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I am seeing a lot of new users attempt to sidestep restrictions on article creation by putting material in a talk page for a non-existent article. The material is usually too poor to be a useful draft, or violates what Misplaced Pages is not. The pages often do not meet any CSD criteria besides G8, although they might meet article-specific criteria if they had been created in articlespace. When should these talk pages be draftified instead of tagged for deletion? ] (]) 20:19, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
== Deletion without discussion? ==


:Isn't that just what G8 is meant for? See ]:"G8. Pages dependent on a non-existent or deleted page: Examples include, but are not limited to: Talk pages with no corresponding subject page ...". Straightforward. ]] 20:43, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
Does policy allow an administrator to delete a user's talk page before any community discussion at one of the deletion discussions? ] (]) 17:46, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
::One time someone removed my G8 tag and draftified the page. Draftifying might be useful at least for plausible drafts in talkspace. ] (]) 20:52, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
:It depends on the situation. There are instances in which the admin would be permitted to delete, and instances in which they would not. Have you tried asking the admin in question privately to see what the reason for deletion was? &mdash;&nbsp;Carl <small>(]&nbsp;·&nbsp;])</small> 17:52, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
::Although, the page that was draftified was essentially an essay. ] (]) 20:55, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
::The approved reasons for which a page made be deleted without discussion are located at ]. If it doesn't qualify for speedy deletion, the the admin probably should not have deleted it. ]] 19:04, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
:Sometimes the page is in good enough shape to be moved to article or draftspace. Otherwise, G8 might apply. ] (]) 06:42, 9 August 2024 (UTC)
::Agreed; if it's a clear non-starter I'll nuke it with G8. If it looks like it ''might'' be worth salvaging I might move it to the Draft space, but I could probably number those with two hands. ] (]) 13:03, 15 August 2024 (UTC)


== Amending ATD-R ==
:::Thanks for the reference. What is there to deter an admistrator from violating policy?] (]) 21:40, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
::My questions are about policy, not about any particular administrator or instance of deletion.] (]) 21:40, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
:::First, after contacting the deleting admin, if there is a good faith dispute over whether the article was eligible for deletion, the deleting admin should probably just undelete the article, and list it for discussion at the appropriate deletion venue to diffuse the issue. Failing that the next step would be raising the issue at ] or ], where the community would review the situation and decide if there is consensus to overturn the deletion. If after being overturned multiple times, the admin continues to ignore deletion policy despite being corrected by the community, it may eventually escalate to a ] on the admin's conduct and then go to an Arbitration case, where ] has the authority to desysop recalcitrant admins. Note that Arbcom rarely desysops, only doing so in the most extreme cases. ]] 21:54, 3 September 2012 (UTC)


The ] to ] cites RfCs from ] and ]; in the latter discussion, {{tq|ost users believe that AfD should be used to settle controversial or contested cases of blanking and redirecting.}}
::: Without a specific example to look at, all anyone can say is to look at the CSD criteria. However, in practice other pages may be deleted without discussion, and nobody will bat an eye, depending on the individual situation. This is particularly the case with user pages, where there are many issues that can arise. This is why it's important to ask the admin personally, so they can indicate their reasoning. Administrators have always had a great deal of discretion in deciding what to delete; the CSD criteria capture some, but not all, of that discretion. Remember that our policies are only ''descriptive'', not ''prescriptive'', and so there will always be things that are not covered by the policies. &mdash;&nbsp;Carl <small>(]&nbsp;·&nbsp;])</small> 21:56, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
:::It isn't typical to delete a user talk page, but it's not like there's some grand taboo against it, either. Arguably one of Misplaced Pages's most important policies is ], so unless the talk page deletion was done in outrageously poor faith or it contained information vital to the encyclopedia (unlikely on a user talk page) then it's probably no big deal. Without knowing more about the situation, if there is one, there's not much else to say. ] - <b><FONT COLOR="#FF0000">St</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FF5500">ar</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FF8000">bli</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFC000">nd</FONT></b> 22:51, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
:The IP user page was part of a IP range blocked for trolling, per community consensus at ]. The talk page itself was deleted by me at ], as it was simply an attack page ranting about being blocked on Commons. --- ] <small>(] • ])</small> - 01:12, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
::Sounds like a valid deletion to me. Talk space isn't rant space and that's extra true for IPs, as the next person to use that IP isn't necessarily going to agree with the rant. ] - <b><FONT COLOR="#FF0000">St</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FF5500">ar</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FF8000">bli</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFC000">nd</FONT></b> 02:28, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
:::What's to deter an administrator from improperly deleting a page and then thwarting AN/I and DRV review by blocking the user and simply claiming that the deleted content was "ranting" or an "attack"? ] (]) 22:02, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
::::Short answer is that such users can use the ]. All admins have access to reviewing the content of a deleted page, which is why I linked the talk page above, for their easy review of the actual contents.
::::However, in this specific case, you were blocked by community ] in an ANI discussion. Continued evading of the block by using different IPs is called ], and can also be blocked. The way I see it, you have two options: either assume the entire Misplaced Pages community is in some great conspiracy against you; or accept that your behavior is not compatible to working collaboratively on Misplaced Pages. If you choose to accept the latter, after your block expires you can then work on modifying your behavior to be less disruptive, or you could choose to move to other websites that may be more compatible with your editing style. --- ] <small>(] • ])</small> - 00:38, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
::::Besides, there is absolutely no motive for an admin to delete a talk page with no objectionable material and then craft an elaborate conspiracy to try to cover it up. Admins aren't paid or otherwise rewarded for deleting pages, so there really isn't anything to gain. And an IP talk page would rarely be visited anyway. The moral of the story seems to be that if you stumble across the meaning of life or the cure for cancer or something the world simply must know, an IP talk page on Misplaced Pages is an exceptionally poor place to try to get the word out. ] - <b><FONT COLOR="#FF0000">St</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FF5500">ar</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FF8000">bli</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFC000">nd</FONT></b> 09:23, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
:::::I reviewed the question above, "What's to deter an administrator from improperly deleting...." Who used the term "]"? Why turn this into a discussion about "]"? If "there is absolutely no motive for an admin to delete a talk page with no objectionable material", then why has the ] adopted policies prohibiting administrators from deleting without community-discussion? ] (]) 15:45, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
::::::The Wikimedia Foundation has adopted no such policies. ] (]) 15:56, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
:::::::The ] states: "Pages can be deleted without any discussion ''if'' they meet one of the ]". (That "if" clearly means "only if".) The ] policy states: "The criteria for speedy deletion specify the ''only'' cases in which ] have broad consensus to bypass ]". If "there is absolutely no motive for an admin to delete a talk page with no objectionable material", then why has the ] adopted policies ''generally'' prohibiting administrators from deleting without community-discussion? ] (]) 16:48, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
::::::::You obviously acknowledge that the talk page was not appropriate, given {{diff2|511091068|your edit}} at ] to ] for other opinions.
::::::::Given that fact, and your continued ] and ] behavior here, it's simply re-inforcing the appropriateness of the community sanctioned block from ] which you continue to ] with additional IP addresses. --- ] <small>(] • ])</small> - 17:35, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
:::::::::Note also the catchall ]. While its rarely going to be supported to IAR delete something, it can happen. ]] 18:13, 6 September 2012 (UTC)


