Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 5

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Jerzy (talk | contribs) at 17:11, 4 March 2004 (Effecting the pushy reorg of voting section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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January 2004 summary

This is Angela's summary of January. The uncut version can be found here.

  1. Jimbo wants VfD gone
    • To kick off the first fight of the new year, Jimbo made the suggestion on the mailing list that VfD was "completely broken". RickK claimed he would never delete anything again and an anon tried to spark debate by bringing up issues of deletionism and groupthink. Onebyone cut him down with the comment "I take it that by vanilla mainstream / groupthink you mean verifiable and neutral?". Angela claimed Jimbo was wrong as he had made his comment in the context of believing that Palestinian views of the peace process had been deleted, which it had not. She announced VfD was a wonderful place, with poor articles being saved as a direct result of being listed. PMC backed this up with examples. Another anon popped up to say he was horrified at the squabbling and that VfD was somehow to blame for the over-representation of Rambot articles.
  2. Let's get rid of VfD
    • Theresa suggested that pages should be cleaned up, not deleted as it was off-putting for newbies. She was glad that pages were being moved to Wikibooks instead of being deleted but less pleased that sysops were deleting pages based on a majority rather than a consensus. She made some suggestions for new pages as an alternative to VfD. Angela pointed out that these pages already exist at Wikipedia:deleted test, Wikipedia:Things to be moved to Wiktionary and M:Transwiki. Fuzheado said the only alternative to VfD was carnage. Dpbsmith suggested that instead of VfD we classify articles Slashdot-style so people could browse at -1 and see "asdf" pages if they wanted to. Angela recommended creating a page at Meta to discuss it further. Onebyone suggested linking junk pages to "Wikipedia:Complete garbage".
  3. Proposal for a New VfD System
    • Optim proposed a new VfD based on Taylor's Scientific Management principles which would punish people for proposing to delete a page that was not later deleted and pay them some sort of wikimoney for good deletion decisions. Only users with enough "money" would be given a vote. He added that the goal of VFD is to prevent trolls and vandals from destroying Wikipedia and clarified that VFD should exist but not be overused and reminded us all of the importance of WikiLove and WikipediAhimsa. Angela felt that punishing newbies for not understanding how Wikipedia policies apply to articles to be deleted was probably not the way to go. Meelar agreed that VfD is overused but saw Optim's proposal as harmful for new users and overly complicated. He recommended pages go to cleanup before VfD. theresa knott found this a sensible idea. Finlay McWalter noted that not only is VfD overused, it is also over-confrontational. His recommendations included gentler boilerplates, discussions on articles before they hit VfD, time on cleanup first, interwiki candidates to be listed elsewhere, and a split of VfD into a list of days with links to pages. Jiang was critical of the Wikimoney idea and saw no need to introduce capitalism to the process. He noted that cleanup was already an overused dumping ground. Optim reminded people that his suggestion was not meant to be taken seriously. ESP said that punishing people for trying to improve the quality of Wikipedia, however ignorant or misguided they may be, was probably not the best policy.
  4. Headers and voting
    • Angela asked people not to add headers to every entry without reading the past discussion on them. Jiang noted that RickK had gone mad. He also suggested people ignore votes not accompanied by a reason. Lord Emsworth thought that much too complicated. Angela said that it was up to the person deleting the page to decide what weight to give votes without reasons. Delirium pointed out that the only person to complain about a deletion he'd made was The Cunctator. Texture explained that he was more likely to speak up if he disagreed with a deletion than if he agreed.
  5. Democratize the deletion process
    • mydogategodshat's "Lets give the process back to the people" proposal aimed to make the process less time consuming and ad hoc by appending a form to every article which would allow people to give a score between 1 and 5. This would put deletion in the hands of all Wikipedians and be largely automated. Angela pointed in the direction of m:Deletion management redesign. unkamunka liked the score-based idea but queried the technical implementation of it. mydogategodshat thought that would simple enough.
  6. Proposal for reform - deletion credits
    • In the fourth proposal in as many days, the now-banned user The Fellowship of the Troll (TFofT) said everyone should have deletion credits. Only those who had made enough contributions elsewhere would be allowed near VfD. Angela reminded TFotT that deleting pages was just a maintenance task, not some sort of wonderful privilege. PMC told TFotT that VfD was not a power game, and that it served a useful purpose in freeing the site from trash. RickK noted that TFotT seemed mysteriously knowledgeable about VfD for a newbie. Mark noted that such a system would prevent anons from voting. TFotT brought up groupthink once again and a long, and somewhat off-topic, discussion on the characteristics of groupthink ensued between him and Tuf-Kat, who thought the proposal was needlessly obtuse and not something that would reduce groupthink anyway. Delirium noted that whilst a lot of legitimate stuff is listed here, little of it is deleted. TFotT suggested everyone analyse the contributions of those voting. Onebyone said he wouldn't do this until TFotT demonstrated that the system was broken. Tuf-Kat wondered why TFofT didn't just ask a few people why they don't vote. TFotT thought that would not be credible enough.
  7. Deletion policy
    • Elsewhere, Eloquence was plotting to split VfD into a voting page and a discussion page.
  8. Proposal to limit edit conflicts and huge VfD page size
    • Not wanting to be left out of the "I made a VfD proposal" club, mav brought us this month's sixth proposal. This involved moving all discussion to the talk pages. The pros included limiting edit conflicts, increasing participation, making the page smaller, making it easier to find discussions and making it easier for admins to maintain the page. Downsides listed included the fact it was a new way of doing things, that it would not be possible to view the discussion on many topics all at once and that you would have to edit two pages to list an item. Optim thought discussions should go on /delete subpages but withdrew this when mav said that was too complicated. UtherSRG liked the idea and pointed out the {{subst:vfd}} would need to be changed. Angela suggested all new proposals be postponed until Eloquence's one had been voted on. mav said his proposal was more popular than Eloquence's, but that the two could be merged if necessary. ledgerbob asked if VfD could be automatically generated from a list of all pages with {{msg:vfd}}.Angela said it couldn't as you wouldn't know when things were ready to be deleted, so would have to check 60 different pages. Imran proposed splitting vfd by reason for nomination. Presumably people were fed up of proposals by this stage and no one replied. A user claiming not to be a troll popped up and asked not to be called a troll. Not wanting to be completely off topic, he also said VfD was too large.
  9. No Sign of Discussion on "Explain your vote"
    • Finally, the discussion moved away from proposal making, and Jerzy objected to the idea one should give a reason for deletion along with their vote. Finlay McWalter agreed that voters should not be obligated to explain or defend their votes. Oliver P, however, disagreed and stated that the intention of VfD was to reach consensus, something not likely to be achieved by an uncommented vote. Onebyone said that articles already are only deleted if the admin perceives a need to and that nominations with no reason given, plus votes with no reasons given, should not be deleted. Anthony DiPierro argued that reasons to keep were not needed as all articles should be kept by default. Texture said that articles are kept by default and that exceptions are listed on VfD, hence reasons need to be given. Anthony DiPierro wanted to know what would happen if he didn't have any reason. Texture suggested he would be ignored and that he ought to refute the reason given to delete the page. Anthony DiPierro still did not see why a reason has to be refuted. Sam Spade (Jack Lynch at the time) thought that explanations were usually necessary. Angela told them all to stop arguing until the vote was over on Eloquence's proposal. Jerzy wondered if he could save some time by allowing someone to cast proxy votes for him.

