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Revision as of 03:54, 5 December 2005 editTony Sidaway (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers81,722 edits →Database organisation: We would still need to be conservative. We shouldn't be deleting anything we're not sure needs deleting.← Previous edit Revision as of 04:29, 5 December 2005 edit undoTony Sidaway (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers81,722 edits →If in doubt, don't delete again: The principle is simply stated and informs every aspect of our undeletion policy and our deletion policy. That is why it belongs here.Next edit →
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:¹ There is one more class of item that can be deleted from the mainspace and which is not covered in the above policies, and that is the "useless redirect," normally deleted via WP:RFD. I have left it out from the above for simplicity. ]]<i> 20:56, 19 October 2005 (UTC)</i> :¹ There is one more class of item that can be deleted from the mainspace and which is not covered in the above policies, and that is the "useless redirect," normally deleted via WP:RFD. I have left it out from the above for simplicity. ]]<i> 20:56, 19 October 2005 (UTC)</i>


==Response to Encephalon's comments on "If in doubt, don't delete"==
Encephalon is right to state that the principle was first found in the earliest versions of ]; he even admits that it survived the transition to the news software. The rest of his piece appears to be an attempt to explain this away by claiming that the reason for not deleting an article about which some doubt existed had to do with older software.

Let's assume that part of the original reason was that the software would completely lose all content that was deleted. Does this then justify abandoning the principle? In other words, are the occasions when, if doubt exists over whether a piece should be deleted, we should delete it anyway?

Encephalon appeals to Verifiability. Unverifiable statements of fact must be removed from articles, and completely unverifiable articles must be deleted, of that there is no doubt.

Encephalon appeals to copyright. Copyright infringements are deleted under the copyright policy, which as a Key policy overrides the deletion policy and all others. We delete copyright infringements.

Encephalon appeals to ]. Original research is removed from articles, and articles based solely on original research are deleted.

Encephalon appeals to ]. This document is sometimes persuasive in deletion debates and is given in the deletion policy as an umbrella for a host of reasons for deletion.

Deletion policy is permissive, I think we can all agree on that. If an article doesn't fall under those principles then we don't delete it.

There are gray areas. "If in doubt, don't delete" informs our conduct in deciding whether to delete. The question of whether there is a consensus really boils down to whether the closing administrator is convinced by the deletion debate. If there is significant reasoned opposition then there isn't a consensus--if in doubt, etc.

Nowadays we permit administrators to delete some classes of article summarily, and well over 1,000 such deletions are carried out every day. But there are safeguards on this, as it's a very controversial. An administrator can undelete an obvious "out of process" speedy deletion, and if it's still a deletion candidate under the deletion policy it should be listed on AfD. If in doubt, don't delete, again.

If an administrator disagrees over an undeletion, what's to be done? AfD, obviously. If in doubt, don't delete. Why would an administrator want to delete an article that another administrator, in good faith, has undeleted? If in doubt, don't delete. List it on AfD, of ].

The principle is simply stated and informs every aspect of our undeletion policy and our deletion policy. That is why it belongs here. --]|] 04:29, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


== Database organisation == == Database organisation ==

Revision as of 04:29, 5 December 2005


User pages of no particular interest, containing libel, especially by pseudonymous parties

There needs to be an explicit policy regarding pages that seem solely to exist to libel people. They represent a sore temptation to some very stupid editors and extremely irresponsible administrators who will protect pages that contain statements that could destroy Wikimedia by providing grounds for a libel suit: protecting a page containing, or even frequently reverts by administrators to a version containing, grounds for a libel suit, will involve the Foundation.

The following was a warning to User:Essjay who should probably be de-adminned for this type of thing. A standard warning would be useful:

Restoring and protecting libel by pseudonymous parties

As an administrator, restoring and protecting libel by pseudonymous parties (that is, statements that cannot factually be verified to a legal standard of evidence), is a questionable act, one that could cause your administrator status to be revoked, if only so that Wikimedia does not end up taking legal responsibility for your actions. Here is the rationale for that assertion:

1. Pseudonymous parties, unlike those using their real names, and those using transitory IP numbers or obvious troll names, may seem to third parties to be trusted persons acting with colour of support of the community of users as a whole; While not revealing themselves to all users, and hiding their IP numbers from legitimate police or other investigative scrutiny by all parties, they are sometimes permitted (unwisely) to make assertions about persons. This should always be subject to very deep examination, and the more so in talk pages, since those are less controlled, and there is even more risk of presenting the false impression of a trusted person addressing their own community. Accordingly, pseudonyms should have the least rights of any to restore or revert commentary - unlike IP numbers, they can't be tracked down using the law with no administrative help, unlike real names, they can't be sued - leaving Wikimedia to be sued.

2. Repeated reverts by multiple parties, restoring comments to a record from which they may be read from search engines, will in many jurisdictions result in the body that sanctions the multiple parties (Wikimedia itself) becoming legally responsible for not preventing them from repeatedly restoring such comments to view.

3. Protecting pages so as to make further modification impossible is extremely dangerous to the Foundation; It amounts to an exception to the "anyone can edit" rule, and an endorsement of the views that are specifically being protected over all other views tht might replace/modify those.

4. Where there is an alternative wording that does not include any questionable assertions, and that is provided already, hiding *that* from sight to restore the libellous version is dangerous in the extreme.

5. Several persons who are repeatedly named in Misplaced Pages talk pages, and associated with the activities of anonymous or collective entities, have stated their willlingness to sue Wikimedia. Given that even Jim Wales has expressed public alarm over what has been written about himself in Misplaced Pages's pages, and declared it inaccurate, any frequent reversion to, or protection of, any version of any page that contains unproven assertions, puts Wikimedia in a terrible situation.

