Proposal

A speedy deletion criteria for redirects from disambiguated titles with extra spaces or missing brackets or even more obscure errors would seemingly be reasonable. Though there have been smaller listings in the past, there was a mass listing recently, Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2016 October 9# List Spaces and parentheses is the most recent of these listing. There is clear consensus to delete this type of title. This error has no specific affinity to one title over any other.

Examples:

• Title disambiguation)
• Title (disambiguation
• Title ( disambiguation)
• Title (disambiguation )
• Title ( disambiguation )
• Title ( disambiguation
• Title disambiguation )
• Title (disambiguation(
• Title (disambiguation))
• Title (disambiguation]

There is no benefit to discuss these at RfD. Therefore I propose:

R4. Redirects with specific disambiguation errors
This applies to redirects from disambiguated titles with extra spaces and/or missing brackets, e.g. disambiguation), (disambiguation, ( disambiguation), (disambiguation ), ( disambiguation ), ( disambiguation, and disambiguation ), or errors even more obscure such as (disambiguation(, (disambiguation)), or (disambiguation]. These errors have no more affinity for one disambiguated title than any another.

I could reasonably see an argument that this is redundant to WP:CSD#G6 "pages unambiguously created in error", but I've seen enough of these at RfD that making it explicitly clear seems due. These are also less likely errors while searching because they are in our Wikipedia disambiguation style/system that is uncommon outside of wikis.— Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 18:18, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Survey

• Support as proposer.— Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 02:48, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose as redundant to WP:G6 although I fully agree with the idea that these needn't be discussed. Back when I was more active at RfD, my regular course of action when coming upon these nominations had been to flag them for G6 deletion anyway. Creating a separate criterion for them just seems to be making work for no benefit. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:35, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

After I thought about this for a bit I've changed my opinion to support. The General criteria are for all pages, but a page titled this way which is not a redirect needs to be moved or corrected but usually not deleted. We should therefore have a Redirect-specific criterion covering this situation. It is redundant to G6 since these pages are obviously errors, but then so are most pages subject to speedy deletion criteria. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 01:07, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

• Comment. I would support explicitly mentioning this under G6, but wouldn't mind having a R4 for this (and maybe also other G6-able redirects) either. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 19:46, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose. The page moves in error are covered by WP:R3. I see no need of this. We also have WP:A10 if all else fails. I've had a go at drafting what this criterion would be like if implemented, see below. Si Trew (talk) 03:18, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
  • @SimonTrew: WP:CSD#R3 explicitly "does not apply to redirects created as a result of a page move", and WP:CSD#A10 doesn't apply to redirects (none of the WP:ACSD apply to redirects).— Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 11:21, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

@Godsy: You're right, it explicitly rules out page moves, but I think we are still at sixes and sevens, here. They way I tend to take Rs from recently created page moves is just take them to CSD as WP:G7 author requests deletion, if that is the case, or WP:A1 patent nonsense. I probably succeed about nine times out of ten if I give a good rationale, the one out of ten ends up cluttering RfD. Si Trew (talk) 11:52, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose. WP:CSD#G6 applies to pages obviously created in error, and there has been consensus in the past on this page that it applies to redirects created when moving such pages to the correct location (I've argued for making it explicit in the criteria but that was rejected, I forget why). This means almost all of these are going to be covered already and any that aren't are going to be too infrequent for CSD and probably at least some should be discussed anyway. Thryduulf (talk) 10:13, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Discussion

There is a way of making a page move, even as a non-admin like your humble self, without leaving a redirect. But the non-admin has to ask the admin to do it on his behalf. Thence, even if I make a cock-up and do a page move for a translation and decide that is a shit title, it is just easier for me to ask CSD under WP:G7 author requests deletion to delete the snail trail of redirects made while I move the target to what I finally make me mind up is the appropriate place. I don't take those to RfD and they are "procedural" and pretty much always deleted, and yes I would like to clear up my own mess, but that's how it is. Anyone can create a page but only administrators can delete one. I do not and have never wanted to be an admin, so I just get used to going through the machinery to do the procedurals. It harms me as a good-faith non-admin to make another bloody procedure I have to follow.

If I can be prejudiced, I would say that User:Patar knight is generally a "keeper", I am generally a "deleter", User:Ivanvector is rather in the middle, not idle or abstainer, but probably half and half. I should write a tool to check it shouldn't I! But the only reason I am a deleter, and the only reason the others are keepers, is to do what we all want to do, make wikipedia better, so there is good faith on all sides. I just can't see how this criterion, however expressed, is going to help. I was hoping that other editors would come up with alternative wording: as I said, I am on a roll, for condensing the previous R4 nom by exremely good-faith editor User:Champion it got knocked out of the box as "Si Trew has demonstrated...." or somesuch. I don't usually argue quite this pedantically, but pedantry is exactly what we need if we want to get this proposal through, and "Redirects with specific disambiguation errors" doesn't cut it when the list given are not specific disambiguation errors, they are just typos. If I made, for example, Queen Elizabeth the Second (of the United Kingdom) is that a specific disambiguaton error because of the bits after the open paren the "of the"? You need to say more, er, specifically, what you mean by specifically. If you just mean a typo, I think you are dead in the water, rhey can go WP:G1 patent nonsense, I just had one done today by admin User:RHaworth, an RfD that I took to CSD and was speedily deleted. What is the motivation for wanting this? I fail to understand, sorry. Si Trew (talk) 11:52, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @SimonTrew: The proposed criteria description clarifies what errors would be included, "disambiguated titles with extra spaces and/or missing brackets, e.g. disambiguation), (disambiguation, ( disambiguation), (disambiguation ), ( disambiguation ), ( disambiguation, and disambiguation ), or [disambiguation] errors even more obscure such as (disambiguation(, (disambiguation)), or (disambiguation]", meaning only errors within the act of disambiguating fall under this proposed criteria ((X); X being irrelevant). It is never useful to discuss disambiguation bracket and spacing errors at RfD, because they have no more affinity for one disambiguated title than any another. This isn't true for disambiguation text (i.e. X from above), because it varies from one disambiguation to the next, so generally including that would lead to a problem along the same lines as the proposal for redirects from foreign languages has.— Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 12:20, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

User:Godsy, I am mostly with you. As a kinda deletionist, I can't see the point of keeping seventeen variants to the same target when the search engine has got a litte better (actually much better but still WP:NOTPERFECT) over the years. I just don't see how this applies specifically to {{R to disambiguation}} pages. Those should just go speedy, anyway.

I know I am struggling to make my point, but I don!t think there is anything "special" about the fact it says "( disambiguation )" at the back. It's wrong, but it's not special. I think any page that says that is nonconformant, as I said, WP:ARTICLETITL. We allow those if they help readers to search, and delete them if they get in the way. The ones you listed get in the way, and notmally I would just take them to CSD as implausible typo. I really cannot understand why you want it specifically for Rs to disambiguation pages, and not to any other kind of page title error. I must be missing something here. It's not because of the exclusion of {{R from page move}}, that you can't CSD that. You can bbe WP:BOLD and do it, I do, and nine times out of ten I succeed. I am sure you must have a good motivating reason for this, Godsy, but I can't see it. Please explain to a thick Englishman living in Hungary why this applies specifically to titles of disambiguation errors, and not just to other titles with punctuation errors.

I will give you a start as I did the other:

WP:R4. Redirects from titles with punctuation errors.

This applies to redirects where the target of the redirect exists and can be found easily. The punctuation errors make it more difficult for readers to search. List only if the punctuation error makes it harder to search.

How's that for a first draft? I am sure you can improve that. But I don't think it is specifically about DAB pages or {{R from disambiguation}} pages. Si Trew (talk) 12:52, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

@SimonTrew: Punctuation errors can have specific affinities to titles. For example, I'd argue devils advocate is a reasonable redirect to devil's advocate (not the best example, but I couldn't come up with a better one offhand), but that could be deleted under "redirects from titles with punctuation errors". In fact a lot of reasonable {{R from alternative punctuation}} would be eligible for speedy under that. I was considering trying to include redirects of this nature in the criteria. But again, allowing speedy deletion of the unreasonable ones following that pattern will allow speedy deletion of the reasonable ones following that pattern, making discussion the better road. "Redirects with specific disambiguation errors" is clear and restrictive enough, that if it is always applied correctly, no potentially reasonable redirect would be speedily deleted. Community consensus has generally held in the past that there are no good disambiguation format error redirects, which differentiates those errors from other errors. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 15:08, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Godsy, I still don't get it. The pipe you gave for Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2016 March 31#Ancient rome. (and it would be clearer if you did not pipe) only has Dragon Warrior I & II (disambiguation) as the disambiguation page on that day's listing at RfD, and that went delete, and that hasn't got any spacing errors in it. I am just entirely confused now on what you are trying to achieve. If you just don't like spelling errors or typos in article titles, I agree, neither do I, but I don't think we need a policy specifically for typing errors of redirects to disambiguation pages. I muust be missing something here. Si Trew (talk) 20:45, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

@SimonTrew: I went slightly off topic to illustrate my point by talking about something I had "considered trying to include" when drafting this section. If you want a relevant example, see Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2016 October 9# List Spaces and parentheses, which I provided in my opening comments. There have been smaller discussions about the type of redirects concerned here in the past; I didn't take the time to dig them up, and don't have the time right now, though I can provide them upon request. Beyond that, I've iterated my rationale behind this to the best of my ability. Best Regards,— Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 12:32, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for jogging my memory, I remember that list now. Yeah, they are all a bit of nonsense really. I did look at that list and strangely enough I haven't commented on it. I don't think I shall, now, but really I still think this is ably covered by WP:ARTICLETITLE. My reasoning is simply that because redirects loook like articles from a reader's point of view (when trying to search for them) they should conform to ARTICLETITLE unless there are good reasons not to. Spacing errors etc are not enough. So to mee it is quite obvious that these should be deleted, but I don't see the need for ay special criterion. WP:RFD#D2 confusing, not at target, and WP:RFD#D5 nonsense cover them. That ends up, saying essentially shall we clutter RfD with them or shall we speedy them. But nothing stops anyone speedying them in the first place. The titles are bad, agreed, but not specifically because they are Rs to disambiguation, they are just bad titles. 19:54, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Redirects from foreign languages that have no connection with the target have been a common subject of discussion at RfD, and they are unanimously deleted every time there is one for discussion. I thus see no point that we need a discussion every time we come across such a redirect. They are examples of redirects which are costly and harmful for they will mislead the reader that we have redirects in a certain language for all our articles when we do not. Thus I propose a new criteria for speedy deletion for redirects from unrelated foreign language terms. - Champion (talk) (contribs) (Formerly TheChampionMan1234) 03:08, 9 October 2016 (UTC) (Pinging regulars at RfD:@Godsy, Tavix, Steel1943, CoffeeWithMarkets, SimonTrew, AngusWOOF, BDD, Patar knight, and Lenticel:) - Champion (talk) (contribs) (Formerly TheChampionMan1234) 03:11, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

• I agree with the principle, and agree they are usually (I am not sure about "inevitably") deleted, with one major caveat: we tend to keep or retarget foreign-language redirects if there is what we tend to call "affinity" to the other language. We tend to use a bif of WP:COMMONSENSE at RfD to override any exacting deletion rationale: for example sometimes I list under WP:RFD#D2 confusing as "not at target" (where the fact the R is in a foreign language is irrelevant).