Deletion before all votes are complete

The deletion policy requires a five-day period to allow people to vote on a deletion request. If you do not allow this full five day period, you do not have a valid concensus. Deleting before the five days are up may omit votes that will change the outcome. The only option listed in the deletion policy that allows for early removal is if there is an alternate solution other than keep or delete - if this alternate solution is done it still requires a few days additional to show what was done to resolve the problem. - Texture 16:07, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

On balance. I agree. The real problem is that one user might come up with an irrefutable argument why a page should be kept or deleted, not that the "majority" might change. I suggest that in future articles are given the full 5 days unless they are fast-track deleted first. Bmills 16:37, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Agreed - I am not suggesting that we cannot remove a VfD tag - just that we should not remove the votes until the five days are over so that people can see the resolution (per the deletion policy) - Texture 16:43, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
If an article is fixed before its five days is up, then it is a complete waste of space and resources to leave it there for five days when the page is too large anyway. Of course people will argue about what "fixed" means. That's why people who go round cleaning up this page only do it when it is clear that it is fixed, and that comments post fixing agree. This has been the policy for a long time and works well in keeping VfD page size down as much as possible. There are very few examples of something being removed prematurely and then consequently being deleted. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 16:45, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
If everyone agrees then there is no harm in keeping the votes for the five days, is there? I would like people to have the opportunity to see the votes and understand what action was taken. - Texture 16:48, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
There is harm. The page takes too long to load, the entries on which genuine debate is required get lost amongst votes that are over but remain waiting for their five days. There is no devious intent on my, or any other removers, part to keep rubbish articles, it is simply a standard means of maintaining the utility of the page. Old versions of the page are available to see what people said. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 16:55, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I updated Wikipedia:Deletion policy to clarify that removal before five days is often ok in these sorts of circumstances. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 16:55, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
No one is accusing you of devious intent. It is proper to allow the community to see the votes and requested deletions. No one should, after a single day, remove requests for deletions that many have not seen. There definitely should be discussion before you change a policy to support what you already attempted that violated that policy. - Texture 17:10, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps you are right, I should have moved more discussions to the talk pages rather than just leave them in the history of this page. That is normal for extended discussions and they are Wikipedia:Archived delete debates. However the pages I removed were not contentious, so I didn't. I repeat, I have not changed or violated policy, what I did this afternoon was completely in line with existing practice - the policy page already says removal is ok if some other solution than deletion is found - in particular if the page is fixed, that is a solution other than deletion - the change I made was to merely clarify that - and make explicit existing practice, which has evolved over a long time, and you've not provided an argument against. It is not necessary in fact for every member of the community to be involved in every minor decision that takes place every day - if the decision is a simple one - e.g. not to delete an obviously ok page - then a smaller group of individuals can take that decision. Note I've never made a unilateral decision to remove an entry - I was always following the consensus on the page - in effect performing on a technical role rather than one of judgement. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 17:20, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I don't argue that you were acting on the concensus gained IN A SINGLE DAY in some cases. However, the reasons for five days posting is to allow others to vote and disagree. And, yes, you did try to change the policy to match what you did. Check the page history. It is not a "technical role" and is a "unilateral decision to remove an entry" if you delete votes prior to five days (per policy). The policy indicates that the votes should be listed even after a solution is found - not everyone will agree with your unilateral decision that the solution is complete and the voting is over. - Texture 17:37, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Well it is clear that your interpretation of the policy is different to mine and others that clean up VfD. Wikipedia:Deletion policy will have to be made clearer by someone, so that both interpretations are not possible. I very strongly imagine that the clarified policy will be more in line with my and other cleaner-uppers interpretation than yours. If you can explicit examples where the benefit adding extra time for already fixed articles outweighs the cost of the maintenance and visibility nightmare of VfD, I'd be pleased to see it. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 22:50, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I have "unilaterally" removed pages from VfD many times before before the time was up. Mostly because I thought the space could be used to something more productive. But that is not ok behaviour or is it? BL 18:00, Feb 9, 2004 (UTC)

