General problems/thoughts about G4
edit- Non-admins cannot see the deleted pages, so they have no idea if it's "substantially identical to the deleted version" or not unless it is re-posted very soon after the deletion discussion and they had the page on their watchlist. Then maybe they remember it well enough to know it's virtually the same. This leads (esp. new page reviewers) to apply G4 to pages that were deleted via deletion discussion years and years ago where the new article is nothing like the old one, where the topic (e.g. a singer or actor or athlete or company or artwork, etc.) has gained significant notability in the mean time.
- Perhaps it would be good to apply a time limit to G4; but what? 6 months seems too short. 1 year, 3 years, 5 years? That seems arbitrary.
- Perhaps it could be a sliding scale, where the longer ago something was deleted the more similar it has to be for G4 to apply.
- A lot of articles I see tagged for G4 frankly suck. They are not good articles and would not survive an AFD; but it's not a repost of the same material which is what G4 is going for. Often I'm hesitant to decline them, because they do suck, but I'm also not willing to delete them because I don't think they meet G4 so I take no action on them essentially leaving the problem for someone else. That's not a good thing.
- I think drafts should be largely immune from G4, unless the draft itself was deleted via MFD. If someone thinks they can find more sources and improve the article, let the draft be. Eventually it'll either be accepted by AFC, moved to mainspace (at which time it can be evaluated if it is identical to the deleted version), or deleted via the stale draft criteria.
- Do all admins even compare the new version to the old to see if it is "substantially identical"? I've seen some deletions where I'm sure the deleting admin probably did not. I seem to remember one where the two articles weren't even about the same person, just two people with the same name, but I'd never be able to find it.
- "Substantially identical" is different than "Substantially similar". I think it's important that the word used is identical. It doesn't need to be completely identical; if some misspellings are fixed or there are minor alterations in the wording, I think it's still "substanially identical" even though it's not completely identical. However, something that is recognizably different albeit similar does not qualify.
Deleted by RHaworth but does not meet the "substantially identical to the deleted version" criteria.
edit- New is not identical to old. It is substantially longer. It does not properly cite its sources, rather embedding them as external links in the text, so it's hard at first glance to know if the sourcing is better or not. It reads as a lot more promotional (not a point in favor of keeping it, but is a point in favor of using a method other than G4 to delete it). Also, note the dates. The original was deleted in 2014 and the new version in 2019. As a composer it is likely her notability will increase given time, and thus should be given the consideration of a new AFD.
- Old is not identical to new. The new one is not as well-written or well-formatted as the old one, but it cites more and different sources than the original. The creator of the articles is the same account, and they were created months (not years) apart, so this is closer than the previous example to the heart of what G4 is trying to prevent (someone whose article gets deleted at AFD and they save a copy on their hard drive and repost it repeatedly when nothing has changed since the AFD). I'm not sure this needed a new AFD; I probably would have deleted it; but there's legitimate question if it meets the "substanitally identical to the deleted version" prong of G4.
- new is not identical to old. In addition; I sort of have a problem with G4ing drafts; what is draftspace for other than incubating an article and allowing it to be developed to the point where we can decide if it's suitable for mainspace? When an article is deleted it's worth being extra cautions when writing a new version, and it's wise to do that in draftspace. It's not unusual for some admins to restore deleted articles to draft space if someone wants to work on them and thinks they can be saved, at which point it is identical to the deleted version (because it is the deleted version, just restored and moved to draft). At any rate, the original was created in 2016, which is the same year the pageant the article is about was founded. In 2016 it was clearly too soon for an article about that pageant. It was completely unsourced. The new version is longer and cites sources. It doesn't yet demonstrate that the pageant is notable, but notability is never a question for CSD, only AFD. If it were in mainspace it would likely be deleted in AFD, but it does not meet G4. Moreover, it's not in mainspace, it's in draft space, and different rules apply there.
