Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 76

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Redirects with database (e.g. Wikidata) identifiers

At Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2019 November 1#Aisa Bint Ahmad (Q30904322) there are calls for redirects like this (i.e. ones which contain the Wikidata identifier as a disambiguator) to be speedily deleted. Personally I'm not certain of the need to speedily delete or that there is sufficient volume to warrant doing so, but my voice is in a minority so I'm starting the discussion. I therefore propose the following criterion for discussion:

R5 - Redirects that contain Wikidata or other database identifiers in the title:

This applies only where all of the following are true:

• The identifier unambiguously relates to the target of the redirect
• The identifier is not mentioned at the target article.
• The redirect is not the result of a page move (unless all previous titles have been deleted or would meet this or another speedy deletion criterion)
• The redirect is not otherwise a useful search term for the target and does not contain any significant history

The rationale for the first bullet and last bullets is to protect against cases where there is something which looks like a database identifier but isn't (these redirects need discussion). The second bullet is to avoid any cases where the identifier is itself notable in some way (e.g. it's not implausible that Douglas Adams having identifier Q42 might be mentioned) - these cases need discussion. The third bullet is to ensure that we don't delete required attribution or anything similar, but doesn't cause e.g. a corrected typo to prevent speedy deletion (the first title would be G6). The final bullet is intended to prevent the speedy deletion of cases that are not clear cut, for which discussion is needed.

Pinging participants of the linked RfD: @Wugapodes, Xezbeth, Fiamh, ComplexRational, Rosguill, and Lenticel:. I'll also leave a note there, at WT:RFD and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Redirect. Thryduulf (talk) 13:18, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

• Support- Firstly, I agree with this on its own merits: these ID codes are not useful. Secondly, I don't think we should be using Wikidata here on Wikipedia at all. I've found WD content to be very rarely useful, frequently erroneous, and more often just empty content presented confusingly. Reyk _YO! 13:25, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Upon further thought, I might want to reword the first bullet point. I can imagine a lot of cases where the ID code is unquestionably from Wikidata but it isn't clear if it refers to the correct subject. Maybe it refers to a different person or topic with a similar name. Because that's exactly the kind of irresponsible sloppiness Wikidata is constantly doing. Reyk _YO! 13:36, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
    • Please can we keep the discussion on target and avoid irrelevant personal opinions about the perceived quality and/or usefulness of Wikidata, they will only hinder forming a consensus here. Thryduulf (talk) 13:40, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
      • I disagree; I think an objective evaluation of Wikidata's reliability and usefulness will help in deciding whether WD-based redirects are a good idea or not. Reyk _YO! 13:50, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
        • This discussion is not about whether WD-based redirects are good or bad idea or not. There is already a consensus that redirects that use Wikidata identifiers in this manner are not useful, this discussion is solely to determine whether there is a consensus that these specific redirects should be speedily deleted, and if so what the detailed criterion should be. If you wish to discuss Wikidata and or redirects based on it more generally then you are in the wrong place. Thryduulf (talk) 14:17, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
    • Regarding the first bullet, the main reason (as stated) is to avoid things that look like database identifiers but which are actually something different, and as a side effect situations such as you describe indicate the need to check everything is correct - such checks (and any necessary fixes) are far more likely to occur following a discussion than following a speedy deletion. Thryduulf (talk) 13:48, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

• Question: Why does WP:R3 not apply in this case (and probably most others)? After all, how plausible is a title with the Q-ID in the name really? If anything, it seems like a logical extension of R3 or G6 in those instances in which tagging it with {{wikidata redirect}} is not preferable. Regards SoWhy 13:39, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Because (in at least most cases) it's none of a typo, misnomer or created in error and a redirect from a correct identifier the subject of that identifier is not implausible - the consensus is they are not useful, not that they are implausible. Thryduulf (talk) 13:43, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I think one could legitimately argue that a Wikidata identifier is neither a typo nor a misnomer, and R3 only applies to recently created redirects. If we wanted to make it clear that WD identifiers fall under the R3 umbrella I'd be OK with that but I think a new criterion is a better solution. Besides, if the problem ever comes up, we can later expand R5 to include things like eg academics' ORCIDs. Reyk _YO! 13:50, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per my initial comments, I'm going to oppose as while they should normally be deleted there are enough caveats and they don't occur often enough to justify speedy deletion. Thryduulf (talk) 13:45, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
• Weak oppose for now. I agree that it is not covered under R3 since this isn't a typo or misnomer. I'm opposed mostly because I don't know if the frequency justifies a speedy criterion. This is the first such redirect I've come across, so I really have no sense of how frequent a problem this is. Rosguill implies there have been other such discussions, do you have a better sense of the frequency of such redirects? I also think the criterion should be far more strict to satisfy the need for objectivity and incontestability; we should err on the side of ambiguous cases being sent to RFD. I would suggest the following:

• The identifier is not mentioned at the target article; and
• The redirect is not the result of a page move; and
• The page does not contain any significant edit history.

I think this will cover only things we definitely want deleted and anything that needs subjective interpretation will be sent to RFD. Wug·a·po·des​ 16:15, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Wugapodes, anecdotally, from patrolling the back of the new redirect queue I think these come up every other week. It's possible that there's more if editors at the front of the queue consistently nominate them for deletion. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:23, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose, not frequent enough. A single RfD batch can take care of all outstanding redirects once identified. -- Tavix ^(talk) 16:31, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
• What Tavix said. Exhaustive list below. I've left the false positives in (French subs are prominent). Even if all of these were valid candidates, though, it wouldn't be nearly enough for a speedy deletion criterion. —Cryptic 16:59, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

quarry:query/39906 for a variant of this list including non-redirects (nothing problematic there that's not in the list above); quarry:query/39909 for the non-mainspace ones (which I'm not bothered by, though I guess some other folks might be). —Cryptic 13:20, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks for that list. I maintain my opposition, but if it is adopted I feel adding a note about false positives (e.g. the French submarines) and it does not apply to things like train numbers or vehicle license plates which are essentially database identifiers. Thryduulf (talk) 17:28, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support.I think that the submarines are easily distinguished from the legitimate deletion candidates. Furthermore, although there aren't boatloads of these redirects extant at present, they're being created all the time. What you have to realize is that speedy deletion eligible redirects are a very small fraction of the total created, no more than 2% in my experience. Fiamh ^{(talk, contribs)} 18:09, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support for some sort of expedited process for these redirects I'd wager we get a couple new redirects with Wikidata codes each month. Perhaps that is too low of a frequency to justify a whole new CSD criterion. As someone that does a lot of redirect patrolling I'm somewhat selfishly inclined to argue for the use of CSD here, as it would make my life easier. I think that we have an objective criterion for deletion here (parenthetical with Q followed by 6+ digits) so IMO the main reason to oppose would just be if having a CSD category for something that comes up less than once a week is deemed too bureaucratic. If we don't get a consensus for use of CSD here, I would advocate for including an explicit mention of Wikidata disambiguators in WP:R#DELETE. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:21, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Something that comes up less than once a day isn't going to be a worthwhile speedy deletion criterion. If the existing ones all, without exception, get deleted at RFD, then keeping more from being created sounds like a job for the title blacklist, not relying on somebody noticing them and manually tagging them for deletion, and then having an administrator manually delete them. —Cryptic 02:04, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support. A new CSD is probably one of the most reliable and efficient means to catch and delete these redirects as they are created – even if cases are few, CSD is more efficient than periodically starting RfDs with clear consensus for deletion. Additionally, if a new criterion (R5) is created, it could possibly be expanded to include ISBNs, DOIs, YouTube IDs, or other unambiguous database identifiers that could make implausible redirects (barring exceptional instances of usage). I'm not sure how common these redirects are, but 978-0-61-844670-4 is another example of a redirect that could fall under this new criterion. A new CSD will keep these possibilities open, and save tedious !votes at RfD. Fiamh and Rosguill raise good points as well. ComplexRational (talk) 21:04, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support seems to be a good way of cleaning this type of redirect up --Lenticel ^(talk) 03:51, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
• Comment. I started an RfD to take care of the redirects that currently exist. You may find it at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2019 November 5#Wikidata redirects. -- Tavix ^(talk) 03:53, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
• I think that we should just have a slight amendment to R3 to cope with this kind of deletion. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:25, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
  • R3 is a bad fit because they are not implausible (on the contrary they're very plausible, just not useful), not typos and not otherwise created in error. They are created very deliberately, it seems because they're appearing as redlinks somewhere so what we need to do is fix whatever is causing that - i.e. deal with the cause not the symptom. Thryduulf (talk) 09:20, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
    • There's a plausible explanation of what's going on at the RFD. In short, a bot is creating a list of missing articles with links that include a Q1234567 style number, these articles are being created, and the bot is removing them from the list based on their now being blue links. I suggest therefore that if we're going to stretch any existing CSD to handle these, it should be WP:G7, which the bot responsible could automatically handle. Reyk _YO! 09:33, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
      • Or it could just, y'know, not populate its lists with such horribly bad article titles in the first place. "No page found on enwiki" works at least as well as "[[w:en:Blahity blah Q(424242)]]", and would be much less effort to implement than logging onto a different wiki and editing a page there (which might not be a redirect; plenty of these are the results of page moves) to add a db-g7 tag that wouldn't be honored by most admins anyway.
        Or we could just blacklist the titles, which fixes the problem here instantly and doesn't require the help of wikidata botops - or their consent, which might not be forthcoming. —Cryptic 10:26, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
        • Yep, all of those ideas will work too. Of course, blacklisting might cause the WD botops to come over here and complain loudly and at great length. But we can deal with that when and if they do. Reyk _YO! 10:37, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose for now. While I support deletion of all the Wikidata-ID redirects, I am not sure it will come up frequently enough in the future to be a worthy addition to CSD. Also, half of the current Q redirects seem to be false positives. Happy to revisit this in a few months if situation does not improve. —Kusma (t·c) 12:47, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Too complex, and not frequent enough for a new CSD, or an admendment to say R3. Leave this at RfD, or use the blacklist, or some other mechanism. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 07:14, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
• Comment: I have started a related RfC regarding preventing the creation of such titles at MediaWiki talk:Titleblacklist#Request to prevent "Wikidata" titles from being created. Steel1943 (talk) 15:29, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
• Neutral. There's probably a better way to word this, such as adding "if the Wikidata item number matches the disambiguator" to have them qualify, but even that may result in false positives. Probably best to just discuss each redirect in discussions (though I'd be okay with a title blacklist restriction of some sort per th discussion I've linked above in my previous comment.) Steel1943 (talk) 16:47, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
• As Tavix and others rightly say, this just isn't common enough to be worth it. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 19:36, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:CREEP, and because the previous RfD discussion would seem to qualify them for the existing criterion G6, housekeeping. UnitedStatesian (talk) 21:51, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Unremarkable product A7?

There is various speedy criteria deletion for "unremarkable X". Think project could benefit from another WP:A7 for "unremarkable product". Loksmythe (talk) 21:57, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

• Been discussed and rejected many times, it would overload CSD and bite newbies, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 22:09, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I imagine it would have been discussed before. Thanks for the info. Loksmythe (talk) 22:11, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
    • To expand on Atlantic306's answer a little, you would need to start by be more specific than "product". It could include computer software, vegetables, processed food, steel ingots, railway sleepers, musical albums (already covered by A9), industrial chemicals, household cleaning products, books, bottled water, tap water, paint, cars, rape kits, sex toys, wine bottles, films, encyclopaedia articles, etc, etc, etc. For each type of product covered by the definition there would need to be a proposed wording that met all the requirements at WP:NEWCSD, and that includes administrators being able to judge without specialist knowledge and without reference to anything other than the article, what makes every type of product covered remarkable or unremarkable. I am confident I could do that for something like digital cameras or cuddly toys, but I wouldn't have a clue when it came to things like saris or clarinets. Thryduulf (talk) 22:52, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
• In any case I think the chance of a product in fact being significant, even notable, without that being clearly stated in an initial version of an article is much higher than for a person or a band, and the frequency of spam for such topics is not high engough that we need a new speedy criterion. I therefore oppose any such new criterion. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 16:53, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Clarification Request: The outcome of the most recent XfD being "keep" excludes any page otherwise eligible for G13

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I have observed that several administrators have started treating pages that have been nominated or deleted under CSD:G13 (Stale Drafts and submissions) to be summarily restored citing a finding that because the last XfD was a Keep (or no consensus) CSD:G13 is invalid on the page until a XfD results in a delete. I therefore propose the following modification to CSD:G13 to establish if there is a consensus for that interpretation.

Any pages that have not been edited by a human in six months found in:

1. Draft namespace,
2. Userspace with an {{AFC submission}} template
3. Userspace with no content except the article wizard placeholder text.