"space could be used to something more productive" is currently not a valid reason for removal under the policies for deletion.  :) I have seen much moved to another page and a link left on VfD and other actions that were similarly documented. - Texture 18:10, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

If something has been fixed, remove it from VfD. This page was 110kb a couple of days ago. After I finished editing it, it was 54kb. There simply is not room to leave in discussions of items that are obviously going to be kept so I do remove those early. Those who want to see what happened can check the page history. In response to earlier discussions on this, I now remove each item individually so that the edit summary can make it clear why I am removing something from the page (rather than removing 56kb in one go). I see no benefit whatsoever to leaving things on for 5 days that are not going to be deleted. The point of VfD is to get pages deleted, not to have some discussion on the merits of pages that aren't. Angela. 18:56, Feb 9, 2004 (UTC)

Judging from the fact that whenever I try to save something on Votes for Deletion I encounter up to three edit conflicts in a row, I can only say that this page is being used far too often. (In a number of cases I didn't bother to retrieve my statement or just didn't find it any more because the page is so long.) Wikikiwi 21:25, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I am correct in thinking that non-sysops, who voted on an article, shouldn't then take it upon themselves to remove the article from VfD? This looks like what Anthony was doing last night. Secretlondon 08:42, Feb 13, 2004 (UTC)

No-one should remove an entry if they have voted. Early removal, when used properly, should just be a technical/cleaning up exercise. Thus if used properly, non-sysops could do it just as well as sysops. It looks like Anthony wasn't using early removal properly! Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:28, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Should we add Please read articles before voting on them. to the top of the VfD page? Bmills 09:31, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

  • Yes, please do. Gentgeen 14:19, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Do we really need to? Is anyone voting without reading the article? Angela. 23:41, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)
      • And if people aren't reading the articles, they are unlikely to be big readers of boilerplate text at the top of utility pages, either :) Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 01:01, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
      • Well, from BL's votes, it's pretty obvious he doesn't read them. RickK 01:03, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
        • Please remember that just because you can't see their faces, doesn't mean other contributors aren't real people, who on account of human nature, might get annoyed reading stuff like that about them. Personal attacks never seem to have a positive effect, please consider whether it is worth making them. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 01:20, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
          • But his attack on me was all right, and went by without comment from anyone except those who thought it was odd that I should even comment on it. RickK 01:23, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
      • I didn't think so, but then I read some of the replies to my listing of reproduction speed where it does appear at least one person responded solely on the title of the article. --Imran 00:30, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
        • If people are not reading the article, then there vote should not be counted. Only those made in good faith are to be included according to the deletion policy. Angela. 03:12, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

Ok I think I am in the righ place now. Personally I agree with Jimbo VfD has become a harbour for the same old group of censorship bandits as far as I can tell. When in doubt delete it has become the philosophy and as a result plenty of good stubs are already into deletion discussions before anyone has had a chance to copy-edit! Many of these discussions really don't beloing on the VfD page but in the article talk pages. Disputed Articles may be highlighted as such with a notice/warning but the real problem is what to do with all the "A List of things Joe Bloggs doesn't like" articles. I think the answer is in policy. The only problem is there are a lot of policies with discussions which ramble on and we need regular angela-type summaries of all the key points/developments as she has done here. Newbies like me when greeted need to be informed of the importance of keeping up-to-date with discussions on the modulation of policies and encouraged to get involved. I am not even sure if i am allowed to post these comments here so if I have messed up please revert. And appologies in advance. :o) Zestauferov 04:46, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)


porn star lists

I think these lists provide an opportunity to ponder/discuss/decide on a policy regarding lists in general. How specific should a list be? Is there any limit on what makes a good list? What are these limits? I am an inclusionist, but I must admit the area where my inclusionism is weakest is in regards to silly lists. Sam Spade 07:45, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I hate all lists, but Google says there are over 20,000 of them, so I've learnt to just ignore them. :) Anyway, it should be discussed at Wikipedia talk:List, not here. Angela. 03:12, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

[rm my wrong-headed comment caused by looking in the wrong place Dandrake 19:54, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)]

You've actually conflated two issues here: lists and porn. I feel creating lists would be a waste of my time, but they can be useful at times so if others want to create them, more power to them. Porn presents a different issue: are we a "pornopedia"? do we have to protect the children? what if we manage to write about it tatefully? I say do it tastefully, and perhaps we should create a new {{msg:mature}} tag:

While all of Wikipedia's articles are held to the highest encyclopedic standards, we understand that some individuals may choose not to view articles with mature (sexual) content. If you are under the age of majority or age of consent in your country, please obtain parental permission prior to viewing this article.

--zandperl 20:38, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Zandperl, See Wikipedia:Content disclaimer. JDR

Edit conflict announcement from orthogonal

This page got fubar'd in an edit conflict left unresolved by Dandrake at 19:46, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC), which deleted a number of edits. This wasn't discovered for a while, and a number of other edits accumulated. I reverted at 20:30, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC), and then I (very laboriously) went through, revision by revision, to add back in the edits that my revert, and the initial conflict, deleted.