In a ] at ], it was pointed out that the current language of ATD-R presents AfD as merely an option, rather than the preferred venue, for contested BLARs. Thus, I propose rewording ATD-R as follows:
== ]: AfD Bot Task ==


{{td|A page can be ] if there is a suitable page to redirect to, and if the resulting redirect is not ]. If the change is disputed via a ], an attempt should be made to reach a ] before blank-and-redirecting again. Suitable venues for doing so include the article's talk page and ].|A page can be ] if there is a suitable page to redirect to, and if the resulting redirect is not ]. If the change is disputed via a ], an attempt should be made to reach a ] before blank-and-redirecting again. The preferred venue for doing so is ], although sometimes the dispute may be resolved on the article's talk page.}} ] (]/]) 01:26, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
I previously posted this on ], but without much response. I'm wondering if this would be acceptable, but, I've had an idea for an AfD bot. It's quite a simple task: relisting AfDs which have not been commented on. The bot will ignore previous relists and ], and only relist after seven days. Some AfDs are left there, sometimes longer than 7 days without being commented on. I can see a benefit in having a bot to do this, so no AfD is lost in the dark. Some example AfDs can be seen at ]. Thanks, ] (]) 10:22, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
:The current wording is better. If the status quo is an article, then AfD is the preferred venue. If the status quo is a redirect, then RfD is the preferred venue. If a template were to be BLAR'd (]), then TfD would be the preferred venue. --] <sup>(])</sup> 01:31, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
:I'd support this; BLAR'd articles are generally low-profile enough that talk page discussions don't usually get sufficient participation to resolve the disagreement. Maybe a more generic reference to deletion discussions would resolve Tavix's concern. ] (]) 01:44, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
::Substitute "]" with "]" and I would support. --] <sup>(])</sup> 01:49, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
:::We should avoid giving the impression (explicitly or implicitly) that RfD is the appropriate deletion venue (because it almost never is). ] (]) 01:55, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
::::RfD is the appropriate venue way more often then you give it credit for. For example, RfD is the appropriate XfD for ] even though it was BLAR'd back in 2005. --] <sup>(])</sup> 02:02, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::] is an example of something that would be better at AfD but is not completely implausible at RfD (the content would be an A7 speedy if it is topically in scope, I haven't checked). The length of time something has been a redirect is not relevant to almost anybody except you - what matters is the pre-BLAR content. ] (]) 02:10, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
:::"The preferred venue for doing so is the ]" is singularly unhelpful; it's like saying "The preferred venue for doing so is in the right place to do it". The "] for the page's stable version" gets the idea across, but it's awkward to the point of absurdity. —] 02:09, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
::::"The preferred venue for doing so is the appropriate deletion discussion venue for the pre-redirect content" is simple and unambiguous. ] (]) 02:11, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::Including "for the pre-redirect content" would have major unintended consequences. RfD would have to reject ''all'' redirects that were previously articles, which is further than even you support. Hopefully you can agree than even if you would prefer that ] be at AfD, it is something that RfD is capable of handling. --] <sup>(])</sup> 02:21, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::We're talking about the ''preferred'' venue for the ''majority'' of cases, not the only venue for all cases. RfD ''should'' reject the majority of undiscussed BLARs brought there, but that doesn't mean it has to reject ''all'' nominations of undiscussed BLARs and it definitely doesn't mean sending them to RfD in the first place should be encouraged. ] (]) 02:27, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::How about "In most cases, the preferred venue for doing so is the deletion discussion venue appropriate to the pre-redirect content, although a discussion on the talk page (or at an appropriate WikiProject) can sometimes resolve the disagreement, especially if the redirection is recent. Exceptionally, for example if the pre-redirect content would be subject to speedy deletion if restored, it can be nominated at RfD." Covers all the bases with appropriate weighting, but it is a lot more complicated and I'm not sure that either the parenthetical or second sentence are necessary. ] (]) 02:34, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::::RfD <u>should be</u> the preferred venue for pages like ]. Redirects that contain article content from Misplaced Pages's wild west days constitute the vast majority of BLAR's that get sent to RfD, and they're usually the ones that get uncontroversially deleted. It's silly to restore article content from a long-standing redirect just because it was an article for a couple months back in 2005 that was redirected without any fuss. --] <sup>(])</sup> 02:39, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::We've already established that Grood is one of the exceptions. It can't be both an exception and an example of the vast majority. Once again, the age of the content is irrelevant. ] (]) 02:45, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::No, Grood is not "one of the exceptions". My point is that standards for articles were much different in Misplaced Pages's early days than it is now. As Misplaced Pages's standards increased, the easiest way to handle them was to BLAR them and that's usually the kind of redirects that get nominated at RfD with with article content in their histories. --] <sup>(])</sup> 02:53, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::what
::::::::::who is "we" here? '''] <sub>] ]</sub>''' 12:02, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::"we" = the people in this discussion. The reason Groot is one of the exceptions is that the content would be speedily deletable if restored, that is not the case for the majority of content that is BLARed. ] (]) 12:27, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
::::How about: "The ] is preferable, though sometimes the dispute may be resolved on the article's talk page." --] <sup>(])</sup> 02:26, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::That's saying "The preferred venue for doing so is in the right place to do it, but sometimes it isn't" which is even worse than your previous suggestion. ] (]) 02:28, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::No, it says that XfD is preferable to the talk page. For what it's worth, I still think the current wording is best. --] <sup>(])</sup> 02:41, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Ok, being more precise you suggestion says "the preferred venue for doing so is the right deletion venue for doing it, but sometimes the talk page is the right venue for doing it", which is a minor improvement to the status quo, but other suggestions are significantly better still. ] (]) 02:51, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::that seems good enough, should probably specify that it means the blar's ''target'' article's talk page, though. unless that's not what you mean, in which case i'm with thryduulf in this wording being kind of confusing, just not in the way they said '''] <sub>] ]</sub>''' 12:15, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::The appropriate talk page is almost always going to be the talk page of the BLARed page - why would you be discussing the content of article X on the talk page of article Y?. Alerting the talk page of the BLAR's target will sometimes be useful (and rarely (never?) inappropriate). ] (]) 12:30, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::because article x is a redirect, and rfd deals with redirects (like article x). what i usually see in the articles' talk pages are about whether or not to ''blar'' article x '''] <sub>] ]</sub>''' 12:42, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::::In the circumstances we are talking about, article x was an article until someone converted it to a redirect (usually unilaterally) and that redirect has now been objected to. What is being discussed is the article content not the redirect. ] (]) 12:50, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::in nearly all those cases, they're less unilateral and more uncontroversial. no one argues that the blar's content is worth restoring, and the only arguments presented were, as legoktm stated in the list of strogg in quake 2, meta-procedural (as opposed to actually supporting the article's content in any way), and as tavix stated there, incorrect (as nothing states that they ''have'' to be restored and sent to afd). in nearly every case brought up here, opposition to blars before rfd noms has been based on flimsy arguments like "but i put so much effort on it", completely unexplained, or nonexistent. if you really want it restored, you should probably make an argument for the article content ''being worth restoring'', as opposed to pointing to some procedure that at best only provides "restore for afd" as a possible option '''] <sub>] ]</sub>''' 12:58, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
