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Query about CSD G10

Examples of "attack pages" may include libel, legal threats, material intended purely to harass or intimidate a person or biographical material about a living person that is entirely negative in tone and unsourced. These pages should be speedily deleted when there is no neutral version in the page history to revert to. Both the page title and page content may be taken into account in assessing an attack. Articles about living people deleted under this criterion should not be restored or recreated by any editor until the biographical article standards are met. Other pages violating the Biographies of living persons policy might be eligible for deletion under the conditions stipulated at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Summary deletion, creation prevention, and courtesy blanking, although in most cases a deletion discussion should be initiated instead.

I have a general question about this criteria. The general way it has been used, and way that Wikipedia:Attack page describes an attack page, is negative or disparaging content about an individual. But the header for this criteria states "Pages that disparage, threaten, intimidate, or harass their subject or some other entity, and serve no other purpose" and I guess I'm wondering how broad we consider the "subject" or "entity" to go beyond human beings. I guess companies and organizations fall under the rubric of "entity" but there was a discussion at MFD about a draft where an editor is complaining about the family's pet dog that was suggested be deleted under CSD G10 that seems a stretch of what was meant as an attack page.

Can we consider any negative, unsourced complaining about any "thing" as being a valid page to be deleted under CSD G10 or should it be understood to be more strictly to be attack pages about people? Liz Read! Talk! 00:04, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

G10s are only for living persons. Dogs, companies, or anything that does not fit that definition should not be deleted under this criteria. That being said, the MFD was clearly headed towards deletion and a speedy delete as a result of said discussion is perfectly fine. Primefac (talk) 01:08, 7 May 2021 (UTC) I'm not quite convinced I'm wrong, but I don't have quite the surety as before. Primefac (talk) 12:16, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
Since when? Some history: enactment; "short articles..."->"articles..."; "articles..."->"pages...". The only parts of G10 that have ever been specific to blps are the recreation ban and the examples and counter-examples. —Cryptic 02:26, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
I've added the full text just for reference at the top of this thread, but "articles" being changed to "pages" makes sense because G10 is valid in any namespace. I do suppose (from WP:ATTACK) that that exists primarily to disparage or threaten its subject could refer to any type of subject. I guess the main issue I have with both the language here and at ATTACK is that it does almost entirely refer to BLPs and living subjects, which gives the implication that those are the only pages that would be eligible. Primefac (talk) 12:16, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
(G10, then A6, wasn't valid outside the main namespace until that edit.)
While I'm not going to concede the point - I mean, you can certainly libel and make legal threats against corporations, and if it were blps only, why specifically say "Articles about living people deleted under this criterion" instead of "Articles deleted under this criterion", and so on - I guess ultimately it doesn't matter much. As I said back in the initial discussion in 2005, just about anything G10able is G3able vandalism too, and having the separate criterion is mostly useful as bright-line guidance. Do you really want an inexperienced new page patroller stopping to consider whether, say, Legalized loan sharks or Draft:New Haven RTC are pure vandalism or not, though? —Cryptic 13:24, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
I see your points, and in thinking about it there are plenty of pages that just about every admin I know (including myself) have deleted under one CSD criteria or another that didn't quite fit but the page still needed deleting. The issue really comes when pages aren't even close to the criteria under which they've been deleted (A7s that have plenty of references, G2s that aren't actually tests, etc). Thus, I don't think anyone is going to complain about a 100% negative draft about a dog being G10'd, but clarification about the language is still probably a good idea. Primefac (talk) 13:40, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
While I'm not able to see the content of the draft, I don't see any reason why attack pages couldn't apply to a dog. All dogs have their humans, after all, and they also all go to heaven, so such a page would be inherently false. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 04:32, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
G10 wasn't really needed to get rid of that draft, which was just vandalism ("DOGS ARE STUPID AS FUCK!!!!!") but in principle I don't see why G10 can't apply to pages about animals, or even abstract concepts. If the sole purpose of the page is to disparage the subject then it's an attack page, regardless of what the subject is. Hut 8.5 19:23, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
Legal threats can be directed towards corporations or organizations, and one can write a page saying "My neighbour's cat is the worst! Kill her!" or a page simply saying that a certain object is bad in highly objectionable language. One could also write that "xyz is the worst subject in the world, it must be banned" in a lot more flowery language. Many of these cases can qualify for G3 as well, but I don't see why G10 won't. As long as the page only is disparaging its subject, it can be deleted under G10, IMO. JavaHurricane 17:32, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Proposal to amend G5

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.



I have said this before, but I think that G5 should be amended or abolished. Since people do not seem to want it abolished, here are a few suggestions for potential amendment:

  1. G5 only applies if other speedy deletion criteria also apply.
  2. G5 also does not apply to pages with actual effort put into them.

Also, I noticed on one page that an edit got reverted just because it was made by a blocked or banned user in violation of a block or ban. And after looking at the edit, I noticed that the edit was actually of good quality. A constructive edit should NOT be reverted on the basis of the user who made said edit. So to retierate, G5 should only apply if:

  1. Other speedy deletion criteria also apply
  2. The page does not have substantial effort put into it, such as a stub page.

Since users do not seem to want G5 abolished, I propose at least making these amendments. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 19:44, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Db-badfairuse-notice updated

I've updated ((Db-badfairuse-notice)) and its corresponding ((Db-multiple-notice)) entry as the old wording reflected the F7a repealed in March, and for some reason never mentioned the still-used F7b. You may tweak the new language as needed, but the same wording should be used for both.

A tag has been placed on [[:(({1))}]] requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section F7 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a non-free file from a commercial source (e.g. Associated Press, Getty Images), where the file itself is not the subject of sourced commentary. If you can explain why the file can be used under the fair use guidelines, please add the appropriate fair use tag and rationale.

LaundryPizza03 (d) 04:41, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Proposal: repeal criteria U3

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There is consensus to repeal speedy-deletion criterion U3. (non-admin closure) Extraordinary Writ (talk) 06:02, 1 July 2021 (UTC)


Speedy deletion criterion U3 currently reads as follows:

Galleries in the userspace that consist mostly or entirely of "fair use" or non-free images. Wikipedia's non-free content policy prohibits the use of non-free content in userspace, even content that the user has uploaded; use of content in the public domain or under a free license is acceptable.

