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Add mention of WP:BLPDELETE to WP:CSD

Propose adding to the page the CSD criterion "BLPDELETE".

This is a speedy criterion that has been in practice for several years. I suggest it should be added after G13, but not given a number, as it is already well known as "BLPDELETE"

The current main policy section covering is:

It is also mentioned at:

Its origin and more information is at:

I suggest that the text added should be:

Location, new last Level 4 heading under Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#General

BLPDELETE. Pages in violation of the Biographies of living persons policy
Refer to Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Summary deletion, creation prevention, and courtesy blanking (WP:BLPDELETE).
See also:
Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Deletion of biographies and BLPs (WP:BIODELETE) and
Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Editing of Biographies of Living Persons#Special enforcement on biographies of living persons (WP:BLPBAN).

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:36, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

withdraw in favour of SoWhy's better idea. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:26, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
WP:BLPDELETE and the relevant part of WP:BLPBAN are already covered by G10. WP:BIODELETE hasn't the first thing to do with speedy deletion. —Cryptic 02:37, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
I think that is not true, and certainly not clear. G10 mentions BLP, but tied to "negative in tone". {{Db-negublp}} predates BLPBAN. The overlap of G10 with BLPDELETE is quite limited, BLPDELETE does not require negative intention. Aside from BLPPROD, there is no other mention of BLP on the entire page. WP:BIODELETE, which explicitly references BLP, speaks to the broader picture of BLP deletion within which speedy deletion sits. Cryptic, are you opposing any improvement documentation at CSD that BLPDELETE is a speedy deletion criterion? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:21, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
WP:BLPDELETE does specifically relate to non-neutral material and a large part of it does involve the negative unsourced material covered by G10: "Summary deletion is appropriate when the page contains unsourced negative material or is written non-neutrally". Hut 8.5 06:46, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
I don't think we need to include a criterion for this here. This policy isn't intended to contain every valid reason for deleting a page. Its major use is for summary deletion reasons which aren't documented elsewhere. The proposed criterion wouldn't serve any useful explanatory function as it just directs the reader to another page, and anyone who looks up BLPDELETE would end up at the BLP policy anyway. Nor is there any doubt that people are allowed to perform BLPDELETE deletions under policy. The proposed heading is also misleading as BLPDELETE is a lot stricter than just violating BLP. Hut 8.5 06:46, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
The policy *is* intended to contain every valid reason to *speedy* delete a page. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:58, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
The introduction to the policy does imply that the cases listed are the only valid reasons to delete a page outside of XfD and PROD, but that's not actually true. Pages listed at WP:CP for at least seven days can be deleted at the discretion of the reviewing admin, for example. You'd also be justified in speedily deleting something under Wikipedia:Child protection. I'm happier with SoWhy's alternative idea. Hut 8.5 20:38, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
WP:CP is copyright problems - which would probably fall within G11 G12, so that's what I would pick from the drop-down. Similarly, for child protection, G10 is likely to apply. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:43, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
I had never stumbled onto WP:CP before. I think you mean G12? I thin CP sounds more like an XfD/PROD process. The disguising feature of a speedy deletion is that an admin might delete it without advertising it anywhere. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:59, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
Sorry, G12 not G11. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:52, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
G12 is supposed to be for unambiguous copyright violations. Any other types of copyright violations should go to WP:CP, and it's a separate reason in the deletion dropdown. It's not really an XfD process as there's no sort of consensus determination involved and it isn't like PROD as it doesn't result in (usually) automatic deletion. The reviewing admin just has the option to delete a page which has been there for seven days if that's what they think is necessary to resolve the problem. It is in that sense closer to speedy deletion in that it involves a judgement call by a single admin. Hut 8.5 12:05, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Television stations and A7

Back in March when this article was created, an editor tagged it as A7. The nom was declined with the admin saying "A7 does not apply to TV stations". Excuse the pun, but that's news to me. I generally think of TV stations as companies.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:36, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

The decline reason might sound too absolute but I do agree with the general reasoning. You will have a hard time finding TV stations that have not some degree of coverage anywhere and no claims of significance whatsoever. Take your example, it can easily be redirected to Heartland (TV network)#Tennessee per WP:ATD and has a RS covering one of its shows. Regards SoWhy 14:41, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
(ec) Given it takes a lot of money and a specific government licence to create an actual terrestrial TV station (as opposed to an internet-only one, which any old Joe Schmoe can do and hence can fall under {{db-web}}), the odds of it being mentioned at least in one reliable source are pretty high. Also, the company that runs the station may change while the station's ident remains the same. The ground rule of A7 is - you are about to unilaterally delete something without discussion and shortcut the regular consensus-based deletion process, so if in doubt, don't. User:Ritchie333/Plain and simple guide to A7 explains more. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:43, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
But being mentioned in at least one reliable source does not provide a claim of notability. Natureium (talk) 14:45, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
A claim of notability is not required for A7. The criterion uses a lower standard for a reason. Regards SoWhy 14:48, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Indeed. Try running for RfA and say that A7 means "not notable" - you'll get a bunch of opposes! Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:49, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
For that matter, A7 doesn't have anything to do with sources at all. Plenty of things are mentioned in reliable sources that can make no credible claim of significance. Natureium (talk) 14:55, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Not directly, however, coverage in reliable sources indicates that there might be something worth having. After all, if significant coverage establishes notability, some coverage should be enough to establish significance as a lower standard. Regards SoWhy 15:24, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) Such prevarication. The decline reason was wrong. Assuming the station article has a credible claim of significance, it should have been declined for that reason. Redirecting an a7 is another kettle of fish.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:52, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
If the decline was wrong, it would have been nominated at AfD and SNOW deleted, surely? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:53, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Surely not. Lots of non-notable articles at Wikipedia don't get taken to AfD.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:58, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Clarify CSD G6 (Db-disambig)

Hi. I think I may be misunderstanding the criteria for CSD G6 (disambig) and some clarification would be greatly appreciated. The criteria says it applies to pages that "disambiguates only one extant Wikipedia page and whose title ends in "(disambiguation)" (i.e., there is a primary topic)". As I understood it (based on WP:ONEOTHER), that meant disambiguation pages that have "(disambiguation)" in their title and list only one other possible entry other than the primary topic. However, I tagged Aleksandr Yatsko (disambiguation) under CSD G6 which was declined by Spinningspark with the reason "The page disambiguates more than one article. Further, the primary topic does not have a disambiguation header." So to clarify, the "only one extant Wikipedia page" refers to all the entries including the primary topic? And the "whose title ends in "(disambiguation)"" refers to the title of the primary topic and not the title of the dab page itself? Thanks in advance for any clarification on this. Bennv3771 (talk) 10:27, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

I think you are definitely misreading the criterion. Note [3] in the guideline reads "If it links to only one article and does not end in (disambiguation), simply change it to a redirect." That is clearly differentiating that case from zero disambiguations. If that were not the case, there would be no need for the note. You refer to WP:ONEOTHER, but seem to have failed to read that the disambiguation page ought to be marked with {{One other topic}} for "a period of time". If you had done that and it had not been challenged, and had added a hatnote to the primary topic, I might have considered it uncontroversial and deleted, but it would still be slightly in IAR territory. And that's putting aside the question of whether the footballer really can be considered a primary topic, which I find dubious to say the least and this might really be WP:NOPRIMARY. As it was, without the hatnote, there would have been no disambiguation left at all, so it was a no-brainer decline. SpinningSpark 11:10, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
@Spinningspark: Thanks for the clarification. I see your point about adding {{One other topic}} instead. Note [3] in the guideline refers to disambiguation pages that do not end with "(disambiguation)" though, which Aleksandr Yatsko (disambiguation) does. Bennv3771 (talk) 11:14, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
That's right. If only the primary topic: Pages without "(disambiguation)" are redirected to the primary topic. Pages with "(disambiguation)" are speedy deleted. --Bsherr (talk) 11:17, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
Yes, I realise the note does not apply to this case. What it does do is clarify the counting system (whether counting from zero or one). SpinningSpark 11:19, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Should G3 apply to user sandboxes?

Recently I have seen several user sandboxes being deleted under criteria G3. This is usually because the text in them describes a fictional character, organization, or event. If such pages are outside of the sandboxes, then they should be speedily deleted as hoaxes. However, the Sandbox is meant to be used for testing. The sandbox even has a disclaimer ({{user sandbox}}) saying that the page is not an encyclopedia article. {{uw-vandalism1}} even tells users to use the sandboxes if they wish to experiment. So in my opinion, CSD G3 should not apply to sandboxes. Of course, other criteria (such as G10) should apply to the sandboxes no matter what. funplussmart (talk) 12:11, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

While WP:Vandalism applies in any namespace and to any page, sandboxes should only be deleted as such if bad faith creation is evident. This does include drafts that are evidently hoaxes since sandboxes are not a place where you can create your hoax for later use. Other than that, it's hard to answer the question since it always depends on the circumstances. Regards SoWhy 12:18, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
If a user sandbox is being used to host a draft article (especially an AfC submission) then yes I think it's perfectly reasonable to delete it under G3 if it's a hoax. Hut 8.5 20:48, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
The problem is that I am seeing G3 being applied to good faith fictional content where the author has made it clear that the subject is not real. funplussmart (talk) 21:36, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
There has been some previous discussion about this. See Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 33#Userpage exception for G1 and G3. Wikipedia:User pages#User pages that look like articles already explains (very well, I personally think) when G3 should be applied to a user page, so I'd propose simply paraphrasing that explanation: "For pages in the user namespace, it applies to fake articles that egregiously present false information." What do you think? --Bsherr (talk) 00:11, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
I think that if it is within the author's own sandbox (not another user's) and the author never attempts to present any fictional content in the sandbox as fact, then G3 should not apply. I can think of a scenario in which a good-faith editor would create a fake article in their sandbox: If the author is not experienced in the creation of articles, they can practice creating some in their sandbox. We can consider such pages experimental pages, which is exactly what sandboxes are for. Now the sandbox should NEVER be moved outside of the editor's own user space. Doing so would of course obviously be vandalism, which G3 covers. But, as SoWhy said, such sandboxes should only be deleted if bad faith is evident. funplussmart (talk) 21:36, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
Never attempting to present any fictional content in the sandbox as fact sounds consistent with not egregiously presenting false information, yes? --Bsherr (talk) 11:06, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
Yes it does, Bsherr. funplussmart (talk) 04:01, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
Note also that an article about a fictional subject that does not make it clear the subject is fictional could be an attempt to mislead, it could be written from an in-universe perspective (e.g. by someone who doesn't know Wikipedia's policies about this), or it could just be poorly written. Only some of the first sort are going to be vandalism. Thryduulf (talk) 12:40, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Proposed tweak to T3

I have always used T3 in deleting unused templates of election results tables when they duplicate a table hardcoded into an article (and got at least a couple of hundred redundant templates deleted as a result). However, a few were recently turned down on the basis that the wording of T3 doesn't allow this. Given that it seems to be a widely accepted practice to accept this interpretation (the most recent one I nominated under T3 was deleted), I wondered whether we could amend the wording of T3.

Currently it reads:

Templates that are substantial duplications of another template, or hardcoded instances of another template where the same functionality could be provided by that other template, may be deleted after being tagged for seven days.

Perhaps it could be reworded as:

Templates that are substantial duplications of another template, hardcoded instances of another template where the same functionality could be provided by that other template,or unused templates that duplicate content hardcoded into an article, be deleted after being tagged for seven days.

Cheers, Number 57 20:19, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Proposal of mojibake redirects criterion

It is already impossible to edit Wikipedia with old Unicode-impaired browsers, and there is a clear consensus for deleting redirects catering to such browsers, see this RfD discussion. I propose to add the following criterion as a sub-criterion of G6 (uncontroversial maintenance:

I propose this because I've successfully speedied several such redirects per either WP:G4 (recreation of page deleted per XfD), or {{db-xfd}} (XfD closed but page not deleted), pointing the administrators to the above discussion. Thus, adding this new criterion will not make any new pages speedyable, but it will leave the G4 queue for actual recidivists. As there are countless ways to get mojibake and such redirects are gonna get speedied anyway and are still sometimes being created, i propose ) either adding a {{db-mojibake}} template, or expanding the wording in {{db-error}} to accomodate them.

