I have been participating in AfD for a few months now. The culture of deletion is becoming rather aggressive. Is anyone else experiencing this? Is there any way that we can look at policies to help slow down the process?

My suggestions would include:

1. requiring AfD nominators to do WP:BEFORE. I've found quite a few articles nominated with so-called "no room for improvement found" as the reason for AfD and I and a few other users are able to find reliable sources within hours (or minutes on Google nonetheless!)
2. give articles breathing space. Several new articles have been up for AfD. This is especially problematic when we have a new user who doesn't know about putting up a template to indicate the article is still under construction.
3. create additional criteria surrounding topics that are more difficult to research, such as areas where there is a language barrier or where history has ignored the achievements of various groups based on race, culture, religion/lack of religion, gender or non-conformity.

I know this has been discussed in the past, but I think it needs to be discussed again. I just witnessed a new user give up over an AfD. (See Malissa A. O'Dubhtaigh: which I'm not saying necessarily meets GNG, but it wasn't given time and the user was handled brusquely.) Wikipedia is about amassing all human knowledge, as I see it, and all voices should be welcome and feel welcome. The aggressive culture of deletion is frustrating even to most hardened editors.

Any suggestions out there? Thanks! Megalibrarygirl (talk) 14:10, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Megalibrarygirl I would be loathe to work on this article because the lawsuit involved, which stretched out ten+ years, appears to be the only source. There was a name change during the process and since there are no sources to guide us, how can we be sensitive to the preferred name of the party. Further, in reading the suit, the party has felt her medical privacy was not protected. While I encourage diversity and would wish that Wikipedia did as well, this particular article seems like an invasion of privacy. SusunW (talk) 15:02, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

But that being said, the culture of deletion on here is ver frustrating. If one must check boxes and give rationale to even post a picture, it baffles me that anyone and everyone can nominate an article for deletion without the skill to weigh notability or do any sort of research beforehand. I cannot understand why improvement rather than deletion is not the key. SusunW (talk) 15:05, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

While you can see my postings on deletionism above, I'm not even sure it's a culture. What I've seen is the positive practice of a few people "patrolling" for vandalism and other negative stuff turn into "I'll delete every new page and let the admins/other editors sort it out." Given the effort involved in getting something into Wikipedia these days, such intellectually dishonest activity discourages nearly anyone making a new article. With some of the articles I commented on in AfD, the creator would ask simple questions about the rationale for the deletion and get absolutely nothing, except the odd "per nom." Once the drive-by deletion happens, the editor in question almost never returns. My favorite had to be an article that was discussed in AfC for ages. Someone took responsibility, wrote the page, and had it marked for deletion essentially as soon as it was submitted. This is how Wikipedia actively drives away contributors.--69.204.153.39 (talk) 15:51, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Megalibrarygirl: I would like to echo the above suggestions and well as emphasize Wikipedia:CSD: unless the article created meets said criteria, don't nominate it for speedy deletion; if it is up for deletion, calmly let creators know tips and give them time to improve the article and send words of encouragement, maybe an encouraging emoticon along with the words. Sam.gov (talk) 20:54, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Sam.gov:, I like that idea. I really think we need to nurture editors more often. I was on Wiki for a long time before I felt confident enough to edit, let along create my own articles. It is intimidating. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 21:32, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Yes, It can get intimidating during the time before editors become more confident. Sam.gov (talk) 22:09, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The culture of "bigger and more is better" has been proven troubling to reputations again and and again. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:01, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Agree entirely with TRPOD. Wikipedia is not and has never been "about amassing all human knowledge"; it has a very specific remit to only cover material which is demonstrably covered in multiple independent non-trivial reliable sources, and admins deleting material which doesn't fit that remit are acting entirely correctly. As this is an absolute core policy of Wikipedia, there is no realistic prospect of any discussion ever changing it as long as Wikipedia remains in its current form. ‑ iridescent 21:06, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There is no absolute requirement for multiple sources even today. GNG does not say that: "generally", where it appears in GNG, means "most", not "all". Also, it is the sum total of coverage in all sources which must be non trivial. James500 (talk) 10:05, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not saying bigger is better. You're right, all human knowledge is impossible, I was being hyperbolic in my attempt to describe why I think it's important to have diversity in Wiki. Thanks for calling that out--I should write more concisely sometimes. However, what I am worried about, and why I brought up the topic is that I think that there really is a deletionist culture. I've observed a pattern over time, and so have a few others on WikiPedia:WikiProject Women/Women in Red. For example, I have run into plenty of AfD pages where the nominators often say they've done WP:BEFORE, when they clearly haven't. Sometimes, the nominator will even say they have additional information, but because it's "not in the article," the article should be deleted. I understand that editors want others to follow through and add information when they say they will, but just because someone else didn't add that info, why can't you add it? I only tag articles when I don't have time to add the info myself. If I see an article with a tag, I fix it. It doesn't take long. Why aren't we doing that more often? Megalibrarygirl (talk) 21:32, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The obvious answer; because you have 3458 active editors (with "active" defined loosely as 100 edits in the last month), of whom 580 are admins, dealing with 5 million articles, and it's not reasonable to expect us to do everyone else's work for them when they can't be bothered to do it themselves. If you haven't already, it's a salutary exercise to look at the new pages backlog; those highlighted in yellow are the ones that nobody has looked at. "If you see an article with a problem, fix it" is a laudable aim, but completely impractical unless Wikipedia can drastically grow its editor base or throttle the article creation rate; the former has resisted every effort to address it, and every attempt to address the latter has been vetoed by the WMF. ‑ iridescent 22:08, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That is nonsense. No meaningful attempt whatsoever has been made to increase the number of editors, active or otherwise. Quite the opposite has happened. The editor retention problem is caused by excessive deletion. The only way to increase the number of editors, active or otherwise, is to reduce deletions by performing corrective surgery on the (unsatisfactory) deletion processes and (vague and questionable) deletion criteria. James500 (talk) 10:05, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@James500: No meaningful attempt whatsoever has been made to increase the number of editors See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Editor_Retention -- this wikiproject appears to be dead?

The only way to increase the number of editors, active or otherwise, is to reduce deletions I would not go as far as to say that reducing deletions is the ONLY way to increase the number of editors, but I agree it is a very important step. Here is a small example I just bumped into:

The article I started about Jenny Doan has been sitting as a lonely stub since I started it in February 2014. Then in April 2015 a new editor, User:Drbillnye added some info to it, but when I checked the editor’s history I saw he had only one edit. A check of the editor's talk page revealed that he tried to add more in the form of an article, but the article was deleted by user:NawlinWiki and remains as a red link on Jenny Doan. I assume User:Drbillnye will become one of the many missed opportunities we have had to add new editors? Ottawahitech (talk) 15:38, 28 November 2015 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

Template:PingJames500@Ottawahitech: I think it's a stretch to say that the number of editors has gone down primarily or only because of article deletion. I also think it's a mistake to allow poorly-sourced articles to be left on this page in perpetua. As for the claim that we lost Drbillnye because his article was deleted, 1) the article was deleted because it was promotional/an advertisement, likely because it was sourced solely from the quilt company and maybe even copy-pasted from the quilt company's website, and 2) how do we know that he would've contributed on anything non-quilt company related anyway? pbp 16:04, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Purplebackpack89: We don't know if the editor would have contributed anything to other topics, but if they only added some info to any of the articles in Category:Quilting that would be awsome. Just my $.02 & thanks for pinging me. Ottawahitech (talk) 16:19, 28 November 2015 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

Off-topic @Ottawahitech: Unless there has been a recent change in the code that runs Wikipedia, pings can't be corrected by merely fixing typos. You have to add a new ~~~~ at the same time you fix the typo, then if you want, go back and remove the signature (or remove the "original" signature if you prefer). And no, merely replacing your existing signature with a new one won't work. Since your ping didn't work, I'm going to mention Purplebackpack89 here so that he will get the notification and look up the screen and see your message. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:08, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@James500:@Ottawahitech:I'm a great example, I had never tried to contribute to a wikipedia article before, took me about an hour to try and figure out the interface and tribal lore that goes around proper formatting and the like, then the articles I was trying to link to, if I recall correctly, were articles from the WSJ, NBC Nightly News, MSNBC and I was probably using the a history of the company that I'd written and used elsewhere (either on the site or on other articles) - if that was taboo, I didn't know. I had one article get deleted because it was promotion (the one about the quilt company I believe) and then my edits to Mom's page were nixed for some other reason, my takeaway was that the wiki editor circle were a bunch of pretentious pricks who would rather hack me down and the time and effort that went into my attempts to help build a good article rather than help teach me how to drive value and I didn't bother to come back. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drbillnye (talk • contribs) 18:12, 28 November 2015‎ @James500:@Ottawahitech: I think this is for you, it was unsigned so the pings never went out. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 19:35, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I believe this is exactly the typical experience of most new editors. And it's happening multiple X's a day on Wikipedia. Frankly, I'd say Wikipedia would have a better chance of trying to get out a red wine stain by using yellow mustard, then it does of keeping new editors. Especially those editors who write! --MurderByDeadcopy^"bang!" 20:14, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I totally get what you are saying Megalibrarygirl. I don’t see anyone asking the admins to do everything. I do agree that there is a “get rid of articles” culture on here and have pointed out on more Another example than one occasion to those who say “I would vote to keep if someone would edit the article” that good prose is not a requirement. Then there is the ever popular “editor doesn’t appear to be active” (isn’t that own?, who cares if the creator is active?), and “I see no better improvement” (because if the article is complete and notability is not debatable why would anyone need to improve it?) Seems like a lot of whining and little action on the part of some. Usually I just fix what I see that is problematic. I have rarely asked an admin for anything. What I see is a small group of people, who don't appear to be admins, who nominate every file they can for deletion. I also see a trend of an unwillingness to make Wikipedia an inclusive or welcoming platform, which will result in poor retention. Nothing is written in simple, straightforward or friendly language. (Admittedly, after a year, I still don't know what 1/2 the acronyms that are bandied about mean, and I don't think I want to). Group A and Group B are forever opposing each other as well as any ideas for improving the overall performance. I try to avoid all the drama and save what articles I can. When it gets too stressful, I walk away or just go silent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SusunW (talk • contribs) 00:29, 10 October 2015

Absolutely! I started this discussion because I believe we can change things. The place to create change is through discussion. I have spent time in the backlogs working to source tagged articles. With the amount of female bios at a measly 15%, I try to source as many as I can in order to at least satisfy GNG. I understand the frustration with many created biographies, but many are actually notable...just because the nominator knows nothing about the topic, doesn't mean no notability. Case in point: looking at new articles, hardly any are women, and the ones who are, are often sports figures or models. Interestingly, a female sports figure with 1 reference often gets an AfD pass, but not other women. Something's off with that. I want to see things change. Let's see what we are able to do. For example, how can we get hard data to support what I and others are observing? I might think there is a problem, but I'd prefer numbers to "it seems." Megalibrarygirl (talk) 01:08, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I was active last year for a few months in AfD discussions, and it bothered me deeply that most of them were about notable subjects, but nobody involved in the AfD discussions looked for RS to establish that. That is grounds for a stub tag. That is grounds for doing the work yourself before nominating. I found myself working long hours every day to save articles from deletion, regardless of the topic (I don't care about role-playing games or "onomastics", but I worked to save those articles anyway), and in the end there was only one I couldn't save. This onus has to be placed on the person nominating the article for deletion. So many of them talk about "your" article instead of seeing all articles as "our" articles. Megalibrarygirl, I agree with you completely on requiring WP:BEFORE in order to nominate an article for deletion. iridescent, "it's not reasonable to expect us to do everyone else's work for them when they can't be bothered to do it themselves." This is not "everyone else's work." This is our work. Right there is the problem. We are a community with a common purpose, not factions of "us" who do the work and "them" who don't. And we can never say why someone stopped working on an article (or "can't be bothered"). I think we would have more people participating if this was not such an adversarial environment. We don't have enough admins and people working clean-up, but we certainly do not have enough people doing the work to save good articles from the excessive AfDs for notable subjects that just need a quick Google search.

