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Wikipedia talk:Speedy deletion

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Latest comment: 19 years ago by DESiegel in topic Interpretation of WP:CSD A7 (non-notable bios)
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speedy placeholders instead of speedy deletes for images

Latest comment: 19 years ago14 comments4 people in discussion

I propose that instead of speedy deleting, we can just upload placeholder images over-top the "bad" images (untagged/unsourced). An admin could then "protect" the image if needed. Also, the image would obviously have to be removed manually from the article immediately before. But, that should be done regardless.

This would allow all users, not just admins, to deal with problem images. Admins would only be needed for protecting and unprotecting. No images would be permanently deleted, until all hope for the validity of the image was gone.

Doing this would produce very rapid results, since many more people would be involved, and the visual impact of an image being replaced would motivate the uploader to tag/source the image quickly, but they would be less angry, since they wouldn't have their image permanently deleted. It also would be easier to revert to the original image (from the placeholder), than to go digging for mirrored backup, which seems to be happening.

Since this sounds so obvious to me, there's probably an obvious reason why it's not done, that I wasn't aware of. If so, sorry in advance.

--rob 22:53, 25 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

I imagine its the same reason we speedy pages rather than blanking them. In this particular case, the infringing content would remain onwiki, and retrievable by anyone following the link in the history, and restorable with the click of a mouse. -Splashtalk 23:06, 25 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
In my proposal, admins would protect the placeholders at least as quickly, and probably much more quickly, than they could delete the image. Also, there would have to be strong policy againt reverting an image before an admin was able to protect the placeholder. So, there would be no more problem of ill-used images than there is now. Also, once it's confirmed an image is hopeless it would be permanently deleted. Also, by forcing people to edit the actual article, everybody with the article on their watch list, becomes aware of the problem, and will try to fix it. Currently, I find if I (as a non-admin) replace a untagged/unsourced image with a proper one, the article might be quickly reverted. This approach would make that less likely. --rob 23:27, 25 September 2005 (UTC) Added we don't speedy copvio's, we put a replacement notice (like a placeholder) up for 5 days, which is a highly visible inducement to fix the problem. But the copyvio is still in history, and easily reverted. After the 5 days it's permanently deleted. Such notices are hard to ignore. --rob 23:30, 25 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
We are about to start speedying copyvio. It is no quicker to protect an image than it is to delete it, since either way it needs to be removed from the article, and a reason given in the protection/deletion log. This really does just add more work — if people can't read the instructions they are presented with at upload time, then really it's their own fault. -Splashtalk 00:31, 26 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

My main objection to this idea is just plain that it's more work. We have a lot of copyvio images to delete, and the sooner it's done, the better. I'd rather have a bit of hassle in the restoration of those few images that turn out to be usable than having to jump through any hoops whatsoever in getting rid of the bulk. --fvw* 23:34, 25 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

How is it more work for admins? All the admin would have to do is protect the image after others uploaded the placeholder, and hopefully edited the article. Also, if there's obviously no hope for an image, or there's a good PD/GFDL replacement, than by all means do the speedy. My suggestion is quite similiar to text copyvio replacement notice. Also, a person acting in bad faith, and reverting back to an unallowed image is equally likely to re-upload another image (nothing stops them from doing that now). Both acts could be deemed equally disallowed, and dealt with. --rob 23:49, 25 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
You're assuming that all speedy marking is done by non-admins. I think it's closer to the oposite. Also, tagging an image as a speedy deletion is a lot less work than uploading an image for the non-admins. --fvw* 00:32, 26 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
I'm not assuming that. As a non-admin, if I put the tag on the image, and remove/replace it out of the article, it's extremely likely that the article will quickly be reverted back to the "pretty" picture. The reverting editor has no idea about the tag, since after the reversion everything looks good to them (they just see the thumb, and probably don't visit the image page). When the offending picture is ultimately deleted, I'll have no idea, and the article will be left with a red-link. Meanwhile, the PD image I wanted to use as a replacement might be classified as an orphan. As a non-admin I see no purpose in replacing a copyrighted images with PD/GFDL images, if the change can so easily be reverted by other editors. --rob 01:22, 26 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

Alternate ideas, with similiar principal, but which may or may not be technically possible:

  • Roboticly put placeholders for images with certain "bad" tags and auto-protect them. Robotic deletion is too dangerous, but robotic "placeholding" is safely reversible.
  • Configure software to treat bad images like link spam. You can't save an article with blacklisted external links. Why can you save an article with a "black-listed" image?

Basically, what's needed is something that works quick but also allows for quick fixes of inevitable mistakes. --rob 00:24, 26 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

Well, yes. Jimbo, however, appears to want this done now rather than in a couple of MediaWiki releases' time. -Splashtalk 00:31, 26 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
Now that we got some fixes done to the categories themselves, we could run a bot that gets rid of the images. But even if we do the slow and careful method, we will still get an ear full from everyone who was affected by it. It has been a week since the new policy was in place and I still get an ear full. Zach (Sound Off) 02:01, 26 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
Using a bot (backup/delete or placeholder) makes things less personal. People who have their images removed (regardless of how) need to understand it's not just some individual admin being tough. I've noticed a big divide in talks on this between admins; with some saying it's good to notify users first individually, and others saying it's necessary to act first (based on policy). To me, the "ask first" admins are unintentionally making the "act first" admins look bad. An automated approach (placeholder or backup/delete) has the advantage of consistency and fairness. Plus you can say "don't blame me, it's the robot". Also, I would assume such a bot (aka script) doesn't involve a new MediaWiki release. --rob 14:37, 26 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

