Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion

Read this before proposing new criteria Contributors frequently propose new criteria for speedy deletion. If you have a proposal to offer, please keep a few guidelines in mind: The criterion should be objective: an article that a reasonable person judges as fitting or not fitting the criterion should be similarly judged by other reasonable people. Often this requires making the rule very specific. An example of an unacceptably subjective criterion might be "an article about something unimportant." The criterion should be uncontestable: it should be the case that almost all articles that can be deleted using the rule, should be deleted, according to general consensus. If a rule paves the path for deletions that will cause controversy, it probably needs to be restricted. In particular, don't propose a CSD in order to overrule keep votes that might otherwise occur in AfD. Don't forget that a rule may be used in a way you don't expect if not carefully worded. The criterion should arise frequently: speedy deletion is intended as a means of decreasing load on other deletion methods such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion and Wikipedia:Proposed deletion. But these other methods are often more effective because they treat articles on a case-by-case basis and incorporate many viewpoints; CSD exchanges these advantages for the practical goal of expeditious, lightweight cleanup. If a situation arises rarely, it's probably easier, simpler, and more fair to delete it via one of these other methods instead. This also keeps CSD as simple and easy to remember as possible. The criterion should be nonredundant: if the deletion can be accomplished using a reasonable interpretation of an existing rule, just use that. If this application of that rule is contested, consider discussing and/or clarifying it. Only if a new rule covers articles that cannot be speedy deleted otherwise should it be considered. If you do have a proposal that you believe passes these guidelines, please feel free to propose it on this discussion page. Be prepared to offer evidence of these points and to refine your criterion if necessary. Consider explaining how it meets these criteria when you propose it. Do not, on the other hand, add it unilaterally to the CSD page. Oft referenced pages Wikipedia:Deletion policy (talk) Deletion log Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators (talk) Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal (July 2005 proposal to expand WP:CSD) Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/New criteria (Summary of suggested changes as of November 2005) Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Explanations, explanations of the reasons for each criterion

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A page for incorrect speedy deletions

We know that speedy deletion criteria are misapplied frequently by many different people, usually people with good intentions. This doesn't invalidate speedy deletion - but it may inform how it ought to be revised, when considered in aggregate. People frustrated with incorrect speedy deletions tend to highlight a particular example and try to raise discussion here, but it's difficult for that discussion to lead to targeted improvement when it's unclear whether the example is representative, or whether the criterion or the admin is at fault.

So I suggest we create a page for reporting incorrect speedy deletions that have been subsequently reversed and either kept or put up for deletion by PROD or AfD. Besides the purposes above, it would also be great for illustrating to new admins when speedy deletion is inappropriate. It could be something like Wikipedia: Criteria for speedy deletion/Incorrect deletion noticeboard or something. Thoughts? Dcoetzee 19:57, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, on considering this some more, perhaps a better word than "incorrect" would be "contested" - since the person who deleted an article may not always agree with the person who undeletes it. Dcoetzee 20:15, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

If you want to conduct a point-in-time analysis in order to improve the process, I would heartily support your efforts. If you're talking about a permanent piece of bureaucracy, I would have serious concerns about instruction creep. Who will monitor this new reporting place? How will disputes actually get resolved? Why wouldn't this be redundant with the current escalation process? etc... Rossami (talk) 02:18, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I echo your concerns about it being necessary and possibly WP:CREEPy. I feel that DRV currently works just fine for this. However, I don't really have data to back that assertion up. I'd love to see some data about how many speedies are correct. As for Rossami's questions, should we actually want a board, I believe the first two are answered easily. Most likely us here at WT:CSD would be monitoring it, as we know the criteria best and are closest to it. Disputes can be relatively easily sent to DRV, DR, or ANI if necessary. Of course, this would make the board redundant to all those other areas. So, again, I don't believe it would be necessary or useful. Cheers. ++ 19:46, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

There is a study of the correctness of speedy deletions (see User:Mangojuice/a7 and User:Mangojuice/a7.2). 20:30, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

DRV is well-monitored, and fairly underused compared to other deletion process pages; though the deleting admin's talk page should always be the first step. 20:42, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

