright holder of the material. I'm not sure if that should be a separate page or just Wikipedia:Copyright problems, but it should not just be "you can't post copyrighted material", because that's false.
Wew. Anyone else got any thoughts? :-) JRM 22:15, 2004 Dec 11 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts. Firstly, the "a user or IP with no legitimate contributions" is intended, I believe, to give the benefit of the doubt to users who have been good contributors. Secondly, are you sure you don't want to include a GFDL qualifier? I think it might be a good thing. My only problem with your notification clause is the word "this" from "how to stop this from happening again". It's unclear what the pronoun "this" is referring to. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 20:09, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Re the GFDL qualifier: the problem is that it starts to read very much like legalese already. The GFDL phrase makes the copyright violation mention redundant, but unfortunately, people need to actually understand what it's talking about, and that's probably not going to happen, so... *sigh*

And I understand what the "legitimate contributions" thing is intended to convey, but in combination with "blatant violation" it's expressing the wrong thing: that it's alright to have a "blatant, easily verifiable violation of copyright" if the user has "legitimate contributions"! Of course that's not what you mean. Here's attempt number... Oh, what was it? I lost track. :-)

Any article that consists only of content in blatant, easily verifiable violation of copyright or which is not immediately verifiable as compatible with the GFDL, unless said article was submitted by a user or IP with legitimate contributions or has since been subsequently edited by another user.

I hope you'll agree that the "or improved" clause really is redundant; you can't improve the article without editing.

Re notification: well, d'oh! If you'd said that in the first place... That's a fairly easy thing to fix, methinks.

The creator must subsequently be informed on their talk page that such deletion has happened, with an external reference to the existing material, and instructions on how to prevent any recreation of the article from being deleted again.

Persistent recreation without heeding the warning is, of course, blockable/bannable vandalism. That clear everything up?

(We should probably archive this away, or something. It's getting very long and I'm sure not everyone who comes here is immediately interested in my nit-picking.) JRM 21:38, 2004 Dec 12 (UTC)

The best option might be to do what is already done with criteria I (patent nonsense) and criteria III (vandalism). Have short and simple statement on the CSD page e.g. "blatant copyvios can be speedy deleted" and leave defining blatant copyvio to a separate page that goes into the necessary depth and legalese. - SimonP 21:52, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)

By the way, I like JRM's last revision of the proposal, I think I'm going to use that one. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 22:48, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"Easily verifiable"

This proposal seems to be be running into resistance centered around the phrase "easily verifiable violation of copyright". I don't see how, in practice, this is any different from a less-controversial "verified violation of copyright", since the second part requires a talk page message including the external reference—which can only be provided if one's already been found. —Korath (Talk) 07:47, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

I was really hoping this one would pass. Perhaps it should be re-proposed at a later date, but with the understanding that a specific list of common copyvio sources (i.e. allmusic.com, mtv.com, brittanica, etc) are the only ones that count. This would mean that if I see someone post a band bio from allmusic, I could speedy it because I know it is copyrighted and allmusic is not going to release their content under the GNU FDL (I suppose it would be good to ask, to get an official denial). I couldn't speedy it, on the other hand, if it was an apparent copyvio from some random website or blog or something. This might be more likely to pass and, while more limited, could significantly simplify the copyvio process by not clogging it up with obvious copyvios. Tuf-Kat 07:22, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

Another idea for copyvio deletion

I voted against this proposal because I think our current copyvio procedure works fine. But I have another idea for a CSD: pages that are inherently obvious as copyvios and don't need Google testing or any other outside evidence to show that they're copyvios. Examples would include music lyrics and copies of well-known printed works or scripts. In nearly all of these cases, the material is blatantly unencyclopedic in addition to being a copyright problem. More importantly, music lyrics and the like could get Wikipedia in far more trouble than routine, garden-variety copyvios such as text dumps from websites. Szyslak 02:56, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• A clarification: "inherently obvious copyvios" DOES NOT mean something "appears somewhere else." Our regular CP procedure works fine for those cases. Szyslak 03:37, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This could be combined with my idea just above it. Note, however, that lyrics to old public-domain songs are fair game, to whatever extent quotation is necessary (full texts go to WikiSource, however, short ones may well be usefully quoted in their entirety here). There's no reason to wait around on a copyvio of text from a source with clear copyright that is extremely unlikely to allow for GNU FDL distribution. Tuf-Kat 22:17, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)