The “provided that” clause is to make this criterion uncontestable and exclude from the criterion misencodings of the byte order mark () and the replacement character (�), since they are likely to be misencoded consistently andd searched for, and the target pages talk about the misencoding. Nowak Kowalski (talk) 15:26, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

I have created Category:Redirects from mojibake to track non-examples of the proposed criterion. Nowak Kowalski (talk) 16:08, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose because some encoding errors are common (as noted) and so provide useful search terms, and because there are so many possible different encoding errors it is not possible to reliably distinguish between them and other sorts of errors (which may or may not be worthy of a redirect). By all means nominate them at RfD but they require human discussion. It's not completely clear from your post, but if you have been nominating redirects for G4 speedy deletion when those specific redirects have not been discussed and deleted at RfD previously then this is an abuse of speedy deletion and must stop immediately. Thryduulf (talk) 16:50, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Why? How does it improve the project to delete those harmless redirects? Are the causing any problems? Confusion? Deleting redirects creates more work than keeping them does, so one should be able to explain why they should be deleted anyway. Regards SoWhy 17:44, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per SoWhy. No actual problem apparently needs solving and no benefit is derived, plus their is the potential to do harm. It is claimed that it is "impossible to edit Wikipedia with old Unicode-impaired browsers" (evidence?), but that is irrelevant. The relevant question is, is it possible to read Wikipedia with an old browser? Are any of these browsers still in use? Where is the evidence for this? SpinningSpark 17:56, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
    Moreover, if somebody does fancy running an ancient, Unicode-impaired browser, why not make their life a little easier? – Joe (talk) 18:04, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
    Workarounds for Unicode-impared browsers have been removed with this Phabricator ticket. There is now a hidden field on the edit page with the text “ℳ𝒲♥𝓊𝓃𝒾𝒸ℴ𝒹ℯ” — any edit attempt which mangles these characters (this is not a requirement of font support!) is blocked. You seem to be concerned about users of old browsers. Rest assured that they can't read Wikipedia, as the servers require modern versions of TLS (encryption) to connect — see my below comment. Nowak Kowalski (talk) 15:18, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
    If I'm reading this report right, then since 4 August 2018 there have been people viewing Wikipedia using browsers including Internet Explorer 4 (which I believe has no unicode support) and Internet Explorer 6 (which has incomplete support at best). Thryduulf (talk) 22:22, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
    You must be reading it wrong, because anyone running a Windows version so old to have IE6 or below would not be able to even connect to Wikimedia servers with IE, see wikitech:HTTPS/Browser Recommendations: “Our sites no longer allow pageviews from IE-on-XP at all.” My random guess as due to why you are seeing these entries is user agent spoofing. Nowak Kowalski (talk) 15:18, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
    That might all be true but can you really be certain that there are no readers with TLS-compatible browsers and encoding-problems? Also, you seem to forget that there might still be links on other pages pointing to mojibake article titles which will break if we delete them. For that reason alone, both WP:R#KEEP and WP:EXTERNALROT suggest keeping redirects whenever possible. So there are multiple reasons to keep those but I've yet to hear a reason to delete them. Regards SoWhy 17:00, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose The group of these is too diverse, with an unclear boundary. So RFD should be used. en-masse RFDs should be OK for similar encodings. If RFD actually comes up with a clear consensus on particular kinds of redirects, and there are a lot of them them make up a speedy delete criterion, but presumably these are not being created much now-a-days. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:29, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

CSD F2 applicable to DYK images?

See [1], [2] and recent Special:Contributions/Innotata @Innotata:

These local description pages all seem to involve DYK use, which per Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive_44#Description_pages_for_Commons_images_-_F2 are specifically exempted from F2? Andy Dingley (talk) 22:01, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

This makes sense for featured pictures, but it really doesn't for DYK, since the whole DYK image tag and category system can be and has been replicated exactly on Commons - a number of images have only ever been tagged on Commons - and there's no need to keep a canonical list of past DYK images as there is for current featured pictures. In fact, most images featured on DYK today aren't tagged at all as it's become optional. —innotata 22:09, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
Featured images can be marked as such on Commons, see c:Category:Featured pictures on Wikipedia, English. What's the difference? --Stefan2 (talk) 23:10, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
Indeed, and some other language versions don't use local descriptions to tag featured media. However, with featured pictures the Commons tag doesn't work exactly the same way, and there's seen to be a need to categorise all featured pictures locally because their status as featured picture is ongoing; DYK images don't have any ongoing status, they can't be demoted. So there isn't any justification for the duplication of tags... —innotata 02:23, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
Actually, thinking about it, why do I care anyway? It's only DYK, not anything important. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:26, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

G4 and redirects

Per the evidence of G4 misuse identified above in relation to mojibake redirects (and confusion in an RfD a few days ago that it applied to redirects created at the same title as an article deleted at AfD), it might be worth clarifying in the criteria how G4 applies to redirects.

My understanding is that both the title and target need to be identical, or almost identical, to a redirect deleted at RfD. Different spelling errors, accents/ligatures/diacritics, phrasing, typos, etc. in the title means it is significantly different.

If an article is deleted under G4, redirects to it can be deleted under G10 G8 but not G4 unless the redirect was discussed independently of its target, no matter how many times the target has been deleted.

Redirects created at the title of a page deleted at AfD/MfD/TfD/CfD are not eligible for G4 speedy deletion unless there was active discussion of redirects in the XfD with consensus against redirecting it, and even then this does not apply if the redirect is created to an unrelated target.

I do not know how to condense this into something suitable for incorporation into the criteria. Thryduulf (talk) 22:06, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps this can be condensed to Redirects are only eligible for G4 if their title and target are exactly identical to the discussed redirect. Tazerdadog (talk) 03:50, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

  • That would leave some edge cases, e.g. when the target page is moved and the recreated redirect is pointed to identical content at the new target (either initially or by a double redirect being fixed), however they are unlikely to pose any significant burden on RfD, so its almost certainly an acceptable tradeoff for the unbeatable simplicity. Thryduulf (talk) 12:02, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
  • G4 already says it only applies to recreation of pages that are sufficiently identical to the deleted version. Neither a redirect created in place of an article nor a redirect that is similar to one that was discussed is eligible for speedy deletion under G4. If an admin does so, it's a problem with the admin, not with the criterion. Regards SoWhy 17:03, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
    • The problem is that the interpretation of "sufficiently identical" is being taken to include other redirects of the same type as some discussed at RfD (see the section above), which is wrong but understandable so some clarification is needed. Thryduulf (talk) 18:54, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
  • If an article is deleted under G4, redirects to it can be deleted under G10 G10? You mean G8 surely? Adam9007 (talk) 20:32, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Your proposal is redundant; if either title or target is different from what was deleted before, it's quite obviously not a repost. There's no reason to tolerate G4 deletions of redirects in any other condition. Nyttend (talk) 01:36, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Why does G5 say "substantial edits" and G7 say "substantial content"?

Also, there is a very blurry line between minor copyediting and major copyediting with regards to G5. wumbolo ^^^ 16:48, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

The difference in wording reflects that the purposes of those two speedy criteria are different. For an article created by a sock of a banned user, we don't want to encourage that behaviour by leaving their articles in the mainspace. But this is not a strict obligation, and editors are allowed to argue that leaving the article would benefit the encyclopedia. Making substantial changes to an article, such as removing paragraphs of fancruft or adding references, is one way of doing that.
As for the fuzzy line between minor and substantial copyediting, if you're in doubt consider PROD or AfD instead of speedy. Reyk YO! 08:26, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
When it comes to speedy deletion (under whatever criterion), if you're not certain that something is deletable, then tagging something for speedy deletion is never appropriate. As Reyk says, if you're feeling that something is borderline, don't tag it. ‑ Iridescent 08:30, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
Amen to that. Regards SoWhy 09:04, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

G13 for userspace drafts

Why do we delete these, anyway? Take your typical abandoned draft that's in a userspace sandbox: we might be deleting older (unrelated) content in past revisions, and I don't quite get the point. Why don't we just blank these pages instead? It's one thing to find blank pages in draftspace, mainspace, etc., but in userspace a blank page is perfectly harmless. (We already have an exception for blanking userspace pages: G7 cannot be applied to a userspace page merely because the creator blanked it.) Of course, if there's any problem with the content or the history, the situation's totally different; I'm only talking about deleting a page that qualifies for deletion only under G13. Nyttend (talk) 23:33, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

PS, if we just blanked these instead of deleting them, we could save a good deal of human labor. We currently have bots that tag G13 candidates; if we started blanking old userspace drafts, rather than deleting them, we could instruct the bots to do the blanking themselves, since (unlike deletion) anyone can reverse that kind of action, and a false positive won't have a significant effect as long as the bot's standard "you have an abandoned draft" message contains instructions on how to use the page history to perform a revert. Nyttend (talk) 23:36, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

So if someone wants to start another draft on the same topic, they keep the history that's unrelated to the current draft? That seems unnecessary. Natureium (talk) 00:43, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
I'm not clear about your intention, so let me give an example. You create a page in your sandbox, you get tired of it, you blank it, you write a draft article in the sandbox, you submit it through the AFC process, and it gets rejected. You don't bother to do anything more with it, so after six months the bot tags it. Under the current system, the page gets deleted: not only the abandoned draft, but the other stuff too. If you'd just left it blank, you would have retained the old stuff, which is good if you ever want to go back and try again. Why delete it when blanking would work? Since I'm talking about content that doesn't warrant deletion under some other criterion, I can't see the benefit, especially as a bot could do the blanking without a problem because anyone (including the user who created it) can just put it back in the event of a mistake by the bot. Nyttend (talk) 02:23, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
I like this quite a lot, and think something like a pure wiki deletion system should work well in user space. The only downside I can see is that if all is done by bots, we lose an opportunity to let humans check whether the page should be deleted for a reason other than G13. But on the whole, if we can avoid going through WP:REFUND, why not? —Kusma (t·c) 05:18, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Because Wikipedia is not a free web host. Guy (Help!) 08:54, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
  • We do only delete via G13 drafts in userspace created by AFC, which I imagine likes to keep its pool of drafts clear of the garbage. Other drafts in user space must be processed through MFD. --Izno (talk) 13:19, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
    • Yes, but I'm not clear why you're saying that. I'm talking about blanking, rather than deleting, AFC-created drafts in userspace. And JzG, doesn't blanking generally suffice for enforcing NOTWEBHOST? For example, if you find that someone created a wiki-game page in userspace and then blanked it (a long time ago), and the page hasn't been edited since, would you be inclined to take the page to MFD? Nyttend (talk) 21:32, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
      • I'm making sure you're aware it's only AFC drafts in user space since we sometimes have a confused editor show up thinking it's any draft in user space. As for the why, here is the original RFC and here is the implementing RFC. Feel free to peruse. --Izno (talk) 21:53, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
        • I'm well aware of the origins of the criterion; if you peruse, you'll see that I participated in (and supported) the discussion that resulted in the creation of G13. So once again, why do you mention MFD, since it's totally irrelevant to the issue of G13-deleting-versus-blanking of AFC-process userspace drafts? And how is blanking a problem from AFC's point of view? Like deleting, blanking helps to clear the garbage from the AFC pool. Nyttend (talk) 22:19, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

I regularly blank useless AFC submissions in userspace. Most are so useless there is no point moving the page to Draft space. The current system of a bot listing the pages for action is better than the suggested blanking - which would result in most of this junk never beeing blanked. I am not sure what exactly is being proposed but it sounds like a move that would make cleanup less systematic. Legacypac (talk) 03:03, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Why would systematically blanking pages lead to most of them never being blanked? —Kusma (t·c) 08:45, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
There is no system to bring them forward after some time stale to be blanked. You are free to blank them of course but how will you find them? Also without G13 the official sanction to remove them is gone so you will face criticism for mass blanking by the process for process crowd. Also there are tens of thousands of problematic non AfC userspace pages that should be removed but very few editors work on them. Legacypac (talk) 08:52, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Speedy deletion for circular redirect (WP:SELFRED)

Should this kind or redirect be given its own criteria (example)? A user created some of them only to make the link blue on 2014 Asian Para Games, main article. Hddty. (talk) 07:54, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

No. These are not speedy-worthy redirects. The links can be removed from the main article but these kinds of articles ("SPORT at EVENT") follow an established pattern and the creating editor probably just wanted to emulate this. Plus, those are redirects with potential, i.e. someone might want to create those sub-articles later. Regards SoWhy 08:11, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
I believe these should be deleted in order to make the link red (to encourage article creation), but that is a matter for WP:RFD, not for speedy criteria. —Kusma (t·c) 12:46, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 October 2018

Ttgg66 (talk) 20:27, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
Extended content

Use common sense "WP:COMMON" redirects here. For other uses, see WP:COMMON (disambiguation). Shortcuts WP:UCS WP:COMMON WP:SENSE WP:COMMONSENSE Wikipedia has many policies or what many consider "rules". Instead of following every rule, it is acceptable to use common sense as you go about editing. Being too wrapped up in rules can cause loss of perspective, so there are times when it is better to ignore a rule. Even if a contribution "violates" the precise wording of a rule, it might still be a good contribution. Similarly, just because something is not forbidden in a written document, or is even explicitly permitted, doesn't mean it's a good idea in the given situation. Our goal is to improve Wikipedia so that it better informs readers. Being able to articulate "common sense" reasons why a change helps the encyclopedia is good, and editors should not ignore those reasons because they don't include a bunch of policy shortcuts. The principle of the rules—to make Wikipedia and its sister projects thrive—is more important than the letter. Editors must use their best judgment.

Why isn't "use common sense" an official policy? It doesn't need to be; as a fundamental principle, it is above any policy.