We are not supposed to "own" articles as editors, but I think we all know that people do. They will revert everything that did not originate with them. Try editing an article for a popular progressive rock album. Or worse, try starting a new article on any music album. It's often an exercise in futility to contribute and make meaningful changes. I got worn down. In AfD discussions I felt beaten down. Nobody tries to help articles before nomination, and discussions are full of competing acronyms, as if they were etched in stone, and everybody (myself included) is convinced they are right. But again, I rescued several articles from deletion, all but one. Had I not taken the time to provide the RS for notability, no one else would, and they would be gone. Then when someone decides to start a new article and sees that a previous version was deleted already, how likely are they to continue? A stub tag (or other tag) is enough to tell readers the article might be a little iffy. If editors have time to patrol and nominate AfDs, they could instead use that time to improve things. More editors might stick with it without all that unnecessary struggle. WP is always a work in progress, and that means a certain percentage of our articles are always going to be stubs under development. "It's been a stub for years," I heard. "What have you done to change that?" is my question. The answer is always the same: nominate it for deletion. Sorry about the tirade. If things were more cooperative, WP would be a lot more rewarding, and a lot more diverse. Right now we have a selection bias - editors who are willing to put up with the struggles are the ones contributing. Dcs002 (talk) 03:16, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Like Dcs002 I think you about covered the problem. It is exhausting. Mostly I work on women because as a member of several Wikiprojects on women, those are the alerts I see. But I recently saved a multiple award winning French male architect, and a couple of movies which I have never even seen or heard of because they came into my viewing range. I don't go to the Afd page, it is too overwhelming to think of all the files that have been nominated. Maybe there are indeed a lot that aren't notable, but in my experience most that I have worked on just needed sourcing and a little TLC. SusunW (talk) 03:53, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I also agree with Dcs002 and SusunW. I want to see the culture change. The same people are nominating articles for deletion without doing WP:BEFORE. Also, I love the way that you emphasize that it's not about us vs. them... it's about all of us creating a better resource. I think that deletion is especially problematic because others took time to create something and other editors are trashing the creations. Please note, I'm not saying that EVERY article needs to be kept! But let's exercise more care. Let's see what we can do to create a better environment for newbies and let's work on the AfD area. It shouldn't be exhausting or frustrating. How can we do that? Who do we need to get on board with looking at this? Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:54, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

While I would agree that there are many self-proclaimed deletionists active in Wikipedia and some good material gets discarded, not all all deletion-related discussions are groundless. Just a look at recent nominations reveals some obvious problems. An article about a video game which is entirely unsourced and contains very little information. A film-related trope pointed by Roger Ebert that may be notable but has otherwise received very little coverage. An article about a local police department in Alaska with not much material to cover. Articles about music performers and bands with no particular level of success (two album releases at best). A minor organization which was briefly in the news in 2007 but has not had any coverage since. A Star Wars-related podcast that got some positive comments a few years ago, with no evidence of lasting influence.

Unsourced articles might have potential for growth, but some are only of interest to their creators and others are potential hoaxes. For example, Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia lists examples of hoax articles that went unnoticed for years. An article on "Jack Robichaux", supposedly a 19th-century serial rapist, existed for 10 years before someone questioned his existence. "Pikes on Cliffs" was an article on a 16th century house with both historical significance and a related legend. It took 9 years before some people realized this article was fabricated. More embarrassing for Wikipedia is that some hoaxes are pointed out by newspapers critical of our accuracy.

Meanwhile, images that get deleted often are tagged for copyright issues. This includes book covers, album covers, screenshots, etch. All to avoid potential legal troubles for Wikipedia. That something is available does not make it free for use. This can get very frustrating when searching for some image that can be found everywhere except Wikipedia.

While habitual deletionists may get annoying, indiscriminately accepting any contribution may be the wrong idea. Dimadick (talk) 23:06, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely no one on this thread has advocated for "indiscriminately accepting any contribution". I believe that each person has agreed that GNG with RS should remain the norm. The issue is the "rush to delete". If it harms no one (i.e. is not a biography of a living person) there is time to review the article and fix any problematic areas. There is certainly time to communicate with the creator and try to mentor them through the process, as well. If one does not have the skill to search for sources to improve an article, then they also do not have the skill to evaluate whether it is notable and should not be allowed to propose it for deletion. (And we can tit for tat all day about deletions - I fixed Pakistan's trade secretary today who was prodded. Clearly notable, government bio, took about 10 minutes to add sources, at most). SusunW (talk) 23:35, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dimadick, I agree with your entire post. I also saw many articles that were blatant advertising for investors and bios for clearly non-notable people (including one by a kid that broke my heart to !vote down, along with everyone else - I hope he eventually understood). While I was participating in AfD discussions, I don't recall seeing a discussion for any recorded work that I would not consider notable under WP:ALBUM, though there was the occasional local band with their own page, and I think they were usually written by fans. I could be wrong with my memory, but I recall about half of the articles on the AfD list being clearly articles that should be deleted, and half being either blatantly notable with inadequate sourcing or questionably notable. My belief is that it hurts us to delete articles because notability is questionable, so I guess I'm an inclusionist.

But the biggest problem, IMO, is the attitude of absolutism in AfD discussions. There is no discussion. Too often there is an acronym cited and an entrenched opinion. When I have fixed articles, or even tried to fix them, I have perceived an attitude of resentment and on many occasions warnings that "we" were just going to delete the article anyway because somehow they knew, without looking for sources or viewing my changes, that there was no way an article or subject could be "made" notable (made, as opposed to being notable). Sorry, another tirade. I guess my experience was more frustrating than I remembered, and maybe I've been carrying some emotional baggage for a while. Dcs002 (talk) 00:37, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Dcs002: I think you're spot on. It's a big encyclopedia, and there are a couple of great folks in AfD, but I would say that that there is this notion among many AfD editors that things like notability are these platonic sorts of things -- abstract ideals which a topic either does or does not embody. Also, if an article creator dares stand up for their work (few do), that's a paddling deleting. So, while we must assume good faith, people should try to acknowledge non-extremist views about notability and such.--69.204.153.39 (talk) 01:28, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the wake-up call. I need to say that not everyone in AfD discussions was as obstinate as I described. (They were just the ones that made it such a miserable experience.) There were many thoughtful editors as well, and the closers were always very thoughtful and considerate. Dcs002 (talk) 07:49, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

FYI, the same culture exists throughout the XfD spectrum. Sometimes it seems that certain editors are more interesting in amassing stats for how many of X they successfully nominate for deletion. I have participated in a few of those discussions, and sometimes agreed that deletion was needed, but only after doing my own research on the nominee. I don't see how anyone can possibly research all of the nominees for deletion, and vote on every one of them, within the span of just a few minutes, but that's what some people seem to manage. Etamni | ✉ | ✓  04:35, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, several of us here agree that we have a problem. What is the next step after we're done preaching to the choir? What action can we take? What remedies are available? And more importantly, who wants to stick their neck out and take charge of that action? Dcs002 (talk) 06:52, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'd suggest starting with Megalibrarygirl's initial proposal to require more work be done before a nomination can go through, echoing SusunW's points about adding files. There is also something to be said for enacting and enforcing a temporary freeze (perhaps a week) on nomination of new articles except where they need to be speedied. —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw), 07:58, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I just saw this. The entire aggressive attitude of deletionists has been baffling to me for years. They do not seem to be motivated by logic, even when the debate points are overwhelming them. I understand there is a lot of junk out there that needs to be cleaned up, but once the substance of an article is established, a reasonable person would back off. You can see the wave of reasonable people switch their "votes" (I know they aren't really votes, but they are). These deletionists do not back off. They fight to their last breath trying to get legitimate content deleted. I have publicly suspected there is some accrual of brownie points for the most scalps. Worse yet, sometimes they find a corrupt administrator to back them up and they win, forever dooming a valid subject to the perceived WP:SALT, even if not specifically administered. What shocks me the most is how uninformed these people are. They dabble in subjects they do not understand, dismiss sources that are the top of their field, and do not do the required research WP:BEFORE posting their attack. Frustrated as I am about the cases I've seen lost, I have a pretty good record of successful defense when I get involved. I see some names over and over, pushing repeatedly against . . . facts. There should be a penalty for bringing too many unsuccessful (the only way to categorize unfounded) attacks on articles. Once they reach a quota, they should be prohibited from making another proposal for a period of time. If they continue to lose, add to that length of time. You'd think they would learn, but some just won't get it. At some point, ban the serious, serial abusers from ever making another proposal for deletion. Trackinfo (talk) 09:05, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Given that a large cadre of editors on Wikipedia could be categorized as deletionists, I think any steps taken would have to be modest and incremental. If we can get away from the culture of deleting most every new page straightaway for others to deal with, that would be a serious start. Some of my thoughts are: 1) require Prod'ing first, and only allow a second user to AfD, not the initial prodder 2) Make filing an AfD at least as hard as uploading an image. Lots of questions about "have you really done WP:BEFORE? and have you tried improving this page." 3) Prevent articles that have had a favorable AfC outcome from getting immediately AfD'd 4) Require each nomination to, if at all possible, bring up specific actionable items that could make the page suitable. I'm sure there are lots of better ideas out there, but beginning to talk concretely is a good start.--69.204.153.39 (talk) 01:02, 13 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Etamni: you said certain editors are more interested in amassing stats for how many of X they successfully nominate for deletion.

I also made the same observation, noting that it only takes seconds for nominators to initiate a deletion discussion which requires at least three complicated edits:

• Creating a new page for the deletion discussion
• Notifying the creator of the page of the deletion discussion
• Putting a banner on the page nominated for deletion

optional:

• Adding a welcome template Ottawahitech (talk) 15:47, 17 November 2015 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

Ottawahitech,

You missed transcluding the AFD page into the list, but it actually doesn't require any complicated edits at all. Instead, it requires three quick and simple steps:

1. Go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets and turn on Twinkle (this only has to be done the first time).
2. Go back to the page and choose "XFD" from the new WP:TW menu.
3. Fill in the form and click the 'Submit query' button.

Twinkle will do all the other steps for you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:17, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks user:whatamIdoing — this is really useful. I wonder though, why it is not mandatory to notify page creators that the page they created has been nominated for deletion if it is that easy and takes only seconds? why do some nominators, and in particular wiki-admins, resist notifying page creators? (See for example user:Good Olfactory here and User:TexasAndroid here) Ottawahitech (talk) 14:34, 23 November 2015 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

There is little point in notifying an inactive editor, and little need to notify a highly active one. Also, the question of whether the subject is suitable for its own article isn't really a question that requires the participation of the first name in the editing history (which, in the case of pages that began as redirects, isn't necessarily the person who wrote the article). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:54, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ottawahitech, because notifying the first editor is an unnecessary hand-holding duplication of work. If a user is truly interested in whether or not their creations are nominated for deletion, all they have to do is use their watchlist, because it already is mandatory to tag the nominated content with a template. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 21:02, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Good Olfactory: Believe it or not, there is a (speculation) large number of editors who do not use their watchlist. I am one of them. I figure if I did watch, I would never have the time to add content. Instead I would be be chasing discussions. I suppose this is because the items that get the most action on my watchlist are talk pages which I find suck up way too much energy. Ottawahitech (talk) 14:19, 6 December 2015 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

I strongly contest that claim: watchlists are nearly universally used, and its clear to that when a new banner announcement appears on the watchlist or a change in the mediawiki happens and editors race it put in complaints of various degree to that change. Further, the watchlist while not required greatly increases the efficiency of any established editor; not using the watchlist would be like not using a TV guide to find when a program comes on but instead flipping through all available channels at random times to do so. (And speaking as one with getting drawn into talk pages, the solution is to not watchlist all those talk pages, or otherwise commit to using the watchlist more effectively). --MASEM (t) 15:39, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I agree with Masem: most users put pages they create on their watchlist. Furthermore, since many AfDs are done by Twinkle, many people get a talk-page notification anyway. Also, @Ottawahitech: there's a function on your watchlist that allows you to limit what you view to article-space, and, as Masem noted, you need not watch talk pages. pbp 16:17, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• If it's true that users are not using their watchlist (I acknowledge that some may choose not to), then I have absolutely no sympathy for the complaint that they aren't finding out about content they created being nominated. If it's something you care about, use the tools and processes that are provided to find out about them and don't rely on other editors to somehow flag your attention. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 23:22, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• There's a couple issues with this:

1) If someone is sufficiently active, they will have a large number of items on their watchlist and it will become easy to miss things. (Although I admit this wouldn't likely apply to newcomers.)

2) Do newcomers even know there is such a thing as a watchlist or how to use it?

3) If someone hasn't specifically checked "Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent" in the Advanced preferences, there's an unfortunate chance that even if the article creator does check their watchlist for changes to that article that the AfD nomination won't show up because there's been a more recent change to the page. If the latest change is somebody fixing a typo they might reasonably not look at the article.

4) The watchlist defaults to the last 7 days. If somebody creates the article on Friday, and it's nominated for deletion on Saturday, and they don't come back to Wikipedia until Sunday a week later - Wikipedia is not compulsory (WP:CHOICE) - then they won't see the notification because it will have scrolled off the Watchlist.

5) Actually, that's my biggest objection to leaving the onus on the article creator to discover that the article they created is subject to an RfD by requiring them to visit Wikipedia to view their watchlist. It violates the policy that Wikipedia is not compulsory. By doing something positive to ping them, it keeps Wikipedia voluntary for them.

