Old discussion archived at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal/Archive.

Please read it. I'm sorry if this turned out longer than intended, but a lot of people came with a lot of suitable ideas, and several of the more unfeasible ones have already been removed. Take your time, it's open for two weeks so you can vote on one proposal daily if you want, giving you plenty of time to consider it. Thanks for the bandwidth :) Radiant_>|< July 4, 2005 15:14 (UTC)

The missing proposal[edit]

I realized that one proposal was missing for a frequently VFD'ed type of article, and that would be neologisms. Only I can't think of a feasible way to word that since it's often impossible to tell from an article (other than for an expert) whether it's a neologism or a jargon term. Radiant_>|< July 4, 2005 21:29 (UTC)

Hmm... It's a good point. I have noticed that many neologisms cite their "inventor." (Making it basically vanity, "unremarkable words?"). Take a look a Strangiety. I don't know if this could be incorporated into a new criterion, but it seems to be a good bet that if it's either coined by a nonnotable person or within the last few years (if either are given) and it's not in any dictionary, it's a neologism. --Dmcdevit 4 July 2005 23:17 (UTC)
Unfortunately, you then need to determine notability of the inventor. We obviously don't want to delete Positronic brain. But there are a large number of people who's notability falls somewhere between Isaac Asimov and some guy the editor went to college with. I'm not sure that this can be reasonably achieved. Perhaps, instead, it could be based on the number of people who use the term? Often these articles state something like "It is used by everyone in his dorm.". If the article states that a very small number of people use the term, it could be elligible for speedy deletion. Pburka 4 July 2005 23:58 (UTC)

Conditional voting?[edit]

By the way, though I haven't seen anyone do it yet, I'd say conditional voting is perfectly fine for a large proposal as this (e.g. "I support #5 iff #8 passes and #3 fails"). I promise to sort out any such votes if the need arises (though I doubt they'd get that complex :) ). Radiant_>|< July 4, 2005 21:29 (UTC)

It seems there will be some (at least some of mine, and I think there are others) votes that are conditional on the test run passing, ie, weak or cautious support. In the unlikely event the test run does not pass, (or any other conditional votes arise), I would say these votes would just be disregarded, and not become opposes or anything like that. --Dmcdevit 5 July 2005 00:00 (UTC)

This is a symptom of a badly-prepared proposal vote. -- Netoholic @ 5 July 2005 00:30 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea, DMC. I'm sure Wikipedians understand elementary logic anyway :) (technically this could lead to some circular voting but we'll deal with that in the unlikely case that it appears). Radiant_>|< July 5, 2005 07:51 (UTC)

Tampering with the voting while in progress[edit]

User:Radiant! made several changes to the proposals after the voting has begun, in contrast to the the instruction at the top of the page - "Please do not change the wording of this page.". He also, in at least one vote, has striked out almost all the votes.

I find this, and his subsequent revert warring, in extremely poor form. I have suggested already to him that he should simply wait for the voting to conclude, and then fix whatever went wrong here. We cannot expect voters to judge a "moving target".

I ask that others agree, and restore this vote to the version it was at the start of voting. Of course, spelling corrections are fine, but rewording the CSD proposals and additions of creative "bolding" or examples should be left out, since those are being used by the proposers. -- Netoholic @ 5 July 2005 09:04 (UTC)

I am voting to oppose all proposed changes in policy until this is irrevocably fixed. Any policy changes made in light of such a tainted election cannot be seem as legitimate. If serious measures are not taken to stop User:Radiant!'s tampering, I will be the first of three voters to request the revote one month later on that grounds alone. — Phil Welch 5 July 2005 10:22 (UTC)

Maybe you should have gotten everything together before the vote started, just like any other organization that takes itself seriously. — Phil Welch 5 July 2005 10:50 (UTC)


(copied from Philwelch's talk page since it's relevant here Radiant_>|< July 5, 2005 12:04 (UTC))

No, you don't understand the principle. Wikipedia is a world-class organization that has to take itself seriously here, and any properly-run election that takes itself seriously does not change the wording of what is being voted on during the middle of a vote. You screwed it up. — Phil Welch 5 July 2005 10:39 (UTC)

Is this a vote?[edit]