There is no common sense Shortcut WP:NOCOMMON Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally distributed, for everybody thinks he is so well supplied with it that even those most difficult to please in all other matters never desire more of it than they already possess.

— René Descartes[10] When advancing a position or justifying an action, base your argument on existing agreements, community foundation issues, and the interests of the encyclopedia, not your own common sense. Exhorting another editor to "just use common sense" is likely to be taken as insulting, for good reasons. If in a particular case you feel that literally following a rule harms the encyclopedia, or that doing something which the rules technically allow degrades it, then instead of telling someone who disagrees to use common sense, just focus on explaining why ignoring the rules will improve Wikipedia in that instance.

Be careful about citing this principle too aggressively. While it's quite acceptable to explain your own actions by saying, "it seemed like common sense to me", you should be careful not to imply that other editors are lacking in common sense, which may be seen as uncivil. Wikipedians come from diverse ethnic, religious, political, cultural and ideological backgrounds and have vastly different perceptions. Other editors are likely to ascribe very different meanings and values to words and concepts than you, so try to state your arguments as fully as possible. Citing concrete policies and guidelines is likely to be more effective than simply citing "common sense" and leaving it at that.

G11s in Draft Space

I'm not sure if anything has changed or if I'm simply having more Drafts on my watchlist but I've been noticing a lot of Drafts deleted under G11. As a new page patroller I am no stranger to G11s and regularly use that tag myself. However I've now seen at least a couple occasions where there are good faith efforts at creating an article that are wiped away (or proposed to be wiped away) through G11. These articles certainly weren't ready for mainspace, but they weren't in mainspace they were in drafts and were going to have to go through AfC. Maybe they'd have been approved, maybe not, but I think something is off when these drafts are summarily deleted without any real chance to improve them. I am not in favor of saying no G11 for draft space at all but would love to see more editor caution in tagging drafts as such and admin in approving those tags. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:34, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

I have seen cases (rarely though) where a draft starts out as promotional PR speak because that's the only text the author has just starting out, and then the draft is improved to the point where it becomes acceptable. In general I don't like seeing a G11 tag on an draft unless the draft has been around for a while and isn't improving. But early on in the life of the draft? No, not really. ~Anachronist (talk) 03:09, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
I have processed a lot of AfC submissions. Many of them are so clearly G11 I tag them immediately for deletion. Why waste volunteer time rereviewing spam? Legacypac (talk) 03:48, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
You're definitely an experienced AfC reviewer. But I think there's a big difference between a draft that has yet to be submitted or has been submitted once and one that has been declined a couple of times. Draft space should be, in my thinking, a place where articles can be incubated and improved; it's why we don't allow most speedy delete criteria and why we let drafts sit for six months before being deleted (maybe). Summary deletion feels different there than it does in mainspace where it harms the credibility of the encyclopedia. We invite editors of declined drafts to the Teahouse for a reason - the idea that a draft would need to be fundamentally rewritten to be accepted, which is the G11 standard, doesn't strike me as troublesome or a waste of volunteer time. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:00, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
I am also for applying a higher G11 standard for drafts. I know some of our AfC reviewers are on an anti-spam jag and are using G11 as part of this. I fear admins are not giving due considerations to WP:ATD for these drafts. No way for me to know though because deleted stuff is in a black hole. ~Kvng (talk) 03:52, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
A lot of Draft SPAM is created for the SEO benefits created by the links and mirrors. A Wikipedia link from Draft space is almost as good as from mainspace, and well meaning editors who promote keeping SPAM around in Draft are only facilitating the abuse of the site by Spammers. I'm a big advocate of promoting the less than perfect but notable pages for the big world of editors to work on, but the chances of either a disinterested or connected editor rewriting a topic that meets G11 are slim to none. Legacypac (talk) 07:59, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
How are SEO benefits achieved in these cases? I thought draft space is not indexed by Google and others, so links from there should not turn up? If there are really SEO benefits, maybe we can find a technical solution to prevent that, thus eliminating the incentive to create such drafts. Regards SoWhy 08:11, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
No index links are an important part of sculpting inbound link profiles for SEO. Been that way for a few years now. Legacypac (talk) 09:59, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
Quite a lot of G11 spam in draftspace is lightly edited press releases, i.e WP:COPYVIOs; many or I'd say most are on non-notable topics anyhow; and for things that meet G11 criteria it is better to start anew. The main thing with spam is that even removing the buzzwords and making it not obviously spammy doesn't really fix the issue; it just hides it. To write a neutral article one must start with the reasonable intention of doing so with multiple independent and indepth sources. Galobtter (pingó mió) 08:04, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
I strongly disagree. Many articles started and start out without sources and with POV language because they are oftentimes created by enthusiasts and fans that want to tell the world about how great this or that is. In many cases, we wouldn't have strong, well written articles if no one had started a bad article first that someone thought worth to improve or that the creator has later returned to fix when they gained more experience. Regards SoWhy 08:22, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
Yes, this is broadly true. I would normally only go for G11 in draft where there is either sockpuppetry or COI/UPE. Guy (Help!) 08:44, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
COI/UPE is the root of nearly all G11 drafts. Random 3rd parties don't tend to create SPAM. Legacypac (talk) 08:54, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
Certainly, articles without sources and issues of promotional or fan POV can become good, that's not really what I'm talking about. I'm more talking about articles like "Bizco provides the best furniture solutions..contact us at" sort of stuff, where it obvious the goal is to spam wikipedia, and not merely an enthusiast writing in a fan perspective; for those articles there is no value in their content because it is better to start afresh, and the editor is very unlikely to be able to rewrite that into something useful (if there is any utility there - the vast majority of companies spammed are not notable). I haven't really found in my experience, or at-least I can't recall any cases of merely an enthusiast or fan creating an article that meets the G11 bar and I'm not going to tag G11 things created by a fan, but most G11able stuff in draftspace is a obviously a COI or UPE editor spamming non-notable companies or similar Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:08, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Wasn’t there a consensus against COI/UPE being speediable demonstrated on this page earlier this year? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:27, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
    G11 has and still does require the text to be promotional, not the intent. What Legacypac probably means is that in many cases of COI/UPE, the text screams spam as well, thus making them eligible for G11 in general. Regards SoWhy 09:57, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
  • I think all speedy deletion criteria (other than copyvios and G7s) should be applied in draft space with a very light touch. Certainly nothing in draft space should be tagged for G11 speedy deletion until the author has been given a chance to improve it (i.e. it's had a {{advert}} or similar on it for a month and the concerns have been explained on the talk page) unless there is evidence of bad faith (not suspicion, not absence of evidence of good faith) and . It is far, far better that we have a little bit of spam in draft space for a short while than we throw away good faith articles that start out spammy. Thryduulf (talk) 12:08, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
I've tagged several Drafts G11 just today. There is no point trying to get a spammer to rewrite their spam especially when the topic is unlikely to be notable anyway. I don't think anyone is throwing out good faith articles that start out spammy. I see plenty of G11 material just rejected and not CSD'd (on resubmission) and I personally only CSD the most clear cut cases, often after several rejections for being promotional. Legacypac (talk) 21:06, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
  • I have tagged a number of drafts for G11 when they are very obviously never going to be accepted (eg: "Tyler-Courtney Jones is a 16-year old YouTube Instagrammer. He likes Ed Sheerhan and wants to grow up to be a singer like him. His songs are going to revolutionise the singer-songwriter industry, and he is absolutely and supremely confident he will be the next big thing. Tyler-Courtney's next shows are scheduled to be the Royston Vasey Youth Club and St Cuthbert's School for Boys Christmas fair") or a seriously bad idea to exist on Wikipedia full-stop (eg: "Crazy Maisie (b. Chardonnay Aimee Chavwick, 29 September 2001) is a political activist and adult actress who has defended the right of women in the porn industry. She has appeared in [big list of wholly inappropriate and NSFW titles]. She signed an exclusive deal with the Sunday Sport so she could pose nude on her 16th birthday" - with no sources outside two tabloid newspapers) ... anyway, you get the idea. These sort of instances are rare. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:24, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

I've also noticed on quite a few occasions that spammers/UPEs were using draft space to duck autoconfirmed. They would create the article in ten edits, wait four days, and then promptly either copy and paste or move it to mainspace. Draft space is not for the storage of inappropriate material, including blatant ads. Seraphimblade Talk to me 13:35, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Seraphimblade, Can they play the same game in User space? ~Kvng (talk) 19:47, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
Yes Legacypac (talk) 21:06, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
Kvng, yes, and I've seen that done too. Fortunately, at least in the cases I saw, a patroller caught on when it got moved to mainspace and tagged it, but still better that it didn't happen at all. Seraphimblade Talk to me 20:59, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
There are lots of ways a spammer can go to get auto or extended confirmed. Having a non-deleted record of their edits does help provide context when investigating someone for the non-admin among us. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:58, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
Incubation of spam does not seem to be a compelling reason to use G11 in Draft space. What Legacypac said earlier about the noindex SEO loophole is the only strong argument I've seen here. Is it possible to work with Google to close that loophole in Draft space? Arguments about keeping Draft space tidy don't hold water for me because of G13. AfC has recently implemented a reject process which can kill zombie drafts. ~Kvng (talk) 17:06, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
The last handful of drafts I tagged as G11 were Draft:Hannah Sneddon, Draft:Kimberly Minatti, Draft:Connor Murray and Draft:Maggie Claydon - all of which were deleted by other administrators. And as discussed on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red, I'm currently doing a review of biographies of women to see if any declined drafts can be improved and expanded to the point of acceptance. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:38, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
  • I do delete drafts under G11 but I try to apply a more lenient standard than I would in mainspace. I'd be happy with amending the policy to say something along those lines. Hut 8.5 21:10, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
  • I use this also, and in fact I urge that it be used a little more. But as I understand it , the standard for promotionalism in Draft this has always been more permissive. Permissive as it may be, still some drafts are going to be complete advertisements, & suitable for deletion as G11. DGG ( talk ) 05:16, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Test case

I just started reviewing draft articles as part of AfC, and here are a couple test cases:

The first one is written by a SPA with two edits total; in the queue for 7 weeks; non-notable company & very promotional. Would you guys tag is for G11/A7? The advantage of tagging vs declining would be to take the draft out of the queue so that another AfC reviewer can move onto something else. The second draft is pretty much the same situation. None would survive AfD if moved to main space. I would appreciate feedback on these two items. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:42, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

  • HOLLA Group may well be notable. Look at the range of highly credible media coverage and the scale of the downloads they have had. I might approve it with a little more checking.
  • AIPES is an industry association with close ties to the EU and some sort of oversight or advisory role in the EU. Not really a commercial promotion situation, though associations do need to promote themselves to some extent. I'd want to see some independant coverage on them and a trim on the organization details before approving the page. It has promise. I would not tag either G11 - there are tons of better candidates for G11 in Draft. Legacypac (talk) 02:37, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
  • I agree with K.e.coffman that HOLLA is not notable given lack of articles about it rather than product and my support of WP:INHERITORG as part of WP:NCORP. I would G11 in mainspace and decline in draft.
    I would not tag AIPES as G11 in either draft or mainspace and can find indicators of notability without too much trouble. If I found in mainsapce I would take a weed wacker to much of the article as not encyclopedic but depending on what a deeper investigation of notability uncovered either mark it as reviewed (or reviewed with a notability tag if I thought it a close call) or tag it with notability and leave it unreviewed. It's very unlikely I would nominate for AfD. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:49, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
There are preferred WP:ATDs for both of these. The idea that not deleting these clogs the AfC pipeline assumes that when declined, these will be be promptly resubmitted without substantial improvement. Sometimes that happens. Mostly the author either abandons or makes some improvements and not usually immediately. If resubmitted, it is not too much work for subsequent reviewers to look at the diffs and determine whether to quickly reject again or have a deeper look. This is not clogging, this is what we do at AfC, help authors improve their drafts. ~Kvng (talk) 01:24, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Neither are hopeless. HOLLA offers the choice of writing the article about the company or the product. A more knowledgable promotional editor would in fact have done it on the product, because in article space software is not susceptible to A7. It would be fairly easy to turn the present article into an article on the product, and the worst promotionalism could be removed. whether it will ever end up an acceptable article depends upon someone who knows and cares working on it. For now, it should get declined. the article on the organization is like many other similar ones: they are very hard to find sources for that pass NCORP, and they are hard to write non-promotionally without being directory entries. Sometimes they are kept at AfD nonetheless if the organization is sufficiently important. It should be declined, with a request for references and to tone down some of the claims of importance. G11 is for worse than these two--there enough of them to make it worthwhile to look at the new submissions, now that it is so easy to do so, and get the very worst out of the pipeline as soon as possible. In terms of the spammers, it can have a good effect to reject them as early as possible. DGG ( talk ) 05:27, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
  • I don't think either of those qualifies for speedy deletion in draft space. While both have promotional wording it's not bad enough to avoid giving the author the benefit of the doubt in draft space. The second one is getting very close to the point where I'd be prepared to delete it in mainspace under G11 though, there isn't much text in it which isn't promotionally worded. This doesn't mean they should be accepted or moved to mainspace though. Hut 8.5 10:14, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

There seems to be consensus here that these are not great G11 candidates. I hear from other AfC reviewers that their G11 proposals rarely get kicked back by administrators. So, I'm interested to hear what our CSD administrators would have done if either of these had been tagged for G11. ~Kvng (talk) 14:52, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Weird Question About Questioning G11 Tags on Drafts

While we are on the subject of tagging drafts as G11, which I in general support, I have a question. Occasionally, in reviewing AFC, I see a draft that has been tagged as G11, but is still pending AFC review, and, on my review, I disagree with the G11, but think that the draft is not suitable for article space and may or may not ever be ready for article space. I decline the draft, for notability reasons, and either as 'adv' or as 'npov'. So far, so good. But I disagree with the G11. Sometimes I have contested the G11, but have left the G11 tag on the draft, and it usually then goes away, and without a comment that the challenge was denied. Either the reviewing admin doesn't read the talk page, or the reviewing admin has lower standards of G11 than I do. So, in the future, should I continue to contest the speedy deletion using the button for the purpose (and wonder whether the statement is actually read), or should I actually pull the G11 tag? I am very reluctant to pull a CSD tag that was applied in good faith by another reviewer. I think that if a reviewer thinks that a page should be speedy-reviewed, I should let an admin speedy-review the page. But I now don't know if this means that the admin will actually read the talk page challenge, in which case I should challenge on the talk page, or if the admin only looks at the draft page and the tag itself.

