Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 30

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A3 and Template:Wi

I created Basoexia today as a soft redirect to Wiktionary, using the {{wi}} template. Basoexia is sexual arousal from kissing; I'm not convinced that an article would ever rise above a dicdef, and it is likely to attract vandals. However, it's been on the medicine/sexuality list of requested articles since January 2005.

There are hundreds of similar articles: see Category:Redirects to Wiktionary. The template to facilitate this was created in 2004. This is a long-standing practice.

But A3 makes no provision for this, no matter how sensible or appropriate this is in some cases. A3 demands that all soft-redirects be deleted.

Pretty much, I think we need to either delete all of these soft redirects, plus the template that's used to create them, or we need to update A3 to prevent this problem in the future. I think the best option is to change A3.

I would be happy to hear other editors's views. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:44, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, we don't need to change A3 at all. The speedy you described was wrong. We've got CSD specifically for redirects already, since they aren't actually articles. And none of them allow the deletion of soft redirects. You should have the deleting admin restore it, and put a message on the talk page of the editor who tagged it. Cheers. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 01:49, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

And you don't think it would be useful to change "Any article (other than disambiguation pages) consisting only of external links, category tags and "see also" sections, a rephrasing of the title, attempts to correspond with the person or group named by its title, chat-like comments, template tags and/or images" to read, "Any article (other than disambiguation pages, redirects, or soft-redirects)..."? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:50, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

The CSD language under redirects says, "Redirects which do not work due to software limitations, such as redirects to special pages or to pages on other wikis, may be converted to soft redirects if they have a non-trivial history or other valid uses."' I don't think this qualifies under this language, and therefore feel that A3 applies. This, in my opinion, is true for any use of a soft redirect in the case of a mere dicdef. (As far as the original request for article goes, it could have been satisfied by a hard redirect to a list of paraphilias which includes this one.) --Orange Mike | Talk 02:54, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

It has a valid use: it directs the reader to the relevant Wiktionary entry. An example of a (soft) redirect without any valid use would be, say, Kfgjftdfmmjhadkj redirecting to Commons:Main Page. Most if not all such useless redirects should already match one of the R or G series criteria; this one would be G2/R3 as well as, if it was a hard redirect, R1. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 23:31, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

CSD criterion A3 does not and never has applied to soft-redirects. It's not an article so none of the "A" series of criteria apply. Look down in the "R" series (where you will not find any special mention of soft-redirects because they are not speedy-deletable though the other criteria such as implausibility might apply). Rossami (talk) 12:56, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I think it might be worth adding the suggested clarification, though, simply because it may not be obvious to everyone whether "soft redirects" actually qualify as redirects for the purposes of CSD. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 23:31, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd think simply adding that redirects don't fall under A3 should be enough, since WP:SRD already suggests that soft redirects are only different from hard ones for technical reasons. Perhaps making this explicit in WP:CSD#Redirects would help, but I don't think it needs to be added to any of the criteria themselves. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 13:33, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind, it's been done]. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 13:35, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Unsourced biography of a living person

I'd like to propose that we make completely unsourced biographies of living persons summarily deletable. The wording would be something like:

An article substantially about an identified living person that contains nothing pertaining to them except unsourced statements.

The rationale for this proposal is that we're now mature enough to be much more demanding of those who propose articles that may become a substantial burden and liability to us and cause damage to their living subjects. As a minimum, to demand that one reliable source should be provided is reasonable. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 06:57, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Since WP:BLP already allows admins to nuke those on sight, I don't think we really need a special CSD for them. Simply building a tag for them would probably be enough. For now using {{db-reason}} or {{PROD}} ought to work. Cheers. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 13:57, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

BLP allows for nuking unsourced contentious material on sight, i.e. G10s. Tony wants us to speedy anything unsourced. —Cryptic 14:30, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

It also allows for any editor to remove all unsourced material, whether positive or negative, from BLPs. If all the information is unsourced, this amounts to deletion anyway. And at least a few admins do nuke positive but unsourced BLPs on sight already. That was the basis for my statement. Really, I don't support changing a thing here. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 15:01, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Read the quote in full: Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons — whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable — should be removed immediately. The policy doesn't say that any any unsourced material can be removed, merely that contentious unsourced material should be removed. This proposal - which applies to a huge number of articles - would allow the deletion of articles that comply with WP:BLP, citing WP:BLP as a justification. If the article consists of material that could harm the subject and that can't be fixed by reverting then the article can already be deleted under G10. --Hut 8.5 20:06, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

The is has been proposed in the past and has failed to get consensus. I supported the idea then, and I still support it now. I think it is reckless to allow biographies on living persons without any references, and I think at least one reference supporting the text is the bare minimum we should accept for BLP articles. _{1 != 2} 14:33, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

All articles should have "at least one reference supporting the text". I would support this with the following modification:

An article substantially about an identified living person that contains nothing pertaining to them except unsourced statements.