Are we actually having a vote? I'd no idea. I thought we were still discussing the proposals and airing several objections. I haven't seen my objections satisfied. This doesn't mean we can't have a vote until I change my mind, of course, but I am just a little surprised. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 5 July 2005 14:20 (UTC)

Comment by Tony Sidaway: VfD isn't broken, why try to fix it?[edit]

I accidentally posted this in the archive yesterday

I think it's been over two weeks at least since I commented on this. I still see what I regard as utterly absurd presumptions being made:

I think you've hit the nail on the head, though it might be a different nail than you aimed for. Given that 1) a sizeable majority of articles nominated for deletion are deleted, 2) many of those articles are deleted based on unanimous votes, 3) Votes for Undeletion receives very little traffic (less than one article per day), it suggests that we're putting an inordinate amount of effort into processing bad articles. VfD requires a significant amount of work from the nominator, voters, and admins, and perhaps that effort would be better spent elsewhere on this project.
In other words, these proposals might allow participants in VfD to spend more time considering (or improving!) the borderline cases. If the occasional poorly-written stub on a worthy topic is deleted, I might even be so bold as suggest that it's no big loss. It takes our editors less time to write a good stub than to VfD nominate, argue, and close without consensus.
It should also be noted that our admins can and will use their judgement—even if an article happens to meet a criterion for speedy deletion, deletion is not mandatory. --TenOfAllTrades(talk) 5 July 2005 17:51 (UTC)

"Abuse"?[edit]

I don't understand the point of making the rules this strict. As far as I remember, speedy deletion rules have been bent by the admins. — Bcat (talk | email) 5 July 2005 14:43 (UTC)

Since there is some argument on how and how far they should be bent (see WP:VFU for examples), it may be useful to formalize valid ways of bending (e.g. prop 10 and 11), and prohibiting others (e.g. prop 1). Additionally, most parts of this proposal will (if passed) make certain articles speedily deletable that presently aren't - specifically, groups of articles that regularly appear on VFD and always get strong consensus to delete. The most difficult part was coming up with a suitable wording that wouldn't allow for valid content to be deleted. HTH! Radiant_>|< July 5, 2005 14:55 (UTC)
I agree with you for the most part. However, I don't think admins who bend the rules and delete a page in good faith should be penalized, as this proposal suggests. After all, what is Votes for undeletion for? — Bcat (talk | email) 5 July 2005 15:03 (UTC)
Penalizing would be rather harsh. However, censuring (as in, clearly telling them to change their ways, if they are responsible for a significant number of improper deletes) would not be bad. However, I have looked over the deletion log and VFU and found exceedingly few improper deletes, so I doubt this'd become a large issue. Radiant_>|< July 5, 2005 15:15 (UTC)
OK, I misunderstood that section. I just think we need less "follow this exactly" and more "use common sense". — Bcat (talk | email) 5 July 2005 16:01 (UTC)


I really strongly question this claim that we can reliably characterize articles that come up for discussion and always make deletion, except trivial cases like the age limit, which would be learned by trolls and circumvented. I just don't see it. I've seen some very famous people listed for deletion as "not notable" and "vanity", and these articles should never on any account be made speedy material. One person cannot be expected to know everything. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 5 July 2005 17:39 (UTC)

On the other hand, if it's not possible to determine if or why a person is notable based on our article, is the article useful for anything anyway? At least a redlink will let someone else know that a decent stub is needed.... --TenOfAllTrades(talk) 5 July 2005 17:55 (UTC)

An article that says "Charlie Hurley was born in 1936 and played centre-back" wouldn't tell you that Charlie Hurley was a first class player and a member of the Irish international squad, played for Sunderland, was voted their Player of the Century on their centennial, and went on to manage Reading F.C.. But it still contains useful information and a started for someone who might not even have thought of writing a piece on Hurley. There is more to a person than what someone else might consider "notable". We've seen heads of Fortune 500 companies listed for deletion because someone thought they were not notable. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 5 July 2005 18:33 (UTC)