A lot of people would like to own Wikimedia's assets, including its servers and domain names, or even shut the thing down. Permitting pseudonymous parties to post potential libel and permitting people to remain administrators after restoring it to sight, and even protecting such pages, is the fastest way to ensure that Wikimedia is actually owned, in the long run, by the people who care least about Misplaced Pages's "community": the trolls. If this is what you wish, then by all means, permit pages like User_talk:24ip to stand, and keep reverting and even protecting them ...

Worst case example: User_talk:24ip

For those who think that use of talk pages to propagate libel is not a problem, see the sad history of User_talk:24ip, which makes abundantly clear the danger of NEVER deleting such user pages:

  • someone is apparently being accused of being a paedophile
  • someone is apparently being accused of being a frequent unpopular visitor/editor
  • someone is apparently being accused of being a specific named person who has already told Wikimedia he is watching it and ready to sue it
  • the general policy of not deleting comments from talk pages is being used as a justification to keep such questionable and dangerous comments in view
  • one administrator, User:Essjay, even protected the page in such a questionable form

Failure to delete this page and make a policy requiring speedy deletion of such pages, is going to wipe out Wikimedia sooner or later.

  • Per WP:CSD, pages that serve no purpose other than to disparage their subject are speedily deletable. Radiant_>|< 08:37, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Why make deleted pages invisible?

I can understand that deleted pages should be redlinks and shouldn't show to spiders, but is there any reason not to let ordinary users see deleted pages that aren't copyvios? Very occasionally I've read an interesting VfD or the like and wanted to see what the fuss was all about. ~~ N (t/c) 04:05, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Because, if they were visible, there would be no point in the deletion. Imagine for instance a nn-bio; if the deleted page were visible, the user would still have the "glory" of being on the wiki. Similar arguments can be made for every kind of deleted page. The possibility of seeing deleted pages via Special:Undelete exists to make it possible to revert mistakes on deletion, not for causual browsing (you probably haven't seen the undelete interface yet — it's very limited; you can only see the parsed text of a particular revision (but not its source or a diff with other revisions)). --cesarb 04:25, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
I guess there could be several schools on thought on that. On the one hand, consider the following scenario. Suppose an amateur guitarist adds some promotional text about himself to an article on famous musicians. Someone else reverts. Nonetheless, the text of that promotional version remains in the history forever, and the guitarist can email that link to his friends and show them how he is on the wiki. So in that sense, there is somewhat of an arbitrary distinction between how we treat promotional text within other articles, and how we treat promotional text in its own separate article. Consider this as well: A major reason we delete objectionable articles is so that they don't show up on internet searches. Whether deleted versions are viewable to logged-in users or not, we can arrange it so that deleted articles doesn't show up on internet searches. However, letting users view the deleted articles ensures that any valuable information deleted along with the article that was considered unacceptable as a whole is readily available. It also lets users see what the deleted article was like, so that if they are thinking of re-creating it, and are acting in good faith, perhaps they won't make the mistake of posting a similar article. Moreover, although I'm not too familiar with Votes for Undeletion, I imagine it could help improve undeletion decisionmaking by letting people see the article they're voting on. In conclusion, I say, let's just make the deleted articles available for logged-in users to view, and if it causes an increase in bad articles, we can always change it back. 24.54.208.177 01:23, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Companies self-promoting

Sorry if this has been discussed before. I'm wondering whether there's any will to change the deletion policy so that admins can speedy delete clear cases of companies using Misplaced Pages for self-promotion. I found a page tonight Solms TCD, a company that gets only four unique Google hits, two of which are wikinews pages (now deleted). Yet according to the policy, we'll have to go through a VfD to delete it, which seems like a waste of time. SlimVirgin 07:03, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

The sticking point in every prior discussion has been our inability to write a "bright-line" distinction between an irredeemable self-promotion and an article that is merely a poorly written stub. Do you have proposed wording? Rossami (talk) 12:47, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
A discussion was recently raised about this at Misplaced Pages talk:Spam. At Misplaced Pages:Deletion policy, "Advertising or other spam" is currently listed under the heading of "Problems that may require deletion," and the solution listed is "List on Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion (WP:AFD)." On the other hand, "Article is biased or has lots of POV" is listed under the heading of "Problems that don't require deletion," and the solution listed there is "List on Misplaced Pages:Pages needing attention." My own proposal is that we base the decision on notability as follows: (1) If a promotional-sounding article is posted about a non-notable subject, it should be AFD'ed for non-notability; and (2) If a promotional-sounding article is posted about a notable subject, an NPOV tag should be placed on it so it can be rewritten. If the user who finds the biased article doesn't want to spend time rewriting it, it is pretty easy to temporarily change it to a stub. That also preserves any info in the history that should be retained for future reference. A rationale for this policy is that, as Rossami implies, there can be a fine line between a promotional article and one that is merely informational. 24.54.208.177 01:04, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

User:JoJan deleted "User:FuriousFreddy", it's that Dutch man. Is this vandalism? 1 October 2005 (UTC)

User:nobody

About the schools guideline

I suggest adding a reference to the school page discussion into this page section "Problems that don't require deletion". Something like :

Article is about a school See Misplaced Pages:Schools page. Likely not to be deleted.  

Thoughts ? Gtabary 23:56, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

I would oppose this. While there has not been consensus to delete school articles recently, neither has there been a celar consesnsus to keep most of them. This creates a rule out of a lack of agreement. DES 23:18, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree that it isn't appropriate. Schools are flavor of the month at the moment, but in another six months, who knows, we could all have decided that they don't belong in Misplaced Pages. Let's try to keep the deletion policy immune to such trends. --Tony Sidaway 16:17, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Notability proposal

Misplaced Pages:Notability proposal is a proposal to explicitly make "notability" a requirement for Misplaced Pages articles, and to explicitly include "lack of notability" as a reason for deleting articles. Please visit Misplaced Pages talk:Notability proposal and express your view on the proposal. DES 23:18, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Unlisting a page from AFD

From the current text of the project page:

If another solution has been found for some of these pages than deletion, leave them listed on Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion for a short while, so the original poster can see why it wasn't deleted, and what did happen to it. This will prevent reposting of the same item. After the original poster has seen the explanation, or in any case after about a day, the page can be delisted from AFD.