Another problem with the current image red-link approach (fixed by placeholders): Everytime you click on an image-redlink, you don't see information on the old image (which might be helpful in seeing what the problem was and finding a legit replacement), but you do go to an upload screen, which seems to make it too easy for somebody to repeat their prior mistake. --rob 00:34, 27 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

Actually you go to a screen offering links both to the history of the deleted page - which will include all the edit summaries, including whatever info the original uploaded added at the time of uploading, and a (admittedly more obvious) link to the upload page. But, the likelyhood that the original uploader, or someone familiar with the original image, would be so much more tempted to re-upload an image without providing a source or license just because they are given a link to the upload page, seems far fetched to me. In any case, if the supporters of this want to go around putting placeholders up in place of already deleted images, or even, in place of not-yet-deleted images(as long as there is the un-sourced image tag is left, so the unsourced images can be deleted eventually), I'd be happy for you all to do it. The more the merrier. JesseW, the juggling janitor 01:51, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Sorry to be a spoilsport, but no. This is not policy, it is not practise and it is not the right idea. Sorry. There are more than 12000 images to deal with. I do not think that adding additional entries to the histories along with 12000 blank images to the servers is a remotely sensible thing to do. It is Wikiwastage without good cause. We do not operate a pure-wiki deletion mechanism here, which this is akin to. Until we do, or until Jimbo amends his decree to allow this, it should emphatically not be done. Non-admins are able to help out here by goig through Belands lists (see WP:AN and the VP) and leaving talk: page messages to the users in question. This will certainly help divide up the workload if we feel we must do this (which, by the by, Jimbo says we needn't, but anyway). -Splashtalk 01:58, 27 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

Adding a copy of What's not patent nonsense to G1

Latest comment: 19 years ago13 comments8 people in discussion

I've noticed a lot of invalid speedies under CSD G1, "No meaningful content or history, text unsalvageably incoherent (e.g., random characters). See patent nonsense." - The Wikipedia:Patent nonsense page has a nice list of things that are often confused with patent nonsense; I'd like to add it to this page, to clarify CSG G1.

The specific wording I suggest is this: "No meaningful content or history, text unsalvageably incoherent (e.g., random characters). This does not include: copyvios, bad writing, partisan screeds, religious excogitations, immature material, flame bait, obscene remarks, vandalism as such, badly translated material, hoaxes, or fancruft, unless the material is actually unsalvagably incoherent. See patent nonsense."

If no one objects to this in a week, I will do it. JesseW, the juggling janitor 04:53, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Fine by me. Zach (Sound Off) 04:59, 26 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
I have also noticed a lot of bad (or at least arguably bad) articles that do not qualify as "patent nonense" as per WP:PN beeing tagged with {{nonsense}} or deleted with the given reason of nonsense. I approve of the above proposal, but i doubt that it will have much effect. Can't hurt, though. DES (talk) 05:22, 26 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
This is a good idea, but as DES says, I don't suppose it will stop people tagging. We should make more of the provision in WP:VAND that joke articles are G3 speedies, because a lot of the time that's what people really mean. -Splashtalk 14:54, 26 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
  • Considering the number of people who have supported this, I'm going to add it now. If anyone objects, then by all means they should feel free to remove it. As I had forgotten CSD G3 - Vandalism, I'm going to make one small change, clarifing that vandalism is speedyable, just under G3 not G1. Also, I'm going to update the {{nonsense}} tag to reflect the new wording. Thanks everyone! JesseW, the juggling janitor 16:49, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Feels like instruction creep to me. You're now taking a long paragraph to say exactly what was said in a single line before. People abused the tag before but I don't think it was out of ignorance of patent nonsense. I suspect that they will continue to abuse the tag.

Now that it's been added, I propose that we watch for use of the tag for a few days. If it's not reducing the misuse by a measurable amount, let's take it back out. Rossami (talk) 22:15, 27 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

Instruction creep? It was already in the instructions, it was just less visible. I don't think instruction creep is a fair description of making already applicable rules more visible. So what reason do you think people abused the tag for? And how exactly do you propose to measure it's effect in "reducing the misuse" - I expect it will mostly be used by admins, reviewing the category, choosing to not delete things tagged with {nonsense} because they can read the list of things it's not right on the page. How do you propose to measure this? JesseW, the juggling janitor 23:00, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
It absolutely isn't instruction creep. It's just a copy-paste of existing policy. How is that creep? -Splashtalk 23:07, 27 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
You're right that it's not the classic form of instruction creep because it is not a new instruction but it is still creep-ish in the sense that it's more to read on a page already longer than ideal. It's creep in the sense that it's a second copy of content that is already stated perfectly clearly at Wikipedia:patent nonsense - which today is not a problem but which will become a problem as the two definitions drift apart (which experience tells us they will tend to do). To answer your question above, I think people abused the tag because they could. It was easy to say and rarely got challenged. The measure of "reducing the misuse" will be anecdotal reports of admins reviewing the category and finding fewer articles mistagged. Rossami (talk) 04:42, 28 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

Of course, while no one was looking, the actual content of {{db-nonsense}} was first reverted (by Ambi) and then rewritten (by me), both of us knowing nothing about this thread at the time. Dragons flight 23:16, 27 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