Quite true. (On the other hand, Charlie Hurley's article may not be the best example—it actually started off with information supporting his importance.)
I think it's important to remember that criteria for deletion are circumstances where deletion is permitted—not required. Further, while any editor can tag an article for speedy, only an admin can actually carry out the deletion. Most of our admins actually show reasonably good judgement, and might be trusted to use Google on those borderline cases.
Perhaps I am mistaken in my judgement about our admins. I haven't been following VfD for the last little while. If we were to assume that admins will in future exercise no more restraint in speedy deletion than in making nominations for deletion, we might estimate an upper bound on the collateral damage associated with these proposals. Are there many examples of recent VfD nominations that
  1. were made by admins,
  2. qualify for speedy deletion under the proposed new criteria, and
  3. ultimately were not deleted?
Such articles would be the babies that go out with the bathwater; does anyone have such examples from which we might then demonstrate a nonzero baby:bathwater ratio? --TenOfAllTrades(talk) 5 July 2005 19:29 (UTC)

Tail wags the dog[edit]

The fundamental reason that 24 votes have been thrown upon us all of a sudden (this proposal may have existed for weeks, but it was poorly linked, so for most of us it was all of a sudden) is because "vfd is too busy".

We should not let the tail wag the dog
If vfd is too busy, we should change vfd. Make it topic-specific, let the musicians decide on those dodgy bands, the scientists decide on the crank science. Something to de-centralize the decision-making progress off one central point.
Instead these proposals propose to shift ever more power to admins, asking them to make judgements on ill-defined notions of notability and importance in areas way out of their domain of expertise. This is the recipe for chucking out good content just because we want to make vfd smaller.
Wikipedia becoming more popular should not force us to sacrifice our principles of openness and flat hierachy. We just need a little imagination.
Vote no to these proposals.
Pcb21| Pete 5 July 2005 20:33 (UTC)
I wasn't suggesting it was novel. Having VfD (vanity), VfD (unremarkable websites), VfD (advertising) <-- Not a reason for deletion btw, despite the inbuilt biases of the community, VfD (places), would be better than this. Pcb21| Pete 5 July 2005 21:56 (UTC)
You said above "let the musicians decide on those dodgy bands, the scientists decide on the crank science". Radiant pointed out that VfD really gets mainly vanity, websites, advertising, bands, places, and high schools. You then suggested they be divided on these topics - but most of these topics don't imply obvious knowledgeable constituencies - what is the natural constituency for vanity, or places, or advertising?
You seem to misunderstand these proposals - they are meant to limit the use of speedie deletion to articles which are already being deleted, rather than the case now where the criteria are vague(such as G1), and don't cover articles that have a consenus to delete, thereby encouraging admins to bend the rules because they don't match the reality.
And claims of poor linking seem odd, considering that Whatlinkshere includes Wikipedia:Announcements, Wikipedia:Current surveys, Wikipedia:Deletion policy, Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion, Wikipedia:Requests for comment, Wikipedia:Categories for deletion, Wikipedia:Templates for deletion, Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), Wikipedia:Votes for deletion, Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous), Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard, and Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Reducing VfD load. It was not listed on Wikipedia:Goings-on, is that what you were refering to? (Note that I didn't check when this page was added to those pages - if it was added to most of them after voting started, I would agree it was previously "poorly linked".) JesseW 6 July 2005 07:42 (UTC)
I think those links were added when the voting started. Pcb21| Pete 6 July 2005 08:43 (UTC)

Objections to Shotgun Voting[edit]

1. It's a mass vote. Too many items to vote on forces users to move from one item to the next without any real time for consideration and deliberation. Shotgun style approaches to changing policies are about as messy as a shotgun blast. Have a look at a few of the voter's contibutions and you'll see that the delay between votes is minimal in almost all cases. (Yes, some users, like myself, have all the votes open in tabs for consideration before voting on any of them, but I feel certain that some users have just rushed through the process to get their opinions in before they ended up so far down the list that fewer people read their included comments.)
2. It's a vote and not a poll. Polls determine where consensus already lies, votes force the community to decide a result. This should have been presented in the first round as a poll.
3. It isn't very deliberative, nor cautious of the end result. Because so many proposals are floated at the same time, no one could possibly guess what policy we'll end with. Haphazard assembly of policy would be like putting an article together paragraph by paragraph, forming each by this process:
1. Present several alternate starting sentences.
2. Present several alternate middle sentences.
3. Present several alternate ending sentences.
4. Vote on all.
The end result would be a disjointed assembly of ideas, not a coherent, thoughtful article. I think it is clear that this would be an unacceptable method for creating an article; likewise I think it is an unacceptable method for forming Wikipedia policy.
These are the reasons that I find this entire mass voting to change policy highly objectionable. Unfocused 7 July 2005 14:27 (UTC)