This criterion is unnecessary for multiple reasons. First, non-free media is automatically removed from non-articles by JJMC89 bot, usually within a few hours of being added. There is no way to disable this, meaning that it's not possible for a non-free gallery to stick around in userspace for long. Secondly, these pages would be, if necessary, eligible for criterion under U5: a non-free media gallery is not closely aligned with Wikipedia's goals of being a free encyclopedia.

Following this, the criterion is rarely if ever used. I created a list of the 2500 most recent page deletions - not a single U3 among them. There is no reason to keep a redundant criterion that doesn't solve any problem that currently exists. Elli (talk | contribs) 04:13, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposal to amend G8

The other day I tagged ((Qonja)) for a G8 speedy, as I considered it a "subpage with no parent page" (the header article Qonja does not exist). Fastily (talk · contribs) overturned the G8 and upon being asked, responded that they didn't feel it fit G8.

I see no benefit to keeping a page around and letting it spend God knows how long in XFD simply because there isn't a CSD that clearly fits it. This seems like a blatantly obvious template to delete speedily, even if it doesn't quite fit squarely into an existing G8 or other CSD category. If the parent article -- that is, the article the navigational template is named after and/or clearly intended to be used on -- has been deleted or does not exist, that seems like it falls under "subpages dependent on a nonexistant or deleted page", and I don't understand why it's not already cited as an example of something fitting G8.

tl;dr: Should G8 be amended to include "navigational templates where the parent article has been deleted or does not exist"? I say yes for the reasons I just stated.

Ten Pound Hammer(What did I screw up now?) 23:46, 31 May 2021 (UTC)


Proposal: Merge F3 and F9

By definition, a image licensed as "for non-commercial use only", "no derivative use", "for Wikipedia use only" or "used with permission" are not considered free. So in my opinion we can just have one criterion saying "This applies to images (or other media files) that have no credible claim that the owner has released them under a Wikipedia-compatible free license and are not claimed by the uploader to be fair use".--GZWDer (talk) 00:21, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

So you are suggestion something like: "F3 Non-free images that are not fair use: This applies to any files that are non-free and not listed as fair use. This includes obviously copyrighted media, such as those from commercial stock photo libraries such as Getty. It also applies to media licensed as "for non-commercial use only" (including non-commercial Creative Commons licenses), "no derivative use", "for Wikipedia use only" or "used with permission". It also applies to media licensed under versions of the GFDL earlier than 1.3, without allowing for later versions or other licenses. This does not include images with a credible claim that the owner has released them under a Wikipedia-compatible free license." Oiyarbepsy (talk) 05:03, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
Or simply, "F3 Non-free images that are not fair use: This applies to images (or other media files) that have no credible claim that the owner has released them under a Wikipedia-compatible free license and are not claimed by the uploader to be fair use. Images only licensed as "for non-commercial use only" (including non-commercial Creative Commons licenses), "no derivative use", "for Wikipedia use only" or "used with permission", or GFDL earlier than 1.3, are not acceptable in Wikipedia. Most images from stock photo libraries such as Getty Images will not be released under a Wikipedia-compatible free license."--GZWDer (talk) 14:49, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
If they are merged (I'm not immediately certain either way), then it will be important to maintain the "A URL or other indication of where the image originated should be mentioned." and "Blatant infringements should be tagged with the ((Db-filecopyvio)) template. Non-blatant copyright infringements should be discussed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion." clauses from F9. Thryduulf (talk) 08:31, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
The processes for deleting F3s and F9s have just about nothing in common. For F3s, all you need to do is check if the uploader has asserted one of the insufficiently-free licenses and that there's no fair use claim. For F9s, you need to compare the image with its external source (often after having to track down that external source yourself, when the source URL isn't provided), whether the image is freely-licensed by the source, and whether the purported source got the image from Wikipedia.
From the uploader's perspective, having distinct criteria for "it said Creative Commons, I thought that's what Wikipedia was?" and "I just want to put this image off the interwebz onto my article" simplifies things tremendously.
The combined criterion really would need everything currently in both F3 and F9, so you're not even saving any text at WP:CSD.
This is a lose-lose-lose proposition, with no clear benefit. Oppose. —Cryptic 10:22, 1 July 2021 (UTC)


Proposal: Remove F10

MediaWiki already limit what type of files that can be uploaded and it is no longer possible to upload doc or zip to Wikipedia. For free PDF files, they may either be moved to Commons or Prodded.--GZWDer (talk) 00:03, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

quarry:query/56369 shows that it has been used around 32 times in the past year. This search shows we have up to 487 local PDFs. Not qualified with files, but I think it would likely be beneficial to at least look through these PDFs before removing the criteria. --Trialpears (talk) 00:25, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
GZWDer You also mention upload restrictions on certain file types. Do you know where this is documented or implemented? --Trialpears (talk) 08:29, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
  • It is widely misused. By my count 28 of the last 100 F10 deletions (linked above) are of image or sound files, which by definition don't qualify for F10. And that's just the obviously inappropriate ones, some of the other 72 deletions may not be valid either.
  • The original rationale for it no longer applies. The reason F10 was introduced was that at the time Mediawiki didn't support rendering PDFs in articles, so PDFs had very little encyclopedic value. Mediawiki has supported displaying PDFs in articles for a long time now. Theoretically F10 could be applied to non-media files other than PDFs, but Wikipedia hasn't supported uploading them for a very long time (over a decade I think) and almost all of those have been deleted.
  • It is inherently quite subjective, because of the standard of whether a PDF is useful to the encyclopedia or not. This means it isn't a great use case for a speedy deletion criterion. Hut 8.5 11:43, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
  • That list has 97 PDFs. Even if they're all useless to the project (and sister projects) it's not something which would take long to handle through FFD. Hut 8.5 11:44, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

@Trialpears: An extension alone enough reason to delete -- is this supposed to say it is or isn't enough reason to delete? Anarchyte (talk) 03:43, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Anarchyte isn't. I thought I retained all of that part from the previous version, but clearly not. Thanks for pointing it out! --Trialpears (talk) 07:45, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Misleading ref to essay

Ping user:SoWhy. Relevant diff. The link to "WP:Notability (media)" misleadingly looks like the text is quoting a valid guideline. Not only is it an essay, the page is actively contrary to consensus. The proposal to elevate it to guideline is being rejected by 2-to-1. We should not be incorporating arbitrarily-edited and actively contrary to consensus essays into CSD Policy. Alsee (talk) 20:56, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