As far as I can tell, all are back in EXCEPT two entries that appeared in Dandrake's edit, but were not by him (his own edit comment has be incorporated). These two comments I think may have been deleted by their authors and inadvertently pulled in by Dandrake. They are:

and

They ARE NOT incorporated in the text of the page below. If this was a mistake on my part, please, Fuzheado and Zandperl, add them back in. Otherwise indicate here that they should not be incorporated, and the second of you to do so remove this explanation.
Thanks. orthogonal 21:47, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

My apologies for the muckup of the page. I have no idea how the edits got crossed up here, but I have to wonder if it has to do with the recent caching oddities that now force me to do a control-reload after every edit in order to see the effect. Anyway, I now know to triple-check the diffs if I've seen anything at all out of the way in an edit. Dandrake 01:43, Feb 17, 2004 (UTC)

Fuzheado put his back in, and La Misère du monde no longer exists, since it was a candidate for speedy deletion. The edit conflict seems resolved, and I'm removing the announcement from VfD. --Michael Snow 00:27, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Protection of VfD

Are sysops ignoring the VfD protection and message by Jamesday or is the page reconstruction complete and going to be unprotected? - Texture 22:12, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I logged in after the protection was put into operation and did not see that it was. Only just learnt on IRC what's going on. Hope to see things back to normal soon. Kosebamse 22:20, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
It's completed now and unprotected. I expect people didn't notice the fact it was protected. I don't know if any edits were lost in that time so if anyone has edited since about 7pm UTC, they should check their edit stayed in. Angela. 23:40, Feb 17, 2004 (UTC)

Re-nomination policy

Originally in a section above- moved here to keep related discussion together
When someone inevitably brings up Time Cube for deletion (for the third time), would someone be justified in speedily removing it from the listing? →Raul654 07:43, Feb 6, 2004 (UTC)

The same thing happened with AKFD. Unless something has actually changed since the time the article was last listed, I think it's ok to remove it from VfD. Angela. 23:22, Feb 7, 2004 (UTC)

end moved section

I would like to suggest the following policy. An article that has survived VfD cannot be re-nominated to VfD for one full calendar year. Standards and resources change over time, and articles should not be immune to re-evaluation by VfD. I think one year is an easy-to-remember, good length of time. Comments? Suggestions? Kingturtle 23:49, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I totally agree with your feeling that regular relisting is an avoidable drain and a flaw. I'm not sure time-related pauses are the right way to go about it. In general, I think there should be a much higher bar for listing sth on VfD. If you don't have time to write a paragraph about sth, just put it on cleanup and wait for someone who does. Else you should have a real point to make, and should take 2 min to make that point concisely. You should be required to check to see if the art has been VfD'ed before, to read any related comments, and to check the art's Talk: page... all before listing it for VfD. +sj+
So if you really want to relist something that was around before, the burden is on the relister to lay out why it is different this time around than it was before -- with excerpts from recent changes to the article, old VfD comments, etc. +sj+ 02:38, 2004 Feb 29 (UTC)

I don't see why we should bar re-nominations at any point that a consensus can be reached. I'd say maybe three months should be a minimal suggested time, but this shouldn't be policy, rather a rule of thumb which voters should consider. If we have a consensus to delete an article, we should delete it, regardless of what happened in the past. Anthony DiPierro (this comment is a work in progress and is subject to change without prior notification)

  • The problem with re-nominations is that currently. nothing prevents someone from re-nominating an article every single time it survives VfD. Kingturtle 00:44, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Nothing except common sense. The same thing that prevents someone from nominating every single article that starts with the letter "Q". Obvious trolling such as this won't be tolerated. Maybe there should be a way to take things off VfD early. An 80% keep vote with a quorum of at least 5 regularly contributing users, for instance. But this isn't an issue specific to re-nominations. Anthony DiPierro 01:05, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
  • I'd be inclined to support Kingturtle. I've seen a few things here twice, and I've only been here since late November. It wears on you. Meelar 02:06, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
  • I agree. This practice amounts to forum shopping, hoping that those who were around last time won't be around this time. However, if an article is clearly significantly worse than the last time it left VfD, there's no need to bar relisting, so long as a month or so has been allowed for people to clean up whatever messing around caused it to be worse, and there's no ongoing activity relating to the article (so no listing in the middle of an edit war, say, or starting an edit war would be a way to game the rule). Note that relisting deleted items should not follow this rule. We can and should assist this process by ALWAYS placing the VfD result on or linked from the article talk page, and retaining it there through any archiving. Jamesday 11:28, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Proposal: shortened VFD time for spammed ads

I understand the standard VfD time is seven days between its announcement on VfD and its deletion. Would it be acceptable to lessen this time for entries that are created solely as blatent ads for some web site or company that does *not* have any other reason for entry into an encyclopedia? --Modemac 14:24, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I don't think this sort of candidate is any easier to identify as worthy of quick deletion than any other categories of possible deletees. We have to go through the process of identifying whether the website is worthy of an entry, and then if worthy the aricle still will generally need re-writing to removed ad-iness, which all takes time. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 14:46, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
What's a week...? Not everybody is here every day. And some of these entries might prove interesting after all, in a modified way... --Palapala 16:59, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
How can you determine why something is created? The whole concept of VfD is that whether something should be included is disputable. If it's pure undisputable crap, there's speedy deletion. I would support deletion of any listing which has received 8 votes to delete and no other votes after 3 days. And, of course, the ad part of an entry, and the non-encyclopedic part, can be blanked, if there is a consensus that this is the case. Anthony DiPierro 14:54, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

VOTE: NEW LAYOUT FOR VFD!

This idea has came up from time to time. Basically, many users felt that VFD would work better if individual articles had their own headlines. That would make it possible to add your response to an article without first having to scroll through 15 kb of and run the risk of an edit conflict. You can look at a demonstration of that layout at User:BL/New VFD.