I like your idea. Maybe someone with a really huge amount of time on their hands could put together a bot that can find text dumps from allmusic, Britannica, Encarta, etc. by scanning for text dumps with certain capitalization and syntax patterns that have been edited by only one or two users.

Also, I was thinking we might want to come up with another way to handle these cases besides speedy deletion—"speedy copyvio," perhaps. That would lighten the load on regular copyvio and keep borderline cases out of speedy deletion. Szyslak 03:03, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Proposal VI (Requested deletion)

The talk page Wikipedia talk:Proposal to expand WP:CSD was split into individual talk pages for each proposal, to limit the size of the talk page and facilitate individual discussions on each proposal. The history and attributions for the comments made before the split can be seen by following the history link on the /General talk page.

Proposals VI and VII

I suggest to add one more case, IMO pretty evident: Deletion on original author's request, if he reasonably explains that the article was created by mistake.

There have already been several such cases when a newbie makes an honest error, but naturally cannot delete his monster. Mikkalai 03:53, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Would this still apply if others had contributed to the article? And does blanking by the original author qualify? —Korath^会話 06:58, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well if all editors agree to deletion, then it should be deleted. Blanking by the original author should result in deletion if and only if noone else had edited the article. Brianjd 09:41, 2004 Dec 27 (UTC)

I'll add it to the proposal, along with another of my own. Isomorphic 09:58, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

New proposals added. I would appreciate it if others corrected, expanded, and improved my wording on both of them, especially on Proposal VI. Isomorphic 10:17, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Slight amendment to Proposal VI

I'd very much like to see Proposal VI altered such that all authors must agree to the deletion, as discussed above. —Korath (Talk) 02:48, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I altered it to having only the original author having edits. Asking all editors would often take more time than putting it up to VfD, so I don't think it would make sense to have it as a speedy candidate. --Ben Brockert < 04:39, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)

Whilst 'all' authors could be difficult to confirm, just the 'original' author is only applicable (imho) where no additional content of substance has been added by someone other than a repeat visit by the original author. --Vamp:Willow 19:58, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There should be no issue of "asking all editors". This is "requested deletion", that is the author or authors should be the one(s) reguesting the deletion. Thus if every editor of an article requests deletion then it would be in the spirit of this proposal to speedy delete it. Perhaps the proposal should be modified to reflect this. Paul August ☎ 20:35, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

Concerns about deletion of useful articles

Adam Bishop expressed the following concern on the vote page: They no longer "own" the article once they submit it...I suppose it depends on the case, but what if it was a perfectly valid article? — I don't think this will be a problem: if you see a valid article listed for speedy deletion, you can try to prevent its deletion by editing it (it may still get deleted for unrelated reasons). Also the original author nominating it is supposed to "reasonably [explain] that it was created by mistake". Ideally, trying to explain that a perfectly valid article should be deleted would not come across as a reasonable request, so it cannot be deleted under the proposed policy item. --MarkSweep 12:01, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What if it was a perfectly valid article

I wrote this comment and got an edit conflict with MarkSweep who has written almost exactly the same, but I’ll post it anyway. Answering the question in Adam Bishop’s Proposal VI (Requested deletion) Disagree vote:

They no longer "own" the article once they submit it...I suppose it depends on the case, but what if it was a perfectly valid article? Adam Bishop 04:06, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If it is a good article then no one has to delete it, speedily or otherwise, even if it is a candidate for speedy deletion. I can only speak for myself, but I never automatically delete any candidates. I never delete anything which I don’t think should be deleted so if I saw a good article with the {{delete}} tag added by its author, I would most probably just remove the tag with an explanation and optionally edit the article, as I have already done many times before, no matter who had nominated it for speedy deletion. In fact, I remove the speedy tag quite often. On the other hand, I deleted [1] the HP Association article an hour ago, with {{db|I created it by mistake}} exactly because it was not a valid article (an empty table, deleted by its only author). The author doesn’t “own” the article and cannot demand anything, but I think the right to ask for the deletion seems quite reasonable. Rafał Pocztarski 12:38, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This is a matter of courtesy. Even if the article is perfectly good, if no one else has edited it, and the author regrets his decision to put it here, we should honor it. It's just a matter of being a good host of information. People should want to contribute here, it should not be trap of any sort. Once someone else has contributed to it, even if to correct a single spelling, then we can no longer delete it as a matter of courtesy. It doesn't have anything to do with "owning" it. The author has the copyrights. Due to the GFDL we are legally OK with keeping it. I argue that it would not be morally OK. But in any event there is no ownership. You can't own information. Dori | Talk 14:43, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

Author's right of deletion

I thought I would clarify a comment I made. The GFDL, like the GPL, is not a contract; thus, the initial author of an article written under the GFDL is not bound by its terms. E can, therefore, revoke the license by giving notice to the licensee. Any language to the contrary in the GFDL is unenforceable. Therefore, until an intervening substantially-transformative edit occurs, all such submissions are subject to arbitrary revocation on mere notice to the publisher(s) by the original author, and upon revocation all publication must immediately cease.

Once a substantially-transformative edit occurs, copyright in the resulting work rests not with the original author but with the person doing the substantially-transformative edit, who is then obliged to relicense any further distribution under the terms of the license allowing the edit in the first place, and is prohibited from revoking that license by virtue of being the licensee on the original edit. Since such secondary licensees receive their licenses not from the original licensor, but from the licensee (whose rights have been terminated by the revocation), their licenses remain intact until they also receive actual notice of the revocation, and derivation licenses predicated on those licenses remain valid. It is probably possible for an original licensor to revoke these relicenses as well, but meeting the requirement for actual notice for termination is likely to be difficult.

All of this flows from the fact that a license that is not a contract cannot impose an obligation upon the licensor. It is also established law that a license cannot be made irrevocable without consideration, and there is no consideration received by the licensor for licenses granted under the GFDL (or GPL). There is simply no way to prohibit the original licensor (author) from revoking eir grant of license, which is why you have to allow for author's perogative to delete.

--Kelly Martin 22:06, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Proposal VII (Article forks)

The talk page Wikipedia talk:Proposal to expand WP:CSD was split into individual talk pages for each proposal, to limit the size of the talk page and facilitate individual discussions on each proposal. The history and attributions for the comments made before the split can be seen by following the history link on the /General talk page.

Proposals VI and VII

This discussion started this thread:

I'll add it to the proposal, along with another of my own. I believe that forks of existing articles should be speedy delete candidates (when a redirect is not appropriate.) Sentiment on Wikipedia has been strongly against article forking, and I don't expect this to change, so there's no need to decide such cases individually on VfD. Isomorphic 09:58, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

New proposals added. I would appreciate it if others corrected, expanded, and improved my wording on both of them, especially on Proposal VI. Isomorphic 10:17, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I trust this has nothing to do with Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse (censored) being relisted on VfD five days after surviving by a two-to-one margin? </sarcasm> —Korath (Talk) 10:40, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Save your sarcasm and please assume good faith. It does have to do with the relisting, but not in the way you think. Yes, I created that proposal because I noticed the current VfD. However, I haven't followed that article at all and had no idea that it had survived a previous VfD, and I find that fact surprising. My impression from past discussions was that Wikipedians were very much against having forked versions of articles for any reason. If that's not true, then forks are apparently not speedy deletion candidates, and I will remove the proposal. I personally think that forks are a horrible precedent, but if there's disagreement then they are obviously not speedy deletion candidates. Isomorphic 10:51, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Actually I've now changed my mind. Having looked further into the recent discussions, it appears that there is not approval for forks as such. The Abu Ghraib version isn't a separate article, but a fancy use of transclusion. Hence, a true fork should still be a speedy candidate, IMO. Isomorphic 11:05, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I apologize for jumping to conclusions—I saw that your vote preceded the listing on VfD and somehow managed not to think of Recent Changes. Good faith was already in short supply, since it was Jooler who listed it on the 17th as well. As to the proposal itself, I don't think it's necessary—speedy's supposed to be for entirely noncontroversial cases, and forks by their nature are controversial. Besides, VfD is hardly overrun with them. —Korath (Talk) 11:19, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