Of course WP:RFD#D8 says "In particular, redirects from a foreign language title to a page whose subject is unrelated to that language (or a culture that speaks that language) should generally not be created"; but I can say pedantically that it is silent on whether existing creations should thus be deleted (despite being under heading "Reasons for deleting" which less pedantically I would say implies that).

There are lots of cases for which RfD is more appropriate than CSD: I'm thinking particularly of foreign-language cognates for people's names at the moment, but there are no doubt others. For example the page at Stephen has redirects from nine foreign languages, including Štefan, whereas Stefan is an {{given name}} page). I am not sure we have ever built a WP:CONSENSUS as to whether we should enumerate people's given or last names in every conceivable or mentioned language, and we seem to take each case-by-case so Štefan should probably be retargeted there as {{R from title with diacritics}}. Similarlz the Hungarian cognate István is its own {{dab}} – not {{given name}} currently, although it should be – and we don't have István (name) or István (given name). Similarly Steffen, Stephan are lists of names. We seem to make our mind up ad-hoc (WP:COMMONSENSE?) about these without any hard-and-fast criteria. But I think they would be unsuitable for CSDs.

I would also exclude from any proposed CSD criterion any redirect in Category:Redirects from alternative languages (and subcats thereof of course), since if an editor has made a conscious decision thus to rcat, it's probably not a good idea to CSD that.

It may be useful to make a broader exclusion criterion of any redirect that has been modified since creation (which I intend deliberately to include {{R from page move}}s and bot edits).

In short: I'm in favour of a CSD criterion in principle but I think we need broad classes of exceptions, primarily to allow admins to decline the CSD on easilz-checked technical Wikipedia stuff rather than needing to be language experts. WP:NOTDIC covers it, a lot of these foreign terms that do get listed at RfD, but WP:NOTDIC is not any kind of deletion criterion in itself, although often included in RfD rationales as "not a translation dictionary". Perhaps we should just refine the guidance notes at WP:RFFL to be more in line with what we see as current consensus?

As usual I have only made this longer as I have not had time to make it shorter. Si Trew (talk) 09:25, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

• Responding to ping. Affinity is hard to qualify, and I worry this would be misapplied. I don't think the standard to which we hold redirects from foreign languages is cut and dry enough to be a criteria for speedy deletion, hence I believe these are better handled at RfD.— Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 11:20, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
• I understand the reservations, but I support not just the general principle of the idea but also the specific proposal. Some exceptions are certainly warranted, yes; however, I don't think it would be that difficult to work through. We should indeed set up this kind of speedy deletion criteria. CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 15:05, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
• I agree with the proposal but I think some exceptions on "affinity" is in order. For example, if a species is endemic in the country of Foo then it's reasonable to keep its Fooian name as a redirect --Lenticel ^(talk) 22:21, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
• WP:RFOREIGN redirects that have absolutely no connection between the language and the target are deleted at RFD 100% of the time in the two years I've been a regular there. However, some situations have arisen where a connection seems unclear at first, but someone is able to make a case for affinity. Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2016 June 24#Cænugeard is a sticky situation that comes to mind, as well as Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2016 October 8#Appelsína for a current example. So at the moment, I'm ambivalent about the idea, but I could support a proposal if someone is able to refine the language properly. -- Tavix ^(talk) 23:02, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose I think it is better to leave this for RFD, as it is hard to make a speedy decision on the matter, both for nominators or deleters. Redirects are cheap. But there is little harm in leaving them a bit longer. One reason to get rid of them could be to assist search engines find the best page on the topic, which for this sort of thing, should be the article on the foreign language Wikipedia, rather than the English one. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:11, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

We can't much influence how Other Search Engines present or filter their results, but they should take account of the user's preferred language anyway.

We should hope that they favoured results in the preferred languages of the user making the search request, if it includes the HTTP accept-language header field. Search engines should then prefer the (e.g.) Hungarian Wikipedia's result for hu:Istvan to our own, if the user has set their browser to prefer Hungarian results. That's all assuming that the Wikimedia software reports the language properly (via the HTTP Content-language, i.e. that en.wikipedia.org pages are reported as being in English, hu.wikipedia.org as being in Hungarian, and so on. (And I do mean that all pages from en.wikipedia.org should be reported as being in English (hu.wikipedia.org in Hungarian, etc), because it is "natural language or languages of the intended audience", as worded at List_of_HTTP_header_fields#Response fields).

We should hope that it would be a pretty basic function of a search engine's results filter to honour the Accept-language field, and for the Wikimedia software to provide the Content-language field. (And it seems to be true on our side: this source of this page has the scriptlet for "wgPageContentLanguage":"en" in the header of the response, for example). Of course, the "fallback" for these is hierarchical up the "language tree" so MediaWikia should (and does) report just plain en, not en-gb, en-us and so on, even though user agents may request those. That's a basic negotiation between the HTTP user agent and HTTP server and not specific to MediaWiki servers. It's part of the standard method of content negotiation for all HTTP, and HTTP user agents such as search engine crawlers should be aware of it just as much as other user agents such as Web browsers.

I found this at guillaumepaumier.com/2010/06/26/state-of-language-selection-mediawiki-wikipedia/ "State of the language selection in MediaWiki and Wikipedia":

In most cases, though, you don't have to make this choice; your search engine conveniently directs you to the language edition of Wikipedia in your language [my emphasis]. Once you are on a specific language edition of Wikipedia, though, you can still navigate to related articles in other languages, using interlanguage links.

But I am not very familiar with MediaWiki software, so I may not be entirely accurate in my interpretation here. Si Trew (talk) 07:26, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Proposed Language

My reading of the above discussion suggests that the community might be supportive of a carefully worded proposal. I'm therefore going to submit the following for critique and wordcrafting

R4. Unrelated Foreign Language Terms: This applies to redirects from a foreign language term where the foreign language has no special relationship with the subject of the target. For example, Rojo → Red would be eligible under this criterion because there is no special connection between Spanish or any Spanish-speaking country and the color red, but Aceto balsamico → Balsamic vinegar is not eligible because balsalmic vinegar has a special connection to Italy. Tazerdadog (talk) 02:55, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, but almost everything that sazs after "This applies to redirects" is wrong. Who's to say, for example, that it's from a foreign language or an import word or loanword? "Unrelated" is not oo bad, if awkward, but is what we tend to mean when we say in jargon at RfD "no affinity". Let's have another go:

• R4. Insignifcant foreign-language redirects: There must be a significant connection between the foreign terms and the English article title. Cognates and mentions in etymologies are insignificant. To be significant, either the target article must either be about something in a country which widely uses the language, or the redirect must be a term well-known to an English-speaking audience. All redirects in Category:Redirects from alternative languages are excluded from R4.

Si Trew (talk) 21:50, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

• Comment. That is I think the nicest I can make the proposed R4, the tersest wording I can make that I think would say what I mean. However, I still difficulties with this purely on technical grounds. I think I have alluded to this before, but I will say it again, right below:

Strongly against adding this criterion, in whatever wordform

I oppose it on technical grounds. Let's assume we have a reasonably intelligent but monolingual admin at CSD. The admin must be somewhat intelligent to be an admin, but nothing says they must be a linguist. Now that admin is confronted with R4 with someone proposing that it is not significant. How can the admin do the sanity checks?

1. Learn the language
2. Trust the nominator
3. Look up all the pages and so on surrounding the now less-than-speedy delete
4. Err....
5. That's it.

It's all very well making proposals and I can cut the English to the bone, and did, and in doing so I see that they make no sense. We are asking a CSD not fluent in Elbonian to have an Elbonian-language redirect about a brogdinahgistani subject to be good or bad English. The admin will say "but I ain't here because I speek elbonian or brogdinahgastanese" (and that admin definitely don't, cos he should know that in English it should be brogfinaghastani, only in Elbonian is it brogdinahgastanese).

What is the CSD admin to do, become some pangloss? No, these have to go to RfD.

I can call spirits from the briny deep

And so can I, and so can any man

But will they come when you do call them?

Look it up for yourselves. Clues: Shakespeare, Tempest, III.

There is really absolutely no need for this thing at all. There is just no need for this criterion. At the exact time that you probably have the most committed and dedicated multilingual people bashing their brains up to make Wikipedia better, some of which do translations and various things, for which they never get thanked. You know what happens when you translate an article from WP:PNT? Convert a redirect into an article by translating it? It gets taken off the list. Occasionally when I have asked for procedural close for having translated at RfD and said "it' a stub article now", very occasionally I get from the closer "Thanks to Si Trew for doing it". Usually User:BDD is very gracious like that, but other closing admins are too. And it is very much appreciated, that little thanks, but rarely does a translator get even that. We are the outcasts, the downtrodden, the people who are speaking in tongues. Sixteen hours effort maybe, for translating something hard, something that professionally I would get paid $200 an hour for, nope, not $3200 in me pocket, no I volunteer my weekends to translating at Wikipedia. To a professional standard. With all the wikilinks and references translated. Nope, this is just a ridiculously stupid imposition. Just reject this whole proposal. When the proposer habrings any evidence of translating articles or converting redirects, I may be persuaded. I see no evidence. The clean hands doctrine does not apply here, the hands are clean because they never got dirty. We're doing just fine at RfD. Si Trew (talk) 22:18, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose User:SimonTrew has killed this proposal by demonstrating that it fails New Criterion Criteria #1 and #2.

(#1) "Most reasonable people" cannot be assumed to mean multi-linguists.

(#2) Assuming expert linguistic information, the boundary cases appear endlessly contestable.