:{{ec}} I support the proposed change. The relevant XfD for the pre-redirect content simply is the most appropriate venue in the majority of cases (AfD for BLARed articles, TfD BLARed templates, etc), RfD is almost never appropriate and even when it is the other XfD is very nearly always equally appropriate. Talk page and/or WikiProject discussion are fine in some situations and shouldn't be excluded, but they are the minority. ] (]) 01:54, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
:on second thought, forget everything i said about my suggestion at ] being a maybe, both discussions have convinced me that naming more than one xfd venue is necessary if any venue is to be named in the first place. the idea that other venues just can't is at best an assumption of incompetence, and at worst an easily avoidable misinterpretation of both the 2018 and 2021 consensus(es) '''] <sub>] ]</sub>''' 12:01, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
::Nothing is saying that editors are incompetent. As repeatedly explained it's about discovery and expectations, so that the relevant editors know that discussions are happening: nobody can be expected to know that article content is being discussed for deletion at RfD because absolutely everything tells them that article content deletion is discussed at AfD and nothing tells them it happens at RfD (because it shouldn't). You also cannot assume (unless they explicitly say so) that an editor commenting on an RfD has assessed the article content behind the redirect against the standards of inclusion for article content, you ''can'' assume that at AfD because that is the entire point of AfD. The point of RfD is to asses the appropriateness of a redirect, and so you can only assume that people have judged the redirect by the standards of redirects (which not relevant to the article content). This is the reason we even have different deletion venues for different types of content - you can expect to find editors who are competent and interested in discussing article content at AfD, you might also find them at RfD but you cannot expect them there. ] (]) 12:40, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
:::But if the article content has been under a redirect, the expectation is that it is to be discussed at RfD because ''that's what it is''. RfD editors know to check the edit history and make an assessment on the appropriateness of any content in its history. There has never been notable article content deleted at RfD, which seems to be your big fear. If there's any editors you feel need to be notified, feel free to do so! --] <sup>(])</sup> 13:13, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
:::oh boy...
:::* no, there's no "absolutely everything" that says that this content has to be taken to afd, the "absolutely everything" in question names afd as an example of a dispute resolution method (see the ol' "such as")
:::* lack of evidence isn't evidence of lack; just because someone doesn't go ahead and say "yeah i looked at the history, there's nothing worth keeping" doesn't mean their "delete per whatever" votes are just done on a whim. it has been stated before that you assuming otherwise borders on bad-faith assumptions. if you really want any form of ambiguity eliminated, i could use a copypasta for it
:::** yes, i know this argument also applies to people not finding sauce right away, but it's not like you can't notify a wikiproject that might have someone experienced in that area
:::* "articleify" is a possible rfd outcome, see ]
:::'''] <sub>] ]</sub>''' 13:19, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
::::We're just going round in circles here. You want article content to be deletable at RfD, I and others have explained why (repeatedly, at length) why that is simply inappropriate for multiple reasons, but you haven't listened then and you aren't listening again. I'll stop wasting my time, perhaps others will have more luck. ] (]) 14:31, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::then i'll go ahead and say it, in the most blunt way possible. i understand what your explanations mean <small>(unless they equate something to prod or csd at random)</small>, and believe that they are not correct in any way, nearly always per what you cite. they have been causing more harm than good, in cluttering nearly every page both of us bump into and doing in months with exhaustive discussion what could be done in a week with comparatively less exhaustive discussion. they have turned consensus(es) from at least 3 years ago into an absolute, undeniable universal constant that requires contradicting existing ] and policy, and inventing and/or bending policies to hold together something that is, in the end, not the answer every single time without exception. your time is far from the only one being wasted here '''] <sub>] ]</sub>''' 14:53, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::The only reason the discussions drag on months is that instead of you and Tavix saying "yep, this needs to go to AfD like everything says it should" you insist that that everything is wrong and that article content can be deleted at AfD because it would be too much effort to do things properly. ] (]) 15:08, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Actually, a look at ] would show at least six editors were in favor of deletion at RfD and Thryduulf was the only one by the end insisting it should be at AfD despite there being no arguments in favor of keeping the article content. Thankfully common sense eventually won out and we got to the correct result in the end, but it was a lot more painful solely because of Thryduulf. --] <sup>(])</sup> 15:27, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::that's not a hill you want to stick around in, see ], ], ], ], and ]. that last one isn't related, i just like it '''] <sub>] ]</sub>''' 16:04, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
::::::::oops, example 4 was wrong, it's supposed to be ] '''] <sub>] ]</sub>''' 16:12, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
:'''Support''' “''' The preferred venue for doing so is ]”'''. ] should be being discussed at AfD, because the discussion is about the deletion of mainspace content, even if old. It should be deleted at AfD as an unsourced neologism that has not endured.
:“although sometimes the dispute may be resolved on the article's talk page” is bloat. It is covered by the word “preferred”. If a reverted blank and redirect is immediately resolved such that the reverter now supports the redirect, XfD is not needed, but rules should be written for resolving real disagreements. AfD is always the preferred venue for disputed deletions and ].
:”Suitable venues … include” is too weak to be meaning advice, when AfD is always best for articles. If the concern is that non-articles are the problem, then mention MfD, but I don’t think this advice is justified.
:RfD is a stupid place, with its extreme excessive pointless relists and wholesale repeated moves of discussion that break watchlisting of the discussion and make it slightly tedious to find the text of the discussion. RfD is obviously now just for wonks, with a high barrier to unencultured newcomers, and this makes it moreso inappropriate for the discussion of deletion of mainspace content. ] (]) 13:50, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
::i'm not gonna opine on the meat of this (again, that is), but did it really have to end on a borderline(?) personal attack? i only know one wonk who frequents rfd, and it's that cogsan guy <small>(he's a real wonk, hate that wonk, the apple saw probably sawed his ] for being such a wonk)</small> '''] <sub>] ]</sub>''' 14:12, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
:::“Wonks” are atypical of the ordinary Wikipedian. There’s newcomer barriers to participating at RfD, worse than AfD. The weird relisting and discussion-moving practice being a strong example.
:::On discovering that ] was an inappropriate redirect, due to not being mentioned at the target, the redirect edit should have been reverted, and ] AfD-ed, or PRODded. ] (]) 18:00, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
== "]" listed at ] ==
]
The redirect <span class="plainlinks"></span> has been listed at ] to determine whether its use and function meets the ]. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at '''{{slink|Misplaced Pages:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 October 12#Deletion policy}}''' until a consensus is reached. <!-- Template:RFDNote --> <span style=white-space:nowrap;>] <span style="background-color:#e6e6fa;padding:2px 5px;border-radius:5px;font-family:Arial black">]</span></span> 20:39, 12 October 2024 (UTC)