I like your shortened version. Thanks. I think Ambi's describing a cut and paste copy of an existing, (and AFAIK, well-respected) guideline as "nonsense" is - humourous, to say the least. Sort of sad, in another way. JesseW, the juggling janitor 23:23, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Speedy deletion notice on Watchlist

Latest comment: 19 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

On my watchlist there is a notice about speedy deletion of photos. It isn't specific, so is this something that has been sent to every watchpage (and why the watchpage then?). I've looked at the lists of images with unknown source and copyright status and I don't see any of my photos there. So what is this about? Should I worry? :) DirkvdM 10:45, 26 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

It's not just you. Its a general notice. -- Ec5618 11:08, 26 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

Common sense speedy

Latest comment: 19 years ago8 comments4 people in discussion

I'm curious what the community's opinions are on a "common sense" speedy criterion. This would be for speedying things that obviously don't belong, but for which there is no specific CSD. I'm thinking it would be used for things like blatant spam or obvious hoaxes. Unfortunately such things sometimes currently end up in Afd, which is unneccessary.

I realize that deletions like this are already done sometimes, without benefit of a formal CSD. Would it be useful to add one, or is "common sense" the kind of thing we don't need a rule for (other than Wikipedia:Use common sense)? The main advantage I see of a formal CSD would be that such deletions are no longer considered "out of process" and subject to easy undeletion. Thoughts? Friday (talk) 14:10, 27 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

  • I'd be all for this, but am doubtful that it would receive wide support. Implicitly, all you need to common-sensically delete an article is a liberal dose of WP:IAR, but that generally doesn't help in arguments at VfU. android79 14:32, 27 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
  • I do consider that such speedy deletions are now out of process, and i will routinely take them to VfU if I come across them. I would strongly oppose such a vague "common sense" criterion. IMO the speedy delete criteria are and ought to be quite precise, and bendign them or undyuly broadening them is a mistake. You mention "obvious hoaxes", but frequently soemthing that one editor thinks is an obvious hoax is nothign of the sort. If it is an admitted or confirmed hoax it can be speedied as vandalism already, but there are too many false positives on haox detection for this to be a speedy criterion. You mention "blatent spam". if an "article" is simply a link and nothing more it can already be deleted under A3. A promotional article about a real company or product can often be rewritten to an NPOV article about the same subject. Soemtimes the subject isn't notable, but IMO that decision takes AfD, and can't be properly made in a speedy deletion context. I'm not sure what other kinds of things you think "obviously don't belong" but aren't subject to current speedy deletion, and that fact -- that I don't know what you or any other person using such a criterion would consider that it applied to, is why I can not imagine agreeing to it. I would favor adding appropriate narrowly targeted additional speedy criteria -- for example non-notable bands. But not a general catch-all such as this -- I fear it would indeed catch all, or at least far too much that should not be caught. DES (talk) 14:42, 27 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
  • I would add that i do not consider that WP:IAR could ever justify an otherwise out-of-process deletion, and if someone cites that page (I don't consider it a policy) in support of such an action, I am inclided to discount their other arguments -- IME it is only cited by people whose cases are otherwise too weak to stand examination. DES (talk) 14:46, 27 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
    • I agree, IAR is overused and sometimes abused, but it does have a point about red tape and bureaucracy. If I "common-sense-speedy" an article that doesn't quite fit any one CSD but obviously doesn't belong and would receive near-unanimous support to delete at AfD, and you bring that up at VfU, who's getting in the way of writing a quality encyclopedia? android79 15:06, 27 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
  • You're absolutely right, such a thing is prone to wide interpretation or even abuse. As an alternative, what if such articles were tagged as speedy AND listed on Afd, but able to be speedied as soon as there were (for example) 3 different editors agreeing it was speedy material and nobody opposing? Yes, people could sock their way around this, but we already depend on admins to deal with sock voters. Automatically taking out-of-process speedies to VfU seems a bit silly to me- are we here to follow rigid processes, or are we here to make an encyclopedia? If someone's judgement cannot be trusted in this area, they ought not be allowed to delete at all. I think Afd should be reserved for articles where there will be actual serious discussion of whether or not to keep them, and my "common sense speedy" idea is aimed at things that would not have such a discussion. I realize it's a judgement call, but we already depend on human judgement all over the place, so I don't see that as a bad thing. Friday (talk) 15:03, 27 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
  • PS. Or, for a simpler idea, instead of using Afd, what if such speedies were done only with the consent of say, 2-3 admins instead of just one? Surely this would cut down on abuse. Friday (talk) 15:08, 27 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
  • I'd be a bit nervous of speedying 'hoaxes' - what seems like a hoax may turn out to be true. (I'm also fed up with removing speedy tags that say 'spam' or 'advert'.) But the 'patent nonsense' criterion perhaps needs to allow for some common sense. As Wikipedia grows (10% per month) afd isn't going to upscale in dealing with all the junk (see my thoughts here). If someone takes 30 seconds to create an article which says only 'Queen Elizabeth II has an evil clone created in 1492, who is good in bed' (nonsense, but coherent enough not to be patent nonsense) - should an admin take the time to send it to afd, where other editors will waste their time voting? (And why are we having a debate about Penis Van Lesbian?) We need to accept that afd will not upscale. Incidently, I'm a lot less nervous about speedying borderlines from afd, where the speedy is transparent. --Doc (?) 20:43, 27 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
Just to chime in. Regarding a common sense criteria - I would oppose, for all the reasons DES said so clearly. Regarding the Queen Elizabeth type things - yes, I would really like to see a nicely specific, clear criteria for, shall we call it: laughable nonsense. I'm not sure how to phrase it though.... JesseW, the juggling janitor 21:22, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