Thisisnotatest (talk) 07:11, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Given that the Watchlist link sits at the top of the page, the argument "how many people know it is there" is not really a factor. I do agree that if there is an AFD nom, and then someone edits regularly, the AFD nom will not show up on the page, and that can be a problem, but also at the end of the day, for that and the rest of these WP:OWN applies: when you hit submit on any edit page, you no longer own that content (though you attributed for it). The community can decide if it is appropriate or not without the submitting editor's consent. Granted, there are a raft of problems that generally plague AFD overall, but a lot of the arguments here just boil down to what has already been covered at WP:ATA. --MASEM (t) 16:59, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have also noticed a tendency among many editors to nominate articles for deletion (or even tag them for speedy deletion) when that was clearly inappropriate. This means that either other editors must spend time they could have used to create or edit articles contesting the nomination, or the nominator gets their way and the article is deleted. I would strongly support an additional dialog being required in order to nominate articles (or other kinds of pages) for deletion. A grace period of perhaps 12 to 48 hours before a newly-created article could be nominated for deletion might also be good, in which case articles with serious problems such as copyvio could still be dealt with ASAP via speedy deletion. I haven't yet decided how I feel about the proposal below. (Incidentally, for those wondering about the motivations of over-enthusiastic deletion nominators, I have seen it suggested that they might view AfD as akin to a video game where their goal is to rack up as many "kills" — that is, deletions — as possible. I don't know how accurate that idea might be, but it seems it might be plausible for at least some nominators.) —GrammarFascist _contribs^talk 07:48, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• @GrammarFascist: I agree. Also, many wp:XfDs attract very little attention, leaving the page creator, if they are still around, to be the only editor to cast a Keep vote. Sometimes the nominator very conveniently forgets to inform the page creator. It’s rare but I have seen wp:Admins deleting pages that had no "votes" (other than the nominator's implied vote). Ottawahitech (talk) 10:18, 14 November 2015 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

  There are not votes at XfD! They are comments, sometimes the rationale speaks for itself and the admin deletes the article. Mrfrobinson (talk) 02:40, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Except that it is a vote. [1] Keep: 50; Delete: 22; Merge: 13; Redirect: 4. --MurderByDeadcopy^"bang!" 05:49, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Thank you for providing ONE example and claiming it as a fact. Mrfrobinson (talk) 16:10, 8 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• How many would you like? I've got more! --MurderByDeletionism^"bang!" 19:19, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with some of the confrontational language in this discussion (not from the OP) and the simplistic labelling of fellow editors as "inclusionist" or "deletionist". That's an unfortunate trend in most of the recent AfD-related debates, and such an approach isn't really helpful to solve eventual flaws in a collaborative manner (I am certainly not claiming, that everything is perfectly OK with AfD processes and notability guidelines). WP:AGF includes editors with differing opinions too - just saying. Aside from that general observation: the suggested grace period of n days for new articles sounds like a good suggestion to move forward (and should be relatively easy to implement), assuming we would exclude clear issues like blatant promotion, serious BLP concerns and large unfixable copyvios from that handling. The proposal below should be declined. Such (relatively few) instances of persistent nominations, that are not based on policy, should be handled case by case: either by talking with the nominator of such problematic cases (instead of talking about them), or by improving unclear notability guidelines. GermanJoe (talk) 14:19, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t believe the use of such terms is confrontational. I am an wp:inclusionist and I feel slighted onWikipedia because of it. Ottawahitech (talk) 16:49, 12 November 2015 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

• Maybe we are being too harsh on creators of new articles. But I don't think it's right to force BEFORE down people's throat. It doesn't seem wholly fair to me that editors have to try and fix really bad articles; many of which are clearly unfixable. Until relatively recently, I was a deletionist. I nominated dozens of articles for deletion...most of which hadn't been created by new editors, but rather editors who created a whole lotta of articles in big bunches. pbp 17:07, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Purplebackpack89/C: Is there something wrong with creating a whole lotta of articles in big bunches? From my inclusionist vantage point I see tons of editors who add very little to wikipedia:mainspace, but effortlessly rack up an impressive edit-count which gets them the desirable mop/Admin status through the wp:Request for Adminship process.Ottawahitech (talk) 17:45, 16 November 2015 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

@Ottawahitech:: Oftentimes, articles created in big bunches are poorly sourced or poorly written. Also, TBH, I see people AfDing a lot of articles in hopes of gaining adminship to be a relatively minor issue: not only are the people who do that relatively few in number, but most of the people who nominate a lot of articles for deletion have rubbed enough people the wrong way to preclude them ever having a mop. Oh, FYI, my name's Purplebackpack89, not Purplebackpack89/C. User:Purplebackpack89/C is a redirect to my contributions because there wasn't enough room in my sig to include Special:Contributions/Purplebackpack89. pbp 18:40, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Purplebackpack89: you said: articles created in big bunches are poorly sourced or poorly written but isn’t this how wikipedia became the great resource that it is today? When I looked at the page history of articles that were started in the early 2000s they invariably provided little detail and had no references but given time they now form the backbone of wikipedia which draws the world’s attention. No? Ottawahitech (talk) 15:05, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Ottawahitech: Setting aside the issue that Wikipedia 10-15 years ago doesn't have the rules it does today, do you believe that Wikipedia's initial article mass came primarily from editors creating new articles very quickly, like maybe 10-15-20 in a period of a few hours? Or do you believe that the creation of thousands and thousands of stubs was the result of a myriad of editors each creating a few articles, often over long periods of time? I cannot condone "drive-by creation" where people create many articles in a short amount of time; I really have to say it takes a minimum of an hour to write an article of any kind of quality (of course, that time includes finding and reading the references put in the article). Remember that in between the editors creating all those articles and today, Wikipedia was thought of as the scourge of the internet, not because the articles were short, but because they were unsourced and inaccurate. Even today, I still think it would be beneficial if the project was forbidden from creating new entries for a time, and forced instead to improve quality of articles. pbp 16:11, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Purplebackpack89: I Have to research to see how many editors there were in the early years, but if I remember correctly it was a fairly small number compared with the number of articles they produced, meaning they each created a large number of articles, on average.

As far as [creating] 10-15-20 [articles] in a period of a few hours? I have heard that more recently many articles were actually started by a BOT, not a human. Ottawahitech (talk) 20:32, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Purplebackpack89: Here is the official statistics table I found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention:

• http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm

Interesting to note that the average daily number of new articles has declined from a high of 2,132 in Jul 2007 to a low of 734 in Sep 2015, while the number of editors roughly doubled. BTW there are now 848 articles nominated for deletion through AfD outstanding discussions, many if not most, of which have been re-listed for lack of participation. I bet once other XfD deletions are counted we could be talking about thousands of nominations for deletion. Ottawahitech (talk) 03:11, 21 November 2015 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

Did you consider that there is a ceiling of articles? Yes there are always new notable subjects however a vast majority of subjects have articles about them already. The key is ensuring quality over quantity now. Mrfrobinson (talk) 00:57, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That is not even close to being true. The vast majority of notable topics have no article. We can't even match the coverage of old 'premier' general encyclopedias like the 1911 Britannica or the 1885 Dictionary of National Biography, let alone the vast number of works with a narrower focus. James500 (talk) 01:24, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Mr. Robinson, @James500:. Most of the articles that should be created have. And whereas we may not have as in-depth coverage as Britannica 1911 or Biography 1885, I think, if you looked, you'd find that nearly all the entries in those tomes have entries here. pbp 15:50, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I did check. We are missing a huge chunk of the 1885 DNB. See the missing articles wikiproject. James500 (talk) 16:56, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We are? Because when I thumbed through Epitome 1, I got maybe 450 bluelinks and less than a dozen redlinks, most of which were for articles that appear at slightly different names. Wikipedia:1911 Encyclopedia topics also notes that every single 1911 encyclopedia topic has an article. pbp 17:13, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Dictionary of National Biography/Tracking, you will find to your horror that there are more than six thousand articles missing from the 1885 to 1912 DNB. The situation for later supplements, and for the ODNB is likely to be much worse. The epitome is misleading because some volumes are far more complete than others, due to 'drives' to finish certain volumes in a few cases. James500 (talk) 22:03, 3 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Purplebackpack89: you said I see people AfDing a lot of articles in hopes of gaining adminship to be a relatively minor issue, but I would like to convince you that you are mistaken. Here is some data to substantiate what I am saying:

Of the most recent candidates in wp:Requests for adminship five out of the seven had kept at least one log of articles they had nominated/proposed for deletion. To illustrate the type of logs:

• User:Vanjagenije/Deletion log
• User:Biblioworm/CSD log
• User:Thine Antique Pen/PROD log

Ottawahitech (talk) 04:31, 3 December 2015 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

@Ottawahitech: You're looking at it in the wrong manner. The reason I see it as a relatively minor issue is because most AfD nominations and votes come from people who aren't seeking adminship. However, I will say this: it makes perfectly good sense to expect a person to know a little about deletion before giving them the power to delete articles. pbp 13:41, 3 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Purplebackpack89: You said most AfD nominations and votes come from people who aren't seeking adminship, so I wonder how you know this to be a fact? BTW the reason I started speculating that many/most deletion notices are generated by wannabe wp:Admins was because of notices I have received on my own talk page over the years. Ottawahitech (talk) 15:46, 4 December 2015 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

I oppose all attempts to make WP:BEFORE mandatory. Experience has shown that it is primarily used as a weapon to attack deletion nominators. It is commonplace for keepmongers to claim a nominator hasn't looked for sources, when it is in fact just a disagreement over the suitability of what trivial and marginal sources there are. Most of BEFORE's checkbox style hurdles are not relevant to the majority of AfDs anyway. Really, all that is expected of nominators is that they produce a coherent argument for why an article should be deleted. Reyk _YO! 12:28, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Reyk: you said Most of BEFORE's checkbox style hurdles are not relevant to the majority of AfDs anyway so I wonder if you would elaborate:

• What checkbox are you talking about?
• Why do you say that they are not relevant to the majority of AfDs? Ottawahitech (talk) 17:17, 25 November 2015 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

Some version of BEFORE should have been made a (behavioural) guideline long ago, for the sake of clarification at least, but many of the steps it requires are compulsory under other policies and guidelines anyway. I think I should point out that some deletionists are in the habit of falsely accusing those !voting "keep" of not looking for sources, when it is in fact just a disagreement over the suitability of what non-trivial non-marginal sources there are. I cannot actually recall any instance of a 'keepmonger' doing the same though, although some deletionists may be in the habit of deliberately pretending to be blind, claiming that no sources whatsoever exist, when they obviously do, and demanding direct links (urls) to sources that come up immediately with obvious search terms in GBooks, GNews, GScholar, JSTOR, Highbeam, etc, or are even cited in the article, that they must be able to see (unless they really are blind), in order to waste time and be obstructive. James500 (talk) 01:24, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree James500 and Ottawahitech that WP:Before is very important. I have personally been involved in several AfD's where once a good search was done, turned up that the article was indeed very notable. Anyone who can't be bothered to do WP:Before is doing Wikipedia wrong since we're supposed to be building an encyclopedia with verifiable information. If you can't verify that the article is non-notable, how can you even nominate it for deletion in good faith? Megalibrarygirl (talk) 00:40, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wikihounding (WP:HOUND) of inclusionist editors is a fact. There are deletionists who will identify an editor whom they consider inclusionist and then follow that editor around the project, typically in small groups, though they have a talent for getting opportunists to help them now and again, systematically opposing and obstructing everything that they do. The wikihounding does not stop at XfD, as the deletionists will rack their brains to come up with other complaints, frequently absurd, which serve as a proxy for inclusionism, and as an excuse to keep following. The wikihounding is typically accompanied by other misdeeds, such as personal attacks and other off topic comments, canvassing and meatpuppetry. They target one editor at a time in an effort to isolate that editor from other inclusionists. They certainly intend to make editing impossible for that editor, and they probably hope to make editing so unpleasant that he will simply retire. Only a person with superhuman eternal patience could continue editing in the face of this kind of campaign. I know for a fact this happens. It is a fact. James500 (talk) 05:29, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@James500:, re: your Wikihounding claims: 1) There are often editors who have made dozens of poorly-sourced articles, in which case it makes sense to take a close look and their contributions, and to admonish them for creating poorly-sourced stuff, and 2) To say that inclusionists have never done anything wrong is not entirely accurate. There are inclusionists who flood AfDs with "keep" votes. There are inclusionists who try to have deletionists blocked. pbp 15:50, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That isn't the sort of scenario that I am talking about. I'm talking about people being hounded, for example, for expressing perfectly reasonable policy based opinions that the deletionists simply did not want to hear. And some deletions should be blocked. James500 (talk) 16:56, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

And there are people who do that to deletionists... pbp 17:13, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In practice, that never happens. Deletionists who view Wikipedia as a computer game are far more likely to misbehave. Because they are WP:NOTHERE. James500 (talk) 22:03, 3 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia doesn't want you! How Deletionists are making sure Wikipedia Isn’t awesome. When articles such as this are being written... Wikipedia we have a problem!!! --MurderByDeadcopy^"bang!" 17:29, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Some blogger can't write vanity articles about himself and friends, and has a long multi-page hissy fit about it. Meh. Reyk _YO! 20:50, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I agree with that smart, articulate blogger... and disagree with you! Meh. --MurderByDeadcopy^"bang!" 20:55, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• The only part about that essay that is really part of the situation is noting that en.wiki's definition of "notability" is not 100% consistent with the standard English definition, but there's been perennial attempts to find a better name without any success. We have come to be short to say "So and so's not notable" without actually saying "So and so's not notable, as defined by WP:N", which can be confusing to new users (though here, this writer was not a new user by their admission, so I've got a hard time understanding how they never had to encounter WP:N before). That's something to work to improve for all involved. But past that, they are mistaken about the purpose of WP, as we're not here to document important people, we're not a who's who, but a tertiary source that summarizes other sources; we're here to document what reliable sources say about people (in the case of BLP), and if no reliable source covers that person, regardless of their importance in their field, then we can't either. --MASEM (t) 21:10, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Nothing on en.wiki is consistent, WP:IAR! What I see here is three gigantic problems

1. Wikipedia is actively making writers mad. Writers write... so I foresee more bloggers writing about their experiences on Wikipedia... oops!
2. Eventually, the only writers willing to stay in this atmosphere are paid editors.
3. It's an excellent way to run off new editors fast. So Wikipedia needs to decide, "How few editors does it need to survive?" Or, "Is all that donation money eventually going to go to paid editors after most of the volunteer editors are gone?" Because that's what expect will happen along with paid ads. It's only a matter of time. --MurderByDeadcopy^"bang!" 21:41, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Deleting articles may cost us editors. Keeping bad articles certainly costs us readers. For every blogpost like the one you've cited (and I admit that one does trouble me a little; mostly because I think 2-3 unimpeachably reliable, independent sources should be sufficient), I could easily find ten from the era when there were no rules and Wikipedia was a haven for misinformation. And article deletion is hardly the only thing that has sent editors away, @MurderByDeadcopy: Many editors just leave because real life gets in the way. pbp 21:57, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@MurderByDeadcopy: Thank you so much for providing the link to Wikipedia Doesn’t Want You, as well as alerting me and others to this thread a few days ago. If anyone is interested here are the links to both AfD discussions mentioned in the article:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lance Anderson (podcaster)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dan Klass.