(oops, slow response) To clarify I'm not talking about a noticeboard, which would be redundant with other measures; rather I'm just thinking of a record or log of such deletions, to be gathered and organized in one place over time for informational puprposes. Dcoetzee 20:49, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree that DRV is the place. The new policy created by a recent edit over at WP:Deletion policy changes this a lot. If there's a good faith contest of a speedy by a non-creator, then the page should be restored for discussion. That alleviates some of my concerns. II | (t - c) 21:04, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Wow, that snuck through neatly, didn't it, and with not a lot of conversation over it... that definitely needs more discussion, considering it's only about five editors talking about it.... Tony Fox (arf!) 21:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Clarifying: That is emphatically not 'new' policy. Someone finally asked that we write down the policy as it has always been. Rossami (talk) 22:22, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

WP:DRV. ViperSnake151 23:56, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted that DP change and suggest discussing it at Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy. Stifle (talk) 16:15, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

A7 and WP:N

Is it correct that an article can meet WP:N, but still be speedy deleted as non-notable if the article doesn't specifically state why its subject is important or significant? This sems to be the general feeling at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2008 November 4#LA Direct Models. If so, should this be made clearer on the criteria page? Epbr123 (talk) 16:28, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

What you say is almost correct; just take out the "as non-notable" from your sentence. A7 is intended to keep out improperly wirtten articles (on subjects which may or may not be notable). I think the A7 criteria are pretty clear: nowhere does A7 use the word notability, and this was intentional, as was the clarification that follows. UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:37, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

What makes it unclear to me is that the A7 criteria says it "is a lower standard than notability". This suggests that any article meeting WP:N should be safe from an A7 deletion. If this isn't the case, I think it should be clarified. Epbr123 (talk) 16:46, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, after thinking it through further, I agree with you. I think the text should say "is a different standard than notability." Let's see if anyone else has an opinion. UnitedStatesian (talk) 17:17, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

It says that "importantance" is a "lower standard than notability". That just means that things that are not notable might still fail A7. But it does have to indicate as to why the subject is important. So let me use a metaphor: Let's say notability is 10 and importance is 5. 10 always contains 5, so "different standard" would be incorrect. But the point to A7 is that: If the article says it's a 10 or a 5, you cannot A7 it (unless the claim is obviously ridiculous). If it does not state anything, then even a 15 might be deleted as A7.

But whether it actually will be deleted or not is the admin's job to decide - because all CSD are "may be deleted"-criteria; if the deciding admin thinks another way might be better, it is up to him or her to not delete the article. In the case of A7 it means for example that the admin has to check if some subject's importance is indicated anyway, googling the subject or suchlike. SoWhy 17:32, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

The kind of article I have in mind is, for example, one that just contains the sentence "Joe Bloggs is a British athlete born in 1980" but also has a couple of references to The New York Times. The article doesn't explain why this is an important athlete, but it does meet WP:N. Epbr123 (talk) 17:48, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Taggers should of course look at references if they are provided. I'd even say that a name drop in a reliable source is already an indication of importance, but it depends on the source. A couple of NYT references that mention the topic are more than enough in my book. --Amalthea^Talk 18:09, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I am going to just cut and paste my example from above as it works here too. Pretend you came across this article: "'Studio' was the first band to win the "best band in Anytown, USA" at the newly established "Anytown Arts Center". With the money the band won they recorded their debut EP in the basement of their drummers house. They have shared the stage with acts such as Bubble Breath, Fall on Down, and Yummy Hotdogs. Currently they are one of the best bands in the Anytown, USA area." It would not eligible for an A7 as the article does "indicate why its subject is important or significant" - "Studio" is "important" because they were "the first band to win the "best band in Anytown, USA"" They are also "important" because they "shared the stage" with other acts that are better known than they are. And there is an assertion that the band is "one of the best bands in the Anytown, USA area" which would make them "significant". The question of if they actually meet the notability guidlines is another issue. Now if "Studio" were notable but all their article contained was "'Studio' is a band from Anytown, USA and records in their drummers basement" it would likely meet A7 criteria. Soundvisions1 (talk) 18:25, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Good example, although you have to take into account that it might still fall to A7 if those other acts are A7-able and/or if Anytown, USA is too small for their art prizes or being the best in the area actually representing anything but vanity claims. Any band can win the prize for best band in Ghosttown, USA (population 4) and thus be the best band in the Ghosttown, USA area and yet their claims of importance would be void. But of course, if it reasonable to assume that those claims are at least not completely unlikely, AfD should deal with it. Regards SoWhy 20:58, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