The "If" clause of A7

Latest comment: 19 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I have started a discussion at the village pump about how the "if" clause in A7 should be read given that I have seen it be interpreted in a number of different ways be different users and admins. Dragons flight 19:28, 27 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

I thinki this discussion, which i thank you for reviving, although i disagree on several issues, more proeprly belongs here. i have restore the section on it from the arvchives below, as discussion was still ongoing, and IMO should not be archived while this is the case. DES (talk) 15:23, 28 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

Interpretation of WP:CSD A7 (non-notable bios)

Latest comment: 19 years ago34 comments16 people in discussion

It has become clear to me from a number of discussions on VfD/ AfD and on VfU that people are interpreting WP:CSD A7 (non-notable bios) inconsistently, and disputes over proper interpretation recur. I think we need to form consensus over proper interpretation of this particular speedy deletion criterion. Some editors are insisting that a claim of notability must be substantiated and verified to count under A7. Others take the position that simply adding an adjective such as "famous" or "notable" makes a claim of notability and exempts an article from A7. Yet others have argued that A7 should apply to the creative endeavors of non-notable people. I think all of these contentions are mistaken. Therefore I propose the following commentary on A7. If this (possibly in a modified form) gains consensus support, I think it should be considered a guideline, and guide future applications of A7. DES (talk) 00:12, 12 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

My Proposal:

General Principles

  1. A claim of notability is a statement made in an article that, if true, would persuade some significant proportion of likely people who might discuss and vote on AfD that the subject is notable.
  2. A claim of notability is a substantive statement that is potentially verifiable Mere use of adjectives such as "notable", "famous", "exceptional" or the like is not enough to make a claim of notability.
  3. However, a claim need not be proved, nor sourced, nor even accurate. Debates over the truth, verification, or required sources for a claim belong on AfD or on the article's talk page as part of article improvement. They are not grounds for speedy deletion.
  4. For purposes of WP:CSD A7, any claim must be assumed to be true. If the claim is disputed, or if there is a claim but the editor or admin is unsure if the degree of notability involved is sufficient to warrant an article, then WP:CSD A7 should not be used. Instead edit and expand the article, or list it on AfD, or use other cleanup techniques.
  5. A7 applies strictly to articles that purport to be about individual real people. It does not apply to fictional characters, nor to groups of any sort. If the reality of the person is disputed, take the matter to AfD.

Positive Examples

  1. A statement that a person holds or has held any elected governmental office is a claim of notability. So is a statement that a person holds any appointed office in a regional (state, province, or the like) or national government. (Examples: "John Doe was elected mayor of Dullstown in 1998." "Fern Francis was the Secretary of Transportation of New Jersey fom 1990 to 2003.")
  2. A statement that a person has been a national or regional officer of any organization that is itself notable is a claim of notability. (Examples: "Jane Smith was national Secretary of the ACLU in 2001." Fred Flintstone became the president of the Colorado Red Cross in 1997, and still holds that position as of 2005.")
  3. A statement that a person has published one or more books (unless they are said to be self-published or vanity published, or this is clearly implied) or multiple magazine or journal articles or stories is a claim of notability.
  4. A statement that a person is a musician or singer fulfilling any of the WP:MUSIC criteria is a claim of notability.
  5. A statement that a person has received coverage in mainstream print or electronic media is a claim of notability. So is any statement that clearly implies that any such coverage must have occurred.
  6. A statement that a person has won any sort of national or regional competition, or placed in the top group in a national competition is a claim of notability.
  7. A statement that other members of an individual's profession generally recognize the person as an authority is a claim of notability.

Negative Examples

  1. As a general rule, stating that a person is a member of a profession or occupation is not in itself a claim of notability. This applies whether the profession is school teacher, college professor, writer, lawyer, politician, musician, singer, military officer, scientist, software developer, or whatever. Achievements in a profession or occupation are another matter.
  2. A statement that a person is experienced in or skilled at a profession is not a claim of notability.
  3. A statement that a person is a student, whether at the primary, secondary, university undergraduate, or post graduate level is not a claim of notability. Nor is a statement that a person has a good academic record as such a student.
  4. A statement that a person has been an officer or active member in a purely local organization, or a local chapter or branch of a wider organization, is not a claim of notability per se unless the local organization or chapter is itself clearly notable.
  5. A statement that a person has founded or been active in an organization is not a claim of notability unless the organization itself is generally recognized as notable, or there is some plausible indication of the organization's notability in the article or its links.
  6. While the truth of a claim is not at issue, obviously absurd statements such as "John Doe was born in 1802 and developed the jet engine, the microchip, and the potter's wheel" or "Richard Roe is the currently reigning king of the world" are not claims of notability for the purpose of A7.

Consequences

An article tagged for speedy deletion under A7, that contains a claim of notability as described above, may be untagged by any editor, and should not be deleted on those grounds by any admin. If deleted under A7, such an article may be undeleted in accordance with the undeletion policy.

Note that the mere fact that a claim of notability is made is not a sufficient reason for the article to be retained during the AfD, process. There the plausibility, verifiability, and importance of the claim may be assessed. These examples are only for the purpose of deciding when to apply WP:CSD Criterion A7.