Ottawahitech (talk) 04:52, 27 November 2015 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

Nobody has given anything except their impression of the sense of "culture of AfD", so it is hard to comment. Firstly, "no consensus" at AfD results in keep, unlike WP:ONUS inside an article, which results in removal of content, which is already a bias against the "deletionists" (totally misleading label). Secondly, it is by no means clear that having a separate article is the best way to work towards the goal of "sum of all knowledge". Knowledge must also be presented in context. Articles can often be merged (or even better, not created in the first place, because they are needless or POV forks) to give context and relate it to other articles. Thirdly, many BLPs are barely disguised attack articles. See this for an example. They are better off deleted than existing. Fourthly, if something is deleted "too soon" it can always be created later. Fifthly, there is no evidence that deleting articles is a major cause of editor attrition. I would bet that many more edits of newbies are reverted than articles deleted, because article creation is a rather high barrier to surmount. Kingsindian ♝♚ 21:36, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comments, @Kingsindian:. I agree with them. pbp 21:57, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Since we're discussing concerns about AfD, I'll toss in a few concerns I have. Perhaps it would be helpful to clarify a couple things in advance: I fall into the inclusionist camp (although I would consider myself an anti-deletionist), and I edit mainly professional wrestling articles. If you feel the need to dismiss my concerns because the latter makes you view me as a teenage fanboy, I can't stop you, but I can tell you that I'm neither a teenager, nor do I watch professional wrestling. Anyhow my main concerns are (1) People nominating articles for deletion because of a perceived lack of importance rather than notability, (2) Closing administrators (or non-administrators) giving a verdict based on votes from the beginning of the discussion, without taking any notice that the current version of the article has received substantial attention and bears little resemblance to the article at the beginning of the discussion. The closing rationale is often a single word—"Delete" with no indication that the administrator has done more than count votes, many of which are no longer relevant. Concerns voiced to that effect are then met with a dismissive "Take it to a deletion review", (3) The lack of sources in some articles isn't because of a lack of effort on the part of editors but rather that they have joined a project with thousands of articles and can only work on a limited number at a time; when someone comes along and starts an AfD, it creates a deadline that forces people to drop what they're doing and come like a trained monkey, and (4) Banned users are allowed to initiate deletion discussions; yeah, sure, banned users aren't allowed to edit at all in theory, but I have pointed out obvious sockpuppets of banned users that have initiated discussions and the response has always been "Yeah, well, they really shouldn't be editing, but let's see how the discussion plays out anyway". To allow banned users to have any say on what is discussed or edited within any time frame is an obvious failure on the part of Wikipedia administrators. When a banned user is found to have created an AfD, the discussion should be closed immediately. We are not here to do the bidding of people who have violated the community's trust to the extent that a ban has been given. GaryColemanFan (talk) 17:00, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Like Ottawahitech (talk) 18:28, 29 November 2015 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

I like most of this. Not the first, because there are other reasons to delete in addition to lack of notability. Articles that maybe perceivedas unimportant usually do fall under one or another of the provision of NOT. And for that matter, so do many that clearly meet the GNG. A gooddeal depends on just how you interpret the reliability of the sources and the requirement for significant coverage. But for point 2, yes, it is necessary to close looking at the actual discussion and article, and closes that do not are frequently overturned if brought to Deletion Review. As for 3, Yes, the lack of sources on older articles is about 3/4 those that could be sourced easily enough if someone went to the trouble, and 1/4 those that could not. Our standards were much lower in the beginning about both sourcing and notability. Especially in the beginning, and still continuing, article writers wanted to start new articles, not necessarily finish the job. As for 4, yes, this is a misinterpretation of Banned means Banned, but there is of course nothing to prevent any editor seeing this to then renom the article themselves. DGG ( talk ) 20:28, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Based on that paragraph, it appears articles get nominated solely on perception. And I agree. There is way too much I don't like it going on at AfD, therefore it must be deleted! (There's also some, I don't know anything about it too!) As for article writers wanting to start new articles but not finish them, well, that is the whole point of Wikipedia. Wikipedia was created for everyone to work on the same article, not one person. The original point of Wikipedia was quantity, not quality. Nupedia was created for quality, however, quality takes time along with consulting experts and those are two things that Wikipedia vehemently abhors! --MurderByDeletionism^"bang!" 17:39, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There is a problem of noms that seem to be "I don't like it" (A major arbcom case of this nature involved the editor TTN; off the top of my head the arbcom case was "Characters and episodes 2" which is good bg reading on this), and when there is a clear pattern of an editor nominating a lot of articles without care, it creates fait accompli that we discourage, and this is behavior we should aim to stop. But as outlined in this discussion, that's only something that can be judged by reviewing patterns, not by hard numbers. Also, while Wikipedia may have been formed based on quantity, we clearly are more focused on quality now, as the rate of new article generation (ignoring any subsequent deletions) has slowed down, despite estimates that millions of potential topics of academic interest could still be made. We know AFD is harsh which is why editors are encouraged to sandbox articles or use AFC to get articles that won't be quick AFD targets from the start, getting the quality there before its put into mainspace. --MASEM (t) 17:49, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There's an interesting statistic rough guess, derived from counts I make from time to time from log samples, and confirmed by several people at the foundation: for the last 8 years at least, about half the articles submitted end up being kept in WP, and half end up deleted by one process or another.^{[citation needed]}Ottawahitech (talk) 23:33, 1 December 2015 (UTC) DGG ( talk ) 20:28, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statistics like this are worthless! One doesn't even know the time frame for said statistics. Or what is being included by the term articles submitted. Is AfC included? Speedy deletes? Etcetera, etcetera... --MurderByDeletionism^"bang!" 17:39, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@MurderByDeadcopy: It's very difficult to have a rational conversation with you when you refuse to believe any of the statistics other editors bring up. @DGG: When did it become 50-50? Last I heard it was 70-30 delete. pbp 18:30, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

My count is made from looking at the rate of submissions to New Page feed per hour at various times of day, and comparing it with 1) the overall growth of articles. and 2) the rate of deletions in the log. I really shouldn't call it a statistic--it's a rough estimate. Trying to verify it, I realize the matter is more complicated, because of AfC; a new count would have to specify whether we ignore Draft space, or include pages started there and submitted, or include all pages started there. I think the 30% might be the proportion speedy-deleted--my estimate included only articles not deleted by prod and AfD as well. urplebackpack89, doyou know of any other count? DGG ( talk ) 20:43, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal

close as unfinished (draft)

close as failed

Because we should delete what the policies already say we should. This goes on forever, but it's just an anti-deltionist rant, like hundreds before. DreamGuy (talk) 23:58, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Where anywhere does this say to violate policy? The problem is bad, uninformed nominations. Repeat offenders should be penalized. Or do you support uninformed nominations? Trackinfo (talk) 03:37, 8 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

fork discussion to WP:BEFORE problem

I didn't start the original discussion in order to have an "anti-deltionist rant. Instead, I wanted to talk about the fact that I don't see editors doing WP:BEFORE. I know this because I have improved numbers of articles that other editors have passed off as "no room for improvement." I don't mind articles being deleted if there is a reason for it, but if an editor can't be bothered to check or see if someone is actually notable then this is an actual problem for 2 reasons:

1) It hurts newbie editors: they feel threatened by the process. We should respect people's work and help them improve their articles by doing a WP:BEFORE and passing along the information to the newbie with some tips. It really doesn't take long to do.

2) It makes the process of keeping an article more difficult. Where it would have been easy to slap the article with a "Needs more sources" and bring it to the attention of a relevant WikiProject, instead the article goes through an intimidating process of discussing the alphabet soup of WP:GNG, TOOSOON, etc...

Now I'm not saying these things can't be learned. I've learned to step up into AfD and I will not let myself be intimidated by the process. However, it was intimidating at first.

So, to sum up, this isn't an anti-deletionist rant as DreamGuy characterizes the discussion... it's instead a plea to find a way to get editors to understand the importance of WP:BEFORE. Also, I think more AfD nominators should have database access, but that's another can of worms altogether... Megalibrarygirl (talk) 00:32, 2 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - This thread seems to be predicated on the assumption that having an article nominated at AfD is an awful thing. Perhaps I am simply an optimist, and prefer to focus on the up-side of AfD nominations, but to my mind AfD nominations often have a positive result - The mere fact that an article is being considered for deletion means that it will be reviewed... and any problems with the article will be highlighted (and hopefully fixed). The mere threat of deletion often results in needed improvements actually being made to a problematic article. This is a good thing. Blueboar (talk) 16:28, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• The mere threat of deletion involves about a 60% chance of deletion. If the editor of that article is new to Wikipedia, there is a 95% chance in running that editor off Wikipedia. But, then, I'm beginning to discover that what Wikipedia wants is fewer editors so maybe that second part is a desirable outcome! --MurderByDeletionism^"bang!" 19:37, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• How about the source of this, you can't provide stats without the source. Mrfrobinson (talk) 02:23, 13 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Okay. What I did was rather informal based somewhat like what DGG did above. I would count up the total deletes in an AfD day (so this is only concerning AfD's, not speedy deletes which is much higher) and subtract that from the total. Deletes for every day was always higher between 55-62%, with the rest being no consensus, userfy, merge, and keep. AfD editors who are new, whose articles went to AfD almost always left Wikipedia and never returned... even if the article wasn't deleted. In fact, I specifically began looking into those articles that were saved. I only found two editors of 25 saved articles so that would be about 95%. Of course, these are just approximates. And It was difficult even finding a saved article written by a new editor. Lot's of articles are more often saved based on who initially wrote them or who's backing to keep them than any other reason! --MurderByDeletionism^"bang!" 05:10, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Blueboar. We all know that AfD is not meant to be cleanup, but that is what it is in practice. I know one person who never cleans up their (vastly inadequate) articles unless they are AfD'ed, and often they get deleted afterwards anyway. Also, see before and after for this, which I found by clicking on the big red button on Volunteer Marek's userpage. Btw, I think people should do the latter more often, though I don't follow my own advice. (I don't mean deleting it, I mean clicking it). Kingsindian ♝♚ 16:36, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Blueboar: You said The mere fact that an article is being considered for deletion means that it will be reviewed: That may have been true at some point but today the AfD battleground is growing weeds mostly. See for example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Business#Article_alerts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Canada/Article_alerts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Companies/Article_alerts#AfD

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Law/Article_alerts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Technology/Article_alerts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women/Article_alerts

Ottawahitech (talk) 03:33, 5 December 2015 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

Not sure what those links are supposed to show, or how they refute what I said. Could you elaborate? Blueboar (talk) 14:55, 5 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I was trying to illustrate that listing an article at AfD (or any XfD for that matter) does not mean that it gets a proper review. Consensus nowadays is the agreement of a couple of editors on average.

More specifically, WikiProjects that have alerts, list AfDs of articles that have been tagged with the wproj’s banner.On the right hand side you can see the number of participants in each discussion. So, if you click, say, on the link for the alerts for WikiProject Business you will see that out of the 10 deletion discussions only one has 10 paricipants and one has seven. On the other hand four discussions have zero participants, two have one participant and the rest have three. Many of the discussions are relisted over and over.

Don’t forget that many wikiprojects do not have alerts, and many articles are not tagged, so those articles probably have much lower participation. Am I making any sense? Ottawahitech (talk) 06:03, 6 December 2015 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

• @Blueboar: I wish someone would generate some statistics: You believe that AfD nominations often have a positive result while all I see are many XfD discussions with no participants (other than a nominator). BTW I just discovered that in this situation the alerts show one participant (software bug?), instead of zero. Ottawahitech (talk) 01:12, 13 December 2015 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

The two (having no participants at XfD, and ending with a positive result at an article) are not mutually exclusive. The mere fact that an editor nominates a poor article for deletion can spark improvements to the article - without any discussion on the XfD page. The "reply" to the nomination may be made by fixing the article, without discussion on the XfD page. Indeed, because there is a record of the nomination on the article talk page... even a nomination that is "closed (as no-consensus) due to lack of participation" can result in the desired improvement, years after the nomination. Blueboar (talk) 13:12, 13 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Blueboar: You said The mere fact that an editor nominates a poor article for deletion can spark improvements to the article but again, in my experience this is hardly ever the case. What’s more, even well attended AfDs can generate a lot of talk, but no improvements to the article. See for example: 2015 Los Angeles Unified School District closure an article actively debated at AfD which received almost 1500 views in the last couple of days, but has been pretty much dead in terms of content building since the AfD started. In my experience this is typical — an AfD, successful or otherwise, usually kills the article. Just my $.02 Ottawahitech (talk)please ping me

, *WP:BEFORE is excellent as advice on best practice, but it does not work if you think of it as a mandatory required rule that must be followed. It is unenforceable. Just try to chastise someone you think isn't following it. All they need to do is claim that they did search for sources before nomination, but didn't find anything they thought was good enough. There is no way to "prove" that they didn't do this. Blueboar (talk) 14:26, 13 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I would support mandatory BEFORE. And if someone says "I checked for refs to support notability and didn't find any," but lots of good sources show up at Google Books and other obvious online sources, then the nominator has lied or is of questionable competence, and it could hurt him if he seeks to become an adminintrator. I do object to any notion that I have to spend a lot of time finding and adding refs to an article someone didn't bother to reference, when that person instead moved on to create a number of other unreferenced articles, to run up his "articles created" count, such as some editors do via semiautomated techniques from online lists of things or persons. Also, many new articles are "vanispamcruftisements" by a single purpose account about their band, employer, or fixation, and if all they are going to contribute are more vanispamcruftisements, the loss may not be a critical one of he goes off in a huff. Edison (talk) 22:43, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Deletions: mandatory notification of page creator?