Redirects are exempt from G13 deletion. Pages that have survived their most recent deletion attempt are exempt from G13 deletion. Pages deleted under G13 may be restored upon request by following the procedure at Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion/G13. Hasteur (talk) 02:49, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Discussion (G13 eligibility clarification)

Asked the question as the affirmative even though I believe that this is not the existing consensus. Open to any editor linking to where a previous consensus was to prove me wrong. If the consensus was established recently (last 4 months) I'm more than happy to suspend this request. Hasteur (talk) 02:49, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I think this was discussed above in the topic called G13 Question. The consensus there was the G13 criteria is still applicable after surviving a XfD and has been added to the policy already. McMatter ^(talk)/_(contrib) 03:32, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

With the consistent backlog at WP:AFC, I wonder if it is possible to limit G13 to AFC Submissions which have not been actually submitted? McMatter ^(talk)/_(contrib) 13:04, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

• The policy does allow G13 deletions of pages which have survived deletion discussions, but it didn't until very recently, it was added two weeks ago. Hut 8.5 17:46, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

• Consensus for G13 was becoming obvious in 2013, see WT:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 48 (2013)

Consensus that G13 should cover all drafts was very clear, see WT:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 65#Expand G13 to cover ALL old drafts (2017). Although this didn't address the question of drafts that previously survived a pre-G13 deletion discussion, it clearly intended that all 6 months abandoned draft pages would be deleted under G13 regardless of their history. There was not, for example, even sufficient concern about mainspace articles that were unilaterally draftified being auto-deleted by G13. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:14, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Procedural edit to keep this from being archived while waiting for the formal RFC closure. Hasteur (talk) 21:53, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Votes (G13 eligibility clarification)

• Oppose I disagree with this as there are a great many pages that survive XfD on promises of improvement (editing the text, promises to merge/redirect to a mainspace, or "keep and let G13 take care of it") that demonstrate that not all the keep XfDs show sustaining effort/improvement. I have no problem if a bot comes in every 5 months and changes a single byte on the page or if someone does a procedural clean on the page to reset the 6 months unedited clock. What I do care about is Administrators ignoring both the written text of the CSD and the intention of the CSD. Hasteur (talk) 02:49, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. Most drafts taken to MfD that survive survive because taking the page to MfD was the wrong process, and the right process is to tag and ignore the draft until G13 applies. The G13 time period (6 months) is sufficient time for an author or interested party to engage. I usually try to remember to write "Keep" ... leave for CSD#G13", but it always applies. A page that should not be subject to G13 should be taken to userspace or a WikiProject. It's regrettable that Template:Promising draft does not work in attracting editors to help, but the fact is that it doesn't. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:51, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Are you saying drafts should never go to MfD? That instead of discussing drafts at all we should always just delete them if they're flagged stale and nobody claims them? I could get behind that, it would remove a lot of administrative confusion about process, and I think address Hasteur's concern above. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:50, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

@Ivanvector: What I'm saying is that if the draft is kept with a promise that it'll be improved to the point of being ready for mainspace, and that improvement doesn't manifest in the form of any edits in 6 months or promotion to mainspace in that time, that we discount the previous promises and let CSD:G13 process handle it without this rigmarole of evaluating the previous MFD. Hasteur (talk) 17:53, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I get that. I meant to address SmokeyJoe's observation that the "right process" is to tag and ignore. If that's the case, then we should just say that drafts are no longer eligible for discussion at MfD, eliminate that step entirely, and allow G13 to work (or make it into a DRAFTPROD process which I've suggested before). Doing so would seem to support current practice where any draft that is nominated at MfD attracts comments in the form of "none of this matters, it's fine to sit there until G13 applies". I would support that. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:56, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

No, Ivanvector, not "drafts should never go to MfD". Instead, "drafts should usually not go to MfD. More certainly, "bad drafts should not all go to MfD. MfD is not failure management process for Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation. WP:AfC has good DECLINE and REJECT options that should be used.

For specific details: MfD for a draft is only appropriate where there is a deletion reason. Deletion reasons mostly come from WP:NOT. Draft deletion reasons do not include notability, although notability is an important factor to consider alongside an actual reason. WP:NOTPROMOTION of a WP:CORP-failing topic is a compelling reason (but please try to WP:CSD#G11 first if it fits). Resubmission of a draft without improvement is a reason explicitly approved by an RfC. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SmokeyJoe (talk • contribs) 02:52, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Any page in draftspace unedited for > 6 months is eligible for deletion under WP:CSD#G13. Trivially objective. Preferably, authors of pages eligible for G13 will be advised by a bot prior to the deletion; failing that, on deletion, the author should be advised. The deletion log MUST contain a link to WP:REFUND. In principle, all G13-deleted pages may be REFUNDED on request, although the deleting admin is encouraged to observe that some other speedy deletion criterion applies (eg G5, G10, G11, G12) and to immediately re-delete per that criterion. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:03, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

"Bad drafts should not all go to MfD" - to me that's a very confusing statement and makes for bad choices. But rather than continue here in the middle of the voting section of Hasteur's RfC, I'll collect my thoughts and start a separate discussion. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 11:53, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose - the only change I will support to G13 is complete deprecation and removing it from the list of speedy deletion criteria. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:29, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I too would support this change. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:29, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

• Ivanvector, I would enthusiastically support this change. We need to find a better way to separate the drafts that have potential from the ones that don't, and this process should not be time based. Drafts that have no hope of ever becoming an article should be deleted promptly, and drafts that do have potential should not be subject to any sort of deadline. – bradv🍁 01:52, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

I think User:Bradv's line of thought is one that was thrashed out in the discussions that created G13. It's good as a motherhood statement, but hopeless when it comes to practical implementation. The problem is: "who decides the draft has no hope"? Was that decision objective? For all the agreed objective reasons of "no hope", a CSD criterion exists. For the remainder, it is possible that the author may come back with additional information to justify hope for their initially scanty draft. It is an unjustified workload to do a "no hope no notability" test on every hopeless looking draft. The onus should be on the author, on the topic proponents, and from this comes the imperative that there be some time limit. 6 months is the agreed limit. For sure, 1 week is too short, and >1 year is getting too long for zero edits. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:58, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

A draft PROD is the simplest solution, and vastly preferable to the current system where drafts are robotically deleted based on no other factor than that the author gave up on it six months ago. – bradv🍁 03:02, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

DRAFTPROD amounts to a non-objective speedy deletion, it fails WP:NEWCSD and should be rejected for that reason alone. G13 applies with no editor required to tag it ahead of time. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:06, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

G13 also fails WP:NEWCSD, as it is not uncontestable (anyone can contest it by editing the draft, if they get the opportunity). Even if draft prods are robotically applied, it is still better than the current system as other editors will have an opportunity to contest the deletion and save the draft. – bradv🍁 03:09, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

G13 applies uncontestably. I applies when it is uncontestable that anyone has contested it's deletion in the last six months. For a rare case of someone who wants to auto-contest, see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Topic Ban Request: TakuyaMurata. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:16, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

The issue I see is that no one really agrees concretely on the elements of a "draft with potential"—is it a draft that satisfies notability guidelines, a draft that has one or two reliable citations, any draft that an editor slapped a promising tag on? There are some obvious extremes—a draft that just reads "Joe is a funny man" clearly has no potential, whereas a draft that has multiple references to in-depth reliable sources clearly does (and is probably close to mainspace already)—but what is much less clear are drafts in the middle that might have a source or two, aren't promotional enough to be G11, but don't have enough content or structure for mainspace. What we used to see is these drafts sort of languish in the draft space indefinitely because no one is interested in working on them, and nobody wants to MfD (or PROD) them because they may have potential. Unless we actually start applying notability guidelines to drafts (which is an idea that has faced considerable opposition in the past), I see G13 as a reasonable practical solution, especially given the deliberately low bar towards undeletion and retention. Perhaps what we're really looking for is a 7-day grace period between G13 tagging and deletion, similar to WP:C1 or WP:F4, during which any editor may remove the tag if they think the draft has potential and kick G13 down the road another 6 months. Mz7 (talk) 03:36, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Any editor in good standing who thinks a draft shows promise should do one of the following: (1) Work on it; or (2) remove it from draftspace, per WP:DUD, putting it in their userspace or as a subpage of an interested WikiProject. {{Promising draft}} for draftspace drafts, tagged by an editor who takes no personal interest in what they tag, has not worked out. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:19, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Those are workarounds, not a good system that improves collaboration and article quality. – bradv🍁 04:22, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Sure. My preferred solution is to remove draftspace entirely, and to not invite any newcomer to create any newpage until after they are autoconfirmed, and to recommend that they don't attempt new pages before improving existing pages. "Anyone can edit" doers not need to mean that "anyone can create a new page". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:26, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

I'd be more than happy with that solution too. But as long as we must have draftspace, let's make it work as well as possible. – bradv🍁 04:29, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

@SmokeyJoe: I've read you say a few times in these discussions, that DRAFTPROD fails WP:NEWCSD. I don't understand this. Proposed deletion is a different deletion method than speedy deletion so why does a new type of proposed deletion (which would join BLPPROD) need to meet the criteria for speedy deletion? What am I missing? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:09, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Barkeep49, yes, it is as if people have forgotten the foundation premise of WP:PROD. An article can be PRODded for any reason. A reason is not required, or at least you are not asked to substantiate the reason. The reason is supposed to be obvious, but not defined. Accordingly, anyone may dePROD, for any reason, and they are not required to substantiate their reason. Completely subjective, not objective. If there is any disagreement, it goes to AfD. A critical premise for PROD to work is watchlisting. This fails for Drafts, no one watches drafts. DraftProd therefore devolves to a pseudo CSD.

BLPPROD? I am perfectly happy for BLPPROD to be extended to draftspace, if it is not already.

People proposing a new DRAFTPROD deletion process need to at least get to the details of how it would works, which they are not doing. What is the duration? What is the need? What tracking and notifications would be involved. So far, I have seen no such details, nor any reason why G13 doesn't suffice. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:41, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, thanks for the reply. It's helpful. I think you disagree with the need but it has been presented directly to you before and let me try again: articles that people are actively monitoring should not be deleted without warning. Deletion of drafts no one cares about should be uncontroversial. If someone cares enough to remove a notice they shouldn't have to go fill out REFUND paperwork. I had this happen to me recently. I knew I was about to RfA so I just waited and made it my first action with the toolkit but that door is not open to everyone. It also meant I moved another draft I've been slowly chipping away with from Draft space, where I'd have loved help, to my user space, where others might not feel comfortable jumping in.

My criteria for DRAFTPROD would be G13 criteria except that it runs for 7 days - like PROD and BLPPROD. Removal of the DRAFTPROD notice is enough to reset the six month clock, but unlike PROD, a draft may be tagged an unlimited number of times with DRAFTPROD. So it's G13 but done slower. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:50, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

So, I definitely oppose that. To the extent that DraftSpace is justified in existing, it exists for leasurely drafting by IPs. One week is way too short to expect them to be checking in. 6 months is OK. that's why G13 is six months.

"Deletion of drafts no one cares about" is a contradiction. Someone has to care to tag it.

We already have way too many poor MfD nominations of drafts. Often, too often, someone nominates for deletion a draft that is worthy of mainspace. The standard of MfD nominations of drafts is so poor that DraftProd fails for that reason alone. A reason for PROD is overload of AfD with obvious cases. There is no case here. I suggest you spend more time at MfD before suggesting this relief valve for drafts at MfD. Currently, MfD receives masses of Portals, so you might like to try Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion no portals.

Do you have some examples of pages that belong in a DraftProd process? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:10, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I disagree that draftspace should only be used by IPs/COIs so that's probably where we see things differently. I think draftspace should be used by them but also by any editor that wants to craft their article before plopping it into mainspace and would welcome collaboration in doing so. Glad we had this discussion because I think we'll continue to see differently but I feel like I have a much better understanding of where you're coming from. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:18, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I didn't say "only". It is sufficient that an occasionally checking-in IP uses draftspace for it to be unreasonable that drafts can be deleted with just a week's notice, no discussion, not objective criteria. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:37, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, now I'm confused again. An IP makes no edits to a draft for six months. Currently it can be deleted at anytime instantly. I suggest it should be deleted after having a notice for a week. How is that not more reasonable for an occasional editor? And that's not even the use case I care about. I care about active Wikipedians who are trying to use draft space. They're the ones I honestly think will decline DRAFTPRODs not an IP or non-confirmed editors. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 05:43, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

So, your DRAFTPROD would only be an option after six months no edits? You are proposing to replace G13 with DRAFTPROD? This is an unexpected feature of the proposal. Terrible idea. There are way too many. Abandoned drafts will build up again into the tens of thousands, including the scattered BLP and copyright infringing drafts.

You don't care about infrequent IP editors? I think you should.

You care about active Wikipedians who are trying to use draft space? I don't. Active Wikipedians should draft in userspace or in WikiProject subpages. Are you a supporter of User:TakuyaMurata's draftspace practices? Comment at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Topic Ban Request: TakuyaMurata. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:09, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, I, an active Wikipedia, do all my drafting in Draftspace. I am currently working on Draft:Judy Sullivan, which was started at an edit-a-thon this week. When I work with new editors, either at an edit-a-thon/editing workshop, or at the Teahouse or other on-wiki venues, i normally advise them to start all new articles in draft space. When I restore a deleted article on the plea that an editor wishes to improve it to readiness for mainspace, I always restore it to draft space with an AFC tag. Many drafts are created by active Wikipedians. None of which is to say that an MfD closed as "wrong venue" or "not bad enough to delete, leave for further work or G13" should be exempt from G13, but Active Wikipedians should draft in userspace or in WikiProject subpages simply does not cover current practice, nor in my view should it. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 13:26, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I think you misread something I wrote, Smokey. I didn't say I didn't care about IP editors in draftspace. I do. A lot. I said protecting them from deletion wasn't the use case for why I think G13 should be supplanted by DRAFTPROD. It is the kind of cases I laid out or DES laid out. If an article is abandoned then DRAFTPROD will function identically to G13. If it's not abandoned, which we would know because someone would remove the DRAFTPROD label, then the presumption goes to saving content rather than deleting it. If there are BLP or COPYVIO issues well we can deal with those - and do - in all namespaces now, that's not what G13 is for. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:53, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose- XfDs closed for WP:WRONGVENUE reasons should not be immune to an otherwise legitimate speedy. Reyk _YO! 13:44, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose: does not take into account that the draft may have been abandoned after discussion. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:14, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Draft should not go to MfD or AfD for it is WP:WRONGVENUE and in AfC we have decline (leave reasons/what is needed) or reject. In addition, G13 drafts are checked by admin prior deletion and can always get a WP:REFUND. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 03:40, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per above. Obvious process creep, and folks can just use WP:REFUND if it's important. Also if it's worth going to REFUND for, then perhaps it'll encourage the requestor to work on it and move it into the mainspace :) -FASTILY 07:26, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. A draft that is kept on promise of improvement should still be deleted if abandoned, especially since WP:REFUND is not a difficult process to use. –Darkwind (talk) 07:14, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support. I use draftspace, and I would've liked a notification before, not after, my draft had been deleted as abandoned. Clovermoss (talk) 20:54, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

  @Clovermoss: Because I am confused (and I suspect the Closing admin might be confused). What I'm asking is "Pages that have survived their most recent deletion attempt (XFD) are exempt from G13 deletion." I don't think your vote is on that topic. There is a bot that goes around AFC drafts and reminds at 5 months unedited that the draft could be in danger of G13, but that's not in scope of this RFC/Clarification. Hasteur (talk) 15:26, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