No hard feelings. I realize how unlikely it looked from your end, and your response was understandable. Isomorphic 07:57, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Are forks really so common that they need to be candidates for speedy? The example you discuss here is the first I've ever heard of, and something controversial has to be going on for a fork to be created in the first place. Speedy will run smoother if it sticks to articles that aren't at the center of controversy. --Ben Brockert < 04:46, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)

Hmmm. Having pondered this, I tend to agree with you. However, now that the text is in the proposal, we might as well leave it up for discussion. Isomorphic 07:57, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It turns out there's a fork on VfD right now! Check out Jesus: the Jewish POV. Unless we're going to drastically alter Wikipedia practice, this article will be deleted, and it might as well have been speedied because I doubt there will be any controversy over it. Isomorphic 09:34, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/CheeseDreams/Evidence. ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 12:49, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• If it's a fork, or an alternative article, it shouldn't be speedily deleted - sufficient time should be allowed for editors to merge the two articles together. We have the perfectly {{merge}} tag for this - perhaps set a time limit instead for articles to be merged? Enochlau 03:15, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That's a general problem with duplication and mergers. I recently merged Photography and Photographers of the American Civil War with Photography and photographers of the American Civil War. It was a nightmare: both articles had been in existence for a while and had undergone independent editing, with the result that a lot of duplicate material was present from the fork (or, presumably, failure to move the article), but neither version was clearly better than the other. If we allow duplicates or near-duplicates to coexist, merging will get more and more difficult over time. In this case I'd prefer speedy deletion of a newly forked article over simply adding a note to merge later. --MarkSweep 01:06, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Exception for user namespace

Does this policy need an explicit exception that would allow taking an existing article from article space and creating a fork in the user namespace? Or is this covered under the general principles governing deletion of user-space pages? At the very least it should be pointed out that forking, done right, is not discouraged (or is it?). --MarkSweep 01:06, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think the policy should clarify this. Forking an article to a user page is reasonable; it's only when users can't distinguish the original article that forks become disruptive. ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 02:40, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Proposal VIII (Procedure)

The talk page Wikipedia talk:Proposal to expand WP:CSD was split into individual talk pages for each proposal, to limit the size of the talk page and facilitate individual discussions on each proposal. The history and attributions for the comments made before the split can be seen by following the history link on the /General talk page.

Tag and bag proposal

I would like this as a new proposal. It may not be an "expand WP:CSD" item, but it is related.

Add the following text to the lead section of WP:CSD : Interpretation of these guidelines is very often subjective, and sometimes controversial, especially when an article's deletion could be later contested. In order to avoid most problems, every deletion of a page by an admin under these cases must be the result of a request made by another user ("tag and bag"). The most common way this can be achieved is for one editor to include the {{delete}} template (or equivalent) on the page. Whatever the method, the request must be documented, before deletion, on either the main page or the associated discussion page. The only exceptions are: 1) clear vandalism or test pages / jibberish, 2) an admin's own user space subpages, or 3) where the admin is the only listed editor (typos, etc.).