@Alsee: Linking to essays is not in itself problematic. It happens all the time, on a lot of policy and guideline pages. The discussion you link to objected to elevating the essay to a guideline mainly based on either it needing more work or the standards of this proposed guideline being too lax. On a side note, I find it problematic that the discussion about it was closed by the same person who proposed it. An accurate closure requires an independent closer.
That being said, the footnote in question here is for A7, a criterion where erring on the side of caution is generally advised and as such, applying a laxer standard is actually in line with this policy which explicitly is not a notability policy nor does it require proof or claims of notability. The footnote merely gives guidance about which subjects not to use A7 for and I think it can do so even as an essay. If you really feel the need to do so, you can always clarify that this is an essay but then again, the page already does witht he ((supplement)) banner. Regards SoWhy 07:31, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Move NEWCSD to policy page

Can we move WP:NEWCSD to the WP:CSD page? It has a high degree of acceptance anyway. Alternatively, move it to the first section on this page and keep it stickied? I ask because that portion is cited and useful, but mobile users cannot see it (see [1] and [2]) because it's buried within a talk page box. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:51, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

U5 vs. draft space

WP:U5 currently only applies to userspace. This seems not entirely thorough enough, since there are sometimes pages which would also fall under the criteria (which are "blatant misuse of Wikipedia as a webhost") which are in draftspace, ex. Draft:Muhammad Umar Khan (MU Khan). I wonder whether it would be wise to simply get rid of the userspace limitation (potentially making this criteria G14G15, and expanding it to include not just writing but also images (compare with commons:Commons:F10) and similar misuses. Any support for this? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:34, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

WP:G14 already exists, so... G15? Primefac (talk) 18:51, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
@Primefac: Fixed :) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:58, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
I've thought exactly the same thing before. Userspace is supposed to have laxer guidelines than draftspace, so it makes little sense to apply NOTWEBHOST to the former but not to the latter. I would certainly support, e.g., a six-month trial of making this G15, although it'll be important to clarify it should be construed narrowly and not as a catch-all. (The key word would be "blatant": if there's any ambiguity at all, send it to XfD.) But if interpreted correctly, it could certainly relieve some of the pressure on MfD etc. without risking abuse. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 19:11, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
The question would be (in line with #3 of the requirements for new criteria): Is there really such a pressure on MFD that we need such a criterion? The example RandomCanadian mentions for example is actually not an example of what this criterion would be for because Draft:Muhammad Umar Khan (MU Khan) is imho clearly the attempt of creating a userpage, just in the wrong namespace. The correct course of action would imho be to move the page to this user's userspace. Regards SoWhy 19:25, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
@SoWhy: Move it to userspace and then re-apply U5 (because it's just an auto-biography with links to social media?) Or you think U5 doesn't apply here for reasons other than namespace? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:40, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
This guy has lots of edits to articles so U5 does not apply. Every editor has the right to a userpage with a bio and links to personal web pages. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 19:47, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
I have four points to make here.
  1. All CSD criteria (other than the G criteria) apply only to one namespace or to one namespace and its associated talk namespace, so it would be against established practice to extend U5 (or any U criterion) to Draft: namespace.
  2. Please do not select a code for a proposed CSD criterion - we get lots of proposals, few of which succeed, and we assign codes when they are accepted and not before - otherwise we would (i) soon use up codes that will never get used for real and (ii) potentially have two or more discussions for proposed criteria that mention the same code as each other.
  3. I do not see any indication that all four WP:NEWCSD criteria can be met, particularly no. 3.
  4. It is deplorable practice to move a page from one namespace to another in order that a CSD criterion that did not apply in the first namespace can then be used in the second.
So please think carefully before making unworkable suggestions on this page. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:18, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
re Redrose64's fourth point, moving a page with the sole intention of making it eligible for speedy deletion is gaming the system and accordingly explicitly forbidden. Anyone doing that should expect serious consequences, and admin repeatedly doing so should not be surprised if they are desysopped. Thryduulf (talk) 14:08, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
Correct of course but any page that clearly was meant to be in a different namespace can be treated as being in that namespace, whether it's moved there or not, with the relevant criteria applying. For example, if a user page is created in draft space, you can and should move it to user space where it belongs but if it would be deleteable in user space, it's imho okay to apply a U-criterion to it without moving it first. Gaming the system is and should be forbidden but at the same time, we shouldn't be blind to stuff sometimes being created in a wrong namespace by accident. Regards SoWhy 17:45, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

I think G11 criteria is enough for draft namespace which advertises something, like we implement U5 criteria for userspace. I always use G11 criteria to tag draft which meet the deletion criteria. Dede2008 (talk) 16:38, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

CSD G4s

I have noticed a lot of variety in how this criteria is handled by administrators. My question today arises from Cheman Shaik which was deleted through the AFD process (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cheman Shaik). The page was userfied and months later approved through Articles for Creation, moved to main space and, basically, immediately tagged for deletion and deleted. And yet, this is the route that I tell editors to use if they want to overcome an AFD deletion decision. In general, beyond this particular article, shouldn't AFC approval count towards keeping an article? I know some admins carefully check previous, deleted versions of tagged articles to see if problems have been addressed but I don't think this happens every time based on how quickly these pages are tagged & deleted.

What is really troubling to me is when editors tag drafts for CSD G4 deletion...I've seen some admins remove the tag and say G4 doesn't apply to Draft space and other admins who just delete the draft. My point of view is that an AFD decision, especially one with limited participation (which wasn't the case with Cheman Shaik) shouldn't be destiny and final. There should be a way to overcome an AFD deletion decision especially ones from long ago when there might have been two or three editors voting to Delete. Thoughts? Liz Read! Talk! 21:45, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