  @Hasteur: I apologize, I think I meant to comment this on a seperate thread. As for notifications, I did not get one until my draft had already been deleted by G13. Had to go through WP:Refund. The article is currently at Danielle Younge-Ullman if you're interested. I struck my support vote since it isn't relevant. Clovermoss (talk) 20:03, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose Just because a draft survives a MfD doesn't mean it shouldn't be deleted if it becomes stale. In response to the support !voter above, that's a separate discussion, but I like the idea. SportingFlyer T·C 09:37, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per most of the above objections, which have already gotten to every point I would have raised. The main one to me is that XfDs are "survived" for any number of reasons, many of them venue-related and other technicalities. That said, various admins' declines in particular cases are valid, when they've looked at the XfD in question, and seen a consensus to retain the material on its merits. Remember WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY, "WP is not a suicide pact", WP:Common sense, WP:IAR, WP:CLOSE, etc.  — AReaderOutThataway ^t/_c 05:43, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose, in many cases I've seen, an AfD/MfD closed as "keep" was because someone has said that the article can be moved to or retained as a draft and be fixed. If that doesn't actually happen, draft space is still not for things to sit around indefinitely. If someone later wants to work on it, doing so is a simple WP:REFUND request away. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 17:14, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Comment Absent a significant change in consensus, I intend to close this RFC on November 7th (30 days) with a consensus established that surviving a previous MFD does not immunize a page that would normally be eligible for G13 against any further G13s. I also intend to mobilize this consensus against certain Administrators who have chosen to substitute their beliefs for the objective criteria of G13. Hasteur (talk) 23:53, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Hasteur, it's a fairly straightforward read to discern consensus but despite my not having cast a formal bold vote (nor planning to) I would say I'm too involved to close - and I did not start and voting in the RfC. I would suggest that given your intent to "mobilize this consensus" that you are better off waiting for someone who is not so clearly involved to do the close. Take those thoughts for what you will. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:21, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Unused personal photos

Is there a reason en.wiki doesn't have a SD file criteria for unused personal photos, as F10 on Commons? Has this been proposed before? GMG^talk 02:50, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

No idea if it's been proposed before, but I'm all for it. creffett (talk) 02:52, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Looking into it, I guess it's only been a criteria on Commons since July 2018. I've just gotten used to it. But something like this guy seems to mostly a cross wiki spammer, and these images are entirely useless. GMG^talk 02:59, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

I would support this; it would certainly help make a dent in Category:Wikipedia orphaned files. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 03:03, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Would support, under the condition that it must be given a grace period (seven days?) to be used before it's deleted. Still want to keep used personal photos for user pages. UnnamedUser ^{(open talk page)} 03:38, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

We already have file PROD which has a seven day wait. The whole point of this would be to expedite that specifically for unused personal photos. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 09:11, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

If FilePROD can handle those images just fine, why create a new criterion to basically do the same but only for a small subsection of those files? If they main problem is files uploaded by users for webhosting purposes, how about instead we expand U5 to encompass images uploaded to be solely used on pages that are eligible for U5 deletion and that serve no other encyclopedic purpose? Kind of like G8 in that regard. Regards SoWhy 09:31, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

@SoWhy: I'd change that slightly to something like "Files uploaded for use on a page that has been speedily deleted and which serve no other useful purpose.". That changes the order slightly to mean that the page has to be deleted before the image, which avoids the potential for images to be deleted even though the page is deemed not to be problematic (if the image is independently problematic than an existing speedy criterion or FFD can deal with it). It also brings into scope images that were on pages deleted for other reasons (G5, G7, U1 and U3 come to mind as possibilities). All this is though assuming there is a problem PROD cannot deal with (I don't know). Thryduulf (talk) 12:32, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

I think that would be too vague. "Other useful purpose" is not an objective criterion by any stretch and someone might use it to just delete everything in Category:Wikipedia orphaned files despite the fact that many of those files might be useful in the future (and oftentimes should probably be transferred to Commons to allow more people to see them). It would also apply to files that were uploaded for pages that were deleted for belonging on another project or reasons of too soon or or or. Point is, there are too many reasons why an image might become orphaned and the only objective criterion I can think of is the one U5 (and F10 on Commons) use, i.e. files uploaded by users who mistake Wikipedia for a webhost. Regards SoWhy 12:45, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

To be clear, the full criteria on Commons is unused personal photos by non contributors. It's basically a criteria for the person who uploads 10 selfies to go along with their A7 autobiography. GMG^talk 13:02, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

I can't conceive of any justification for new time-delayed file speedy deletion criteria, between fileprod and files being restorable for something like fourteen years now - most of the reason the current F-series criteria have the delay is because they were written before then. —Cryptic 03:10, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

• I support this in principle, but the text needs to be absolutely unambiguous. SportingFlyer T·C 13:15, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Is there an Engvar issue here? To me (British) a "personal photo" might be merely a photo I possess (conceivably not even of a person) as well as meaning a photo of me or of some other person (presumably a photo I have taken). Thincat (talk) 21:38, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

• I'm American, and interpret "personal photo" the same way you do. "Unused photo of a person or persons" eliminates the ambiguity. —Cryptic 03:07, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

• strongly oppose As written this is much too broad, and may catch things that are potentially useful. For example, suppose someone uploads a photo indented to go in the info box of an articel which is then deleted for g11, or G12. A revised version may be created which is not a copyvio and is NPOV, where the image could be properly used. Speedy deletion does not translate into "No article by this title can ever be created". Maybe if you limit it to images usable only on an article that has been salted. But "usable only on" seems a rather subjective judgement for a CSD. Also, i would like to see some figures on how often this is occurring and being deleted by discussion. Is there truly a need for such a new CSD? DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 04:10, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support I think that this will be helpful as it will aid in clearing out Category:Wikipedia orphaned files. Personal images won't have much of a use on Wikipedia and it is pointless to keep personal images that are orphaned. There are plenty of orphaned personal and unencyclopedic images that have been deleted through WP:PROD and a big list is at User:Pkbwcgs/PROD log. There are plenty I nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Files for discussion/2018 April 21. Based on my record of nominating personal and unencyclopedic images, this new criterion is uncontestable because all the files were deleted, frequent because there are many personal and unencyclopedic images that were deleted and nonredundant because these files wouldn't meet another already-existing deletion criterion. However, this criterion should only apply to unused personal images. Pkbwcgs (talk) 20:47, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Proposal: Expanding G8

How about modifying G8 like this:

G8. Pages dependent on a non-existent or deleted page

Examples include:

• [...]
• Files uploaded for exclusive use on a deleted page and that have no other conceivable encyclopedic purpose (e.g. self portraits of users whose user pages where deleted via U5)

[...]

After all, Commons' F10 is more like our U5, so stuff uploaded for use on such deleted pages "depends" on these pages in the same way as the other cases of G8 do. Regards SoWhy 20:00, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

• Not G8 please. It has nothing to do with the other items in G8 except for G8's overbroad summary. What this really is is the (non-bot-mediated, fairly-rarely-invoked) second half of F5 - "immediately if the image's only use was on a deleted article and it is very unlikely to have any use on any other valid article" - minus the non-free restriction. —Cryptic 02:59, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

  And minus the article part. I proposed expanding G8 because of it's similar (due to the "dependent on" part). Expanding F5 would not work, so either we create a new G15 or F12 or we add it to criteria that are likely to have accompanying uploads, such as G11 or U5. I'm not set on changing G8 but I would argue that any such expansion or new criterion has to make sure the use is limited to the most obvious cases (like the ones GMG mentions above) so as to not have all orphaned images be subject to deletion. Regards SoWhy 16:12, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

  "Article" doesn't currently carry much meaning in F5 - it's implicit for nonfree files, which can't be validly used in nonarticles. (The exceptions are very narrow, and not relevant.) —Cryptic 15:13, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose as per Cryptic. Overloading CSDs to to multiple different things is generally a bad idea. G8 currently deals with pages that are "dependent" in a very clear, obvious, and non-metaphorical way: mostly talk pages of deleted pages, less often archive pages of deleted pages, or the like. This would be stretching "dependent" much too far, IMO. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 04:12, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose I strongly suspect this would be used as a generic "unencyclopedic image" criterion on images where the deleting admin doesn't think they have any encyclopedic use. I also agree with the above that it doesn't fit well with the rest of G8. If we want to create a CSD for unused personal files then it should be a separate criterion and more narrowly worded. Hut 8.5 07:46, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Hut 8.5 and DES. Speedy deletion criteria need to be kept as simple and as narrow as possible to reduce the chance of misuse (accidental or otherwise). Expanding G8 in this manner weakens one of the better worded criteria in this regard. Thryduulf (talk) 10:27, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Hut 8.5. Not in G8, maybe a new separate criterion for this? -- CptViraj (📧) 10:34, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support speedy deletion of an image, if all the following are true:

(a) the image has only ever been used on the page deleted under CSD#U5;

(b) the image was uploaded by the user whose userpage it was;

(c) the image is of the user.

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:48, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

I agree with this except (c). If the picture was of the user's pet for example, shouldn't the same apply? U5 already allows deletion of any userpage that confuses Wikipedia with a webhost, so it's logical, that all content used solely for this page should be deleted as well. Regards SoWhy 11:38, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

I'd replace point (c) (per SoWhy) with "have no foreseeable placement in an article and are not suitable for transfer to Wikimedia Commons". The first part is the same wording F10 uses (because we don't want to delete files that are useful for articles we don't have yet), the second (which may require tweaking - the intent is to consider both content and license) is because some files may not be useful in an encyclopaedia article but might be useful for a different project. This would need to be a new F12 as it is very different to G8. Thryduulf (talk) 12:37, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

• Wikilawyering about which criterion to add it to aside, I'm weakly supportive on the merits. Once it's not in G8 anymore, we lose the misleading "non-existent" part from the title; having been used on a legitimately-deleted page (and nowhere else) is already restrictive. This also actually reflects former common practice, for afds and the like more so than speedies; it's rarer now mostly because you now need to be autoconfirmed to upload files locally (plus, the requirements for autoconfirmed have gone up) and we have the clause in F5 for nonfree files. Only weakly supportive because I think fileprod can handle this. —Cryptic 15:13, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

  Agree with your comment regarding FilePROD in general. I would mainly support an extension of U5 to cover files uploaded specifically for use on U5'able pages just because it seems unnecessary bureaucratic to be able to speedy delete the userpage but then having to PROD the images uploaded for this page. For other files, FilePROD should work or at least there is no reason to assume that it doesn't. Regards SoWhy 15:20, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

• Support as a U5 extension. The criterion would have to mention that the file would not be able to be used on Commons, as Thryduulf said, to ensure it wouldn't harm the wiki. Overall, it would probably make it easier to deal with any files like this. Invalid^OS (talk) 14:06, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Did G14 revise the scope?

Sorry, I wasn't around when the relevant discussion took place. It used to be (I'm fairly certain) that disambiguation pages that contained exactly two items, one of which was the primary topic, were eligible for CSD. When I look at the new G14 criterion, that seems to no longer be the case. Is this indeed the case? —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 15:20, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

• Randomly sampling this history, G14 has always said one or fewer articles since it was separated from G6 about a year ago, G6 said it applied to disambig pages disambigging one or fewer pages for at least two years before that. WilyD 15:39, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
• Eight years ago, it said "unnecessary disambiguation pages", without specifying what that meant. WilyD 15:41, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
• Oh, hey, I changed the template five years ago from "two or fewer" to "fewer than two" see, but at that time this page said "fewer than two" voila, I can't recall why I noticed the discrepency. WilyD 15:48, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

I am enjoying the serial release of this comment. What twists and turns will it take next? I anxiously wait by my watchlist to find out :) Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:00, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

I was planning to give up, but I dug around more, and it seems the discussion was here: enjoy. WilyD 16:10, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Is being deleted on another language's Wikipedia grounds for speedy deletion?

If an article was deleted on the English wikipedia, but has been (I assume more-or-less directly) translated into multiple other languages, is it legitimate to speedily delete those translations on the other language's sites? To be specific about my reason for asking, I recently flagged a page on the English wikipedia for deletion, on the grounds that it clearly did not satisfy WP:PROF. It was deleted, but the article's author (perhaps an autobiographer) has translated it into several other languages. For example, here's the German translation of the deleted page, which I attempted to flag for deletion using the normal process there: de: Giovanni Leone (Wissenschaftler). Wikkist (talk) 23:32, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

• No, each project has their own separate notability guidelines, and what may be notable here may not be on the German-language wiki, and vice-versa. SportingFlyer T·C 23:38, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
• Wikkist short answer: no. Different language Wikipedias are self-governed by their respective community's consensus, and our policies do not have any direct bearing on theirs or vice versa. Notability guidelines may vary, so an article deemed worth keeping on enWiki may not be kept on other projects. However, spammers may attempt to preserve their spam across multiple projects, so in some cases it may be prudent to chase an article across several different language projects (I once chased a promotional biography for a Brazilian actor into the Latin and Indonesian Wikipedias of all places). That having been said, the ultimate deletion rationale for that article is not that it was deleted here, but rather that it doesn't comply with notability guidelines there. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 23:39, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
• No. But reasons for deletion on one are likely to be the same reasons on another. When considering deletion of a non-English topic, I take very seriously the quality of the native language Wikipedia article, or the reasons for its deletion there. WP:PROF-failing “academic” biographies often do appear as WP:Orphan articles on multiple Wikipedia’s, eg for a job hunting recent postgrad graduate, and collectively it may be obvious that all are promotion/spam. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:20, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
• No. As others have stated, different Wikipedias have different standards for what should be kept and what should not. Glades12 (talk) 11:56, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Does histmerge invalidate G5?

An interesting situation arose at Kamerfer Kadın: the page was created by a user who was later blocked for socking, and subsequently moved to draft. It was later re-created in mainspace by a sock of the same editor, after which the revision history of the earlier version (the draft) was histmerged to that page, with the result that the master rather than the sock showed as creator.