There is nothing about the above that I disagree with. -- Netoholic @ 7 July 2005 16:52 (UTC)

Nor do I disagree in principle. But what is your proposed alternative process? (The only actionable proposal I see is a recommendation to change the wording from "vote" to "poll" - which I doubt will really resolve your core concerns.) Previous attempts to update the CSD cases using other means have been instantly reverted. Anyone being bold gets a nasty comment about "changes made without discussion". Attempts to start a discussion on the CSD Talk page get largely ignored. This is imperfect but it seems to be the only way that the community will allow anything more than the most minor of wording changes to the cases. What process do you recommend? Rossami (talk) 7 July 2005 17:26 (UTC)

My general advice... "Go slowly". Wikipedia is not in a state of emergency. Even a cursory look at the proposals ahead of time would have shown they had no chance of success. It was a waste of time to blast them all out - it is like trowing a bucketfull of s**t at the wall and seeing what sticks.
As for this proposal series, I move we immediately close every proposal which has greater than 1/2 opposing, because there is no chance in hell those are passing, so why waste the time. I suggest adding no more proposals to the convoluted mess.
People, we need to learn from the past. Most of the proponents of the policies are newbies who weren't around for ALL the previous discussions. They keep re-hashing the same ideas. Expanding CSD will NOT help lessen the load of VfD in any constructive way. Think of other solutions. Hell, one right of the cuff would be to turn of anonymous IP editing. In addition to helping stem vandalism, about 1/2 of all VfD candidates were created by IP users. Does anyone really believe that in this day and age Wikipedia needs anon contributions? -- Netoholic @ 7 July 2005 17:36 (UTC)
Is there any reason, over six weeks of discussion, that we couldn't have seen each of these brought forward one or two at a time? Minor, incremental changes to policy are the best because they don't discard the value of experience, and they allow the new shifts of policy to be fully integrated into the ideas that already exist. Weren't there any proposed changes made that already appeared to have consensus in the debate? Shouldn't someone propose a point or two as already has consensus to see if there is general agreement?
What we're actually voting on now is for near-random replacement of portions of policy without considering the possibility of interrelation, or the possibility of condensing several of these into more general, and theremore exponentially more useful, cases. This has the appearance of the primary vote author throwing a bunch of stuff against the wall to see what sticks. It is not mature, reasoned policy development. Just as we wouldn't vote line by line on article replacements, we shouldn't do this for policy. It is both aimless and a bit reckless to attempt to address everything all at once.
Populism won't tell you this, but Don't vote on everything and polls are evil. These are especially appropriate and express the anti-wikiness of a mass vote such as in progress now. Unfocused 7 July 2005 17:51 (UTC)
I need to add that I don't fault Radiant! or those who helped assemble this mass vote at all for putting this forth. I don't think that there has been precedent for such a procedure, and he obviously was doing what he thought was best at the time. I only hope that this sort of policy mass-vote never comes up again. Unfocused 7 July 2005 17:53 (UTC)

New proposal P1[edit]

User:Tony Sidaway added proposal P! to deal with the issue of articels that fail to assert notability, but are in fact about notable subjects. This proposal adds a waiting period and a new category to alert people to the impendign deletion of such articles.

User:Netoholic citing This proposal is open for voting, as described below. Voting will close on July 19, 2005 15:11 (UTC). Please do not change the wording of this page. reverted the additiom of thsi proposal.

I think the above wording is intended to prevent changing the text of a proposal in mid-vote, but not adding new proposals to a multi-proposal package such as this. Proposals 3-B, 3-C and Z have already been added to thsi package after the vote opened, and no one reverted thsoe additions. I propose to revert User:Netoholic's revert, but I wanted to explain here what I was doign and why, first. DES 7 July 2005 15:26 (UTC)

I moved this whole proposal to Wikipedia:Countdown deletion/Revised proposal. The proponents even admit it has nothing to do with speedy deletion, and there is still a LOT of work needed on it. -- Netoholic @ 7 July 2005 20:23 (UTC)


Vote closure[edit]

I've closed this vote. It started off wrong, and only got worse, with wording changes being made after voting and additions of new convoluted proposals. The format is a mess, and we cannot trust any result.

