A proposal was made in the section above about discussing the wisdom of applying all, or possibly a subset of, the CSD-A? criteria to submitted drafts and one of the participants requested that discussion on that topic not take place within the original thread.

• Comment No immediate opinion the matter. Just opening a section to facilitate discussion. Jbh ^Talk 17:38, 8 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I'd like to support something like this for A7, but don't see a workable option. Specifically, new editors should get at least one chance to find offline sources, etc. if their initial proposal is declined, as well as to let them know that deletion is a possible outcome (in case they may want to maintain a copy elsewhere). Requiring at least two (or three) declines before a CSD occurs limits the "speedy"-ness of the action, but might be reasonable. power~enwiki (π, ν) 18:11, 8 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• I think that many of the article criteria are unsuitable for drafts. For example, I don't think that it's a good idea to delete a draft only because there's no evidence that the subject is notable; the user should be allowed to correct the draft instead. If the criterion is changed so that the draft only is deleted after the user has been given a reasonable amount of time, then it's pointless to use notability article criteria as the page eventually will meet criterion G13 anyway. --Stefan2 (talk) 19:37, 8 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This proposal needs to be properly workshopped and presented. Comments are welcome but let's not go too far down the road of judging it yet. We get a lot of pages about random high schoolers that shoild not be left untagged for deletion for 5 minutes after a responsible editor sees them. There is a large increase in AfC submissions (over 5 times more year over year) because of how we now direct new users who want to create new pages, and that is with ACTRIAL turned off. We are in different circumstances today. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Submissions for some interesting stats. Legacypac (talk) 21:03, 8 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Reviewers know when the topic is completely hopeless, just look at some example. Submission of the draft means they are trying to put it into mainspace, and when it is a fantasy story based on their mine craft experience one day, it is impossible that a new source will help. NPReviewers already have the judgement and discretion to know when to draftify an A7 and when to simply tag it. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:40, 8 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Ever since ACTRIAL started, the deluge of new content went from NPP to AfC. However, it doesn't seem right to, say, A7 a submitted draft on it's first submission. That said, we need measures to deal with 8-times-declined drafts, nonstarters, and other problematic drafts. What about expanding PROD to draftspace? Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 23:07, 8 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Prod. Drafts are not watched, draft prod amounts to a nonobjective CSD. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:23, 8 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • True, but so is G13 to an extent. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 23:42, 8 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • G13 is completely objective. Prod is assumed to be subjective. A speedy deletion need not be “speedy”, it can have a delay time, but is expected to meet the four new criterion criteria, listed at the top of this page. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:47, 8 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
        • I mean, G13 gives carte blanche to admins to delete any page that hasn't been edited in six months. That's the only criterion. Also, I retract the DraftPROD idea. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 23:52, 8 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Ultimately this comes don to a balancing act between not wasting our AfC reviewer's time reviewing Ax eligible pages over and over again, vs not biting the new comers. The question then becomes how many times we let them resubmit before we put our foot down and say enough. I trust everyone can see why both deleting after the first submission and allowing dozens of virtually unimproved submissions are both very bad ideas. I'd propose three submissions as the line between those two bad things, After three Ax eligible submissions, just delete it.Tazerdadog (talk) 23:57, 8 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Good point. I think that drafts that are Ax worthy and not being improved at all, should be deleted. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 00:15, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • When a draft submission is so unsuitable that it immediately fits A7 or A11, and there are many of these, the kindest thing to do is to give the author a timely message. Timely means immediately. A submission about their minecraft cave system for example, it is to no one's benefit for them to be told a reviewer doesn't think is it suitable, but they are encouraged to edit it to improve it and then resubmit it. Deletion, immediate deletion is the best thing for the content, it was the wrong way to go. The automated A7 / A11 sorry text that the author receives is politely, positively and constructively worded. The newcomer needs to focus on that response, not on the unsuitable text they submitted. At AfC, they are working on a harder "Rejected" response, which will help, but that is for things that are in the opinion of the reviewer not notable, but not so bad as to be speediable. Much is speediable, or should be speediable. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:24, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Draft:Apartment 220, for example. Clearly should be deleted, with the author messaged accordingly. There are many of these. They are always SNOW deleted at MfD, where they waste time and space, creating and consuming more space and editorial time that even close to what the author invested in the page. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:30, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Draft:Neon Habari (bio and background) is another. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:12, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Some web content examples. Brand new (at time of submission) facebook page.Draft:IdsView no amount of editing is going to help that. Another brand new website Draft:KickNtheBalls. Draft:Loki doki and to get another reviewer Draft:Loki Doki Draft:Mind Bending Thumb Bending and Draft:Never Have Ever Legacypac (talk) 01:49, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some, not all, of them are G11-eligible. G11 doesn't require the authors intent to be promotion, but if the sole effect of the page is to promote a facebook link, that's G11. A7 has the advantage of not impugning an author's intention intention to promote and brings up the A7 threshold of te indication of importance as the starting point for a new article. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:05, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• A small group of admins want to interpret CSD very narrowly while many absolutely non-notable pages are a stretch for G11 simply because there is nothing on the page that is worth promoting. Legacypac (talk) 03:28, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• The problem with expanding any A-criteria to draft-space (except the fact that Draft-space was conceived as a place to work on stuff in peace without risking deletion) is that we cannot trust all users and admins to really only tag and delete the problematic drafts that have no chance of ever becoming an article. What some might bemoan as a "very narrow" interpretation is actually an attempt to prevent mistakes. If only 1 out of 10 deletions is a mistake, it also means that we lose 10% of content that should be included and (likely) 99% of the editors who created those pages. Personally, I find this too high a price to pay, considering the fact that we keep losing editors anyway.
  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should keep all those drafts per se, although no one has so far given a good reason what the harm would be in just waiting until they become stale and then G13'ing them, considering that those pages are not indexed and thus not seen by the outside world (people resubmitting a rejected draft without changes is not a problem with the draft and should be handled by sanctioning the editor). But I don't see a way to objectively codify this in a way to prevent the aforementioned mistakes. For example, someone recently raised the case Draft:Steve Negron on my talk page which so far has five rejections despite the subject meeting WP:NPOL#1 as a state legislator. As such, it would now meet the suggested criteria for deletion (see above) and would likely be deleted by an admin with a "loose" interpretation of speedy deletion (despite never ever meeting A7 if it were in article-space). In the end, this seems a solution that might lead to babies being thrown out with the bathwater and considering the amount of A7-mistakes made in article space, it's hard to envision that there will be less such mistakes in Draft-space. Regards SoWhy 09:36, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • User:SoWhy, the harm would be in just waiting until they become stale and then G13'ing them is the lack of timely response to the author. Especially kid vanity and trolling, A7s and A11s that don’t deserve a week at MfD, but are patently unsuitable. It is not kinder to not tell the author what we know, and the auto-messaging of A7 and A11 is exactly what they need. Making submitted drafts eligible for A7 and A11 doesn't mean the reviewer has to speedy delete, but it is easy for reviewers to see that to leave the page live in draftspace is the wrong message and can only waste further time, whether author time, or reviewer time. G13 is for abandoned, it is not meant to be slow deletion for things that need immediate deletion. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:57, 12 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • @SmokeyJoe: But don't they get a response that their draft is unsuitable when it gets rejected? So they are getting informed, aren't they? The question was, is there a reason why we have to delete them if those pages are not visible to the outside world anyway. After all, all speedy deletion carries the risk of good content being removed mistakenly so the benefits have to outweigh those risks significantly. Regards SoWhy 07:02, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • User:SoWhy, I’m largely working off the reaction of others who feel the patently hopeless crap (see the examples I have listed) is so offensive to them that they feel the need to dump it on mfd, where it takes up space, dilutes the quality of work there, and gets SNOW deleted, but in balance I think they are right. Currently, DraftSpace errs far on the side of preserving patently hopeless crap, at least for the six months following the author giving up. I am bothered by how slow that giving up process is. The fact that the patently hopeless made up story does not get deleted, but remains live with functional “edit” tabs, means to some patent crap submitters that they can continue to play the game. The number of good topics deleted I think is very small. Even the afc promoted articles are pretty mediocre, mostly orphan permastubs that don’t really pass notability but are so boring no deletionist will bother. The article about the high school dormitory bathroom, or the minecraft tunnel experience, it hurts the sanity of the reviewers to have no disposal route for them. If it were me, I’d make a {{Userpage blanked}} version for draftspace and replace the patently hopeless submission, easily reverted if I make a mistake, an abundantly clear message to the author, but I’m pushing for the sanity of the reviewers. Some make coherent arguments for why blanking is not good enough. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:39, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• How many are we talking about? I have MfD'd hopeless drafts before now, it doesn't seem to cause much burden. Guy (Help!) 09:57, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• As with previous proposals, I 1. remain unconvinced that there is any need for this, and 2. believe it to be antithetical to the whole point of drafts. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:14, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• The draft namespace is for allowing editors time to work on a proposed article without the possibility that it will be summarily deleted. The AFC submission is to allow the editor to get feedback on how to improve the article so it won't be summarily deleted in the main space. If we give a new editor one shot at getting a draft right we might as well shut down the draft namespace and AFC. ~ GB fan 14:36, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There are thousands of declines, often multiple declines, that are clear A7 material where no amount of editing will help them. Draft space is for working on potential articles, not for developing and submitting material with zero chance of having a place in mainspace. Removing the junk helps us find and work with the promising much easier. Editors with almost no experience at AfC or MfD will raise uninformed philosophical objections unfortunately which just makes the work of ArC harder. Legacypac (talk) 17:28, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think you've mixed up your criteria; you say clear A7 material, but no amount of editing will help is fundamentally a statement about notability. A7 is not "not notable." ~ Amory (u • t • c) 18:30, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think he meant there is no way to write a credible claim of significance because there is no claim of significance for the person/organization/whatever. From what I've seen, many articles tagged under A7 pertain to a subject that has essentially no significance and "no amount of editing will help". However, there are definitely a few articles that fail to state significance, but a bit of research shows they are: deleting those submitted drafts under A7 would be damaging. I don't know whether we can say any new editor can find a 'credible claim of significance' in three tries, especially with the limited guidance given in the templates of declined draft submissions. Appable (talk | contributions) 18:48, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody is arguing one shot to get it right, we're arguing three shots to get it non-speedyable. Surely you see the opposite side where submitting hopeless drafts over and over again is a wasteful drain on the community's resources? Tazerdadog (talk) 17:55, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Tazerdadog editors are clearly arguing one shot to get it right. SmokeyJoe uses Draft:Taylor Evans as an example of why we should do this. It has been submitted and declined once. Legacypac uses Draft:Greenwich Music School as an example and it also has been submitted and declined once. I do see the drain if pages are submitted multiple times with no or little improvement. That is a user conduct issue and can be dealt with as disruptive editing. ~ GB fan 18:23, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• As people have noted above these proposals miss the point of draft space. The whole idea is that if you need to work on a page without the threat that it will be deleted due to failing standards XYZ then you can work on it in draft space until it is up to scratch and then move it to mainspace. Deleting pages in draft space for failing standards XYZ makes this meaningless. This proposal wouldn't allow people any time at all to address certain decline reasons because the draft would be deleted shortly after it was declined. Anyone saying that these pages are causing loads of work at MfD needs to actually have a look there: as I write this there are a whopping 36 drafts nominated for deletion, many of which wouldn't qualify for this anyway. AfC reviewers are in my experience very harsh, I wouldn't conclude that a topic is hopeless from the fact that one has declined a submission. Hut 8.5 18:05, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, and this is still true for the "three-strikes" or "n-strikes" ideas. If I were new and didn't understand A7, being told I have one more submission before the article could be deleted unilaterally would be threatening: the point of draft-space is to avoid those situations. Appable (talk | contributions) 18:48, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No one is talking about a full notability test A7 is "A7. No indication of importance (people, animals, organizations, web content, events)" which is a much lower standard. Reviewers are not typically sending the pages to MfD but declining them, then declining again, until someday it hits G13. Legacypac (talk) 18:42, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's the intent, but A7 is misapplied all the time in mainspace. Its bar often strays closer to "notability" than it really should. In mainspace this can be justified to some extent: there is a standard of quality. In draftspace, that isn't true anymore. Appable (talk | contributions) 18:53, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No one is talking about a full notability test as "A7. No indication of importance (people, animals, organizations, web content, events)" which is a much lower standard. Reviewers are not typically sending the pages to MfD but declining them, then declining again, until someday it hits G13. Admins would use the same A7 standard with no change so it would not be up to afc reviewers only. Legacypac (talk) 18:59, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• discussion seems to have wandered from the OP which was about submitted drafts. Please don't discuss as though "any old draft" were being considered. thx Jytdog (talk) 19:07, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, but some people may be unclear as to what a submitted draft actually is - they may assume that it means a page saved to draft space, as opposed to a page in draft space that has had a {{AFC submission}} added to it. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:22, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• See Draft:The Bucket Wars at MfD. It should not be allowed to be submitted two more times. It is bad faith, it is trolling. Per WP:DENY, I argue that it should not be given its weeks at MfD. An immediate response is demanded. By submitting the draft, the author is asserting its move to mainspace, it is no longer in pre-development. In mainspace, A11 exists for things like this. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:27, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• I believe we need a way to expediently get rid of drafts that can never be article material, but expanding A* criteria to draftspace defeats the purpose. There must be a better way. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 09:37, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I disagree with your recent propensity to MfD weak worthless harmless drafts. Before submission, it can be very hard to tell what the author was thinking, there can be insufficient information to tell. Once Submitted, the author implicitly believes and asserts it is ready, that they would have it in mainspace. Treating it as a mainspace creation is appropriate. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:44, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Right, my reasoning is that "the author is probably gone, and a google search didn't turn up any reliable sources. This draft isn't going anywhere, therefore delete". I can see your point for submission to AfC and whether or not it is ready though. (Somewhat related, I oppose G13 on principle, as I believe it is way too broad and gets too much workable content in its dragnet.) Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 09:50, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• See Draft:Taylor Evans. Submitted. There is no doubt it needs deletion. G11 fits at a stretch, but A7 is the more appropriate. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:48, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • That one's pretty bad, no doubt. However, I *generally* oppose applying A* criteria at first submission. Three unchanged submissions, however, and I would say you have a point. Though it would be best if other contributors helped fix these submissions, some drafts just aren't going anywhere, and it isn't really our job to fix low-quality submissions. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 09:54, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - It may be useful to clarify exactly what User:SmokeyJoe and User:Legacypac are saying. These two editors have been often disagreeing at MFD, but have come to agreement. Submitted drafts are drafts that have been submitted to AFC for the AFC review process. They aren't anything else. If an author-editor Submits an AFC draft, they are requesting that it be accepted into article space, and so the author-editor is saying that the draft is ready to be judged by the standards of article space. These standards include that the article should have a credible claim of significance. We aren't suggesting that a full notability test be applied, but only that people, bands, companies, events, and whatever have a credible claim of significance and not have been made up. A submitted draft means a draft that has been Submitted to AFC for review and for which acceptance into article space has been requested. Robert McClenon (talk) 10:25, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - In my opinion, the exceptions for sandboxes for G2 and G1 also should not apply to Submitted drafts. That is, when the author-editor Submits the draft to AFC, they are saying that it is ready for article space, so it isn't a test edit and it isn't Patent nonsense. ~~
• Comment - Submitted drafts means drafts for which acceptance into article space has been requested, and therefore not crud. Robert McClenon (talk) 10:25, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• another example: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Greenwich Music School page is not G11 promotional but a local music school is simply not notable and this one was started in January 2018. It's a submitted draft which means we asked to put it in mainspace where it would be immediately CSD'd Legacypac (talk) 16:54, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment – I'm somewhat opposed to extending A* CSD to drafts. My impression is that the concern is wasting reviewers' time with repeatedly-submitted unsuitable drafts. I assert that a solution to this problem has to address the user behavior that is causing it, without being too WP:BITEy. Along the lines of the three-strikes proposals, I suggest that a thrice-declined and throroughly unpromising draft may be summarily userfied, something any reviewer can do, with a warning. What should that warning say? And what should the user be required to do before submitting again? I'd require at a minimum that the user engage in a discussion on the now userspace draft's talk page or at the AfC Help Desk with, preferably, the declining reviewer or, at least, any AfC reviewer, where the deficiencies of the draft that would cause it to be speedied if it were in articlespace are addressed. Submission without this discussion would be blockable tendentious editing, vaguely akin to various DS regimes. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 17:56, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Alternatively, for the benefit of not messing with automated tools, we could create CSD#D1 corresponding to A7, and D2 corresponding to A11, for author submitted drafts that would meet A7 or A11, with the explicit note that tagging is not mandatory, the reviewer may tag, or may reject, on their own judgment, potentially distinguishing “fundamentally hopeless” from “currently hopeless looking”. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:10, 12 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Perhaps we could use matching numbers - D7 corresponding to A7, and D11 corresponding to A11. Should any more of the A criteria be demonstrably useful for drafts, they can readily be slotted in where appropriate - I can see a potential for parallels of WP:CSD#A3 [No content] and WP:CSD#A9 [No indication of importance (musical recordings)], and we would call these D3 and D9. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:17, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I like that idea. We sometimes use G2 test on No Content Draft pages but it's not a perfect fit. Legacypac (talk) 18:23, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment 2 points:
  1. There's no real problem with letting pages that are in draft space and not submitted for AFC review (and potential promotion to mainspace) lie there and let G13 capture the stragglers. Concievable if the page is being edited it's being improved. If an editor stumbles across a draft that isn't in AFC and isn't being updated, the question of the draft
  2. I suggest not circumscribing or perscribing a "If X, Do Y" CSD rule regarding drafts. I would prefer a "AFC submission declined multiple times with no improvement" CSD rule so items that are slam dunks in MFD can short circuit the process. Hasteur (talk) 11:45, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• I would like to see A11 being applied to submitted (or any, for that matter) drafts - A11 is designed to deal with pages that have no redeeming value whatsoever. A7 is more tricky -- there are the hopeless A7s and those that may be on notable subjects but notability was not established. I would support a CSD for drafts being resubmitted multiple (2-3) times without improvement. MER-C 12:04, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also support the application of A3 to submitted, blank drafts. MER-C 19:22, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Draft:Havin' a snat. If you don’t believe in speedy deletion A11 style in draft space, what process do you think should deal with this draft? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:48, 14 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • A11 for draftspace is actually a good idea. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 04:53, 14 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I support allowing A11 for drafts submitted to AfC, and am neutral on allowing it for all drafts. I'm still not comfortable with A7/A9 deletions on articles submitted to AfC only once, though. power~enwiki (π, ν) 00:37, 15 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Have to agree with you on A7/A9 (which should be merged anyway). Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 03:26, 15 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Draft:Taylor Evans? Should be speediable, not put through three rounds before deleting. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:33, 15 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User:Owenblist/sandbox clear A7 not promotional not vandalism but not worth taking to MfD or even keeping in AfC categories. Should be able to tag for deletion and done. Legacypac (talk) 00:47, 15 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User sandboxes, the user’s main sandbox, is a special page users are pointed to for testing. They should be blanked, not deleted, so the user can find their testing. AfC scripts should auto-detect their placement on a page titled “sandbox” and respond differently. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:02, 15 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes in this case I'm comfortable blanking the sandbox but the example is exactly on point for the type of content we shoudk be aboe to speedy. Legacypac (talk) 01:28, 15 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - Was pinged by Joe - A* should apply to drafts, Limiting CSDs just means drafts get declined for the umpteenth time or their MFD'd - Whilst MFD is fine IMHO it shouldn't be used for the most obvious (It'd be no different to coming across something very poor in articlespace and then AFDing it even tho it's CSD-able) - If editors want a final chance in saving it then they can contest the speedy and put something like "Will source in x days", So I agree drafts should be included in the CSD criteria. –Davey2010^Talk 01:59, 15 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Draft:Julia Rubeck. SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:10, 2 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• @SmokeyJoe and Jbhunley: The problem with extending e.g. A7 to drafts is as follows: Maybe, as an established editor, I believe X band will gain a credible claim of significance within a few months. So I begin a draft about it, with the sourcing currently available, and plan to fill in the gaps if they gain a credible claim of significance. This is a valid drafting practice. If there comes a time when I no longer believe X band will gain a credible claim of significance, I can personally request that the draft be deleted. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 01:55, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not to gloss over submitted: Maybe I believe X band currently has a credible claim of significance and submit the draft to AfC for a second set of eyes, only to realize they do not. I should be able to retain my draft for the reasons if I believe they will gain one. That aside, what if non-author User:Y decides to sumbit it to AfC for whatever reason, which is currently allowed, while I personally did not believe it was yet ready? It should not be deleted because of that. Too many caveats would be needed. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 02:09, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • If the newcomer were to have such beliefs and the ability to ask, they can have it WP:REFUNDed. Note that it is not in the style of newcomer writers on garage bands, their youtube careers, or their high school toilet, to engage in conversation. If they did, that would immediately mark them as an exception. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:13, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • (ec)User:Godsy, why are you not using the word "submitted". The proposal is to extend to submitted drafts. The reviewer-tagger and the deleting admin are afforded discretion in their decisions, in the rare case of an upcoming topic being prematurely submitted. They should have already included their best sources. Belief in future significance is something common to every YouTuber and garage band and fails WP:NOTCRYSTAL, and even if sources will arise, a A7 deletable page should be WP:TNTed for a restart with the acceptable sources. Draft submitters have to carry some responsibility with their decision to submit. Much more often than the current system allows, the appropriate response is immediate deletion. Immediate, an no author notification, except for it being useful to record on their talk page the number of deleted pages they wrote. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:11, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Does anyone still think this is a bad idea? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:23, 25 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Depends on what "this" is, given there have been various suggestions over the course of this discussion. I would support this on (and only on) the condition that all such deletions be eligible for WP:REFUND. Also, I imagine some of the people who objected above for various reasons will still object. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 14:23, 25 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • What he said. Also, yes I do. Regards SoWhy 14:27, 25 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes. Appable (talk | contributions) 04:51, 26 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• I for one strongly oppose the whole concept. The entire point of draft space is to permit editors, especially but by no means solely relatively inexperienced or unskilled editors, to create pages thsat would be speedy deleted in mainspace, and even if not, would be quite unready to be shown to our readers as wikipedia articles, and to allow editors to work on them, solely or collaboratively as the case may be, until they are ready for mainspace. Drafts should only be deleted for a few, fairly blatant reasons: spam, copyvios, attack pages and BLP violations, obvious vandalism. Most of these are already CSDs. If a draft doesn't qualify under one of these, if should be discussed at MfD if someone wants to delete it, and should normally be kept. It was said above that someone who submits a draft for review is saying 'this is ready for mainspace" and thereby invites the application of the mainspace standards. Hardly. Such an editor is more plausibly saying "I think this might possibly be ready for mainspace, tell me what problems it still has". Remember, AfC does not currently have any process by which an editor can ask for feedback on an unsubmitted dr5aft, nor is there currently any limit on the number of times a draft may be submitted.This is a supream violation of WP:BITE in which we tell new editors "here is a safe space, ask for feedback when you are ready7" and then the response to a request for feedback may be "oops its gone, we didn't tell you about these rules". Not nice, nor would it benefit the project in any way. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 21:56, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Point of interest (speaking purely as an AfC admin) we have an AfC Help Desk and every template we use points people towards it and the IRC chat room, so saying there are not any processes to ask for help is false. Primefac (talk) 23:25, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I am referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrashekhar_(TV_Series) . Although the page before I tried to fix it up was surely something that was not reliable, and sourced at all. However after I cleaned it up tweaked things up. Also, while I was doing some research on the subject matter I discovered that the page creator did what seemed like a copy paste, and I removed those items. I tried my best in adding a few references. Although I still think it could end up as a candidate for deletion, I am not sure if it still falls under as a candidate for deletion under CSD G4. Aceing_Winter_Snows_Harsh_Cold (talk) 05:58, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Not having looked at the page yet, as a general matter, I consider G4 to no longer apply once the prevailing reason the original article was deleted no longer applies. If an article was deleted because there were no reliable sources, and that has been solved, I probably wouldn't consider the page a G4 candidate, etc. Someguy1221 (talk) 06:33, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