So: Should I continue to question what I think are unduly harsh G11s, or should I pull them?

Robert McClenon (talk) 02:07, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

I just reviewed language around this today as I had not contested a speedy deletion claim in draft space before. The clearest statement of policy I found came from this very page: "The creator of a page may not remove a speedy deletion tag from it. Only an editor who is not the creator of a page may do so." (formating in the original). As I was not the creator of the page I felt I was in the clear to remove the tag and so I did. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:16, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

The Admin will need to also delete the talkpage, so hopefully they read it. I'm in the habit of G11ing spam without declining the page first. It seems more direct/less encouraging. Legacypac (talk) 02:53, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Robert, if you believe the draft does not rise to the level of G11 then you should remove the speedy deletion tag from it. ~ GB fan 10:32, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
If you believe that any page tagged for any speedy deletion criteria does noes not meet the requirements of that criteria then you should always (unless you are the author of the page) remove the tag. This applies regardless of namespace or criteria. Thryduulf (talk) 10:50, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
If you do remove a speedy tag but any other speedy tag applies you should retag it. Legacypac (talk) 06:01, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 October 2018

Under the fourth paragraph in the "Introduction to criteria" section, change "You can copy and paste such warnings to the talk pages of the creators and major contributors, choose from others listed at Category:CSD warning templates, or place the unified warning template, {{subst:CSD-warn|csd|Page name}}, which allows you to tailor your warning under any particular criterion by replacing csd with the associated criterion abbreviation (e.g. g4, a7)." to "You can copy and paste such warnings to the talk pages of the creators and major contributors or choose from others listed at Category:CSD warning templates."

I think this change is a good idea because I noticed the CSD-warn template has been deleted as an "unused template." Therefore, it should not be mentioned here anymore. 24.5.8.227 (talk) 00:43, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

This request seems in good faith, but I'm bothered that a substable template was speedy-deleted because it is not in-use. Does anyone watching this page wish to dispute that deletion either with RHaworth or at WP:DRV? --Izno (talk) 00:57, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
Courtesy Ping: @RHaworth:. Tazerdadog (talk) 05:30, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 Not done: the template has been restored. feminist (talk) 18:27, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

U5 timing

Hello, just wanted to come here for a sanity check. I just ran across User:AviatorTJ/SpaceKraft in CAT:CSD; it would definitely qualify for U5 were it newly created, but it's seven years old. Is the criterion meant for pages of any age, or should it be used only for recent creations? The criterion doesn't say anything about dates, but on the other hand I don't remember the last time I saw a page tagged for U5 that wasn't rather newly created. It would help if we expanded the criterion with a date comment, either "should only be used for recent creations" or "may be used regardless of the date when a page was created". Nyttend (talk) 20:40, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

There is no reason for any time limits. It takes time for us to find and action pages Wikipedia:WikiProject_Abandoned_Drafts/Stale_drafts Legacypac (talk) 20:47, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
The criterion does not specify a time limit so there isn't one. It is irrelevant how long people take looking for things. I don't see it as a "Blatant misuse of Wikipedia as a web host" so I don't think U5 applies anyway. Thincat (talk) 21:16, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
I might actually say the opposite — newer items are more likely to be something that might in good faith get worked on, while a userpage (from an editor that) has been inactive for seven years is unlikely to materialize into anything useful. On this specific case, it seems (from the user talk comments) like a fairly COI-driven attempt at a draft, probably for personal purposes, but not necessarily an explicitly U5-able page. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 21:20, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
  • In implemention discussions for U5, time was well considered. Age of the page and time inactive of the user. The consensus was that neither was an important factor. This page is actually typical of the driving problem, old drive-by dumped NOTWEBHOST pages. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:22, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
    • Per Amory, this is a (very poor) attempt at an encyclopaedia article not anything that can be deleted under U5 (nor should be subject to speedy deletion). And the disagreements here about whether it is or is not a NOTWEBHOST violation are a perfect example of why the criterion should not be expanded - it is not objective. Thryduulf (talk) 22:32, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
      • Deleted. Amory or Thryduulf, if either of you wants me to undelete it, I will; just don't call it junk, since "junk" is not an objective description of anything :-) Meanwhile, since consensus was that neither was an important factor when the criterion was created, I've expanded the criterion. Any objections? Nyttend (talk) 22:38, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
        • PS, I'm leaving for church in a few minutes. If either of you two (or anyone else) wants it to be undeleted and I'm gone, feel free to leave a request at WP:REFUND, and remember to link this diff as proof that I'm fine with the undeletion. Nyttend (talk) 22:45, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
        • Every speedy deletion criterion applies regardless of the age of the page, except for the handful which require a waiting period. Hut 8.5 22:41, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
          • The objection is bloat. It’s a non-information statement. If every non-information statement were included, policy would be useless. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:44, 18 November 2018 (UTC). It also applies regardless of the length of inactivity of the user. Another non-information statement. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:45, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
        • I’d call it borderline. SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:42, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
        • @Nyttend: I think Thryduulf was referring to #Proposal/RfC - Extend WP:U5 to the draftspace above when saying it should not be expanded. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 23:13, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
        • @Nyttend: That was very much not a U5 candidate - it was an abandoned draft encyclopaedia article. That it wasn't a very good draft and wouldn't have survived MfD is completely irrelevant. U5 is only for "writings, information, discussions, and/or activities not closely related to Wikipedia's goals" - any attempt at an encyclopaedia article is closely related to Wikipedia's goals. A very bad deletion. Thryduulf (talk) 23:25, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
          • Okay, I'll restore it. That's the fundamental problem with any criterion based on WP:NOT — how am I supposed to know what's closely related and what's only tangentially related? I would immensely prefer to get rid of it entirely, because "Most reasonable people [cannot necessarily] agree whether a page meets the criterion", to modify the box at the top of this page. Nyttend (talk) 05:02, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
            • This was central to the implementation discussion. Some judgement is required in many cases, but implementation was/is justified by (1) the very large number of pages that would be (and were) SNOW deleted at MfD, (2) the objective requirement of no serious contributions in the user’s contribution history. Experienced editors can be trusted. I have not seen or heard of any cases of U5 misuse. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:55, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

This type of junk "contributed" by an otherwise non-contributor and abandoned is exactly what U5 is for. If someone wants to retire U5 start an RFC but in the meantime I've started Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:AviatorTJ/SpaceKraft Legacypac (talk) 06:12, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

  • @Legacypac: Just because something should be deleted does not mean that it should be speedily deleted. Speedy deletion is explicitly the exception not the norm and only for those cases where consensus at a discussion will always be to delete. Even looking at just today's MfD listings it is clear that poorly written draft encyclopaedia articles do not always get unanimous consensus to delete. Thryduulf (talk) 12:20, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

C1 question

I have always read C1 as meaning a cat could not be nominated until it had sat empty for 7 days, but @Liz: corrected me, to say the speedy nom. could happen immediately, but that the cat. would not be deleted until the seven days had passed. Perhaps a clarifying adjustment to the C1 language is warranted? UnitedStatesian (talk) 13:04, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

I fail to see the need. C1 has no waiting period after tagging, so whether you wait seven days and then tag or tag and then wait seven days makes no difference. Regards SoWhy 13:48, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Redirects in the File: namespace G6 → R4

MOVE CRITERION TO R4
There is unanimous consent to move the {{Db-redircom}} portion of criterion G6 to a new redirect criterion, R4. Editors believe the proposed arrangement to be more logical and intuitive than the current one. — Newslinger talk 03:54, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

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.

Criterion G6 is overloaded with many different things all lumped together as "uncontroversial maintenance" and is the most frequently abused of all criteria. It would never be approved if proposed as is today. The best way to solve this, in my opinion, is to unbundle the various different reasons into separate criteria that are individually objective. I'm not proposing to do this all at once, but to work on it step-by-step so that objections to one aspect don't derail the whole thing.

One aspect of G6 stands out as being a particularly poor fit with the rest: "Deleting redirects in the "File:" namespace with the same name as a file or redirect at Commons, provided the redirect on Wikipedia has no file links (unless the links are obviously intended for the file or redirect at Commons)." Accordingly I propose to move this criterion, without any changes, from G6 to a new R4 for these reasons:

  • It deals only with redirects, and is thus where someone will look for it
  • The general footer to the R criteria (don't speedy delete redirects with significant history, use RfD for redirects that don't meet the criteria) apply to these redirects equally with others
  • It contains requirements that are significantly different to other things deleted using G6
  • This isn't really "maintenance" in the same sense as other aspects of G6 (e.g. pages created in error/in the wrong place, etc)
  • Deletion summaries will become more useful.

This does not change what can be speedy deleted, just under which criterion is gets speedy deleted. Thryduulf (talk) 12:43, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Support - This appears to be a clean improvement. How often are redirects deleted under this particular provision of G6? Tazerdadog (talk) 15:02, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
I don't know, but we see several that possibly could be come through RfD. Thryduulf (talk) 17:16, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Just a bit of history here: Back in 2015, there was (or is) a category that listed all of the pages on Wikipedia in the "File:" namespace that had the same name as a page on Wikimedia Commons; the category contained a few hundred or thousand pages. After consensus was established around that time for creating a WP:CSD criterion for deleting such pages that are redirects, I created {{Db-redircom}}. Afterwards, that category was essentially emptied by a handful of editors using {{Db-redircom}}. However, as of present day, I don’t think pages in the "File:" namespace on Wikipedia with the same name as a page on Wikimedia Commons get created that often ... most likely as a result of the 2015 clearing of the aforementioned backlogged category. Steel1943 (talk) 15:44, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
Support not an area I work but this appears more logical Legacypac (talk) 20:30, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. I knew there was a CSD for this, but I was looking in the wrong areas and couldn't find it until it was pointed out that this falls under G6. Hopefully moving it over will be more intuitive to prevent this in the future. -- Tavix (talk) 15:14, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. Whatever gets the concept behind {{Db-redircom}} more exposure. (Disclaimer: the diff that Tavix mentioned in the previous comment was an edit I made.) Steel1943 (talk) 15:30, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Neutral. I don't think unbundling is necessary - this is uncontroversial maintenance, caused by incremental software changes over nearly two decades. However, moving this into the redirects section of CSD does sound like a good idea. Deryck C. 16:25, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
    I think that is the point - to be in the Redirects section it has to be split from G6 and given an R designation. I don't know how often this is used. There was mention of a category tracking these cases. Does that still exist? Do we track how many times each CSD is used? Legacypac (talk) 22:24, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
    @Deryck Chan: I'm not disputing it is "uncontroversial maintenance", I'm saying it's a different sort of maintenance to the examples given, applies to a narrower set of pages and very has different requirements to all other aspects of G6. G6 is not a dumping ground for everything that could be considered maintenance of some description - otherwise we might as well fold in G8, A3, F2, F10, C1 and U2. Thryduulf (talk) 18:08, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
    Changing to weak support. I don't mind which section and what serial number we put this type of deletion under, but I'm not massively excited about unbundling either. What I don't want to see (in the foreseeable future?) is that we deprecate away G6 altogether. Deryck C. 19:07, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
    Personally I would like to see G6 completely deprecated as that's the only way I forsee the rampant abuse of it by some administrators will stop. Every aspect of it that is required would be transferred to a new, objective and focused criterion - speedy deletion is not and never has been intended to be a routine method of deletion - it is a narrow set of exceptions to the need to get consensus for every deletion, limited to those situations where consensus will always be in favour, not just what one admin thinks people probably wont object too strongly too. This is all independent of this proposal though. Thryduulf (talk) 23:51, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. Why not. — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 01:59, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Support per nom. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 23:04, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Support; this changes nothing about our practice and thus will have no practical effect whatsoever, so the only real question is "what will users find to be simpler". Putting it with redirects is definitely simpler than keeping it at G6. Nyttend (talk) 20:37, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Good idea — Thryduulf sums up the benefits nicely throughout the comments. Wholeheartedly agree. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 21:25, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Support makes it simpler --DannyS712 (talk) 04:02, 4 December 2018 (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.