— CharlotteWebb 14:38, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

(ecx2) Cryptic is interpreting Tony the same way that I am. I'm not convinced that Tony's idea is good; obvious drawbacks are the potential for biting new editors and deleting articles that are still works in progress. Experienced en.wikipedia editors will know better than to create a new unsourced article, but newbies won't know this, so are the most likely to be affected by this. The issue of deleting article that are works in progress can be addressed by a delay factor, but I don't see how to address the concern about biting new editors.

The proposed criteria is both objective and nonredundant, the first and fourth of the guidelines for new criteria. I don't know whether the article meets the second and third criteria; does anyone have any evidence to offer that 1) there is an existing general consensus at AFD that any unsourced BLP should be deleted and 2) the issue arises frequently. GRBerry 14:40, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I can tell you that if sources do not show up in the course of the AfD they are almost always deleted. However, sometimes an unsourced BLP article can be easily sourced. _{1 != 2} 14:43, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

1) There is a general consensus that sources should be added if possible but the article should be deleted otherwise. This applies to all articles—living people are not special in this regard. 2) Unfortunately, yes. — CharlotteWebb 14:49, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Most likely they would all get taken down at AfD after someone chimes in about BLP, but I don't see the issue all that often that isn't already covered by A7. Most of the unreferenced biographies created these days are vanity pages or about people that aren't important at all.

As for how often it shows up, of the two current candidates that would meet the proposed criteria, we have one G11 and one A7 (note, that only makes 'cuz the two "refs" are blacklisted). Of a random sample of new pages, Hermann Köhl, Walter Howard Frere, Mathias Clemens, Major General Md. Ismail Faruque Chowdhury, Rachid Bell, and Léon Level could make the proposed criteria. Rachid Bell is already tagged for A7; Hermann Köhl, Mathias Clemens, and Léon Level just need inline citations; Major General Md. Ismail Faruque Chowdhury probably has references out there, if anyone cares to look; and only Walter Howard Frere should probably actually be deleted under it. And a case for A7 might be able to be made there.

It seems to me that a slightly slower process is called for in cases where the material isn't completely negative. If it isn't hurting the subject, we can afford to take the time to look for sources before removing the material or deleting. Cheers. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 15:01, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

See Doug Bell, an resume (not an article) that has been through 2 AFDs and still the only sources are articles he wrote about himself. The system doesn't work when the living person is somebody we happen to like. --Rividian (talk) 16:21, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

This proposal would do nothing about that article or other similar ones. It has at least one source, thus is exempt from this criteria. GRBerry 16:30, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

The passion people have for protecting that resume is amazing... --Rividian (talk) 16:35, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

It has references and a claim to notability. The notability is debatable at the regular deletion venues, but it can't be speedily deleted for "No assertion of notability", because it has references that do that. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 19:45, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

G10 only applies if the article is written in a manner to disperse the subject. But if any unsourced biography need to be deleted, then a new criteria will be needed. It is a good idea. I support creation of a separate criteria for this where the only reason for CSD is "unreferenced biography". Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 19:49, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

• I cannot support this speedy criteria. I think there are too many articles which would be speedy deleted under this criteria which would otherwise be kept at AFD. I checked two days of AFD logs and found 3 BLPs which entered the AFD without any references or external links at all and which were not deleted. (Rupert Hoogewerf, Zdzisław Kaczmarczyk and Brad Chalk). Thus I think this fails the second of the guidelines for new criteria - that it is uncontestable - as there are significant numbers of article that consensus would keep if they went through AFD otherwise. I also think this would be too bitey to newcomers who create otherwise ok articles without sources but can be helped to add sources to the article but if the article is speedied may be discouraged from contributing. Davewild (talk) 20:21, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely not. BLP permits the deletion of unsourced contentious material, but virtually any article regarding a person will contain material that is usually not contentious, such as their name, place of birth, and profession. If deleting all contentious material makes it an A1, by all means go ahead and delete it - otherwise, don't. There's no need for a new rule. I also think new biography contributors should have an opportunity to present sources - as long as the article still exists, they can respond, but they cannot if it is removed. Dcoetzee 21:51, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses. I'm glad I started this discussion. The reason I didn't want to include the word "contentious" in the criterion is that the term needs rather more judgement than is normal for a criterion--if the material is clearly derogatory or pejorative, and the article can't be stubbed down, then G10 applies in any case.