Examples of recent AfDs/VfUs highlighting differing views of A7

Discussion

(Please discuss the above proposal here)

  • I think the above-proposed guidelines will significantly reduce the inconsistency and confusion about A7, and generally help apply it sensibly. I also think that the Wikipedia: Deletion of vanity articles page is both poorly named, and does not well reflect the consensus of those who supported the proposal that became A7. It is poorly named because not all A7 deletions are about "vanity" -- that raises the question of intentions.. It was rather rapidly drafted after A7 passed, when some people realized that the examples with the A7 draft were not sufficient. DES (talk) 00:12, 12 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
  • I disagree with "For purposes of WP:CSD A7, any claim must be assumed to be true." I don't think this will actually lead to gaming the system on the part of people creating articles, although in theory it could. There are surely situations in which a sysop can be sure enough that the claim is false to justify taking action. I think the discussion is very hypothetical, but as long as we're being hypothetical, take the example I gave above:
D. P. B. Smith is notable for being President of the Lancaster, Wisconsin chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society
  • Are you seriously suggesting that if the Barbershop Harmony Society's website shows no chapter in Lancaster, Wisconsin, that nevertheless "the claim must be assumed to be true?"
I'll take this; yes, for purposes of speedying. "Presumed true" might be better phrasing; but the argument over whether the list in the BHS website is complete (I've seen enough organization websites not to expect completeness, let alone presume it) is for AfD. Septentrionalis 02:49, 12 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
Or to but it another way, If the claim could plausibly be true on its face, its actual' truth or falisty is irrelevant for speedy deletion purposes only. This why the original A7 proposal used the word "claim". This is because accurately determining truth or falsity is not reliably possible with only one or two pwoplw involved. if the issue is one of truth or falsity it is one for AfD, not for a speedy deletion. On AfD evidence of truth or falsity can be presented and examined. In that forum, no such presumption would apply. That is the difference, adn thsi is what this proposal aims to make clear. DES (talk) 05:10, 12 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
  • Similarly, criteria such as "A statement that a person has published one or more books (unless they are said to be self-published or vanity published)" have great potential for mischief. If a sysop isn't supposed to be able to tell whether the Barbershop Harmony Society has a chapter in Lancaster, Wisconsin, which is a fairly simple true-or-false matter, how is he or she supposed to know whether a book by Million Monkeys Press is actually self-published by Geoffrey Falk or not? True, it only has one title. True, it doesn't have a credit card merchant account, accepting only PayPal. But that does not prove it is self-published, or that "Million Monkeys Press" is a vanity press.
Note the proposal said "said to be" self-published. If you can think of better wording, or a better example, please present it. Or do you think that "admittedly" self-published books are notable? At the least, this will settle teh matter when obviously non-self-published books are involved. For example, while the absence of an Amazon listing does not prove self-publication, the presence of one pretty well disproves it, and thus settles the issue of whether A7 applies. DES (talk) 05:10, 12 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
  • The proposal, although well conceived, represents major, major instruction creep. Sysops will speedy what they like, and when they screw up people will use Articles for Undeletion. As always. And people will bring properly deleted articles to AfU. As always. And the people who object to criterion A7 on principle will continue to object to it. As always.
I always suspoect that when people cite "instruction creep" they really mean "I don't like this, but I can't find any good arguments." Far too many of the wikipedia procedures are IMO underdocumented and under-precise, the kind of thing that worked well when this was a much smaller project. DES (talk) 05:10, 12 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
  • And I seriously doubt that any votes in AfU or VfU will change as a result of pointing to the proposed criteria.
Did the WP:MUSIC criteria change votes on when a bad is notable on VfD? Yes they did. People got used to them, and now they are being applied to such cases almost automatically with little individual debate. i hope that the same thing will happen with these notability guidelines. Can I guarentee it? of course not. I think it's worth a try. DES (talk) 05:10, 12 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

(This section was refactored slightly to make it easier to read).

  • I note that CSD A7 then refers me to vanity where it states Only those articles where there is no remotely plausible assertion of notability.... (Emphasis mine.) I do understand the stated concerns, but at this stage am leaning more towards "trust the admins". Can we have some links where this has been a problem about a particular article? I'd like to see this "in the wild" as it were.
    brenneman(t)(c) 12:53, 12 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
  • I would like to add that there are often articles that make implausible claims. e.g. "Will Morton became governor of Arkansas at age eight" and the like. There is a need for judgement in applying these criteria. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 16:23, 12 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
  • I think this looks good, at first glance. For clarity, I'd like to add the rather obvious "Any statement that a person will be notable in the future, such as 'John Doe will one day receive the Nobel prize in physics for his ground-breaking theories on time travel' is not a claim of notability for the purpose of A7. / Alarm 18:49, 12 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
  • I tentatively support this proposal, and more weakly support killing the "Deletion of vanity articles" page. Like WP:MUSIC, I think this has potential to get most editors who care about this sort of thing to use more-or-less the same standards, without getting policy micromanagement in the way of routine processes. Barno 19:23, 12 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
    • I suppose what I really want is a drastic rewrite of the "Deletion of vanity articles" page plus a page move replacing most of its contgent with this the content of this proposal (as modified by this discussion). Then the {{db-bio}} tag would link to the resulting text. DES (talk) 19:42, 12 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
  • I support A7 because I think there's a lot less controversy over nn biographical articles (or for band vanity, which sadly did not have its possible CSD pass) than there is for schools and other more controversial topics. TheUninvited raised a good point that we need a CSD for articles people who make implausible claims to notability. I don't know if you remember articles like Chris labosky (its AfD link), but it started off as student vanity and turned ugly. This was before A7 was passed, and I and several voters were talking about how we wanted the article speedied, while all the while, sockpuppets of the author were casting "Do Not Delete" vote after "Do Not Delete" vote. Articles and AfDs like that one are why A7 is useful. :-) --Idont Havaname 22:46, 12 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
  • I'm a fan generally of this writeup and concur that clarification on A7 would be nice so that a distinct standard can be cited -- as noted, WP:MUSIC is an excellent case of this. Anyway, on your Positive #4, I think revision is needed: Without a speedy for band vanity (which, as noted elsewhere, failed to pass), I don't see how we can establish "musician in a group that meets WP:MUSIC" as protection. In and of itself it's fine, but it implies that a musician in a group that does not meet WP:MUSIC lacks that same protection. As it stands, I find the current common practice of AfD'ing a band and member articles concurrently to be appropriate, as member notability usually revolves around the determination of band notability. All this rambling is to say I'd prefer a positive example "musician / singer is an inherent claim of notability" with an overriding negative example "a musician / singer of a band deleted through AfD is not a claim of notability." This protects new articles which lack a context judgement but speeds the cleanup process for band vanity that leaves a lot of associated articles behind. — Lomn | Talk / RfC 18:05, 16 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