Question: is such a page eligible for deletion as WP:G5? Always, under certain conditions, or never? Question 2: is this already covered by policy somewhere? – in which case please direct me there and ignore question 1. Thanks, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:02, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Short answer: No. And already covered imho. Longer answer: Per policy, a page is only eligible of deletion if all revisions are eligible. If somehow revisions from a page that is not eligible are mixed in with a page that is eligible, the resulting page is no longer eligible since you can restore the non-eligible revision. Anything else would logically lead to a page becoming eligible for G5 because a user was later banned which G5 does not allow. Regards SoWhy 20:23, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

I have to disagree with that assessment. WP:G5 is an extension of WP:BANREVERT, so if an otherwise G5 eligible page has previously deleted edits restored, BANREVERT would have us revert to last restored edit. In that state, the reason for the previous deletion (or other removal) will often sill apply. If the previous deletion was an AfD, it becomes a very clear cut G4 deletion, most of the speedy deletion criteria would continue to apply, etc. PROD is the main exception here, where the restore invalidates the previous deletion. While such a page would likely not be eligible for deletion per G5 only, deletion will often be the correct course of action. That being said, in this particular case, moving the page to the draftspace is probably the best option. Sir Sputnik (talk) 00:44, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, SoWhy. Could you clarify whether your interpretation of our policy applies only in those cases where a history merge has been done, or in all cases where a sock has re-created an article that had previously been deleted, regardless of whether the previous revisions have been restored or histmerged? Thanks, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:26, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

@Sir Sputnik: The question was about G5 eligibility only. If another criterion applies to the non-G5-eligible parts, then that's okay and that criterion can be used.

@Justlettersandnumbers: "My" interpretation is merely quoting the policy that says "A page is eligible for speedy deletion only if all of its revisions are also eligible." For G5, a histmerge is the only time I can think of when only parts of the revisions are G5-eligible. If the original page has been deleted for another reason and a sock recreates it, then the recreation is eligible for G5 (if the other requirements are met). Regards SoWhy 18:25, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

• This discussion is way beyond me. May I suggest that since speedy deletion is only for "the most obvious cases" it does not and cannot apply in this case? Thincat (talk) 11:59, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
• If the original page was created before the user was banned then G5 does not apply. As SoWhy explains, if a page has some revisions that are eligible for speedy deletion (under any criterion) and some that are not then the page is not eligible for speed deletion. As Thincat says if there is any doubt about whether speedy deletion applies it does not. Thryduulf (talk) 21:13, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

CSD deletion without tagging

I would like to understand whether, in terms of the current policy, if it is allowed for an admin to CSD delete an article, say on A7 grounds, without this article being CSD tagged by anyone first. (And correspondingly without anyone being notified about the article being nominated for CSD deletion, and having a chance to contest such a nomination prior to the article being deleted.) Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 15:48, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Only in edge cases like G3, G10 through G13, U5, etc should can this be done. An admin should never delete an article under A7 or similar without someone else tagging it. Anarchyte (talk | work) 15:51, 20 December 2019 (UTC) (minor ce: 15:52, 20 December 2019 (UTC))

By policy, it is definitely not required, although deleting admins "should" notify the creator and any substantial contributors. Whether it's a good idea ... depends. WilyD 16:09, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Admin here. Depends on the CSD. If it's really blatant, or if it's a recreation of an AFDed article or something, then sure, kill it immediately. But in most cases, I prefer not to just zap articles, but to tag them for someone else to zap. But I'm not sure I'd make that mandatory in policy - David Gerard (talk) 16:29, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree with it being best practice in general is not to act on your own tagging. I would support language to that effect but not for reasons outlined by David making it required by policy. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:31, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

I sometimes do it when cleaning up junk filetalk pages. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 17:51, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

And now that you mention this, it occurs to me I G8 talk pages of pages I'm deleting all the time without warning or notice. But I think that makes perfectly sense, and notifying would be obviously stupid in almost every case. WilyD 05:27, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

It is allowed and should stay allowed. For some CSDs it is not good practice (especially A7), but things like cleaning up after vandals or blocked NOTHERE editors do not require a second admin. —Kusma (t·c) 19:14, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

It's allowed, admins can delete any page which meets the CSD criteria. I have spent a fair amount of time reviewing G12 nominations only to find when I checked the history that the page was tagged by one of our best copyright admins, which always strikes me as a bit of a waste of time. Speedy deletion is supposed to be speedy and doesn't necessarily give any time for the creator to contest it, that's what AfD and PROD are for. Hut 8.5 19:31, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

• Hmmm, I am still not getting much clarity from the responses above. I feel that some kind of a clarification on this point in the language of the policy is needed. The specific situation I was referring to is where an admin deletes an article with a deletion log summary "notability not asserted" (which I read to mean as invoking A7) without the article having been CSD tagged at all, by anyone, including by the deleting admin. Nsk92 (talk) 19:39, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

  Tagging is not necessary. Some form of notification about the deletion is nice. But there are cases when an admin can just delete A7's without further comment. For example, assume I am on speedy patrol, find a tagged A7 non-notable band, delete it and then check the creator's other edits. If they are about the even less notable guitar player of that band, I'll go ahead and delete without further interaction. As a general point, I think admins on New Page Patrol should usually tag instead of deleting, but that is more a matter of best practices for NPP than for the CSD policy. —Kusma (t·c) 19:55, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

• @Anarchyte: I'll admit I'm not an expert on every nuance of CSD policy, but I've never seen anything that supports, An admin should never delete an article under A7 or similar without someone else tagging it. Can you provide a specific citation? I'll sometimes tag articles if I have any doubt, and want another set of eyes to confirm, but usually I'll just go ahead and delete stuff that I see which clearly meets some CSD. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:30, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

@RoySmith: I've always considered it to be the unspoken rule, that deletions that could possibly be refuted on the talk page, should not be done only by one admin. A7 isn't about notability (and Nsk92 mentioned a log summary with "notability not asserted"), it's about a claim of significance. No sources are required and the claim could be as basic as the member count or being the first to do something, so giving the author the chance to say "oh wait, I forgot this bit of info" will help the article out a lot more than an admin reading it and then immediately deleting it. Anarchyte (talk | work) 04:08, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

• There is, as has been said above, no policy requiring admins to tag pages before deleting them, if one or more of the CSD apply. When I went though RfA, I pledged, as did quite a few admins at that time, to use "tag and bag", meaning that I would not delete pages not already tagged by another editor, with a few exceptions. I will delete copyvios and attack pages promptly, without waiting for another admin. I will delete talk pages as part of the deletion of other pages tagged by someone else, without waiting for a separate tag. I will do some housekeeping (G6) deletions without a tag, where i am convinced that they are truly uncontroversial, such as old redirects holding up a move, with no useful history. Otherwise I will tag for CSD like any other editor, and only delete pages tagged by someone else, after reviewing the page to be sure that the criterion applies. I wish that all admins followed similar practices, but some do not. Some routinely delete any page that they think fits one of the CSD, and as long as their judgements seem largely correct, there is no policy to require them to act differently. However, if I noticed an article deleted with the reason of "does not assert notability" I would review it, and might well bring it up at WP:DRV. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 19:32, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
• It depends on both the criterion and the severity. I'd consider an admin who tagged a G3 (for vandalism, not for a hoax) or G10 instead of deleting it immediately as negligent - if you think you need a second opinion on these, they're probably not speedies. At the other end of the spectrum are G11s, A7s, and G12s, which should almost always be tagged due to the potential for error (of judgment for the first two, of fact for G12). "Always" is a strong word though, and I have no issue with an admin who deletes them in the most unambiguous cases - articles like User:Uchenna578 (sample for nonadmins: "We pride ourselves in great work ethic, integrity, and end-results."); the stereotypical article about a middle-school "singer-songwriter" who just released his first single on Youtube, that A7 was originally aimed at and that we still see in mainspace occasionally; or a full-page cut-and-paste from a major website like CNN or the BBC where there's zero chance of it ultimately being a reverse infringement of Wikipedia or some other freely-licensed source. In between are criteria like G13, which are unambiguous - either the page has been edited in the last six months or it hasn't - but still benefit from a second pair of eyes, on the off chance a page was improperly declined at AFC or moved out of the main namespace, or can otherwise be turned into a viable article. —Cryptic 10:21, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Time limits on G4?

Should the threat of a potential G4 deletion remain hanging over an article forever?

See List of Hello world program examples. This was AfDed in 2015. Since then, the article had come back (I don't know when). Today it vanished. That appears to have been one of those "delete as G4" drive-bys with no prior tagging or attempt at discussion.

G4 is already specific that it's not here for, It excludes pages that are not substantially identical to the deleted version. Now surely most versions, years down the line, are going to be substantially different anyway? But should we codify this with some time limit? What we really don't need is the current situation, where an article can have several years of existence (and whatever editing effort went into it) and then still gets rubbed out instantly by one drive-by from a single admin.

At the very least, G4 deletions long after an original AfD should be tagged and discussed, maybe a week, rather than simply actioned immediately, without notice. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:06, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Problem I see is that the new article was substantially identical to the deleted version. I know that G4 taggings often are done w/o checking whether the new version is the same as the new one, but this doesn't appear to be the case here. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 14:11, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Not only "substantially identical" in that it was still a list of code snippets that still had the same problems cited in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Hello world program examples, but also the specific text was so close that it seems very likely it was copied (without attribution) from somewhere else that had originally copied our article. Upon further investigation, I find the recreation was nearly identical to the version of the article from 2015-04-09 00:21:41 UTC, with the only difference being the lack of the <!-- comment --> at the top with instruction for additions. Anomie⚔ 14:45, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

FYI, it was recreated 2019-11-16 04:46:17 UTC. So a bit over a month of existence, not years. There were three edits after the recreation before it was tagged for G4 (much less than the 99 revisions between the April 2015 version copied for the recreation and the version deleted in September 2015). Anomie⚔ 14:53, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• I don't see the need for a time limit. The important thing is sufficiently/substantially identical. The reason for a deletion may no longer be valid, and in those cases, we want to allow the subject to be covered without the need for any heavy process. But, in those cases, whatever has changed in the world should be reflected in changes in the article. Simply plopping down a saved copy of the old text doesn't fix anything. Not to mention the attribution issues mentioned above. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:06, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
• In addition to the similarity to the deleted versions (which I noted, though not that it was actually identical to the April version - I'd assumed it had been edited in the meantime on whatever mirror it was re-copied from), it was created it one edit by a very inexperienced user, who blanked the {{old AFD multi}} notice on the talk page placed by AnomieBOT. This struck me not as a test to see whether the very solid consensus at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Hello world program examples had changed, but as a very deliberate attempt to evade that prior consensus.
  Your suggestion that G4s be tagged and discussed for a week would be, in essence, requiring a new afd, no matter the similarity to the prior version. That's not a reasonable use of volunteer time, not in an era where the average afd discussion has to be relisted for two or three weeks in order to secure consensus either way, rather than the five days that used to be the norm. —Cryptic 21:45, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Why is it that every time "efficiency" is raised as a problem, it's to favour admins pressing one button rather than two - but the rather lengthier process of content creation: we're always happy to bin that. They're only volunteers: serves 'em right. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:03, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Andy, I'm guessing this wasn't the response you'd been hoping for when you posted your question. However, did you see the section two above where multiple sysops say that best practice is that, for many (most?) speedy deletion tags for sysops to place the tag and let another delete rather than just press the button themselves, or the split among sysops (if anything leaning negative) to the proposed revision of G8 - a proposal made in the name of efficiency? As someone who thinks my best work on wiki has been my content work and is also gravely concerned about the number of editor hours available to support all of our processes and tasks I don't think it's accurate to paint such a broad picture. It is more nuanced than that. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:20, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Hoping for? The most I'd ever hope for from WP is that the revenge deletions and the abuse remain slower than I can type responses to - I'm realistic. As this article is said to have been substantially identical to that deleted, then at least not much has been wasted. I couldn't describe that AfD as "firm consensus" though, when the nominations were "too many reasons" and "certainly not notable" and the closer didn't even bother giving a reason.

I would hope that admins would use a tag-and-bag approach to such things, but it's pretty rare. Andy Dingley (talk) 03:50, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Didn't I add a deletion tag to that page before it was deleted? * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:08, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes you did Pppery. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:38, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

G5 Clarification

Am I correct in assuming that if a sock of a blocked master creates an article after the master was blocked, but before the individual sock was blocked, that G5 could apply (assuming all other criteria are met)? This is an example of what I mean at Russell Books (although not a G5 as others edited, and it even went to AfD and was a Keep). In this case, the sock UncleScrooze, created the article on Dec 12 before they were blocked on 31 Dec; however, the master, AuthorWiki99, was blocked earlier on July 8. Should we clarify this by adding a bullet under G5? Thanks. Britishfinance (talk) 12:00, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

CSD:G5 clearly says that it “applies to pages created by banned or blocked users in violation of their ban or block and that have no substantial edits by others.” In your scenario of an article created by a sock of a blocked editor, the page would thus be eligible for CSD:G5 so long as there are no substantial edits by others. That seems clear enough to me and I do not think an extra bullet point is necessary. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 12:51, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, but you are experienced in SPIs etc. There are plenty of editors applying CSD tags who have never done an SPI, and who look at the block log of the blocked editor creating the article, but don't realise that they should check the date the master was blocked? I thought it might be helpful for non-SPI experienced editors to know this? Thanks. Britishfinance (talk) 13:06, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