There was some unfortunate ambiguity about the term "reference", and looking at random at one of the articles listed by User:Lifebaka, Hermann Köhl, it looks to me as if the very first revisions of the new article are perfectly well referenced, with a newpaper article and two books, but the term "reference" is vague enough that he has perhaps interpreted it to mean "inline reference with a ref tag" or some other, more strict formal requirement. This is a serious weakness in the wording of the proposed criterion as it stands at present. If we went ahead with this criterion, I would want to make it more clear what is meant by a reference. The name of a book that can be verified to exist by checking catalogs, information identifying an article in a newspaper or other periodical, or the presence of an external link that is live, should be taken as a reference for this purpose. Where the reliability of the source is in doubt, PROD or AFD should be used instead of this criterion.

Looking at the article creation edit box, I note that it presently contains the following instructions:

As you create the article, provide references to reliable published sources. Without references, the article may be deleted.

There is also an instruction to read Wikipedia:Your first article.

So whilst I think GRBerry's point about biting newbies is a good one, it isn't as if the new editor has not been warned.

Moreover, the article can always be recreated at a later date, with references. Since the deletion log entry (which is visible in the new article page in such cases) will contain a reference to the article's deficit in references, I think the new editor is being given ample information about the reason for the deletion.

I think the primary utility of this proposed deletion criterion will be to make it easier to identify articles that pose a problem owing to the absence of means by which their statements about living people may be verified. It continues in the vein of existing trends towards strengthening our verifiability policy. It is intended to improve the reliability of our article content by, for the first time, giving that policy teeth that can be applied across a large range of articles where previous failure to enforce has resulted in real harm. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 14:14, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

That note on the article creation page is one of the white lies we tell to new editors in an effort to reduce the number of new pages we need to delete. Experienced editors know perfectly well that references are not actually required, even per WP:V, except for quotes and statements that are disputed or likely to be disputed. I know of no trend towards strengthening WP:V in this regard. It's discussed quite often and there is no movement towards consensus that every article has to have references.

Going the other way, suppose we did require that every new page had to have a reference. Then we would need to come to agreement over what counts as a reference – I am very reluctant to accept some of the "sources" that people routinely use for BLP articles. We don't want to make a change that looks for the presence of sources while ignoring the quality of those sources. But we can't expect a CSD criterion to include qualitative judgments about reference quality. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:36, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I do agree, by the way, that unsourced BLPs in particular are an issue that needs to be addressed. I just don't think that CSD is the right way to do it. Instead, we need to build agreement to change our culture regarding BLPs. Arbcom is making progress in this direction already. Unfortunately, there is a long way to go. The idea that NPOV means simply including everything, without applying any editorial judgment, is an underlying problem that we have been able to ignore for too long. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:43, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that qualitative judgements are not for CSD, and this proposed criterion only concerns the presence or absence of a reference, in the broadest sense. If under this criterion as I propose it we fail to speedy delete an article because the editor has made some attempt to source his statements, that doesn't mean that we regard his effort as worthy of Wikipedia or improvable to the point where it will be. If the matter of deletion hinges on the validity of the sources then I'm happy to leave that decision to our other community-based article deletion processes.