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:28, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Indeed. What would you like to do with Štefan and Stefan. The first is in a foreign language, czech, with no affinity to the target, the two go to different places. Now this matter is fairly settled, I would take them to RfD. What would others do, WP:R4 Štefan I guess, I dunno. If they did, the closing admin should refuse it, but it should never get to WP:R4 in the first place, because if the raising editor did his homework like I did then he would find that the two redirects go to different targets. We cannot really expect a "Speedy delete" to turn into a "Rather length delete". Si Trew (talk) 01:08, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose as determining whether or not a foreign-language phrase is meaningful for English speakers is a task best left to many minds, not a routine glance by administrators with little or no community review at all. Speedy deletion criteria are meant for cases where there can be no question as to a page's eligibility for deletion; the conversation above indicates that cannot be the case for this class of redirect. Sure, it's quite common for these to be snow-closed as overwhelming deletes, but it's just as common for a nomination to start off that way until one of the editors familiar with the foreign language comes along and makes a good point about the phrase's use in English that the rest of us didn't think of, resulting in a snow keep. It's not an issue of wording: these redirects should always be discussed, while the proposal is for them to never be discussed. For the record I was aware of this discussion before I was pinged. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 03:07, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
• Weak oppose. They do normally get deleted, but RFD seems to handle these well. It helps to keep it in the open where users can bring up why the foreign language is relevant. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 18:29, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose per my comment above, some parts of what SimonTrew said, and everything Ivanvector said except "while the proposal is for them to never be discussed".— Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 18:50, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose per most of the above arguments. It is simply not possible for a single admin to accurately determine whether a foreign language redirect is a suitable redirect. Several times at RfD I've seen them kept or retargetted when someone knowlegeable about the language or target subject matter explains the redirect. Thryduulf (talk) 10:16, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - A single admin may know whether or not the redirectr name is from a specific language, but (s)he can't rule out that is also in some other language the admnin doesn't speak. And the Štefan example is also a good on - a name has affinity to any language it's used in, for example. If a person named Stefan became a citizen of Slovakia, he may change his name to Štefan. These subtleties make this not a reasonable speedy deletion criterion. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:50, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

I've been noticing that empty monthly categories have not been automatically added to G6 once they've been emptied out of process until a null edit is performed. Is this a bug? --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 20:52, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

You're more likely to get an answer at VP(T) to this, I think. Peridon (talk) 11:10, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

This process of auto-adding runs via the job queue, it takes some time I've noticed. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 14:37, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

I am pleased to report that the project to deal with Neelix's redirect creations appears to be drawing to a close. Over the past year dozens of users reviewed in excess of 50,000 pages, with tens of thousands of them being deleted or retargeted. As of today, it seems the review is essentially complete, but there's no rush, we can wait a bit and be sure everything really is cleaned up before removing the temporary CSD. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:47, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

*Breathes a sigh of relief* (even though I wasn't involved with this cleanup). This took a lot of work. Great job to those who helped out with this. —MRD2014 (talk • contribs) 03:20, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

• This is great news! That the effort is finally drawing to a close, that is. I may invite some users to participate in a post-mortem for this unusual situation at some point. I was one of the editors who suggested this approach as an alternative to mass-deletion, and more than a few good people lost their editing privileges or went away for good over disputes about its application. Hindsight is 20/20, but I honestly wonder if X1 did more damage than it cleaned up. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 03:28, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

I was kind of wondering about this. I took an extended break from May-October, and when I returned it appeared that a different group of people were working on this. I think the approach that was finally adopted, with co-ordination pages where bad redirects were listed instead of tagged, was a good one, but it was a bit scattershot before that. Hopefully, if something like this happens again we will catch before it gets completely out of control. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:18, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

I guess I should correct that to say that all redirects created by and only edited by Neelix have been dealt with. There are still apparently many thousands remaining that have edits by other users. See User talk:Anomie/Neelix list#WOOHOO. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:27, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

There's another sizable group of redirects that have also been edited by (a) double-redirect fixing bot(s), which means they wouldn't have been listed in Anomie's report. I'd advise against deprecating the criterion until those redirects can be accounted for as well. I've spent a bit of time thumbing through his contributions and deleting/tagging redirects that way. That's still an option available if people still want to be involved with this project. -- Tavix ^(talk) 01:36, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Can a list of such redirects be created? Tazerdadog (talk) 06:06, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

• Coincidentally, Neelix's one-year topic ban on redirects expired yesterday as well. Mz7 (talk) 04:25, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
• Comment. Many of the deletions amounted to what was essentially a mass deletion without anyone looking over them to see whether they were worthwhile. The ones I did, I checked every individual one for its history, usage, stats and so on. That is perhaps why I was rather slower than others. It probably was best to throw the baby out with the bathwater, because they can always be created again. But sometimes I did think we were a little too hasty.

Well done to all, anyway. We've each taken rather different approaches to them: myself mostly as rather a blunderbuss, since after a while they really faze you that you literally can't see the difference between one and another (a "fault" of the human brain's amazing ability at pattern recognition).

I suppose this means that we should now Delete the X1 criterion. It was set up to be temporary, and its job is done, by its own remit, it should now be taken down. Si Trew (talk) 21:32, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

A list of redirects created by neelix, and subsequently edited by other editors has been generated, and can be found at User:Anomie/Neelix list/6. X1 should probably be left alone until those are dealt with. There are 20059 such redirects. They should probably receive a somewhat less strict amount of scrutiny if a human editor has edited in the interim. Cheers, Tazerdadog (talk) 05:44, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

After scrolling to a random section on that list I ended up finding a whole raft of redirects that were clearly X1 eligible, I ended up deleting 30 similarly-phrased beyond useless redirects that would have been nothing but a waste of time at RfD, so I completely support keeping it until that list is finished as well. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 23:39, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

• Now that it's (mostly) cleaned up, perhaps it's a good time to discuss making sure this sort of thing can't happen again. The amount of disruption and needless cleanup time created by this single user is staggering. As long as the potential exists for another user to do the same, there shouldn't be any sighs of relief. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 02:27, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

  This conversation definitely needs to happen. I'm not sure what the correct solution is, but I think it is clear that the lack of checks is a problem. Tazerdadog (talk) 07:05, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Redirects are, as far as I know, currently a part of new pages patrol. In Special:NewPagesFeed, you have to specifically check "Redirects" in the "Set filters" dropdown. Perhaps part of why this remained undetected for so long was because Neelix had been an administrator since 2011, so all of his new page creations were autopatrolled. (He also held the autopatrolled flag as a non-admin from June 2009 to April 2010.) Mz7 (talk) 00:30, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

One solution could be to remove autopatrolled from the sysop package of user rights. But that seems extreme, as the wide majority of administrators would be trustworthy enough to have the flag. Some might argue that if a user isn't trustworthy enough to be autopatrolled, they shouldn't be an administrator in the first place. Perhaps the answer is that the community should be more careful when choosing its administrators at RfA, but some have argued that the current RfA process actually scrutinizes candidates too much. I noticed that the tutorial at Wikipedia:New pages patrol does not have a section describing how to review newly created redirects. Perhaps a good first step would be to write that section. Mz7 (talk) 00:54, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

I think the real issue here is exactly where Neelix was operating. If he had been creating thousands of terrible articles there would have been an outcry much, much sooner. The whole "redirects are cheap" philosophy seems to have shielded him from serious scrutiny for several years until he finally started making redirects that were not only ridiculous but extremely offensive on their face. (for those that don't know, let's just say it involved every possible term for the human female breast) I struggle to think of another time an admin has created such a huge mess over such a long period of time. I would hope that one positive result would be that, in the event that something similar were to happen in the future, it will be taken seriously much sooner. I seem to recall their was at least one ANI report years before the full scale of the problem became evident, but there were no real consequences, such as a ban on creating redirects. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:35, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

• I have just done the Chinese redirects and removed them, for they are all appropriate per WP:RFFL. - CHAMPION ^{(talk) (contributions) (logs)} 05:37, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

They have nothing to do with deletion; and thus should be moved to WP:CFDS, rather than selectively transcluded their from here. Pppery 16:33, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes, they would be better physically at WP:CFDS rather than being transcluded from here. There could be a link at C2 in this page to CFDS (as there is already near the top). Thincat (talk) 12:03, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

@Pppery: Category renames end up in the deletion of the original category, which I believe is different than what happens to articles that are renamed/moved? Ottawahitech (talk) 13:14, 23 November 2016 (UTC)please ping me

When would the "reasonable time" for retaining a redirect from a renamed user not be forever? If we assume no abusive behavior, no privacy concerns, and no subsequent renaming, are there still any significant exceptions? I glanced over WP:CHU, but it gives no specific guidance. --SoledadKabocha (talk) 05:56, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi, a very good question but raising it at WT:CHU is more likely to attract the attention of interested editors. HTH.Just Chilling (talk) 02:03, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Will do, but the reason I raised this here is that this seems to be exactly the kind of ambiguity that should be avoided in CSD criteria, in terms of "1. Objective" in the box at the top of this talk page. --SoledadKabocha (talk) 05:04, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

The response I got there seems to imply the following:

• The "reasonable time" really is forever by default
• Where privacy concerns exist, they are usually addressed using the option to suppress the creation of the redirect during the rename
• In the rare case that an existing redirect-from-rename needs to be deleted, it would usually be done under some other criterion

To resolve the ambiguity, would it be a good idea simply to remove the parenthetical wording in question? --SoledadKabocha (talk) 18:29, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

So far, I have removed only the words "for a reasonable time." Should I remove the entire parenthetical? What about the word "recent" before it? --SoledadKabocha (talk) 20:09, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Kinda confusing title, but I couldn't figure out how to word it. Would stuff like this be eligible for speedy deletion? Zupotachyon (talk) 03:13, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

In general they may be deletable with db-spam, or Template:Db-u5. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:17, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Eh, that one is borderline. A userpage that's spammy enough is certainly eligible for G11. If the account sits abandoned long enough, there is an argument to be made for U5. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:21, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

In your example that looks like an article attempt, so it could be moved to a sandbox. (But as an article it could be deleted as A7.) I don't think speedy delete applies to this in userspace. If you think it is harmful, you can blank the page or use MFD. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:23, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

I hope that's the case, as I just deleted a few. Some cases are very clear, as when a user creates a blatant advertisement for their personal services in their user pages, or when it is just a cv, and no mention of Wikipedia activity. We do permit established editors to include some personal material in a user page, but it ought to be dominated by Wikipedia related material. And if they have no substantive contributions to articles, then a user page with some mention of Wikipedia, but mostly personal might get deleted.--S Philbrick(Talk) 03:27, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

For an active editor who has been last seen just a few hours ago, placing a notice about the purpose of user pages on the talk page seems like an appropriate first step. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:29, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