WP:CSD#G4 states "This applies to sufficiently identical copies ..." clarified as "It excludes pages that are not substantially identical to the deleted version". So this means that "a page has been singificantly modified" is not going to be sufficiently/substantially identical, so should not be G4'd - but a fresh WP:AFD is certainly an option. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:58, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have a slightly stricter interpretation than Someguy (AFAICT it was intended for pages that were copied before deletion and immediately reposted, as with the original version of this article), so I'd decline a G4 on it if the tag were placed now. On a quick glance, I'm not convinced of its notability, though. ansh666 17:20, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If a user moves a long-standing article to a completely different title and then tag the redirects from the old title for speedy deletion per G7, then that's a bit disingenuous of them. I wouldn't expect an admin to actually carry out these deletions. But then I came across a series of moves by one user (logs: [1] [2][3] [4] [5] [6] [7]) and the old-title redirects have invariably been speedied. Now, the text at WP:G7 is explicit that this criterion doesn't apply to such pages, but is there something in these cases that I'm missing. Pinging the deleting admins: RHaworth, 331dot, Fastily. – Uanfala (talk) 07:27, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• These looks like content hijacking(s) at a first glance...~ Winged Blades^Godric 07:32, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• I'm a native resident of the state and no renaming etc. happened.It's probably good faith hijacking of current articles to generate new articles.But, I'm equally amazed as to the mop-men managed to speedily delete the redirects?! I'll be indulging in a cleanup soon, using my PM flag.~ Winged Blades^Godric 07:40, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • All  Done--Articles restored to their initial state.I'll probably create the new hijacked-articles (which is now a version in the history of the longstanding articles), in accordance with WP:CWW.Best,~ Winged Blades^Godric 08:16, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• I apologize. I didn't dig deeply enough in my case. Still getting used to this. 331dot (talk) 07:48, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• G7 of the redirect you just created as a consequence of doing a non page_mover move seems a perfectly valid thing under the rules. Someone doing such a thing had better be sure the page move was a good idea, and fix up any incoming links. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:24, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Not really. There needs to be something wrong with the redirect for it to be deleted, and then that'll be under other criteria (R2, G6 etc). Normally {{R from move}} redirects should be and are kept at RFD. Page movers shouldn't and don't arbitrarily suppress redirect unless specifically needed.Galobtter (pingó mió)