I disagree with the proposal that we regard the assertion of our verifiability policy on the article creation page as a white lie. As far as living people are concerned, we are (or should be) heading in the direction of fulfilling the promise that we won't do harm. There's no suggestion that every article must have references, but certainly an article that statements about living people should be sourced. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 11:15, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

G13

Per the ArbCom ruling, administrators can now do anything they can do to keep BLP's in order (including deletion). I'd like to propose a new speedy category, G13:

Content in violation of the Biographies of living persons policy in accordance with the special enforcement provisions of the Arbitration Committee ruling

Sorry I can't think of better wording than this (feel free to tweak), but if we're going to suddenly start deleting BLP's for no reason, it better be explainable. ViperSnake151 22:55, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

We aren't. We've had enough problems with hastily implemented CSDs we don't need any more.Geni 23:40, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

While I'd love for nothing more than to provide real tools other than "Any and all means" (such as "Unsourced biography of a living person" above), this kind of goes in the wrong direction, encouraging hasty usage of an already extremely broad and dangerous tool. We should be focusing on ways to make that particular ruling unnecessary by improving other, more regulated and precise tools and guidelines for particular types of problems. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 00:20, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

WP:CSD#G10 is the established and consensus supported criteria that is relevant to BLP speedy deletions. The guidelines for a proposal to be accepted as a new criteria are at the top of this page. This one clearly fails all four of them, and is thus not worthy of consideration. We've seen BLP deletions under the old rules overturned at WP:DRV before, this hypothetical broadening would be non-objective, very contestable, should be infrequent, and to the extent there would be any consensus for it also redundant to WP:CSD#G10. GRBerry 01:00, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Thirteen is an unlucky number. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:29, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

The deletion should be clearly flagged in the deletion summary so we don't need a csd for this. Spartaz ^Humbug! 09:00, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

G10 is for "attack pages", only pages disparaging their subject with no neutral version to revert to is G10 eligible. The Special Enforcement can delete ANY BLP in violation of the BLP policy as they see fit. In addition, if we do this - in order to prevent it from being used by non-admins, it will not have a matching template. ViperSnake151 11:55, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

As Spartaz said, they should just cite the special enforcement itself in the deletion summary, so a new CSD isn't actually needed. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 13:26, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

There are plenty of uncontroversial unsourced BLPs and they're just fine. Plus, it's a very controversial arbcom ruling that is in my guess unlikely to stand if it's applied liberally. We're not obliged to implement arbcom rulings as policy, it's the other way around. Arbcom rules based on policy, it does not pronounce policy. Wikidemo (talk) 14:40, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Like I said, I don't think encouraging the liberal use of that particular ruling is a good idea. It's already controversial enough; we don't need to further justify it by giving it it's own special CSD category. If ever used, then the deleting admin should have to explain why they did what they did in the edit summary; encouraging speedy deletions that don't require anything other than "CSD G13" isn't where we should be headed, in my opinion. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 04:14, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I didn't have a strong opinion at first but Celarnor makes a very compelling argument here. If the issue is serious to justify the new override, it should justify an in-depth explanation in the edit summary, not merely a reference to a CSD code. Deliberately leaving it off the list would encourage (force?) admins to explain their reasoning more fully. Rossami (talk) 05:25, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Anybody supporting this proposal is probably smoking G-13. — CharlotteWebb 17:40, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I also disagree with a new CSD for reasons explained above. I initially favored a CSD, by the general principle that speedy deletions that are happening ought to be codified, but I think the inevitable misuse of the ruling is more likely to lead to its downfall if it hasn't been added here. Dcoetzee 06:10, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

My suggestion was to only have G13 mentioned on the CSD page and require that if an administrator uses this clause to delete a page, he must also provide a rationale for deletion. This is why I said that if we do use it, G13 would only be usable by admins, and there would be no template for it. It will just be used to brand rationales for their deletions. ViperSnake151 12:44, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

G4: Proposed change

1. Recreation of deleted material. A copy, by any title, of a page that has been:
   • Deleted following a deletion discussion, provided the copy is substantially identical to the deleted version and that any changes in the recreated page do not address the reasons for which the material was deleted;
   • Deleted under the Arbitration Committee ruling Badlydrawnjeff: Summary deletion of BLPs, or;
   • Protected from creation.

   This does not apply to content that has been undeleted via deletion review, deleted via proposed deletion, or to conventional speedy deletions (although in that case, the previous speedy criterion, or other speedy criteria, may apply). Also, content moved to user space for explicit improvement is excluded, although material moved or copied to circumvent Wikipedia's deletion policy is not.