== On deleting pages cleanup recommendations ==
== Reliable sources ==


There is a discussion about cleanup requirements for prods that does not appear to be converging. Please consider participating at ]. Thanks! ~] (]) 20:47, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
At present the reason for deletion,
* Articles for which thorough attempts to find <nowiki>]</nowiki> to <nowiki>]</nowiki> them have failed
links to ], which doesn't mention third-party sources. I propose linking it to the core policy page:
* Articles for which thorough attempts to find <nowiki>]</nowiki> to verify them have failed
] (]) 18:58, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
:I'm not sure that I understand what you are proposing. The second link in the current wording is already to our verifiability policy, which is the target of the ] redirect, so the proposed wording would link twice to the same place. I would add that the "third-party"-ness of sources is more a concern of notability guidelines, which are covered by the preceding criterion, than of verifiability policy. ] (]) 20:07, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
::The reliable sources link is more visible, and it's the one that I followed when I encountered this entry. Yes, generally third party sources would be covered in notability guidelines, but not always: By criterion 1 of ], an academic who is a subject of an article can be considered notable if he/she has highly cited publications. However, there are generally not reliable sources for citations (for example, Google Scholar links are not allowed). Then, the keep/delete question boils down to: Is there anything interesting that can be said about that person that is verifiable? Besides, third party sources are an explicit part of the verifiability policy, so it is directly relevant to this criterion for deletion. ] (]) 20:57, 7 November 2012 (UTC)