Disagree as well. R3 explicitly exempts such redirects from speedy deletion because "a history of improper deletions of these redirects" (Note #4) and G7 explicitly says For redirects created as a result of a page move, the mover must also have been the only substantive contributor to the pages prior to the move. @SmokeyJoe: Please elaborate why you believe such G7 deletions are "perfectly valid thing under the rules" considering those parts of the rules I just cited. Regards SoWhy 08:55, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User:SoWhy, it seems I missed User:Rossami's insertion of the parenthetical clause in the middle of G7. I was familiar with the first and last sentence only. My comment above struck. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:53, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Just a quick note that redirects don't take much resource, so if there's nothing wrong and someone might search for an alternate title, they should probably stay in place :). -- Luk ^talk 08:57, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• What seems to be happening is that the user moves an article, then blanks the redirect and leaves it at that. The G7 tagging appears to have been done by new page patrollers. Taking a look at the three most recently blanked redirects, each was tagged for speedy deletion by a different patroller, one [8] for G7, and two [9] [10] – bizarrely – for A1. Even more bizarrely, two of these just got deleted (incidentally, by one of the admins I've pinged at the start of the post). – Uanfala (talk) 09:35, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  That last part does not really surprise me. Unfortunately. Regards SoWhy 10:19, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  In that case, can someone with the goggles peek into and discover the patroller who did tag the leftover redirects with some or the other CSD tag?~ Winged Blades^Godric 10:32, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  This information is recoverable from the template messages on the user's talk page. I've alerted one of the two A1 taggers, and left a note on the talk page of the editor who seems to be responsible for the G7 tags. – Uanfala (talk) 10:42, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • Charaghata, Kalyanpur, Baruipur: tagged G7 by User:Xx236
  • Uttar Kazirhat: tagged A1 by User:SamHolt6
  • Sarmaster Chak, Sankar Parulia, Sagra (West Bengal): tagged G7 by User:Mark the train
  • Narayanpur, South 24 Parganas: tagged G7 by User:Cahk. —Cryptic 10:47, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This is exactly why we have the text we have in G7. Even something seemingly simple like G7 is ripe for abuse, and taggers and sysops alike need to check more than "Is the first person listed the one who blanked?" Checking page histories of all pages is key. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 13:17, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