Yes, "Musician in a group that does not meet WP:MUSIC" I want inrrepted as not being a claim of notability. An article about the group itself cannot be speedy deleted unless and until a band-vanity proposal is passed. But merely saying that someone "is a musician" does not make that person notable, any more than saying that the person "is a plumber" or "is a college professor". Only if the person is a nmotable musician (or at lest an apparently notable one) does the person's musionhood make the person notabel, and for that the WP:MUSIC guidelines form a reasonabel standard, i think. DES (talk) 20:46, 18 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

Some concerns

(refactored for readability—encephalonὲγκέφαλον  21:28, 13 September 2005 (UTC))Reply

  • David, good to see someone of your skill tackle what remains the most contentious CSD. This a good effort, but I disagree with some of it.
The core of this proposal, the sentence which is its central tenet and to which all else are caveats and addenda, is your General Principles #1:
A claim of notability is a statement made in an article that, if true, would persuade some significant proportion of likely people who might discuss and vote on AfD that the subject is notable.
Because of its critical importance to your scheme, this sentence should be a strong and unambiguous definition. I do not think it is, however.
  1. The first problem with this definition is that it is vague in its limits. What does "some significant proportion" mean? If a sysop on NP patrol finds a page with claims that many WPns would not consider claims to notability, but can think of 1 WPn who definitely would, is that page an A7 candidate? How many AfD regulars fulfill "some significant proportion"?
  2. The second (closely related) problem concerns the definition itself. Essentially, it reduces to: "A claim of notability is one which at least some people on AfD will believe is a claim of notability" (if it were factual). It is possible to construct claims which will confound this definition, making it for practical purposes unhelpful. Let's use the Seth Schoen AfD for example. You participated in that AfD, invoked this rule, and concluded that Seth Schoen was speediable under A7. Yet, I can clearly conceive of several WPns who would say that, if Schoen's claims in the article were factual, he would indeed in their view be notable. How do you reconcile this? This is the biggest weakness of the proposal.
  3. Despite what you say about instruction creep, I think that criticism might be fair, David. A7 is just one rule in the CSD. But because this characterization (general principle #1) is vague, it requires a large number of explanations, supports, and addenda to make it work: in the list above, you have 5 general principles, 7 positive examples, and 6 negative examples. All this is in support of one CSD.
  4. It seems to me that to make A7 unambiguous, it needs to be sitting at one of the extremes: either at a very low bar, or a high one. An example of a high bar might be, "any article about a person that does not substantiate any claims to notability of its subject by reference to an independent primary or secondary source." Of course, hell will freeze over before such a bar is accepted on WP :). At the opposite end, we could apply a very low bar which will amount to saying that any kind of assertion that the subject is notable cannot be deleted with A7. I think it makes sense to aim for this end, for practical and philosophical reasons. Your proposal brings A7 somehwere in between; in between however, can be a very hot, tumultuous place.
  5. I think your general principle #2 is very valuable. I sense that a form of it can be used to tighten up the problems with the currently used A7.
  6. Finally, do note that what you're proposing is not necessarily a clarification of the A7 that was agreed upon. It is arguable that the intent of the rule is being altered. This is thus a huge exercise that will require widespread discussion and consensus before any edits to the current A7 will be seen as legitimate by the community. I would caution against moving pages and such before this is fully discussed, "voted" on (to use what has become a very contentious word), and accepted. Best wishes, David.—encephalonὲγκέφαλον  22:39:27, 2005-09-12 (UTC)
  • Thank you for your detailed comments, Encephalon. I agree that general principle number 1 is at the heart of my proposed guidelines. I could attach numbers to "some significant proportion". Perhaps saying 10 to 20% would catch the spirit of what I had in mind. But in soem sense it would be false precision, because there is no way to know how many people would be presuaded on an AfD without running one. Your second point is correct, but it is really an intended feature. I am not trying here to impose a cahnge on the overall consensus on who is notable, but rather to try to summerize the existing consensus for futurte referencee. Ultimately speedy deletion is intended to delete only things on which the decision of the regular deletion process can be predicted in advance with pretty good assurance. If we speedy-deelte something that would probably have been kept on AfD, the process is not workign properly. So the idea is to define notability ultimately by what people have doen and continue to do on AfD in similer cases, and by prdictions of what they are likely to do. The detailed examples do try to shape this a bit, to provide a format for consensus that can later be pointed to, but they are not really intended to swing the practice towards a more deletionis or towards a more inclusionist trend. Rather they are intended to let us stopp having the same arguments with the same results over and over,, but instead to settle them and let us get on with writing wikipedia -- subject of course to reconsidering the answers when we choose to do so.
  • You are corrent that I wanted to plave the bar a bit higher than "any statement implying any vaguse assertion of notability" but much lower than "fully sourced and verified notability". The latter is not only unpassable, but a bad idea if it could be passed, just like the recent proposal to speedy-delete articels without source citations. It prevents poor starts from growing into good articels. But IMO the former sets the bar too low, and winds up making AfD waste time on lots of pages sure to be deleted in the end. Thjis is what I want to avoid, and what I think A7 was intented to avoid when it passed.
  • Yes this does require a bit of spelling out. But I think once it becoems accepted practice, it will not need to be referred to too often, and pulled out and parsed in detail even less often. I think and hope that if we establish a consensus, tht consensus will becoem part of the general practice, and people will be mostly following it with only the occasional need to refer to the detailed principles and examples. I guess my reaction above was that I think people are far too ready to yell "instruction creep" whenever very simple cut&dried procedures and polices don't work, whenerver things need a bit of spelling out.
  • I am really not trying to change what I percive the intent of A7 to have been. Certianly soemthing like this is what I thought I was supporting when I argued for and then voted for A7. Soem clarifications are the result of what we have seen as the poractice under A7 since it was passed. In any case this is a proposal. I am not trying to start actign on it, nor to start moving pages or re-wording templates until and unless there is celar and widespread support for it. i don't know if we will need to have a formal poll -- i would hope that consensus would be so clear that there would obviously be no need for one. But quite possibly a poll will be a good idea. But not until the proposal has been throughly discussed and seems to have significant support. Ther is no point in opening a poll unless there seems a significant chance of its passing in a case like this, i think. DES (talk) 14:24, 13 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
  • Great thoughts David. Some quick comments. I agree with and/or understand where you're coming from in much of the last three paragraphs. I do think that the objection to general principles #1 is significant—for the very important reason that very few of us will agree on what constitutes notability in all cases. When this is so, a rule that is predicated on notions of notability held by "some significant proportion" of WPns will likely lead to some confusion—and very likely to increased calls of "bad speedies" (something I believe all of us want to avoid). Formulating a standard that cleanly picks off via speedy deletion all the garbage that flows into WP, without also throwing out some of the good, is very hard to do, mainly because it is often difficult for one sysop in the dead of the night to decide on his/her own whether subject X just about qualifies for notability as determined by some significant proportion of us. I really do think the bar must be set at as clear a line as possible (ie. at an "extreme" limit, in this case at the low end). I like your general principle #2 a lot; I suspect that serious consideration to using a version of it to clarify the existing A7, with the addition of some clarifying examples similar to the ones you have above, may achieve a good result.—encephalonὲγκέφαλον  22:04, 13 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