I really don’t know if it is mandatory to notify a page creator that their article has been nominated for wp:AfD, however in my experience many nominators for the CfD/TfD/RfD/MfD/CSD/PROD/BLP-Prod/Deletion Review (did I miss any?) regularly omit notifying the editor who created the page.

Some editors here have expressed their opinion that such notifications should not be mandatory because they believe all editors should be using their wp:watch list. Since there is already discussion about this here I thought I would add this as a new section and see how others feel about it. Ottawahitech (talk) 16:54, 7 December 2015 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

Watching an article you create is automated. You would have to deliberately unwatch an article to not get notification. That is something that appeared a few years ago, so if you have an old article you created, you should go back to watch it. Same applies to Templates. However Categories get deleted in secrecy because there is no notification process to the articles affected by the removal of a category. Most categories are deleted with no opposition or discussion. Since categories are an aid to navigation, there is no telling the amount of damage some thoughtless, unopposed deletions have caused. I've caught a few after they were deleted, but once it is done it is a difficult process to reverse.Trackinfo (talk) 02:02, 8 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It is not automatic to show all changes to a page on the watchlist, only the most recent change. If someone adds AfD, then someone else edits the page, even a minor edit like correcting a typo, the default is that only the second edit shows in the watchlist. Additionally, requiring someone to check their watchlist violates Wikipedia policy that Wikipedia is voluntary. Thisisnotatest (talk) 04:03, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Users should not have to rely on watchlists for this. So there should be a talk page advice for the creator, and also for major contributors. For those that are not logged on, notification will likely happen by email. And if they are logged in they will see it at the top of the screen. However I do not think it has to mandatory, just every strongly advised. I would expect any regular AFD CSD or prod nominator to hand out notifications. But for people new at this, I think they can be excused. However if the article gets deleted without these contributors ever knowing, there is a stronger case for allowing WP:REFUNDs or deletion review undeletes. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:48, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

All of this requires a lot of effort on the part of the nominator. Besides being simply laze, some disingenuous nominators might "forget" to properly notify contributors to an article in order to achieve the result. It seems there is a class of nominator who is more concerned about the won/loss record than actually having a reasonable argument about content. I have proposed in the past that this process be automated by a bot notifying all past editors on the article in question. The idea fell flat. Trackinfo (talk) 06:41, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I support mandatory notification of the page creator and all contributors of significant portions of new text. Watchlists are useless for this. James500 (talk) 11:46, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Support mandatory notification of the article creator of a pending AfD by the AfD nominator at the same time as the subject article is tagged with the AfD notice template. Much of this discussion and virtually all of the ranting about "deletionist" this-and-that is misguided and horribly exaggerated, but I have always believed that it is a matter of basic fairness to notify the creator of an article subject to a pending AfD. I find it quite odd that this is not already mandatory and I have uniformly demanded notification of creators and AfD re-listings when nominators have failed to provide notice. That said, I oppose mandatory notification of "major contributors" because of the burden it places on the nominator to discern what constitutes "major" and because of the arguments that inevitably ensue over same. The notice given the creator and the tagging of the article with the AfD notice template should be sufficient; no one should be trying to hide pending AfDs, but likewise there is also a burden on concerned editors to keep articles of interest on their watch lists. There are several subject categories of AfDs which I check daily, I have watch-listed over 4,000 articles of concern to me. From time to time, I have also notified WikiProjects (in a neutral manner per WP:CANVASS) of particular AfDs within their subject areas of interest. Any responsible editor should be prepared to do these things as well. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 12:35, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Opposed - There is nothing special about being the article creator. Once you upload an article into mainspace, it is no longer "your" article. You have given it to the community to do with as they will. You have no special "rights" in regards to what happens to the article. Which means... you have no "right" to be notified if someone significantly edits it, nor if someone nominates it for deletion. If you care what happens to an article (whether you created it or not), the onus is on you to follow what happens to it. Blueboar (talk) 13:04, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't about ownership, it is about transparency and not using sneaky tactics. James500 (talk) 15:54, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Support for all contributors to the article being nominated This remove the question of ownership. If you took the time to edit the article, you should have an important opinion to be heard on its value to wikipedia, whether you removed content from the article or added to it. Stated above, because this is a lot of work, we should request a BOT automatically make this notification as part of the nomination process (along with creating the discussion article and the header with the link). Trackinfo (talk) 22:03, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Support when practical - it is sometimes quite impractical to identify an article creator and especially to identify anyone who would be considered a "major contributor", and indeed disagreement about how "major" should be defined. I fear this requirement becoming a "gotcha" loophole to keep content which should otherwise be deleted. But I do support the idea. Also, this constitutes a major change to how we've always operated, and should be better advertised than this sub-thread. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 16:01, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose Being the initial or subsequent editor is just that, they don't own the article. I think it is good form to notify certain contributors - but would in no way want to invalidate these community discussions just because a certain editor wasn't explicitly asked to participate. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:08, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Preference is that this would be via bot that would notify all contributors except those marking a contribution as minor, but if not, then needs to be required of the nominator. Minimum would be notifying the page creator. It is not that the creator owns the page, it is that the creator is the best person to know why they believed the topic to be notable. It also brings the creator into the education process, increasing the likelihood that their future page creations improve as a result of the discussion. While deletions of my first two article creations were upheld (and discouraged me for year or two from creating any other new articles), my subsequent creations have survived and one of them is regularly edited. Involving me in the deletion process of those two pages, for which the nominator had notified me, was an important part of my education in how and when to create an article. Thisisnotatest (talk) 00:13, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Logically it also should not notify back to BOTs as well. Trackinfo (talk) 21:13, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Support This is a bare minimum courtesy. --MurderByDeletionism^"bang!" 05:24, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Ah, I see all the deletionist are out to win this simple, courtesy proposal too! The last thing Wikipedians want apparently is transparency. C'est la vie! --MurderByDeletionism^"bang!" 16:22, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak oppose- usually notifying the page creator is the courteous thing to do. But there are times when that would be useless, such as when the creator has been permabanned, or has stated that they don't want to be bothered with such notifications. Strongly oppose making it mandatory to notify every page contributor. This, obviously, would be equivalent to canvassing for keep votes. AfDs should ideally be judged by neutral, uninvolved editors. Reyk _YO! 12:24, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment This is a simple courtesy which should normally be done. But there may be exceptions and so this shouldn't be done blindly. For example, if there's a big group of deletions such as in the recent case of Neelix's redirects, we wouldn't want to spam hundreds of templates onto their talk page. So, this should use guideline language and, so far as I know, that's what we have currently. Is there some specific text that the OP has in mind? Andrew D. (talk) 13:32, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Actually that's pretty much exactly what happened with Neelix's talk page, since Twinkle doesn't let every notification be turned off. Another user took it upon themselves to archive the automatic notices onto a subpage, until they got in hot water for it for no good reason. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 14:42, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose any additional forced manual actions for AfD nominators. Neutral on any automated solution using bots.--Staberinde (talk) 18:46, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Support as simply courtesy. If you have time to manually nom an article for deletion, then also take the time to notify the article creator. If she is no longer active, then there this no harm. If he is banned, then again no harm is done. Many use Twinkle to nominate, so notifying the article creator is effortless. Articles get added to my watchlist all the time when i edit them or add templates, so that here may be thousands of articles on the watchlist, and because of the large number of watchlist listings each day i might not see an afd for some article I created, and thus miss the opportunity to participate in the afd. Edison (talk) 22:30, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per WP:OWN. Once you hit the submit button, the content is up to the WP community to do what they want with it. Yes, it should be strongly recommended, but it can't be forced. This applies particularly to pages with complex history, for instance say a page was original created, it was made into a redirect for several years, and then recreated in a completely new form. Who is the "creator"? The first editor, or the editor that recreated from the redirect? And finding that in the last case can prove extremely difficult if there's been more than a few hundred edits to the article. --MASEM (t) 22:51, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per WP:OWN the content belongs to the community; we should encourage a culture where creating editors divest themselves of ownership and feel free to just let go and trust their peers. W.r.t those holding the view, the discussion of requiring editors to use watchlists does not resonate; editors are not required to particpate at AfD. NB: I would support requiring some evidence of WP:BEFORE - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 07:19, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Seeing the BOT suggestion getting more traction above, I'll make the proposal formal.

BOT Notification

As a part of the *fD creation process, a BOT shall automatically notify all contributing editors to the article. Edits marked with an m or b will be excepted from this process. Trackinfo (talk) 21:21, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Support as proponent. Automation takes human effort and subjectivity out of the equation. Any editor who has taken the time to make an edit in the item in question has read some of the content and has enough of an interest in it to have made an improvement to it. Trackinfo (talk) 21:59, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose . That is going to spam editors that may be doing wikignoming aspects or the like on articles (which don't always mark minor changes). I would support a bot that would notify any editors that has contributed to more than 10% of the total edits on a page (eg at most 10 editors per article), since they are likely going to have the most vested interest. --MASEM (t) 22:51, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I would accept the 10% figure as a friendly amendment. Trackinfo (talk) 00:13, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose- this would have the effect of canvassing for keep votes. Reyk _YO! 06:20, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - I gnome, and would not like to be canvassed for all of the articles to which I have contributed. More importantly, I would not consider it appropriate that all (or even all significant) contributors be notified; per the WP:CANVASSing issues above. If AfD were less vote-y and more WP:NOTVOTE-y, these concerns might be allayed. NB: I would support requiring some evidence of WP:BEFORE at AfD. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 07:25, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • This can be solved by creating a page where editors can add their user names if they want to opt out from notifications. --Stefan2 (talk) 15:18, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• I support some form of automated notification of all major contributors. Notifying major contributors is no more canvassing for keep !votes than putting the AfD on a deletion sorting list and the AfD log (instead of some list that is only related to the subject matter of the article, like a list on the WikiProject page, that is presumably less likely to be frequented by people who do nothing but vote for deletion) is canvassing for delete !votes. Major contributors will not necessarily be in favour of keeping the article. And even if they are, trying to conceal the AfD from them looks like deception and gamesmanship. Anyway, neutrally worded notifications are not canvassing. It might be desirable to notify major article talk page contributors as well. James500 (talk) 23:28, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Do many people nominate things to AfD without using Twinkle? Twinkle automatically notifies the creator. I remember what a sod of a job it was setting up an AfD in my 12,000 unautomated edit days before getting my mop and subsequently twinkling. Notify every contributor? No way. Major contributors? Define 'major' so that a bot or a Twinkle will know who is and who isn't. A vandal adding a page of drivel might get a notification where the adder of a short paragraph of good info mightn't. By percentage of text added, or by number of edits? Some people save after every five words, or so it looks when a one paragraph article has taken thirty edits. How about text removed? I'm not saying it's impossible - I am saying it's going to make one of the early Christian Church's council meetings look like making a decision between lemonade and orangeade. Peridon (talk) 12:56, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Removals can be 'major'. Also note that you shouldn't make any difference between users who are likely to vote 'keep' and users who are likely to vote 'delete'. A user who removes text might statistically be more likely to vote 'delete' than a user who adds text. --Stefan2 (talk) 15:18, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Not if they've removed half a page of vandalism - you've no idea which way they'll vote, or even if they will. Does adding half a page of junk count as a major contribution? To a bot, I would say that it did (unless the bot could detect that it had been removed as vandalism by a human). Referring to your post below - do many Commons files get multiple editing to any great degree? Notifying uploaders by bot is easy (for a bot person). Deciding the value of contribs isn't. It's not always easy for humans. Peridon (talk) 20:31, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Those people removing content from the article could likely be delete votes. Including people who delete content should be important to avoid canvasing just one side. The point being, we are notifying people who have shown they are informed and interested parties to the content in question. Trackinfo (talk) 22:53, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Can't Twinkle just be set up to notify everyone with major contributions? On Commons, it is possible to use c:MediaWiki:VisualFileChange.js to nominate all files in a given category for deletion with a few simple clicks, and the script automatically notifies all uploaders (except reversions and uploads by certain bots). Generally, I support notifying all editors with major contributions (i.e. anything which is not marked as 'bot' or 'minor'), but I think that there should be an exception for certain IP edits. A few days ago, I found text which had been contributed by an IP several years ago, and I thought that it was not useful to notify the IP that the content seems to violate copyright as the original user probably has changed IP addresses since that time. --Stefan2 (talk) 15:18, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Going to my point above, I have seen articles (primarily dealing with contemporary, popular works) where by the above definition, would include 100s of "major contributors" simply because they did one or two non-minor editors, and the idea of notifying all of them by a bot screams of canvassing. I would think the balance of having the bot figure out the top 5 to 10 (at most) contributors and notifying them would be reasonable that doesn't feel like canvassing but at least proper notification. --MASEM (t) 19:06, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Lack of participation and vocal minorities