Both additions are no-brainers, but the argument that the non-existence of a previous AFD precludes G4 (even if they've been salted or BLPdeleted) has been made. Sceptre ^(talk) 22:04, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

• I don't think I understand the proposal because this seems to me to be instruction creep. If the page was BLP-deleted before, the recreated content will still be BLP-deletable. (If a non-BLP-violating version has been drafted, G4 wouldn't apply anyway.) If the page was salted, I'm not sure how the case would ever come up (unless you're talking about an admin inappropriately creating the page) but even if it did, the original reason for deletion and salting would justify re-deletion. I don't see a scenario where we would ever need to invoke this expanded G4. Rossami (talk) 22:24, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Well, if it helps, I'm proposing this because I'm having a hard time getting Larry Wayne Sinclair‎ (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (which violates #2 and #3 of the proposal) deleted because it was deleted summarily, not via AFD. Sceptre ^(talk) 22:26, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
    • That page was speedy-deletable under G10, the same justification that was (validly) used against the content when it was at Larry Sinclair and Larry Sinclair's Allegations. There's no need to extend G4. Rossami (talk) 06:59, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
• This summary judgement amounts to a new decreed CSD. As much as I disagree with it, if we're going to be doing deletions based on this ruling, it ought to be codified in this policy. Dcoetzee 22:42, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
  • "protected" I disagree with listing it separately--if the content should by some chance actually address the issue when it is recreated under a different title, then it should not be summarily deleted. Obviously any administrator will take the previous protection into careful consideration in deciding what to do with the new article DGG (talk) 23:13, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
• A bad idea. G4 is for items deleted as the result of a community consensus decision, not merely for things previously speedily deleted before. If the article is indeed a recreation of something that was legitimately speedily deleted before, it can legitimately be speedy deleted again under the same criteria originally deleted. This proposed expansion is thus fully redundant to existing criteria, and fails the established standards for new criteria. If you can't justify the original speedy deletion criteria any more, it is time for an XfD. GRBerry 01:03, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm with GRBerry on this one; if it was speediable then, it's speediable now. No need to expand on G4. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:53, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

A7 exclusions

The current policy states:

An article about a real person, organization (band, club, company, etc.), or web content that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. ... A7 applies only to articles about web content or articles on people and organizations themselves, not articles on their books, albums, software and so on. Other article types are not eligible for deletion by this criterion. (emphasis added)

Why are books, albums, etc. excluded? Why do some administrators see the need to blatantly ignore this provision (e.g. Window Washer log - Window Washer is a software product - my message to one of the admins involved)? Brian Jason Drake 10:34, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I think at the time A7 was added, real persons, organizations (band, club, company, etc.), and web content were the most common "unnotable" things that pages were made of. ViperSnake151 12:52, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Books, albums, software and other non-web based content are not included because it is difficult to impossible for any one admin to have broad enough knowledge base to judge whether or not the deletion would be completely untroversial. There have been many attempts to such content to A7, but none has gained consensus. An admin who ignores this provision is acting against policy. Sometimes it may be justified, but usually it is not. In this specific case, the article was tagged for speedy as a violation of G11, blatent advertising, which was a defensible call. If you feel that the deletion was out of process, you can take it to Deltion Review. Dsmdgold (talk) 13:46, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

A7 is frequently abused by users who apply it not only to topics not listed among its eligible topic areas, but also to articles that make clear or implicit claims of notability. This is partly a result of its subjective nature, permitting broad interpretation, partly vindication borne of precedent, and partly an attempt to evade the scrutiny that would normally accompany such out-of-process actions. I continue to support its repeal, in favour of a more thorough process. Dcoetzee 23:19, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

but this will just lead to deleting the ones in this category as G11, which is even more dubious--there is really no firm criterion there and it is totally a matter of impression. At least the assertion that X is a pizza stand in Duluth with no more said is clearly unsuitable under A7, as are all the facebook-style pages. some of them are particular problems, because many of the people placing them will game the system by removing prods, and clogging up afd with the snow deletes. What is necessary is to get after those admins who ignore the categories. This can be done by bringing every instance to deletion review (if the article is really lousy, though, there is not at present much point in going to deletion review) Alternatively or additionally, complaining about it on their talk page will build up a record. Frankly, the deliberate and persistent refusal to follow policy especially in a matter that affect the retention of new editors is in my opinion grounds for desysop--not that this will be easy, for some of them are very well established in Wikipedia.