The sock has to have been unblocked to create an article, no? Because blocked editors cannot create articles. So it would actually be more confusing that way. Regards SoWhy 14:08, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I am looking at the case where the master was blocked months ago, but new socks of the master are creating new articles and then getting blocked. An editor looking at G5 and not familiar with masters/SPI, might just assume that as the sock was not blocked when the article was created, G5 doesn’t apply; but a more experienced editor knows better. Thanks. Britishfinance (talk) 14:25, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, Britishfinance that is almost the only use case for G5 that actuality comes up at all frequently. A blocked editor cannot create any articles while blocked, so the only way for such an editor to create an article is to use a sock puppet account (or to edit while logged out, and go through AfC). In theory a topic-banned (but not blocked) editor could create an article in violation of such a topic-ban, but I can't recall the last time I notice an instance of that. G5s are pretty much always actually created by sock-puppet accounts after the master or original account is blocked, and the consensus to delete in such cases is clear. I don't really like G5, but it is policy. It is, IMO good practice to link to the SPI, or to the blocked account that the creating account is a sock of, or to a block log that in turn so links. That helps make things clearer for others. But no policy requires such a link when tagging for G5. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 18:34, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes. As a current example, Hopeful2014 (talk · contribs) was blocked just over a year ago, and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Hopeful2014 indicates that Lordrenthefirst (talk · contribs) has now been blocked as a sockpuppet of Hopeful2014. Therefore, any pages created by Lordrenthefirst either before or after they were blocked (such as Category:Lewisham, Category:Ladywell, Category:Royal Docks) become subject to G5. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:05, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

So how about adding a sentence (or line in brackets) at the end of the first bullet of G5 saying something like: "By definition, therefore, these blocked users will be sockpuppets of already blocked users (called "masters"), whose block was in place before the article was created". I think this would clarify things for non-SPI experienced editors on the relevant block date to check? Britishfinance (talk) 22:55, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Is there any evidence of a real problem here or is it a hypothetical or perceived problem? --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 23:42, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

It is just clarification (or communication). We have many editors applying CSDs with only a few thousand edits who have never gone near SPI that I think would find this clarification helpful. The clarifications above are helpful, and were well made - why not include in the G5 text? thanks. Britishfinance (talk) 00:12, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

• That seems reasonable, so I just boldly added When a blocked or banned person uses an alternate account (sock-puppet) to avoid a restriction, any pages created via the sock account after the block or ban of the primary account qualify for G5 (if not substantially edited by others). Indeed this is the most common case for applying G5. to the CSD page. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 19:39, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

+1 to the addition. I remember when I first got into this, looking at the G5 wording and being confused: If somebody is blocked, how could they create a new page? To those who are saying, "this is so obvious it doesn't need explanation", consider that you've been doing this for so long, it's obvious to you, but may not be obvious to others. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:51, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

+1 as well - looks good to me DESiegel, and thanks. Britishfinance (talk) 19:58, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

• No DESiegel, here's a recent case to illustrate the point, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Horton.Hears.A.Hoot/Archive. Horton is the oldest account, Louis is their sock who was blocked first. Anything created by Horton (the master) after (the sock) Louis' block is also G5 eligible. It's the first block on any account run by the person that counts, not just the block on the master account. Cabayi (talk) 13:57, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

A7: "a lower standard than notability"

This...isn't really true though. A7 is neither higher nor lower taken as a whole; it's merely qualitatively different, as A7 concerns both the state of the article as well as the state of the subject, whereas notability only concerns the latter. In as much as the both concern the latter, yes, credible significance is a lower standard, but because A7 concerns both, it's perfectly possible to write an article on a notable subject that qualifies for A7. Consider a new article:

Dave was born in Isleworth and loves animals.

That's easily A7. But the subject of the article happens to be David Attenborough, who is clearly notable (A1/A10 aside for the sake of the hypothetical scenario, just as a thought experiment). I'm not entirely settled on how to better clarify the difference, but again, like AfC, A7 is often just different from simple notability, as it concerns a proxy measure of a lower standard of existential notability, as indicated by the state of the article, rather than simply the existential state of the subject, apart from their representation on Wikipedia. GMG^talk 13:44, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

This is a good point. I have seen editors at AfD confuse it with A7 (obviously, at AfD, the issue is the state of the subject and not the state of the article). I have also seen editors at RfAs criticize a candidate because they had "blue links" in their CSD log (i.e. and thus a sign of an incorrect A7), however, it is not uncommon to see a valid A7, return as a non-valid A7/or proper article. It would be worth clarifying this point (and that valid A7s can return as non-valid A7s once any kind of potential claim of notability (either in the text or the refs), has been added). Britishfinance (talk) 13:59, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

This is more a topic for WT:RFA than here, but anyone criticizing a candidate merely for having bluelinks in their CSD log without looking at the state of the pages when they were declined or deleted isn't doing due diligence. I'm no fan of arguing with oppose voters, but this is the sort of case where it's merited. —Cryptic 14:48, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Might do that as well Cryptic, however, per comments above and below, I think it is worth clarifying here that previous valid A7s, can return to become non-valid A7s due to an improved status of article via better referencing and/or claims in content, even though they may still not have have the notability to pass AfD. Britishfinance (talk) 15:03, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

My understanding is that speedy deletion criteria concern themselves primarily with the present state of an article and its older revisions, not about what it could be. So an article about a notable subject that doesn't bother to explain why the topic is important or significant - say by presenting multiple dedicated sources - and otherwise satisfies the A7 criteria is eligible for A7 deletion, notable or not. Yes, one can rewrite such an article rather than delete it, but deletion is allowed. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 14:20, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

How about deleting the clause "a lower standard of notability", and replacing with a sentence that says

Unlike at WP:AfD, where the notability of the subject is debated (irrespective of whether the article establishes this notability), A7 is only focused on whether the article makes any credible claim of notability (either in the references, and/or body text); thus valid A7s, can return as non-valid A7s due to improved referencing and/or body text, even though these improved claims of notability could still fail at AfD.

Britishfinance (talk) 15:14, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

WP:Avoid instruction creep. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 15:29, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Normally I would agree, but A7 is complex and one of the most misused/abused of the CSDs; there are several editors even from the past few weeks, who have messages on their talk pages from admins warning them of blocks if they continue to abuse A7. This one is worth getting right, imho. Britishfinance (talk) 15:34, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You expect newer editors read and understand that wall of text though? History has shown that they rarely do. Glades12 (talk) 15:38, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Is a sentence a "wall of text" (notwithstanding others might write a better sentence); we effectively have an upcoming ArbCom case that effectively revolves around an admins actions on A7 (e.g. it is not just new users)? When people can get blocked from A7, they will probably make a better attempt to read A7, imho? Britishfinance (talk) 15:49, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

You do realize that changing it to "any credible claim of notability" would increase A7's barrier tremendously? The current policy does not require claims of notability for good reasons. A7 is supposed to keep out articles from people writing about their hobby band, their local soccer fan club, their 10-subscriber-YouTube channel etc.. Anything that can clear this barrier should be taken to the community to discuss, not be decided by a single admin. Regards SoWhy 16:17, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

SoWhy, you are misreading me (hence why clarifying A7 is so important). If someone writes a new article that says "Peter was considered the most important artist of Denmark in the 21st century" but without providing a reference than that can be validly declined for A7 (unless you can prove the statement is bogus) – that is a key test of A7.

Also, A7 is not AfD; while I always do a quick WP:BEFORE myself pre any A7 tagging (my own standard is that a declined A7 tag, should be a clear-cut AfD delete), that is not required by the A7 rules. Again, hence why we should get this area clarified, even if it means adding more text.

You are facing an ArbCom case on issues of A7, and I am not sure that all our interpretations are aligned? Britishfinance (talk) 16:28, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I was only quoting from your suggestion. You used the words "claim of notability" instead of the current "claims of significance or importance". Your example would probably be A7able because claims need to be credible and "was considered the most important artist of Denmark in the 21st century" is not credible for a century that is only 20 years old at this point. As for BEFORE, as I said below, policy already limits deletions to the "most obvious cases". I don't think any article where significance can be established within seconds counts as "most obvious", do you? Regards SoWhy 17:27, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm not sure the argument from CREEP is super compelling, given the most misunderstood criteria, among what is probably the single most lawyerly complicated, and least understood policy page on the project already. At any rate, I wasn't necessarily advocating for providing substantive additional guidance, but rather for seeing if there was a better way to word the existing guidance to be more clear. GMG^talk 15:37, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Imho, a notable subject can only be A7ed by mistake. If the subject's notability is determinable, WP:ARTN already forbids deletion (in combination with WP:PRESERVE), no matter how bad the article is. In your hypothetical scenario, if someone started an article named David Attenborough with the content Dave was born in Isleworth and loves animals., you think it should be eligible for A7? That does not sound right to me. Yes, A7 is mostly about the claims made in the article but speedy deletion is part of the overall deletion policy and it, along with the editing policy, instruct us to fix problems by editing if possible. Doing a quick Google search whether the subject is potentially important or significant (or indeed notable) is imho part of that approach. Regards SoWhy 16:09, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

That the hypothetical Dave article should qualify for A7 I think is fairly uncontroversial. As it pretty clearly would also qualify for A1, there wouldn't be very much any of us could do about that on our end. I agree that PRESERVE means we should make a good faith effort not do delete or remove content when it can be fixed or improved. But the idea that ARTN forbids deleting content outright "no matter how bad the article is" is simply wrong. G11, G12, A1, A10, G5, A2, and yes, even A7 in the right circumstances, are all among the criteria that preempt ARTN. If someone wants or can rewrite such articles, then they are perfectly able to do so. That does not mean they are compelled to do so, and while a quick good search for A7 nominations is probably a good idea, there is no burden of BEFORE in these circumstances. GMG^talk 17:04, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I disagree. A1 would not be applicable if the context can be inferred from the article's title. G12 requires deletion for legal reasons. G5 is WP:BMB, discouraging banned editors to game the system. G11 allows deletion when there is nothing to save and nothing to fix. A10 and A2 both require the subject to be present somewhere else already. The whole point of Wikipedia is to create an encyclopedia filled with information about notable subjects, so deleting a notable subject's article under A7 runs counter to this goal. Even if technically A7 does not require a BEFORE. It makes no sense that for AFD you have to do a BEFORE but for a criterion that is supposed to be stricter you don't, so I think it's safe to say that the community thinks it's implied when the policy says Administrators should take care not to speedy delete pages or media except in the most obvious cases. Regards SoWhy 17:21, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't think it's ever a good idea to presume what the "community" will think.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:35, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

...Are you disagreeing? I think we both fairly well understand the rationale why, for example, a G12 would be deleted even if it were on a notable topic. That doesn't change the fact that there are several circumstances, based on article content, under which we would delete articles even if they were on notable topics. GMG^talk 18:02, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I could go into a great big rant about A7, but I won't. I will say this though: A7 is nigh-on impossible to "understand" as it's currently written (believe me, I've tried), for it's far far too subjective and open to interpretation (speedy deletion criteria are supposed to be objective). It's no use just moaning that "A7 abuse" is so rampant (I was once branded an abuser for trying to stop the abuse, just so you know); we should instead be asking why it's so. I'll tell you why; it's because policy doesn't give enough instruction about what things like "lower than notability" are supposed to mean, leaving editors to their own interpretations. It's all well and good having essays such as Wikipedia:Credible claim of significance, but they really need to be more than just essays is they are to have the desired effect. I'm quite sure that those who are abusing/misusing A7 do not consider it abuse/misuse. The way to solve that is to make policy more specific. That's why so many think significance is a synonym for notability; because policy is as clear as mud on what it's actually supposed to mean. Adam9007 (talk) 16:54, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I am opposed to any change to A7, especially the one proposed by Britishfinance (for the same reasons as SoWhy). I also disagree that all the criteria are objective. G11 is hardly objective. Even criteria like A1, G1, G3 (vandalism and hoax) are not black and white. We will not be able to stop abusive tagging or admins who apply criteria incorrectly. All we can do is educate...or sanction when appropriate.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:02, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

But if my wording is not right – then clarify the wording that is absolutely right (because there is not alignment even on this thread on the definition). Think about it, you are talking about sanctioning people for a rule that is not clear to make them understand it better? How does that make sense? Britishfinance (talk) 17:14, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

A7 is so widely misunderstood in WP, that it is even worth having clear examples of what are, and what are not, A7s. If this thread shows nothing else, it is that there is even confusion over the David Attenborough example above (which I believe GreenMeansGo has the correct current operating interpretation of what an A7 is). Britishfinance (talk) 17:08, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

For what it's worth, there's a list of claims that (supposedly; I sometimes think it contradicts consensus, given my experience) have been identified as significant, if you haven't already read it. Adam9007 (talk) 17:11, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

• A clear issue/non-alignment from the above discussion is whether an A7 should explicitly meet the test of a WP:BEFORE; I think we should answer this, because if it doesn't, AND, there is essential disagreement on the substance of my wording, then we are not in a great place regarding the definition of an A7? Britishfinance (talk) 17:31, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

• The hypothetical David Attenborough article would qualify for A7, assuming it's unsourced. A7 isn't intended to be an instant AfD or anything like that and is purely judged on the current state of the article. Yes this would lead to an article on a very notable person being deleted here but that's because it's a terrible article. If the article made any attempt to summarise why people should care about David Attenborough (e.g. "David Attenborough is an acclaimed natural history broadcaster") then it wouldn't qualify for A7. "a lower standard than notablilty" just means that evidence of notability is automatically evidence of significance, it doesn't turn A7 into a notability test. Hut 8.5 07:37, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@Hut 8.5: I totally disagree with this. On this example, if I could find three Google News hits on "David Attenborough", it would take approximately 15 seconds to add those references and disqualify it from A7. "I was lazy" is a terrible excuse for an administrator. Or is this an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect because I've done a fair bit of article writing (even if I do say so myself) I find adding references to just about any biography a trivial exercise? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:34, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Speedy deletion is supposed to be a quick process for simple, uncontroversial cases. If something requires research then it isn't suitable for speedy deletion. A7 is explicitly intended to get rid of articles which aren't worth putting through AfD or PROD, in order to lighten the load on those processes. If you insist on people putting in the same work to nominate something for A7 as for AfD or PROD then there's very little point in having it at all. Getting rid of it would massively increase the AfD/PROD workload and lead to some very silly outcomes (e.g. "Fred Bloggs is a 14 year old student from Nowhereville" surviving for at least a week). Hut 8.5 19:08, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

To be fair, I think there is a difference between doing a 15 seconds Google search and a full BEFORE, isn't there? Regards SoWhy 19:54, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, and I think this discussion is at cross-purposes; in this example, if I came across a mainspace article saying "Fred Bloggs is a 14 year old student from Nowhereville" and a Google News search for "fred bloggs nowhereville" returned nothing significant whatsoever, then of course it should be deleted per A7. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 20:34, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