There are some cons, like a HUGE table of contents and you cannot make all days vote simultaneously (which you cannot do now either since you'll run into an edit conflict). But I think the pros outweights the cons. You can just scan through the toc to see if something catches your eye, you don't have to scroll through massive amounts of text, greatly reduced risk of an edit conflict since every person edit the page for a shorter time... Anyway, voice your opinion (whatever it is) and please vote below:

As a trial, I am going to "be bold" and split out March 3rd for a trial - That first one is making March 3 hard to vote in - Texture 19:39, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It is possible that the order the options are stated in doesn't matter.
It is also a defensible idea that the views of small minorities aren't going to affect the outcome, and that their being heard amounts to petty sabotage against the process of finding the only view that is in practice implementable. (And i admit to seeing Dennis Kucinich that way. [no hint of a wink])
Nevertheless, i request the indulgence of tolerating my reversing the order of the voting groups, to the order of weakest to strongest. If it has an effect, it will be to make some people who might vote without asking themselves if "neither" is an option.
I am also abolishing the sections, (I do that with even more hesitation, since it could add to the edit-conflict burden, but i think that will be only at peak times if at all.) This will avoid anyone left to vote jumping straight to "their" section without seeing what is said in others.
--Jerzy(t) 17:01, 2004 Mar 4 (UTC)

Neither (see the new format)

Angela: Isn't this what is going to happen with the new Wikipedia:Deletion requests page anyway?

Yes. As soon as Wikipedia:Deletion votes is created and after some additional work, we will enter the trial period for the new two-stage system, so any major changes to the VfD format should be put on hold until the trial period is over and we have decided whether we want to keep that scheme.—Eloquence 02:16, Feb 23, 2004 (UTC)
I think this would best be dealt with by banning discussion on this page, and requiring it to occur on [[controversial page/delete or keep?]] This page would only then be for votes. I'm intreagued by mention of the new system. I'll have a look at that. Mr. Jones 14:03, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Well, then this change is a small step towards that new system. However, that thing has been in the making for a long, long while and I don't know how much support that idea has..

Jamesday's concerns are valid. But it is already impossible to check VFD:s history. Try loading this url for example which is VFD about 2 months ago. BL 02:39, Mar 2, 2004 (UTC)

Sorry BL, but Jamesday's concerns are largely invalid. Personally I never type a considered and well argued comment in a edit windof of VFD. If I want to put in a non-terse comment, I polish it in an unrelated edit window (frex. sandbox), and then do a quick cut and paste using section-editing. Some-one who comments more than one article at a time, in a particular section, is un-necessarily stressing the server, since it is more likely than not, that that is a recipe for edit conflicts, or even worse, apathy in participating in the process at all. (which happens, when one knows that it will only lead to an edit conflict). Having maximally short sections for editing, will make terse, quick, edits possible (you don't have to scroll screenfuls; hence quicker editing; fewer edit-conflicts; more people piping in; more robust process and less articles falling through the cracks). -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 09:08, Mar 2, 2004 (UTC)
I cannot support a new layout or an old layout of VFD right now, the system of how pages get selected for deletion needs to be redone entirely. I don't know how it would be redone, but a single page were just a few people vote up or down to delete an article cannot possibly be the best solution. So all I can do is hold out hope for the new Deletion requests system and see how it goes. --Flockmeal 22:22, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)

Jerzy(t) - Neither, bcz both are reflections of the fanatical and absurd idea that the basic Wiki mechanism can solve every problem. The problem of making decisions via scalable consultation and participation is fundamentally different from the collaborative editing task, tho closely related to it. Failure to address the differences with software and social mechanisms specific to their nature would be sufficient for this project to either

  • reach a technical or social collapse, or
  • eventually change into something that its most devoted adherants will regard as worthless or monstrous.
--Jerzy(t) 16:36, 2004 Mar 4 (UTC)

Bad idea (keep the current format)

  • Keep. Since BL is a radical inclusionist, his idea to change VfD is suspicious. RickK 02:11, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
  • Don't do this. VfD saw 224 edits in the 24 hours before this comment (9 per hour) and the last was 24k compressed size in the database (5 megabytes per day, 2 gigabytes per year). I quite often try to find things in VfD history and raising this rate to perhaps five or ten times the current edit rate would make it much harder to find things. It would also effectively force everyone to use section editing because edits would be happening at perhaps one edit a minute. I can't type and save well thought out responses in one minute, so this has significant potential to discourage discussion of listed items. Edit conflicts are annoying but increasing the rate of edits would make it worse. Jamesday 11:45, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
  • Object. The cons outweigh the pros. --Jiang 21:11, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • What are the cons? Anthony DiPierro 21:13, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
      • more edit conflicts since each vote will have to be submitted separately; TOC takes up too much space. will take longer to vote. --Jiang
  • New format is no better. I spend more time scrolling and have just as many edit conflicts. The indents are harder to read because they don't follow as cleanly. I like —Eloquence's proposed format and process at Wikipedia:Deletion requests. It would change us from a "voting" basis to a "logical arguments" basis. We could spend more time thinking and could stop entering useless "I agree for all the same reasons" messages (which we need today because of some lopsided interpretations of "concensus" which make us very susceptible to a tyranny of the minority). Rossami 20:40, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • Anthony DiPierro OK, I've changed my vote. This is no better, and has one major drawback I didn't expect. Because I have right click to edit section turned on, I can't open the link in a new window by right clicking any more. Anthony DiPierro 23:42, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • Editing two different sections of the same page at the same time still causes an edit conflict. All this would do is increase the number of edits and and increase the number of overall edit conflicts. --Imran 01:02, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Good idea (make it the new format)