The problem is that "substantially identical" is highly subjective. We've never had a formal process for recreation, and that's fine, but it does mean that some go through WP:DRV, some go through the deleting admin's talk page, some go through AfC, and some are just recreated in place and never challenged since the notability is obvious enough by that point. As a result, there is no consistent rule on whether community consensus is required to overturn an AfD with the presentation of additional sourcing. -- King of ♥ 22:02, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
The G criteria apply in all namespaces except those specifically excluded (such as User: space for G2). G4 says that it excludes content that has been moved to user space or converted to a draft for explicit improvement (but not simply to circumvent Wikipedia's deletion policy) - the key thing here is the phrase "for explicit improvement" - if a G4-eligible article is moved to Draft: space and then left alone, it's still eligible for G4. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:44, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
But for how long? It obviously wouldn't be eligible for G4 after 1 second, before anyone has had the chance to improve it. If the rule is 6 months, then we don't need G4 as G13 will serve perfectly fine. If we want to set some different threshold, then we need to spell it out explicitly as CSDs are meant to minimize subjectivity.
My view is that any page which exists in its current form with the implicit endorsement of an admin is automatically ineligible for G4. If an admin consistently restores pages improperly, then we should talk about desysopping them, but before that we shouldn't reverse their actions willy-nilly. -- King of ♥ 00:55, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
The more that I think about this, and the actions I've taken as an admin, there is a difference between articles that are repeatedly recreated (like those that appear to be paid editing) being deleted as drafts and those that are good faith efforts by editors to create better versions of articles that were AFD deleted, typically because of a lack of notability. The problem with this situation is that it does involve a subjective decision by admins which might be why there is some variability in how admins, as a group, handle these cases in Draft space. Liz Read! Talk! 01:16, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
Hold up, someone is speedy deleting pages that were approved through articles for creation? Some serious trout slapping seems called for Oiyarbepsy (talk) 04:49, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
Based on recent patrolling of CSD categories and visits to WP:REFUND, I wouldn't say it happens frequently but, yes, it happens. Most of the time, the page creators accept it, and I assume, don't stick around, but if they go seek solutions, they are typically referred to the deleting administrators which, from what I've seen, does not usually result in a page restoration. Liz Read! Talk! 05:34, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
I would question whether such a person should be an administrator Oiyarbepsy (talk) 06:13, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
I agree with Oiyarbepsy. If a page has been accepted at AfC then it should not be speedily deleted unless G5, G7 or G12 apply. Indeed I'd be happy to explicitly codify that G4 does not apply in draft space (if it's not being improved G13 will apply, if it is G4 wont apply anyway) and that it doesn't apply to any page that has been through AfC.
Additionally, if anyone raises a good faith objection to the speedy deletion of any page, before or after it was deleted, then it is not eligible for speedy deletion as the deletion was not uncontroversial. Thryduulf (talk) 09:28, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
I somewhat agree with Hut 8.5. Passing AfC is merely the judgment of a single reviewer that the article is like to survive a deletion discussion. It certainly doesn't exempt from afd, and it shouldn't exempt from speedy when there is a clear reason. Reviewers don't always notice everything, and if an admin see something wrong that has been overlooked , and G4 is one of the things that are very often overlooked, they ought to proceed accordingly. Naturally, they should do it carefully. As King of Hearts says also, often restoring to raft space is better. But if it's clear enough, not always. The entire afc process is too idiosyncratic for fixed rules--people engaged in any aspect of it must have good judgment, and use it. . DGG ( talk ) 03:21, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

G13 delay (again)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


Edited 18:11, 7 July 2021 (UTC).

This has been discussed a few times before, but I believe there are clear benefits to implementing a one-week (or similar) delay to G13 deletions.

Currently, a bot notifies the page creator at five months of draft inactivity. However, there is no mechanism to alert other editors who may be watching the draft or monitoring it through WikiProjects. By implementing a delay, this will allow time for editors watching the page to check the draft, and maybe rescue it before it's deleted, sparing the need to go through the WP:REFUND process. This could also be integrated into WP:Article Alerts, allowing more potential rescues from WikiProject watchers.

Looking briefly through some past discussions, I see that some opposition to such proposals have been along the following lines, to which I respond:

If a draft has been stale for six months, what good would an additional week do?
As described above, it would allow regular editors, who may not have noticed the draft having gone stale, to take a new look and maybe rescue it.
There's already a bot giving notifications at five months
These notifications are posted at the talk page of the draft creator, and are useless for attracting the attention of other regular editors who may be interested in rescuing the draft. (Having the bot also post notifications at the draft talk pages would also work, though the delay approach seems easier.)
Let's scrap G13 and implement DRAFTPROD instead
While this approach would also solve the issues I raise, it seems unlikely to gain consensus, given the concerns that a more complicated approach than a straightforward CSD criterion might not be adequate in dealing with the large amount of stale drafts generated each day.

--Paul_012 (talk) 18:11, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Note: I've rewritten the proposal as above, seeing as the main points weren't being effectively communicated. The original post is hatted below. --Paul_012 (talk)

Extended content

I'm sure this has already been discussed numerous times, but what exactly has been keeping the suggestion to implement a delay between the CSD tag being placed and a draft being deleted under G13, like the current behaviour of C1, from gaining consensus? I can see clear benefits to such an approach. For example, say an active editor regularly checks InceptionBot's lists of new pages for relevant articles and drafts, and adds some potential drafts to their watchlist, or tags the draft talk pages with relevant WikiProject banners. Naturally, the editor wouldn't want to interfere while the draft creator is still actively working on it. But if the creator stops editing and the draft becomes stale, the active editor is unlikely to notice until six months later, when the G13 tag is placed and the draft is almost immediately deleted. Adding a delay of, say, one week between tagging and deletion will give a chance for the active editor to take a look and maybe rescue the draft, without having to go through the hassle of a REFUND. If such a delay is implemented, it could also be integrated with the WP:Article Alerts process, allowing more potential rescues by watchers of a WikiProject's AA page.