@Zupotachyon: I answered abstractly, without noticing that you had identified a specific situation. I see that situation as problematic but I would start off with a welcome on the talk page and a carefully worded note explaining that the user page is not intended to be their life story but about their interaction with Wikipedia. Point them to WP:UP--S Philbrick(Talk) 03:30, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

I delete stuff like this all the time, and have done so for this one, while also adding a welcome message and explaining the deletion. We seem to be having an issue lately with an enormous number of people who create these profile pages, unaware of WP:NOTFACEBOOK. It's as if they ae trying to get their "official" page out there before someone else does it, and indeed a large number of them will use their real name with "official" tacked on the end. Watch WP:UAA, in particular the bot reports and you'll see what I mean. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:16, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your help, y'all. Zupotachyon (talk) 18:36, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

I know this may be semantics but I wanted to make sure I was tagging images with the correct CSD criterion. In cases where the license placed on the file page is free but the license found on the source page is not is F3 appropriate? Or would F9 be correct since the person is infringing on their copyright by attempting to place it under a license that is not the same as the one found on the source page? This may be deleted before anyone can see it but an example of this is File:Receiving Padma Shree Award from President of India.jpg. The license placed on the file page is {{cc-by-sa-4.0}} but the license found on the source is CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 India. I tagged it F3. It is deleteable regardless but I wanted to make sure my tagging is correct. --Majora (talk) 23:48, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

My interpretation is that F3 applies when the licence indicated on the file description is not one that is valid on WP. However {{cc-by-sa-4.0}} is valid so F3 does not apply. F3 does not relate to the licence the source image may really have been given by the photographer. F9 is the criterion that applies if the "true" licence" is incompatible with our use or policies. However, in this case surely the CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 India[1] applies to the text of the blog and not to the photographs. Surely all these photographs were not really licensed by the photographers in this way. Hence, F9 does not apply because the situation is not "unambiguous" or "most obvious". I think WP:FFD is needed where it will receive too little scrutiny to avoid deletion. Thincat (talk) 09:10, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

@Thincat: FFD would be a really really bad idea mostly because of the time lag. Images such as these are indeed copyright violations and saying that they should go to FFD is like saying a G12 article should go to AFD. Once we know that there are copyright issues with an image it must be removed, speedily. This is to protect us from lawsuits and to ensure that our safe harbor remains intact. If we wait, it opens us up to issues down the road primarily due to the ability for others outside Wikipedia to use our images. If someone else reuses a photo that is obviously licensed incorrectly, and we knew it was licensed incorrectly, the WMF can be sued and safe harbor would not apply since we knew about it. And if the image was languishing at FFD they could prove we knew about it.

If F3 only applies to licenses stated on the page it would hardly ever be used. Currently, {{Cc-by-nd-nc}} automatically redirects to {{db-f3}} and anyone that sees that would just change the license.

As for the example given, it pretty clearly says that CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License which indicates that the entire website and everything on it is also licensed under that. We have to assume it is anyways unless stated otherwise. I have had literally hundreds of files deleted under F9 using similar logic already when it says "All Rights Reserved" or similar. But ignore that example. Take a Flickr file that is improperly licensed. It happens a lot. On Commons there is a bot that checks all Flickr files for license compliance. Here, we have nothing. It must be done by hand. If the license on the file does not match the one on the Flickr page, and worse if the one on the Flickr page is incompatible (or even ARR) the file must be deleted. Immediately. To me, that is a F3, improper license, claim. But it is also a copyright violation as the file is being licensed improperly. Hence my original question. --Majora (talk) 21:50, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

From the wording it appears that deletion of wp:notable subjects has not been considered:

This is distinct from verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability

So, can an article about a notable subject be deleted if it is deemd to have "No indication of importance"? Ottawahitech (talk) 22:17, 22 November 2016 (UTC)please ping me

Any indication of notability would be an indication of importance, by definition. It will occasionally happen that an article on a notable subject is deleted because it is so poorly written (or reviewed) that no indication of notability or importance was made or noticed. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:24, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

This nearly happened to Wayne Rooney. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:28, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

That's nothing!

It's a lower standard, meaning that all that is needed is a credible claim of notability, even without supporting evidence. However, Someguy1221 is right that sometimes the author does such a bad job of explaining why a subject should be considered notable that the article would be better off just being rewritten from scratch, and sometimes overzealous page patrollers miss credible claims of notability. But strictly speaking, the answer to the question is no. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:48, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

And in the WP:TNT type articles that Beeblebrox refers to, A7 probably doesn't still apply, but more often than not G11 (or even G12 - like "there's no smoke with fire", "there's no puffery without copyvio") does. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 22:51, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox: What is a credible claim of notability? Is it defined somewhere in Wikipedia: guidelines? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 12:45, 23 November 2016 (UTC)please ping me

I think a more important question is - under what context are you asking this? Do you want to file an AfD debate for an article but aren't sure, or are you worried an article you've created or are about to create might get AfDed? The simplest advice I can give you is : use common sense. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:21, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

I think Ritchie makes a good point, but as far as I am aware, no, there is no strict definition of what constitutes a reasonable claim to notability. There are so many different reasons an article subject could be notable that a clear definition seems more or less impossible. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:51, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

There appears to exist WP:Credible claim of significance; I'm pretty sure the explanations of some of the criteria already link there. --SoledadKabocha (talk) 22:09, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox: Re:sometimes overzealous page patrollers miss credible claims of notability:

Are you saying that the last word is by the nominator, not by the wp:ADMIN who goes ahead and deletes a page that was tagged as A7? Ottawahitech (talk) 19:03, 26 November 2016 (UTC)please ping me

No. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:07, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox: In that case how are ADMINs expected to determine whether the subject is wp:Notable? Ottawahitech (talk) 19:15, 26 November 2016 (UTC)please ping me

They aren't. They are supposed to read the article and determine if it contains a reasonable claim of notability. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:28, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Just to illustrate let me add an example: Lets say the article is a stub that says this: X is a Professor in the department of Y at Z . His research interests… Ottawahitech (talk) 19:33, 26 November 2016 (UTC)please ping me

That's a hopelessly vague example, and therefore cannot be answered. If you have a question about a real article that may or may have really been deleted, I think we'd all appreciate it if you'd just come out and say what it is. Otherwise, I think I'm about done with this discussion. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:47, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

No. If the subject is notable, then it not just meets, it exceeds significance by definition. No actual claim of significance in such articles is a strong sign it is not finished, not a good reason to delete. Besides, A7 is about the possibility of notability, not how good the article is. Such an article may meet the letter of A7, but not the spirit. Adam9007 (talk) 22:30, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

• My answer would be 'no' so long as the notability was shown. A subject may be in fact notable, and yet an article written about it may show no significance whatever. In that case, yes, the article may be deleted. If, however, an admin (or other editor) has a knowledge of the subject and knows that it is notable, they can remove the speedy. Peridon (talk) 11:13, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
• °@Peridon: Problem is the haste in which some articles are being deleted, not giving enough time for anyone to object. Ottawahitech (talk) 19:08, 26 November 2016 (UTC)please ping me

I prefer to leave things at A7 for an hour from the first tagging, and longer if there is any sign that something is emerging and that proper work is going on. Mostly, there isn't. Some, there is no hope for even if you left them for a year. The 10 year old rabbiting on about his favourite Pokemon and how he's got 10 subscribers on YouTube (I wonder how many mates he's got...). Some day, he may be a Pewdiepie, but he sure as hell isn't yet. and won't be in the next week. But if it's a subject I know, and the article doesn't show significance for something I consider notable, I'll de-speedy and either do some reference digging and stick maintenance tags on, or just stick the tags on to alert the gnomes and their minions. I quite often look at articles that other admins have deleted, and my opinion usually is that while I wouldn't have been so quick, I do agree with the deletion. If I don't, I'll leave a message for the author offering userfication. I've decided that it's not worth doing it the other way round, userfying and then notifying. Nothing gets done with the damned thing. Until they find a way of standardising and cloning admins, there will be variations in speed and cynicism (about credible claims...). I remember some political idiot ranting on about how no-one should earn less than the national average wage. Sounds good until you consider the maths and the social implications... Otherwise, we could have it all done by bots. Couldn't we? Peridon (talk) 21:06, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

• Well, I almost jumped on "no", but it turns out WP:BEFORE seems not to apply to speedy deletion. So, I guess yes. If you want my opinion, everyone should be expected to perform a reasonable search before tagging A7, A9 or A11; A1 could probably be added to that list. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 15:42, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

@Tigraan: Problem is: how do you enforce wp:Before? Many (most?) of those who tag pages are cluless newbies. Ottawahitech (talk) 17:41, 28 November 2016 (UTC)please ping me

As an advocate for WP:BEFORE I see it being enforced rarely as a generality. I can't count the number of AfD's I have rescued by simply doing a Google search and adding some sources--a function that nobody before me had done;not the original editor, not the nominator, not the automatons who vote Delete with no research. A7 is even more immediate and provides for no opportunity for rebuttal. Before an A7 is enforced, WP:BEFORE is essential. You have no idea if content is legitimate if you don't do some research, so how can you possibly take action against a user's contribution? The only justification is prejudice. Yes, a lot of IP, new user content is junk, but the great value of allowing these users to contribute is because some of them DO know what they are talking about. Enforce WP:BEFORE. Trackinfo (talk) 19:50, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict)While BEFORE doesn't apply at CSD, there's nothing to stop people doing some checking. My first edit to an article was removing something I considered rubbish. I Googled it, and found that it only seemed to be in that article. So I signed up and binned it. Also, many of us started as clueless newbies. I didn't work in NPP, and never have, but working in the Edits by Recent Accounts thing I got feedback (some more polite than others) from admins and others, and learned. A few words on a talk page can turn clueless into clueful. Even encouraging the new ones to read the damn criteria, and suggesting that they keep the CSD page open while they patrol (as I did early on), will prevent a few mishaps. Careless words can cost lives, but a quick explanation can turn a damn nuisance into a potential admin. In time, of course... Peridon (talk) 20:00, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

@Ottawahitech: That is the same problem as at AfD. Maybe it is harder to hunt down the "clueless newbies" that make nonsensical speedies because only one admin will see it (while a speedy-kept AfD nom still lives long enough that 5-10 people see it).