Proposal to merge db-blankdraft into G13

There's a consensus to merge {{db-blankdraft}} into G13. Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:53, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

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.

Now that pretty much all drafts are under the purview of AfC, it seems unnecessary to have {{db-blankdraft}} separated out into its own category with different deletion criteria from what we're using on draftspace drafts. I think it would be better if we eliminated {{db-blankdraft}} and then add a new criteria under G13 allowing any draft, userspace or draftspace, containing only default placeholder text to be deleted after six months of no edits. That would bring it in line with how AfC drafts are currently being handled. --Nathan2055talk - contribs 07:21, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

  • What would be the benefit? When blank or near blank Draft space pages come up unedited 6 months we G13 them anyway. In userspace we use "blank draft" and in Draft space G2 test edit to delete blank submissions. Perhaps we should extend Blank Draft over Draft space in Twinkle so we can more accurately tag the blank pages. Legacypac (talk) 08:00, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
    @Legacypac: Right now, db-blankdraft requires a full year without any edits from the page creator, while G13 only requires six months without edits to the page. The only policy difference I'm proposing is changing the db-blankdraft requirements to the same "six months without page edits" we're using with G13 and extending it over draftspace as well. Nathan2055talk - contribs 08:05, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

For reference, here's what I'm proposing as a rewritten G13:

This applies to any pages in the draft namespace, any pages in userspace with the {{AFC submission}} template that are not currently pending review, and any drafts in either namespace with no content except the placeholder text generated by the article wizard that have not been edited (excluding bot edits) in over six months. Redirects are excluded from G13 deletion. Drafts deleted in this manner may be restored upon request by following the procedure at Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion/G13.

All it really is is consolidating and slightly generalizing existing deletion policies to make it easier to eliminate pure, unnecessary trash. Nathan2055talk - contribs 08:14, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

  • Support totally logical. So we would depreciate the G6 blank draft criteria then. Legacypac (talk) 08:27, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Whatever "db-blankdraft" is, it's not G6. (Except for the folks who consider G6 to be "anything I can delete without anyone except maybe some random influenceless newbie raising a fuss" or "any new speedy deletion criterion I can sneak in without gaining consensus for a new speedy deletion criterion".) I also agree that this is better than mistagging such pages as test edits. —Cryptic 12:05, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
    • On a bit more reflection, I'm more in favor of generalizing A3 to apply to most non-talk namespaces. We'd have to identify a few classes of pages to exclude - categories, sandboxes, and galleries of (free) images in userspace spring to mind. I still support this proposal, as written, as a second choice. —Cryptic 13:08, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
      • Also needing to be excluded would be redirects and soft redirects, files and file description pages (especially for files hosted at Commons), templates (especially ones that don't display anything much/are just a framework + a transcluded documentation page), user and user talk pages. I don't think this would be an improvement. Thryduulf (talk) 15:31, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. G6 is by far the worst CSD criterion we have for misuse per Cryptic and anything that moves us a step closer to actually make it meet the standards required of new criteria is a good thing. Moving one aspect of it to a different criteria where it fits better is an example of such a step. Thryduulf (talk) 12:39, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Support - This is a clear improvement over the status quo. Tazerdadog (talk) 17:07, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Support per Thryduulf. Word for word. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 00:52, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Support Makes sense, less confusing funplussmart (talk) 15:58, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Support logical. Cabayi (talk) 16:02, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Q Would this mean blank drafts would wait 6 months before being deleted? I assume I'm missing something... ——SerialNumber54129 16:03, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
    • Yes. In draftspace and for userspace drafts with AFC templates, that's no different from the status quo. For userspace drafts without AFC templates, this proposal shortens it from sitting for a year (or longer, if the author edits other pages; or shorter, if you can con an admin into deleting it immediately). —Cryptic 16:14, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
(Ec) :I am in favor of reducing the wait from one year after the editor has been active" (a silly long time) to "6 months after the userspace blank draft was created." For Draft space blank submissions to AfC I see no reason to retain these test edits for more than a few minutes. The deleted page can always be easily recreated but almost never are. I CSD hundreds of blank pages submitted to AfC every few months to reduce the G13 burden and they never come back. Legacypac (talk) 16:20, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

This has been open over three weeks with no opposition, and no comments at all in nearly that long, so I think it is approaching time for a formal closure and implementation by someone uninvolved. Thryduulf (talk) 11:47, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Formal closure requested at WP:ANRFC. Thryduulf (talk) 01:51, 3 December 2018 (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.

Proposal to expand A7 (adding "product or service")

A new product or service may be an offering of an existing organization (perhaps one for which an article exists), and it may be the fault of the editor that

  • it lacks citations to notable sources
  • the value of the product or service is not well explained.

The combination may call for AfD, but at least there's a chance for others to pitch in. If the subject were an organization, CSD would not apply, hence my recommendation. Pi314m (talk) 18:51, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

  • This has been proposed numerous times before, see the archives. It would be an extremely big expansion, so much so that several other perennial suggestions for A7 expansion would be included (e.g. books, films and software are all products). It would help your case if you could point to a large number of articles which are currently being put through PROD or AfD which would qualify for A7 if this was enacted. The categories of A7 are almost all areas where we have a subject-specific notability guideline, indicating that there are distinctive features of notable subjects that we can recognise. We don't have one for products or services. Hut 8.5 19:04, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
The categories of A7 are almost all areas where we have a subject-specific notability guideline, indicating that there are distinctive features of notable subjects that we can recognise. We don't have one for products or services Yes we do (well, sort of): WP:PRODUCT. Adam9007 (talk) 04:19, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
Hardly. WP:PRODUCT is a discussion of whether information about products should be covered in the article about the organisation which makes the product, it doesn't give any guidance on whether a product is likely to be notable. Hut 8.5 11:15, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, sorry but I got to oppose any such expansion. It fails pretty much rules #1, #2 and #3 on top of this page. Products are, not only because there is not a notability guideline to well, guide us, extremely subjective (#1). Also, in many cases the product was created by a notable entity, meaning alternatives to deletion exist that are preferable to deletion, such as merging or redirecting. Last but not least, products don't have articles created about them frequently enough to warrant speedy deletion (#3). Regards SoWhy 19:18, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
It fails pretty much rules #1, #2 and #3 on top of this page. A7 as a whole fails #1 miserably, yet it exists and is not likely to stop existing any time soon.
Also, in many cases the product was created by a notable entity, meaning alternatives to deletion exist that are preferable to deletion, such as merging or redirecting. The same is true for organisations, bands, clubs, organised events, and web content, yet they still fall under A7.
products don't have articles created about them frequently enough to warrant speedy deletion Articles on individual animals aren't exactly common (probably less common than products or services), yet they still fall under A7. Also, articles on things like video games seem to be becoming more common these days. Adam9007 (talk) 04:19, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
Adam9007, reasonable people do agree on A7, near-always. Obviously, you and Haworth are outliers, situated on opposite ends of the spectrum. ∯WBGconverse 15:16, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per SoWhy and Hut 8.5. This fails three of the four most basic requirements for a new CSD criterion and narrower aspects of it have previously been rejected for being too broad. Thryduulf (talk) 00:17, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Proposal to expand R2

One of the key distinguishing features of pages and namespaces is their intended audience: readers (content pages/namespaces) versus editors (administrative/technical pages/namespaces). As a general rule, and with some exceptions (e.g. shortcuts), we avoid redirects that transport readers from a content namespace to a non-content namespace. R2 currently covers the specific scenario of redirects from the main namespace to non-content namespaces (except the Wikipedia namespace).

I think that we should also avoid (and speedily delete) redirects that transport readers from any content namespace to the User namespace. These redirects can lend undue gravitas to user pages (and subpages) and as a result mislead readers into thinking they are part of the encyclopedia proper. Therefore, I propose to modify R2 as follows:

This criterion applies to redirects (apart from shortcuts) from the main namespace to any other namespace except the Category:, Template:, Wikipedia:, Help: and Portal: namespaces, and to redirects to the User: namespace from the main or other content namespaces (Book:, Category:, File:, Portal:, and Template:).

If there are good reasons to have redirects from content namespaces to the User namespace, please share them. Thanks, -- Black Falcon (talk) 02:00, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

  • Oppose as not needed. These almost never appear at RfD, and when they do they are often speedily deleted under G6 (redirects created when pages created in the wrong namespace are moved) or G7 (author requests deletion, e.g. if they're leftovers from swapping pages or after a major rewrite). Of those that are not speedily deleted, most are indeed deleted but some are retargetted. So unless you can show that there is an ongoing problem with these then a change to the speedy deletion criteria is simply not needed. Just because something is undesirable does not mean that it must be speedy deletable. Thryduulf (talk) 02:12, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
    @Thryduulf: I agree with most of what you say, including that nearly all of these are already eligible for speedy deletion under G6. However, in view of that, would it not be better to clarify and use R2 instead of G6, so that a more informative deletion rationale than "general housekeeping" is used? Thanks, -- Black Falcon (talk) 02:51, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
    I've very much in favour of moving things out of G6 (see my proposal for an R4 on this page for example), and pages created in error is certainly a good candidate for unbundling, but that needs to be a comprehensive G criterion (something like "Pages unambiguously created in error, at the wrong title or in the wrong namespace. This includes redirects created when moving such pages to their correct location if the redirect is not otherwise useful" along with some wording about leaving the redirect a while if the page was there a long time and letting creators and other interested parties know the new location if that isn't obvious) - analogous to how redirects created when cleaning up page move vandalism are speedy deletable under G3 not a separate R criterion. Thryduulf (talk) 11:42, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
    I would support a new criterion along the lines you suggested, but I don't see that as precluding the option of expanding R2 in the meantime to include a subset of these cases. After all, if a new G criterion is established, it would be simple enough to restore R2's original language. If you remain unconvinced, then thank you anyway for explaining your reasoning. -- Black Falcon (talk) 19:25, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
    That's true, but we're back to the basic issue that these redirects are so rare that there is no need to do the work of expanding then contracting R2. Thryduulf (talk) 21:48, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Thryduulf. This is a very rare encounter, and there are a few legitimate cases (userfications of books and userboxes being two big ones) where these redirects could and should be retained. Any other cases can easily be taken care of through RfD. Nathan2055talk - contribs 02:28, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
    Userboxes I understand, due to transclusions, but... why should userfied Book: redirects be retained? -- Black Falcon (talk) 03:37, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
    @Nathan2055: Friendly ping. -- Black Falcon (talk) 02:51, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
    @Black Falcon: Sorry for the delay, finals hit and I forgot about this discussion. I'm actually unsure of the policy in regards to redirects from the Book namespace since I don't work in that area, it's possible that I'm wrong. But AFAIK we've generally retained redirects to userspace from other namespaces (with the exception of mainspace) as long as it's not actively disruptive (in which case it probably should be deleted completely) to help people be able to find content after userfication. I actually can't find any official policy covering userfication of content outside of mainspace, however, since it's a case that comes up so rarely. Because of this, I think it would probably be better to handle these at XfD on a case by case basis rather than making a blanket CSD for it. Nathan2055talk - contribs 05:36, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
    @Nathan2055: Thanks for following up on this (and I hope finals went well for you). I may batch nominate some of these (e.g. Book: to User: redirects) at RfD to see what people think. I struggle with a case-by-case approach as I do not see any fundamental differences from one case to another—i.e. either we want these redirects or we do not. However, at a minimum this discussion suggests a CSD is premature until a consensus forms at RfD that these are in fact undesirable in all cases. Thanks again, -- Black Falcon (talk) 17:11, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Any redirects from articlespace to userspace (which as noted here is rare) are flagged up by this report and shortly after deleted (by me), under R2, which I have never interpreted as not including userspace--Jac16888 Talk 21:04, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
    @Jac16888: That is a correct application of R2, but the main thrust of this proposal is to extend that to userspace from namespaces such as "Book:, Category:, File:, Portal:, and Template:" not just from the main namespace. Thryduulf (talk) 21:46, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
    Ah I see, I misunderstood the gist of the proposal, but yes it does seem to be a very rare situation. Also worth pointing out that there are many userspace based catergories and templates--Jac16888 Talk 21:55, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
    Templates, yes, but categories functionally cannot be in userspace (or any other namespace). Where I see this issue mostly, and what prompted my suggestion, is redirects from Book: to User: namespace that result from books being userfied without the suppression of a redirect. I admit it is not a very common issue (my guess would be 100–200 pages), so I suppose G6 will suffice. Thanks,-- Black Falcon (talk) 17:28, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Proposal/RfC - Extend WP:U5 to the draftspace

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
General opposition to this proposal. Primefac (talk) 17:15, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

I am going to propose that WP:U5 gets extended to the draftspace. This is because the draftspace is being abused in a way that there are so many drafts being found daily which are basically WP:NOTWEBHOST. It is mainly point 5 of WP:NOTWEBHOST which I am seeing in loads of drafts. Rule 5 of WP:NOTWEBHOST is "Content for projects unrelated to Wikipedia. Do not store material unrelated to Wikipedia, including in userspace." and I am seeing that new users are using the draftspace in a way so that WP:U5 can be escaped because WP:U5 does not apply to the draftspace at the moment. If this is implemented, there will be less drafts coming to WP:MfD daily that could actually do with being speedily deleted per WP:U5.