This change gives us a safeguard against rash decisions, and is really something that is done already. I welcome feedback on the wording, but previous discussion indicates enough people like this concept that it can be brought to a vote. -- Netoholic @ 07:35, 2004 Dec 19 (UTC)

• I would advocate the "tag and bag" proposal with no exceptions to the requirement of tagging for deletion. This would have the benefit of reducing the number of situations where a user edits a page to tag it for speedy, and before saving, an admin deletes it, causing the save to re-create the page. --Carnildo 08:43, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• • Well, clear vandalism/jibberish is one area that everyone agrees should not be bogged down. The last two exceptions (admin's own subpages or is the only editor) are to cover common practice which I doubt anyone would contest. I don't think we'd rarely run into the situation you mentioned... and even if that happened, it is easy to see re-created material by viewing the Wikipedia:Deletion log. -- Netoholic @ 17:30, 2004 Dec 19 (UTC)

• Well I don't like the idea, but that's just me. I can't stop you from taking a vote on it if you so choose. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 08:57, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • I've added this as Proposal 0 (since it affect the lead section/procedure, not the cases. -- Netoholic @ 19:15, 2004 Dec 29 (UTC)
    • This doesn't really fit here. I think it would be best if you formed a seperate page for this idea. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 23:58, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
      • I honestly think that if this proposal passes, some of the expansions to the speedy delete cases will be far more tolerable, and less "scary". It is too easy for one admin to make a mistake, or to misinterpret the guidelines. Also, the "tag and bag" scheme gives the any editor some critical time in which to fix it, if it's salvagable. -- Netoholic @ 06:28, 2004 Dec 30 (UTC)

• I'll be strongly disagreeing with this one. Especially in bases I through IV by requiring a 'tag and bag' approach we keep the offending content online longer (ie requiring two people to visit). For example, if one is watching Special:Newpages and sees something under 50 bytes or so and goes to check it and sees it needs deleting it is more sense to trust the admin rather than leave it up longer. With the other usecases there may be a stronger case for B&T though. --Vamp:Willow 20:06, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• • First of all, the cases you mentioned aren't seriously damaging to Wikipedia, that they could stay for an extra hour or so. Also, after people on RC patrol can mark pages for deletion ("tag"), the author may see that, realize that the article is below our standards, and improve it enough to negate the deletion need. -- Netoholic @ 20:14, 2005 Jan 1 (UTC)

Netoholic's addition

All due respect, I think this page needs to remain stable until the vote. The time for contributing such large additions was a week or two ago. Your proposal is a big thing in its own right, and just complicates things here. I really think it would be best for everyone if you just held a vote on it separately, on its own page, where it can be the feature issue. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 23:41, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There is no need. If there is a dispute over the format, we must postpone the vote, per Wikipedia:Survey guidelines. Do not edit war to get your point across. No objections to the addition of the #Tag and bag proposal were raised until it was added. -- Netoholic @ 23:47, 2004 Dec 30 (UTC)

Do not postpone votes unilaterally to get your point across. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 23:52, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Unwillingness to postpone so that we can discuss this is evidence of incivility. What is the rush to vote? Why are only you allowed to author this proposal? -- Netoholic @ 23:58, 2004 Dec 30 (UTC)

Incivility? Hogwash. The rush to vote is that the date has been set for weeks. It's rude of you to unilaterally decide that the vote should be postponed. It's also rude of you to insert last-minute amendments without much discussion or hardly consensus. The time for that was a week or two ago. Of course I am not the only one allowed to author this proposal. Plenty of other people have formed it with me. Review the entirety of the talk page. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 05:23, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You may wish to consider this a second time, Netoholic. Of the proposals here, yours seems to have the most general support. In adding to this particular proposal vote, it seems it is likely to have a reduced likelihood of passage than if it were posted as a separate proposal. - Amgine 00:27, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