I propose that this be re-worded. The way this reads now, it sounds like following this process would involve actually removing the transclusion from the AfD page, rather than performing a speedy keep, as has often been done. I think that even if a consensus quickly develops for a non-delete solution, the deletion discussion should still remain transcluded on the AfD page, and simply be closed. I propose the following re-wording:

"If a clear consensus for a solution is quickly reached that does not involve formal deletion, a deletion discussion may be closed before the end of the five day discussion period. Examples would include a clear consensus for speedy deletion, where the article is speedy deleted, or a clear consensus for a speedy keep. In these situations, the debate should be closed, but remain transcluded on the AfD page. However, if the proposed solution is disputed, the AfD listing should remain for the full five day period."

Ëvilphoenix 16:06, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Comments

This is already current practise (except when things go off the rails). You can probably just make the change. -Splash 16:22, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I made the change. Ëvilphoenix 15:27, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
I rewoirded this slightly. I chnged "is disputed" to "has not achieved a very clear consensus". I don't want wiki-lawyers to claim that because a single person objected, a decision was "disputed" and a speedy result invalid. DES 17:59, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

"Completely idiosyncratic non-topic"

"Completely idiosyncratic non-topic" has been considered a valid reason for deletion literally for years: for almost two years.

10 November 2003 (inline in the text)

17 October 2004 (neatly boxed as in present format)

It was recently removed, with, as nearly as I can tell, no discussion here. The edit comment says merely "removed extremely POV point."

I'm restoring it, pending discussion and consensus here. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:06, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it should be restored. - SimonP 00:42, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

If in doubt, don't delete

This important part of deletion policy seems to have been removed recently without discussion. It's been part of deletion policy since March 30, 2004 (Theresa Knott compromise version).

Whoever did that, don't do it again. Please don't remove aspects of deletion policy simply because you may personally find them inconvenient. --Tony Sidaway 16:15, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

  1. Added by anonymous editor without discussion.
  2. Adds nothing to actual policy except a pithy catch phrase.
  3. Don't be coy. If you've forgotten how to read an edit history, perhaps you should hand in your admin badge.

brenneman 23:47, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

  • I don't see that the source is relevant, especially since it's over a year old. Kappa 23:58, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Agreed. This is a significant paragraph, and removing it from a policy page without discussion shouldn't be done. JYolkowski // talk 00:13, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
      • This issue was discussed earlier this year here. Fvw suggested it be removed, others disagreed. The section was rewritten and everyone seemed to accept the compromise. - SimonP 00:25, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
        • That was hardly an extensive discussion, and fails to mention the apparently sacrosanct phrase that heads this section. - brenneman 01:13, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
        • Maybe it is more an interesting reflection on the past though, as back then wikipedia was rather small and IIRC when you deleted something it was gone for good, so then there was an overly pressing need for such a thing. Nowadays with all the new features and the proliferation of articles it isn't really quite as pressing. I don't particularily like the pithy statement but I can live with it, but what I would like is to have it rewritten a bit or at least a note about sock/meatpuppets in regards to the first sentence. Ryan Norton 01:57, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
          • I strongly disagree. This was necessary when we were small and remains necessary today. As SimonP says, the basic principle of "if in doubt, don't delete" is an important control and has been a part of our philosophy for a very long time. Having said that, I'm less concerned about whether it stays on this page. The principle remains in effect as part of the Deletion guidelines for administrators regardless. Rossami (talk) 04:53, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Huh? I didn't realize this was a content dispute - I thought it was just some random thing kappa inserted as it seems out of place in a policy page. It needs a rewrite at the very least. Ryan Norton 00:15, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

If you're going to edit war, at least have the common courtesy not to (ab)use the rollback button. Thank you. ~~ N (t/c) 00:27, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

It stays. If Aaron can seriously convince himself that it's drivel, we definitely need it in order to demonstrate that, on the contrary, it's how we run the wiki. It's why we have AfD and require a consensus for deletion, and why bad speedies can be summarily restored. --Tony Sidaway 09:06, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Dictum

IIDDD is still being refered to as the authoritative pronouncement of deletion policy as at November 8th. It's clear from the reasoned discussion here that this is false. As this phrase appears to be confusing people regarding the nuances, I'm removing it pending further discussion. - brenneman 05:13, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I've restored it. It is an authoriative statement on deletion policy and always has been. Its been an offiial policy long before any of us have been here. A very strong consensus would be needed to remove it. Moreover I'm sure most people are quotting it becuase it appears at Misplaced Pages:Deletion guidelines for administrators, where it is far more prominent. - SimonP 15:50, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I think the point is that one cannot simply sum up a policy page into one sentence. IIDDD is useful, and it is sometimes quoted improperly. Just like some people are all too happy to mis-cite WP:POINT and m:instruction creep at random whenever they disagree with something. That doesn't mean they're bad pages, just that they can be abused. Radiant_>|< 14:04, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Problematic passage

Someone added this after "if in doubt, don't delete":

Of course, if you are in doubt that doesn't imply that everyone else is also in doubt. If controversy exists on an article, please discuss at WP:VFU to reach consensus, rather than edit warring between deleted and restored status.