An admin who actually checks the page meets the speedy criteria... that would be sight to see! Primefac (talk) 13:37, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You can see that for free at User:SoWhy :) Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:55, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks but I'm hardly the only one. Most admins know how speedy criteria actually work. Just monitor related discussions and you will notice that problematic deletions are oftentimes performed by the same admins, e.g. RHaworth who is responsible for those deletions Uanfala mentions above (at 09:35, 11 May 2018 (UTC)) after being pinged to this discussion that raised the very same problem less than two hours before (at 07:27, 11 May 2018 (UTC)). Regards SoWhy 14:07, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I do know that about the same admins, but I'd say part of the problem is that those same admins do quite a proportion of the CSD deletions (which they can do as they don't pay much attention to them) Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:20, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well, as I say frequently in other venues, if you're finding an editor is doing something consistently that they shouldn't, find adequate diffs and open a discussion on the relevant noticeboard. Primefac (talk) 14:26, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Ritchie333 tried that last month, didn't really work. Regards SoWhy 15:15, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2018 May 5 has several entries for modules that are no longer used in the templates for which they were created. The situation seems rather clear-cut — a module is useless without a template, so either they'll be deleted as useless, or they'll get put back into the templates because someone shouldn't have removed them in the first place. Why not have a speedy criterion for them? It could be either standalone or made part of something else.

Modules with zero transclusions may be deleted after being tagged for seven days.

Basing this off the image-copyright and T3 criteria, since obviously we shouldn't delete orphaned modules instantly just because they're orphaned; the point is getting rid of stuff that nobody needs, not something that was momentarily removed by accident or vandalism. This is vaguely related to G8 for categories ("populated by a retargeted or deleted template"), since both here and with G8 categories, the template is modified so as to make no more use of the other page. Nyttend (talk) 16:41, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

G8 has no such restriction, it's literally for all "Pages dependent on a non-existent or deleted page". The stuff in the text is only examples and exceptions, not a finite list. Personally, I'd probably summarize those modules under G6 if it's clear that no other use is likely. If it's less clear, TFD won't really collapse from a few extra modules being discussed. Regards SoWhy 17:31, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds more like you want a Module PROD (which given that I can't even get a Template PROD going, good luck!), but I agree with SoWhy in that TFD is not currently overloaded with nominations, so there's not much point in carving out a specific category just for them. Primefac (talk) 18:50, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• If the module is dependent on a deleted template, then G8 would work. If you simply want a process for the uncontroversial deletion of modules after seven days, that would be an extension of PROD and should be suggested at WT:PROD. -- Tavix ^(talk) 19:40, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Can you explain where you developed the idea that this is a PROD, given the fact that I copy/pasted the rationale from criterion T3? If you go and remove a T3 speedy tag or a dated file speedy tag without resolving the issue, the tag may be restored without resetting the clock; this is no different. Nyttend (talk) 11:34, 12 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• In principle, the same idea that is behind T3 should be able to apply to modules as well. But there are practical considerations that make this less desirable. First, there are tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of templates, and there is a clear need for efficient means (like CSD) of keeping it all tidy. The number of modules is probably two orders of magnitude smaller, and the deletions that have so far been necessary are far from the scale that would normally necessitate the use of a new speedy deletion criterion. A second – and more important – consideration has to do with they way the two namespaces are used. Templates are one average simpler than modules, they are ubiquitous and well known and so editors passing by are more likely to know what a given template is for it's a more straightforward task to determine if it is unlikely to be used. Modules, on the other hand, are still more esoteric, fewer people are familiar with them, and the tasks that modules are normally created for are more complex and usually involve larger timeframes (which often involve larger intervals between the sketch creation of a module and its deployment). I don't think this is the sort of context in which straightforward, uncontroversial deletions are going to be likely. – Uanfala (talk) 12:33, 12 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• The only reason there are so many is because Pppery is going through the module space and deleting things that aren't used. Once that is done I expect the number of modules at TfD to be very low not justifying extending a CSD. Also T3 is Templates that are substantial duplications of another template, or hardcoded instances of another template where the same functionality could be provided by that other template, may be deleted after being tagged for seven days. so you'd likely want to extend "0 transclusions" to that first. Galobtter (pingó mió) 12:40, 12 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  And deleting things that aren't used or could be implemented in Wikitext {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 15:41, 13 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have made a proposal concerning g13 at the Village Pump. Please come and participate. Egaoblai (talk) 19:41, 26 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Increase G13 Speedy deletions to a one year grace period — JJMC89 (T·C) 19:42, 26 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A change made based on a formally closed discussion that stood for a month was reverted today. The change was made based on Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 66#Template for promising drafts. The supplementary Template:Promising draft was updated to reflect the editing policy on which it is based today, which is what sparked this controversy. Pinging the participants of the discussion mentioned above: (Calliopejen1—VQuakr—Hasteur—Jclemens—SmokeyJoe—Yeryry—Jjjjjjdddddd—Ivanvector—Hawkeye7—Winged Blades of Godric). Pinging recent editors of {{promising draft}}: (Uanfala—Primefac). I will also post a notice of this discussion at Template talk:Promising draft. If we do not solve this now it will likely only postpone the disagreement to six or so months down the road as well as breed hostility.