Whether there is an adequate way to enforce the policy is in my view not really related to the speedy/not speedy thing. WP:BEFORE is certainly expected from AfD nominators - although it might not be "enforced", if you make an AfD nomination "per WP:N" when clicking on the "news" link pops a 10-page article in the New York Times, you will get some feedback on the AfD page. I see no reason not to require (at least theoretically) BEFORE for the CSD I mentioned (A7/A9 being the most blatant); and I certainly hope the speedy-patrolling administrators do it. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 09:09, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

@Tigraan: We have a long way to go before we can start talking about enforcement, I agree. So far it appears you are the only editor participating in this discussion who answered "I guess yes" (with no qualifiers) to the question: Can a notable page be deleted under WP:A7. BTW do you also want to be pinged here? Ottawahitech (talk)please ping me 14:38, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

@Ottawahitech: I will watch this for a while, no need to ping. As for my "yes", that is how I understand the guidelines, but I do not like it.

Just to be clear, my "yes" means "the letter of the guidelines do not prevent it", not "go ahead and do it" (obviously). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 16:59, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Can a notable subject be deleted under A7, yes it can because A7 has nothing to do with notability. It has to do with what the article says. If the editor(s) that worked on the article do not put anything into the article that shows how the subject is even significant then the article can be deleted, even if the subject is actually notable. An editor creates an article, it is up to them to put into the article why the subject is significant. The way the policy is written there is no requirement for another editor to do any searching before tagging it for speedy deletion. There is also no requirement for an admin to do any searches to establish significance or notability before deleting the article. I will even go a step further and say that notable subjects have probably been deleted using A7 as the way they were written did not show how they were significant. - GB fan 14:57, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

@GB fan: Eh? If the subject is notable, it meets our requirement for inclusion as a standalone article. I thought notability was about the existence of such sources, not whether they're used in the article? You seem to be saying that an article can meet both our criteria for inclusion, and the criteria for deletion as having no chance of meeting the criteria for inclusion. By all means draftify, but speeding such an article under A7 will likely only annoy the creator. Adam9007 (talk) 22:03, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

If the article doesn't have anything to show it is significant it can be deleted as an A7 even if it is notable. Consider an article that says: Jim Jones was a preacher from Crete Indiana. That is the whole article. There is no credible claim to significance and it could be tagged and deleted under A7. Is Jim Jones notable? Yes. Should a article about this Jim Jones be deleted? No. But it is deleteable and there is a good chance that article would be deleted. So can an article about a notable subject be deleted? Yes. It all depends on what the original creator writes. - GB fan 23:13, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

• I think there's confusion in this thread. An article may be tagged and deleted under A7 if it doesn't show credible significance. No BEFORE is required. An article that shows significance or notability should NOT be tagged or deleted under A7. The subject of the article is irrelevant, just as it is for G11 and G12. It is to the good of the encyclopaedia if a notable subject is spotted and a very poor article rescued so long as it is done quickly, or moved out of the way into someone's user space. The purpose of A7 is removing a large amount of crap. And just as an article can be of GA or FA standard, an article can be total crap. Wikipedia's reputation depends on losing crap fast. A9 does require a check. Does that blue link really mean there is article about the performer(s)? Or does it mean there is an article about Spinnaker but not one about Spinnaker (band)? If there is a red link for Twizzletoe, is there one with (band) in the title? I've declined at least a few this way. And changed the link. Most of the album articles I see at A9 consist of a title and a playlist, which merely suggests (but not proves) existence, but by no means indicates notability. If there is something actually said about the album, that could indicate notability. (Personally, I can't see the value in having 'title+playlist' articles, but that's another matter. We do have them.) Peridon (talk) 21:59, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

  An article may be tagged and deleted under A7 if it doesn't show credible significance. No BEFORE is required. Precisely. I think that is not a good thing (do the BEFORE, if it fails A7 it, else improve it even if it just means adding a couple of refs so that others may build on it). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 17:02, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) I agree that it technically can be deleted if no claim of significance is advanced, but it's wise for administrators to at least throw the subject's name in Google before deleting. It takes all of 30 seconds and could result in a page being improved and kept. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 22:04, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

• The words "notability", "significance" and "importance" cause endless confusion around here as they're so subjective. As an alternative, consider the explanation towards the end of User talk:Zackmann08/Archive 4#Stop. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 23:23, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
  • @Ritchie333: Basically what I said in my essay? I think a lot of people forget about alternatives to deletion and think of it purely in terms of 'delete' or 'keep'. I think that's also part of the reason a lot of people think WP:NOTINHERITED, WP:INHERITORG, and Wikipedia:Notability_(web)#No_inherited_notability make articles with a close connexion with a notable subject valid A7s (assuming there's no other claim of significance). GFBiochemicals (I think GB fan may remember this one) is an article that could easily have been merged or redirected if non-notable, but it was deleted under A7. Joe (website) (tagged A7, and later sent to AfD and kept) is another example. Both had a credible claim of significance, and are indeed probably notable, but both were tagged or, in the former case, even deleted under A7. I think the problem is worse than described here if such articles are being A7d. The notion that articles whose subjects are notable can be A7d can be detrimental to the encyclopaedia. Adam9007 (talk) 03:44, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

It would appear there are no restrictions on the use of G7, I believe there should be some obvious ones, such as if the page is FA, or GA, or perhaps if the page has existed for a long time. Any thoughts on what restrictions should be placed on G7 (Author requests deletion)? Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 01:04, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Does that ever happen? In any case, no deletion is guaranteed, even if a criterion is met: "a page may be deleted" (emphasis mine). And as with other deletion criteria not dealing with libel or copyright issues, anyone can request a reversal of a G7 deletion (and it's hard to imagine a highly cared-about page to disappear without notice). So, in summary, I suspect this is a solution in search of a problem. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:21, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

I would be astonished to find that an article made it to featured article status with edit from only one user. I agree this seems like a non-problem and We don't need to make up rules for problems that don't existBeeblebrox (talk) 01:55, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

I have declined G7 on a GA. Occasionally a user retires, and wants to wipe out everything they did. I don't think we need extra instructions, as anyone else can challenge a G7. If it is controversial to delete, it should not be speedy deleted. If you ever want to challenge a G7, ask the deleting admin or ask at WP:REFUND. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:17, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Agree totally with Beeblebrox and Graeme. There is a restriction on G7 - only the article's creator must have made any substantial edits. And even then, G7 can be declined - let's say someone creates an article, it goes through DYK, the hook gets pulled via a report at WP:ERRORS, the creator gets in a huff and puts {{db-self}} at the top of it before retiring. Even though they may be the only contributor of substance, it would be stupid to invoke G7. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:19, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

G7 also requires "good faith". In your example, the request would not be seen as good faith, and should be declined on those grounds. -- Tavix ^(talk) 17:13, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

• As I see it (and I will make a disclaimer that I have never had anything to do with FA and GA - in the Wikipedia senses, noting that some people outside may consider that I do know FA), I can't see many articles making it to those lofty levels (coughs) with only one author. And anyway, G7 (and U1) are requests not orders. There may be a fuss and a need for an RfC or something, but declining is permissible, and an attempt at mollification may not go amiss. (If they weren't at least miffed, why would they want their stuff deleted?) Peridon (talk) 21:15, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
• I find it doubtful that a single user could possibly bringan article to GA with literally zero help from other editors, making this be a nearly impossible situation to come up. However, on the outside chance that it did, the article should not be deleted - getting the level of community approval needed for a GA is probably enoug to guarantee quality, while G7 is probably intended to shortcut cases where a user intended to create an article and subsequeently realized (s)he shouldn't have. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:36, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Can somebody remind me what we do with non-English articles turning up at NPP that aren't obvious speedies? I declined an A7 / G11 for Capucine Graby as a claim to have been a journalist for the likes of Canal plus clears the barrier for A7 and the G11 can be resolved with a bit of a trim. The principal problem now is that the article is in French, and there doesn't appear to be a corresponding article with the same name on the French Wikipedia. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:29, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

You either translate them, or tag them 'notenglish' or 'translate'. Then you can list them at WP:PNT. There they have two weeks listing, then they get prodded. Of course, they can always be prodded anyway. Peridon (talk) 13:41, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Looks like you did the PNT bit, but there are two sections there. One is for things that are recent and all or nearly all in Foreign, the the other is for things that are partly in Foreign, or (worse, usually...) machine translated. You added this one to the wrong one. Easily done. BTW the notenglish and translate both have a |language thing which enables a Google translation to be seen when the correct button is clicked. I've added it to this one. I'll move the listing. Peridon (talk) 13:50, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English/Templates for user talk pages are also helpful in these situations. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:53, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Am I correct, with regard to non-English articles, that, if they are very short and one more or less knows what they say, one can tag them for A7 or A1 or whatever? Robert McClenon (talk) 22:39, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

On New Page Patrol, I sometimes run across a one-sentence article on a movie or TV show. It appears that there is no speedy deletion tag for them (although a slightly longer article that tries to sell tickets to the movie might be G11). Is that correct? I have thought that unreferenced unremarkable films and TV shows have to be PROD'd rather than marked for speedy deletion. Is that correct? (A1 doesn't apply, because the title of the film or TV show is sufficient context.) Robert McClenon (talk) 05:45, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Correct: A7 is fairly limited in scope, as some categories (books, products, broadcast media) have never achieved a consensus. The one exception is if the TV show or movie is primarily accessed through a web browser and isn't available through television: in that case, it would meet the definition of web content (per WP:NWEB) and qualify for speedy deletion. In terms of identification, those types of TV shows and movies are most often short films or series accessed through YouTube, Vimeo, or other web streaming services. For true movies and television shows not accessed via internet, PROD or AfD are the only options. Appable (talk) 07:42, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

I thought so. Thank you. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:36, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

I was a little incredulous that User:Nyttend removed a {{db-repost}} tag from Kash Hovey, which was recreated almost immediately after a deletion discussion whose outcome was "Delete". But he stated in his edit summary that "Did you bother to check the deleted content? If not, don't tag it, because the content was completely different." (Gee, Nyttend, we aren't all admins and can't all see the previous version. Lighten up. Based on my recollection, they have substantially the same information but, if they were sufficiently different, I agree that you were only following the existing guideline.)