How about discussing a compromise here? Perhaps a short and specified postponement to discuss this. Not an indefinite one as suggested by Netoholic, but an extension to try and find some agreement. Or there must be other ways we can try and resolve this - let's have some suggestions (via edit conflict - Amgine's point is a good start to this) -- sannse (talk) 00:28, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• I am all for compromise, or at least civil discussion. I have suggested to Netoholic several times that he make use of this talk page. I want to make it clear that my objection is not to the content of his proposal. My objection is to the addition of a last-minute amendment that has been discussed very little and in my opinion significantly further complicates a vote that was intended to be as simplified as possible. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 05:27, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • blankfaze, please do not talk like this is my first post on this talk page. I have been here since Dec 19 regarding that proposal. I waited a long time for any final corrections to the wording, and then posted it. There is no controversy there, except where you and Neutrality have chosen to remove it. Your reasons "keeping the vote simple" or "it's too late" are covers for the very real reasons you want it removed, specifically that you do not want to see it pass. -- Netoholic @ 06:06, 2004 Dec 31 (UTC)
    • Netoholic, do you even read what I post? I want to make it clear that my objection is not to the content of his proposal. I haven't made a decision either way on your proposal, and any negative feelings towards it were certainly not the "real" reason for my actions, and I resent the suggestion. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 06:28, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I disagree with this restriction. We're creating another level of speedy deletion, i.e. immediate speedy deletion and tag and bag. The truth is, there is virtually nothing that gets speedily deleted, or would be under the new rules, that would ever become a useful article. DJ Clayworth 05:22, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Going forward

Any objections if this procedure is added to the CSD page, if it's worded only as a loose recommendation? I still the concept is a good one, especially as a recommendation for "corner" cases. -- Netoholic @ 03:23, 2005 Jan 16 (UTC)

Proposal IX (Deprecation)

The talk page Wikipedia talk:Proposal to expand WP:CSD was split into individual talk pages for each proposal, to limit the size of the talk page and facilitate individual discussions on each proposal. The history and attributions for the comments made before the split can be seen by following the history link on the /General talk page.

Proposal IX ("deprecation")

I encourage everyone to vote against proposal IX ("deprecation") to have the negation of proposals that are shot down to the CSD policy.(No, superseded by comments below.)

I assume the motivation behind it is as follows: if a proposal does not gain consensus, it cannot represent policy (agree) and therefore adding an explicit "this is not policy" to the policy will make it better (disagree).

This assumes that if something does not have consensus, its negation therefore does have consensus. This is a false dichotomy. There is a lot of room for interpretation in all of these proposals. Saying "this particular proposal does not have consensus, so if you think an article might match these criteria, don't SD it" seems very fishy to me.

What this proposal entails is that we modify the CSD policy, even if no proposal should gain consensus and none of them can be added to the current policy. This is bogus: what if people think the current CSD policy is fine, wording included? Do they get to vote on that? No, except indirectly through this very proposal, a subtlety I suspect will be lost on many. After all, "didn't pass the vote" means "mirror image would have passed the vote", right? No.

"Deprecation" is a meta-proposal, voting on something still contingent other votes. I strongly, strongly disagree with such proposals on principle. Don't tangle things up even more than they already are. If you want some criterion to be explicitly excluded from CSD, then put that up for a vote (after this vote, of course). There will be no ambiguity in that. This seems like a convenient fast-track to make CSD "clearer", but I don't think it works that way.

Note that this is, of course, just my opinion. That I think such proposals are Bad Things don't make it so. JRM 22:41, 2004 Dec 31 (UTC)

Update: the proposal was amended to explicitly specify that "not passing" is not sufficient; a "70% reject" (that is, a negative majority) is required for the negation to be added to policy. I like this proposal a lot better, because it gives a genuine mirror image of the vote.
This doesn't completely fix it, however. For one thing, it's still a meta-proposal, and as such not independent; people's votes on this could be influenced by how the other votes are going (i.e. if it doesn't turn out "my" way, I will vote "no" on proposal IX to limit the "damage"). I want to assume good faith, of course... But I'd prefer it if I didn't have to in the first place.
So, summarized: I still dislike meta-proposals, but, keeping the caveats mentioned in mind, I think the proposal can stand. I will still abstain, but I'm no longer diametrically opposed to it. JRM 00:42, 2005 Jan 1 (UTC)