This doesn't seem to make sense. If the article is not deleted and you're deciding whether to delete it, I can't see how you'd get into this situation by acting on your doubt and failing to delete. The text seems to me to belong in the undeletion policy (where in fact I believe there is a passage saying you take borderline cases to VFU). I also have problems with policy descriptions that elide difference between undeletion and editing. --Tony Sidaway 12:28, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

  • It should be better worded. But some people have recently been using "if in doubt, don't delete" as an argument for undeletion. This seems akin to reasoning that "if somebody is in doubt, then nobody may delete", which is a fallacy. It is reasonable to assume that if something was deleted, then the responsible admin was not in doubt about that. Radiant_>|< 14:04, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

"If in doubt, don't delete" is a de facto argument for undeletion. It is indeed akin to saying "if somebody is in doubt, then nobody may delete", or at the very least, "if somebody is in doubt, he may undelete it and take it to AfD to resolve the doubt." You say this is a fallacy, but saying it is doesn't make it one.

  • No, it is indeed a fallacy. "somebody is in doubt, then nobody may delete" would imply that a single keep-vote would be sufficient to counter any deletion proposal. Policy and consensus dicate otherwise. Radiant_>|< 11:40, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

You say "it is reasonable to assume that if something was deleted, then the responsible admin was not in doubt about that." But administrators are not god-kings; their actions can always be reversed by another admin. If two admins disagree on a speedy, then perforce there is doubt. Such doubts can be resolved by the normal processes of discussion that take place in AfD. We've done this many times in the past, it works well. --Tony Sidaway 05:20, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Precisely because admins are not god-kings, if two of them disagree, the proper thing to do is talk it out, not act unilaterally. Otherwise, we get ugly deletion wars such as this one. It is not true that "We've done this many times in the past, it works well" - the fact is that you have done this several times in the past, a large amount of people expressed disagreement with you, and you ignored their comments. Controversy between sysops is traditionally resolved through discussion (e.g. VFU), not shouting matches. Radiant_>|< 11:40, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

That's simply incorrect. Unilateral undeletion of out-of-process deletion is part of the undeletion policy and was part of the undeletion policy before I started editing here. That some people are ignorant of its existence or don't agree with it is immaterial. The policy exists and is practised on Misplaced Pages. Moreover the undeletion policy mandates that AfD should be the place to resolve such matters. I have ensured that this policy is followed in every single case where an undeletion was unchallenged; contrary to your suggestion, I've had overwhelming success with this. Articles wrongly deleted are successfully undeleted by dint of this policy, which in the absence of an effective VFU that acts within the undeletion policy, is often the only way of getting things done. --Tony Sidaway 15:40, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

  • I never claimed you did not have "success" with your unilateral undeletions. I claimed that "a large amount of people expressed disagreement with you, and you ignored their comments". The key here is the term "out-of-process". You are not the sole judge of what is in or out of process. You have been known to unilaterally undelete something that passed an apparently valid AFD, for instance, and that is inappropriate. The very least you could do if you consider a deletion improper, is contact the admin who deleted it and discuss it however briefly. The consensual VFU wording does allow for that as an alternative, and undeletion policy has stated for a long time that "the sysop who deleted the page should be informed of the undeletion".
  • In short - what's the rush? If you wish to undelete something, why not drop a note on the relevant admin's page asking if they object to its undeletion? I do believe you to be an eventualist, so waiting two or three days before doing the actual undeleting is not going to harm anyone. And if discussion about it is already underway on VFU, it will be resolved quickly, and VFU works a lot better than you seem to think it does. If people disagree with you, talk it out for a few days; if you are right, discussion tends to show that. Radiant_>|< 09:57, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Question about Notability and Current Policy

Currently entries are being deleted because they aren't deemed notable (e.g. AFD: Apollo 9 (webcomic), AFD: Bored and Evil, AFD:Buddies in Big Places). I haven't been able to find anywhere that says accepted Misplaced Pages policy that says non-notable pages should be deleted (the only time I could even find the word notable was talking about future events). There is a proposal at Misplaced Pages:Notability proposal but I'm under the impression that until that is accepted as Misplaced Pages policy, it shouldn't be used when voting on AFDs. So is non-notability currently a valid reason for deleting articles?--John Lynch 09:21, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