That said, it would in my opinion be advisable to find some way of giving a criterion for which the facebook style stuff could be eliminated by speedy other than A7--for one thing, it would permit a more appropriate notice. If you still doubt there is a need for speedy in such case, try a spell of patrolling at New Pages. DGG (talk) 08:09, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

If the admins just dismiss it as "same idea, really", why would anyone else bother to contradict them, particularly when they agree that the topic really is non-notable? Perhaps taking each case to Deletion Review is the best way to build up a record, as all cases will then be listed in a single location. Brian Jason Drake 08:48, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that G11 is vague - see below. Brian Jason Drake 09:00, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposed change to I8

I know I8 is complicated enough as it is, but I'd like to add the proviso that a local copy is eligible for deletion if it is a lower-resolution version of the Commons image (rather than just pixel-for-pixel identical), similar to I1. This most frequently comes up with Flickr-sourced images - local uploaders frequently upload a lower-resolution version (or thumbnail) from Flickr, while the Commons Flickr bots always grab the highest-res version available. Kelly ^hi! 15:44, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

• Works for me. Spartaz ^Humbug! 08:58, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
• Your proposed change sounds OK; I just wanted to clarify that the current policy covers bit-for-bit identical images, not pixel-for-pixel (perhaps these are equivalent for all the formats we support; I'm not familiar with image formats). Brian Jason Drake 10:39, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
•  Done Policy change by Kelly Brian Jason Drake 03:56, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

G11 vagueness

G11 is vague. I have seen an article that described the history of a company in chronological order. The company no longer exists. There's no way, at least in my opinion, that this could possibly be construed as advertising, yet it was still tagged with {{db-spam}}. Brian Jason Drake 09:01, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree that anything needs to be done to G11, really. It's mostly for articles that say "Buy my product please!" and nothing else. More what needs to be done is make new page patrollers know that not every article about a company is advertising. Another example I ran into recently was this, shown is the tagged version. Another, here, looks pretty bad but could be fixed with just a little effort. It seems that, while G11 is a bit vague, more of what needs to be done is educating patrollers on what to look for so they don't mistag things. A discussion over at WT:NPP should help with that. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 12:24, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

" the Firm has won the confidence of numerous Fortune 500 clients and is the partner of choice for their advisory services. The respect and reverence that the Firm commands is evident"? How much more spammy do you want to tolerate? --Orange Mike | Talk 14:50, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at the current version. All it took to get it there was the removal of a whole ton of the cruty and spamy parts of the it (and the addition of the Awards section, which I didn't do). Pretty much anyone can do that in a few minutes, so a G11 speedy is way off base. G11 says it only applies to articles that "would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic", which this didn't. If it can be fixed, it shouldn't be G11'd. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 15:22, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

They were just off a number... it's G12, this a copyvio of [1]. --Rividian (talk) 13:34, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

incidentally, wording it as advertising is too narrow, it is really articles where the purpose is just publicity, rather than information--it applies to non-commercial enterprises also. The problem remains how to narrow it down a little more specifically. The obvious cases are after all pretty obvious. DGG (talk) 03:39, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Empty talk pages and speedy deletion

I nominated at about 50 talk pages for speedy deletion under {{db-blanktalk}}. The were talk pages of redirects with trivial edit history (only the addition of a project banner which doesn't apply since the main article is a redirect). See for example here.

Anthony.bradbury, an administrator, reverted all the tags and moreover, it started removing all the removal of the project tags. See here.

The same user claims in my talk page that "blank article talkpage is not, repeat not subject to deletion". Who is right in this case? Me or Anthony.bradbury? Can I tag empty talk pages of redirects with trivial edit history for deletion or not? Can I remove the project banners from redirects or not?

According to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard "depends on your definition of "article". If a redirect is not considered an article, then G8 applies". -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:25, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess theoretically if a Wikiproject keeps a watchlist of all tagged pages, then redirects should have a Wikiproject tag, so vigilant project members will notice if something goes awry with a redirect somewhere. I'm not sure how much this really comes up but it's the only practical reason I can think of to keep redirects tagged with project tags. --Rividian (talk) 15:32, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

To make it easier to find it, the AN thread is at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Empty talk pages and speedy deletion. Certainly the talk pages aren't really that useful, but we've recently had a bit of trouble about deleting talk pages of redirects which are themselves redirects. I think the best solution would be to just redirect the talk pages to match the redirect of the article, to make sure that people get sent to the proper place in case they somehow manage to stumble onto the talk page without hitting the article first. There may be links to the talk page, and a redirect to where discussion should actually happen would be helpful. Hope this helps. Cheers. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 15:33, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

1. I find no reason to have a project tag in a redirect talk page. The tag is used in order to evaluate an article and set a priority for it for improving it. That's why they are categories in the project tags (A class, B class, stub class, template and no "redirect class")
2. I think since the project tags are not necessary that we then have to deal with empty talk pages that are difficult accessible to the user and moreover... useless, unless they preserve significant edit history.