Well, deletion in this case was based solidly on the rationale that the actor for whom the article is named isn't notable. As we all know, notability is based on conditions outside the article. (If the new article incorporates sources we hadn't seen before, or contains new information that could imply notability, that could be a different matter, but in this case I recognize all of sources provided from the first incarnation, and nothing in the article implies notability.) It's absurd that we have to put this person's article through another full deletion discussion now when we know what the outcome will be, and that we will have to go through this again every time the article is reposted (unless he becomes notable in the interim) provided he has learned (as he may now have done) to change the wording around a little. So it seems to me that G4 should just as well apply without regard to the content of the article if a lack of notability was substantially the rationale for deletion and the subject's notability is unlikely to have changed since then (e.g., within 24 hours). Hence, I propose that this page be amended to state that. Largoplazo (talk) 01:53, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

No. G4 is for reposts, and if you can't confirm that the content is fundamentally identical, don't tag it for G4. The whole point of G4 is to enforce AFD/CFD/etc by getting rid of content that's previously been deleted, not to delete different pages that may or may not cover the same subject as before. You're proposing a completely different criterion, one that easily fails the "Objective" bit in the Read this before proposing new criteria box up at the top, and one that would be a massive expansion of what we have now. Nyttend (talk) 02:11, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Of course this copy of the article covers the same subject as before. Someone didn't post an article about a completely different Kash Hovey. And this isn't a "completely different criterion". It's about a repost of the same subject to Wikipedia after that subject has been ruled inadmissible. It's a single criterion: "We just got through with a thorough discussion, why are we doing it again?" It's simply acknowledging a previously omitted circumstance in which that question rightfully arises. Largoplazo (talk) 02:30, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

I also don't see what you think isn't objective about this. Or why you state that "the whole point of G4 is to enforce AFD/CFD/etc" as though enforcing AFD (by declaring that when we say a subject isn't notable, we mean that it isn't notable) wasn't exactly my rationale for my proposal. Largoplazo (talk) 02:33, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Genuine question, why is G4 available for non-admins to tag if the deleted content isn't available for editors to view and can only be used for identical recreations? In this case, it was deleted multiple times for a lack of notability. This recreation wasn't significantly or substantially different because it ultimately is the same non-notable content written by two users with a clear conflict of interest. Everything discussed in the AfD still applies, so why wouldn't/can't G4 apply? It's not that it was deleted because it was so poorly written that it needed to be deleted, it was removed because it didn't qualify by notability and 8 days hasn't changed that. Chrissymad ❯❯❯ Talk

The standard is substantively identical, not word for word identical. If a nonadmin remembers the content well enough to determine this, they should absolutely be allowed to tag it. This can very plausibly occur if they were involved in the XfD. The nonadmin might also have saved a copy of the article before it was deleted. A nonadmin should not tag G4 if they are not familiar with the text that was deleted. Even if the deletion was on grounds of notability, it is difficult for a nonadmin to establish if any new sourcing is available in the article that was not in the AFD unless they remember the original content of the article. It is also possible that something else changed even if the sourcing didn't. The canonical example is a footballer who has his first appearance in a fully professional league after an afd, but before a recreation. Tazerdadog (talk) 04:12, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Nyttend's snark was certainly unnecessary. Although the prose is written entirely differently from the original article, the factual content and sourcing is substantially the same. The belief that the new version was a G4 candidate was a reasonable one, even if reasonable minds can disagree on that. It was, after all, right after the AFD closed, by the same editor who created the first version. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:59, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Correct - 'content and sourcing is substantially the same' doesn't mean verbatim. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:52, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

"Content and sourcing is substantially the same" is not the relevant criterion. Unless the two versions of the page are "substantially identical" WP:CSD#G4 must not be applied. Although the criterion discusses pages that are "sufficiently identical" it goes on to say that this is not sufficient to allow G4. Thincat (talk) 08:37, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Being so strict would be quite silly. If we had the same editor who created the first article recreate it again with different prose, same sources and facts just worded differently, forcing everyone to go through a second AFD hours after the first closed would be kind of ridiculous. The case at hand is almost that bad - one new source and one new credit. But this is apparently controversial, so I started up a second AFD. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:33, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether you mean it would be "quite silly" to act strictly according to the CSD criterion as written or whether the wording is "quite silly". A while back I sought to change the wording (several other people have also tried) and the result is at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 50#Wording of G4 criterion. Perhaps if you tried you would gain consensus for a change. Thincat (talk) 10:23, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

If the sourcing still is inadequate, nominate it a second time. If someone manages to make another "novel" article covering the same subject a third time with the same sourcing, then we start to look for sockpuppetry and disruption, not bend G4 to mean what it doesn't say. Jclemens (talk) 09:11, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

My proposal is to expand G4 to say this, not to bend it to do what it doesn't say. Largoplazo (talk) 11:40, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

"Substantially the same" literally means "the same in substance", which encompasses a case where the wording is entirely different as long as there is no material change in what it says. In this case, based on my recollection of the previous article, whatever has been added since the first article ("Boy in Store", "Smelter Fan") would, on its own, be A7able. For what it's worth. Largoplazo (talk) 11:40, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

It would be so much better to quote the criterion accurately and then comment on it. I don't necessarily disagree with "substantially the same" extending to include rewritten prose but rather think that "substantially identical" is stricter than that. Rewritten prose might be "substantially the same" without it being "substantially identical". CSD only applies in "the most obvious cases" so, for me, a prerequisite is that no reasonable person would disagree with you. Thincat (talk) 11:52, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

If an new article is about a different subject, obviously G4 does not apply. For me, if the wording has been lightly seasoned and stirred from the original but still without notability, it's a G4. If a few more refs that are as useless as the originals have appeared, it's a G4. If it's been rewritten, it should be re-evaluated, and if appropriate, A7 or AfD applied. If new refs appear that ARE valid, then G4 is out and AfD is needed if they only support a claim to significance, not true notability. If a rewritten article makes no claim to significance, it can be A7ed. Personally, I don't mind people tagging G4s that aren't, as admin attention is needed and how else can this be achieved? G4s should not be declined by non-admins without very good reasons given - which could include it being obvious from the AfD that this article about a 50 year old CEO is not going to be the same as the one referred to in the discussion as being about a currently at college baseball player. As to the authorship of the articles, Jclemens makes a good point. If the same person (or at least, the same account...) is posting for a third time stuff that doesn't fit, someone should leave them a personal message as opposed to a template. This often puts a stop to it. If three accounts post it, there's sockpuppetry afoot (ahand?) or we're missing something on the notability front. Peridon (talk) 13:43, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

In my English "the same" and "identical" are synonyms. The substance, rather than the words, of the two versions of the article was virtually the same. But that's all beside the point, since my proposal is that reposting should also be grounds for speedy deletion when the earlier deletion rationale had nothing to do with the contents of the article but with notability. Largoplazo (talk) 16:45, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't believe that patrollers should refrain from using G4 if they are unfamiliar with the deleted content. Holding that as the standard substantially robs G4 of use b/c most of our tagging comes from non-admins who have no access to the deleted content and were not involved in the deletion discussion. In my experience, that's how it actually works in practice--the majority of G4 taggings are by people who have never seen and have no access to the deleted content and they tag because they know a lot of recreations are reposts and they are taking a pragmatic road. Our job, as people with access, is to do the comparison the tagger cannot. If we were to try to make it the other way, enforce G4 tagging only by those who can know the tag is correct, we would lose some high percentage of G4 tagging, which are often right, sight unseen. The facts on the ground requires a pragmatic position, and I think it might help if we addressed this explicitly in the criterion (possibly with a footnote).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:00, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

• G4 is for flagging recreation of a topic where a consensus of editors established that the topic is not article-worthy, i.e. in a discussion at AfD. If such a topic is recreated then it's reasonable to assume that would also fail AfD, even if the content were completely different. The problem here isn't improper G4 tagging if a "significantly improved" article has been created, the problem is AfD deleting that topic in the first place: if it's a notable subject then improve it, don't delete it, and if it's not notable then it ought to stay deleted (G4). Do we have a problem with AfD deleting pages that could be improved instead? If so, address that problem. And yeah, admonishing non-admins for not bothering to check deleted content that they can't see is absurd. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:24, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

  There's just one problem with your post: It's completely wrong. It ignores both the text of G4 and the historical community discussions, DRVs, and similar evidence of how it was intended to be applied. Jclemens (talk) 19:05, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

• G4 tagging by non-admins is fine if they are sure that the content is "substantially identical". This could be because they remember it, they have a copy of the old content, the edit summaries/editing history indicate it is a repost or because there was detailed discussion in the AfD (e.g. if the AfD mentioned there were only n sources and discussed all of them and those same sources are the only ones present in the new version). In all other cases a non-admin should nominate it for deletion under any other speedy criterion it meets, prod it or nominate it at AfD. If it is indicated that it might be a repost, an admin will very likley check and either delete it as such or note that it is not. Thryduulf (talk) 11:52, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
• G4 tagging certainly is often in error, but admins should not take the tagger too seriously. There are mirrors of Wikipedia that try to preserve content of deleted stuff, and a google cache can also exist for freshly deleted article carcasses. But taggers will degrade their success in speedy delete score by getting it wrong. In my opinion G4 deserves an edit summary, but we don't have to inslut the tagger or give them a personal warning. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:08, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Speedy deletion criterion T2 is for templates that are "unambiguous misrepresentations of established policy". I've been keeping an eye on the T2 nominations for some time and the templates I've so far seen nominated (and then invariably deleted) have been of various kinds – test pages, bad articles in the wrong namespace, fragments of tables etc. – everything except misrepresentations of policy. I don't think practice could get any more out of touch with policy. Should we update the latter to make it explicit that T2 is used for any kind of unwanted template? – Uanfala (talk) 14:17, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

No. As far as I can see, T2 isn't intended as a free-for-all. Test pages are covered by G2, wrong namespace by G6, and if there isn't an appropriate CSD criterion, use WP:TfD. --David Biddulph (talk) 14:29, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

So we're facing the much more difficult task of trying to bring practice in line with policy. – Uanfala (talk) 14:41, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Basically, the problem is that templates are commonly created which ought to be speedily-deletable but aren't, so good-faith editors try to stretch speedy deletion criteria. For example, an article with no content except an external link can be speedily deleted, but a template is not covered by the same criterion; perhaps it should be. However, pages in the wrong namespace can be moved to the correct one. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 14:47, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps we can withdraw T2, as it is very rarely correctly used. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:22, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

It's nice to have when needed, though. I remember some editors who created new deletion criteria and tagged articles with them.... — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:38, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

I would like a clarification on a point. Are third parties permitted to remove a speedy deletion template? I know that the author of the article is not permitted to remove the template, and that removing the template by the author is considered disruptive editing, although it might be done in good faith by a new editor who hasn't yet been told not to do that. I know that the author of an article, or anyone, may remove a PROD template, and that is that; the tagger can then consider AFD. I know that no one may remove an AFD template, and that removing an AFD template is disruptive editing (but AFD tends to bring out the worst in editors). My question is whether a third party may remove a speedy deletion template. I think that contesting the speedy deletion and letting an admin decide is the better course, but is removing it permitted? In one case recently, an unregistered editor removed the speedy template. The unregistered editor may of course either be a third party or the author editing logged out. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:55, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, a third party may of course remove the template. The message given by the template says: "If this article does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, or you intend to fix it, please remove this notice, but do not remove this notice from pages that you have created yourself.". --David Biddulph (talk) 05:04, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) The fifth paragraph says: The creator of a page may not remove a speedy deletion tag from it. Only an editor who is not the creator of a page may do so. Which is another way of saying "anyone except the page creator may remove a speedy-deletion tag from a page". — Gorthian (talk) 05:08, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Is there a rule against putting the tag back on after it was removed by a third party (as there is for PROD)? I am aware that putting the tag back on could become an edit war, and that edit warring is a bad idea. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:56, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Not a hard an fast rule against it, but following wp:Brd is usually a better practice here. Tazerdadog (talk) 07:19, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