As you can see at Misplaced Pages talk:Notability proposal this is a pretty controversial area. At the moment there is no explicit notability criteria, however there are also no rules limiting what reasons someone can give for AfDing something. - SimonP 14:18, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
This question comes up often. Please see this same question (and the detailed responses) here. The short version is that on Misplaced Pages, we have found that "notable" is a generally efficient proxy for functionally verifiable. Non-verifiability is an accepted reason for deletion from the encyclopedia. By extension, non-notability may (in many but not necessarily all cases) be a legitimate reason for deletion. Rossami (talk) 02:23, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
I've thought about it, but I still don't see how notability can be seen as related to verification. Either something can be verified, or it can't. If it can't be verified at all, then it should be deleted. Notability doesn't need to come into it at all. I looked at the discussion you linked to (and saw your same argument) and I didn't see anything convincing, I also didn't see a consensus to the discussion. If people mean Verifiability when they say notability, then they should say what they mean, so it can be addressed. --John Lynch 07:42, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
But I've yet to see an article deleted for any reason except it violates Misplaced Pages policy and it's non-notable. People follow Misplaced Pages policy when creating an article, how are they suppose to know what can be created, if people can delete stuff for whatever reason they want?--John Lynch 07:42, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
  • One reason is that "verifiability" on Misplaced Pages only counts if the subject is verified from a reasonable secondary source (and there is no strict definition of that). For instance, while the existence of my personal webpage can easily be verified by surfing there, it's content cannot be verified except from any place else. So when people say Verifiable they may not actually mean what's in the dictionary. Also, some things are not encyclopedic despite of verifiability - read WP:BIO, WP:VAIN and WP:NUM for details.
  • I've calmed down a bit, so I've come to discuss the point you raised. So when people say Verifiable they may not actually mean what's in the dictionary. Do they mean what's on the official Misplaced Pages guideline WP:Verifiability page? Also, the other articles you brought up are good, but don't have anything to do with notability. I don't mind people deleting things for the reasons outlined in those guidelines you linked to. I do, however, mind when notability is used.--John Lynch 05:28, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
  • At any rate, people don't delete stuff for whatever reason they want (non-admins can't delete stuff period, admins can, but are supposed to use common sense). People nominate stuff for whatever reason they want, but if it's a silly reason (like the last time someone nominated Israel because he disagreed with its government) then the stuff doesn't get deleted. Radiant_>|< 15:22, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
  • But the guidelines I was talking about, were the guidelines to MAKE an article. I really don't see how you can expect people to be happy with deleting articles that don't break Misplaced Pages guidelines.
  • Okay, this is a tricky matter. The first point is that Misplaced Pages works on the basis of consensus, and many guideline pages are running somewhat behind on that, partly because there's way too many of them. The main point is that most people have a general idea of what they consider suitable material for an encyclopedia. There is a bar somewhere, only its location is subjective. People give various reasons and names to this bar, including but not limited to notability, verifiability, importance and interest (and sometimes, suitability to the general public).
  • It is really impossible to describe the bar without waxing subjective. However, has been established that Misplaced Pages shall not contain articles about every person or every webpage on this planet. People have a tendency to write about little-known things that they are themselves familiar with. That is fine as long as it is plausibly also of interest to somebody else. However, such topics may also include their friends, their website, their band, a story they wrote, or a word their classmate made up. And such topics may end up deleted.
  • A possible question to ask would be, 'how many people in the world would care about that?' if you take it as a literal question rather than rhetoric. Hollywood celebs? Obviously. Nobel laureates? Yes, the entire scientific community. Pokemon? Surprisingly, millions of fans (and millions more who hate them, but that wasn't the point). Ludicrous internet memes such as the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Again, surprisingly, tens of thousands of people. Your dog? Er, maybe a dozen people nearby you? A website you like? Consider how many sites you know and how much traffic they all get. Check and compare, and consider that there's literally billions of sites and most are interchangeable.
  • I'm afraid it's hard to describe it any better than that as it's really a sliding scale, but some issues are simply off the bar for the consensus. Misplaced Pages does not work by rules or guidelines, it works by consensus. And consensus has the opinion that a webcomic must have some amount of traffic and recognition before we would write about it. By any other name.
  • Hope that helps, and feel free to ask questions or comments etc. Radiant_>|< 01:21, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Very odd addendum to "If in doubt, don't delete"

I noticed this recent addendum to "If in doubt, don't delete."

Of course, if you are in doubt that doesn't imply that everyone else is also in doubt. If controversy exists on an article, please discuss at WP:VFU to reach consensus, rather than edit warring between deleted and restored status.

This is wrong on several points. Firstly the forum for discussion of deletion is WP:AFD, not WP:VFU. Secondly, undeletion policy provides for unilateral undeletion of clearly out-of-process deletions, and again WP:AFD is the forum to which AFD candidates that were wrongly speedied should be taken. Thirdly a false identificaiton is made between undeletion of wrongful speedy deletions and edit warring. This is unhelpful and misleading. We certainly must used AFD to arrive at consensus, on that I agree, but in order to do so it may be necessary to undelete the article whenever it is wrongly deleted. Taken as a whole, that addendum seems to have been written by someone who is unaware of the deletion policy, the undeletion policy, and the established procedures for dealing with out-of-process deletions. I have removed the incorrect and misleading section. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:51, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Before jumping to conclusions, you should read up on the talk page discussion that has been held on WP:DRV (formerly WP:VFU) over the past month and a half. Radiant_>|< 23:18, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
    • "Out of process" is a judgment call. Clearly someone thought it was in process, or they would not have performed it. History has shown that pointless wheel wars will result from unilateral action. *cough* system wars *cough* A more measured response is to use the avenues that exist for discussing with fellow wikipedians the nature of the deletion, and deciding on a course of action. The avenue for deletion is AfD, the avenue for restoration is DRV. I have replaced a tighter version of the highly relevent section.
      brenneman 23:41, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

History shows that "pointless wheel wars" are quickly curbed by listing on AfD as the undeletion policy specifies. I've been through this many times myself an AfD always quells the war and settles the matter. I've changed the wording to refer to the undeletion policy. Also the reference to wheel wars smells of ] so definitely not a good idea. The idea is to stop people warring about their disputed speedies by taking them to AfD, and it works. It is of course categorically wrong to describe DRV as "the (sole) avenue for restoration". Check the undeletion policy. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:24, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