Are there other concerns I'm missing? Pinging AAlertBot maintainers Hellknowz and Headbomb—would such Article Alerts integration be feasible? --Paul_012 (talk) 20:53, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Just ask the bot operator to create a log page and the problem is solved. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 21:28, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
Oiyarbepsy, I'm afraid I don't understand what you're referring to. --Paul_012 (talk) 22:15, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
I'm talking about that bot that notifies the draft creator at five months - have that bot create a log of who was notified and what draft. That way anyone has a list available if they want to review drafts. Fundamentally, there is no problem with the speedy delete criteria, the problem is there is no list of drafts that are eligible. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 23:46, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
That might be useful for editors willing to sift through all drafts in the pool for those worth rescuing, but it doesn't solve the case in my example. Such a list would be only be practically useful if it was narrowed down to a smaller area of interest. I'm probably interested in a handful of drafts which are already on my watchlist or tagged with a related WikiProject banner. Even if the bot logged notifications in a central location, nothing in my watchlist will have been touched, and the log, listing hundreds of drafts each day, is useless to me for monitoring the pages I'm interested in. --Paul_012 (talk) 04:45, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
I'm fairly neutral on the extra week (might avoid some unnecessary work at WP:REFUND, but unlikely to be very much), but I'm not sure that this will really solve the OP's problem. If you really want to watch certain drafts, you should not rely on seeing the notification on your watchlist (very easy to miss), but just make a list of them as a page in your userspace and check on and improve all promising drafts every once in a while. —Kusma (talk) 10:44, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
Watch the creator's talk page. If they do nothing or almost nothing except create the draft you're interested in, it'll only show up on your watchlist when the draft's approaching deletion. If they're so active that their talk page pops up on your watchlist enough to be a bother, they're unlikely to let the draft just get deleted anyway. If they're in between, then someone who's created a promising draft and is somewhat active is probably worth mentoring. —Cryptic 10:59, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
  • As for the DRAFTPROD idea, is this proposing to get rid of CSD G13 and replace it with DRAFTPROD only? Wouldn't this just clog up MFD with people contesting DRAFTPROD removals? That's what happens with many regular PROD removals... I go through my PROD log regularly and AFD any of my PRODs that are removed without fixing the underlying notability issue. Could also lead to some ugly mass DRAFTPRODs and mass un-DRAFTPRODs. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:29, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
The objection that people could have rescued them before, is invalid, because almost nobody does that, because of the number to deal with--this would highlight them. The objection that the editor could always ask for them back, is invalid because most of hte time the original editor, having been once discouraged, is long gone==this is especially unfortunate when they're from editathons or similar projects. Anf nobody else knows of them once they're gone, because deleted articles are not readily even for admins, searchable unless you know they exist, or know the exact title.
And it's worth doing: among the ones I've personally rescued in the last week are several people in major academies of science, or authors with multiple published books that have probably been reviewed, or members of legislatures, or subjects with extensive good articles in other WPs. Most would otherwise probably be lost to us for years or forever--and similarly for the very few other patrollers. DGG ( talk ) 22:14, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
Doesn't sound like a great idea, pages deleted under G13 do sometimes contain copyright violations, spam that could be deleted under G11, etc. The bot wouldn't be able to detect these. Hut 8.5 11:33, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
We are very lucky to have DGG, who spends much of his time evaluating expiring drafts and delaying deletion of the most promising ones. I'd say that he catches probably 90-95% of promising drafts that are due to expire which is amazing to me. What we could really use is to have a couple more editors scan the daily SDZeroBot lists, (like User:SDZeroBot/G13 soon) and review drafts that will be expiring soon. It would be much, much easier for editors to review the entire G13 soon list on a regular basis than to institute major changes in how stale drafts are handled when there are at least a dozen editors and admins who currently work with them. The SDZeroBot G13 soon list already gives you a week's advance notice on which drafts are due to expire which seems to be what some folks here are asking for. Final word, there might be easier alternatives to achieve your goals than scrapping the current system. Liz Read! Talk! 03:21, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
Liz and I seem to deliberately work in a way that complements each other; if someone wants to share the responsibility, they might want to try yet another of the overlapping possibilities. (If Liz thinks I catch this many, it's probably because the ones in sports and popular entertainments that get this far without being made into articles are almost entirely hopeless. (I also do not bother with the ones still in a non-English language--if they've been copied from another WP without being even roughly translated, no work is lost if they're started over again. ) I think they and I and anyone else working here knows what the most important fix would be--the same as would fix all other problem areas in Wikipedia--more people working here. After that the system that does need rewriting from scratch is not isolated parts of the afc system, but the entire system--the AFCH. macro has been patched so many times it would best be rewritten from scratch; like many Wikipedia systems it has accumulated features & special cases that sounded nice, but are almost never used.
What I'd love to see, is work in another direction: not just categorizing drafts, but of matching them with individual active reviewers--this should be a interesting AI project that could also work at NPP and AFD and suggested merges, etc. The wikiproject approach works well in a few fields only--and in those few fields where I know it works, like the military, I refer problems to it. DGG ( talk ) 07:34, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
(edit conflict)That list doesn't address the main situation raised by the OP: when an editor has an interest in a draft they didn't create. Maybe they made substantial contributions to it, and have it on their watchlist. Right now they won't get any notification that it's about to be deleted until at most a few hours before, which is far too soon to contest it. A list of all G13 deletions doesn't help with that at all. What are they supposed to do - go through a giant list on a regular basis to see if the drafts they are interested in are listed there? I don't see how the proposed system would be any more onerous than the current one. As now you tag it and it gets deleted. No effort is required to institute the week of delay. Hut 8.5 07:38, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
It would appear on your watchlist when an admin deletes it, at which point you could just REFUND. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:22, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
Once it's deleted, the text can no longer be seen. So most of the time people won't recall whether the content was worthy or not. Also, for new users, it isn't trivial to "just REFUND". – SD0001 (talk) 13:52, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
I presumed the purpose of this proposal was for more experienced editors watching or wanting to be notified of drafts, not for new editors, as per Currently, a bot notifies the page creator at five months of draft inactivity. However, there is no mechanism to alert other editors who may be watching the draft or monitoring it through WikiProjects. By implementing a delay, this will allow time for editors watching the page to check the draft, and maybe rescue it before it's deleted ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:11, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

R3 and page moves

R3 currently states that it doesn't apply to redirects created from page moves unless the move was also recent, meaning either the article was recently created as a bad title or it was only recently moved there and shortly after moved back. With regards to the general rule that the author may not remove a speedy deletion tag I suggest that this shouldn't apply to redirects created as a result of a page move as with G7 (and G5 should probably also say) since the "author" of a redirect is the person who moved the article away from a bad name so it would seem rather odd that the person who corrected the mistake but doesn't think the mistake is bad enough for R3 should be prohibited from removing the tag. The same should be done for R2 and any other criteria involving redirects created from page moves. Now we should keep R2 and R3 for cases where someone created a redirect from a red link though. Like with G14 the vast majority of R2 and R3 redirects created from page moves will anyway likely be from experienced editors as opposed to those who create spam or autobiographies anyway so while I don't expect that this is much of a problem it can come up. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:42, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