== Userfication after XfD ==
== Template:No content on page listed at ] ==


Suppose a user creates a template, and while that user is incapacitated, the template is deleted in a TFD with no keep !votes. Suppose further that a WikiProject discussion has subsequently arisen about the need the template was created to meet, and the user would like to have the template restored and userfied so that the community can evaluate whether it would in fact be useful in meeting this need. Under these circumstances, can the template be ] by: (a) the creating user, if that user is an admin, (b) an uninvolved admin, or (c) the deleting admin? Or is a formal DRV necessary, as the current language of ] appears to state? There seems to be a bit of a disconnect between the process page (]) and the policy (]) on this point.{{pb}}(Context: user is me, template is {{tl|Koralt}}, TFD is ]). -- ] (]) 18:36, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
]
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect ]. Since you had some involvement with the ''Template:No content on page'' redirect, you might want to participate in ] (if you have not already done so). <!-- from Template:RFDNote --> ] (]) 02:37, 10 December 2012 (UTC)


:Restored to ] ] ] 19:12, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
== On no no please do not delet best ] ] ] ] while further improve it Sir ...Thanks ==
::PS, the reason for deletion was "Template unused in mainspace and not likely to be used for the foreseeable future". Since somebody wants to use it, that obviously doesn't apply any more. ] ] 19:15, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
::Thank you, much appreciated! I would have thought that was the way of things but the text of ] seems rather unambiguous. Perhaps that particular policy-vs-practice conundrum can be left for later. -- ] (]) 03:26, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
:::It never hurts to ask for a template to be undeleted, especially if the undeletion reason is "so that I can userfy and continue to work on it". I agree with RoySmith as well; if the deletion reason was "unused" or similar and there is now a use case, then it should be sent back to TFD if there are concerns with its new use. ] (]) 16:25, 9 December 2024 (UTC)


== Propose addition of the following best practice to redirection section ==
Oh dear please add Prof Mujeeb Zafar Anwar Hameedi's Photo(image) with the ] ] ] ] Prof Dr Syed ],the greatest ] and senior most ],],] and ] also.
Oh ..Opps...PLease do not delete ] best article from ] ] .PLease further improve this best ].Prof Dr ] is a ] wide most ] ] ] with respect to ] and ].Don't delete his page while you can further improve this ] ] ] article , which has seen by ] people by ].] managers like mostly ] and ] is a ] ] ] ].
O.K
Thanks
--] (]) 03:02, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
:This is more of the deletion policy and we do not address specific articles or decisions here. Your best bet is to make your case at ] which I think you already did. ] <small><sup>]</sup></small> 04:59, 17 December 2012 (UTC)


It currently reads: "A page can be ] if there is a suitable page to redirect to, and if the resulting redirect is not ]. If the change is disputed via a ]...". I propose we mention that in cases of blanking and redirecting, notification of the creator of the article via {{Tl|Uw-blar}} is a recommended best practice (frankly, I think it should be required, but enforcing that would be hard). A similar recommendation to use this template should be added to ]. <sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]&#124;]</sub> 02:17, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
== require notification ==
:I think a recommendation is fine, but notifications aren't even required for AfD. ] (]/]) 02:26, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
::@] Huh, I thought they were. Well, if they aren't, scratch that (although I'd support making them required, if anyone cares to discuss that). <sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]&#124;]</sub> 06:06, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
:@], ] is linked and already lists {{tl|Uw-blar}} and {{tl|Blank and redirect notice}}. Do you think ] needs any improvements? Repeating those procedures here doesn't seem necessary. ~] (]) 15:17, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
::@] I recommend changing the text "Template notices that can be used with this practice:" to "Template notices that are recommended to be used with this practice:" or even more clear "It is best practice to use the following template(s) when doing blank-and-redirecting:" so that people realize this is best practice to use them rather than their use having no value. <sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]&#124;]</sub> 00:57, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::Ok we're talking about ] improvements. I think instead of your tightly-focused proposal we should look at extending improvements to the prior paragraph because that gives justification for adding a talk page notice or template ({{tl|Blank and redirect notice}}) and already talks about best practice. I can work on a proposal. ~] (]) 14:55, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::@] Please do, but do you think my suggested small rewording is not a good idea? <sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]&#124;]</sub> 03:58, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::I think it is arguably an improvement but is not the best we can do. ~] (]) 12:54, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::I have . No other section had a separate list of templates so I incorporated them inline and deleted the list. ~] (]) 15:16, 21 December 2024 (UTC)


== Redirects should be mentioned in target article ==
The deletion policy should be changed to <u>require</u> (as in <u>must</u> be done) the nominator to notify the original creator. <small>()</small> ] <sup>]</sup> 03:52, 30 January 2013 (UTC)


It is my position that when the result of the discussion is to make the article a redirect to another article (with or without merging content from the article to be made into a redirect), that the redirect should be mentioned in the target article (the article being redirected to). For example, if the article is the brand name of a type of an item or drug, then it should redirect to the generic name of the item or drug. It used to be that the most popular term was used, but Wikipedians have really turned away from using brand names, unless it is unavoidable. I do kind of like it, but the generic can be such a pain when it is a medication. The article should be edited so that people know why the term that is now a redirect is a redirect to that article. I do not want to point fingers, so I do not want to mention one of the many examples that brought me here. Therefore, let me use the theoretical example of Advil and ibuprofen (it may have gone through AfD, too, I did not look it up to check that, but I know that Advil is mentioned in the article). Advil is the trade name or brand name of ibuprofen. If two articles started, one under each name and Advil was made a redirect to ibuprofen, then what I would want is for the article to mention that the brand name is Advil. Otherwise, someone who has never heard of ibuprofen or they have heard of it but they do not know that it is the same thing as Advil will be very confused. When the redirect is obvious, like the plural form of a word, this does not need to be done. However, if Advil just redirects to ibuprofen without explaining why, I think that is a problem. (Note: I checked out Advil and ibuprofen after writing this and found that Advil has a separate article, but if the Advil article was a redirect, it would make sense, so I am going to leave it). If you do not want to add to the burden of closers at AfD, that is fine, but when the decision is to redirect, and it is not obvious why the redirect exists, I think that a note on the talk page explaining the situation should be made. There should be a template that says what happened at the AfD and what should be done. That it is now a redirect to the article and it needs to be mentioned in the article. All the closer would have to do is enter the template name and put the name of the redirect in the template on the talk page.
:: That wasn't already a requirement? I suppose not. Hunh. <small><font color = "grey">Signed: </font></small>] <small>(<font color = "grey">write to me </font>])</small> 04:21, 30 January 2013 (UTC)