Should G13 be restored to stating: "Redirects and pages tagged with {{promising draft}} are excluded from G13 deletion."? — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 02:38, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Converted to a request for comment by Fastily at 03:49, 1 June 2018‎ (UTC). — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 05:36, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Support - Contributors should not be allowed to revert changes based on consensus determined by a formally closed discussion because they disagree with it; the proper way to dispute such a close is through close review. That aside, if the {{promising draft}} template does not protect a draft from speedy deletion per G13, then it is pointless (i.e. merely symbolic). — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 13:27, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• 20 days < 1 month. That RfC was poorly attended and just after G13 was implemented; many of the 7 !votes noted that they wanted G13 abolished. Neither the RfC query nor the closer specifically mentioned any changes to the wording of policy, and it seems poor form to reinterpret it as such several months after the closure. In the absence of clear consensus to the contrary I oppose the proposed blanket prohibition as unnecessary instruction creep affecting a tiny percentage of otherwise G13-elgible drafts. VQuakr (talk) 03:18, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Speaking as the closer of that discussion, my intention was that a properly applied promising draft template should render a page permanently ineligible for G13. I fully endorse the addition of the line to the policy as necessary, and consistent with my close. Tazerdadog (talk) 05:12, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Support If someone thinks a draft is promising, there should be a discussion. This is akin to WP:PROD for live articles. If a user is abusively applying the promising draft tag, that is a behavior issue that can be dealt with accordingly. Calliopejen1 (talk) 04:39, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support as already clear from the last RfC. If someone has explicitly tagged a draft with {{promising draft}}, then deleting it just because it hasn't been edited in six months is definitely not uncontroversial and so is squarely outside the purview of speedy deletion. – Uanfala (talk) 06:45, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  G13 is defined to be untcontraversial. Either it has or has not been edited in 6 months and therefore abandoned. Putting a sticky "prevent CSD:G13" is a huge policy grab and not a single one of these objectors ever comes back to do something with the draft. Hasteur (talk) 19:02, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  As the discussion below indicates, deletion under G13 is anything but uncontroversial where another editor has indicated that the particular draft is promising. Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:05, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose – The promising draft tag should not prevent G13; it should just be one of the ways an editor can postpone G13 for another 6 months. An actual ==contested deletion== argument can be pre-positioned on the draft's talk page and that is the sort of minimal effort we should expect to signify opposition to deletion and some characterization of the editor's willingness and expectation to carry through. I think it's a great idea for drafts that have been sitting idle to come up periodically for inspection - several people are now on the G13 notification list, so it should not just be a matter of one admin making the delete decision all on their lonesome. It's hard to argue that a draft nobody can be concerned enough to work on should be kept around. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 07:16, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Contested deletion" arguments on the talk page are what we require of people who want to challenge the speedy deletion of pages created by themselves. Creators of drafts are already excluded from using {{promising draft}} on their own drafts. – Uanfala (talk) 07:42, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support (yes). G13'd drafts can be refunded on request anyway. Objecting to deletion in advance just saves us a few clicks. If someone really thinks a draft is promising they should move it to mainspace, though. It hardly takes more effort than slapping a tag on it. – Joe (talk) 08:13, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Joe Roe, see my comments below. I’m in agreement with you re: mainspace, but I’m afraid that this proposal will continue what I see as the negative idea that we should keep stuff in draft space until it is perfect. If an abandoned draft is promising and hasn’t been touched for a year (which will likely be the case for anything with this tag) it should be promoted. If it’s not actually promising, why are we keeping it? Either way, this doesn’t make sense. TonyBallioni (talk) 10:57, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • @TonyBallioni: Yes I absolutely agree with you there. My support isn't so much for using the tag, but for recognising that if we didn't have it, someone could just as easily put a note saying "if you delete this I will ask for it to be undeleted" on the top of the draft with the same effect. Whatever the outcome of this discussion, maybe we should add some guidelines to Template:Promising draft discouraging people from overusing it. – Joe (talk) 11:41, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Joe Roe:I would say it is a one-time reprieve and that it should be removed by the reviewing admin. A user can always restore it (which would, in effect, buy the draft another year of violating NOTWEBHOST), but I don't support keeping something around forever that has never been edited just because someone tags it. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:31, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support the justification for having G13 is that we don't want to have pages with no prospect of becoming articles sitting around here indefinitely. If a third party thinks a draft is promising then that is much less likely to apply. This doesn't mean such drafts can't be deleted, just that they aren't the obvious cases speedy deletion is meant to deal with. They can still be deleted at MfD. Hut 8.5 09:21, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Seems like the whole point? Someone can always remove it if they disagree, not like it's binding from ARBCOM... ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:39, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose putting the tag on delays it for 6 months. No need to keep these indefinitely. Mainspace then or delete them. We’re here to build an encyclopedia, not a collection of notes. TonyBallioni (talk) 10:49, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose (perennial) in favour of deprecating G13. On the merits I agree with Joe Roe: if a draft is "promising", promote it. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 10:50, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Ivanvector: Unfortunately, I do not think deprecation is likely. That aside, I know you perennially oppose changes to G13, however, I would argue that supporting this is merely maintaining the status quo. Contributors who did not like the consensus established here (which you supported) have resisted the implementation of it. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 13:18, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