TV channels and A7

Are TV channels/stations deletable under A7? I've encountered this problem for the second time in a week – the first time I removed the CSD tag and the second time I hesitated, as both nominators were former functionaries and well, should know the criteria far better than I do. The thing that's tripping me up is that whether to think of a channel/station as an organisation (with a director and other personnel) or merely as a medium through which you get the programming (as television channel tells us, it refers to the frequency). Open to being shouted at that for over-thinking this. Sdrqaz (talk) 02:04, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

A7, A9, A11 do not apply to any other subjects such as TV Channels, programs, and stations. You can delete it by list it at Proposed deletion or listing in Article for deletion discussions. 1Way4Together - J. Smile | Awards and similar items are not for sales 03:38, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
It's not as clear-cut as that imho. Stations could be eligible for A7 as companies (unlike their programs) although in many cases, if they are sending programs that are received in large areas, we probably need to assume significance or importance. Regards SoWhy 09:50, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
I'd say that TV channels/stations are companies and so are eligble for G7, however I would count being granted a license to broadcast as a clear assertion of significance. For the specific examples mentioned here, I would not have removed the tag from Nepal Channels but gauTV clearly made at least two assertions of significance (legal challenge to obtain license, and then obtaining a license) so it definitely would not be eligible for A7 regardless of subject matter. Thryduulf (talk) 11:56, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

T and X obsoleted entirely?

Is this really the case, that these entire groups of CSD are obsolete? Or is this a misconclusion based on them being empty of active criteria at the moment?

If the former, what will happen if, in the future, it is decided to enact a new CSD that is specific to templates, or a new temporary CSD for a large-scale cleanup operation? — Smjg (talk) 15:42, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

All the criteria which were formerly part of these sections have been removed, but the sections will be reinstated if a new criterion of that type is ever added. So any new template CSD would be T5 and any new temporary CSD would be X3. Hut 8.5 16:34, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#Obsolete groups and criteria explains which criteria has become obsolete and why that it the case.--65.93.194.2 (talk) 21:07, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@65.93.194.2: So what? I wasn't querying the obsoletion of the individual criteria or the reasons therefor. I was querying the obsoletion of the groups as groups. There's a big difference between an unoccupied house and a demolished house. My point was that the section you refer to seems to be confusing the two concepts.
@Hut 8.5: So essentially, they're not demolished, but merely unoccupied. As such, while the sections on the page have been removed as they would be empty at the moment, the groups still exist as groups. As such, it would be better to describe them as "inactive groups" or "not currently in use". — Smjg (talk) 08:51, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
I see no functional difference between the section being "demolished" or "unoccupied". If a new criterion is created, the "house" can be recreated with the click of a button. In this case, there is no difference between the group being obsolete or inactive. Sdrqaz (talk) 08:57, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
By "section" do you mean the physical section on the WP:CSD page, or the logical construct that is the group of criteria? I'm talking about the latter. If demolished, there's no possibility of a new criterion being added to it, so any re-creation would be a whole new group (and so the numbering would start again from 1). OTOH, if unoccupied, there's a possibility of it becoming occupied again, IWC the section on the page would be reinstated and the new criterion would continue the numbering sequence. — Smjg (talk) 10:11, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
Numbering will continue from T5 and/or X3. Whether the sections are present but empty or not present makes no difference to this at all, and whether the section is recreated or reinstated will be completely indistinguishable so the distinction you are attempting to make is entirely philosophical. Thryduulf (talk) 11:00, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
It's a matter of factual accuracy. Obsolete is, by definition, a permanent status. So on this basis, the T and X groups aren't obsolete, so we shouldn't pretend they are. — Smjg (talk) 19:45, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
I see your point, but I agree with Thryduulf that the sort of distinctions of factual accuracy that make no difference in real practice are probably not worth arguing about. I don't think you're likely to persuade people to use one term over the other, though you're absolutely free to use the correct one yourself. – Uanfala (talk) 20:32, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
I'm also not sure that in common parlance "obsolete" is regarded as a permanent status, see the number of google results for phrases like "currently obsolete" and "previously obsolete" for example. Thryduulf (talk) 21:04, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

A10 and redirects

I had a recent experience with A10 that clashed with the criterion as written. Chuhdary was a redirect to Chowdhury. Some users tried to create a new article at Chuhdary, overwriting the redirect, and near-exactly duplicated the target article. Another user tagged it with A10, an admin deleted, a user recreated Chuhdary as a redirect, and another admin protected the page. I'd say the process worked out fairly well.

However, the current language in A10 suggests that the original tagging was inappropriate, saying the tag should be used "where the title is not a plausible redirect"; here, the title was and is a very plausible redirect. Later language, "The title chosen for the vast majority..." only further reinforces the idea that A10 shouldn't be used. I see multiple avenues for resolution here, including someone pointing out that I'm hopelessly wrong. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 02:08, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

There's a wider principle that's relevant here: if a page is tagged for speedy deletion, the admin should review the history and see if there's anything there before it became eligible for speedy deletion. That applies to any CSD: otherwise you'd be able to get any article deleted by simply overwriting its contents with A1-worthy gibberish. Why this didn't happen in the case of Chuhdary? I imagine because the redirect itself was recently created and the deleting admin didn't believe it was plausible – so even before the A10-eligible content addition, the page would have been speedy-deletable, though this time by WP:R3 (recently created redirect for an implausible typo).
If the title will make for a plausible redirect, then the existing wording of WP:A10 is correct to warn against deletion. Simply redirecting is better than deleting and then waiting for someone else to show up and recreate the redirect for a variety of reasons, the main of which is that you don't often get people showing up to recreate such redirects, and anyway, breaking things in the hope of someone else fixing them is a bad strategy. But deleting the original page also erases information about the redirect: about when it was created (it makes a difference when handling a redirect whether it was created yesterday or has existed for a decade), what history it's had (maybe it's had a different target in the past), and who created it (relevant, for example, if it later turns out that the user in question was a purveyor of subtle hoaxes). – Uanfala (talk) 13:28, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

What if XfD is already in progress?