There was a discussion a while ago about this at Wikipedia_talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 29#Speedy deletion of articles with sources; there was near unanimous agreement that any article which cited reasonably reliable sources shouldn't be a speedy candidate. The intention behind A7 wasn't, as I understand it, to remove badly written articles, but rather the most objective wording anybody could come up with to weed out "vanity articles" for the most blatantly non-notable individuals, such as articles written by schoolchildren about themselves and their friends (organisations and websites were sneaked in later). For some background, see here and the links therein. As such the barrier is no realistic indication of importance; intended to be a lower standard than any of our vague and contradictory notability guidelines to prevent individual admins making controversial deletions based on their own interpretation of WP:BIO etc. However, if an article cites reliable sources, it clearly shows that the subject is considered important by those sources (assuming they do actually discuss it); hence it shouldn't be a speedy candidate. Iain99^{Balderdash and piffle} 20:30, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Short answer: No. Being WP:N-style notable is a pretty huge indication of importance. Cheers. ++ 20:37, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

This comes down to the most essential limitation of A7: determining what qualifies as a claim of importance. There are a great many things which one admin might reasonably consider an implicit claim of importance, while another does not. This is the source of subjectivity in this CSD. This is particularly evident in cases like these, where notability guidelines written by topic area experts can clearly identify implicit claims of significance that an average admin might overlook. Attempting to define a "claim of importance" objectively is no easier than defining notability objectively. Dcoetzee 21:11, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree that I'm having trouble sorting this out. For example, I'll see a 10-line article come across that says, "John Smith is an artist in New Hampshire who has won the following 10 prizes.." Nothing is linked, there are no sources, and it's not obvious if the prizes are real, fake, minor, or major ones for which we do have articles, but just no links were included in the stub. So it can be tricky and time-consuming to tell if dealing with a hoax, or a valid stub. On some of these I skip deleting them, but do watch to see what other admins do, and I usually see the articles being deleted as "A7, no indication of notability", even though there clearly is an indication of notability. Perhaps the wording of CSD could be changed to match actual practice, like, "no plausible or sourced indication of notability"? My own feeling is that very short and sourceless articles should be deleted on sight, but we don't seem to have a clear speedy criteria for those, even though the "Create page" screen clearly says, "Articles that are created without references, or have extremely little content, are likely to be deleted very quickly". I'd like if we could get that disclaimer synched up with CSD. --Elonka 21:26, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

OTOH, I'd like to see less use of speedy deletion. My view is that speedy deletion is an extremely valuable tool for articles of the type "Jenny is a cool girl", "Our garage band will be famous as soon as we learn to play an instrument" or "I like cheese". But for honest attempts at non-spammy articles, it can be devastating for a new editor to have their contribution deleted minutes after creation. Yes, articles should, nay must be sourced. But the encyclopedia as a whole is better if there was more emphasis on finding and adding those sources and less emphasis on who can delete something the fastest. Are there admins who are incorrectly deleting stuff? Absolutely. There are also admins (and others) who are declining those speedies. The nature of speedy deletion makes it hard to have any kind of meaningful statistics on what is actually going on.-- | 19:43, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I think there's a substantial amount of abuse of A7 (and speedies in general). For example, the first article that I wrote, Lundberg Family Farms had a reference to a NYTimes article stating it "is the number one organic rice brand in the US". User:Aecis tried to speedy it.[1] That's clearly an inappropriate speedy, but he didn't blush. II | (t - c) 19:07, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

That was one year ago, and it was declined. How is this an example for "substantial amount of abuse of A7"? I agree that it was incorrectly tagged though. --Amalthea^Talk 19:16, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes that was a bad tag, but if you want to prove that there is "substantial abuse of A7" it's better to look at articles that were actually deleted, since admins are expected to know the criteria well. There are about 13,000 A7 deletions a month, and even if 50 of those are bad that's still a very low failure rate (less than 0.4%). 21:30, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

That article was only declined because I figured out how to use a watchlist. I've experienced firsthand maybe 5-6 speedies in my year and a half as a user. Of those, at least 2 were bad. So yeah, I'm generalizing, and I'll keep an eye on the category in the future, especially since it is so nicely displayed at the top of this page. My reasoning is that there are a few admins who regularly troll Special:NewPages, and if they have poor judgment in the cases that I've seen, then it seems plausible that they have poor judgment elsewhere. User:Aecis, for example, deleted 3787 pages since becoming an admin in 2006 (I know, that doesn't mean he speed-tagged them all). Maybe 80-90% were legit, but that leaves 300-400 bad ones. And actually, that wasn't my first article. I made a couple stubs before that and they were all either speedied or prodded, and I thought they were notable (and asserted notability), although I can't remember exactly what they were about. II | (t - c) 01:27, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Contested G7 deletion

I'm going to ask my question about the general case here, but if anyone wants to look at the specifics that led to this, they can check out this link.