  • BL 11:15, Feb 22, 2004 (UTC)
  • Optim: I like headings for every article, with table of contents. Optim 08:12, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)
  • Anthony DiPierro: But turn off the table of contents.
  • Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 13:35, Feb 27, 2004 (UTC) Overdue, has been irrationally resisted for too long already. With the new servers, this should be functional.
  • Agreed. -Seth Mahoney 19:52, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)
  • +sj+ 02:41, 2004 Feb 29 (UTC) Super.
  • Sam Spade 09:12, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC) very good idea, with table of contents of course. Thank you
  • Texture 16:11, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC) - with table of contents.
  • Good idea — Sverdrup (talk) 16:16, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • ike9898 with TOC
  • DropDeadGorgias 18:05, Mar 2, 2004 (UTC) The vfD page is impossible to edit now. - UGH, I just tried another edit and, of course, I had the same problem. It's impossible to make more than four or five votes at a time, because by the time you put your votes in and put a small rationalization, someone else has posted something new for vfd. This HAS to be fixed.
  • Great - edit conflicts are so common as to make it virtually impossible sometimes. Mark Richards 19:35, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • All for it. Maroux 21:18, 2004 Mar 3 (UTC)
  • Support. With TOC. — Timwi 21:25, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • I like it theresa knott 23:57, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • Looks better. Muriel 12:31, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • Yup. I tried it out and changed my mind. Let's do it. Tannin 12:53, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • It's A-OK with me... -- user:zanimum

Moan about how- to listings

What can be done to get people to stop listing them on VFD and getting them to move them to wikibooks instead ? Any ideas anyone? theresa knott 22:38, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Unfortunatly, when we started moving recipes to wikibooks and speedy deleting them here people complained, so now transwikied articles need to be listed on VfD prior to being deleted. See m:Talk:Transwiki
In some instances, a "how to" could be appropriate to add to a main article on a topic - Poker, for example.Davodd 23:58, Feb 23, 2004 (UTC)
If people want something moved to Wikibooks, they ought to move it to Wikibooks and then list it here, rather than just listing it and expecting someone else to do the work. I propose that "move to..." style listings are returned to the lister with a message that they should do this before listing it. If they are not sure it should be moved, they can put it on Cleanup first. Angela. 03:35, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
Please, for the record: why are how-to articles not considered proper for inclusion in Wikipedia? Nothing about how-to articles or recipes is mentioned on the What Wikipedia is not policy page, and the word "encyclopedia" derives from paideia, teaching or instruction or education, implying that instructional articles are encyclopedic by definition. I'm not necessarily disputing the policy, since there is obviously a concensus on this among experienced Wikipedians, but I want to understand the rationale for it and I want to know where it was enunciated. Dpbsmith 11:41, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
About How-tos, which ones to include/move to Wikibooks for classrooms/how to update Wikipedia:How-to, see Wikipedia:Village_pump#How-to -- User:Docu
I wasn't talking talking about whether they should be moved, but who they should be moved by. Are there any objections to removing listings of items that need to be moved where the person listing it has not bothered to move it? Angela. 22:29, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
I agree. More generally, before listing an article here, people should investigate related articles and consider for the article they are unhappy with: improving, renaming, merging, moving, redirecting, etc. --Patrick 23:10, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Not a lot can be done to stop it. There isn't consensus that they should be deleted from the Wikipedia, so while it's good for the lister to copy them, it's misleading to say "moved to" because it's really a proposed deletion from the Wikipedia. There's more discussion of this on the mailing lists. I generally vote keep to how to articles I see on VfD because almost all of them are encyclopedic (that is, pertaining to general education, for which knowing how to do things matters). Jamesday 11:37, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia -wikibooks - what's the difference ? Deleting from one wikimedia project and inserting into another means nothing is lost, so why worry? What really bothers me is artilces listed on VfD because they are "not enclopedic". What about id we do this - move recipes for to wikipedia. Then instead of deleting them just put a notice on the page - recipe moved to wikibook page. (As I understand it we can't redirect to wikibooks at the moment). Nothing get's deleted, nothomg get's listed on VfD. theresa knott 12:43, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Who can decide to remove "clear votes" before seven days?

Anthony just removed Suicide by cop which was posted a couple days ago. Since only two days have passed how can we know that everyone who wants to vote has? And who makes the decision. Is it a sysop function or can anyone like me and Anthony decide to remove something after two days because we believe there is a clear concensus in that short time? I have a few things to remove if that's the case... - Texture 20:43, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

There was no reason given for deletion. As for who can do it, anyone can do it, this is a wiki. If you object, revert. Anthony DiPierro 20:49, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Second Anthony's comment, the VfD page gets very cluttered and sometimes even reaches 100 kb which is much too long for a lot of people's browsers to cope with when editing it. Therefore if there is a clear consensus to keep an article, or if an article has been rewritten since it was listed, it is ok just to remove it. -- Graham  :) 20:56, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Let's flesh this out.. if someone lists a page for deletion and five people say keep in the first ten minutes I can remove it after fifteen minutes on the page? - Texture 21:04, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
This is a wiki. You can do whatever you want. Whether or not that's the right thing to do depends on more than just how many people vote in what amount of time. Anthony DiPierro 21:07, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I'd say there has to be more than just a clear consensus, but maybe that's just terminology. From Wikipedia:Deletion policy:
"If another solution has been found for some of these pages than deletion, leave them listed on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion for a short while, so the original poster can see why it wasn't deleted, and what did happen to it. This will prevent reposting of the same item. After the original poster has seen the explanation, or in any case after about a day, the page can be delisted from VfD."
I think in this case, since the "reason" for deletion was merely a question of whether the term was real, the answer was given strongly in the affirmative, and I waited a day, my removal of this vote early fit well within the policy. Anthony DiPierro 21:03, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Major edit on Feb 27 2004

I have attempted as far as possible to clear the major edit that happened in the early hours of Feb 27 (UTC) and everything is back to normal as far as I can tell. If there is something that I've missed out, please let me know. -- Graham  :) 12:52, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Size