My new proposed wording for WP:U5 is:

Pages in userspace or draftspace consisting of writings, information, discussions, and/or activities not closely related to Wikipedia's goals, where the owner has made few or no edits outside of user pages and drafts, with the exception of plausible drafts and pages adhering to Wikipedia:User pages#What may I have in my user pages?.

Pkbwcgs (talk) 17:21, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

  • Support I also find these Drafts at AfC and otherwise regularly. I'm not sure that new accounts are researching our WP:NOTAWEBHOST policies and choosing Draft space over userspace to avoid U5 but we do channel new users toward Draftspace and a certian portion of these users post U5 type material. We need the ability to CSD this junk without wasting time at MFD even more in Draft then userspace because it often is submitted to AfC, and sometimes multiple times. Legacypac (talk) 17:31, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment U numbers only apply to userspace. I suggest deprecating U5 and replacing it with a G number, perhaps G15, worded to include userspace and draftspace as proposed. Purely to avoid confusion. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 17:55, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Need examples - This proposal is based on the idea that MfD is being bogged down by drafts that could be speedied under U5 if it applied to drafts. To support this, we need to see examples a number of recent drafts that would be speedied under the current proposal but cannot be under any existing criteria. @Pkbwcgs: can you give some examples of these "loads of drafts"? A2soup (talk) 17:58, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Support I have nominated a few of these drafts myself. Deprecate U5 and replace it with G15 as per Frayae. CoolSkittle (talk) 18:15, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Commment indeed G15. Most of this U5 stuff can be speedied out of Article space on some other A? Criteria but Wikipedia, Template and other spaces can be used for webhosting too. The main issue is Draft space though because we channel new accts there. Legacypac (talk) 18:19, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose I suspect this will be used to delete drafts which are just very bad, instead of just those which are NOTWEBHOST violations. Some of the examples cited above are original essays or violations of WP:NOT#HOWTO. In other words they are attempts to write Wikipedia articles by people who just don't know how Wikipedia works. That doesn't make them WP:NOT#WEBHOST violations, unless they've been hanging around for long enough (in which case G13 would apply). Hut 8.5 18:50, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Solution in search of a problem. MFD does not seem overrun by such drafts with the examples cited having been created weeks apart. Also, what Hut 8.5 said, the potential for abuse seems far too high because new users might very well write bad drafts that get better later. I also fail to see why G13 can't handle them. Where is the pressing need to remove them asap? Regards SoWhy 18:56, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
SoWhy have you participated in more than 25 MfDs yet? Why are you commenting on an area you have little experience with?
Hut - Any CSD can be abused, all we are talking about is location of the unsuitable material. If it is U5 in userspace why should it be ok in Draftspace which is a more collabertive environment. Legacypac (talk) 19:26, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
Anyone can see that there are not that many MFDs. One does not have to participate in them to do so. SoWhy 19:31, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
Sure, any CSD can be abused, but if a CSD is particularly prone to abuse than that's a reason not to have it. I'm not a particular fan of U5 in userspace, to be honest, but in draft space I think there's a higher chance that the author was at least trying to write an article. Hut 8.5 20:28, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
@Hut 8.5: Is a WP:NOTWEBHOST violation okay in the draftspace? Why do we have WP:U5 in the userspace but not in the draftspace? The draftspace is easily abused for WP:NOTWEBHOST. I have a question. If I see a personal profile of a user in the draftspace then what should I do? We can't leave these sorts of stuff in the draftspace. Pkbwcgs (talk) 20:43, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
You can get inappropriate material in draft space deleted at WP:MFD if it does not qualify for speedy deletion. Speedy deletion criteria are only good for narrow cases where people agree that pages meeting the criterion should be deleted. This suggestion shows a strong likelihood that it will be used to delete content which doesn't actually fall foul of WP:NOTWEBHOST, which makes it a bad idea. NOTWEBHOST doesn't apply to attempts to write encyclopedia articles, at least not unless abandoned, and even in this discussion there are suggestions that this criterion will be used to delete pages of this type. Hut 8.5 21:40, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
@Hut 8.5: Thanks for your reply. Yes it is clear that NOTWEBHOST doesn't apply for attempts to write an article. That is certain. However, WP:MFD is becoming flooded when taking inappropriate material there and most of it is WP:NOTWEBHOST stuff which can be eliminated by extending WP:U5 to the draftspace. Pkbwcgs (talk) 21:47, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
I don't think it's being "flooded" with this stuff at all. There are plenty of people trying to get drafts deleted for being essays, how-to guides, dictionary definitions, etc but none of those equate to NOTWEBHOST. So either the criterion will be useless for those pages or it will be used to bring a criterion of "inappropriate draft" in through the back door. The first option makes it useless and the second one would be actively harmful. Bear in mind that drafts will be deleted after six months unless someone is working on them anyway, there's no particular need to bring them to MfD in the first place most of the time. Hut 8.5 21:56, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
G13 is for abandoned pages. U5 is for webhost inappropriate pages. You don't need to speculate on the pages this will apply too, they are clearly not appropriate. Legacypac (talk) 22:53, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
  • I have not seen any draftspace NOTWEBHOST violations that are so bad that they can't be left to the G13 process. I have seen draftspace NOTWEBHOST nominations at MfD where the nominator is making quick assumptions about the limited content and an psychoanalysis of the author. A mistake in these assumptions is more damaging to the project than leaving a silly NOTWEBHOST draft violation to expire and get deleted per G13. We created G13 with this exact sort of thing in mind. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:33, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Unnecessary. Truly problematic examples are covered sufficiently by other deletion criteria (CSD or otherwise). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 04:08, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I agree with the spirit behind this, but WP:NOTWEBHOST is way too broad of a speedy deletion criteria, especially for a process that receives a lot of poorly formatted drafts from people who haven't yet gotten the hang of editing. As others have said, this will almost certainly just turn into an "eject drafts I don't like" button. I'm always going to be in favor of retaining drafts unless they are either obvious corpspam (G11) or it's abundantly clear they are no longer being improved (G13). Other than those two criteria, I'd rather draft deletions go through MfD. Nathan2055talk - contribs 04:11, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Support per Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:When can you claim that you’ve been in a country or state?, and other supporting comments here by the editors who actually work in the draft space. I also support promoting this criterion to a "general" criterion. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:44, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Hut 8.5, SmokeyJoe and Nathan2055. Thryduulf (talk) 18:11, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Support per nom and Legacypac. PrussianOwl (talk) 21:59, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
  • All the people supporting "per Hut" fail to realize we almost never see Hut around AfC or MfD so it's no skin off their back to make those who actually work in these areas do more busy work on NOTAWEBHOST violations. In fact, the regulars at AfC and MfD are mainly supporting based on experience and the Opposes are mostly editors without significant contributions to the AfC and MfD. Legacypac (talk) 22:09, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
    You say this as though the maintenance of draftspace (or interpretations thereof) is all that's at stake; as though it is separate from the value and usefulness of draftspace itself or the people who actually use it. I'd say that the opinions of people who use, want to use, or coach people through using draftspace (regardless of AfC), are at least as valuable. Nobody is obliged to engage in any particular maintenance task. As this is not articlespace and nobody who isn't looking for them will ever see the overwhelming majority of these pages, the benefit to be gained from deletion is considerably less, but the extent to which editors' experience is affected is the same. So having hoops in place that must be jumped through to delete something doesn't strike me as a bad thing, apart from the most obvious instances. A central problem to me is not whether or not the most egregious examples are pages that should be kept, but about a fundamental disagreement about what constitutes NOTWEBHOST. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 23:36, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
    (edit conflict) @Legacypac: the number of NOTWEBHOST (a vague and subjective collection criterion that new editors cannot be expected to know about) violations is not relevant here, the relevant factor is the number of good faith pages that are not violations that will get swept away and the number of newbies who will be BITTEN and never return. Editor retention is already a problem, if the price of not making that worse is more work for some editors then that is a price worth paying ten times over. That you have failed to convince those of us who are not regulars at MfD that this is actually a problem that needs solving (let alone that this is the way to solve it) should tell you something. Thryduulf (talk) 23:42, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
    This is called an ad hominem fallacy--whether we do work there is irrelevant to the question of the work that should be done there. --Izno (talk) 02:01, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose: Where the NOTWEBHOST is a critical issue, we have better CSD to apply. Where it is not a critical issue, G13 is sufficient for draft space. --Izno (talk) 02:04, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
  • No confidence that taggers - and admins, for that matter - will prove any better at identifying material plausibly intended as drafts in draftspace than they have in userspace. —Cryptic 04:50, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
  • @Pkbwcgs and Legacypac: I've just had a look through every current WP:MFD listing. There are 33 pages in draft space, exactly 1 of which could be speedily deleted based on WP:NOTWEBHOST: Draft:Assignment Two(BF). This is evidence that this criterion is not needed. As Hut 8.5 notes above, there are many draft-space being nominated at MfD for other reasons - for example being essays, duplicates, covering non-notable subjects, etc. but these would not fall within the scope of this criterion so it would be either unused or abused. Of those others nominated, only around three quarters (at most) have no opposition to deletion - which is much too low for a speedy criterion which needs to be around 99% or greater, and at least half of those with no opposition are being deleted for subjective reasons that are unsuitable for speedy deletion. Thryduulf (talk) 12:44, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
@Thryduulf and Hut 8.5: I understand that you are against this proposed G15 being implemented. Your arguments apply equally to the existing U5 criteria, and could be applied equally to deprecating U5 without a replacement. What do you say to this? — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 14:35, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
I'm not ideologically opposed to that, but I'd want to look at how often it is currently being used and what it is being used to delete before offering a firm view. Thryduulf (talk) 14:44, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) You didn't ask me, but in general I support deprecating U5 if it is not extended to the draft space. Before we had a draft: namespace it made sense that material completely unrelated to Wikipedia posted in an editor's userspace was CSDable, but now that users are just as likely to post this sort of material as a draft, the CSD restriction to userspace strikes me as ridiculous bureaucracy. If I post a plot guide to my D&D campaign at User:PEIsquirrel/The Mystical Age Of The One Pine Tree In The Yard With The Good Nuts U5 can apply, but if I post the same content to Draft:The Great War Of The Glorious Chipmunks And The Vile Felines it has to go to MfD, and I find that distinction silly. Either NOTWEBHOST violations are speediable everywhere, or they are not speediable anywhere. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:50, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
I completely agree with Ivan. There is a general opinion here that G15/U5 should not be used on drafts. Logically this would apply to all drafts or no drafts regardless of namespace as Ivan explains. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 15:24, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
However, some of the opposition to this proposal was based on the fact that we already have a criterion (G13) that will take care of these drafts and that those in favor have imho not demonstrated why these drafts should go to MFD instead of waiting for them to become eligible for G13. Regards SoWhy 15:44, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
@SoWhy: Who wants to wait for six months to get rid of loads of drafts that are basically tons of junk? Basically, what G13 is doing is creating more work for admins as they have to delete tons of drafts everyday that meet G13 and the majority of those drafts are nothing but junk. Some of these are NOTWEBHOST violatinos, some of these are how-to guides, some of these are spam and I even saw a homework assignment in the loads of piece of junk in AfC. Yes, there are very interesting and good articles created via AfC which is why it is a very useful process. However, it is so sad to see that loads of junk is in the draftspace as well. If you look at Category:AfC submissions declined as jokes, at least 90% of these can be speedy deleted without waiting six months. Here is a classic example of what junk is. I tagged for speedy deletion as a blatant hoax. I also see Category:AfC submissions declined as a test which is stuff that has zero chance of improvement. Basically, tons of useless rubbish that can be deleted but is G2 valid for the draftspace? One draft which I tagged as G2 has been deleted but I remember it was absolutely blank when I tagged it for deletion. However, does this mean the others can be deleted? If U5 is not going to the draftspace then we need a general criterion for deletion of junk in the draftspace. Look, over 3,000 junk adverts, around 60 dictionary definitions which don't stand a chance because Wikipedia is not a dictionary and around 90 drafts which are blank and hopeless and all of these have to wait six months to be deleted? However, I oppose the deprecation of U5 because I still tag web hosts in the userspace for speedy deletion and new users will use the userspace for personal stuff and web hosts which has no place on Wikipedia. Pkbwcgs (talk) 16:18, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
I fail to understand your "creating more work for admins" argument. Whether a page is deleted under G13 or under your proposed G15, the work needed to delete the page is the same. Indeed, the workload is probably higher if the admin has to evaluate the draft against a complex set of criteria for "junk" as you call it instead of just checking whether it meets the requirements for G13. However, saying "who wants to wait?" does not really answer the question "why can't we wait?". As has been pointed out above, the problem is not that people are in favor of keeping "junk" but that "junk" or NOTWEBHOST or anything like that is too vague to serve as a useful criterion because we always have to take into account the potential for abuse. Thryduulf has summarized it pretty well above. Regards SoWhy 16:41, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
I still don't understand this. Why should junk be allowed in the draftspace but not anywhere else? Pkbwcgs (talk) 16:52, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
There is no "junk" speedy deletion criterion. That's why you want to create one, isn't it? But as pointed out multiple times, "junk" is highly subjective and the whole point of draftspace is to allow new editors to work on stuff that some might see as "junk" to the point that useful articles are created from this "junk". If they lose interest, those drafts will already be cleaned up by G13. But if just 1% of drafts deleted under such a criterion were actually viable articles and these editors leave the project as a consequence, this is far more harmful to the project as a whole. Regards SoWhy 17:18, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
Never in the time I worked in the draftspace have I seen someone successfully create a mainspace article from junk. If a draft looks proper then it is more likely to go to the mainspace. A piece of junk that will not be ever improved shouldn't have to wait six months and what users tend to is to submit the same draft over and over again without any difference so that it won't get caught on the G13 trap. Pkbwcgs (talk) 18:17, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
The tendentious resubmission without improvement that you describe usually leads to deletion at MfD. Why shouldn't a piece of junk wait six months? Drafts are not indexed by search engines and are impossible to find unless you're looking for them, deletion doesn't free up any Wikimedia server space (the data is still retained). There is no benefit to the project of deleting drafts, except in the cases where they pose legal issues, which are already covered by other criteria. If even one draft that would have been improved is deleted or even one newbie that would have become a productive editor is driven away, then your proposal will be a net negative to the project. A2soup (talk) 19:02, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
What you said about new users improving a "junk" draft is extremely unlikely based on what I have seen so far in the draftspace. Pkbwcgs (talk) 19:22, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
  • To answer the ping above, I would be quite happy to get rid of U5 entirely as I think it is frequently abused to delete acceptable stuff, but I doubt there's consensus for that here. Genuine NOTWEBHOST violations are going to be more common in userspace than in draftspace, if only because userspace is specifically marked as your personal area and because we do allow some content which isn't related to Wikipedia there. By contrast if you start a draft then you are explicitly setting out to write an article and it's more likely that you will end up with at least an attempt at an encyclopedia article.
    My main problem with this expansion though is that it is likely to be interpreted as "junk draft", which is a very bad idea for a speedy deletion criterion. Most of the examples which were cited to motivate this expansion above are not really NOTWEBHOST violations at all, and those are supposed to be the poster children for the criterion. I don't see any need to hurry to delete these drafts before the G13 expiry period. G13 is both more general and easier to assess than U5. The former only requires you to look at the edit history, the latter requires you to read the draft and come to some sort of judgement on it. If a draft is getting repeatedly resubmitted or recreated without any improvement then G13 wouldn't apply, but there aren't many of those cases. Hut 8.5 19:14, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Random question: Do/did we have a G14 criterion? I cannot find evidence of its existence or former existence anywhere. Steel1943 (talk) 20:23, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
    • @Steel1943: G14 may not exist as enacted policy, but there are so many proposals for a G14 with various different attributes in the archives that I feel it would be wiser and less confusing to go one number up and match U5 with G15. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 18:39, 12 November 2018 (UTC) If that helps. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 20:26, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
      • @Frayae: Yep, sure enough. Either way, IMO, if this somehow turns into an enacted “G” criterion, it should be G14 since the only G14 that will matter is the one that becomes policy. Steel1943 (talk) 20:30, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
        • Agreed, the only that matters for numbering is what is enacted. I'm sure there were multiple G13 proposals unrelated to our current criteria (and G12s before that) and I know there were several R4 proposals that are completely different to the one that looks likely to gain consensus in the section above. Thryduulf (talk) 21:09, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Hut 8.5 says "By contrast if you start a draft then you are explicitly setting out to write an article and it's more likely that you will end up with at least an attempt at an encyclopedia article." which sounds like someone with a very different experience in Draftspace than me or a very different idea of what an article looks like. User:A2soup your info on Draft is a few years out of date. You are correct Draft is not "indexed" but it is mirrored to sites that are indexed and Google does count links from no indexed pages toward importance. Google actually looks for no index links as part of a well rounded link profile for ranking. Wikipedia links are gold because Wikipedia is a high importance site. Spammers and link builders love your attitude. Legacypac (talk) 21:06, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