- I declined this one as a G4 because it wasn't substantially identical to the deleted version. Less than 24 hours later somone else re-tagged it as G4, presumably without noticing it had been declined in the edit immediately previous. RHaworth then deleted it, which was overturned at DRV as a bad G4.
- New is not identical to old. Also, the new version had been moved to draft. I doubt an article on the topic can be created that will survive an AFD, since SmokeDawg was already dead in 2018 when the AFD took place and he's unlikely to become more notable at this point, however it wasn't G4 material.
- New is not identical to old and this one's not even close. Reading them I wasn't even sure it was about the same guy at first. In 2017 when the old version was deleted at AFD he was a columnist at a mid-market newspaper and played flute in a local ensemble. The 2019 version barely mentions his time at the paper that was the bulk of the 2017 version and does not mention his music or photography. Rather it focuses on his work with a PAC and a bit of investigative reporting at a different newspaper. That said, many of the issues that the original had remain in the new version; the sources in both are mostly his own reporting at the newspapers he's worked for, pages listing people who work for the places he's worked, etc. There is still no 3rd party independent sources about him. As with most of these, I don't think it would survive AFD, but it's not G4 material.
- Stopped here How far back do I want to go for evidence in the arbcom case? This is still December.
Deleted by other admins but does not meet the "substantially identical to the deleted version" criteria.
edit- old is not substantially identical to new. Moreover, this is not the first time this has happened to an article about this company. January 2017 draft deleted in 2017 at MFD vs. April 2017 version deleted as G4. It's worth asking how many deletion discussions we need for one company, however the fact remains that, while similar, they are not "substantially identical".
- New could be considered "substantially identical to old except that the changes directly "address the reasons for which the material was deleted." I was in the process of declining this when I edit conflicted with HickoryOughtShirt?4's deletion.
Declined by me because does not meet the "substantially identical to the deleted version" criteria.
edit- New is not substantially identical to old. It's clearly about the same person, and there don't seem to be any new refs. However, the focus of the article is different. The old article is longer, and more focused on his career as a business man. The newer article is barely a stub and focused on his racehorse breeding. Neither really demonstrates why he's important, however there are articles about him from NYT and Economic Times cited in both versions.
- New is not substantially identical to old. The new article is shorter, little more than a stub, but it cites a 3rd party source where the old article did not cite any (only affiliated ones). The old, deleted article had more information, but they are not the same. Old was deleted in March of 2018.
- New is not substantially identical to old. In the intervening 6 years this guy has moved on from MMA to writing for Men's Health and hosting a Netflix show. 6 years ago he was a non-notable MMA fighter. Now he's a non-notable former MMA fighter, writer, and TV host. Honestly, he might actually be notable. The promotional piece of fluff I declined doesn't demonstrate it, and I haven't done my own research, but again, it's not identical and that's not what G4 is for; that's what AFD is for.
==Evidence presented by ONUnicorn==
G4 reads (emphasis mine):
This applies to sufficiently identical copies, having any title, of a page deleted via its most recent deletion discussion.[2] It excludes pages that are not substantially identical to the deleted version, pages to which the reason for the deletion no longer applies, and content that has been moved to user space or converted to a draft for explicit improvement (but not simply to circumvent Wikipedia's deletion policy).
In Vanamonde93's section above, 2 examples are presented, one from 2018 and the other from April of this year. Below I will present some additional examples, all but one of which are from December 2019. For context, RHaworth deleted 14 pages under the G4 criteria in December.
- Mahadev Bajagain Does not seem to have ever had a deletion discussion.
- Steve Loverso was deleted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Steve Loverso AFD in August 2019. Draft:Steve Loverso appeared, was moved to draft, and was deleted by RHaworth on December 4, 2019.
- Muthukrishnan_Iyyappan, Draft:Batu Akyol 2x, CIOReview magazine, Draft:Tacha, Allen Estrin, Draft:Swarup S. Solanki, Template:USRSB,
Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warrin