There is a severe lack of participation, relative to their overall numbers, by inclusionists and other non-deletionists on the talk pages of many of those policies and guidelines that relate to deletion. The number of deletionists at these venues is out of proportion to their actual numbers (in no small part because the deletionists are not creating content, and because inclusionists and other non-deletionists rarely become aware of the 'deletion machine' until they are personally on the receiving end of it). I suggest that inclusionists/non-deletionists should be given more encouragement to show up at these venues. We should, for example, actually tell people whose contributions are deleted (for reasons other than things that are non negotiable because, for example, they are beyond our power to change, such as copyright, or because they are manifestly incompatible with the aims of the project, such as vandalism and hoaxes) that consensus can change, and supply them with details of the mechanism (ie RfC and other talk page discussion) for effecting changes to policies and guidelines. I think AfD notification templates should be changed to include this kind of information. It is obvious that most of the victims of deletionism haven't a clue how to complain, because we very often, at best, sneakily do not tell them, and, at worst, talk about policies and guidelines as if they were set in stone. James500 (talk) 15:54, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• The {{Afd-notice}} template gives a link to the deletion discussion, and explains that all users are welcome to contribute to it. Editors making XfD nominations should be encouraged to make clear nomination statements expressing specific reasons why an article should be deleted. Perhaps with Twinkle the nomination statement could be copied to the user's talk page along with the afd-notice. There is already a space to add custom text when posting some speedy notices - something like that. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 16:08, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That isn't the sort of notification that I have in mind. The sort of notice I have in mind is something like: "Your article was deleted because it failed WP:ORG. If you don't like WP:ORG, you are entitled to go to the talk page of that guideline (WT:ORG) and ask for changes to that guideline." followed by some description of the RfC process. The AfD notice template is a good example of the problem. It tells editors to go to the AfD and discuss Wikipedia's policies and guidelines there, in a way that gives no clear indication whatsoever that those policies and guidelines can be changed or that the correct forum for seeking such changes is the talk page of the policy or guideline in question. An editor who has an article deleted is very likely to be placed under the impression that he has no recourse if the problem is with the content of a policy or guideline. They will assume the policy or guideline is immutable. This is one reason why editing Wikipedia has become a secret art and mystery. James500 (talk) 19:58, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oh I think that's an exceptionally bad idea, as you framed it. It probably wouldn't be terrible to send users to a page explaining the concept of policies and guidelines and how we develop them, and encouraging them to become more familiar and get more involved in the process, because everyone really can participate here despite there sometimes being a steep learning curve. Those of us who are XfD regulars and are familiar with the shorthand jargon we use could certainly do a better job of explaining things to newcomers in plain language; I try to do that myself when I have my wits about me. But I think suggesting to a new user that if they don't like guidelines that they should just go change them is a very, very bad idea. XfD forums are much friendlier places for newcomers than guideline talk pages, in my experience, especially when someone shows up demanding changes. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 20:19, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that someone would show up demanding changes, I think that there would be a massive snowball pile-on, possibly of hundreds of people, because I think there is overwhelming hostility towards deletionism from the vast majority of people in the world, apart from a very small but very vocal and determined minority who have just about 'commandeered' some policies and guidelines, it is just that most people have no idea how to seek changes. That said, XfD is one of the most toxic environments on the project. For the creator of the page it is much like being put on trial for weeks. Guideline talk pages are nothing compared to that. The problem with guideline talk pages isn't that they are unfriendly, but simply lack of participation from certain groups. James500 (talk) 14:43, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• OK, I have to challenge the premise of this thread and the assertion that our policy and guideline pages are in any way dominated by "deletionists" who "are not creating content". On the contrary, I suspect that if you actually look into the editorial history of most participants on policy and guideline page discussions (and at XfD discussions), you will find editors who are quite active in creating content (by either starting new articles, or improving existing ones). Blueboar (talk) 13:39, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@James500: in addition to what Ivanvector said, I'd like to add that it's a bad idea to encourage people to seek to change an encyclopedia-wide consensus because of their grievances about a single article. Consensus isn't achieved by insisting the mountain come to you, but by you climbing the mountain. Finnusertop (talk | guestbook | contribs) 13:50, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It seems a baseless slur to claim that people who != vote "delete" at AFD do not "create content." Skip the ad hominem attacks. Edison (talk) 22:46, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Many people who I see regularly voting delete on bad articles at AfD are strong contributors of good content. Reyk _YO! 06:33, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Who? Because when I've checked all I found was deleting. First, they go to the article to tag it like crazy, then they delete whole paragraphs, finally they send it to AfD. That's not writing. --MurderByDeletionism^"bang!" 16:15, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You need to check harder then. Or at least, not just look for stuff that confirms your preconceptions. Consider myself, for instance. Most people would regard me as an evil scary kitten-eating deletionist. But I have two featured articles and three GAs to my credit, and have started around 30 articles. And I am by not unusually productive. Writing an encyclopedia is not just throwing words at a page. There has to be some thought given to accuracy and quality. We are presenting an online encyclopedia and that means taking care to present information that is as accurate as we can make it, that is neutral, that is not buried under a mountain of trivia or diluted across too many articles. This means aggressive removal in some cases. Deletionists understand this but inclusionists for the most part do not. To put it another way, I want an encyclopedia that is both very big and very good, but you only care about big. Reyk _YO! 16:31, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Writing an encyclopedia is not just throwing words at a page. Do you mean like this?[4] Because an article start like this wouldn't last two seconds on Wikipedia. (FYI - It does look rather like words thrown at a page, but in 2008 Wikipedia was more forgiving!) Also, Wikipedia is not about TRUTH, just verifiability. Deletionists only understand how to delete. It's is a whole lot easier than writing! What deletionists don't understand is how to write. They're negative, pessimistic, and close minded. They're only interested in creating an exact replica of Britannica Encyclopædia. (Why? When there's already one does the world need two! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) Deletionist are trying to achieve their goals with fewer and fewer editors because they are driving off writers from Wikipedia (and they themselves are not writers!) There are a number times in AfD that the argument is that it is just poorly written. I've even argued that an article ought to be deleted because other sites can do a better job of writing the article than Wikipedia can, and since Google now defaults to Wikipedia, it should be deleted. Of course, if deletionist were really worried about quality, this argument could be applied to many subjects. This lack of editors means that deletionists believe that in order to safe face on quality, they must delete more and more articles since there are fewer editors are around to keep an eye on articles. If deletionists were truly interested in quality, they would be encouraging to new editors, they would welcome new articles, they would work on fixing articles, but instead they just send them to AfD. Because that is the only way they know how to fix articles!

Happy retirement, Reyk! --MurderByDeletionism^"bang!" 17:37, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's desperate, having to dig up a ten year old edit to try to make me look inconsistent or hypocritical. Then you follow it up with a long, agitated, inaccurate hate-rant against your perceived enemies, and finish with a mocking comment about how I'm not as active here as I used to be. Very unfortunate debating tactic. I do not have time to waste on this kind of fuckwittery so go rant at someone else. Reyk _YO! 18:05, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Since you've refuted nothing, I win!!! Yippee!!! --MurderByDeletionism^"bang!" 18:47, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Feel free to proclaim victory in a game nobody else is playing. Per WP:DENY I am withdrawing from further communication with you. Reyk _YO! 18:55, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I believe I did. See above per WP:IAR! --MurderByDeletionism^"bang!" 01:23, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

But at least you're not biased. DonIago (talk) 17:40, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Everyone's biased! --MurderByDeletionism^"bang!" 01:23, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've said nothing about participants at XfD or !voting at XfD. "Deletionist" is not an ad hominem in the context of discussing overall participation in deletion-related discussions as it is directly relevant. When I look at the participants on the talk pages of policies and guidelines that are related to deletion, it appears to me that editors that I would expect to be normally regarded as deletionists (a term that does not include everyone who regularly !votes for deletion at AfD let alone everyone who so !votes once), and especially those people who do not create any content, or who create little or significantly less (which is what I mean by "not creating content" ie "not creating enough to keep them occupied"), and want to delete significantly more content, are disproportionately over represented. James500 (talk) 19:34, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, notability of horrific events can be shaky, especially when news may be primary proof of notability. However, AfD on 2015 Colorado Springs shootings will fail as did other AfDs. I don't know why people tend to nominate events that became notable when press has emphasized them. Can we limit number of these deletion nominations to reduce failures? --George Ho (talk) 06:36, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly, with the frequency that such shootings are occurring, it's becoming increasingly difficult to say that each one is notable. Risker (talk) 06:52, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The news sources continue to give extensive coverage of each of them. That what notable means, the way we use it. Using Risker's formulation, I could equally say. that the way that such shootings are occurring, they are each of them becoming increasingly notable. They may not be unusual, but unusual is not the same aa notable. DGG ( talk ) 08:16, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It is all too common for people to confuse "unusual" with "notable". In fact, things that are unusual may receive a lot of attention because they seldom happen, but things that often happen can also receive a lot of attention, and they too are notable. If mass shootings became so horrifically common that they no longer received much attention, then they might not need articles, but as long as they are getting extensive coverage, they certainly should have articles. Everyking (talk) 23:54, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If only more people would read the guidance in WP:EVENT, especially Wikipedia:Notability (events)#Don't rush to delete articles. Fences&Windows 23:24, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not a newspaper. People that are interested in current events that have unclear notability should be writing these articles at Wikinews, and if it turns out to be an encyclopedically notable event (more than just a few days of coverage) then it can be transcluded into en.wiki. --MASEM (t) 23:57, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is about writing encyclopedia articles, not newspaper articles. Nobody is saying Wikipedia should be a newspaper. Everyking (talk) 00:42, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

People rush to create articles on any type of event like a shooting or a disaster (manmade or natural). Some are definitely of encyclopedic value, but many are not, but the rush to create this is treating WP as a newspaper. Wikinews is set up for those that want to write on current events; once they prove notable, they can be moved over. --MASEM (t) 00:47, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Normally it's just people trying to improve the encyclopedia by writing about notable, encyclopedic subjects. Seldom do I see current event articles that are genuinely non-notable. Everyking (talk) 01:38, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I see plenty, random crimes, random traffic accidents, random storms, random bombings/attacks in larger conflicts, etc. I'd guess that for every notable event, there's two non-notable event articles, based on what I've seen. Wikinews was set up for people that wanted to write about current events to work at, not Wikipedia. --MASEM (t) 20:24, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree and think if we were really trying to treat Wikpedia as a newspaper we would get more articles about local sports teams and other local events such a traffic accidents etc. I also find that a large number of the aricles up for deletion on thee grounds usually do not last for the full seven days meaning that the majority does not appear to share this view.--65.94.253.102 (talk) 06:46, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• WP:NOTNEWS spends most of its text explaining the sort of content and style of Wikipedia articles, not the subjects of the articles themselves. That is, Wikipedia articles should have the content, tone, and style of an encyclopedia article. --Jayron32 17:45, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I do not see random crimes , etc. I do see an attempt to include all bombings/attacks in larger conflicts and a great many murders. Whether this is appropriate content of not depends upon your view of the encycopedia. DGG ( talk ) 20:45, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is an example (please do not put it up for deletion) of what I'd call a random crime 2012 Seattle cafe shooting spree. Yes, people were killed, it was covered in national news, but that's it. It's a news story, with very little long tail or impact on the rest of the world, in contrast to 2013 Los Angeles International Airport shooting (also in which there was a death) which caused new legislation/regulations to be developed in following it. The latter has encyclopedic value because it impacted the world at large, the former does not, and should have been started at Wikinews first. Similarly 2013 Mahabubnagar bus accident should have been made at Wikinews first as this is not an encyclopedic topic without any larger impact on the world at large. People race to create these nowadays before a full understanding of the situation is at hand. --MASEM (t) 20:58, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. We are turning into a news website, and not a very good one at that. We're stretching the bounds of notability much too far, and especially so in situations where articles are little more than quotefarms. - Sitush (talk) 06:13, 3 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really frequent AfD, but my own viewpoint is similar: the bounds of notability have been stretched too far. There are other points peculiar to specific areas. I work often in WP:ARBPIA, and one major problem I see is that every terrorist incident is given its own article, divorced from context, almost wholly sourced to newspapers, or in passing mentions in books. They are basically WP:POVFORKs intended to demonstrate "X are terrorists". Some level of forking is healthy, I think, because it can emphasize some particular aspect of the topic. However, a lot of forking is essentially a way to get around stuff which should not be kept. Discussion in this area is polarized, so often leads to "no consensus", which defaults to "keep". This makes creating articles a favourite tactic of POV pushers. A separate but similar problem is that a lot of WP:BLPs in this area are basically attack articles. Kingsindian ♝♚ 06:37, 3 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That "no consensus" at AfD defaults to "keep" has long been a bugbear of mine but generally is a wider issue. You do, however, raise a very good point in terms of gaming the system in this specific context. - Sitush (talk) 06:49, 3 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• To prove my point: The New York Times reports that there have been a minimum of 354 mass shootings so far this year in the United States.[5] We do not have articles on all of them; in fact, we have articles on relatively few of them. They're no longer automatically notable, and haven't been for some time. Just because something's been reported in (multiple) news media doesn't make it notable; we don't report on big traffic pile-ups routinely either, despite many people dying in them and their being reported in multiple MSM sources. Mass shootings are, in fact, daily occurrences not just in the United States but in many other countries; it is only our systemic bias that results in a number of American shootings being reported in Wikipedia, instead of the ones in Mexico, Venezuela, or most of Africa. Risker (talk) 05:16, 3 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  The solution to systemic bias is to create new articles on topics that deserve them rather than to delete otherwise quality articles. If reliable source material exists on an event in Mexico, it would be a Good Thing for Wikipedia to create such an article. We don't make Wikipedia better by arbitrarily deleting a worthwhile article on an event in the U.S. merely because "We've got enough American articles, thanks". --Jayron32 20:24, 3 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  The question is begged if these are "quality" articles. They can be well sourced because of MSM coverage, but one must keep in mind that most news reporting of this nature is primary sourcing, failing WP:NOT#NEWS, WP:N and WP:NEVENT. Some shootings do create significant debate - there's no question the encyclopedic-ness of the Sandy Hook shooting as it related to gun control discussion and the like. Most don't - they happen, there's a short tail and burst of news, and then events quiet down, with the long-tail impact only affecting the local area. Wikinews should be used by such interested editors to populate these events, and there's no reason on WP that we can't maintain lists of these notable shootings with links to Wikinews (the most recent case from yesterday proves there's an interest in how many shootings in the US occurred in the year, so a page to document that makes plenty of sense). But we definitely should not be having articles on every single one. --MASEM (t) 22:40, 3 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This point about the short tail and long tail is very important. People use the short tail to claim WP:DIVERSE, ignoring the fact that the long tail is only local. A related point is that WP:LASTING is rarely applied, and when used, is done inconsistently. There is an inherent tension between being up-to-date on recent events and applying WP:LASTING. Consider the following two AfDs, one delete/redirect, and one "no consensus" (both by the same closer, who, incidentally, I consider a fair and very good closer). Kingsindian ♝♚ 12:58, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