This came up in DES's RFA, so I want to add some of the comments I made there to this thread, partly refactored:

In my opinion, A7 should be construed much more narrowly than General Priniciples #1. The only question we should be asking is whether the article makes statements attempting to explain why the person is important or significant. If yes, then it is not a candidate for speedy in my opinion and should be directed to AFD. Any judgment about whether the claims being made are sufficient to persuade people that a subject is notable is inevitably the provenance of AFD. Obviously, DES didn't know that I find writing the DeCSS Haiku to be an inherently notable action, instead he put himself in the position of guessing whether other people would find the statements about Schoen to be sufficient evidence of notability, which strikes me as a significant problem.
Maybe these actions are not uncommon and there are many people abusing A7 in this way, but I certainly would not have voted for it if I knew that people would be subsistuting their own judgment rather than AFD's when it comes to deciding whether a given set of the claims about what makes a person important and significant are notable enough to be included in an encyclopedia. Obviously, if an article says: "John Smith is a tailor for Ohio with 3 children and 2 dogs", that isn't trying to be notable and should be speedied. An article that says: Mike Kinkella is a star quarterback and 3 time MVP of his local arena football league, certainly is trying to sound notable and deserves to be discussed on AFD. (Incidentally, I agree it should be deleted, just not that it could be speedied.)
Making judgments about the validity of notability claims should have no business in the speedy process.

Dragons flight 18:21, 27 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

Oppose all speedy creep

  • Oppose each and every extension, enlargement, or addition to CSD. These are bad solutions to serious problems; they destroy more than they protect.
NOTE: For the purpose of (VotingIsEvil) voting, my comment should always be counted as a vote opposing any proposal that gives any new latitude to speedy. Conversely, any proposal that narrows or restricts its scope has my support.
THIS IS A PERMANENT POSITION. DO NOT DELETE IT. Thank You! — Xiong熊talk* 22:58, 2005 September 12 (UTC)
It is myu intent and thought that the above proposal neither expands nor contracts the scope of A7, but merely stabalizes it. In some of the examples it eould confirm a disputed application of A7, in others it would make it clar that an attempt was made to apply it improperly. The idea is to have the mean unchanged while reducing the varience, in statistical terms. DES (talk) 14:34, 13 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
  • I disagree. As Wikipedia becomes more popular, we will have to deal with ever increasing quantities of ads, vitriol, POV and just plain nonsense. To send all of it through AfD will ensure that a good quantity of it gets through and Wikipedia will get a reputation as a collection of useless, unreliable garbage. We will need systems in place to remove this trash quickly and effectively without removing valuable content. Well written, enhanced CSD policies are the best way to do this.--Outlander 16:37, 21 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

Tension between Speedy and AfD

A large part of the difficulty with any speedy category is that they are rooted in argument that has internal contradiction.