I do tend to have suspicions whenever an IP or an SPA appears on the scene to remove a speedy tag, and occasionally revert them (if I don't just delete anyway...). However, there's always AfD - or possibly another speedy criterion. Quite a lot of A7s can be G11s too, and vice versa. I'd say 'don't revert twice' is fairly safe, then AfD. Depends to an extent on how blatant the CSD infringement is. With a clear cut copyvio, there's no excuse for removing a tag other than a successful rewrite. With A7, things are more subjective, no matter how we try to define the criteria. Peridon (talk) 12:54, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

It is very true that an article may be both A7 and G11. In that case, I tag it for both reasons. It is also true that A7 requires judgment. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:13, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

An admin can delete the page even if the speedy delete tag is removed, if the delete reason still applies. But you would hope that they consider the removal and its edit summary. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:25, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

I see very few edit summaries concerning tag removal - mostly from admins declining deletion, or from a regular editor who has improved a situation. Peridon (talk) 22:48, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

CSD is meant for uncontroversial deletions. If a third-party removes a tag, that should indicate such a deletion is, in fact, controversial. There are tags that should not be removed by anyone if they are accurate, those being G10 and G12, and the problems existed with the creation of the page itself, meaning it can't be fixed by a revert. It's also not uncommon for a page to get tagged for A7, which is then challenged and removed, but later the page is discovered to be a copyright infringement and tagged for G12. Nothing wrong with that sequence of events. On the specific question about an IP removing the speedy deletion tag, that's a real judgement call. An admin might consider the IP an obvious sock of the article creator, based on the circumstances. Not something I can give general advice on, aside from asking for more eyes. Someguy1221 (talk) 05:47, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

I note that fictional persons do not qualify under A7 as it is currently written. Where may I find a discussion of why that is so? Thanks. --Bejnar (talk) 01:43, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

I presume because most fictional people don't get articles written on them. Part of why A7 exists is to flush out the no-hoper self-promotion articles. Hoaxes fall under the scope of G3. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 08:57, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

The standard for deciding whether an article on a person is appropriate for the project is largely worked out due to the sheer numbers of AFDs that have been had on them, and that has not happened to the same magnitude with fictional characters. I think a rather uncontroversial version of the guideline would be something like A9, "a fictional character whose parent work, publisher and author do not have Wikipedia articles, and that does not make any credible claim to importance or notability." You could probably extend this to any fictional place or concept as well. However, I'm not sure the influx of such articles is worth a new criterion. Most of the fictional person articles I've seen are spin-offs from articles on notable works, and would not qualify for any reasonable CSD criterion I can imagine. I have a suspicion most articles on fictional characters that would qualify under my hypothetical criterion would also qualify for A11. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:16, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Notable fictional people do get articles, of course - and they aren't hoaxes. There's a difference between 'fictional' and 'hoax'. A fictional person exists - on paper (or nowadays, in a Kindle) - and this is published (or there is the intention of it being published). Or on film, of course, or whatever they use now... A hoax is misinformation. Any fictional characters that are not themselves notable, but are from notable books, can be redirected to the book they belong in. Any that don't have notable books to call home can be prodded or AfDed. On the whole, I reckon there's more need for a criterion for books than for characters. The author plugging their work is more interested in getting a teaser of the plot across, and telling you where on Amazon to find the book. On the odd occasion when I've found characters without a book, it's looked very much like teenage work that wasn't going to go anywhere further. Peridon (talk) 11:38, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

The problem is with nests, where a single purpose editor takes a game (usually a game or movie, could be a book) and writes a bunch of stubs about each character, with interlocking links to avoid orphanage. The articles have no citations or at best blogs and wikis, and if a book, a cite back to the book. In some cases simply converting them back into redirects works, but with any persistence on the part of the SPA, they have to end up going to Afd, an expensive proposition. Case in point, the game Dishonored, with a redirect from Corvo Attano, but a stub article at Corvo Attano (Dishonored). --Bejnar (talk) 14:35, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

I can't envision a CSD criterion for non-notable characters of notable works of fiction. But if you have one to propose, we can discuss it. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:26, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

AfD is probably inevitable for cases like Bejnar's. That's not necessarily a bad thing: consider that an editor who will come and build several marginal-quality stubs in a topic area they're interested in is probably the sort of editor we want to learn the ropes and stick around. The way to do that, of course, is to tie them to a chair and throw guidelines in their face until they relent spend the time getting them up to speed. Timothyjosephwood is doing a pretty good job of it. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:09, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

The Corvo article is an interesting case to be sure, and the author brought up a really good point there, with really good intentions, basically, put it in main space so the community can work on it. That is after all, the reason stubs exist.

But as a more broad example, can you tell the difference between Cloud Strife and Ebenezer Scrooge? They're both fictional, but the one from the video game is a GA, and the iconic Charles Dickens character is C-class.

In the case where someone does make a walled garden of character stubs, the easiest solution seems to be to nom them all in a single AfD, and snow delete. The best example I can find for why there shouldn't be a CSD criteria for fictional characters, is precisely that made by the new editor at the Corvo AfD. The Corvo stub may likely be speedied by someone completely unfamiliar with the game, and even then unaware that Emily Kaldwin, who plays second fiddle to Corvo, has a pretty decent article going for her. In other words, it could potentially allow deletion based largely on principle alone, without regard for the article's potential. TimothyJosephWood 13:31, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

The bot Eubot (talk · contribs), which was shut off in 2008, has created many redirects which are implausible during the time that it was running. Including many unnecessary {{R from title without diacritics}} for example. See Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2016_October_29#H.C3.B6y.C3.BCk. It thus created a lot on redirects for example applied the "oe" transliteration for Germanic ö on all languages, as seen in that discussion, thus those redirects are one word, implausible. I hence call for another temporary criterion (either WP:X3 or an extension of WP:R3), like the "Neelix concession" to deal with Eubot-created redirects. In addition, it also created nonsensical redirects such as this recent one (I don't know why for this case) - CHAMPION ^{(talk) (contributions) (logs)} 03:38, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Pinging the RfD regs (@BDD, Tavix, SimonTrew, Patar knight, Steel1943, Pppery, Ivanvector, Lenticel, AngusWOOF, Uanfala, and CoffeeWithMarkets:. - CHAMPION ^{(talk) (contributions) (logs)} 03:42, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose Comment. This problem doesn't seem to be evident in all of Eubot's edits, as even hinted by the list of the most recent edits by Eubot. Either the proposed criteria will need to be more precise, or the individual redirects will just need to be taken to RFD BAU. Steel1943 (talk) 04:44, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
  • I proposed it to be dealt the same way as the Neelix redirects (WP:X1), if in doubt, send to RfD. Also, you are free to propose any amendments to the criterion. It has created problematic redirects in more than one category.- CHAMPION ^{(talk) (contributions) (logs)} 04:51, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
    • @Champion: Fair enough. Pending any additional thoughts I may have, I changed "oppose" to "comment". Steel1943 (talk) 05:01, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
• Comment - Gorobay should weigh in here. He's our resident expert in mojibake redirects, which as I recall are already covered under WP:G6 as technical deletions. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 12:51, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Replacing “ö” with “oe” in Turkish is wrong, but not mojibake. Mojibake only refers to character replacements caused by the incorrect use of character encodings, like replacing “ö” with “ö”. Gorobay (talk) 15:35, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
• This proposal is too broad. Temporary criteria should only be granted for specific cases for which there is consensus at RfD (e.g. the non-German “ö”). There should certainly not be carte blanche to delete anything by Eubot that some admin doesn’t understand. For example, Champion wants to delete OTAI (which led to this proposal), but how can you tell it is nonsense without knowing why it was created? (In this case, it should indeed be deleted, but in general you can’t assume that.) Gorobay (talk) 15:35, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
• I think I agree with the above in that there is not rush. Having potentially wrong transliterations as misdirects created by a bot doesn't have the same potential to harm Wikipedia as an administrator creating a bunch of silly and immature redirects. Often times discussion at RfDs can result in retarget suggestions or other changes that help the reader. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 19:42, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
• I prefer RfD's over mass deletes. If possible we can process them by batches if said batches have the same mistakes. --Lenticel ^(talk) 00:33, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
• I think it would be easier to say what the correct approach is if we had some better numbers, or any numbers. "Many" isn't really doing it for me. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:50, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

  I count approximately 32,000 such redirects looking at the contributions. Tazerdadog (talk) 07:46, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

• I feel like this case is better suited for the regular RFD process than making a set rule, although I'm concerned about the sheer number of these. Still, it's not that glaring of an issue. CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 15:34, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

  Certainly the first step should be to try a small number (~10) of agressively grouped RFDs. If those RFDs trainwreck, then we can and should consider x3.Tazerdadog (talk) 23:08, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

• Comment. From the random sample I took, lot of them (all of them?) were created with {{R from title without diacritics}} applied inappropriately. For example, Save Flygplats is not a {{R from title without diacritics}} to Gothenburg City Airport (now moved to Göteborg City Airport), it's a {{R from other name}}. Similarly, Sent (Graubuenden) is an {{R from other language|gsw}} and {{R from unnecessary disambiguation}} to Sent. (At least, I would say it is another language since Graubuenden is the German for Grisons, which is where we have the article for this Swiss canton.) Unfortunately, I think these have to be sorted out one-by-one.

I'd be pleased, though, if someone (User:Tazerdadog?) could generate a list of all redirects created by this user that have not subsequently been edited except for bot edits. Ideally, unlike for the Neelix list, can they please surround the redirect link with {{-r}} (and include the target too) so that clicking on the redirect does not of itself bring up the target. I guess this is a bot request... which I'll formulate if there's support for it from others. Si Trew (talk) 21:19, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

• Comment. Having started to look through and nominate some of these, a pattern emerges:

1. EUBot didn't really "invent" any RfD titles, just took existing ones with diacritics and created non-diacritic versions.
2. Often there were several alternative redirects already, e.g. Sent has about half a dozen redirects, so create these was perhaps unnecessary.
3. They're tagged as {{R from title without diacritics}}
4. In the meantime, sometimes the target has changed (been moved) so really that tag is inappropriate when that's happened.
5. The non-diacritic versions for "ü" and "ő" (as "ue" and "oe") make no sense for languages other than German.