What's the correct thing to do if an AfD, CfD, MfD, RfD or TfD (have I missed any?) is in progress for a given page, and then it is found to meet a CSD? This could be an instance where the author has requested deletion (G7) after the XfD was raised, or a finding that it met one of the CSD all along and should have been marked as one of these rather than going through XfD. — Smjg (talk) 12:31, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

That's obvious, that a page can still be deleted if there are Keep comments at XfD. Even without a CSD, one or two people posting Keep arguments won't stop a page being deleted if there are stronger Delete arguments. — Smjg (talk) 15:34, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
I have often tagged a page at MfD with U5, and/or G11. Importantly, there were no non-delete !votes, and none conceivable. If there were a a “keep” sentiment from anyone, then speedy deletion would be rude. Exceptions apply, including G10 and G12. G7 tagged should not be acted on, because it opens the door to a later re-creation that is immune to G4. A G7 appeal during an XfD should lead to a SNOW XfD close. SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:25, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you all for your input. So essentially, the right thing to do is go ahead and place the CSD tag, and while at it post a comment on the XfD to the effect. I suppose that:

But I'm struggling to understand the implications for G7. I've sometimes thought that, even if the author has requested deletion, someone else might want to finish (or at least continue) what the author had started. So does this mean if the author tags a page with G7 when an XfD is in progress, it can remain but shouldn't be actioned for the time being? And if the author blanks a page with an ongoing XfD, and there's no support (from me or given by anyone else) for keeping it, should I tag it with G7 at this point? What if there is support for keeping it? — Smjg (talk) 15:34, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

A10 and drafts

A frequent issue I've run into is people tagging articles as A10 when the page being duplicated is in draftspace. This seems like quite a common thing: someone creates a draft, and instead of moving it to the mainspace, they just copy-and-paste it over (which isn't ideal, but I guess acceptable if the creator was the sole editor). I therefore propose we change "duplicates an existing English Wikipedia topic" to "duplicates an existing English Wikipedia article". I believe this codifies existing practice and just makes things clearer, but in case that wasn't the case I wanted to allow others to comment. Sdrqaz (talk) 23:50, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

A2, A5, A10 and non-English material

When content is not in English but that content exists on the relevant non-English Wikipedia it can be deleted under A2 or A10, that's fine. However, A10 allows for the speedy deletion of material that doesn't exist on the foreign language Wikipedia, rather than what should be happening, which is a transwiki.

I propose to resolve that by:

I am not proposing specific wording yet as I want to get agreement on the principle first (and I'm not the best at concise language for things like this).

There are four possible scenarios for non-English material:

Scenario Current process Proposed process
Content duplicates en.wp article and other language Wikipedia article Speedy deletion under A2 and/or A10 Speedy deletion under A2 only
Content duplicates en.wp article only Speedy deletion under A10 Transwiki then speedy deletion under A5
Content duplicates other language Wikipedia only Tag with ((Not English)) to mark for translation no change
Content duplicates nothing Tag with ((Not English)) to mark for translation and transwiki (I presume) no change (I hope)

Thryduulf (talk) 16:35, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Has there been any analysis of what the fate is of articles created in a foreign language? What percentage are transwikied, what percentage are translated here, what percentage are deleted under each criteria? Generally when I come across foreign language articles in NPP they are very poor - I'm not sure making it harder to delete these usually-poor articles is going to be beneficial, so I'd love to see some actual statistics on this. Elli (talk | contribs) 16:44, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Proposed change for G13

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


I am proposing that G13 be changed to exclude early speedy deletion nominations from the time count. Resetting the time for another 6 months simply because a draft was improperly tagged seems to be contrary to what this criterion is being used for. If a draft has not been edited for months other than the addition of a deletion template then obviously it is has been abandoned. Resetting the timer, in this case, is simply prolonging the inevitable. I see no harm in this considering these drafts can always be refunded. NoahTalk 01:22, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

I would agree with all tagging (to the extent that anybody tags drafts) being excluded from the time count for the same reason. Pointing out needed improvements isn't itself an improvement to the article. Largoplazo (talk) 02:05, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
I agree. If the only action is declining say a G11, I don't think that counts as improvements. Hog Farm Talk 03:20, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
  • @Oiyarbepsy: The problem is there is NO room for making a judgement call. Admins simply count every edit as resetting the time no matter what since the criteria mentions any human edit. We could add a single word to it if need be to allow such calls to be made. These extra drafts can clog up backlogs at projects by inflating the amount present. Normally, they would be gone by 6 months. NoahTalk 09:34, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
I agree with Oiyarbepsy: this is instruction creep. Additionally, the present system has the unintended but beneficial effect of discouraging ragpicking: perhaps users will think twice about making a questionable deletion nomination if there's a risk that it might restart the six-month clock altogether. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 06:26, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
Most of what I have seen has been good-faith noms that nom something just before the 6 months is up and it gets reset rather than people thinking about a questionable deletion with risk. NoahTalk 09:34, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Disputing a dubious CSD criteria written somewhere else, WP:NOTNOW

Noting I have disputed a clause at WP:RFA that created a WP:NOTNOW CSD criterion, under the cover of G6.

One aspect is that all CSD criteria belong at WP:CSD.

Another is that G6 abuse (deleting non technical things with non-trivial histories) should stop, in favour of explicit specific objective criteria.

On the question of what to do with NOTNOW RFA transcluded pages, the discussion is at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship#Deleting WP:NOTNOW RfAs by WP:G6. SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:09, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

New criterion: Clearly contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia

Consider Draft:ChatRoom; this is not malicious but should be deleted as clearly contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia and shouldn't have to go to WP:MFD, but doesn't seem to fall under any existing criterion. Let's add one. (Or possibly U5, if some verbiage were added there to cover Draftspace?) Mathglot (talk) 21:00, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