  • @Legacypac: Spam can already be speedy deleted under criterion G11 so that is completely irrelevant. Thryduulf (talk) 21:10, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
  • That's good info that I wasn't aware of, thanks. I agree with Thryduulf that anything problematic in this regard is already covered by G11, but it does change my perception of draftspace a bit. A2soup (talk) 21:17, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Note I have seen more WP:NOTWEBHOST stuff in WP:MfD today so I am going to continue with this RfC. Pkbwcgs (talk) 18:33, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
    • Seriously, Draft:My Journey To Photography is another example of WP:NOTWEBHOST and still there are so many opposers? Examples have been provided. Pkbwcgs (talk) 18:38, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
      • Your examples have not demonstrated the need for this criterion. Per the very top of this page, CSD criteria need to meet 4 tests: Objective (several commenters have stated that they believe WP:NOTWEBHOST is subjective and you have not refuted this), Uncontestable (nobody has even attempted to refute my comments about 75% (at most) of nominations at MFD currently being uncontested; others have also expressed doubts), Frequent (I saw only 1 of ~30 nominations of pages in the draft space at MFD that would fall under this proposed criterion, 1 nomination in ~7 days is far from frequent enough to justify a CSD criterion. Most of the other "junk" you want to speedy delete would not actually fit, further demonstrating that it is not an objective criterion) and Nonredundant (You have completely failed to convince me and many others that this is not redundant to G11 and G13). Using Draft:My Journey To Photography as an example: For starters it was speedily deleted as a copyright violation (so fails "non-redundant"), but if it wasn't a copyvio it could have been moved to become the userpage of the user submitting it (fails "Uncontestable"). Before you say that it would have been excessive as a userpage, that is a judgement call that requires consensus to determine (fails "objective"). Thryduulf (talk) 22:30, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
        Thryduulf's points are exactly what I was trying to get across. WP:NOTWEBHOST is one of the most subjective WP:NOT criteria, and we get a massive number of people unsure of how to properly write wiki articles in AfC. While there are blatant cases like Draft:My Journey To Photography (which still could have been userfied as Thryduulf said), I see absolutely no reason why we should not be encouraging people to write better articles and reformat valid submissions rather than throwing around the CSD hammer immediately. In my opinion, immediate CSD should only be used on drafts for 'blatant' corpspam (G11), copyvios (G12), and BLP violations (G10). There's no reason why we shouldn't wait the customary six months for everything else, bad drafts aren't indexed by Google and aren't causing anyone harm and at best helping someone complete a draft could help someone become a returning wiki editor rather than scaring them off. Nathan2055talk - contribs 23:29, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
Perfect - userfy these Drafts. Then we can tag and delete them U5. There are plenty of promosing drafts no one works on improving, keeping hopeless ones around helps no one. Legacypac (talk) 23:37, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
Moving something to a different namespace for the sole purpose of getting it speedy deleted would be a blatant bad faith misuse of both page moves and speedy deletion. Anyone doing that should expect a very swift trip to ANI. It's also a strong argument in favour of deprecating U5. Thryduulf (talk) 00:19, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
I wouldn't even be opposed to repealing U5 per the reasons given here. WP:NOTWEBHOST is not an objective criteria, and while I'm unsure of how to search the deletion log to verify this, I can't imagine we use it enough that MfD wouldn't be a substitute for the few cases where it does come up. G11 already covers obvious spam in all namespaces anyway, and outside of stuff G11 already covers, everything else U5 could be used on is subjective violations of WP:UPNOT that should be deleted through consensus anyway. Nathan2055talk - contribs 00:49, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
U5 is used a lot in userspace cleanup. Lots of random junk left by non contributors. MfD does not need all this worthless junk coming there. Legacypac (talk) 01:02, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
We need though to have an objective way of determining what is and is not speedily deletable "junk" though (and no, "junk" is not an objective description of anything). The more I read in this discussion the less convinced I am that U5 is fit for purpose. Thryduulf (talk) 01:51, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
Thryduulf, see this article or this article; "junk" is objective descriptions for both :-) Nyttend (talk) 20:46, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
@Nyttend: fair point on the second link, but not really that useful for this discussion :P Unfortunately the first link is "unavailable due to legal reasons" in the UK so I'm unable to form a judgement. Thryduulf (talk) 22:29, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
Must be some nutty GDPR thing; I've previously heard of people in the UK hitting GDPR restrictions on ordinary US news reports, which this is. It's a news story entitled "Junk wins prosecutor's race", about the re-election of Robert Junk to office in rural Pike County, Ohio. Nyttend (talk) 22:33, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
Update: Today, I came up with a new proposal at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Proposal/RfC: Should we allow WP:PROD in the draftspace?. Pkbwcgs (talk) 16:25, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
That proposal is now at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 147#Proposal/RfC: Should we allow WP:PROD in the draftspace?. Thryduulf (talk) 21:10, 12 December 2018 (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.

New draftify proposal discussion

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Workshopping: Integrate draftification into the deletion policy. - MrX 🖋 12:39, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

New criterion for rejected / advertisement-declined drafts

There is general opposition to this proposal. Primefac (talk) 18:04, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

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 would like to float a suggestion about bot deletion of drafts that belong to two groups:

  1. those that have been rejected (this is a new feature in AFCH script); and
  2. those that have been declined on advertising grounds.

There are currently 350 drafts in the first group and 3100+ in the second group, and growing. Currently, unless these drafts are tagged for speedy deletion, they would be eligible for G13 deletion in 6 months. What I'd like to propose is:

  1. expedited timeframe (30 days), and
  2. making such deleted drafts ineligible for WP:REFUND.

Legacypac lays out the rationale for faster deletion of unsuitable, promotional drafts here: [3]. Bot deletions would also mean that editors and admins would save time G11 deleting those.

The new criterion would be technically similar to G13, in terms of bot-deletion procedure and one-week notice. This will give the author time to save their draft off-wiki if desired. I would appreciate thoughts on this rough proposal and then perhaps go to an RfC, if this suggestion is deemed suitable. --K.e.coffman (talk) 00:48, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

  • Oppose in favour of putting a G11 button inside the afch GUI. Draft reviewers should be consciously making the decision, and unsuitable advertising should be G11 speedied without delay. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:01, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

A bot does some G13 nominations but not the deletions. I favour deletion quicker but would hate to create anything that would e interpreted as a minimum time before deletion (as G13 is seen by some). Let's talk this idea out to build something that we can get passed.

I like the idea of building in the G11 button like the G12 button is built into the script. Anything duplicating G11 is going to be impossible to get passed as a CSD. We just need to get more aggressive at using G11 on the declined as an Adv cat and as we find the pages submitted to AfC.