I have a case where editor A added a number of well written articles to the project (transalted from another language wiki, I beleive). User A then became annoyed with the project and requested G7 deletion on several of these nice articles. As they were the sole author, I saw no problem with this, and completed the G7 deletions.

Now, I have user B, who has seen these nice articles via the Google cache, and would like them restored. To the point that they suggested possibly restarting them via the data in the Google cache. This last is to me a GFDL violatiion, and thus not a good option, but the issue remains, what could/should be done in this case? Do I continue to honor the G7 deletions, at the expense of several nice articles that now have a potential new main editor? Or do I go against the wishes of the original author and restore the articles? I'm at a loss for the proper path forward. - TexasAndroid (talk) 13:59, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Explanations – "[G7] Does not apply to long-standing articles or quality articles not created by mistake. Such articles were duly submitted and released by the author and have become part of the encyclopedia, obviating others who otherwise would have written an article on the subject." I'd suggest undeleting to preserve the history. Bencherlite^Talk 14:12, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

(e/c) The CSD criteria provide the limited places where an admin may delete; it provides the authority for this form of deletion, but it should not be taken as a right or mandate, i.e.. it fits under X criterion therefore it must be deleted or should be deleted or, in this case, to give the original creator the right to have it deleted or keep it deleted. All the musts and shoulds come out of underlying policies and guidelines. Here the user absolutely and irrevocably released his contributions under the GFDL. If they are encyclopedic, they should be restored.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:15, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. - TexasAndroid (talk) 14:16, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

(e/c) Agree with what is said above. Also, if those articles were translations, the information, even if not the language, was not created by the translator and as such it is questionable if he can really be seen as the sole creator. I too think you should undelete them, given the fact that their content was released under the GFDL and as such noone can insist on their deletion. Regards SoWhy 14:19, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Undeletion is done. In case anyone now wants to look at the articles in question, they are Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, List of German companies by employees in 1907 and Chemische Fabrik Kalk. - TexasAndroid (talk) 14:21, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I am the author of the german article Chemische Fabrik Kalk - and I have no problem if this in the English Wikipedia appeared. Furthermore, BlueSalo these also expanded. Please think about the GFDL license after. Sorry for my bad english... Regards --Rolf H. (talk) 15:51, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Fault?

Template:Afc film says that it is in Category:Templates for speedy deletion. However it is not listed in the category page? What's going on I wonder. MSGJ 14:28, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Weird, since it's been tagged for a week now. But probably more of a question for VPT. --Amalthea^Talk 15:05, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

No idea why it was not in there, but I just did a null-edit to it, and it's there now. Very weird. - TexasAndroid (talk) 15:13, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

That's even weirder, cause the first thing I did was purge it with Template:Afc_film?action=purge, which didn't help. --Amalthea^Talk 15:18, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Purge purges your browser cache, I think. Null edits force the DB to re-evaluate all the templates on a page, and everything that comes off of the templates. I see this regularly when things in the background are running slow, but never before *this* slow. When you add/remove a category from a template, there is generally a lag before it shows up on all the pages that use that template. Null edits can speedy things along on specific pages. But normally we are talking minutes worth of delays. Hours at the extreme worst. I have not yet found a template edit that might have caused this, though. So I'm still not really sure what happened here, even though I knew how to work around it. - TexasAndroid (talk) 15:33, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Best I can tell a purge should do exactly the same thing as a null edit (WP:PURGE). It's definitely server-side, and it helps to fix a page nominated for deletion per script if the link to the discussion still shows up as a redlink, just as a null edit does.
Of course it's not the exact same situation, maybe a null edit does do more than a purge WRT categories after all. --Amalthea^Talk 15:47, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Hehe, note Help:Dummy edit#Null edit: "If a transcluded template has added or removed a category since it was last transcluded then purge will not update the category page, but a null edit will.". --Amalthea^Talk 17:27, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Ok. One mystery solved. We still have the questions of whether the {{Age switch}} stuff ever actually worked, if it did, why is it broken now, and if it did not, how did we go so many months without building up a huge backlog of these things.? - TexasAndroid (talk) 17:32, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