VfD's size and format prevents me from voting etc. I cannot continue editing here because of the size (now 64kb) and the innability to edit a certain paragraph (I am forced edit a whole day's discussion). Can we please find some way to keep its size below 32 or (better) 20KB ? Or, at least, make all proposed for deletion articles appear under their own subheader as User:BL proposed. Or find some other way, perhaps dividing the page in three subpages (Vfd/Today, Vfd/Yesterday, Vfd/Past Week)... Or making subpages for the reason of deletion (Vfd/Ad, Vfd/Irrelevant, Vfd/Duplicate, Vfd/Unverifiable, Vfd/Fictious, Vfd/etc). Optim 08:11, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

You can't edit sections? Click on the "edit" link next to the date and only the one day's entries will appear in your edit page. RickK 01:06, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

This is what I do, but even one day's entries are too many. Optim 03:17, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
What do you mean it's too many? One section is certainly not more than 32kb. Maybe we should just have a vote on whether to go back to the page per day scheme that we had in September. Or just start using the Wikipedia:Deletion requests thing instead. The "day pages" seems by far the easiest option to implement if all people care about is how large the page is, though that does overlook the "consensus versus voting" issue that Eloquence wants to address. Angela. 03:33, Feb 29, 2004 (UTC)
A subsection for each entry might be too much, but how about one for every ten entries under each day? Dori | Talk 03:25, Feb 29, 2004 (UTC)

Let's just make the page smaller. Instead of voting on the same issues over and over again, just have a vote for what categories are acceptable for listing here. For instances, it's clear that there's no consensus that famousness is a reason for deletion, so let's stop listing articles based on that reason. Anthony DiPierro 03:50, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Naturally you would want to do that, since you don't think ANYTHING should be deleted. And you said on the Vfd page, "this page is ridiculous". RickK 03:52, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
That's utterly untrue. I've made a number of votes to delete articles, and I've made a number of nominations for deletion. The vast majority of things on VfD don't belong there. And it's not just me that believes that. I just happen to be willing to waste my time voting on it. Anthony DiPierro 03:58, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
And yes, this page is ridiculous, and it's ridiculous precisely because of the reason I just gave. Nomination after nomination of articles which obviously do not have a consensus for deletion, on the off chance that people will be too lazy to vote to keep them. This page is nonsense. And once again, I'm not the only one who believes that. Anthony DiPierro 04:00, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
What's obvious to you may be less obvious to others. More than once I've nominated articles for deletion only to discover through interaction with other users that there is a better solution for my perceived problem. The important thing is that possible nominations for deletion are brought to the attention of those users who care about deletions. In my view, an adversarial attitude regarding deletions (either pro or anti!) creates an unfriendly atmosphere on this page, and that's the thing people should be working to eliminate. -- Cyan 06:43, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I don't see anything important about possible nominations for deletion being brought to the attention of anyone. As for the adversarial attitude, I totally agree with you. That's one of the problems with VfD. It's inherently adversarial. Anthony DiPierro 17:35, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
<blink>... I consider consensus-building and discussion about possible courses of action important. That's only possible if one brings the fact that one considers deletion to be a reasonable course of action to the attention of interested parties. I don't agree that the discussion has to be inherently adversarial; I think that only happens to people who don't understand that another intelligent person can have a different opinion, even with the same information at their disposal, and that this is perfectly reasonable and principled. -- Cyan 18:53, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Consensus-building is great, but VfD is not about consensus building. The discussion doesn't have to be adversarial, but that's the way it's currently done. Deletion is not a reasonable course of action for the vast majority of nominations. Could VfD be redone so that it isn't adversarial. Of course it could. But right now it's not. Anthony DiPierro 22:15, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I agree completely with your most recent statement. -- Cyan 19:01, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The only reason VfD is adversarial is because of inclusionists who make personal attacks on people who add items to VfD. RickK 03:27, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

This does not accord with my general impressions. Certainly that is one reason, but it's not the only reason. I submit that you are particularly sensitive to criticism, RickK, or at least more sensitive to it than, say, me; this may account for the difference in our perceptions of the dynamics at play on this page. -- Cyan 03:54, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

And here I thought it was because of deletionists who make personal attacks on people who vote to keep items added to VfD. Anthony DiPierro 04:04, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC) <this comment was originally placed between Cyan's and RickK's comments immediately above>

Ah, now we have the other reason for acrimony. In short, I don't think either faction has been particularly careful to direct discussion away from unnecesarily inflammatory comments or to express respect for the holders of differing opinions during disagreements. -- Cyan 04:20, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Two households, both alike in dignity... -- WormRunner 04:39, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
LOL.  :-) RickK 04:48, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Vanity Pages

Cant we promote Vanity Pages as Kilian Knote to Candidates for speedy deletion? If a mistake is made and the person is indeed famous, the article will reappear anyway. This could help reduce the size of VfD. Muriel 08:19, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I don't see why, sometimes its difficult to tell the difference between a vanity page and an article on an encyclopedic subject thats badly written and looks like vanity. Saul Taylor 08:37, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Of course not. Most "vanity pages" aren't actually vanity at all. The person may reappear, but all the previous information would be lost. Anthony DiPierro 12:38, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Ah! Ah! Muriel 22:24, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I oppose this ideal Muriel. Perl 13:29, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Have we abandoned consensus?

I've noticed a lot of pages have been deleted recently which lacked a clear consensus. Anthony DiPierro 14:49, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

LIke what ? theresa knott 15:05, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
[1] [2] [3] [4]

Well total consensus was abandoned long ago as impractical. The examples you list are a mixed bunch. Pesonally I would not have deleted them, but I'm not that worried about them being deleted except for KPPP. Perhaps some sort of reminder is necessary. I'll do it now -

I'm not talking about total consensus. I'm talking about situations where only 2 people vote to delete and 1 votes to keep, or where 4 people vote to delete and 1 votes to keep. In another case there is 1 keep, 1 delete, and one weak "delete or stub". In another the vote was 2 to 1 in favor of keeping. See above. Anthony DiPierro 16:02, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Note to Admins

If in doubt don't delete! If there are at least two people who argue against deletion, think very carefully before hitting that button. If there is less than an 80% vote for deletion think very carefully before deleting.