As a conclusion I think G6 applies fine in these cases (G8 could apply as well if you don't consider redirect as an article). -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:46, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd agree with G6 being applicable in this case. As long as the talk page doesn't contain any meaninful history required for GFDL purposes, it really is just a housekeeping act to delete them. Resolute 16:03, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I disagree: if we're interpreting G6 that broadly, what do we really need any of the other criteria for? (See also recent discussion about the meaning of G6.) That said, I have nothing against speedily deleting such useless talk pages, but they should have their own criterion. How about: "G13: Empty talk pages. Any talk page with no meaningful content and no old revisions worth preserving."? —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 17:19, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I think just redirecting these to the same targets as the articles should do fine. There may be links to them from other talk pages, they may contain history, etc. Not to mention that redirects are cheap. If they're deleted through an XfD (like below) that's fine, but we don't need to be adding another CSD when there are easily other ways to deal with the issue at hand. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 17:37, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

What about a G13: Empty orphaned talk pages without meaningfull edit history. then? -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:39, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

The only truly orphaned talk page would not have an article which it'd be for, and it'd be G8-able. The only situation I can think of where this could happen otherwise is redirects, and then simply redirecting the talk page as well is simpler, doesn't take the tools, keeps any possible history information at the talk page, and takes people to the proper place to make comments on the content. I'd also like to ask how many talk pages there are that don't have any meaningful edit history. Talk pages for actual articles with only an Wikiproject box and a header should stay, and for redirects I've already said a few times that redirecting the talk as well is the way to go, so what else is there? --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 17:53, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

:::::Wait, did you mean to have that say "with meaningful edit history"? I hope not, because I don't think there's any way I can support the speedy deletion of anything with a non-speedy-able edit history, and to create one would be a very Bad Idea. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 17:59, 24 June 2008 (UTC) comment I meant without. Mistake caused by copy-paste. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:34, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Some admins already have deleted some articles under G6 and/or under "Orphaned redirect talk page". Moreover, I nominated many articles in Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Empty talk pages of redirects. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:11, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

"Orphaned redirect talk page" caused a lot of uproar, and they won't be happening again (at least not as speedy deletions). -- Ned Scott 09:19, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

WP:DIGI keeps the project banner on the talk page of all of their redirected articles. This is for discussion tracking via Special:RecentChangesLinked/Category:WikiProject Digimon articles, since often users will leave comments on the talk page of a redirected page. -- Ned Scott 09:19, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

If they are comments, the talk pages should not be deleted. Project banners are in order to improve an article. A redirect cannot be further improved. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:16, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Project banners serve many functions, like the one I just described. Some project banners even have specific redirect classes, to keep track of how many redirects are under their project scope. -- Ned Scott 10:28, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Clearly there can be no argument about talk pages of deleted articles, which qualify automatically for {{speedy}} under G8. I have taken the view that deletion of an empty talk page which still relates to an undeleted (and un-nominated) page does not qualify unles its article page does as well. But it is not of fundamental importance and I am happy to take opinions on the subject. And to take no further action until adequate opnion is forthcoming. --Anthony.bradbury^"talk" 17:58, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I still believe that G6 can apply as a cleanup process. If not, I suggest we really consider creating "G13: Empty orphaned talk pages without meaningfull edit history" as above. Should I make a more formal suggestions for that? -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:44, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I was around when these 50 talk pages clogged the speedy deletion queue. While they can be distinguished from articles, there are certain talk pages that actually need to be deleted. CSD tags calling for admin intervention are mostly for stuff that needs to be deleted. Also G6 isn't about keeping wikipedia nice and clean, but mostly about technically necessary deletions. And even if we considered such trivial talk pages eligible, tagging and deleting would be rather unproductive. The idea has previously come mostly to script operators, as they can check the edit history, apply some other criteria and delete in one step, but was still not well received. Just redirecting them can be done by any editor and is preferable.--Tikiwont (talk) 11:49, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Why would you bother deleting these Talk pages for the redirects? First, I'm going to assume good faith and believe that the person who added the project tag to the redirect's Talk page did so in good faith and thought that the tag was useful. That utility is not obvious to me but that's acceptable under Wikipedia policy. As long as someone finds it useful and it's not actively harmful, we allow such pages. Second, there is no utility or advantage to the project by deleting these Talk pages. They do not remove server load or change the reader's experience. On the contrary, the act of deletion adds a number of additional records to the database. So, they do no harm and deletion costs more than merely ignoring them - I don't even agree that these should always be regular-deleted. No, G6 can not apply. Rossami (talk) 04:09, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