I do think there is enough feedback gathered already to make some progress. The really bad ideas failed miserably, and the good ones can be made better with the voter comments. I'll be looking this over and probably be making some recommendations. -- Netoholic @ 7 July 2005 21:14 (UTC)

You have no right to unilaterally "close" a vote. I am about to revert the main project page. This is wayout of line. DES 7 July 2005 21:17 (UTC)
It was not unilateral, any more than it was unilateral to open the vote without announcing it ahead of time. In fact, there are many comments above and in the voting which despise the hurried tone of this vote and the various tampering. This whole thing is an embarassment - it is the worst-run vote I've ever seen. -- Netoholic @ 7 July 2005 21:24 (UTC)
I agree that this vote is a big mess, but I don't think you have the right to close it. — Bcat (talk | email) 7 July 2005 21:26 (UTC)
Neto, it's not up to you to "close" this vote. It's up to the community. If you really think the vote should be considered invalid, let's at least wait until the agreed-upon time has passed. Then we can discuss your accusations of irregularities and decide if any action needs to be taken. sɪzlæk [ +t, +c, +m ] July 7, 2005 21:27 (UTC)
I'm not sure that the "right" to close a vote is relevant in a wiki. Nonetheless, I think you were incorrect to close it early. It's only been going a few days. Let the process run it's course. We will learn from it either way. Rossami (talk) 7 July 2005 21:29 (UTC)


Protected[edit]

Since it's apparent that this whole thing is a horrible mess and that no one seems to agree on anything, I've protected it. There will be no voting until you guys come to some kind of agreement as to what this page should or should not say.

I agree in principle with Netoholic, that it's a very bad idea to have people changing proposals in the middle of voting. I don't think unilaterally declaring the vote closed was the best idea, but he's got a valid complaint - how can people vote for something if the next day it says something different? If I might be so bold as to make a suggestion, I think the best course of action would be to open the floor to suggestions and proposals (to allow people to make new suggestions and fine-tune current ones), and say that voting will begin at such-and-such an hour on such-and-such a date after which there will be no modifications allowed. →Raul654 July 7, 2005 21:33 (UTC)

If I have followed this right, there have been no changes to current proposals. Only new proposals have been added, with their deadlines extended accordingly. So no one's vote was changed, and everyone is free to vote on the new proposals just like when the original vote opened. I see no proplem with this, and it seems like Netoholic is doing things like this because he disagrees with the proposals themselves, not necessarily how the were added (did he revert when the proposal to shut down this vote was added?) We should just let each vote run its course from now on. --Dmcdevit July 7, 2005 21:50 (UTC)
The rise of "new" proposal additions was itself a result of my initial complaints of tampering (see #Tampering with the voting while in progress). It's still tampering, in that when they add Yet Another rephrase, effectively all the previous oppose votes are canceled. Of course, the only ones really paying attention are the supporters, and that skews the results because the original opposers may not return (thinking they were done here). Also, many voters are making "conditional" votes based on items that were "revised". -- Netoholic @ 7 July 2005 21:59 (UTC)
I note that when I added Proposal 3-C, I made it a point to notify every person who had voted on 3-A or 3-B, support or oppose, including you, on each such person's talk page. Check my contribution history, you'll find the talk page edits grouped together. I think that radiant did the same when he added 3-B. If you didn't notice that, you should have. if you did notice that, it makes your argument that something was being snuck past those who opposed it unsound, at least for those proposals. You may have a case for not adding proposals in general, but not for such a bias effect in this particular case. DES 7 July 2005 22:10 (UTC)


Unprotected

Ok, I didn't realize that there were like 20 subpages many of which already have dozens of votes. I'm going to wave this one off, and let it go ahead and set up. Netoholic - don't stop the voting. →Raul654 July 7, 2005 21:44 (UTC)

All those sub-pages and votes, in my mind, make it even worse to be changing the vote options mid-stream. Oh well, hopefully some people have learned how not to run a vote in the future. As it is, this is such a mess, I'll just go about my business and then deal with it in a week and a half when the vote "closes". Only two options were clearly supported, and I've already incorporated them in CSD (in a subtle way, to avoid cries of instruction creep). -- Netoholic @ 7 July 2005 21:51 (UTC)

Is this vote premature?[edit]

I would like to point out that discussion of Ways We Could Improve VfD has been ongoing essentially since the beginning of the project. The CSD were adopted, IIRC, a little over a year ago, and there have been some tweaks to the amount of time an article stays on VfD, and a few CSD added and tweaked, and so on. Discussion has been ongoing throughout this process. Though these proposals with their particular wording have perhaps not been discussed, none of the ideas here is new.