My point is that the Google search isn't required and shouldn't be required. If there is something in the article which suggests to you that a Google search is likely to turn up evidence of notability or good references then it probably isn't a good A7. If not then the Google search isn't necessary. The idea of insisting on it in this very obvious case strikes me as rather silly. If Fred Bloggs really has done something important enough to justify having a Wikipedia article then the author should have put it in the Wikipedia article. Hut 8.5 21:07, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

• I strongly object to the proposal as written above, for several reasons. While significance is not always a lower standard than notability, it normally is. Yes a really poorly-written article about a notable person might be validly deleted under A7, that is not the common case. And I will add that if an editor knows that a person or subject is notable, or probably notable, it is abusive to tag for A7 even if claims that could and should have been made in the article were not made. Instead, add them. And similarly, if an admin knows that a topic is notable or probably notable, it is abusive to delete it, instead of improving it. Notability is largely about coverage, what independent sources have written about a topic. It therefore requires sourcing. Significance is about accomplishments, and may be accepted provisionally in good faith without sources. A significant accomplishment is one that, in some non-trivial fraction of cases, will lead to the sort of coverage that confers notability. For example "John is the CEO of Company X, that had $10 million in sales in 2018" That deos not prove that John is notable. A fair number of such CEOs are not. But a significant number are notable. That fact is enough that speedy deletion is not appropriate, we need an AfD to look at the specific case in detail and see if John is notable or not, which means that a WP:BEFORE search should be done. Significance is not what results from a BEFORE search, it means that there is a sufficient chance that a search will uncover no0tability that it is wrong to delete without doing the search and discussing the results. It might, just barely, be possible for there to be a notable person with no claims of significance that could properly be put in an article, but I dot recall ever seeing one in practice, not can I thing of a plausible hypothetical example. It may be that we can improve the wording of A7, but this isn't how. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 08:46, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

  As a more plausible example of a poorly written article that might have been delete3d under A7, consider this version of the article 500 Miles High There is really no claim of significance there. (It was actually tagged for WP:CSD#A3, which was obviously wrong.) But a very little research using the info already in the article was enough to clearly establish notability, and indeed to get a later version accepted by DYK. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/500 Miles High where discussion lasted less than 6 hours. (yes I know a song is in scope for A9, not A7, and this failed the clause about an article bout the writer, but its a good example anyway, I think.) DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 09:03, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

  One major reason why I think the "lower standard" language must stay is that people even now all too often tag an article with A7 using summaries such as "does not assert notability" or even "is not notable". Notability is far too complex and situation dependent to be a speedy deletion criterion, and this language reminds editors of that, and can be pointed to when people forget that. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 09:03, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

• I think that the above discussion shows the need to clarify the wording of A7 given the non-alignment; how about a wording like this to "bridge" the gap, and give clarity:

An A7 should meet two tests:

1. The references AND/OR the text in the body should not contain a credible claim of notability per WP:N; and
2. A brief, but not exhaustive, WP:BEFORE, should not throw up any other easily accessible references that could show notability per WP:N.

The rationale for A7 is to avoid clogging up WP:AfD with cases that would be obvious fails of notability and thus almost unanimous deletes at AfD; in this regard, the nominator for an A7 should be confident that should their A7 be declined by a perceived failure to meet either of these two tests, the article should still be highly likely fail at AfD. There will be valid A7s that a more thorough WP:BEFORE would have shown to be notable (e.g. sources not available online), however, A7 is not designed to fully replicate AfD, and there is an onus on the author to better demonstrate notability in such cases.

Britishfinance (talk) 11:31, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

You are still using "notability" as the standard the claim must meet. It's not what A7 is about and never has been. A7 was - from the day it was added to the policy 15 years ago - always about "importance or significance" (see Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal/1 for the details on the discussion that led to the creation of A7). Regards SoWhy 12:13, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Except, of course, since WP:N is the standard inclusion criterion, and if you ignore that when you've evaluating importance or significance, it becomes a lot more personal an arbitrary, and you get in the obviously broken situation where articles that pass, or give indications they may pass WP:N are still eligible for A7 deletion. For instance, see the DRV for Lera Loeb Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2019_November_4, where several admins who are well versed in deletion policy still endorsed A7-ing an article that showed clear reasons to believe the subject might meet WP:N (and indeed, it was subsequently kept at an AfD). It makes no sense to have an A7 that isn't tied to AfD, or it becomes an end-run around subjects that are notable, but individual admins don't think are important. WilyD 13:59, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Mistakes happen, even by admins who frequently deal with deletion requests. Having a full article in a notable magazine dedicated to your life's story is not something ordinary and the deleting admin should have noticed that. Nothing that could conceivably survive AFD should ever be deleted as A7 but that does not mean A7 should have the same requirements as AFD. Regards SoWhy 14:11, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree with that, but from the discussion I linked, you'll see it's clear a lot of people don't, so I think it's clear it's important that A7 articles something along the lines of the idea that A7 is a lower standard than WP:N - it's for articles that give you no reason to think the subject might meet WP:N. Sources that go some way to it are one way, a short "Libby is a former ambulance driver who now works as the Queen of Canada, Belize, and a dozen or so other countries" also does, because that makes it likely there are good sources. WilyD 14:18, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

As an aside, keeping Lera Loeb at AfD was a clear mistake. Single worst AfD I've ever been a part of, none of the sources are at all independent of the subject and the subject IMO should still qualify for WP:A7 (except for the fact it doesn't, since it passed an AfD.) I probably screwed up by assuming the lack of notability was obvious on its face in the nom, but here we are. SportingFlyer T·C 14:31, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

And so yeah, this is a pretty clear indication of why A7 needs to be tied to WP:N. This kind of use of "independent" is highly idiosyncratic to Wikipedia, that comes from trying to fight spam without any real understand of what's going on. (and really, per Wikipedia:Identifying and using independent sources, the sources are fairly but not completely independent - they're not self-published, they're third party, but they're a mix of primary and secondary with more of the former. But a lot of people, even people who're well familiar with deletion policy, argued for A7 deletion because mail order brides aren't something they think should be important. WilyD 14:49, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

(ec) Thanks SoWhy, I had never seen that, and helps explains your (and DESiegel's concerns. I am not sure many contemporany editors (and admins), make the distinction between "importance or significance" and "notability" (and have knowledge of the original !vote)? Part of me wonders if this is a flaw in the original proposal to introduce non-defined terms (in a WP sense), as lower hurdles of WP-defined term, "notability"? For example, there are BLP subjects that pass at AfD via WP:N, but which the wider world would not consider to be "significant or important" people (i.e. it can imply a higher standard of "notability")? I see editors in the original proposal !vote noted the ambiguity. However, these terms were !voted on by the community? Britishfinance (talk) 14:30, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Britishfinance, I am not sure many contemporany editors (and admins), make the distinction between "importance or significance" and "notability" Which is why I think we should do away with the "importance or significance" terminology, and call it something else (I'm open to suggestions). It may have made sense when A7 was first enacted, but these days it's far, far, far too easily (and often!) confused with notability. Adam9007 (talk) 15:51, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

• Absolutely not. As SoWhy rightly points out, and as I tried to say above, the standard is and has been "importance or significance". To change that would require a wide and clear consensus, probably a rather stronger one than would be needed to adopt a new CSD, and I for one would be opposed. While I am very much a fan of BEFORE in AfDs, and it is certainly better for taggers or deleting admins to do a quick search before taggign or deleting, WP:BEFORE as it is curntly written describes more than just a web search, and is not suitable for referencing in a CSD. I would be willing to discuss some mention of a web search, but there would need to be more discussion of whether to include such a mention at all, before trying to draft language, in my view. CSD's generally depend on what is in the article, althoguh G12 is a spacial case. Note that A1 already mentions a web search, saying: If any information in the title or on the page, including links, allows an editor, possibly with the aid of a web search, to find further information on the subject in an attempt to expand or edit it, A1 is not appropriate. However, the CSD does not require such a search for most uses of A1. Even G12 does not require a further search once a source for the copyvio is identified, although it may well require checking past versions of the article. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 13:56, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose any sort of WP:BEFORE Based on my work at NPP, I'm of the opinion A7s should be relatively rare in practice, and they should be obvious on their face. Adding a WP:BEFORE element doesn't really make any sense. I generally agree CSDs should be based on the state of the article (with exceptions) but A7 shouldn't need to be an exception. The thing about A7 is, if you're not sure, or it might be at all notable, it's not an A7. SportingFlyer T·C 14:31, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
• Comment I have addressed this issue in User:Ritchie333/Plain and simple guide to A7, but to summarise, talking about subjective terms like "notability" and "significance" leads to confusion and disagreement, and a better way of dealing with it is "could anybody in the world possibly turn this into a non-stub decent article?" If it's blatantly obvious nobody could, it's an A7; if you're not sure, it's an AfD; if you can't be bothered to improve it and think nobody else can either, PROD. This procedure would work for DESiegel's example of 500 Miles High; the "could anybody possibly improve this?" question was an obvious "yes" in that instance. Another good example from my own experience is The White Mandingos, which on first inspection looks superficially rubbish but was clearly improvable. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:57, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

• (ec) I had not read that guide before but found it very interesting (and honest re the potential confusion on "significant" etc.); the guide's core test of could any independent editor reasonably improve this article so it would not be deleted at AfD?, is why as I said above, I usually do a mini-BEFORE before tagging as A7 (and I think I am not alone in that).

Not an exhaustive BEFORE, but my own test is that any declined A7 (without the decliner showing sources that I did not see), should be a strong AfD delete candidate. I can't see any other way to protect myself from the ambiguity regarding the definition (and be fair to authors), and I think Ritchie333's essay makes the same point? Britishfinance (talk) 16:10, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Another point hinted at in the essay, is that we are generally clued up on what policy is (or at least know where to educate ourselves), but the history of why a policy was created tends to be lost in the midst of time, leading to people acting on policy "because it's policy" - which I might describe as cargo cult encyclopedia writing ;-) In this case, A7 exists because we had too many articles on high school teachers, and that's what the policy was created for. If an article's not in the same ballpark as a high school teacher, it might not be what A7 was trying to get rid of. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:38, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

• Well this is a lot of words. To be honest, I was just thinking along the lines of something like This is distinct from verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability, as indicated by the article. This would make the second sentence more in line with the first, which specifies any article...that does not indicate, putting the onus on the article itself. GMG^talk 20:45, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree there is a lot of verbiage; anyway, I did a bit more spelunking into Wikipedia history and I think the trigger action for bringing A7 into existence can be found here - essentially an IP went round and created an article (this was pre Seigenthaler) about every teacher at his school, and was blocked for it. Since WP:ACPERM, the number of genuine A7s has dropped to a trickle. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:49, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Remember that A7 incorporated (or soon came to incorporate I don't recall the exact sequence, although I participated in the RfC) the formerly separate criterion in place to delete a flood of articles about garage bands and bar bands. These were almost never notable, and often included no indications of significance by anyone's standards. I think the separate concept of "significance" arose first in that context. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 13:57, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

This is incorrect. There was no previous criterion for bands, and A7 was not expanded beyond use for single persons for nearly five months (diff, discussion). —Cryptic 14:13, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

You are correct, Cryptic. My memory was in error. I should have double checked before posting a comment on the matter here. Comment struck DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 15:23, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: I think...part of A7 is that most editors writing on article on a notable subject should be able to exceed A7 entirely by accident. I appreciate the people who take (and have) extra time to do a pseudo-BEFORE and try to save every article possible, but I'm not sure it's required either by the letter or the spirit of the policy. At any rate, nothing is ever really deleted, and there's nothing preventing the offended author from dropping a note that itself exceeds A7, and any good faith admin should restore the article, and if needed, send it to AfD for further discussion. GMG^talk 22:56, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Separate discussion

• I think that perhaps the discussion over A7 should be moved to, or restarted on, a separate sub-page, where we can discuss both what the policy should be, and how that can be captured in perhaps better wording. I also want to draw people's attention to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/RHaworth, where allegedly improper speedy deletions, particularly A7s, seem likely to be a significant issue. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 14:02, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Increasing the scope of G5

Watchers of this page may be interested in the following VPPOL discussion: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) § Increasing the scope of WP:G5 vis-a-vis socking. Izno (talk) 17:49, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/QEDKbot

Please see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/QEDKbot, which is a proposal for an admin bot to tag and delete empty categories in accordance with WP:C1. — JJMC89 (T·C) 22:55, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

G11. Remove "Note: Any article that describes its subject from a neutral point of view does not qualify for this criterion."

I propose to remove the text "Note: Any article that describes its subject from a neutral point of view does not qualify for this criterion." from G11.

This clause in the context of the full wording (other wording in grey) is

This applies to pages that are exclusively promotional and would need to be fundamentally rewritten to serve as encyclopaedia articles, rather than advertisements. If a subject is notable and the content could plausibly be replaced with text written from a neutral point of view, this is preferable to deletion. Note: Any article that describes its subject from a neutral point of view does not qualify for this criterion. However, "promotion" does not necessarily mean commercial promotion: anything can be promoted, including a person, a non-commercial organization, a point of view, etc.

This clause has no support from G11's "main page" Wikipedia:Spam.

The clause has evolved over the years.

2006 Oct: "Wikipedia:Spam. Pages that exist only to promote a company, person, product, service or group." (the early G11, in its entirety)

The "Note" clause appears early, dissimilar to the current wording. Regular snapshots of the G11 Note clause are:

2007 Jan: "Note that simply having a company, product, group or service as its subject does not qualify an article for this criterion.

2007 Jul: "Note that simply having a company, product, group, service, or person as its subject does not qualify an article for this criterion; an article that is blatant advertising should have inappropriate content as well."

2008 Jul: "Note that simply having a company or product as its subject does not qualify an article for this criterion."

2010 Jul: "Note that simply having a company or product as its subject does not qualify an article for this criterion."

2012 Jul: "Note: An article about a company or a product which describes its subject from a neutral point of view does not qualify for this criterion."