    On reflection I prefer promotion to tagging with a template which effectively says "this could be promoted but the tagger couldn't be bothered". I suppose we can think about it this way: speedy deletion is for universally uncontroversial deletions, and if a page is tagged with a "do not delete this" template then it can be presumed that deletion is controversial. Therefore CSD is out, but MFD remains available. To that end, I see no reason to oppose the change - it's not a "drafts can never be deleted" change, it's just a review marker really. Also, I'm aware deprecation is unlikely, but so are a lot of good things that I'm going to continue vocally supporting anyway. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:59, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Support per my reply earlier in the discussion. Tazerdadog (talk) 11:16, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. This is just an open invitation to game the system. If people think a draft is promising they could just improve it. G13 is no edits. Literally all they need to do to prevent G13, is improve the article. Including this would permit people who dispute the existence of G13 to completely neuter it just by bulk tagging, and there is no conceivable benefit to offset that: if you think it's promising, improve it and promote it. Draft space is not an indefinite holding ground for articles that are not up to standard. Guy (Help!) 12:16, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• There are plenty of articles where I can recognise notability, but lack expertise to improve sourcing (eg language skills, specialist literature access). If people bulk tag clearly unpromising drafts then that can be dealt with as a behavioural issue. Espresso Addict (talk) 15:29, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Support as second option to deprecating G13, per my perennial opposition to it and my comments beside my struck vote a few lines above. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:59, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Some way of moving draftspace towards the communal development space I thought it was meant to be would be positive. When I process batches of G13s there are usually 5–10% that appear potentially salvageable, but not suitable for mainspace as is; however, I rarely have time or expertise to work on them. Next stop, indexing the promising drafts so that other editors can find them... Espresso Addict (talk) 21:34, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - Seems sensible. Also don't see a good reason why the previous discussion shouldn't stand. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 22:41, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose Again we have the same actors touting the same shaky arguments. This template is merely a request to not delete it via G13. It is not policy. A policy would have stemmed from a Village Pump discussion. I note that every single time we have this debate people claim that they will work on the drafts if they template is respected. The template is willfully being abused as a permanant immunization against G13. Not a single editor who places the template actually does anything about fixing it. The template appears to not summon any users to fix the page. If the users are going to force these pages to be put through the burecracy of a MFD, I will be pinging every last one of them to come defend the page at MFD to make them put their money where their mouth is. Hasteur (talk) 01:13, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• I have barely made the first attempt to publicise the category, at WT:AfC. The point of the template is “I think this draft is not the normal cruft and should not be auto-deleted, but I personally don’t intend to work on it”. This fits the principal of no time limits, and does not clash with the original motivation for G13. Pinging the tagger when mfding is a very good idea, I even think it should be mandatory. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:23, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose Tagging something as a 'promising draft' does not a draft can ever properly be made an article only that it looks like it might i.e. it is promising. After a minimum of a year with no edits and no one willing to 'bump' it again it is reasonable to assume the draft did not live up to its initial promise.
  Should draft space ever be indexed or otherwise made more user friendly having thousands upon thousands of these un-deletable yet untouched drafts hanging about will make it all but impossible to winnow useful material from all of the crap. Making a class of articles automatically immune from G13 will result in the same clutter as not having G13 at all, just with a slower fill rate. Jbh ^Talk 01:24, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Not undeletable, just not speediable. As others have said it would be equivalent to a declined prod. The current category (which I only realised existed today) has only 109 entries, so it's hardly a flood. Espresso Addict (talk) 02:27, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It only has 109 entries because I've been sorting through them and either de-templatizing them (because they are patently wrong), submitting them for MFD, asking the author if they want to do something about the page, or submitting them for an impartial review to determine if they're ready for mainspace. The template and category are serving a purpose, just not the one you expect. Also I seriously question your competence if you don't know and understand what a first level template does before using it. Hasteur (talk) 02:41, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've never placed it, just come across it patrolling G13s. Espresso Addict (talk) 02:46, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose this has been discussed before and this template should NOT create a class of permanent untouchable drafts. The main users of template have a history of driveby tagging without either accurately determining how useful the page is or doing any work on it. I've seen the tag used on pages the tagger should have immeditely mainspaced themselves, on pages that are already in mainspace (so no need for the draft) and on absolute crap with no promise that should be deleted. There is no consistency at all. It's fine as a flag to suggest a second look and a device to postpone deletion by six months but awful as rule that must be followed because one user with no special expertise or permissions thinks the page promising. Like User:Hasteur I patrol pages with the template to resolve the reason for the tag and either et the page into mainspace or deleted. You can help empty the list of pages with the template too [11] Legacypac (talk) 04:32, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you disagree what's to stop you from removing the tag? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amorymeltzer (talk • contribs) 13:03, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, with the rather obvious caveat that tags added by the draft creator should be ignored for this purpose. Zero^talk 13:57, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Noting here that I've protected the page as that sentence was leading to edit warring. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:02, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support the existence of the template, and the policy that if someone objects in advance it should not be subject to deletion based merely on a date. It can still be deleted if there is a proper reason to do so (although there are not many valid reasons to delelte a promising draft). I missed the previous discussion, but would have been in favor of the creation of this template, and of it serving to exempt a draft from G13. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 17:00, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• No G13 protection: We can trust the deleting admins to read any promising draft tags and hold off on deletion if the draft truly is promising. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:16, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Would you trust the deleting admin to do the same with respect to prodded articles, and hence prevent anyone else from de-prodding them? But even that rests on the assumption that the admin will actually look at the draft before they delete it. I don't know how things stand at the moment, but when I was dabbling in drafts a few months ago, almost all G13 tagging was done by a bot, and the majority of the subsequent deletions were performed by admins who did not seem to ever look at what they were deleting. – Uanfala (talk) 18:14, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Are you suggesting that we have admins going around deleting anything with a tag? Declining CSD tags happens all the time. We allow people to be administrators in part because of their knowledge of policy and apparent common sense. If this weren't the case, we might as well create a CSD bot to go around deleting any article with a tag. Natureium (talk) 23:08, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Speedy deletion is per definition for uncontroversial deletions. If someone places this tag, the deletion is no longer uncontroversial and thus outside of the scope of speedy deletion. People actually using this tag to try and game the system can and should be dealt with like all such attempts. But the possibility of abuse (that always exists) does not mean that good faith taggings should be ignored. Regards SoWhyMobile 17:24, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support because we should be respectful of well-intentioned editing in draft space. However, against that there is the problem that if a {{promising draft}} goes to MFD, such as Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:History of Thailand since 2001, it may lead to an embarrassment that is neatly avoided with speedy deletion. Thincat (talk) 17:59, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Can the proponents of this exemption point me at any articles at all that, after being tagged promising but before a move to mainspace, were improved by someone who hadn't already been working on it? —Cryptic 21:18, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not sure, but if the answer is none, that would be an argument for more aggressive moves to mainspace (where articles get improved), rather than an argument in favor of deletion of drafts. (Except perhaps for medical articles, BLPs, other cases where underdeveloped articles could do real harm.) Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:57, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is part of my concern - there's no legitimate method to challenge a promising-draft tag. The tag is aggressively purported by its users to be unremovable; there's strong consensus against moving a draft into mainspace when you think it should be deleted instead; and MFD refuses to consider deletion on notability grounds. If we're going to enshrine this kind of catch-22 into policy - and WP:CSD is the single most prescriptive, least descriptive policy on Wikipedia - there really needs to be some sort of demonstrated, tangible benefit to it. —Cryptic 22:34, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • I agree there needs to be a method to challenge it. Maybe MfD policies need to be changed (or else these drafts go through AfD, which might actually be the most appropriate outcome). Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:36, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm not well acquainted with WP:MFD, but I see that of the 14 currently open discussions there, 10 are about drafts (incidentally, many of them are in response to the placement {{promising draft}}). A quick glance shows that the deletion rationales have mainly to do with sourcing and notability. Is WP:NMFD ignored in practice? If yes, is this a bad thing? If we care about due process, I think we'd all prefer to see the notability of drafts evaluated at any discussion venue (even one not "authorised" to deal with notability) rather than have it handled by the automatic machinery of G13. – Uanfala (talk) 23:12, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
        • My anecdotal and very intermittent experience with MFD is that lack of notability is an aggravating factor, but some other, non-notability-based reason for deletion is put forward too. Or at least, that's always been the case with pages that end up on my watchlist for whatever reason and then find their way to MFD. —Cryptic 23:29, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose This is a template that is added without review as the opinion of one editor. This should not be used as a method to create untouchable drafts. The only point I see for using this tag is to express your own opinion to whoever is looking at it to reconsider before G13'ing. Natureium (talk) 23:05, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose The whole mess seems to be process just for its own sake. If a passing editor sees a draft they truly think is "promising", they can just, you know, edit it themselves (radical notion, I know). The only function this has is to allow an editor to say: "I like the idea of some-one else working on this article but I can't be bothered myself." That's not merely useless but worse than useless to building the project. The entire idea should be scrapped and any nitpicking about who can and can't apply templates or remove them or what have you is just navel-gazing. Nuke the template from orbit -- it's the only way to be sure. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 23:49, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - If a draft isn't promising, and someone tags it that way, then giving it 6 months to be brought up to main-space standards is ample time. Even if it is promising, 6 months is still ample time, and if it's deleted as G13, so be it -- it can always be restored uncontroversially. I really don't see the point of this tag, other than for someone to express an opinion about a draft. Furthermore, a "promising draft" tag should be as easily removable as a prod tag or a speedy deletion tag. It's just someone's opinion. There should not exist a tag for permanent protection from G13. ~Anachronist (talk) 23:52, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Removing a promising draft tag is not the same is removing a prod tag. Removing a prod tag forces a deletion discussion; removing a promising draft tag circumvents a requested deletion discussion. It therefore makes sense that one tag is "sticky" and the other is not. Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:59, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Support I'm going to try to cut the baby in half and support a compromise. I support the language that drafts with the {{promising draft}} language should not be deleted G13. I don't support that only the editor that placed that tag can remove it; no maintenance tag on the project should work that way. Some drafts with initial promise will never become articles. There should be discussion of the removal (if the removal is disputed) and then a fresh 6-month delay for G13 after the tag is removed. The only other "reasonable" alternative I see is to modify the tag to say that a specific user wants the draft to be moved to their userspace in lieu of a G13 deletion. power~enwiki (π, ν) 00:02, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Appearently the Promising Draft template is permanent and can't be removed