A cleanup template could be made that is put at the top of articles, listing the redirects that need be be mentioned in the article. After all of the redirects are explained in the article, I think that they should remain as invisible comments at the top of the article so that when the article is edited further, people do not eliminate the parts where the redirects are mentioned. Alternatively, perhaps the redirects could be put in bold or underlined as part of the Manual of Style to indicate that they are redirects, or some other formatting that is not objectionable. More alternatively, there could be some type of new code to indicate that they are redirects when you put your mouse over them.
:I disagree. We should strive to ensure we communicate the importance of notification to people involved in CSD/PROD/AFD, however, there are times where notification is unnecessary and I for one would prefer for it to remain an option (in Twinkle of course, since manual tagging implies the tagger ''has'' to go through the extra notification step). Examples of this would include multiple articles being lumped into a single AFD (which Twinkle cannot handle anyway), PROD endorsements and situations where the editor who created the article is not necessarily the most appropriate notification target because there are more involved editors with significant contributions, and situations where a disruptive editor has created multiple problem articles that are being speedied. If anything I would support an automated solution implemented through MediaWiki (certain tags added to an article would trigger automatic notifications or something), but I'm guessing that would get complicated. As it stands now, not handling notification responsibly is already frowned upon - I don't think it's something that needs to be etched into the policy. <span style="color:red; font-size: smaller; font-weight: bold;">§]</span><sup>]</sup> 04:39, 30 January 2013 (UTC)


In my experience, many redirects were mentioned in the article when the redirects were made, but over time they get deleted. I think that the toughest redirects to keep in an article are when something is not mentioned at the top of the article. If it has a sentence or a paragraph halfway down the article or further, it is trouble. For some redirects, it is the appropriate place to mention the redirect because it is important enough to be mentioned in an encyclopedia, but perhaps not enough for its own article, so it is put in an article that is more generalized. It is definitely going to get deleted over time, unless you put warning comments all over it. There are also many redirects that send you down the page of the article to where the term is mentioned, but those break as soon as the heading of that section is changed in any way, although sometimes the sections are deleted altogether in a rewrite. Instead of relying on the names of sections, perhaps a new wiki code could be made that the first proper mention of the term is put inside of, and the redirect code thing would look for that. I pose these things as simple when they code be incredibly hard to accomplish for the software guys. If any of them is ever reading this, come up with whatever solution you think is best for this situation. It need not involve software, I mean any solution. My non-new software solution would be putting comments around the section name telling people not to change the name of the section without fixing the redirect. Not all solutions can be comments, though, as it would be a mess.
*'''Oppose''' the specific proposal, but '''approve''' of the general idea. In a lot of cases "original creator" doesn't mean much &mdash; it's some guy who put in a two-line stub back in 2005 and hasn't edited in years. Or there's the disruptive-editor scenario mentioned above. But certainly, no one should try to "sneak" an AfD by a major contributor who's still active and in good standing &mdash; that point could maybe be emphasized strongly. --] (]) 04:52, 30 January 2013 (UTC)


I wonder if someone could write a program that would show all of the redirects that do not have mentions in their target articles, with some way of eliminating the easy plurals, like the ones that are identical to the article name, except for the "s" or "es" of the name. Maybe it could be written to only spit out examples where the name and the redirect vary by more than two letters at the end, three letters at the end if the article is composed of five or more letters because of articles that are verbs and redirects that are nouns or vice versa - "ing" endings among others. ] (]) 10:13, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' For similar reasons as mentioned above, while it is always a good idea to notify contributors to an article when it is posted for deletion. It is IMPOSSIBLE to ALWAYS notify the the original creator, at best you can leave a note on the talk page of the account. Additionally unless you notify everyone involved in the article you cross the line of ], the original contributor has no more vestment in the article then any other contributor. Having proposed many articles for deletion, and notified many contributors, I can tell you that most don't care. Many of the contributions are minor procedural edits (one of many). Any one who is vested in an subject can add the article to a watch list, and be made instantly aware when the article is proposed for deletion. ] <small>(AKA, ])</small> 11:37, 30 January 2013 (UTC)


:@] The problem of redirects to disappearing section headings can be avoided by using {{tl|Anchor}}, so that the redirect from Xyz to ABCCCC is to ], where there is an anchor established using <nowiki>{{tl|Anchor|Xyz}}</nowiki>, whether or not there is also a section heading "===Xyz===". Future editors ought to be very wary of deleting the Anchor, even if the section heading is renamed or removed. It's probably best practice to create an anchor whenever one makes a redirect to a section... though I don't usually do so myself. ]] 10:34, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
::Thanks for the comments thus far. Frankly, I don't care what is "frowned upon" or what one should "strive for" or what "would be nice." This is a policy-page, and I care about policy and blockable offenses. ] <sup>]</sup> 11:54, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
:I argued for a similar requirement earlier this year at ] in the specific area of redirects from foreign languages, and was roundly shot down because the subset of editors who have made policing redirects their business have collectively decided that redirects are exempt from sourcing requirements, requiring only the vaguest of conjectures to exist. The notion that a redirect title should be mentioned at its destination is totally anathema. &nbsp;— ] <span style="color:#900">•</span> ] 15:41, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

::I agree that redirects shouldn't require sources. The purpose of a redirect is to help a user find the most relevant article when they type something into a search box. Often, our search engine does that well enough automatically, and a redirect is not needed. But when it doesn't, a curated redirect is better than "There were no results matching the query". The test should not be "Is there a ] which says ''foo'' really means ''bar''", but rather "If somebody typed ''foo'' into a search bar, will sending them to ] be useful?" which is much less restrictive. ] ] 16:39, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
:Are you talking about every form of deletion here? Because, frankly, I would not like to have to notify the creator of an attack page in case of speedy deletion (although even that is done very frequently). ] (]) 12:02, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

*'''Oppose''' this specific proposal. When putting an article up to AfD, you should try and notify ''all'' interested parties, but your definition of "interested" may not match mine, so it can't be enforced. If an article's creator hasn't edited in the past year, I don't bother notifying them about an AfD. But I do notify anyone who's made a substantial change (whether adding or removing, doesn't matter) to it. Notifying on project pages is a good practice as well, if you can determine that the project is still active. In short - don't rely on Twinkle to do your work for you! Come to think of it, if you can't make a reasonable assumption an editor checks their messages at least once a week, an AfD notice is sort of pointless anyway as it won't get acted on - ] being a recent example where the article's creator didn't !vote on the AfD but commented on the ] this week, two months after the AfD closed. ] ] ] 12:10, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

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New users creating articles in talk pages: G8 or draftify?

I am seeing a lot of new users attempt to sidestep restrictions on article creation by putting material in a talk page for a non-existent article. The material is usually too poor to be a useful draft, or violates what Misplaced Pages is not. The pages often do not meet any CSD criteria besides G8, although they might meet article-specific criteria if they had been created in articlespace. When should these talk pages be draftified instead of tagged for deletion? Helpful Raccoon (talk) 20:19, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Isn't that just what G8 is meant for? See Misplaced Pages:Criteria for speedy deletion#G8. Pages dependent on a non-existent or deleted page:"G8. Pages dependent on a non-existent or deleted page: Examples include, but are not limited to: Talk pages with no corresponding subject page ...". Straightforward. PamD 20:43, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
One time someone removed my G8 tag and draftified the page. Draftifying might be useful at least for plausible drafts in talkspace. Helpful Raccoon (talk) 20:52, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
Although, the page that was draftified was essentially an essay. Helpful Raccoon (talk) 20:55, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
Sometimes the page is in good enough shape to be moved to article or draftspace. Otherwise, G8 might apply. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 06:42, 9 August 2024 (UTC)
Agreed; if it's a clear non-starter I'll nuke it with G8. If it looks like it might be worth salvaging I might move it to the Draft space, but I could probably number those with two hands. Primefac (talk) 13:03, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Amending ATD-R

The footnote to ATD-R cites RfCs from 2018 and 2021; in the latter discussion, ost users believe that AfD should be used to settle controversial or contested cases of blanking and redirecting.