How "long" does the "long tail" need to be? The problem with WP:LASTING is that while it is a very good criteria for determining whether an event is notable... it does not always work the other way around... it is a very poor criteria for determining whether an event is non-notable. There are lots of events that are considered notable and yet don't pass WP:LASTING.

As an example... consider the University of Florida Taser incident of 2007. There is no question that this was a notable (or at least note-worthy) news event back when it occurred. It engendered all sorts of discussions about free speech and the appropriate (vs inappropriate) use of tasers. But... the event was not "the catalyst for anything of lasting significance". Today the event is all but forgotten. It had no lasting impact on society. No laws were passed due to the event. Nothing changed because of the event. Even the pop-culture fad for quoting "Don't tase me, Bro!" has faded. In other words, I don't think passes WP:LASTING). Yet, I would hesitate to say that the event was completely non-notable. I think it is worth a stand-alone article. (That article may need to be rewritten... but I think an article should exist). Blueboar (talk) 14:38, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The taser incident has a reasonably long enough tail that it's clearly an encyclopedic topic; note that there were issues raised on the campus's security, and free speech aspects. Stuff has change, even if it really is only the fact "don't tase me bro" is a meme the only linger effect of that. The long tail doesn't need to be a permanent impact, but it needs to be more than just affecting the people directly involved with the incident and close friends and family, and others local to it, and more than just the first few days of news coverage. --MASEM (t) 14:50, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There are lots of events that are considered notable and yet don't pass WP:LASTING. Leaving aside the fact that perhaps this article did pass WP:LASTING, there is no contradiction between this statement and mine. WP:LASTING is only one of the criteria for notability, it is neither necessary nor sufficient. And you haven't really given an argument about why you think the article is notable, other than your opinion. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but as they say: "show your work". Secondly "how long does a long tail need to be" cannot be answered. Such questions are inherently subjective and dependent on context. Again, one needs to "show their work". My point is that this is rarely, if ever done. Kingsindian ♝♚ 15:45, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think what Blueboar was getting at is that if one took LASTING to the letter, then if news sources die out about an event after much time as past, such as the assassination of JFK (for an example), then one could argue that that event is no longer notable, which of course is silly to think of for this or any example; by nature, coverage of an event will diminish over time. But as you do state, LASTING is but one piece. More importantly, to me, is taking in how that tail is relative to the timeframe's news cycle (in the 21st century, this would be 1 to 2 days, but if we talk about the early 20th century that could easily be a week or more); if the story reported today dies out in a day or two, its notability is begged by LASTING, but if that dies down after a week, it's probably notable. This is why we need to encourage more people to use Wikinews. Stories that fail LASTING here would have zero difficulty existing at Wikinews from the start, and if it does turn out the story lasts longer than a few days (an example for myself was the mess over the shooting of Cecil the lion which I thought was more a run-of-the-mill human interest story), then we can transcribe into en.wiki. --MASEM (t) 16:37, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I am confused by the reference to the JFK assassination. Of course WP:LASTING does not state that the coverage has to be in newspapers. There have been books written about the JFK assassination, studying it in depth, and of course there are a thousand conspiracy theories, and then there are books studying the conspiracy theories. It would definitely pass WP:LASTING however you read it. Regarding the latter point, I am pretty cynical that the people that I'm talking about (no names) will be satisfied by Wikinews. They want their article on Wikipedia, because whenever anyone Googles the term, it would come up. And I know their motives for doing this. I don't think Wikinews has that sort of search engine ranking (correct me if I'm wrong). Kingsindian ♝♚ 16:53, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What I am saying is that if one took an extremely narrow view of LASTING, then the fact that today, right this moment, there are no sources that were published today discussing the JFK assassination means that LASTING is failed and we should delete it. Which of course is not going to happen for reasons you state. Now taking that same logic to the Taser example, again there are no sources right this instant, published today, that are discussing it, and the same logic applies if one was being narrow on what LASTING meant. My point is that a news story disappearing off the radar, alone, is not sufficient for determining if LASTING applies. It's how long that tail was relative to the time of the event, not whether there's continued coverage indefinitely. Further, just because there may be sources published today talking about an event does not necessarily meant the long tail of a story is sufficient to meet LASTING; I give examples of local crimes that end up in the death of innocent victims, where local news will often cover the family's grief year after years as part of a human interest angle. If the story came and went in the news, and this type of coverage is the only long tail, that's not meeting LASTING. --MASEM (t) 17:01, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

[unindent] The problem is that most people have no clue what primary sources are, and they throw a fit when their votes are ignored by an admin who follows the note-a-vote standards and ignores AFD votes that rely on primary sources, such as news reports about an incident, in determining whether a topic is notable. I tried enforcing WP:PRIMARY one time when closing an AFD (either it was a recent incident that had just happened, or it was a person who hadn't been getting any coverage except for news reports that were published at the time of an incident in which the person was involved), but a pile of Randies filed a deletion review because it was a "new and idiosyncratic idea" (or something synonymous) to consider news reports from the time of an event to be primary sources. Policy is clear that we should ignore AFD votes that have no basis in reality and that primary sources don't count toward notability, and in the context of history (the context in which event and biographical articles exist), news reports and other documents from the time of an event are unambiguously primary sources, so policy already says that we should ignore these votes, but if you don't know that and you reject it when it's explained to you, you're going to throw a fit if current policy is followed. It's past time to add a clarification to policy, something saying basically "Because news reports from the time of an event are primary sources for that event, they cannot count toward notability; notability depends on the existence of secondary sources, those that examine primary sources and were published after the context in which the primary sources were produced. Articles about events, individuals, and other subjects may only be retained if secondary sources are furnished to support the article, unless consensus specifically holds that an individual article should be considered exceptional". For three prominent situations (the Colorado Springs murders, to the San Bernardino shootings, and to the Paris attacks), news reports are still appearing: unless someone can provide convincing WP:IAR arguments, we have no business having articles on any of them at this moment. Nyttend (talk) 20:13, 9 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If you think the article on the Paris attacks deserves deletion, an article which has been praised by mainstream journalists, then you are very far out of step with the consensus on event articles. News articles are not usually considered to be primary sources, and wikilawyering as such when closing deserved to be overturned. Fences&Windows 02:17, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Out of step, yes, because most of the people who vote on these things don't know what they're talking about. The concept of a news article about a just-happened event is a perfect example of what's given in the first sentence of WP:FRINGE, an idea that departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field. History universally employs the term to refer to documents created at the time of an event and documents representing the memories and perspectives of people who experienced those events; see [6], the history section of [7], and [8]. There is scholarly consensus that documents created at the time of an event are primary sources, so don't push an alternate POV. Nyttend (talk) 03:07, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I definitely agree that news articles are primary sources for the most part. However, there is no requirement that an article only rely on secondary sources. I already mentioned above that there is an inherent tension between covering up-to-date events and lasting encyclopedic significance. That is not going away anytime soon. That said, there is no doubt at all that the Paris attacks will have lasting significance (arguably they already have). There is no automatic way to determine such things for general events; it is inherently subjective. However, subjective does not mean arbitrary: one must argue one's case. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 03:52, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• The problem with GNG is not that editors do not understand what a primary source is, but that GNG fails to consider them. You can write a perfectly good article with primary sources (provided you know how to handle them, though that isn't much of an argument as many editors don't know how to handle secondary sources either). To complain about the proverbial "Randy from Boise" misunderstanding GNG is sheer nonsense, because GNG was created by ... the proverbial "Randy from Boise"! It has the problems it does because it was self invented by a bunch of nonentities on the internet who did not really know how to write an encyclopedia. Its purported definition of "notability" is pure unadulterated unreliable 'original research' that is probably wrong. James500 (talk) 06:58, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I started the discussion as hopes to limit the number of failing AfD nominations. With all the discussion, apparently we can't limit number of deletion nominations. In fact, interpretation of news articles vary, but they are considered primary sources usually. In other words, there's nothing we can do? Right, James, Nyttend, Kingsindian, and Masem? Are we gonna sit by and let failing AfD nominations on newsworthy events increase? George Ho (talk) 05:39, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There's nothing to do. We don't preemptively protect new pages so we can't really know which new page on which news event should be protected against being listed for deletion. Once it's listed, speedy keeps are relatively common (although sometimes it's not that easy right away) and once that's done, we can shut off the AFD listing and move on. For pretty much every new article, there's at least one person out there who thinks it should be deleted for the most part and we won't change the whole project to stop them. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:47, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What needs to be done is to uphold WP:NOT#NEWS better at AFD and have better clarity on how most things that happen in the news are not encyclopedic and fail GNG/NEVENT (starting on the fact that the bulk of newspaper reports on breaking events are primary and thus not sufficient for notability), and encourage editors that want to write on current events to use Wikinews, which gives us the possibility of moving a story that may not immediately seem notable into Wikipedia mainspace when it turns out to be notable. --MASEM (t) 22:45, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Are journalistic skills required for Wikinews? George Ho (talk) 03:59, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If this is not the correct place for this discussion, please suggest where it should be.

Articles on "Deaths in (year)" and "Deaths in (month) (year)" have substantial noncompliance with WP:CITEHOW, which says

Citations for World Wide Web pages typically include:

• URL of the webpage – that is the URL of the webpage where the referenced content can be found, not, e.g., the main page of a website when the content is on a subpage of that website (see Wikipedia:Shallow references)
• name of the author(s)
• title of the article within quotation marks
• title or domain name of the website
• publisher, if known
• date of publication
• page number(s) (if applicable)
• the date you retrieved (or accessed) the webpage (required if the publication date is unknown)

Recommendations for news citations are similar. This section of Wikipedia:Citing sources does not offer any category, group, or type of article where these typical components of citations should not be used.

The current article, Deaths in 2015, which has entries for deaths only for the current month of December 2015, instructs editors in the top comment section:

References should be in<ref>[url & title]</ref> format, as full citations make the page too slow to load, and too big to edit.

If this instruction, or any similar instruction elsewhere in Wikipedia, is allowed to remain, I believe that WP:CITEHOW should specifically note any and all such exceptions.

I believe this instruction should be removed (pursuant to a proper decision-making process in the appropriate forum). I believe that the author name, publication name, and publication date, among other items, are useful for a number of purposes, including tracking URL changes, finding archive URLs, and assessing the reliability of sources. I believe that "full citations make the page too slow to load, and too big to edit" is utterly without merit. For example, I recently edited Deaths in March 2012 to include full reference info for most incomplete references, and this increased the article size by 5,463 bytes, to 153,940 bytes. It is ludicrous to argue that a 153,940-byte article is too big to edit, but a 148,477-byte article is not to big to edit. Of course, the article already had a significant number of full references, but still.

For the past, there are articles by year starting with Deaths in 1995 and ending with Deaths in 2003. After that, there are articles by month starting with Deaths in January 2004. Only the current article includes the instruction for providing stripped references. On the 7th day of each month, the article for the preceding month is launched by extracting that month's info from the current article. (At year-end, it's slightly different but similar.) Thus, each "Deaths in (month) (year)" article is initially loaded up with only stripped references, and most editors follow the existing pattern of stripped references. Over time, some editors insert non-stripped reference information that should have been there all along, and would be much easier to create if the comment were removed and editors followed the instructions of WP:CITEHOW in the first place.