  • They are intended with regard to nn-bios to avoid a five-day wait and a unanimous Afd resulting in delete - thus general princliple 1.
  • However, during AfD and article can undergo expansion, becoming "worthy" of keeping, and we want to avoid placing the burden on the admin to do that expansion xemselves - thus all the other general princliples.

Everything else (which I mostly agree with in principle) is to codify the push between these two, to strike a balance. But since that balance is often highly contentious even in AfD, I think we're unlikely to formalize it here, other than as a LCD. Thus this can only drive the "bar" lower, which (except for one) I think we do not want.

Having looked over the examples (thank you for those!) I'm now leaning further into the "trust the admin" zone. If an article does not present credible evidence of notability I think it should be a speedy candidate.

Strenghten VfU and clean of the vanity article page, but let's not touch the actual criterion.
brenneman(t)(c) 23:50, 12 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

I agree with you about the tension and the general purpose of my proposed principles. I point out that some people are currently arguing that any statemetn impling notability, "credible" or not, bars A7. I also point out that it is not solely a matter of admins. non-admins apply speedy tags, and non-admins can and do remove them again if they see them before an admin acts. Also it isn't so much a matter of not trusting admins, as giving them a better guideline follow, so that they know what we are trusting them to do -- then trusting them to follow it. I hope you are wriong that this is unable to get agreement except to drive the bar lower -- that is not my intentDES (talk) 14:34, 13 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

TwoThree quick things:

  • I both understand and applaud your efforts in this area. Should have said that before.
  • By "trust" I mean "give plenty of lattitude in use of admin powers", really.
  • I've just realised (seeing the words "bad speedy" above) that some of the most vocal opponents to speedies are admins.
    brenneman(t)(c) 23:46, 13 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

I have nothing to add to the discussion of the specific proposals you have made, but I would like to note that I don't feel it a bad idea to suggest guidelines for speedy criteria. I note for instance that criterion G1 is probably the most widely abused of all, employed not only to cover legitimate cases like"asdfasdfasdf", but in the extreme, perfectly reasonable articles with which a user may disagree. In the middle is a large number of articles which may display rampant silliness or even malicious intent but which in fact are not, by Wikipedia's definition, patent nonsense at all. Expanding the description of G1 in the form of adding guidelines, while not likely to eliminate its abuse entirely, would probably reduce the number of articles so tagged, which is a step in the right direction. In my opinion, such expansion is not instruction creep: those who choose to follow guidelines will, and others won't. At the same time, guidelines aid those to whom policy is not clear. Where is the harm in that? (I'm sure someone will be glad to tell me:) ) Denni☯ 02:03, 18 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

Counter-proposal

I disagree with the proposal listed above (except for the bits about assuming whether a claim is true or false), but rather than just unconstructively disagreeing with everything I'm going to make my own:

  • A claim that a person is a member of any group (profession, occupation, etc.) is a statement of notability if:
    • Membership in the group is not very common (Example: Not everyone's a rock musician. Counterexamples: Everyone's a student at some point in their life, everyone in New York City is a resident of New York)
    • It is possible for someone to be notable simply by being a member of that group (Example: Some professors are notable simply for being professors. Counterexample: No students are notable simply for being students).
  • Any claim made in the article should be considered to be true unless it is so ludicrous that it couldn't possibly be so.
  • Anyone may remove an A7 CSD tag providing they place the article on AfD.

Comments? JYolkowski // talk 19:51, 18 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

I think this leaves the bar too low. For exaple i strongly object to the idea that simply being a rock musician or a college professor means that a person is notable. Some rock misicians and college professors are notable. Most are not. An articel must in soem way indicatre why a particualr rocker or prof is notable. "John Jones is a rockmusician. He plays with AnotherGarageBand." and "Jane Wilson is a professor at AnyState College." should be subject to speedy deletion, IF those were the entire articles in question. DES (talk) 20:51, 18 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

  • One profession that probably is inherently notable, for Wikipedia purposes, is professional athletes. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:44, 27 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
    I disagree with that sweeping statement. There are 12,000 professional golfers in Europe alone. Being a "professional athlete" merely means that you are paid to play the sport. Most professional athletes are work-a-day joes in minor leagues or second-string players in larger leagues. They serve an important role and are respected players but do not automatically deserve articles in a general-purpose encyclopedia.
    However, I would not disagree with the argument that "being a professional athlete is enough of a claim of notability that this speedy-delete criterion should not apply." Rossami (talk) 22:08, 27 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
    Yes, sorry, that is actually what I meant, inherently notable in the sense that being a professional athlete is always a claim to notability, not in the sense that it always implies sufficient notability for the article to be kept. Christopher Parham (talk) 05:13, 28 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
    I don;t really like that, I I can accwept that a statemetn that a person is a professional athelete is a calim of notability, as is perhaps the statement that a psron is a professionally published author, or that a person is an astronaut. I think these (and whatever otehrs we feel the need to add to this list) should be listed exceptions to the generl prinsiple that merely statign a person's profession is not a claim of notability, whoch should otherwise remain intact. I hope people can agree with me on this. DES (talk) 21:54, 28 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
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