2014 Jul: "Note: An article about a company or a product which describes its subject from a neutral point of view does not qualify for this criterion"

User:Hobit ("BOLD change here, I'm not sure why this would be restricted only to certain things. Feel free to flip back (with some hint as to why) and I'll open a discussion on talk") changed this to

2014 Dec: "Note: An article which describes its subject from a neutral point of view does not qualify for this criterion."

2016 Jul: "Note: Any article that describes its subject from a neutral point of view does not qualify for this criterion."

2018 Jul: "Note: Any article that describes its subject from a neutral point of view does not qualify for this criterion."

2020 Jan: "Note: Any article that describes its subject from a neutral point of view does not qualify for this criterion."

The current text is completed changed from "simply having a company or product as its subject". The removal of that text didn't break anything, that text was not needed. The new text, protecting NPOV spam from G11, is an illogical contortion of the preceding sentence, skipping the premise that the topic is notable.

In recent years, here at WT:CSD, there have been many calls to expand CSD to cover DraftSpace. The best almost-agreed proposal was to expand CSD#A11 ("Obviously invented") to drafts, but this was rejected largely by the argument: Where the issue is serious, CSD#G11 suffices.

Today's case is Draft:Sebby Frazer. Its content, in its entirety, is

Sebby Frazer is a YouTuber who currently has 23 subscribers and is a small YouTuber who does lots of Sport videos.

This is blatant promotion, squarely in the centre of the intent of G11. It serves only to promote the YouTuber; the name is unique, google will take you straight to his channel. He and it is not remotely plausibly notable. There are no suitable sources, so even if notable the content cannot be re-used. It should not be excluded from G11 on the basis of it being "neutral" promotion. Neutral promotion is a recent trend, also known as Native advertising. Attempting spam in NPOV language should not protect spam from G11. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:05, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

I would support this proposal. In my experience at NPP, there's quite a few articles that are written "neutrally" that use nothing but press releases as their sources. An article with that kind of sourcing will by definition be promotional, as any non-OR information will be from an inherently promotional source, and our CSD criteria should thus be able to be applied in this scenario. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 07:14, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Rosguill It is possible for an inexperienced editor, not aware of Wikipedia's sourcing standards, to write an essentially neutral article about a company or person sourcing it entirely to press releases or the company or person's own web site, when proper independent sources are available to support the same content. This proposal would make such articles speedy deletable, when all that is needed is to replace the PR sources with independent sources. I am not sure if I have seen an article or draft entirely so source, but I have certainly seen press releases and company web sites used when independent sources for the same facts were available, because a new editor did not know to search for independent sources. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 14:27, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

DESiegel, I'm not denying that such an article could be created in good faith. In my opinion, the problem is that if your only source of information is PR, no amount of good intentions is going to make the article neutral. The editor can remove all of the promotional adjectives, but at the end of the day all of the information in the article is information that the company wanted to tell the public about itself, and such an article has no business being in mainspace. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:38, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I see your point, Rosguill, and it might be that such an article would need to be deleted, but it seems to me that a decision of that kind needs to be made by consensus at an AfD, not by speedy deletion. And remember that G11 applies not only to mainspace, but to draft space and userspace, where there should be time an opportunity to correct drafts which can become valid articles, not delete them if they are fixable. (obviously this doesn't apply to pure copyvios, attack pages, hoaxes, or the like.) Do please consider that the speedy criteria will be applied widely, and should describe pages which there is wide consensus can and should be deleted without discussion. Such an argument at an AfD would be a very different matter, I think. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 17:10, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

DESiegel, that's a good point, I'd forgotten that it applies in draftspace as well. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:18, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose for a start this is asking us to delete articles on the basis of why we think the author wrote them, which is not a vaguely objective standard. In the case of the Sebby Frazer draft quoted above I can absolutely see somebody who isn't trying to promote the subject writing an article with that kind of wording, and the notability of the subject (or the available sources) have nothing to do with whether something is spam or not. WP:SPAM does say that spam articles (as opposed to linkspam) typically contain promotional wording: Wikispam articles are usually noted for sales-oriented language...When an article on an otherwise encyclopedic topic has the tone of an advertisement, the article can often be salvaged by rewriting it in a neutral point of view. Hut 8.5 07:34, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
• Misses the point - even if that sentence were removed, that draft still wouldn't be eligible for G11 deletion, because it doesn't require any kind of a rewrite to serve as an encyclopaedia article rather than advertisement. The question I start with when considering G11s is "if I wrote this article, would I re-use any of this text?" - if the answer is "no", then it needs a fundamental rewrite. If, like here, the answer is "yes, all of it", then it doesn't require any kind of re-write. Which is this case. It's an encyclopaedia article, it just doesn't get over (or near) the inclusion criterion. In article space, A7 would apply. In draft space, G13 will get it. If it's a persistent problem, you could consider MfD or SALTing, but I suspect such cases are quite exceptional. WilyD 07:57, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose, per basically what Hut 8.5 said. G11, like all criteria, is supposed to be objective and that means when deciding whether to delete, we have to focus on what is actually there and not what we think the creator might have intended. Remember this: Wikipedia only works because people donate their free time to write about subjects they are knowledgeable about. Oftentimes, these will also be subjects they care about and wish for more people to know about (for example, my first article back in 2004 was Hogfather because I'm a huuuuge Terry Pratchett fan and I wanted people to know about this book which did not have an article at the time). As long as they do so following our policies, it will end up improving Wikipedia. Regards SoWhy 08:21, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per the above. The example given is not a valid G11 in my book with or without this sentence. Sam Walton (talk) 10:04, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose What you're proposing is, in essence, a redefinition of G11. G11 doesn't simply mean 'Advertising'; it means 'Unambiguous advertising'. Sebby Frazer is a YouTuber who currently has 23 subscribers and is a small YouTuber who does lots of Sport videos. is far from unambiguous advertising, regardless of who wrote it. Anything written in a NPOV is not unambiguous advertising. All this'll do is make G11 even more subjective than it already is, and far too many people already think that COI and autobois mean automatic G11 as it is. This'll just encourage that thinking, even though intent is much harder to objectively analyse than content. For that reason, G11 should remain about content rather than intent. Adam9007 (talk) 16:06, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

  Adam9007, that's an A7, unless the creator is clearly the subject in which case it's also a G11 Guy (help!) 14:22, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

No, if it's not written in a promotional tone, it's not a G11. Nowhere in WP:G11 or WP:AUTOBIO does it say that autobios are automatic G11s. G11 is about content, not intent (perceived or proven). Adam9007 (talk) 15:42, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

• oppose that example isn't a G11. It is an A7 however. I'm not sure there is a problem here that needs fixing. Do you have other examples that don't fall under an existent criteria? Hobit (talk) 16:16, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

• Because it's in Draft: space, it's not an A7, in the example. WilyD 16:26, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

• Strictly speaking, the sentence is redundant. But if removing it would cause more people to mistag drafts like SmokeyJoe's example, that'd clearly be bad. —Cryptic 16:22, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

• OK, unexpected responses, and some astounding.

Hut 8.5. Is G11 about "why we think the author wrote them". No. the objective criteria are: (1) It is promoting, specifically this one is promoting YouTube channel by giving the key phase "Sebby Frazer" that takes you to it. The source is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC841DMVBXw_ZXgZQ2RfFz4A (2) There are no reliable sources, and a quick google reveals the only source is the YouTube channel, which is not a suitable source. (3) WP:BEFORE reveals, easily, that the channel and its author are non-notable.

You really think he is not trying to promote? The obvious intent is to attract more subscribers.

"Wikispam articles are usually noted for sales-oriented language". That's behind the times. "Sales-oriented language" is passe. The modern style is native advertising, advertise without the reader realizing.

"the article can often be salvaged by rewriting it in a neutral point of view" The more fundamental point here is that content that is wither made up (like the A11 standard), or is based on an unreliable source like Facebook where the author made it all, it cannot be salvaged, it is fundamentally unsuitable.

WilyD. "wouldn't be eligible for G11 deletion, because it doesn't require any kind of a rewrite to serve as an encyclopaedia article rather than advertisement." This means that you think the content can serve as an encyclopedic article, with less-than-a-fundamental rewrite? That's absurd.

"if I wrote this article, would I re-use any of this text?" " the answer is "yes, all of it". This is what I label "dishonest scholarship". You would take prose source from Facebook, and give it a false reference? When you write a scholarly essay, do you first write done what you think, and then second add reference that appear to support what you just wrote? That may pass some examiners, but it should be failed. Referenced material must be based on the reference that it is referenced to. You imply that you think this could be an article, which is to imply that there is a reliable source for it. What is that reliable source? If you were to add the real source, it becomes more obviously G11-eligible.

SoWhy, yes, lets look at what's there. What is there that can be keep in compliance with core content policies? This child is writing about their YouTube channel and he is seeking more subscribers. This is not comparable to your Hogfather version 1, not unless you are Terry Pratchett or his publisher. Being a fan of the subject is not like being the author of the subject. NB. That was 2004, and these days NPP would promptly PROD or Draftify that article.

Adam9007, yes, I would have G11 move away "obvious intent to advertise" to "serves to advertise an obviously non-notable product, and there are no acceptable sources for any of the content". I dispute that NPOV can be met by including zero sources. For honest scholarship, the sole source you tube channel would be included, and then it would obviously fail NPOV, because NPOV cannot me met by using 100% author sources. How is this subjective? Challenge question: Can you paraphrase G11 sentences 3 and 4 in your own objective language?

Hobit, yes, there are a great many new pages written into draftspace that are like this, no reliable sources, no claim of notability, and is promoting something about the author. Often, it is a postdocs's CV, or a clever new commercial product, or a YouTube channel deceptively advertised, or WP:YAMB. Often, it is a like this, a child, promoting something childish. Childish promotion should not be discouraged less than professional promotion.

So, if this page should not be speedy deletable, what should be done?

(a) Nothing, leave for AfC processes and G13?

(b) Discuss it at MfD

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:43, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Challenge question: Can you paraphrase G11 sentences 3 and 4 in your own objective language? I don't see how it can be made more objective than it already is. What's subjective about G11 is the 'Unambiguous' bit; what's unambiguous to some may not be unambiguous to others, and I've seen the line drawn at many different places by different editors. CSD is meant for obvious cases that most people can readily agree meets the criteria. We shouldn't be expanding CSD to cases where there is likely to be disputes over whether a given page meets the given criterion, which is what you're suggesting. We should be making G11 less subjective, not more so. Adam9007 (talk) 04:35, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, my interpretation of sentence 3 ("Note: Any article that describes its subject from a neutral point of view does not qualify for this criterion.") is that the article text has to be actively, pushily, attempting to persuade the reader about qualities of the subject. Merely putting your product description out there on Wikipedia is not G11-eligible. That's what you think G11 should be? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:02, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, It depends on how the product description is put on the article. If the article is written in an encyclopaedic tone, it's not a G11. Adam9007 (talk) 15:51, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I think you're letting your pursuit of your goal of deletion totally cloud your judgement. It's completely obvious that article is written in an encyclopaedic fashion, and wouldn't require any significant kind of re-write to be an encyclopaedia article, and a neutral one at that. The only reason it's not suitable for Wikipedia is that it massively fails WP:N, but WP:N has nothing to do with encyclopaedic-ness. Seriously, if you think it would need a massive re-write to be encyclopaedic, do a massive re-write to demonstrate how you think the same article would look. You'll find you wind up with pretty much the same prose (I'd probably split it into two sentences, but that's a very minor edit). You've really started with the conclusion that this is spam (it's possible that's the intent, I have no idea), and you're now trying to fit a round peg into a tesseract-shaped hole, which is why you're getting such a nonsensical answer. The article isn't referenced, which is bad from a Wikipedia perspective, but has nothing to do with whether it's written in an encyclopaedic fashion - many encyclopaedias don't include references at all. Scholarly encyclopaedias, yes. Children's encyclopaedias from the supermarket, not so much. And, of course, I can source all the information in the article to Youtube, which is a reliable source for the information in the article - it doesn't go to notability, but it's quite easy to confirm that it's true. If I were writing a journal article about this kid for some reason, and I said he has 23 subscribers, a number I just got from his youtube page, any academic journal would accept that just fine. Of course, sourcing it to Youtube would be worthless for WP:N purposes, but WP:N is the only problem here (and, as noted, A7 if it hit the article space). WilyD 06:19, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

G11 is blind to WP:Notability? That was unexpected, but I can accept it. Do you think it should be kept at MfD? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:56, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Really? What exactly has given you the impression G11 cares about notability? It can't have been the wording that includes no mention of notability at all. Regards SoWhy 08:48, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, in both directions - G11 doesn't mention notability, significance, or anything along those lines. You can G11 stuff that flies past notability if there's no usable content (for instance, I'd probably G11 any article about a company written in the 2nd person, even if that company had revenues of a hundred billion dollars a day). I can't see any argument for keeping at MfD (unless any sources that would go towards notability could be found, which seems unlikely), but I could imagine some principled pushback along the lines of the expectation set by G13 here is that people should get 6 months to try to work a draft up to a reasonable standard. If I saw it there, I doubt I would care enough to say anything either way. If someone kept making small edits to delay G13-ing of a totally hopeless article, I think MfD would be appropriate. I don't think MfD would want to be inundated with every draft that's going to be G13'd without any hope of ever being accepted. WilyD 08:50, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