• Logic doesn't really follow here as noted above... just because we don't like the proposal does not mean that we would always support the negative. Enochlau 03:18, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I personally am a great believer in judging most deletions on a case-by-case basis. I believe this allows for the best decisions. The rules for SD therefore need to be clear and focused on ensuring the best deletions. SD only requires two people to agree. VfD appears a lot safer. As a relative newcomer to Wikipedia, I would have liked to have seen the policy spelled out as explicitly as IX does. That would have made life easier (and far less embarassing) for me. Smoddy | Talk 00:35, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

diff

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Proposal_to_expand_WP:CSD/Proposal_IX_(Deprecation)&diff=9123147&oldid=9122755 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.218.155.169 (talk) 15:59, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposal X (Correspondence)

The talk page Wikipedia talk:Proposal to expand WP:CSD was split into individual talk pages for each proposal, to limit the size of the talk page and facilitate individual discussions on each proposal. The history and attributions for the comments made before the split can be seen by following the history link on the /General talk page.

Proposal X

I have a tenth proposal for the planned expansion.

---

The following case should be added to Wikipedia:Candidates for speedy deletion:

Any article whose contents are directed to a specific person that Wikipedia does not represent.

--Ryan! | Talk 14:40, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

What does that mean? I couldn't even think of a possible interpretation... --Sketchee 14:44, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

Please resolve the ambiguity and vagueness in this sentence. At present, I'm not sure what you're even getting at. Can you give an (abridged) example of an article that would fall under this proposal? JRM 14:46, 2005 Jan 1 (UTC)

This is for all the articles that are created when somebody thinks they're actually going to send a message to the subject of the articles. --Ryan! | Talk 14:49, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

Example: [[John Doe]]
Content: We love you Johhhhn!!! wooo hooo! We're you #1 fans; yaaay!!

Hmm. Is that equivalent to Any article not written for the benefit of Wikipedia's readers? I think that would generally be very difficult to apply, and more suitable for VfD than for CSD. ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 14:54, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Any other Speedy Delete candidate could be classed that way; this is more of a specific group of candidates. Also, I think this is beyond VfD because this type of "article" is blatantly not worth saving (or putting up on VfD) in its original form. --Ryan! | Talk 14:58, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

How about Any article which consists only of attempts to correspond with the person or group named by its title? ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 15:16, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That's better; thanks! When should I add it to the expansion page? --Ryan! | Talk 15:20, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

Anytime you like, I expect. You do have about eight hours before voting starts, though. ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 15:27, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

OK. --Ryan! | Talk 15:38, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

The current wording is much better. Good job chicos/as!--Sketchee 02:07, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

I would love to see this extended to something like: "any text which is clearly in a form which is not an encyclopedia article, and whose content could not reasonably be turned into one. Examples include correspondance, poetry, appeals for action, diary entries, invective."

DJ Clayworth 05:06, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Then twenty people will ask you to define "clearly" and "reasonably". You have to be specific. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 05:10, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)

Proposal XI (Unimproved vanity articles)

See also Proposal III discussion.

---

Redundancy

How is proposal XI different from proposal III? ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 22:49, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

diff:

listed on Category:Articles which may be unencyclopedic at least for 3 days without any improvement or dispute.

Because - the author should have some time to provide reference establishing the notability of the subject / request deletion himself. --Wikimol 23:43, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Notability

Btw, can anyone point me to the page where the Wikipedia definition of notability is explicitly defined? --Sketchee 02:06, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

The closest we have is Wikipedia:Importance, which refers back to some things that themselves aren't necessarily hard and fast policy. Some problem areas are that Wikipedia:Informative has not been nailed down enough to get past being proposed policy, and for many the "potential interest" threshold seems to be far higher than 100 people. iMeowbot~Mw 09:19, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

From vote page

So if the article creator improves or expands it, making a better article even though its still vanity inappropriate for Wikipedia, it can stay?

No. It would have to go through VfD, which is the current state.