My fix was reverted on the puzzling basis that it supposedly was an attempt to "airbrush" DRV. Well it goes without saying that the section reverted was a faithful representation of the undeletion policy.
To attempt to remove all cause for complaint, I've changed it to:
If controversy exists on an article's deletion status, undelete and list on Articles for deletion as specified by the undeletion policy. Discussion on WP:DRV is another way to reach consensus, but this can be deferred to the rare event that the deletion debate is disputed.
This places DRV in its proper context: after a disputed speedy is taken to AFD and then the result is disputed. We absolutely do not need to bicker about bad speedies on DRV or engage in wheel wars when there is a forum available for discussion of borderline deletion cases. That forum is and has always been AFD. Where administrators have a good faith disagreement over whether an article is speediable, there is a de facto doubt over deletion, and this policy applies, and no attempt to sugar coat it is acceptable. AFD is for discussion of deletions. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:53, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't really read the rest of that paragraph as dealing with speedies specifically, so much as deletion in general. I don't think we should be saying "undelete if anyone disputes any deletion", and for disputing deletion we have DRV. If the paragraph is intended only to deal with speedies, I'd have much less problem with your phrasing. -Splash 23:00, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
It now says:
When restoration was impossible admins were directed, "If in doubt, don't delete!" Now however, deleted pages can be restored if there is support on Misplaced Pages:Deletion review or if the page was deleted out of process. See undeletion policy for information on undeletion.
This is accurate, and what's the point in saying "go ahead and restore it"? Did we forget that this is a policy page, not an admin how-to? - brenneman 23:17, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that is even remotely close to the current state of affairs. "If in doubt, don't delete" is far more relevant now than it was before speedy deletion was adopted. You ask what's the point in saying "go ahead and restore it?" Well obviously the point is to tell people to stop dicking around on DRV, go ahead and restore it, and if necessary list on AfD. Just as the undeletion policy says. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:47, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Great, it now says, "Particularly now, administrators are always reminded: "If in doubt, don't delete." Should I put on the end "...by Tony Sidaway"? Attempts like this to pervert policy are exactly why I oppose inclusion of IIDDD in this page.
brenneman 23:47, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Amazing. You attempt to remove a key bit of policy from the deletion policy, and you falsely accuse an administrator, who uses that key bit of policy, of perverting policy. Please reconsider, you've been told many times by other administrators who have been around far longer than I have, that you don't get to remove "if in doubt, don't delete." It's possibly the most important part of deletion policy. We're here to create an encyclopedia, not to hinder its creation. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:53, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, an encyclopedia. You know, that thing that is somewhat smaller than that which it represents?Editing includes both addition of information and refining of that into a more usable form. I attempted to "clarify" that IIDDD was a historic phrase. IIDDD is also "possibly" an anachronistic hold-over from a previous era used as a club to beat those whose philosophy doesn't match yours. Please do review the discussions, I recall it somewhat differently. - brenneman 00:05, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

It's a wiki. You've been here a few months now and had time to absorb that fact. If I run into an article that talks about a school, and I can verify the school but it's a nursery adjunct (albeit state registered) to another school, I'll redirect to the article about the school. This is how wikis work. How would deleting the article altogether be better? Someone who wanted to look up the school by the name of the deleted article would find nothing. By this method--involving deletion only when there really is nothing worth knowing about, we create an encyclopedia.

You claim that "If in doubt, don't delete" is anachronistic, yet it's very much a live issue. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:19, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

It sure is and a month and a half of debate on a single talk page can't change that. I don't think a key policy becomes anachronistic when something is so narrowly debated. Rx StrangeLove 01:21, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Standardizing second, third, AfD headers?

Can we come up with some sort of policy for standardizing what the AfD title should be when an article is nominated for a second or later time? Suppose I have a sizable watchlist, but I think there's reason to think someone may try to delete a particular article; I can put a link to what an AfD for that article should be titled on a page in my userspace and then just check that page, and if any link has turned blue then I know to investigate.

However, what happens if it survives that AfD and someone starts another? The new AfD might be called "Articles for Deletion/Foo/2"; "Articles for Deletion/Foo 2"; "Articles for Deletion/Foo (2nd nomination)" or other variants. Even as the first AfD has proved that yes, someone out there thinks it should be deleted and might initiate the process, the lack of any standard naming convention for subsequent AfDs makes it harder to look out for them.

I would propose the +"/2" syntax be the standard; it's easiest to extrapolate (and type) the next in the series and we don't have to worry that there might be a collision between "Articles for Deletion/Foo 2" (a 2nd AfD for the article "Foo") and "Articles for Deletion/Foo 2" (an AfD for the article "Foo 2"). Comments, thoughts? -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:56, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Somehow, pre-emptively watching for potential future deletion nominations just seems ... I'm not sure what word I'm looking for but it doesn't seem right. If you're that interested in the article, aren't you already watchlisting the article itself? And wouldn't you therefore see the afd tag when it's added? I'm not sure I understand yet why you need to watch for the deletion discussion. Rossami (talk) 01:23, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
The syntax above would create an extra level of sub-page, which I think is undesareable. I recently added a suggestion to the AFD footer to use {{AfDx}} in thsi case, which will help with standardization to some extent. Besides i agree with User:Rossami on this. DES 02:04, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, but many of us have watchlists a thousand articles or more long. A watchlist will tell you that some change was made to the article. It won't tell you, unless the AfD notice was the most recent of the changes made (and if the person who placed the AfD notice didn't, ah, "forget" to use the appropriate subject line) that the article is now on AfD. -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:15, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

The last thing we want to do is to encourage this kind of obsession. I've removed the silly thing. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:27, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

You seem to be strongly opposed to mentioning the template. I don't see that it's harmful and it might even be helpful. We all know you don't think things should be deleted, and you're certainly entitled to your opinion. But, you should remember that not everyone agrees with you. Sometimes things get Afd'd twice for legitimate reasons, so where's the problem? Friday (talk) 23:32, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

You say We all know you don't think things should be deleted. Well obviously you don't, because I do think things should be deleted, where their deletion is supported by the deletion policy. Moreover I don't see why my opinion on this matter matters here.

What I object to here is a pointless bit of nitpicking over whether an article has been listed for the first time, the second time, or whatever. How about a third AfD template, a fourth AfD template?

It's all way too obsessive. If you're worried about an article being deleted (or not deleted) for a second time, pay a bit of attention to that article. it's harmful because it feeds the obsession. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:44, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Merging and redirecting

I've added this to the intro. It's a pivotal point of deletion policy and deserves far more prominence.

Many problems that people are tempted to solve by deletion can actually be solved by any editor simply by proper use of normal editing powers. In particular, articles about inconsequential or obscure branches of a subject may be merged with a more substantial article on the subject, or simply redirected if the content is too small. The advantage of this approach over deletion is that it expands the scope of the encyclopedia.

--Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:44, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

It's already in the (admittedly gigantic) table already, but ok. -Splash 23:47, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
I like it, since people very frequently Afd things that could be redirected or otherwise taken care of. To me, it's worth a bit of repetition to try to drive home the point. Friday (talk) 23:48, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Why don't we just put a big sign, "Hey never delete anything!" Is there some compelling reason that we need editorialising of this nature in the lead of deletion policy? - brenneman 23:50, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Further, I'm and AfD regular and I don't see that many nominations of this sort.
brenneman 23:51, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
It is editorialising, and no, I don't think we need that paragraph, except for the first sentence. It plainly chooses to raise one part of the policy to prominence above others. I, for isntance, and much more concerned about the slack verifiability standards enforced on AfD and would like to see that emphasised more. But I'd be letting my personal preferences creep in, so I won't. -Splash 23:54, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
(multiple ec) Hmmm, you do have a point there. I see things that are speediable and things that should just be redirected quite a bit. I'd like to make it clear to editors that Afd isn't always the best thing to with a junk article, but as you rightly point out, that may be editorializing. Friday (talk) 23:59, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I certainly agree that we shouldn't delete anything unless we're sure it should be deleted. That's what our deletion policy is about. On Aaron's comment about AfD, I'd remind him that hundreds of school articles have been nominated for deletion over the past year, and a tiny proportion have been deleted. There just isn't a consensus for deletion of those articles. If the people who listed those articles for deletion had either edited them to make them more consequential, or redirected them to an article on, say, the school district, there would have been a lot less sound and fury, and the result would have been pretty much the same. Deletion is a sledgehammer, to be used when an article is irretrievably biased, a personal attack, unverifiable, or composed solely of copyright infringements. There probably is no reason to use deletion in any other circumstances. We probably made a big mistake in not spelling this out in the early days. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:03, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

<sarcasm> And I think that we "probably" made a big mistake in not killing the first school article, putting it's head on a spike, and sending it's entrails out to warn off other of its kind. </sarcasm> However, I'd imagine that policy should be about more than what _I_ want. - brenneman 00:21, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Thank you for clarifying your belief that deletion should be used as a deterrent to editors wishing to provide share similar information with users. Kappa 00:24, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Whole lotta revertin' goin' on

Based on recent edits, it sure looks like it'd be a good idea for people to get consensus on the talk page before making changes here. Friday (talk) 00:10, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

But then we might have to do something useful. - brenneman 00:34, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Some of the body was still AfD specific, and internally inconsistant. Changed that. - brenneman 01:59, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

If in doubt, don't delete again

I see little plausible justification for the implication that this is some sort of historical note. Please explain this change in particular. Phil Sandifer 02:09, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Please do familiarise yourself with the talk pages of those meta-discussions that you intend to edit. If you'll see above, and in particular the notes pointed to here. It had been archived, so I'll reproduce the relevent section in full here. - brenneman 02:38, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

From: Misplaced Pages talk:Deletion review

There is currently some controversy about the meaning and relevance of this phrase, and its suitability for inclusion on WP:DRV and WP:DEL. The controversy has manifested as an edit war on those pages (see for example , , , , , ), and a short block on two editors . I believe it might be helpful, in efforts to resolve the dispute, to look at the phrase's history and intent.

History

Tony Sidaway, SimonP and others are correct when they say that the phrase has been with WP for a long time. Its earliest use that I know of was in the document that eventually became WP:DEL. The original page can still be seen; it dates from February 25 2002, but was actually written in November 2001 in the old software.

That page was an instruction to administrators. In the old UseModWiki software, page deletions were qualitatively different from page deletions in our current system: once a page was deleted, it was completely removed, such that it was "impossible to restore from within the system." The present day equivalent is removal of the page history from the database by a developer.

This permanent quality of deletions made it imperative that any deletion decision was made with particular care—there was no such thing as "undeletion" at the time. The rules were a reminder to anyone about to delete a page what was generally expected of them; to wit, these were "some rules that those tasked with permanently deleting pages can generally be expected to follow in making the decision to delete or not."

On September 20 2003, more than two years ago, old time user Cimon avaro moved the instructions to a very appropriate, newly created page, Misplaced Pages:Deletion guidelines for administrators. You can see the original here.

Meaning & intent

The above history makes the meaning of the phrase in question crystal clear. It is an instruction to administrators (ie. to people who can delete pages) to be careful when commiting that final act, and to desist if they cannot make up their minds about whether they should delete a page. The phrase is an axiom for individual administrators to bear in mind when they make their delete decisions. The Deletion guidelines for administrators also provides other helpful tips to administrators. For example:

  • Use common sense and respect the judgment and feelings of Misplaced Pages participants.
  • As a general rule, don't delete pages you nominate for deletion. Let someone else do it.

These are all sensible rules of thumb for administrators to keep in mind as they consider their closes; "if in doubt, don't delete" is one among them.

(Mis)use

I have noticed that this phrase appears to be often misused these days. The clearest misuse happens when someone uses it to proclaim that another admin's close was invalid, because it was closed at a rough consensus standard that they believe to be unacceptable. This is often expressed with something like: "You should not have deleted that page. It was too close; two-thirds isn't a consensus. Remember 'if in doubt, don't delete.'"

This is the sort of thing that makes you go "Whaa—?". It's a misunderstanding of the axiom. IIDDD is not intended to call into question deletion decisions made in perfect accordance with the criteria in WP:DEL and WP:CON by an administrator who had no doubts as to the validity of the closure.

Another misuse of the axiom is the idea contained in the following: "You should not have deleted it because there was doubt. The very fact that I'm disagreeing with you proves that there is doubt. Remember 'if in doubt, don't delete.'" This is incorrect, for what should be very obvious reasons.