That's not the only one in that situation. I'm hitting more of them with null edits to force a re-eval of the categories. - TexasAndroid (talk) 15:16, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

42 items in that category. I'll let someone familiar with template CSD actually process the things. - TexasAndroid (talk) 15:34, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

{{Db-t3}} appears to use {{Age switch}} to decide whether to place the template in that category. Some sort of aging code, so that it does not go in right away. If so, then something may have changed that is preventing {{Age switch}} from being re-evaluated daily to decide whether or not to place a newly tagged article in the category. We're approaching the limits of my knowledge of wiki-code, though. And if something in the code base has changed recently to disrupt this, I'm not sure where to go to explore that angle. - TexasAndroid (talk) 15:44, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Ah, you're right. What do you mean with age switch being re-evaluated daily? How would that be happening? Does a purge of a template force a reparse of the transcluding pages? --Amalthea^Talk 16:46, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Assuming this was ever working, and I'm not sure how they had it working, but for what they have in place to do what they wanted it to do, I'm pretty sure that regular automatic reevaluation of some sort would be needed. The code uses a date-based conditional coding to decide what categories to place the tagged article into. From the docs, the idea is that it'll be dropped into Category:Templates for speedy deletion seven days after tagging. For this to happen, regularly the article would need to be reevaluated to change the results from the template. On day 6, it's needing to be categorized one way, and a different way on day seven. Exactly how that automated reevaluation is/was supposed to happen, I have no idea. I never thought about doing something this way until I saw this here today. And again, that's assuming that this has ever worked how it was supposed to work.

As for purge, according to WP:PURGE, it should cause a reevaluation. Your purge did not do so, but my null edit did, so I'm not sure what is really happening there either. - TexasAndroid (talk) 17:08, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I would say the age switch was working correctly because these templates were in the correct category. Why they weren't appearing on the category page is another question though. MSGJ 18:50, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Um. TexasAndroid has generally the right idea. Pages tagged with conditional code of that nature need to be regularly reparsed to implement the category links. In the past, this rerendering process has been performed on a rolling 'housekeeping' cleaning cycle, where each page is, every time a change is made to it, given an 'expiry date' after which is it reconstructed during a period of low server load. I have heard that the wikimedia servers have been under a lot of pressure recently; several resource-intensive processes (such as Special:ExpandTemplates and other special pages) have been disabled. It is possible that the 'shelf life' of rendered pages has been extended to improve performance. TexasAndroid is also correct about null edits verses purging: a purge is a browser action: it causes the browser to download new versions of everything it thinks it needs to build a page. This includes javascript files, style sheets, plugin files and, of course, the page itself. But the request is otherwise no different to a normal pageserve; the latest version of the page is output complete with any changes. But no modifications are made to the database. A null edit submits an instruction to MediaWiki to perform that usual housekeeping 'springclean' immediately. The entire page is rebuilt and any necessary updates to other tables are made at this time.

So in response to the issue, the real problem is the way wikipedia manages its interlocking database tables. A 'queued deletion' system (ie you flag an article for deletion, it is deleted a fixed period later unless the instruction is cancelled) has been in the works since hell last thawed. In the absence of a genuine solution, I don't really know what to suggest, bar a bot to go round doing regular null edits on all transclusions of {{db-t3}}. ‑ 22:12, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, the solution used in all other similar cases is creating a unique category per day, with bots doing the housekeeping work.
And a purge per WP:PURGE really is a server-side cache purge. :) --Amalthea^Talk 22:31, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, you're quite right, the description above is for a browser cache bypass; sorry about that. However, the server purge is actually an even simpler event: it prompts the squid server that holds the page cache to ask for a new version of the page code from the main database server, renders it, and creates a new cache with it. The database doesn't do any updates itself, it just gathers the necessary bits and pices (template contents, images, etc) to enable a complete page to be recreated. So everything you see on the article is correct, which is why this issue invariably manifests itself as "category appears on page, but page doesn't appear in category". ‑ 22:46, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Just wondering, but would purging the category page instead do the trick? It usually works just fine using the purge link already on C:SD. ++ 22:49, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

With CAT:CSD, you are dealing with refreshing the category for pages that are correctly updated in the DB. For this situation, refreshing the category won't help until the pages are updated/reevaluated, as the DB will still have no idea that they should even be in the category until the pages are dealt with. - TexasAndroid (talk) 23:15, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

What now?