In a discussion at WT:R, it was pointed out that the current language of ATD-R presents AfD as merely an option, rather than the preferred venue, for contested BLARs. Thus, I propose rewording ATD-R as follows:

−A page can be ] if there is a suitable page to redirect to, and if the resulting redirect is not ]. If the change is disputed via a ], an attempt should be made to reach a ] before blank-and-redirecting again. Suitable venues for doing so include the article's talk page and ].+A page can be ] if there is a suitable page to redirect to, and if the resulting redirect is not ]. If the change is disputed via a ], an attempt should be made to reach a ] before blank-and-redirecting again. The preferred venue for doing so is ], although sometimes the dispute may be resolved on the article's talk page.

voorts (talk/contributions) 01:26, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

The current wording is better. If the status quo is an article, then AfD is the preferred venue. If the status quo is a redirect, then RfD is the preferred venue. If a template were to be BLAR'd (current example), then TfD would be the preferred venue. -- Tavix 01:31, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
I'd support this; BLAR'd articles are generally low-profile enough that talk page discussions don't usually get sufficient participation to resolve the disagreement. Maybe a more generic reference to deletion discussions would resolve Tavix's concern. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 01:44, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
Substitute "Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion" with "appropriate deletion discussion venue" and I would support. -- Tavix 01:49, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
We should avoid giving the impression (explicitly or implicitly) that RfD is the appropriate deletion venue (because it almost never is). Thryduulf (talk) 01:55, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
RfD is the appropriate venue way more often then you give it credit for. For example, RfD is the appropriate XfD for Grood even though it was BLAR'd back in 2005. -- Tavix 02:02, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
Grood is an example of something that would be better at AfD but is not completely implausible at RfD (the content would be an A7 speedy if it is topically in scope, I haven't checked). The length of time something has been a redirect is not relevant to almost anybody except you - what matters is the pre-BLAR content. Thryduulf (talk) 02:10, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
"The preferred venue for doing so is the appropriate deletion discussion venue" is singularly unhelpful; it's like saying "The preferred venue for doing so is in the right place to do it". The "deletion discussion venue for the page's stable version" gets the idea across, but it's awkward to the point of absurdity. —Cryptic 02:09, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
"The preferred venue for doing so is the appropriate deletion discussion venue for the pre-redirect content" is simple and unambiguous. Thryduulf (talk) 02:11, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
Including "for the pre-redirect content" would have major unintended consequences. RfD would have to reject all redirects that were previously articles, which is further than even you support. Hopefully you can agree than even if you would prefer that Grood be at AfD, it is something that RfD is capable of handling. -- Tavix 02:21, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
We're talking about the preferred venue for the majority of cases, not the only venue for all cases. RfD should reject the majority of undiscussed BLARs brought there, but that doesn't mean it has to reject all nominations of undiscussed BLARs and it definitely doesn't mean sending them to RfD in the first place should be encouraged. Thryduulf (talk) 02:27, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
How about "In most cases, the preferred venue for doing so is the deletion discussion venue appropriate to the pre-redirect content, although a discussion on the talk page (or at an appropriate WikiProject) can sometimes resolve the disagreement, especially if the redirection is recent. Exceptionally, for example if the pre-redirect content would be subject to speedy deletion if restored, it can be nominated at RfD." Covers all the bases with appropriate weighting, but it is a lot more complicated and I'm not sure that either the parenthetical or second sentence are necessary. Thryduulf (talk) 02:34, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
RfD should be the preferred venue for pages like Grood. Redirects that contain article content from Misplaced Pages's wild west days constitute the vast majority of BLAR's that get sent to RfD, and they're usually the ones that get uncontroversially deleted. It's silly to restore article content from a long-standing redirect just because it was an article for a couple months back in 2005 that was redirected without any fuss. -- Tavix 02:39, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
We've already established that Grood is one of the exceptions. It can't be both an exception and an example of the vast majority. Once again, the age of the content is irrelevant. Thryduulf (talk) 02:45, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
No, Grood is not "one of the exceptions". My point is that standards for articles were much different in Misplaced Pages's early days than it is now. As Misplaced Pages's standards increased, the easiest way to handle them was to BLAR them and that's usually the kind of redirects that get nominated at RfD with with article content in their histories. -- Tavix 02:53, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
what
who is "we" here? cogsan (nag me) (stalk me) 12:02, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
"we" = the people in this discussion. The reason Groot is one of the exceptions is that the content would be speedily deletable if restored, that is not the case for the majority of content that is BLARed. Thryduulf (talk) 12:27, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
How about: "The appropriate deletion discussion venue is preferable, though sometimes the dispute may be resolved on the article's talk page." -- Tavix 02:26, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
That's saying "The preferred venue for doing so is in the right place to do it, but sometimes it isn't" which is even worse than your previous suggestion. Thryduulf (talk) 02:28, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
No, it says that XfD is preferable to the talk page. For what it's worth, I still think the current wording is best. -- Tavix 02:41, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
Ok, being more precise you suggestion says "the preferred venue for doing so is the right deletion venue for doing it, but sometimes the talk page is the right venue for doing it", which is a minor improvement to the status quo, but other suggestions are significantly better still. Thryduulf (talk) 02:51, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
that seems good enough, should probably specify that it means the blar's target article's talk page, though. unless that's not what you mean, in which case i'm with thryduulf in this wording being kind of confusing, just not in the way they said cogsan (nag me) (stalk me) 12:15, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
The appropriate talk page is almost always going to be the talk page of the BLARed page - why would you be discussing the content of article X on the talk page of article Y?. Alerting the talk page of the BLAR's target will sometimes be useful (and rarely (never?) inappropriate). Thryduulf (talk) 12:30, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
because article x is a redirect, and rfd deals with redirects (like article x). what i usually see in the articles' talk pages are about whether or not to blar article x cogsan (nag me) (stalk me) 12:42, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
In the circumstances we are talking about, article x was an article until someone converted it to a redirect (usually unilaterally) and that redirect has now been objected to. What is being discussed is the article content not the redirect. Thryduulf (talk) 12:50, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
in nearly all those cases, they're less unilateral and more uncontroversial. no one argues that the blar's content is worth restoring, and the only arguments presented were, as legoktm stated in the list of strogg in quake 2, meta-procedural (as opposed to actually supporting the article's content in any way), and as tavix stated there, incorrect (as nothing states that they have to be restored and sent to afd). in nearly every case brought up here, opposition to blars before rfd noms has been based on flimsy arguments like "but i put so much effort on it", completely unexplained, or nonexistent. if you really want it restored, you should probably make an argument for the article content being worth restoring, as opposed to pointing to some procedure that at best only provides "restore for afd" as a possible option cogsan (nag me) (stalk me) 12:58, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I support the proposed change. The relevant XfD for the pre-redirect content simply is the most appropriate venue in the majority of cases (AfD for BLARed articles, TfD BLARed templates, etc), RfD is almost never appropriate and even when it is the other XfD is very nearly always equally appropriate. Talk page and/or WikiProject discussion are fine in some situations and shouldn't be excluded, but they are the minority. Thryduulf (talk) 01:54, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
on second thought, forget everything i said about my suggestion at wikipedia talk:redirect being a maybe, both discussions have convinced me that naming more than one xfd venue is necessary if any venue is to be named in the first place. the idea that other venues just can't is at best an assumption of incompetence, and at worst an easily avoidable misinterpretation of both the 2018 and 2021 consensus(es) cogsan (nag me) (stalk me) 12:01, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
Nothing is saying that editors are incompetent. As repeatedly explained it's about discovery and expectations, so that the relevant editors know that discussions are happening: nobody can be expected to know that article content is being discussed for deletion at RfD because absolutely everything tells them that article content deletion is discussed at AfD and nothing tells them it happens at RfD (because it shouldn't). You also cannot assume (unless they explicitly say so) that an editor commenting on an RfD has assessed the article content behind the redirect against the standards of inclusion for article content, you can assume that at AfD because that is the entire point of AfD. The point of RfD is to asses the appropriateness of a redirect, and so you can only assume that people have judged the redirect by the standards of redirects (which not relevant to the article content). This is the reason we even have different deletion venues for different types of content - you can expect to find editors who are competent and interested in discussing article content at AfD, you might also find them at RfD but you cannot expect them there. Thryduulf (talk) 12:40, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
But if the article content has been under a redirect, the expectation is that it is to be discussed at RfD because that's what it is. RfD editors know to check the edit history and make an assessment on the appropriateness of any content in its history. There has never been notable article content deleted at RfD, which seems to be your big fear. If there's any editors you feel need to be notified, feel free to do so! -- Tavix 13:13, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
oh boy...
  • no, there's no "absolutely everything" that says that this content has to be taken to afd, the "absolutely everything" in question names afd as an example of a dispute resolution method (see the ol' "such as")
  • lack of evidence isn't evidence of lack; just because someone doesn't go ahead and say "yeah i looked at the history, there's nothing worth keeping" doesn't mean their "delete per whatever" votes are just done on a whim. it has been stated before that you assuming otherwise borders on bad-faith assumptions. if you really want any form of ambiguity eliminated, i could use a copypasta for it
    • yes, i know this argument also applies to people not finding sauce right away, but it's not like you can't notify a wikiproject that might have someone experienced in that area
  • "articleify" is a possible rfd outcome, see yars rising
cogsan (nag me) (stalk me) 13:19, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
We're just going round in circles here. You want article content to be deletable at RfD, I and others have explained why (repeatedly, at length) why that is simply inappropriate for multiple reasons, but you haven't listened then and you aren't listening again. I'll stop wasting my time, perhaps others will have more luck. Thryduulf (talk) 14:31, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
then i'll go ahead and say it, in the most blunt way possible. i understand what your explanations mean (unless they equate something to prod or csd at random), and believe that they are not correct in any way, nearly always per what you cite. they have been causing more harm than good, in cluttering nearly every page both of us bump into and doing in months with exhaustive discussion what could be done in a week with comparatively less exhaustive discussion. they have turned consensus(es) from at least 3 years ago into an absolute, undeniable universal constant that requires contradicting existing precedent and policy, and inventing and/or bending policies to hold together something that is, in the end, not the answer every single time without exception. your time is far from the only one being wasted here cogsan (nag me) (stalk me) 14:53, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
The only reason the discussions drag on months is that instead of you and Tavix saying "yep, this needs to go to AfD like everything says it should" you insist that that everything is wrong and that article content can be deleted at AfD because it would be too much effort to do things properly. Thryduulf (talk) 15:08, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
Actually, a look at that discussion would show at least six editors were in favor of deletion at RfD and Thryduulf was the only one by the end insisting it should be at AfD despite there being no arguments in favor of keeping the article content. Thankfully common sense eventually won out and we got to the correct result in the end, but it was a lot more painful solely because of Thryduulf. -- Tavix 15:27, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
that's not a hill you want to stick around in, see this, this, this, this, and this. that last one isn't related, i just like it cogsan (nag me) (stalk me) 16:04, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
oops, example 4 was wrong, it's supposed to be this cogsan (nag me) (stalk me) 16:12, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
Support “ The preferred venue for doing so is Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion”. Grood should be being discussed at AfD, because the discussion is about the deletion of mainspace content, even if old. It should be deleted at AfD as an unsourced neologism that has not endured.
“although sometimes the dispute may be resolved on the article's talk page” is bloat. It is covered by the word “preferred”. If a reverted blank and redirect is immediately resolved such that the reverter now supports the redirect, XfD is not needed, but rules should be written for resolving real disagreements. AfD is always the preferred venue for disputed deletions and pseudo deletions.
”Suitable venues … include” is too weak to be meaning advice, when AfD is always best for articles. If the concern is that non-articles are the problem, then mention MfD, but I don’t think this advice is justified.
RfD is a stupid place, with its extreme excessive pointless relists and wholesale repeated moves of discussion that break watchlisting of the discussion and make it slightly tedious to find the text of the discussion. RfD is obviously now just for wonks, with a high barrier to unencultured newcomers, and this makes it moreso inappropriate for the discussion of deletion of mainspace content. SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:50, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
i'm not gonna opine on the meat of this (again, that is), but did it really have to end on a borderline(?) personal attack? i only know one wonk who frequents rfd, and it's that cogsan guy (he's a real wonk, hate that wonk, the apple saw probably sawed his apple for being such a wonk) cogsan (nag me) (stalk me) 14:12, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
“Wonks” are atypical of the ordinary Wikipedian. There’s newcomer barriers to participating at RfD, worse than AfD. The weird relisting and discussion-moving practice being a strong example.
On discovering that grood was an inappropriate redirect, due to not being mentioned at the target, the redirect edit should have been reverted, and grood AfD-ed, or PRODded. SmokeyJoe (talk) 18:00, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