The "unsuitable" declines can be run through MfD but some people don't like that. Many can be G11 or hoax or otherwise speedied under existing criteria. Legacypac (talk) 03:36, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

  • Virtually no MfD deletions of drafts did not already fit under G11. “Aggressive” is not the word, just a straight face reading of G11 is needed. If it is promoting something (song, person, product, theory), and if it zero reliable sources meaning that no current content can be reliably reused, it fits G11. Even if the topic is notable, WP:TNT applies, with the current version needing deletion per G11. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:59, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
By aggresive I refer not to how we read G11 but that AfCers should use it more instead of just declining the page. Seek deletion of promotional drafts. Legacypac (talk) 04:09, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
AfCers should consider G11, alongside G12, first. There is no point making nuanced comments on a page that is to be immediately deleted. How can we get a G11 button the the GUI. Personally, I think the CSD tab is sufficient. I’m not what what I did to get nonstandard feature running for me. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:17, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
User:SmokeyJoe - I don't know if I agree or disagree about "making nuanced comments", and I ask what SJ means because he has in the recent past stubbornly insisted that the inability to provide comments on a Reject was a feature rather than a bug (although the developer recognized it as a bug and fixed it). What is meant by nuanced comments? My own opinion is that reviewer comments on a draft that is being tagged for G11 may be very useful to clarify for the reviewing-deleting admin why the draft is G11. For instance, I point out and take issue with the first-person plural, or with phrases that are marketing buzzspeak. (The presence of marketing buzzspeak isn't itself enough for me to hit G11. Writing in first-person plural is enough for me to hit G11.) Robert McClenon (talk) 04:08, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
Robert McClenon, "stubbornly insisted that the inability to provide comments on a Reject was a feature rather than a bug" was based on a misconception and a slowness to understand what others, including you, were saying. You pointed out some good reasons for wanting to leave comments in different places, and I then agree with you. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:47, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
User:SmokeyJoe - Good. Thank you. Perhaps pointing out a particular aspect of the draft that makes it obviously spam, such as the use of the first-person plural, is one of them. I think that comments may be useful information for the deleting admin if G11 is used. Thank you. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:28, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose as that should shorten the WP:DEADLINE for drafts arbitrarily. It would also encourage editors to resubmit drafts that aren't ready in order to keep it active, increasing the workload on reviewers. There's no goal to reduce the number of rejected drafts overall, only ones that tackle the pending approval queue. As for advertising, if a draft is tendentiously resubmitted without reducing the tone, then I think that should be ready for CSD G11 or MFD. I'd prefer to use AFCH to guide a few decent drafts and editors to get better sources so as to meet GNG. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 04:14, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

As written, I'd have to oppose creating any additional criteria for drafts declined as advertising due to the overlap with G11. That said, there are two worthwhile ideas in this thread that are worth exploring. Allowing the deletion of rejected drafts does have merit, as does adding a G11 button into the AFCH script. Tazerdadog (talk) 05:10, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

  • Support with caveat I'm in favour of the idea's principle, because while encouraging article creation is important AfC does get quite a bit of promotional bullshit. The only thing that gives me pause is the rejection part, because I'm sure that there needs to be more rejection rationales and a clearly established consensus for what is eligible for rejection. The rationales are already set pretty much arbitrarily so I think waiting for the rejection to come out of beta, get wider testing, and establish rationales are needed before basing a CSD off of one. Thanks. ProgrammingGeek talktome 05:24, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Speedy Tag Options on Reject

I think that there is consensus that speedy tagging from within the Reject dialog would be a good idea. Since the current bases for Reject are quite general, Notability and Contrary to Purpose, I suggest that any Rejection should have options for G3 for purely vandalistic crud, G10 for attack pages, and G11 for advertising. I know that G11 will be used more often, because there are rational self-serving reasons for trying to advertise on Wikipedia, and vandals and trolls get indeffed quickly. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:22, 25 November 2018 (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.

Proposal: Move deletion of disambiguation pages from G6 → G14

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There is a consensus in favor of the proposal.∯WBGconverse 09:23, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

(This was originally proposed to move to A12; but as was pointed out below disambiguation pages occur in namespaces other than mainspace 05:20, 7 December 2018 (UTC))

Similar to Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Redirects in the File: namespace G6 → R4 above: another thing that seems out-of-place and better as its own criteria is the deletion of disambiguation pages. Multiple discussions have been held to clarify the criteria (examples: 1, 2), which belies the simple obvious maintenance nature of G6; and even in 2010 there was discussion of splitting it off. Compared to the other subcriteria listed at G6, this subcriteria is quite lengthy and explicit on what is or is not applicable, so it may as well be its own criteria. Another advantage is intuitiveness: people will more easily realize there's a criteria for deleting disambiguation pages and will find it quicker if it is separated out under its own heading (I didn't even know that the criteria was even there until I saw someone delete a disambiguation page under G6 and was wondering how G6 applied).

So I'm proposing to split it off as criteria G14, with essentially the same wording, that is, something like:

This applies to disambiguation pages which either: disambiguate only one extant Wikipedia page and whose title ends in "(disambiguation)"; or disambiguate zero extant Wikipedia pages, regardless of its title. If the page links to only one article and does not end in (disambiguation), simply change it to a redirect.

Galobtter (pingó mió) 11:29, 6 December 2018 (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.

I have attempted to implement this closure. Feel free to adjust the wording as needed. Tazerdadog (talk) 17:14, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

IMO it should be called "unnecessary disambiguation pages" rather than "narrow disambiguation pages". Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:40, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
Agreed. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 18:10, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

To-do list for new or updated CSD criteria

We've had a banner month here at WT:CSD, with two new criteria (G14, R4) and one expanded (G13). It turns out that there are a lot of pages that potentially need updating whenever this occurs, not all of which are quick, easy, or obvious. Having gone through some of them twice and just discovering others, I thought it would be helpful if we had a list of things to do for future reference. I've started that at Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Creating a new criterion and would welcome any improvements or additions. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 17:52, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Good idea and good job! I think the last (non-exceptional) criterion created before these were years ago explaining the lack of a written-down process for new criterion. Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:39, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, I think the last ones were G13 and A11 in in 2013 and U5 in 2014. Maybe a tad different since these new ones were each previously existing but part of G6, but that just means less work this go-round. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 18:52, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Companies explicitly called out in A7

Atlantic306 recently inserted companies explicit into the policy, which I reverted. My revert rationale, for the onlookers, is that companies are a kind of organization, and so calling them out explicitly in the policy is unnecessary creepiness without a particularly good rationale. I was subsequently reverted by Atlantic, and he left a comment on my talk page. Copy-pasted here:

Hi, the A7 template lists companies seperate from organisations, and there are also different wiki projects for companies (mainly for profit) and organisations (mainly not for profit) so there is a distinction, regards Atlantic306 (talk) 19:33, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

  1. The template follows from the policy, not the other way around. If the template is inconsistent, an edit to make it consistent is the correct path here, not an edit to the policy.
  2. Different WikiProjects is an irrelevant question here, as their structure does not change how policy is applied. Even if it is relevant, company vice organization is not correctly distinguished by whether they are for-profit or not. (Perhaps NPO versus company might be.)

The company references have been removed since, possibly by accident given the rationale of that revert. Regardless, I'll not revert again under my belief that it's a bad-sad-bad idea to be reverting on PAG pages. --Izno (talk) 22:03, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

  • Hi, in my view the template is justified in making it clear that companies and organisations are both included. The term organisation is distinct in many countries as being not for profit concerns so not including companies. I believe it is best to be absolutely clear that companies are included in A7, and the fact that companies and organisations have seperate WikiProjects is evidence that Wikipedia defines them as seperate categories, so in conclusion it is better to be pedantic than misleading, thanks Atlantic306 (talk) 22:17, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
    • I agree with Atlantic306's interpretation, and this is IIRC how we've generally handled things at AfC in the past. "Organization" means a non-profit, "company" means a for-profit. Nathan2055talk - contribs 23:17, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
      • I disagree with that interpretation but seeing as a significant number of people might make such a distinction, explicitly mentioning companies is not a really CREEPy addition. Possibly the wording can be tweaked a bit, e.g. real person, individual animal, commercial or non-commercial organization, web content, or organized event? Regards SoWhy 09:49, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
        • "Commercial organization" and "non-commercial organization" is a bit unusual vocabulary. Would anyone mind if we changed "commercial or non-commercial organization" to either "business or other organization" or "company or other organization"? --Bsherr (talk) 02:31, 26 December 2018 (UTC)
  • I think this clarifies things a bit; and consider that our notability guideline is called "organizations and companies"; I don't see how it is creep since the actual meaning/scope of A7 is not extended. Galobtter (pingó mió) 11:00, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
    If the text doesn't cause creep of some sort, it isn't necessary to the intent. See also answer below. --Izno (talk) 18:07, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
  • From the Oxford English Dictionary definition of 'organisation' - An organized group of people with a particular purpose, such as a business or government department. (my emphasis).
'Company' = A commercial business.
Including companies would be redundant, so I agree with Izno's rationale. Adam9007 (talk) 23:43, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
  • I agree with Galobtter - the definitions should match our notability guidelines, as it's not necessarily redundant. SportingFlyer talk 23:49, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
    In which case we should rename the notability guideline. Its current title suggests that companies are not organisations, even though they are. Adam9007 (talk) 23:59, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
    That our notability guideline on the point has both in its name is irrelevant to this page since this page isn't about notability. --Izno (talk) 18:07, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
    I wouldn't think it's irrelevant. Consistency is desirable, even between different pages, and particularly in the project namespace. --Bsherr (talk) 19:54, 25 December 2018 (UTC)
    • But it is another example of the differenct use of the terms in common usage despite the Oxford definition. To avoid confusion IMO it would be best to adopt SoWhy's proposed minor rewording, regards Atlantic306 (talk) 17:54, 25 December 2018 (UTC)
    I also agree with Galobtter. I would suggest using exactly the same wording, "organizations and companies". I know companies are organizations by definition, but it is so rare to call businesses by that term instead of a term like company more specific to their commercial nature, that I think many people would be confused. --Bsherr (talk) 19:54, 25 December 2018 (UTC)
  • I prefer the following wording: "No indication of importance (people, animals, companies or organizations, web content, events)". I would be okay with "and" instead of "or".--Bbb23 (talk) 20:00, 25 December 2018 (UTC)
I agree with Bbb23--this makes it clear, and is not a change from present policy or practice. DGG ( talk ) 06:22, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Ref: Deletion of topic

I do not understand matter you discussed. If it is not to be selected please delete with out further question.

I wrote thing what is practically happen after post liberation war of Bangladesh.

Shafiqur Mazumdar (talk) 17:48, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

@Shafiqur Mazumdar: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion. Please post your comment at the talk page of the administrator who deleted the page. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:46, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Duplication by a module

(Copied from Wikipedia talk:Templates for discussion#Duplication by a module as requested there. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:43, 8 January 2019 (UTC))

{{Db-t3}} provides for speedy deletion of a template that duplicates the function of another template. However, increasingly, templates are rendered redundant by the creation of Lua modules (usually the very top level template isn't redundant – it invokes the module – but its 'support' templates are, because they are coded in the module). I've tweaked {{Db-t3/sandbox}} to allow |module=; you can see it in action at Template:Add new taxon. The sandbox version can be made live if there is consensus. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:10, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

This seems in-line with the spirit of the criterion. Redundant templates should be speedy deleteable. Tazerdadog (talk) 19:27, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Ok, well as there's one supporter and no opposition, and I think this is just a technical response to the emergence of Lua, I will make the sandbox version live. It can always be reverted if objectors appear. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:24, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Proposal to add T4: Unused

Templates that are unused and have been created more than 3 - 6 months ago should be able to be deleted by speedy deletion criteria, or moved back to user space. In my opinion it's a waste of time at WP:TfD to have to propose, then wait for multiple wikipedians to contribute to discussion about a template that's not actually used.

This proposal could be tweaked slightly - eg caveats being if there is an obvious use case or if it's an intended article to move back to user space - but I think the principle still holds. Thoughts? (I will ping TfD). --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:12, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

I have not given this proposal any deep thought yet, but my off-the-cuff reaction is that we'd need to be careful about templates that are designed to be substituted - it could be difficult to determine how often those are used. Tazerdadog (talk) 03:17, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
This should be like something like WP:C1 IMO; if a template has been tagged for more than 7 days and remains unused, it may be deleted; unless there's an indication the template is meant to be substed. Perhaps also the template cannot be deleted if it is less than 3 months old. Galobtter (pingó mió) 09:07, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
Question: How often (= requirement #3 for new SD criteria) are such templates really nominated for deletion? Looking at WP:TFD now, there seem to be but a few templates nominated that are truly unused, so why can't TFD handle them? Regards SoWhy 10:51, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
SoWhy, that varies - sometimes people nominate twenty in a day, sometimes there aren't any (see Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2018 September 2 or Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2018 November 7 for examples of a bunch nominated in a day). I'd definitely say there are enough for a CSD criteria; would probably reduce nominations at Tfd by 30+%. Galobtter (pingó mió) 11:06, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
Alas, this has been proposed, many, many, many, many times. The iterations sometimes vary, such as just for user namespace templates, or just for those "not encyclopedic", with varying waiting periods or age requirements. Just some of these discussions are: /Archive 72#Proposed tweak to T3, /Archive 10#Orphaned templates, /Archive 67#New criterion - T4, aka Template PROD, /Archive 44#New CSD - T4 Unused userbox that is more than 30 days old, /Archive 42#T4: Unused template, /Archive_52#Deprecated_templates, /Archive 22#Speedy deletion of unused templates?, /Archive 59#Gauging opinion on a possible new criterion for templates. There have also been several proposals at WT:PROD for this (reportedly four in 2007 alone). There seem to be three reasons this has never been adopted. Firstly, as pointed out by Tazerdadog, templates that are intended to be substituted have no transclusions by design, and a summary process like CSD is not efficient to distinguish those not transcluded by design from those by circumstance. Secondly, CSD is generally for urgent deletions and, although TfD is busy, it is not backlogged enough (with deserved thanks to Galobtter (above), Primefac and others) to warrant the use of a summary process like this, particularly since an unused template is not an urgent cause for deletion. Thirdly, that a template is unused is not, in any guideline, a dispositive reason to delete it; rather, it is just a relevant consideration; therefore, it would be egregious to make it a dispositive reason to speedily delete it before there is consensus on whether this should be decisive for a deletion discussion. --Bsherr (talk) 18:28, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
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