Ok. From the analysis above, we have a system that worked, but is not currently working. The auto-reevaluation may (or may not) be restarted at some point in the future, but we really have no way of know if/when it will. So what are our options now? As I see them:

1. - Leave things as they are, hoping that the reevaluation system will be restarted at some point in the near future.
2. - Seek a bot's assistance.
3. - Scrap the current system and try to come up with another way to accomplise the desired results.

What are people's opinions on the possibilities, and does anyone see any other paths forward? - TexasAndroid (talk) 17:24, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

1. When I checked today there was only one article tagged for more than 7 days, but missing in the category. Just ignoring the problem for now is certainly possible, since there are relatively few articles ever tagged as a T3.
2. Would certainly work, shouldn't be difficult, not taxing for the servers. It would also make the age switch a more reliable tool for other purposes, maybe even other criteria.
   But I'm not sure if we really want this, if it starts to be heavily used then we depend on the bot doing a round of null edits every day.
3. Per above, create a category per day, and delete all in categories older than 7 days. Has the advantage of being a tested method, with bots doing the housekeeping in similar cases that could be adapted. Has the disadvantage of being a lot of fuzz for only a few templates every day. We should then think about estabilising more general speedy deletion categories, again one per day like Category:Candidates for speedy deletion on 17 November 2008, that can be used for all delayed criteria, no matter how long a delay they have. If I tag an article as a T3 today it will be categorized into Category:Candidates for speedy deletion on 24 November 2008. All pages in todays category can be deleted.

I'm actually leaning towards the first option for now, as long as there are some CSD admins who can be bothered to go through the list of transculsions from time to time (or regular editors doing the null edits), but I'd like to get a definitive answer of what exactly is going on, and if it's actually going to work as before again in the future. --Amalthea^Talk 00:11, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

A7 needs to be changed back

Recently I was quite surprised to find out that A7 now *does* have to do with "notability."

For a very long time, A7 said "This is distinct from questions of notability, verifiability and reliability of sources." It appears that A7 was changed in April after this thread about Ingo Dammer-Smith.

It looks like on April 9, 2008, Taemyr changed A7. Iain99 commented here saying he didn't think those changes were an improvement, and suggested a new wording. Then Taemyr said he liked "Ians wording" and then Taemyr changed A7.

I disagree with Taemyr's alteration of A7.

I propose to change A7 back to this version from April 15. So instead of..

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

..A7 will read..

An article about a real person, organization (band, club, company, etc.), or web content that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. This is distinct from questions of notability, verifiability and reliability of sources. A7 applies only to articles about web content or articles on people and organizations themselves, not articles on their books, albums, software and so on. Other article types are not eligible for deletion by this criterion. If controversial, as with schools, list the article at Articles for deletion instead.

Thoughts? --Pixelface (talk) 04:19, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

In a DRV discussion, (Ironically one I filed for my own AFD close) I once got called for using the phrase "asserts notability" when removing a speedy tag. I had to point out this "new" wording to the editor and tell him that I was using it because "asserts notability" is shorter then "asserts importance or significance". After that, I started using "IoS asserted" when removing A7s. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 14:11, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I suggested that change because I wanted the wording to stress that the hurdle for A7 is lower than those imposed by any of our vague, contradictory and often contentious notability guidelines. In my experience (please don't ask for diffs - I don't have time to go trawling for them right now) there are now numerous new page patrollers (and probably admins) who don't know the history of the clause (which was basically brought in to allow "Joe Bloggs is a teenager at Somewhere High School" to be dealt with quickly) and use it to tag anything which doesn't meet their own strict interpretation of WP:BIO or whatever. Worse, I'd seen it asserted by someone who was not a complete newbie (sorry, again I don't have time to dig out the diff) that A7 required articles on people, bands or companies to meet a higher standard than notability; that they had to meet the relevant notability guideline and meet some additional "importance" criterion on top of that or be speedily deleted. Hence my attempt to clarify it. I'm open to suggestions on further improvements, but I think they should maintain the sense that it's a lower bar than any given interpretation of WP:BIO etc. I also don't really think there's much to be gained from maintaining the fiction that A7 has nothing whatsoever to do with notability; clearly it does, given that "notable" means much the same as "important or significant" (though I know we're supposed to pretend that it doesn't). Iain99^{Balderdash and piffle} 19:48, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree with this change as it makes it clear that "IoS" is a lower bar then "notability". However, the drawback is that when someone uses phrases like "assertion of notability", it's no longer clear on whether or not the editor using the phrase knows the difference between "IoS" and "notability". This may be important for some discussions such as RFAs. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 14:25, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