I believe that Radiant is to be commended for forcing some sort of closure on these issues and I am pleased that at least some of the proposals have drawn a measure of support.

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 8 July 2005 03:53 (UTC)

Another new proposal: Safetynet[edit]

The major reason for caution with Deletion and Speedy Deletion is precisely that deleted articles are gone and therefore the decisions are unreviewable by most editors. (I have considered requesting some form of admin status mostly to be able to see deleted articles.)

I therefore put forth the suggestion:

P2: The text and edit history of deleted articles should be available, in protected form.

I can hear the responce now: "<arrgh> That's just an invitation for the dweeb to repost it!"

But I think that's a non-problem, for two reasons:

I await revision, and would have no objection to a time limit, if there is a storage question Septentrionalis 21:08, 10 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"and the dweeb banned" That is an illusion. --Sn0wflake 21:53, 10 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
This has been proposed before, and the answer has always been the adminship is readily enough available that most people who are serious about Wikipedia and want to view the deleted articles can get it. Several advocates of making deleted articles widely viewable have lost interest in said policy after becoming admins. A good deal of deleted content is defamatory, detrimental to the project, or a violation of copyright and making it visible may be unwise for these reasons. Finally, speaking as someone who occasionally goes through the deletion log, I can tell you that there is little of interest in the deleted pages. Even if you were to pick out the most salvagable 1% of deletions, you would find little or nothing of any genuine informative value. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 21:04, 13 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Another new proposal: Stubs for Deletion[edit]

Just a thought, but why not trim down the votes for deletion page by hiving off any articles of three paragraphs or less onto a stubs for deletion page, and make the VfD page an articles for deletion page? Hiding 21:54, 10 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, but not really relevant to the issue at hand (speedy deletion). Gwalla | Talk 01:41, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
But relevant to the causes for the current discussion, no, judging by the lengthy preamble on the proposal page. However, suitably chastened I have moved discussion to Reducing VfD load Hiding 07:47, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Suffrage[edit]

The Proposals section states "Anonymous votes will be discounted, as will votes cast by any user that had less than 250 edits when this vote started." People who don't read proposals like this one carefully enough annoy me, and I noticed a fair number of them, so I wrote up some javascript to simplify checking when a user's 250th edit was. When in place, it replaces links to user pages from ordered lists (# in wikisyntax) on Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal's subpages with links of the form http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&limit=250&go=first&target=Cryptic, which show the user's first 250 edits (with the last of those, i.e. their 250th, at the top). I've also gone through the votes already cast and noted those that my tool turned up.

There are a couple caveats, though:

  1. If a user has less than 250 edits, the top edit shown will be his most recent, and it isn't immediately obvious that he hasn't made 250 yet. For these purposes, it doesn't matter (since it'll still be dated after the poll opened), but it's something to keep in mind if you want to reuse this script elsewhere.
  2. Links to user subpages (like User:Uncle G/Wikipedia triage) break.
  3. It doesn't, of course, catch forged signatures; also, it relies on a link to the user's page being present in his signature.
  4. It's conceivable someone had more than 250 edits at the start of the poll, but some were to articles that have now been deleted. Deleted edits don't show up in the contributions list, so they aren't counted.
  5. If someone changes his username, it won't, of course, account for edits made under the old user name. (Case in point: ArmadniGeneral used to be Alex12 3. There might be others that I didn't notice.)
  6. I didn't account for the fact that some of the votes started after the others.