There are plenty of times when it would be nice to have a speedy deletion criterion of "unencyclopedic crap", but it isn't a good idea, and that's basically what is being proposed here. The new suggested criteria in the above are "It is promoting" and "There are no reliable sources". The first is simply not a reason for deletion. An FA on a notable but obscure topic can make the subject better known, certainly it will likely appear as one of the top hits on Google and give you more information about the subject than anywhere else on the internet, but it's not a reason for deletion. I absolutely reject the idea that G11 has anything to do with whether there are reliable sources or whether the subject is notable. The two are completely distinct concepts. G11 is for pages which are blatantly and purely written to promote the subject, nothing else. There's a reason why deletions of non-notable articles are done through AfD and PROD. In mainspace this draft would qualify for A7. In draft space it could be sent to MfD but frankly I think that would be a waste of everyone's time and it should just be left for the G13 clock. Hut 8.5 07:51, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per various above. This could be the basis of a better article. Granted, as it stands now, it would be an easy A7 if moved out of Draft. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 04:44, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
  • So you would be !voting "keep" at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Sebby Frazer? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:52, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
• I honestly don't know what MfD does with draft articles like this. Is the consensus to delete things that are so far the WP:N bar that they won't ever be an article? I'm not a huge fan of draft space to begin with (I see the advantages, but I worry about AfC becoming a required gateway for articles...) and largely stay out of it. What is the current state of affairs? If these are commonly deleted at MfD, maybe a speedy criteria to cover them is appropriate. I don't think G11 would be the right one. Maybe some variation of A7? I don't know that I'd support that, but proposing a draft (and maybe userspace?) criteria for articles like this based on an even higher bar than A7 perhaps might well gain consensus. Hobit (talk) 23:19, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
  • MfD either goes with "delete" or "leave for G13". I try to discourage unimportant hopeless stuff like this going to MfD, because that will lead to MfD becoming standard processing for too much hopeless stuff that is not even worth the conversation. Some reviewers are irked at leaving completely obviously hopeless stuff for six more months. Past proposals here at WT:CSD for extending A11 and A7 to draftspace have been countered with "use G11 more liberally". I seem to have misread the sentiment for a more liberal interpretation of G11 for hopelessly non-notable pages. (Never before has DGG been quick enough to remove my db-g11 tag before someone deleted the page). --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:05, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
    • By the text of the page WP:BLPPROD would seem to apply to all namespaces (a draft biography is, in fact, a biography), though I believe trying that would be ... controversial. The principle makes sense to me (and it's a bit unfortunate that we're using this example, where the nominating statement indicating it could be a privacy problem is such obvious nonsense, because that could be a very legitimate concern on other drafts). In most cases, extending regular PROD to Draft space would probably also work fine (not sure how much support there'd be, but speedying articles that are probably hopeless but not a problem doesn't give newbies any chance even in Draft space. PROD-style ain't so bad for that.). I don't know who's telling you to be more liberal with G11, but if they're too liberal for DGG's taste, any such deletion would definitely be reversed at DRV. WilyD 13:04, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
• When reviewing speedy deletions for the currently ongoing Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/RHaworth I came across many pages tagged and speedy deleted for G11 when the content was things like "Ryan Dhesa is just a really cool guy", "I am cool", "Adithya Gireesh is a very cool kid (I should know because I am him). Please, Wikipedia, accept this article.", "hi my name is Akshal and im cool", etc. (only line breaks omitted, see evidence subpage for details). None of these, or the example that started this discussion, come remotely close to meeting the criteria for G11, but equally they would all be slamdunk A1, A3 and/or A7 deletions in article space. I'm strongly opposed to extending those criteria to draft space as is, but I can see benefit of deleting them sooner than 6 months after the last edit. I don't have a proposed wording yet that would meet all the requirements of WP:NEWCSD but I am thinking about it. Thryduulf (talk) 10:36, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Thryduulf, I would like to see your ideas for a NEWCSD for neutrally-written new drafts on obviously non-notable subjects for which there is a clear promotional angle. Yes, RHaworth was the usual deleting admin for these worthless pages, but there were other admins too. I think they are fine to be left to G13, but draftspace reviewers seem irked to be asked to let such worthless NOTWEBHOST violating material sit for so long (although I don't know why they review unsubmitted drafts). I am fine with them being blanked on sight, except others counter that this means the material will never be deleted, not by G13, although I counter again that spammers blanked edit histories being available to non-admins is a good thing. What bothers me is seeing brief NOTWEBHOST dumps in draftspace being nominated at MfD for a week+ of community review. A kid posting about their YouTube channel is a very typical example. I honestly though this was in scope for G11. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:12, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

But those examples do not describe their subject from a neutral point of view. That's a bit different than the Sebby Frazer example, which is neutral. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 22:27, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

@Ahecht and SmokeyJoe: "Neutrally-written new drafts ... for which there is a clear promotional angle" is an oxymoron. If it is neutrally written then it is not promotional, if it is promotional then it is not neutrally written (it is also possible to be non-neutral and not promotional). The examples I quote are not promotional at all, which is why being promotional or otherwise will have to be irrelevant to a CSD criterion to handle them. Thryduulf (talk) 23:20, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Sorry Thryduulf, I am not agreeing here. Draft:Sebby Frazer is obviously promotion. Promotion of himself, his YouTube channel, and especially if you like sports videos. NPOV writing style is a feature of native advertising. Sebby was doing native advertising. The world has grasped Wikipedia's NPOV writing style, and native advertising is the modern style of advertising. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:34, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't understand why you are persisting with this line of thinking when pretty much everybody else in this discussion has told you that Draft:Sebby Frazer is not promotion. By your definition every article about a company, product, band, group, author, event, country, visitor attraction or anything else that can be promoted is promotional - a point that multiple other people have made. Thryduulf (talk) 00:52, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose removing the note per everybody above. The original impetus for having the note was a series of G11 speedy deletions of articles about food products (mainly biscuits) that were unfamiliar to the (iirc) North American administrator who deleted them, but were trivially notable products very widely known in (again iirc) the UK and/or Australia. The deletions were all speedily overturned at DRV (I closed at least one mass nomination there [1]). Removing it would allow the same to happen again, even though that it is clearly not the proposer's intent. Thryduulf (talk) 10:45, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose G11 should be reserved for pages that blatantly and unabigiously promote something or someone. Merely enabling a reader to find a web page or a youtube channel is not blatant promotion. If Draft:Sebby Frazer were to come up at MfD, I would expect soem editors to opt for deletion essentially on the ground of "not notable, and never will be". And as it stands, this certainly does not demonstrate notability, and would be an A7 in article space. But one of the points of draft space is to allow time and opportunity to get a draft right, to find and include needed sources and stamens based on those sources. It is possible, albeit unlikely, that there are sources out there which cover Frazer in such a way that notability would be established. Thus at an MfD, I would incline to a "keep" outcome. In my experience, such MfDs can go either way, and ther eis no clear consensus which can be relied on in advance. Thus such pages are notr proper speedy deletion candidates. In more general terms, a page that describes the subjset in accord with NPOV would be a valid article if notability is also established. If this were passed, most pages on notable companies ought to be deleted under G11, as they do serve to attract people to their web sites and products, and thus serve a promotional function as well as an informational function. This change would be a very bad idea indeed. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 19:45, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Most pages on notable companies do not have zero independent sources. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:02, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
    • G11 has nothing to do with how many sources are cited. Plenty of promotional articles and drafts, properly deleted as such, include citations to independent sources. If the argument that merely by existing, a neutral article about a company or a person can attract attention and patrons or followers to the subject, or traffic to its website and therefore is subject to G11 deletion, the presence of independent sources is no bar to such a deletion. Any projected attempt to apply such a revised criterion to all the cases that it says it applies to makes it obvious that it would be unwise and improper, as i see it. Unless the proposal is to revise G11 further so that sources give an exemption? but that was not included in the proposal as written. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 21:19, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
      • Tell me, DES, if I am wrong again, but "G11 has nothing to do with how many sources are cited" sort of crosses with "would need to be fundamentally rewritten to serve as encyclopaedia article", because if there are suitable sources, the content sourced to those suitable sources must be presumed to be re-writable. The presence of suitable sources means judgement is required, and so speedy deletion should not be used. I have routinely g11-tagged unsourceable promotion (even if neutral) and seen it promptly deleted, and never tagged a suitable sourced page because wording NPOV issues are fixed by editing. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:00, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
        • SmokeyJoe, If content is sourced, but is totally promotional in tone and manner, cherry picking the facts, it will need a fundamental re-write (as G11 says) even if the same sources are used. Source can be reliable but biased. I have certainly seen articles and drafts about small-moderate companies that may have been notable, but were written as total promotion, even though they cited at least some valid sources. At least in some such cases, I would delete such as G11, and have done so in the past. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 23:27, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

• Everyone should understand that notability and promotion are orthogonal. We can have, and have had, promotional articles about clearly notable subjects, that were deleted as promotional, but could have been recreated if NPOV were followed. We have had non-promotional articles about clearly non-notable subjects. I recall at the height of the debates on school notability someoen wrote an article about the elementary school (K-3) down the street from where I then lived. It was reasonably written, and not particularly promotional, but the school ws not notable. I AfD'd it and it was kept because some editors at that time wanted to keep all articles about all schools. Later it was quietly redirected to the article about the school district because it wasn't separately notable. But it was never promotional, largely because it complied with NPOV. If we allow neutral articles to be deleted as spam (G11) because they might serve to direct attention and web traffic to the subject, what is to prevent the deletion of clearly notable topics. And more often, what is to prevent the deletion of drafts about topics which may prove to be notable, but which have not yet been developed? Remember that speedy deletions do not require a WP:BEFORE search. I will cite again this example That revision cited no sources, and might have driven traffic to the author or the album. Suppose there had been cited as a source an amazon or itunes page selling the album? Would that have been deletable under a revised G11? If not, why not? DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 22:00, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose G11 is for blatent promotion. If you want to create a new CSD for "Articles designed to let people know about a non-notable subject", that would be a separate discussion. --Ahecht (TALK
  PAGE) 22:27, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
  • I believe that has been the gist of previous WT:CSD discussions for extending A7 and A11 to draftspace, to which some answered that this would overlap with G11. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:00, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
    • An overlap does not mean that every (or even most) articles that fall under 1 criteria also fall under another. In article space there are articles that meet all of A7, A11 and G11, some that meet only two of them and some that meet only 1 (in all combinations). Thryduulf (talk) 23:26, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
      • The way I usually word it at AfD is that an article with clear promotionalism and bioderline notability should be deleted; but this is for AfD, where we can get community views on each instance. It would in my opinion be mch to subjective for Speedy. DGG ( talk ) 23:40, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Reposts of merged categories

Do reposts of categories that were merged per CFD discussions apply under G4? I've seen a few nominations treating them as eligible, even though this does not seem to ever have been clarified. Glades12 (talk) 13:35, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Short answer: If it will not be controversial/if it's an obvious no-brainer, just do it. Otherwise go slow or even do a full-blown CFD.

Long answer: Generally "CSD-G4 (previous xFD deletion) + CSD-C1 (empty category)" or "de-populate then G4+C1" is a good way to handle it unless there is a clear intent for the category name to be used for something completely unrelated to the merger discussion, for example, if the CSD said "merge Category:Apples in Florida and Category:Oranges in Florida to Category:Fruits in Florida" but someone created a new category "Category:Apples in Florida" for all topics related to the notable band "Apples in Florida" (stylized with a lowercase "i" in "in"), that would be fine. However, be careful if the category is populated - if the previous CFD gave guidance on how to move files to other categories, do that before deleting the category. If it did not - that is, if the particular pages in the category seem unrelated to the CSD, it may be a case of "same name, but really a different category" like in the fictional music example above.

In any case, unless it's a "no brainer" situation, I would do the deletion "slowly" - put a note on the category description page saying the category is in the process of being cleaned out, and link to the CSD. Notify editors who are adding things to the category and ask them to stop. If it's potentially controversial, don't be a slave to G4, discuss it first.

Sidebar: Wikipedia really needs a concept of "no additions allowed" for categories, that would prevent users without advanced user-rights from adding things to a category that is undergoing deletion, merging, etc. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:14, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

@Davidwr: There is no specific category that I'm considering nominating; I just want this clarified for future editors. Glades12 (talk) 07:38, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

WP:C1

So, criterion WP:C1 "applies to categories that have been unpopulated for at least seven days". How is that determined? Where do we find the history of how and when a cat was (de)populated? Sorry if this is a dumb question, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:35, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

There isn't such a history. One would presumably check the history of articles that the cat would belong on, as well as the editing histories of the category creator and of the editor who tagged it for deletion. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 19:43, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

@Justlettersandnumbers: You can get a partial list of changes to category membership by adding the category to your watchlist and making sure your watchlist filters are set to have either nothing checked in "type of change" or have "category changes" checked. I say partial, because I've seen pages NOT show up in my watchlist as they go in or out of categories. But if a page DOES show up in your watchlist as having gone in or out of a category in the last 7 days, it did. If the pages on your watchlist are very active, you may not be able to see more than a few days back. If that is the case, temporarily clear your watchlist except for the category itself, then reload Special:Watchlist. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 21:56, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for replies. If I come to a category tagged as C1, how can I know whether it meets the criterion and can be deleted? Should we not have some kind of "smart" tag, perhaps similar to the G13 tag which is (usually) green if the page is eligible for deletion, red if it is not? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:26, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

I just check that the category is currently empty and has been tagged for at least seven days, then delete it (AFAIK the category only shows up in CAT:CSD if it has been tagged for at least seven days). If it isn't empty, I remove the tag. While this isn't perfect, it tends to work in practice, as there are rarely population/depopulation wars without someone removing the speedy tag and restarting the clock. —Kusma (t·c) 22:35, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Why is it on 30/500?

How come criteria for speedy deletion is on 30/500? Was it vandalized under semi, or what? And if it is vandalized so much, why not put it on template or full protection like Wikipedia:Reusing Wikipedia content, where the talk page is also semi protected until the morning of March 8, 2021? I am just confused. Gale5050 (talk) 20:10, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

@Gale5050: this page was protected by DeltaQuad last April with the reason Nothing ever good has come out of non-EC editors editing this high end policy page. Iffy★Chat -- 22:18, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reusing Wikipedia content is a legal policy, those are usually heavily locked down and there are limits to what can be changed because they have to be approved by actual lawyers. None of that applies here. Hut 8.5 22:57, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

The exact wording of CSD criteria can be extremely important in determining what can and cannot be speedily deleted, and so it is important that any changes are done with careful thought to the consequences and that any significant change is done with explicit consensus (see also WP:NEWCSD). Experience shows that this is frequently not understood by new editors (it is different to how most of Wikipedia works), and there have been multiple instances of new users changing the criteria so a page they want to keep is not eligible and/or one they want deleted is. Thryduulf (talk) 10:03, 27 February 2020 (UTC)