The main point of CSD is to deal with things that are likely to be uncontroversial at XfD. Interpretation of whether something is notable is indeed controversial, and as such should not be reflected in a CSD criteria. - jc37 14:19, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think making it clear that it's easier to be considered "important or significant" than "notable" really changes anything about how A7 should work, and really that's the way it should work. There should be things that aren't notable, but still aren't A7 material. There shouldn't be things that are notable but are A7 material. The current text does state that pretty well, by calling it a "lower standard than notability". I'd guess most of the objection is actually to the next bit, and removing it should make everyone happy. So, is

An article about a real person, organization (band, club, company, etc.), or web content that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. This is distinct from questions of verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability. A7 applies only to articles about web content or articles on people and organizations themselves, not articles on their books, albums, software and so on. Other article types, including school articles, are not eligible for deletion by this criterion. If controversial, as with schools, list the article at articles for deletion instead.

acceptable text? ++ 16:44, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. But, just to briefly touch on this, A9 was created for a good reason but numerous articles about a musical release, for example, simply state "This album/demo/single/mp3/whatever was released by this band" (or the slight variation "This is the first/second/third whatever released") followed by a track listing. Is there, or was there, a reason as to why this type of article can not fall under A7 as well? Or is it implied that, as long as there is a parent article on the creator of the subject, it has inherited notability and "their books, albums, software and so on" are exempt from A7? Soundvisions1 (talk) 17:11, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Mostly the objection was that there would have been too many false positives. There are plenty of album articles out there that only have their own articles because otherwise the artist page would get too big, and we wouldn't be able to find them all to put {{go away}} on them (besides that the template is more useful the less it's used). Basically, the possibility of false positives was too high for people to like until we came the current wording of A9, though they wanted something. The threads that lead to it are here, here, and here. Cheers. ++ 18:06, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Also, such articles can (and should) be changed to a redirect to the artist if notability isn't asserted. When there is no artist article to redirect to, then a speedy makes sense. -- | 18:21, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Clarification

So I just want to make sure... when you add a Speedy Deletion template to an article, you don't need to pay attention to it afterward because an administrator will see and deal with it, correct? Thanks. -Drilnoth (talk) 18:22, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

You don't need to, but it can be a good idea to keep track of articles you tagged. It's true that the administrators will base their actions on your original tagging, without the need for more input, but sometimes they will deny speedy deletion. It also sometimes happens that someone removes the speedy tag for good or bad reasons, or contests speedy deletion using {{hangon}}. Other times, the page simply gets recreated - again, for either good or bad reasons. If you still think the page you tagged should be deleted, it's up to you to take action (but don't readd the speedy tag - use WP:AfD or the appropirate other page).

For all of these reasons, I keep pages I've tagged for speedy deletion on my watchlist, sometimes for quite a while, so that I can see what's happening with the page. This also means you get a watchlist notification when the page is actually deleted - a relatively recent feature that's very convenient. I find it's much better to watch these pages than not, but as I said, it's not required. — Gavia immer (talk) 19:00, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Makes sense. Thanks! -Drilnoth (talk) 20:14, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

little request on a template

Template:Di-no permission-notice is fine but I would suggest to bold one part of one line. Currently the line I am speaking of reads:

• make a note permitting reuse under the GFDL or another acceptable free license (see this list) at the site of the original publication

I am suggesting this:

• make a note permitting reuse under the GFDL or another acceptable free license (see this list) at the site of the original publication

Some editor/uploaders are not getting that part and posting information on talk pages or on the image talk page. Thanks Soundvisions1 (talk) 19:24, 18 November 2008 (UTC)