If you're reading this because I've marked your vote, please don't be offended if it doesn't actually apply to you due to one of the caveats above (particularly 4, 5, and 6); just say so and move on. —Cryptic (talk) 07:57, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In response to the concerns raised above,

Wikipedia:Arbitration_policy/Proposed_amendment_ratification_vote. This is just for the record, as the outcome of this proposal is the same (give or take a percent) whether or not the votes below suffrage level are to be accepted or not. Radiant_>|< 13:56, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Test run proposal B[edit]

In response to the objections and weak support votes for the test run, I suggest we introduce a modified test run proposal:

Test Run B.1: New criteria stays enforced for up to a minimum time of 1 week up to a maximum time of 10 weeks dependent on the leftover popular percentage over 70%.

To figure the popularity factor:
1. Subtract 70 from the final percentage in favor. ex. for an 80% in favor vote, take 80-70=10
2. Divide remainder by 30. ex. 10/30 = 33%.
3. Round to the nearest week. ex. 33% of the maximum of 10 weeks is 3 weeks. The popularity factor for an 80% approval forces a 3 week test run before a recall can be initiated.

With 75% of the vote, there is a 16% additional popularity factor, new criteria has a 2 week testing time.
With 80% of the vote, there is a 33% additional popularity factor, new criteria has a three week testing time.
With 85% of the vote, there is a 50% additional popularity factor, new criteria has a five week testing time.
With 90% of the vote, there is a 66% additional popularity factor, new criteria has a seven week testing time.
With 95% of the vote, there is an 83% additional popularity factor, new criteria has an eight week testing time.


Test Run B.2: A revote can only be called for when the test run is complete, and the number of requests match or exceed 10% of the number of vote originally tallied.
Example1: a criteria passed and 100 total people voted. 10 people would be needed to force a revote after the test run.

Example2: a criteria passed and 250 total people voted. 25 people would be needed to force a revote after the test run.


What do you guys think? Can this be added to the list of proposals?

-Inigmatus 16:45, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

I didn't see even one attempt at consensus during the six weeks of discussion. Did I overlook something?

The proper way to do such things is to propose a consensus among those interested enough to follow the decision. Then, if there are objections, address them, and improve the proposed consensus until all active participants have come to some statements they can live with. Inactive participants frequently have their objections addressed by those participating, or trust that some active participants they are familiar with will represent their views well enough.

After finding consensus among the active users, you have reason enough to be bold and edit the policy. If others object at this time, revert, and bring them into discussion and attempt to address their concerns, but otherwise, see how things run under the new guidelines for a while. Then address the next item on the list. For the items you cannot get full consensus on, you get as close as you can, then propose a vote, and seek consensus on holding a vote (usually not difficult), and then hold a vote, one issue at a time to encourage discussion.

This mass voting is nearly 100% contrary to Wikipedia principles because it bypasses discussion and compromise (see: "don't change the wording while the vote is in progress"). It promotes a winners/losers mentality that doesn't belong here except when absolutely necessary (such as the Board of Trustees elections). Unfocused 06:49, 13 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hey guys I have a proposal[edit]

I don't really know what to do with it, so I guess I'll add it here. All ordinary elementary and secondary schools where a well-known encyclopedic event did not occur or that do not have any famous alumni or is not especially historically significant to a particular locale. I don't know if I would support this resolution. I'm proposing in an effort to get a definitive and final answer about the inclusion of elementary and secondary schools. They have been consistently nominated for deletion on VfD and have usually been kept. There is also Wikipedia:Schools, but it has not been adopted and doesn't look like it's being seriously considered for adoption. Maybe this isn't the right place to do this, and I don't expect that it will be the final step in a solid policy about schools, but I think it's step toward that. Maybe it can be used as a solid policy. That'd be cool. Cookiecaper 20:24, 13 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't take sides in this debate, but I'll say with confidence that it would never gain consensus for addition to WP:CSD. -- Netoholic @ 20:36, 13 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
This sounds like you're talking about a normal deletion policy, not CSD. That's something different entirely. Have you looked at WP:SCH? --Dmcdevit·t 20:41, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

Yes I do not expect it to pass. If it does we can eliminate most non-post-secondary school articles. If it does not we can assume that schools are notable just by being. This is what I'm hoping to accomplish here. Maybe it is wrong. Pssh man I shouldn't even try. Cookiecaper 21:28, 13 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Inactive tag[edit]

Isn't the "inactive tag" inapprpropriate given that some votes are still ongoing until a later deadline? Xoloz 10:07, 20 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Re: proposal 1[edit]