To Anthony - no real harm is done if a page is deleted. We can always list on VfUD theresa knott 15:50, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

There's lot of harm. Listing on VfU is no guarantee that a page will be undeleted. Anthony DiPierro 16:00, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well that's a matter of opinion. If i see something getting deleted that I don't think should have been I just undelete it. (I don't know if I should do this but I prefer to be bold and it can always be deleted again anyway) What I used to do before I became an admin was to ask the admin who deleted the page to undelete it.

It's a difficult area, I never count votes when deciding if it should be deleted or not, but instead exercise judgement. I think most admins do the same. What I mean by this is if someone does not explain why they are voting that way, I tend to ignore them. theresa knott 11:32, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I would feel wronged if ignored. Many others would as well. A page just got relisted because it had a majority to delete but was not deleted. If this is a case of ignoring delete votes without a reason I think that is wrong. Many people don't give a reason because someone else summed it up and they felt no need to add duplicated reasons. If votes without reasons are going to be ignored then it needs to be stated. -Texture 17:12, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
What is the criterion for a "explanation"? If I put a word or two such as "vanity" is that sufficient for my vote to be counted? - Texture 17:12, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Let me clarify - and note that I'm speaking only for myself here, what other admins do I can't say though I suspect they use judgement too. Usually there are far too few "votes" to decide based on numbers alone. This is unfortunate but what can we do do? We can't force people to vote. So I have to look at arguments that people put forward. If you write -delete or -keep I can't do that, so yes I do tend to ignore those. One or two words is usually enough "-delete vanity" is fine or "-agree with blah blah keep" is fine. I tend to err on the side of caution, and i always read the page myself and check it's history before deletion. This is the best that I can do, so I do it. theresa knott 17:23, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Anytime you see -delete it usually means "agree with nominator". I really don't want to junk up VfD with that each and every time in order to get my vote counted. Keep need some explanation unless it is preceded by another users' argument. - Texture 18:16, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Not sure why we bother having this page, then. The guidelines for it clearly say that there needs to be a consensus, though. I guess I can "exercise judgement" and remove pages after 5 days if I feel that the deletion votes were not explained? Anthony DiPierro 15:25, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

You do what you think best. I'm not going to give you permission. theresa knott 15:44, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

And likewise I'm not going to give you permission to do what you're doing. Anthony DiPierro 15:59, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

VFD Statistics?

Has anyone kept track of the statistics for pages that get placed on VFD? My impression is that there are a lot more pages that are not deleted in the end than pages that are.

Is there are VFD results page? Should we have one? This could list the outcome for each page listed on VFD, and perhaps keep a count over time of the final destiny of pages.

-Rholton (aka Anthropos) 14:41, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I get the same impression. I feel that far too many pages are listed on VfD when they shouldn't be. theresa knott 15:44, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I read his comment slightly differently - Many posts on vfd should be deleted, but aren't. - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 17:32, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)
Agree with Theresa. I've commented several times to this affect, both in specific discussions and generally. And what's the point of updating the guidelines if they are just ignored anyway? This also applies to the format of voting... merge and delete is becoming increasingly popular, despite the fact that the doco explicitly says it's not a valid option. Andrewa 00:18, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I though the vote was "delete" in that case and the recommendation was for anyone interested to merge the content prior to deletion. - Texture 00:21, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I get no impression from the comment - How about creating a page where results can be recorded? Not each item but just a count:
  • March 3 2004 - 5 deleted, 4 kept, 1 withdrawn, 1 moved to Recipe/deletion...
- Texture 17:36, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Nice idea in principle, but in practice, who does the recording? If it's the admins, you are going to meet some resistance. My procedure for deleting a page is:

  1. read all the comments and votes on VfD check that there are no valid resons not to delete.
  2. Read the article - decide if you're happy to delete it.
  3. Check the history of the article - usually short (thankfully) but not always.
  4. Delete the talk page
  5. Delete the article putting reason in deletion summary.
  6. Remove listing from VfD puting reason in edit summary.

That's if I'm deleting. Often there is an alternative solution. Many people are happy to vote "merge and redirect to blah blah" or "transwiki to blah blah" but not actually do it. So I have to create the redirects etc. IMO this is quite enough work without having to edit another page for stats. theresa knott 17:55, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Ok, bad idea... I'll keep thinking... :) - Texture 18:14, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I made the original suggestion for several reasons. I keep hearing all sorts of complaints about pages listed here, but my impression is that many of the pages listed end up either:

  • improved to where deletion is not necessary
  • made into a redirect
  • Almost immediately determined to be a moot vote: either universally seen as garbage, or seen as a valid article (the poster was being too careful in not listing it for immediate deletion, or the poster was unaware of the significance of the topic).
  • other fates I can't think of right now...

It seems that only a small minority end up in a significant dispute, requiring a real vote.

If I am right, my conclusion would be that VFD is working quite well. It serves as one of the very few "official" editorial reviews that any page has, and the usual result of an improved page.

My one concern is that I think we are often too quick to post a page to VFD. There seems to be very few cases where waiting a few hours would hurt. Pure vandalism and patent nonsense are handled elsewhere, quickly. Other doubtful pages should be given some chance to improve before they're listed here.

-Rholton (aka Anthropos) 19:52, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
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