(For Deaths in October 2011 and older, instead of using footnote references, most or all of the references are inline external links. These should be converted to normal footnote references. Before mid-2005, most entries don't have even inline external links. These articles should be brought into compliance over time with a full reference for every entry, but that is beyond the scope of this discussion.) —Anomalocaris (talk) 08:37, 13 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Just a bit of background: the current state of affairs is a compromise arrived at following a 2012 RfC about the use of inline external links vs. full references. I do think the time is ripe for another discussion on the subject. Personally, I agree with the OP; no-one should be enforcing the use of incomplete references in any area of the 'Pedia, and the size argument is pretty silly. DoctorKubla (talk) 12:07, 13 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• WP is a collaborative project. If you think the citations in these articles need to be fixed... don't just sit back and complain, (expecting someone else to take care of it)... step up, and WP:FIXTHEPROBLEM yourself. Blueboar (talk) 14:32, 13 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Blueboar: I have already worked on Deaths in March 2012, Deaths in February 2012, ‎Deaths in September 2012, and Deaths in December 2011, but the full project of repairing all such articles is quite large, and this is all beside the point. The main point is that the unlawful compromise needs to be replaced, the instruction in the current article needs to be removed, and editors should be expected to follow WP:CITEHOW. —Anomalocaris (talk) 17:17, 13 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that the concept of an "unlawful compromise" does NOT exist at Wikipedia, because two of the most important bedrock rules governing Wikipedia are WP:CONSENSUS and WP:IAR. That doesn't mean that the we shouldn't decide to change the process and make the links proper references, but the reason we should do that has nothing to do with the process that came up with the current system. The process that put in the current system for the "Deaths in..." articles was perfectly valid, and the same process will be used to change it to something else. --Jayron32 16:25, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Anomalocaris: Rather than removing the current instructions, I would opt for the additional instructions being included along with them, perhaps as optional: for example, being included on all references on articles where this seemed more appropriate, and not being included on articles where the page length is already a cause for concern, but only if there is substantial evidence that the page is taking too long to load. I'm not an expert on this, though. Rubbish computer (Merry Christmas!: ...And a Happy New Year!) 00:38, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral

Does SVG file format qualify as "fair use" and meet the non-free content criteria? Why or why not? If not, how will this affect all non-free files in SVG format? --George Ho (talk) 00:04, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Non-neutral

WP:IUP says not to use "px" as "px" will force a fixed size on all users who prefer to view images at any size. With SVG, an image becomes big at 400px, prompting other users to use the "px". Even with good faith, this violates the policy and a user's freewill to choose any size that he or she wants. File:2015 Climate Conference.svg is used as an infobox image for 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference. The image was very big at SVG format, so someone else shrank the image to 240px, forcing readers preferring 220px to view it bigger than 220px. I tried FFD, but David Levy found the forum inappropriate. The SVG format has been discussed in the past elsewhere, but there has been not a consensus to disqualify it as fair use. I am trying my best to let anybody pick any size, but "px" is still used. The same goes for File:Icarly logo.svg, which replaced File:Icarly-logo-2.png. I eliminated the px from iCarly, resulting in a bigger size. Even reducing the size of the SVG file is proven ineffective as PNG is still used to provide whatever size a user prefers, including 400px. --George Ho (talk) 00:04, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• The only acceptable use of a non-free SVG file is for logos and other similar identifications, iff the SVG is something publicly available by the entity the logo represents (either as the SVG directly or a format like PDF that the SVG can be pulled from). Any other use of SVG (particularly user-made ones) violates NFCC#3 as well as potentially NFCC#4 (not previously published). We discourage users from trying to recreate copyrighted logos as SVG to avoid the complexities of copyright law as applied to both the graphic image and the underlying SVG (XML) code. --MASEM (t) 00:18, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Sigh, why does it seem like this comes up over and over and over? Pixel size doesn't make any sense for vector images, the relevant thing is level of detail: eliminate detail that is not necessary to render at an appropriately-limited size. No other stupid limitations. Anomie⚔ 00:21, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean, Anomie? What are "Details", and how do they matter? Pixels are all I can think about, and nothing more. George Ho (talk) 00:24, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I looked for past discussion, and I found this one near the top of my search. And to my surprise, George Ho, I see you commented there. So why exactly are you bringing this up again? Anomie⚔ 00:33, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Shall I answer? I won't do that without you answering my question. George Ho (talk) 00:37, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to re-read the points in the old discussion. I'm not feeling like dealing with feigned ignorance tonight. Anomie⚔ 00:44, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Ok, so why not just use |upright = [x] where [x] = a proportional value of the screen size? Seriously, they made a work around for this type of problem ages ago. Cheers, Drcrazy102 (talk) 00:51, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox event already does that, Drcrazy102. 100% (upright=1) = 400px at preference. Or "thumb" or "frameless" already does the job. We must consider also the layout of the article content. --George Ho (talk) 00:55, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Almost forgot, if I reduce the scale to .5 (50%), the image will become too small for those preferring default or smaller size. If I increase to 1.35, the image will become too big for those preferring the maximum size. George Ho (talk) 01:03, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Aside from the NFCC#4 issue I do think that NFCC#3 is really a limit to how much material we use. It's fairly clear here that mere pixelsize is not a good measure (also as has been noted, using a modified SVG file creates other issues with NFCC#4, NFCC#8 since you may be misrepresenting the logo - which is what nonfree SVGs frequently are - and NFCC#1/FREER because of complicated copyright status), so coming up with another standard seems like the right call, for me. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 06:45, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Right. An SVG file is not just a logo but a logo combined with some computer code, and the computer code may be separately copyrighted, requiring a licence from the author of the computer code per WP:FREER. --Stefan2 (talk) 18:41, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Anomie is right in assessing that the level of detail (number of elements defined in the SVG file) is more relevant than rendered pixel size. WP:NFCC#3b talks about numerous standards for measuring minimal use ("Low- rather than high-resolution/fidelity/bit rate") and we should not assume that pixel size is the one that corresponds best with SVGs.

I also disagree with admin David Levy's interpretation that FFD is not forum for non-free SVG files because "the concern expressed ... applies to every non-free SVG file". The concern expressed in my opinion was compliance with WP:NFCC#3b, and given the complicated nature of this in SVG files (as demonstrated) it's definitely something that should be discussed in FFD rather than dismissing it as something self-evident. Finnusertop (talk | guestbook | contribs) 07:02, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't suggesting that FfD is never the appropriate forum in which to discuss non-free SVG files. George's rationale was that use of the SVG format was the problem. ("I believe that the format is too superior to make the use 'fair'. Shall we use the PNG format instead?")

Regarding Anomie's comment, I agree as well (assuming that non-free SVGs remain in use at Wikipedia). I've edited File:2015 Climate Conference.svg to reduce the level of detail. —David Levy 17:26, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You also need to consider the rationales given by other participants in the discussion. I was specifically discussing the detail of the vector elements. --Stefan2 (talk) 18:36, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies if the closure came across as a dismissal of that concern. It's quite valid, of course, but it doesn't necessitate an FfD listing; users can simply perform detail reductions as needed and transclude the {{orphaned non-free revisions}} tag. George has done so with raster images, in fact. He simply misunderstood the SVG format's nature and didn't realize that something equivalent was possible, leading him to believe that the only solution was to use a PNG file instead. (Had the extent of his confusion been apparent at the time of the closure, I'd have noted this therein.) —David Levy 18:58, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What "something equivalent", David? If not PNG, what else then? --George Ho (talk) 04:37, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I was referring to the act of modifying an SVG to reduce its level of detail. —David Levy 10:31, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Even an "inferior" SVG file might not qualify as fair use and/or meet NFCC. You can still trasclude an image at any size unless you force the size. George Ho (talk) 23:51, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Your comprehension of this subject remains inadequate, despite multiple explanations and follow-ups thereto. This seems unlikely to change. —David Levy 01:16, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I think that George Ho misunderstands the file size requirement. The rule, per WP:NFCC#3b, is that a file shouldn't be too big, and what constitutes 'too big' depends on the file. An image contains a level of detail, which can be reduced. If the file is a bitmap file, then the level of detail will typically be reduced if you remove some pixels. If the file is an SVG file, then the default pixel count is just a number on a line in the source code, and changing this number doesn't remove or add any information. An SVG file contains geometrical elements such as lines, circles and rectangles, and if you remove or replace some geometrical elements, then the size will sometimes change. A rectangle can either be coded as a rectangle or as four lines, and switching from one variant to the other will not change the size of the file, but modifications to the vector elements sometimes changes the file size. Unfortunately, it is currently not trivial to determine if an SVG file fails WP:NFCC#3b or not as most discussions about size requirements have been about bitmap images.

If a non-free file is in violation of WP:NFCC#3b, then the file needs to be deleted or replaced by a different file which is smaller. The smaller can either be in the same file format or in a different file format, i.e. we could reduce PNG→SVG or SVG→PNG if the user reducing the file finds it more convenient to change the file format while reducing the file. --Stefan2 (talk) 18:36, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mind details. If the detail is high-quality, I don't mind as long as the format is PNG. Actually, a low-detailed SVG is not as good as high-quality PNG extracted from high-quality SVG. But if pixels is not a significant thing, how can you explain infobox's various transclusion of a file? --George Ho (talk) 00:03, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You're failing to distinguish between the pixel size of the image rendered within an infobox and that of the file from which MediaWiki derives it. In the SVG format's case, the latter does not exist. —David Levy 10:31, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

From what does MediaWiki derive? Also, shrinking the image doesn't make the file format a fair use, does it? George Ho (talk) 23:49, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Given the apparent impossibility to write a response to one of your questions that you don't misunderstand fundamentally, I lack the patience to continue trying. —David Levy 01:16, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• question I don't work with images, so this may be a stupid question, but What is there special about this articular file format that makes it more likely to be a violation than other file formats? I would have thought copyright problems are about the nature of the image itself, not the format in which it is captured. DGG ( talk ) 01:13, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • One problem with SVG is that at its nature it is a human readable XML file, effectively programming code. And case law is not strong on where the line is drawn on creativity in code, and creativity in what the code produces. The latter clearly has the potential for copyright protection, but since one generally uses a mechanistic process to take SVG and render it, the question is begged if the SVG itself is different from the image, or a novel work on its own. There is no good answer to this question but it does raise the potential of having two different copyrights involved (the image, and the person that "coded" the image) and that makes it even more a naunse for non-free if these are two different copyright holders. It is assumed that an SVG submitted and self-created by an editor under CC-BY has none of those issues. --MASEM (t) 01:23, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • @DGG: The most important difference between svg and the other file formats uploadable at Wikipedia is that the former is losslessly scalable to any size.Take a png or jpeg uploaded to Wikipedia at a typical resolution of 150x150 pixels and try to print it on a mug or T-shirt or 100-foot-wide banner and you get a pixellated mess. Do the same with a svg and there's no loss of quality. This image from SVG shows the issue nicely, especially if you render it at, say, 3000 pixels wide. —Cryptic 02:10, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think you;re saying that it would make it facilitate making a copy that would not be fair use. But our responsibility is only to accurately give the copyright status. Any non-PD file here or in Commons, whether fair use or CC:3 SA, can be used in violation of copyright by not making attribution. The proper use of our material is the responsibility of the reuser. DGG ( talk ) 05:41, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• According to WP:IUP#Format, "The SVG is dynamically rendered as a PNG at a given size when inserted into an article." How would removing some details make the use still "fair"? Is the image still the same or different at 400px-PNG with reduced detail? I don't want to hear whether it's still the same at 220px or 200px. --George Ho (talk) 06:09, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • A file with pixels does not necessarily contain less copyrighted material than a file with pixels. Bitmap files usually contain more information if the pixel count is higher, but there are exceptions. It all depends on what the files contain. --Stefan2 (talk) 15:25, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Such as? How would details affect the transclusion of images in infoboxes? --George Ho (talk) 17:45, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There is currently an RfC at meta to increase password length to 8 characters and prevent common passwords being used for accounts which can edit the MediaWiki: namespace and who are covered by the nonpublic information policy (CheckUsers and Oversighters) - meta:Requests for comment/Password policy for users with certain advanced permissions. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:24, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Policy question. Should WikiProject tags be removed from an draft if it's been rejected by AFC? I've having an argument with MPJ-DK who keeps removing tags from Draft talk:TASW Cruiserweight Championship and others because the submission has been declined. To me, declined isn't the end of the article and it seems odd. The project won't be notified if the draft gets taken to MFD or moved to articlespace or whatever (or it has to be retagged). I started tagging these once it was considered a bug that people didn't automatically inform when the articles didn't have a project tag so it seems there's complaints if you do and complaints if you don't. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:35, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

They don't need to be tagged, but if a project tags them, then they shouldn't be untagged. The talk page can disappear when the draft is deleted. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:19, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

three ofbthe four untagged will never be article as they were 1) an article that already exsts, 2) a cruft list of video game characters and an article on a team that existed for 10 days. None would survive and AFD. Why tag that.stuff? Fourth one is an AFD nom that was rejcted 3 months ago notability and nothing was done. Why tag old junk? If it had potential i could see it be tagged. MPJ-US  05:15, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, fine, but if someone makes it into an article, then it'll be re-tagged later. Seems like you're wasting a lot of more time removing the tags (including from the video games project as well) than me tagging them when they start. If you don't think they should be there, just list them for deletion. How does removing the tag and letting them sit around forever help? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:24, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

How did the userboxes migration change anything? Users can still add userboxes relating to personal views and beliefs (that do not make Wikipedia unsafe). In other words, what I am asking is how does being in the user namespace rather than the main namespace make any difference? 76.176.28.235 (talk) 07:12, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well they used to be in the template space not main namespace but I don't see much of a difference. There's some userboxes that show up at MFD under WP:POLEMIC for what it's worth. I think User:UBX is being used to host a number of those pages so there's a consistent place for them. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:19, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]