According to this user anyone can place "Promising Draft" but no one can remove a poorly placed tag. I believe that is not correct. [12] Combine that with the silly notion written atWP:NMFD that editors at MfD are too dumb to consider notability and we now have a system where any editor can tag a non-notable Draft as "Promising" and indefinitely and forever prevent deletion. Legacypac (talk) 16:16, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I find the above comment to be "promising"... :)  --Guy Macon (talk) 17:11, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Technically there are two authorized ways to remove it. The first is deleting the article at WP:MFD. The second is to improve the article and move it to mainspace. Whether there needs to be a third way to remove "indiscriminate additions" of the tag is unclear. power~enwiki (π, ν) 17:33, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

So basically the entire idea is to eliminate G13 and allow any editor who so chooses to irrevocably prevent stale drafts from being deleted other than through MfD. IO kind of thought as much. Guy (Help!) 19:19, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any templates that an editor can throw up there and no one is allowed to remove? This seems very strange to me. Why would this opinion tag be permanent? Natureium (talk) 22:59, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Template:Promising draft has been thru many versions but it currently reads:

"An editor has indicated that this is a promising draft and requests that, should the draft become abandoned, it not be speedily deleted as WP:G13. This draft can still be nominated for deletion at WP:MfD."

Appearently it needs to read:

"An editor who probably can't be bothered to do anything with this draft themselves demands that it not be speedily deleted as WP:G13. Further the page can not be deleted on the basis it lacks Notability and no one may ever remove this template for any reason except promotion to mainspace."

I support honesty in our templates. Legacypac (talk) 00:19, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Inappropriate removals of promising draft

Hasteur has removed the {{promising draft}} from several drafts including from Draft:Naphthalene-1,5-dione. Per Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 66#Template for promising drafts: "Editors should not remove this tag unless they placed it themselves or the page creator placed it." Even if Hasteur wants to continue to ignore community consensus, the tag should be allowed to remain if someone restores it after his removals (because that implies others than the tagger think it should be there). That aside: If this discussion affirms the promising draft tag, a discussion can be started about when and how the template should be removed; if not, the matter is moot as the template is pointless. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 17:00, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please oh great font of wisdom: How is a procedurally generated page for where there is no prose, no content, no references how is that PROMISING. If anything YOUR drive by tagging of the draft and unexplained restorals are disruptive and out of order, so kindly desist. Hasteur (talk) 17:05, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Hasteur: My restorations are supported by community consensus while your removals are based solely on your opinion. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 17:06, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Drive by templating is never authorized. Procedural generation of directory listing, without any idea of if this compound is notable, without any prose. These are things that Wikipedia has expressed on multiple times that is not desirable or authorized. Hasteur (talk) 17:09, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You are simply incorrect (WP:DRIVEBY is part of a failed proposal; if that is what your referring to, I'm not sure because you did not provide any links). A third removal, eh? Well, I am not willing to edit war as you are. It is unfortunate that those willing to do that so often get their way (at least in the short term). — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 17:14, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Godsy, there is an old saying; "if you want to convince people that there are too many people being held in prison for minor offenses, don't pick Charles Manson as your example." The draft that you are fighting to keep the tag on is one of the least promising drafts on Wikipedia. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:22, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Godsy is correct in that the RFC closed saying that the template could not be removed. However let's say that this is an WP:IAR removal. The page has no real sources, and it appears the data came about by running EPISuite software to predict properties. How is such a draft promising? The template applicator has made a mistake, but is the only way to get the template removed to persuade the person who put it there to take it off? I think WP:BRD should apply. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:28, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Graeme Bartlett: I take who tagged the draft into account. Winged Blades of Godric is active, has been around since 2013, and has accumulated over 20,000 edits. Whatever they saw in the draft, why should Hasteur unilaterally overrule that? If we were talking about an inexperienced editor, I would feel differently. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 23:56, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Let's take this as an example of an inappropriate removal: [13] (on Nils Forsberg). The problem is that there are so-many delete-happy editors and admins that there needs to be a way to force a discussion about drafts that other editors think are worthwhile (even if not yet ready for mainspace). If you put on the promising draft tag, it's liable to be removed. And here is a list of worthwhile drafts that were actually deleted as G13 (there are many, many more). Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive_65#Sample_of_some_worthwhile_articles_that_have_been_deleted_under_G13. Without safety mechanisms, worthy content keeps getting deleted. Calliopejen1 (talk) 01:32, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've taken to patrolling G13 when I have the time/mental energy. I have several times had the entire 50-article set deleted by another admin in the time it took me to type a single article title into Google and eyeball the results. I might be wrong but I suspect some admins consider the job to be a bot-like process, where all that needs to be ascertained is whether the draft has indeed lain fallow for the requisite 6 months. There has to be a better way of dealing with this issue. Espresso Addict (talk) 02:41, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Looking through the deletion log for the past couple days, the typical deletion rate is 3-4 per minute, with rates as high as 8 per minute observed. I find it implausible that admins are doing more than a quick skim of the article, and a check of the history to ensure 6 months unedited when deleting faster than 3/minute. Tazerdadog (talk) 03:03, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Advice for insulating your Draft from all deletion

[14] just make this your opening edit. Legacypac (talk) 23:08, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The promising draft cannot be applied by the article creator. Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:08, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There is little about this template that makes sense to me. Natureium (talk) 23:11, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well it WAS applied during edit #1 and according to the "rules" neither you nor I or anyone else can take it off the page now. Legacypac (talk) 23:15, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

To quote the close of the last RfC on the topic (which is I guess what you mean by "the rules"), Editors should not remove this tag unless they placed it themselves or the page creator placed it. – Uanfala (talk) 23:20, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]