Tony Sidaway has recently made several edits to the VFU header page, in which he characterizes IIDDD in an interesting way. He writes,

Deletion can be challenged under two policies:

and

This page operates within two policies, both of which deliberately adopt a very permissive approach to Misplaced Pages articles:

It is unclear to me how an instruction to administrators to be careful when performing deletions became "the chief precept" of WP:DEL. The deletion policy is a document that specifies what things within WP may be removed. Where the main namespace is concerned¹, what may be removed are

  • pages which conflict two of the article policy trifecta (ie. WP:V and WP:NOR),
  • pages on or containing a number of things deemed unencyclopedic by long-standing tradition, which are noted in WP:NOT, and
  • pages contravening WP:Copyrights.

These are the bases of article space policy and the fountainhead of deletion policy—they are what the deletion policy was written to enforce.

The axiom IIDDD on the other hand is merely a simple reminder to admins who're on the job not to be trigger happy. It is most certainly not "the chief precept" of deletion policy, just as "don't delete pages you nominate for deletion" is not the chief precept of deletion policy, nor any other of those little, if helpful, reminders given to admins who're working on deletions. The idea that IIDDD makes WP permissive is also misleading, I believe. It neither makes it more permissive nor less. What goes and stays on WP is determined by WP:NOR, WP:V, WP:NOT, and WP:Copyrights. All else are secondary, and all else are derivations. In this editor's humble opinion, at any rate.

Perhaps the intent is to emphasize the open nature of the wiki. This is a fair point, but:

  1. if so, that point should be properly expressed. This phrase does not express that idea, despite many people apparently believing it does. It simply cannot: its very construction shows that.
  2. the openess of the wiki is subservient to WP:NOR, WP:V, WP:NOT, and WP:Copyrights. As I said earlier, these foundational principles form the basis of the deletion policy, and together with WP:NPOV they dictate what is and is not allowable in the mainspace.

Where should IIDDD be placed?

This brings us to the question that started all this. Should "if in doubt, don't delete" be placed in WP:DEL and WP:DRV? This seems to be the source of much dispute, but that is only because IIDDD is misunderstood. Personally I will not strongly object with listing the admin reminders on the deletion page, because I know what they are and what they were written to for, and putting them there will not make me treat the article-space policy any less seriously. However, I do see the point that they're out-of-place. WP:DEL is primarily written for users and editors of the encyclopedia, not sysops. Placing IIDDD in such a page, in the way it has been placed there now, does sound odd—because non-sysops can't delete, whether they are in doubt or not. IIDDD is directed at sysops, the folks who do the deleting. The correct place for it is Misplaced Pages:Deletion guidelines for administrators, where it fits perfectly and where it has been placed since the inception of that page. (Yes, it was also in the page that eventually became WP:DEL, but that was when that page was in fact directed at admins. You can read it [http://here.)

What about WP:DRV? The same applies. Wherever the thing is placed however, I would ask that it is not misrepresented, or written in a way that gives a misleading account of article space and deletion policy on Misplaced Pages. If I've been wrong in any of the above, do correct me—it will not be the first time, nor the last :) I do believe that this issue needn't divide us as it has. Kind regards encephalon 20:56, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Note

¹ There is one more class of item that can be deleted from the mainspace and which is not covered in the above policies, and that is the "useless redirect," normally deleted via WP:RFD. I have left it out from the above for simplicity. encephalon 20:56, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Response to Encephalon's comments on "If in doubt, don't delete"

Encephalon is right to state that the principle was first found in the earliest versions of WP:DEL; he even admits that it survived the transition to the news software. The rest of his piece appears to be an attempt to explain this away by claiming that the reason for not deleting an article about which some doubt existed had to do with older software.

Let's assume that part of the original reason was that the software would completely lose all content that was deleted. Does this then justify abandoning the principle? In other words, are the occasions when, if doubt exists over whether a piece should be deleted, we should delete it anyway?

Encephalon appeals to Verifiability. Unverifiable statements of fact must be removed from articles, and completely unverifiable articles must be deleted, of that there is no doubt.

Encephalon appeals to copyright. Copyright infringements are deleted under the copyright policy, which as a Key policy overrides the deletion policy and all others. We delete copyright infringements.

Encephalon appeals to No original research. Original research is removed from articles, and articles based solely on original research are deleted.

Encephalon appeals to What Misplaced Pages is not. This document is sometimes persuasive in deletion debates and is given in the deletion policy as an umbrella for a host of reasons for deletion.

Deletion policy is permissive, I think we can all agree on that. If an article doesn't fall under those principles then we don't delete it.

There are gray areas. "If in doubt, don't delete" informs our conduct in deciding whether to delete. The question of whether there is a consensus really boils down to whether the closing administrator is convinced by the deletion debate. If there is significant reasoned opposition then there isn't a consensus--if in doubt, etc.

Nowadays we permit administrators to delete some classes of article summarily, and well over 1,000 such deletions are carried out every day. But there are safeguards on this, as it's a very controversial. An administrator can undelete an obvious "out of process" speedy deletion, and if it's still a deletion candidate under the deletion policy it should be listed on AfD. If in doubt, don't delete, again.

If an administrator disagrees over an undeletion, what's to be done? AfD, obviously. If in doubt, don't delete. Why would an administrator want to delete an article that another administrator, in good faith, has undeleted? If in doubt, don't delete. List it on AfD, of Copyright problems.

The principle is simply stated and informs every aspect of our undeletion policy and our deletion policy. That is why it belongs here. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 04:29, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Database organisation

I think that removing "if in doubt, don't delete" is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how mediawiki databases are organised. We still need to be conservative when deleting. Please check with a developer if you haven't already done so!

Of course, if it turns out that the engine has improved and I'm wrong ... the consequences would be ... interesting. :-) Kim Bruning 03:26, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Even if the archive weren't a separate table, deletion still would involve preventing non-administrators from seeing and editing articles. We would still need to be conservative. We shouldn't be deleting anything we're not sure needs deleting. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:54, 5 December 2005 (UTC)