A7 - schools

I know this is far from the first time anyone has suggested this, but there's a strong case to be made for speedying primary and junior schools under certain clear criteria based on WP:SCH.

WP:SCH states that "In general, tertiary degree-awarding institutions and senior secondary schools are considered notable", and this includes High Schools or their equivalent but excludes "middle schools and schools that do not educate to at least grade 9/age15".

My proposed extension to A7 is:

"An article about a real person, organization (band, club, company, etc.), school (other than a High School or equivalent) or web content that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. This is distinct from questions of verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability; to avoid speedy deletion an article does not have to prove that its subject is notable, just give a reasonable indication of why it might be notable. A7 applies only to articles about web content or articles on people and organizations themselves, not articles on their books, albums, software and so on. In the case of schools it only applies to junior or middle schools that do not educate beyond grade 9/age15. Other article types are not eligible for deletion by this criterion. If controversial , as with schools, list the article at Articles for deletion instead."

This is a relatively minor alteration that will have a significant impact on cleaning up trivial entries. At the moment an article about a primary school which simply states its location and the name of the head teacher and doesn't even have any references is considered to be prima facie about a notable institution until it has been prodded or afd'd, whereas an article about a small local business in the same town will be speedied straight away. Yet the criteria in WP:SCH are very clear - primary and junior schools are not usually notable.

andy (talk) 22:18, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Standard practice as I understand it with non-notable schools is to redirect them to the community or school district article. I'm not sure that deletion is necessary as long as that option exists. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 22:22, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

In a lot of cases, probably because they're written by kids, it's not possible to determine the district. In some cases not even the country. andy (talk) 22:24, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

In those cases, wouldn't WP:CSD#A1 apply? If one can't figure out even that much, then certainly nothing additional could be added. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 22:30, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

It's usually not nonsense. E.g. "XXX school is a first school in Sometown. The principal is Mr Smith." Meaningful, not sensense, but not notable and lacking context. It could easily be improved by the author so you have to prod it. But even if it was improved there's still nothing of encyclopedic value. andy (talk) 22:35, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

A1 is context, not nonsense. If you read the article and still have no idea where the school is, it's probably an A1...Someguy1221 (talk) 22:55, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Anyway, I don't think we should have a non-assertion clause for a subject with no accepted notability guideline. Indeed, the very reason schools have been so iffy when it comes to deletion is the lack of a consensus on what assures the notability of a school. I think it may be far easier to incorporate this into the policy once WP:SCHOOL becomes a guideline, if it does. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:58, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

• Here's a good example of how a quick A7 would save pointless effort. andy (talk) 11:04, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Uh, it's actually an example of where the redirect (which is going to happen anyway) would have avoided the need for deletion altogether. --Rividian (talk) 12:25, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It looks to me like a good example of a school article that could have been redirected, as several of the responders to that AfD (and now one more :)) have noted--whether it's an {{R from subtopic without possibilities}} or an {{R with possibilities}} might depend on what happens with that school proposal. Whether you would have had subsequent problems with that particular editor, who has shown signs of being tendentious, I don't know. But it looks like a perfectly valid redirect. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:27, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I feel as if this is something that should go to Afd. In most cases I believe junior and primary school generally aren't notable enough for inclusion, but in some cases they may be, so it should go to Afd, thus I oppose this proposal. Thanks for suggesting it though:-)--SJP (talk) 11:56, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

The AFDs always result in a redirect decision though, apparently, so AFD is not going to result in a deletion. Is including a redirect really so bad anyway? --Rividian (talk) 13:34, 3 July 2008 (UTC)