In which case, the proposal isn't helping, is it? David Johnson [T|C] 15:00, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Right. My rough estimate is at least 1/2 of obvious vanities is "unattended" and would be deleted. --Wikimol 20:37, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The proposal also ignores the fact that the creator will almost always dispute deletion, meaning that under this proposal the article still couldn't be speedy'd.

No. I guess majority of vanities is created because lack of knowledge of What Wikipedia is Not. In many cases the creator can be convinced to agree with deletion, or even request the deletion himself, which should be the preffered way how to deal with vanities.

The problem arises when the vanity is authors (usually anons) only contribution and he isn't going to return to wikipedia.

If the author or any other user is willing to advocate the existence of the article, its definitely not the case for CDS. VfD are prefectly appropriate in that case.

You're right and I agree, but I do think that deletions opposed only by the creator should still be speedyable. If the creator has a valid reason, then other users will support them. I believe that its only a minority of articles which go unopposed by the creator, so this proposal would only apply in a limited number of cases. David Johnson [T|C] 15:00, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree it would be nice to exclude the author. But there is no easy way how to do that. Consider anons from dynamic IPs, users creating sockpuppets, etc. If the author wants to fight for his article, VfD is the right place. The disputes may sometimes even get interesting or amusing. --Wikimol 20:37, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This proposal is useless. David Johnson [T|C] 13:39, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Anybody can follow VfD for a while a make an opinion himself. --Wikimol 14:24, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I really want to see vanity speedyable, but I don't think this proposal goes far enough or is clear enough about what constitutes obvious vanity. David Johnson [T|C] 15:00, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I hope it goes just enough to be generally acceptable. Because it is so extremely easy to stop such deletion, chances something valuable may be lost are negligible.

Definition - I don't think this is so important. VfD shows in practice it is clear what obvious vanity is. If precise definition is needed, it should go to Wikipedia:Vanity. Take vandalism as a precedence - CSD states vandalism should be deleted, but does not attempt to define vandalism. Btw, vandalism is much more "rubber" term than obvious vanity, beeing stretched from vanities to hoaxes, yet nobody complaining.

The proposal certainly isn't an attempt to create eternal sacred law. The aims are

• divert majority of vanities from VfD
• give rules for speedy vanity deletions allready done, justified by "interpretation" of existing rules (without rules, without safeguards, valuable contents is more likely to be deleted than if the proposal is accepted)

--Wikimol 20:37, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Too subjective, easy to abuse,..."

I'm not sure if everybody who is affraid of "abuse" of this is familiar with current situation. So - my experience:

Obvious vanities are only big vaste of time of those taking care of VfD. It takes time to insert the template, create the voting page, several people have to read the stupidity and do some research. Everybody agrees it should be deleted and after second or third day nobody cares and the vote is just watsing space on VfD page. This is the proper process, religiously following rules, and tiring for participants.

On the other hand, several admins delete various stupidities in good faith and with common sense. This saves time and generaly helps wikipedia, but propably is beyond the intention of existing policy. (Usualy it can be justified by some "interpretation" - for example existing "vandalism" rule can cover hoaxes, more stupid self-promo vanities and thinks, because they are inherently inserted with bad intetion). Because in specific cases everybody agrees with deletion, there are almost no complains.

The problem is such deletion don't have safeguards, except the possibility to undelete. Thi way, it's quite propable once an admin in good faith deletes some hoax which in fact isnt hoax at all.

IMO insisting on too many time-consuming checks, and detailed objective definitions, and other obstacles of deletion of obvious vanities will not protect border cases in practice. Exactly the oposite - reasonable deletions are pushed out of the law. Without rules, errors ae propably more likely. --Wikimol 20:58, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

3 days are pretty long

This is not standard situation, like voting vor deletion or other votings. Anyone can stop the deletion in case of any doubt.

Chances blatant vanity which nobody cares for 3 days will become useful article are to my knowledge only hypothetical. I've never seen on VfD an article, which would be nomitad as an obvious vanity, recieved no keep votes in first 3 days, and later turned to be valuable and survived. --Wikimol 21:20, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)