However, I can see a way of at least listing some of these sensibly, if they're in Category:Redirects from titles without diacritics, and created by Eubot (within some given time frame). They still need some manual checking though, because at the very least the page with the diacritics needs to be checked: as I say, things have moved around. Si Trew (talk) 06:24, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

• Comment. To take another example, I've been looking through the redirects for Yunmen Wenyan. (Some are here, others are currently at RfD so no longer technically redirects). A lot of these were not created by Eubot but by other editors, Eubot has then gone on to create variants of them. One problem we have is that if we delete the Eubot variants en masse, we would be stuck with the "originals" from which they were derived, needing the same justification via RfD as would have been needed for the Eubot ones were it not for some temporary Xx criterion. This is by no means an uncommon case, because it seems to me that Eubot almost exclusively ran off of existing redirects, it didn't go around creating redirects by plucking names at random out of articles, like the Neelix creations often seemed to be. So I am not sure that bypassing RfD for them ultimately saves us much. I appreciate that this may tend to flood RfD but there is not much we can do about that. It would certainly be handy to have a working list of some kind rather than having to look always via the user contributions for Eubot. Si Trew (talk) 05:25, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Yes, as I explained to SimonTrew, the toolserver's "articles created" tool is down, maybe someone with the knowledge of creating such a list like the list of N***** redirects, should weigh in, although I do not personally know any editors than can help with that. - CHAMPION ^{(talk) (contributions) (logs)} 05:31, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

    @Unready: has posted code that was used to generate the Neelix List 6 on my talk page. The current code will get pages created by neelix that have been subsequently edited. A fortuitous misunderstanding lead to the pages that were created by Neelix and not subsequently edited also being created. This version can be found in the history of my talk page. It should be a trivial matter to rerun these scripts replacing "Neelix" with "EUBot" everywhere. Tazerdadog (talk) 07:25, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

    The "edited vs not edited by anyone else" is essentially controlled by p[i].revisions vs !p[i].revisions in line 66 of function history(pageids) (if (p.hasOwnProperty(i) && p[i].revisions) {). It looks for revisions edited by anyone else. If there are some, then p[i].revisions is truthy. If there aren't any, then p[i].revisions is falsy. HTH. --Unready (talk) 18:07, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

    158,452 new pages
    152,431 redirects
    

    That's a lot of redirects. I estimate about 12 hours to sift through them using JavaScript. Seems like something to do overnight some night. --Unready (talk) 18:59, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

• Comment. Looking through the remaining Neelix redirects at User:Anomie/Neelix_list/6, I notice that many were tagged as {[tlx|R from title with diacritics}} by User:SmackBot back in October 2008, not long after their creation. e.g. Sərsē on 23 October 2008 after its creation on 13 September. I don't know how these have made it onto the "Neelix list" because they've been edited since creation (and it's not marked as bot edit), but perhaps that was not one of the exclusion criteria when compiling that list... there are several of these, perhaps hundreds. These are in my view not R from title with diacritics, they're {{R from IPA}}, if we had such a thing, but we don't generally have redirects from the international phonetic alphabet (IPA), which is why we don't have a template or category for it. I've taken as WP:X1 but I can see these being batted back because they've been edited (albeit by a bot) and might end up dumped at RfD. Si Trew (talk) 03:59, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

  Simon, That neelix list is for Neelix redirects that have been subsequently edited - Neelix redirects that have not been subsequently edited have already been taken care of. There is no provision in X1 for subsequent editing, and in general, every redirect on thart page should be X1 eligible. There are likely a small number of exceptions that were taken to RFD. Tazerdadog (talk) 04:57, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, User:Tazerdog. You're right that there's no provision for subsequent editing, neither to disallow X1 for it, nor to allow it. I think if we were to construct a similar criterion for Eubot (or others), we should exclude "subsequently edited" redirects, but not those that are simply bot edits. Even then, these would fail that test because although bot-edited they are not tagged as a bot edit. Si Trew (talk) 22:18, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

• Comment. I notice with a lot of the Eubot redirects the "original" redirect has some rcat but the manufactured one hasn't. e.g. Le goût des autres was tagged in July 2015 as {{R from other language|fr}} but Eubot's Le gout des autres wasn't. Well, Eubot can't have been expected to do that, since it created its version before it was tagged, but I think that this is also the case for ones where the tag was in fact in place before Eubot got hold of it: essentially, Eubot has not copied across any existing categories that the redirect was in. I could be wrong here, but it seems so to me. Just something to bear in mind if trying to formulate rules for what would fall under a WP:Xn criterion. To be fair to Eubot, at least the ES tells you which R it was created based on – but they still have generally to be checked in case the base R has been retargeted, recategorised, etc. For all of them. Si Trew (talk) 22:18, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
• Comment. Here's also a fun one, and several others on this pattern: Charles Eugene Boucher De Boucherville is tagged, as always, as {{R from title without diacritics}}, but in fact the target, Charles Boucher de Boucherville, hasn't any diacritics, and has never been moved. The redirect Charles Eugène Boucher De Boucherville, from which it was created, does have redirects (and is and ws marked correctly as {{R from title with diacritics}}.

So we have the situation where a redirect has diacritics, has been tagged as such as referring to a page without them, Eubot has created a version without the diacritics that the target never had, and then marked it as {{R from title without diacritics}}. And four other redirects of the same kind to this target. (Let alone how many others to how many other targets.) Err... Si Trew (talk) 22:36, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Dogling, via Dögling, to Dagling is another example. There are plenty of others. I've recatted both as {{R from other spelling}}. Si Trew (talk) 08:26, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

I rather like the idea of recatting Dogling.... 8-) Peridon (talk) 10:58, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

• @Tazerdadog, Beeblebrox, CoffeeWithMarkets, Peridon, and Unready: I have compiled a list of Eubot redirects at User:Champion/Eubot list. Feel free to help out with it, thanks. - CHAMPION ^{(talk) (contributions) (logs)} 01:00, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Should we have a criterion that can be used for stubs that have no article text, or consist only of an infobox (either properly formed or malformed)? I am asking partly because we have had a recent case of a spammer who created a large number of stub articles, some consisting only of an infobox. This was, in my opinion, a clever spammer, who knew how to skirt the speedy deletion criteria. It wasn't A1, because there was enough context. It wasn't A3, because there was content. There was so little content that it wasn't G11. Because these were commercial products, it wasn't A7. Two ways to deal with this would be either an A12, no article text, or another A7, commercial product with no credible claim of significance. Thoughts? Robert McClenon (talk) 22:30, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

I believe this is in reference to this AfD. And yes, it does seem likely that the user may be familiar with CSD criteria, but not certain. TimothyJosephWood 22:35, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

That AFD, and others. I also PRODed some of them. Is there a way to deal with product spam via CSD, or should there be a way to deal with product spam via CSD, or do we have to use AFD? Robert McClenon (talk) 00:04, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Robert McClenon: Well...poking around, if some of the subjects are covered in another article, as was pointed out for at least one on COIN, we could WP:A10 them, or simply try redirecting them, which doesn't require prior consensus to boldly do, and could be useful given that they are likely plausible search terms. Other than that, looks like prod and then one mass AfD for the survivors is the recourse available, which may be a good idea anyway if individual articles fail AfD, which they may, since the overt promotionalism is in the mass production. TimothyJosephWood 13:53, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

There are quite an number of geographic articles that follow the same pattern as back in the day they where just created with a translated infobox, which would fall under this proposed criteria but should nevertheless not be deleted. Once this person has been dealt with any recurring articles are most likely in violation of ban or reposts, so dealt with with ease. So I don't think we need such a criteria, unless it has some codified exceptions, which would make it unyieldy. Agathoclea (talk) 14:11, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

I still see a lot of very deficient geographic articles. I know that they should simply be tagged as needing sources, unless they are primarily promotional about tourist attraction at the place, because named places are usually notable. I am gathering that the problem of articles with infobox only or whatever is more a conduct issue about the editor than a content issue about the articles. Single-purpose accounts who have conflict of interest need tagging and blocking. Okay. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:18, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Per WP:Requested moves/Old AFC submissions, all drafts that were stored as subpages of "WT:Articles for creation" have now been moved to draft namespace, for a long time now. And there are no drafts in project space either. Also, admins at WP:RFUD move refunded drafts in WT:AFC subsapce to draftspace immediately upon undeletion. So now, the text of WP:G13 can now safely be made much less verbose and less confusing by making it the following (without any real policy change):

This applies to rejected or unsubmitted Articles for creation pages that have not been edited in over six months (excluding bot edits). This criterion applies to draft articles in the draft namespace or userspace that are using the project's {{AFC submission}} template.

103.6.159.76 (talk) 05:49, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Done. I'll also check {{Db-g13}}, the speedy deletion template for this criterion. Luis150902 (talk | contribs) 10:11, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, I noticed that the current text of {{db-g13}} is actually contrary to what the policy says. I have made an edit request at Template_talk:Db-meta#Semi-protected_edit_request_on_2_January_2017_for_Template:db-G13. 103.6.159.76 (talk) 11:34, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

There is a pending RFC at the Village Pump (proposals) to require a 30 minute delay after article creation before tagging an article for deletion under A7 and perhaps other criteria. Individuals interested in that topic should opine there. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 22:15, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

I think that there are enough non-notable creative works of all kinds, not just albums (mainly books and movies), that it would be very helpful if these could be speedy deleted under A9 like albums can be, provided that there is not article about the creator of the work. For books and movies, of course, the "creator" would not be the artist like it is with albums, but rather the author and director, respectively. Recently I came across The Silent Sister, a non-notable book by an author who does not have an article, and so I was reminded of the reasons to expand A9 to cover non-notable works of all kinds. I wanted to know if others thought this was a good idea. Everymorning (talk) 02:22, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this has been proposed many times before, without success. Adam9007 (talk) 02:43, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Previous discussions include Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 58#Extending A9 to books and others that are linked there. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 02:52, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

And this specific proposal was discussed a bit at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 60#General comments. —Cryptic 04:01, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi,

I have started the discussion on the G13 at Wikipedia_talk:Drafts#Continued_discussion_on_G13. The responses are welcome. (In particular, why we need it at all.) -- Taku (talk) 23:56, 7 January 2017 (UTC)