"Deletion policy" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Deletion policy has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Misplaced Pages:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 October 12 § Deletion policy until a consensus is reached. C F A 💬 20:39, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

On deleting pages cleanup recommendations

There is a discussion about cleanup requirements for prods that does not appear to be converging. Please consider participating at Wikipedia_talk:Proposed_deletion#Quick_cleanup. Thanks! ~Kvng (talk) 20:47, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Userfication after XfD

Suppose a user creates a template, and while that user is incapacitated, the template is deleted in a TFD with no keep !votes. Suppose further that a WikiProject discussion has subsequently arisen about the need the template was created to meet, and the user would like to have the template restored and userfied so that the community can evaluate whether it would in fact be useful in meeting this need. Under these circumstances, can the template be userfied by: (a) the creating user, if that user is an admin, (b) an uninvolved admin, or (c) the deleting admin? Or is a formal DRV necessary, as the current language of WP:UDP appears to state? There seems to be a bit of a disconnect between the process page (WP:DRVPURPOSE) and the policy (WP:UDP) on this point.

(Context: user is me, template is {{Koralt}}, TFD is here). -- Visviva (talk) 18:36, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Restored to User:Visviva/Koralt RoySmith (talk) 19:12, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
PS, the reason for deletion was "Template unused in mainspace and not likely to be used for the foreseeable future". Since somebody wants to use it, that obviously doesn't apply any more. RoySmith (talk) 19:15, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
Thank you, much appreciated! I would have thought that was the way of things but the text of WP:UDP seems rather unambiguous. Perhaps that particular policy-vs-practice conundrum can be left for later. -- Visviva (talk) 03:26, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
It never hurts to ask for a template to be undeleted, especially if the undeletion reason is "so that I can userfy and continue to work on it". I agree with RoySmith as well; if the deletion reason was "unused" or similar and there is now a use case, then it should be sent back to TFD if there are concerns with its new use. Primefac (talk) 16:25, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Propose addition of the following best practice to redirection section

It currently reads: "A page can be blanked and redirected if there is a suitable page to redirect to, and if the resulting redirect is not inappropriate. If the change is disputed via a reversion...". I propose we mention that in cases of blanking and redirecting, notification of the creator of the article via {{Uw-blar}} is a recommended best practice (frankly, I think it should be required, but enforcing that would be hard). A similar recommendation to use this template should be added to WP:BLANKANDREDIRECT. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:17, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

I think a recommendation is fine, but notifications aren't even required for AfD. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:26, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
@Voorts Huh, I thought they were. Well, if they aren't, scratch that (although I'd support making them required, if anyone cares to discuss that). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:06, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
@Piotrus, WP:BLANKANDREDIRECT is linked and already lists {{Uw-blar}} and {{Blank and redirect notice}}. Do you think WP:BLANKANDREDIRECT needs any improvements? Repeating those procedures here doesn't seem necessary. ~Kvng (talk) 15:17, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
@Kvng I recommend changing the text "Template notices that can be used with this practice:" to "Template notices that are recommended to be used with this practice:" or even more clear "It is best practice to use the following template(s) when doing blank-and-redirecting:" so that people realize this is best practice to use them rather than their use having no value. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 00:57, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
Ok we're talking about WP:BLANKANDREDIRECT improvements. I think instead of your tightly-focused proposal we should look at extending improvements to the prior paragraph because that gives justification for adding a talk page notice or template ({{Blank and redirect notice}}) and already talks about best practice. I can work on a proposal. ~Kvng (talk) 14:55, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
@Kvng Please do, but do you think my suggested small rewording is not a good idea? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:58, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
I think it is arguably an improvement but is not the best we can do. ~Kvng (talk) 12:54, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
I have made improvements. No other section had a separate list of templates so I incorporated them inline and deleted the list. ~Kvng (talk) 15:16, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Redirects should be mentioned in target article

It is my position that when the result of the discussion is to make the article a redirect to another article (with or without merging content from the article to be made into a redirect), that the redirect should be mentioned in the target article (the article being redirected to). For example, if the article is the brand name of a type of an item or drug, then it should redirect to the generic name of the item or drug. It used to be that the most popular term was used, but Wikipedians have really turned away from using brand names, unless it is unavoidable. I do kind of like it, but the generic can be such a pain when it is a medication. The article should be edited so that people know why the term that is now a redirect is a redirect to that article. I do not want to point fingers, so I do not want to mention one of the many examples that brought me here. Therefore, let me use the theoretical example of Advil and ibuprofen (it may have gone through AfD, too, I did not look it up to check that, but I know that Advil is mentioned in the article). Advil is the trade name or brand name of ibuprofen. If two articles started, one under each name and Advil was made a redirect to ibuprofen, then what I would want is for the article to mention that the brand name is Advil. Otherwise, someone who has never heard of ibuprofen or they have heard of it but they do not know that it is the same thing as Advil will be very confused. When the redirect is obvious, like the plural form of a word, this does not need to be done. However, if Advil just redirects to ibuprofen without explaining why, I think that is a problem. (Note: I checked out Advil and ibuprofen after writing this and found that Advil has a separate article, but if the Advil article was a redirect, it would make sense, so I am going to leave it). If you do not want to add to the burden of closers at AfD, that is fine, but when the decision is to redirect, and it is not obvious why the redirect exists, I think that a note on the talk page explaining the situation should be made. There should be a template that says what happened at the AfD and what should be done. That it is now a redirect to the article and it needs to be mentioned in the article. All the closer would have to do is enter the template name and put the name of the redirect in the template on the talk page.

A cleanup template could be made that is put at the top of articles, listing the redirects that need be be mentioned in the article. After all of the redirects are explained in the article, I think that they should remain as invisible comments at the top of the article so that when the article is edited further, people do not eliminate the parts where the redirects are mentioned. Alternatively, perhaps the redirects could be put in bold or underlined as part of the Manual of Style to indicate that they are redirects, or some other formatting that is not objectionable. More alternatively, there could be some type of new code to indicate that they are redirects when you put your mouse over them.

In my experience, many redirects were mentioned in the article when the redirects were made, but over time they get deleted. I think that the toughest redirects to keep in an article are when something is not mentioned at the top of the article. If it has a sentence or a paragraph halfway down the article or further, it is trouble. For some redirects, it is the appropriate place to mention the redirect because it is important enough to be mentioned in an encyclopedia, but perhaps not enough for its own article, so it is put in an article that is more generalized. It is definitely going to get deleted over time, unless you put warning comments all over it. There are also many redirects that send you down the page of the article to where the term is mentioned, but those break as soon as the heading of that section is changed in any way, although sometimes the sections are deleted altogether in a rewrite. Instead of relying on the names of sections, perhaps a new wiki code could be made that the first proper mention of the term is put inside of, and the redirect code thing would look for that. I pose these things as simple when they code be incredibly hard to accomplish for the software guys. If any of them is ever reading this, come up with whatever solution you think is best for this situation. It need not involve software, I mean any solution. My non-new software solution would be putting comments around the section name telling people not to change the name of the section without fixing the redirect. Not all solutions can be comments, though, as it would be a mess.

I wonder if someone could write a program that would show all of the redirects that do not have mentions in their target articles, with some way of eliminating the easy plurals, like the ones that are identical to the article name, except for the "s" or "es" of the name. Maybe it could be written to only spit out examples where the name and the redirect vary by more than two letters at the end, three letters at the end if the article is composed of five or more letters because of articles that are verbs and redirects that are nouns or vice versa - "ing" endings among others. Kjkolb (talk) 10:13, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

@Kjkolb The problem of redirects to disappearing section headings can be avoided by using {{Anchor}}, so that the redirect from Xyz to ABCCCC is to ABCCCC#Xyz, where there is an anchor established using {{tl|Anchor|Xyz}}, whether or not there is also a section heading "===Xyz===". Future editors ought to be very wary of deleting the Anchor, even if the section heading is renamed or removed. It's probably best practice to create an anchor whenever one makes a redirect to a section... though I don't usually do so myself. PamD 10:34, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
I argued for a similar requirement earlier this year at Misplaced Pages:Proposal to revise CSD R3 in the specific area of redirects from foreign languages, and was roundly shot down because the subset of editors who have made policing redirects their business have collectively decided that redirects are exempt from sourcing requirements, requiring only the vaguest of conjectures to exist. The notion that a redirect title should be mentioned at its destination is totally anathema.  — Hex • talk 15:41, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
I agree that redirects shouldn't require sources. The purpose of a redirect is to help a user find the most relevant article when they type something into a search box. Often, our search engine does that well enough automatically, and a redirect is not needed. But when it doesn't, a curated redirect is better than "There were no results matching the query". The test should not be "Is there a WP:RS which says foo really means bar", but rather "If somebody typed foo into a search bar, will sending them to bar be useful?" which is much less restrictive. RoySmith (talk) 16:39, 29 December 2024 (UTC)