I think G2 works there? Or move it to the user's userspace. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 21:02, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
This (or something pretty darn similar) was proposed/discussed back in July. While I generally have no opinions on the matter, I'm not sure there's enough "new" here to justify re-opening that discussion. Primefac (talk) 21:04, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
G2 doesn't work since the page is clearly not a test. That said, I don't see any harm it is causing, as the user made no effort advertising their chat room, so it is doomed to become them talking to themselves until they give up and it gets G13-ed. * Pppery * it has begun... 21:06, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
The wording seems incredibly nebulous and as a result not suited for CSD. U5 is already, in my opinion, abused and should not be expanded in this manner. Sdrqaz (talk) 21:26, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
U5 + G6 (wrong namespace) pretty much covers this. Elli (talk | contribs) 21:28, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
If you want to G6 it, which namespace would that page belong in? Sdrqaz (talk) 21:47, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
Userspace - it's clearly not a draft article. It'd be U5-able there though - so you could avoid the "move to delete" and U5 it from draft-space. Note that moving pages from a namespace where they wouldn't be eligible for CSD to one where they would is generally inappropriate, unless the page actually belonged in that namespace to begin with - like this one does. Elli (talk | contribs) 21:50, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
On the other hand, creating a draft for something that is clearly more suitable for user space should be move to its proper namespace. That is true regardless of whether the page merits deletion. If it meets a speedy deletion criterion, then delete it. ~Anachronist (talk) 21:56, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
Yes, of course. If something is in the wrong namespace but wouldn't be CSDable in the right one, move it. If something is in the wrong namespace and would be CSDable in the right one, delete it. Of course when doing something like this it's best to err on the side of caution, so use common sense. Elli (talk | contribs) 22:12, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
All of this feels in violation of the spirit (if not the word) of the current policy, which holds that "A page is eligible for speedy deletion only if all of its history is also eligible." The policy has different namespace prefixes for a reason. Sdrqaz (talk) 22:32, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
It's not a violation if used conservatively. Common sense dictates that we can treat pages clearly meant to be created in a certain namespace as if they were created in that namespace. The previous discussion about this criteria touched on this exact issue - I concur with SoWhy's opinion there. Elli (talk | contribs) 23:03, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
I am aware of that discussion, and agree with Thryduulf and Redrose64 from the same thread. Sdrqaz (talk) 23:30, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
The entire content of Draft:ChatRoom (apart from the AfC boilerplate) is: This is a place where people can chat,I created this page because Wikipedia doesn't offer this,so feel free to use it,btw when chatting use a username so its easier to know who is who,mild cursing pls lmao. Now, my first thought at seeing this was "Yeah, that's not how we do stuff here". But then, why not? People have used chat services to coordinate various aspects of work onwiki, so it makes sense to think about ways of bringing that activity here. Is this draft the way to do it? Most likely not, but there's nothing wrong with people experimenting. There's no harm to the project here, so I see no need to rush deleting before the G13 deadline. – Uanfala (talk) 22:33, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
Even if so, this feature wouldn't be an article. Isn't draft space exclusively for content intended to qualify some day as an article? Largoplazo (talk) 22:37, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
...because WP:NOTSOCIALNETWORK? ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 23:05, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
That may not have been the intention of the creator of this draft, but chatrooms are sometimes used for Wiki-related activities. Wikipedia:Discord is one example. – Uanfala (talk) 23:25, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
That is exactly the other way around though – that's a platform unrelated to Wikipedia that is used for Wikipedia. This is Wikipedia being used things unrelated to this site. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 14:51, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
I concur with others that this particular page was not created with the intention of drafting an article, so it is properly moved from Draft space to the user's space, where, yes, it becomes eligible for U5.
As for expanding the criteria to allow a case like this not to involve a move? It seems easier to just do the move when the situation arrives than to explain what a new criterion or the expansion of an existing one does and doesn't permit. Largoplazo (talk) 22:36, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
Above, Primefac linked archived discussion #U5 vs. draft space. From that conversation, I learned from Hut 8.5 (diff) that expanding U5 to draft space has been twice rejected before, and that Redrose64 deplores the idea of moving a page to another space in order to gain access to a CSD criterion. I'm not sure it reached the level of consensus, but there seemed to be a lot of militating against moving to user space so that U5 could apply.
Beyond the CSD issue (therefore slightly o/t), as a practical matter, I wonder if it's worth saying something at this new user's TP about this. I don't think we want to give them the impression that chatrooms are accepted here. On the flip side, I'm queasy about the impact of saying it's not acceptable, and then not doing anything about it for six months; this violates "watch what they do, not what they say" and could confuse a new user even more about how things work around here. While wearing your retention and new-user welcoming hats, how would you handle this? Mathglot (talk) 23:49, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Redirects that prevent search result priority?

Following the result at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 October 27#Laura Brehm, where it was determined that such a redirect would prevent displaying a search result in the case of multiple other pages making mention of the subject, I'm starting to think: maybe a speedy deletion criteria would save the trouble of going through RFD to get such redirects deleted? Would a speedy deletion criteria for these types of redirects be something that can be achieved at all? And if so, can we set some kind of threshold on search results for such a criteria to apply? Jalen Folf (talk) 03:57, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

CSDs must be easily defined in an unambiguous manner. The mere existence of other pages making mention of the subject is not sufficient; for example, Traffic circle is mentioned in many articles (e.g. Nuns' Island) but there is no plausible argument for deleting it or redirecting it to any page but Roundabout. Ultimately, the decision depends on how closely tied the redirect is to its target rather than how much it appears in search results, and that is a subjective judgment which requires discussion. -- King of ♥ 04:06, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
I agree that a new CSD wouldn't be ideal here. Perhaps we could tweak the language at WP:RFD#DELETE #1? The spirit of the reason matches the scenario here: search results would be better than the redirect. The language of the reason refers only to "similarly named articles", but we're finding here that it could equally apply to any articles that include the search term. Let me know if this is sensible, as discussion for this would be better placed at WT:RFD. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 05:12, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
I am not opposed to the change of language, and would be willing to participate in such a discussion at the RFD Talk page. Please notify me when that happens. Jalen Folf (talk) 19:30, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
I strongly agree with the substance, of redirects that subvert a better search function result being bad. However, I don’t think CSD is the answer. SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:36, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
I agree with Smokeyjoe, especially as there are far more occasions when a redirect is better than search results than the other way around. Generally the only times search results are preferable is where there is a topic that (1) has mentions in multiple articles by that or a very similar name, (2) has no in-depth coverage anywhere under any name, (3) isn't a useful search term for a different topic about which we do have coverage, (4) a soft redirect to e.g. Wiktionary is not thought to be superior than search results, and (4) (in some cases) it is not desirous discourage article creation by preventing red links. Given that all four are subjective, CSD is very much the wrong vehicle here. Thryduulf (talk) 03:21, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

File talk pages which consist only of boilerplates, wikiproject tags, and/or text which has been copied to Commons

I have been the main person handling F8 (Commons files) for the better part of 11 years.

In almost all circumstances, the file talk page is no longer appropriate after deletion.

I propose that a file talk page should be eligible for deletion under the following criteria:

  • Boilerplate messages without utility (e.g., ((talk page)))
  • Wikiproject templates
  • Discussion which has been copied in full to Commons (preferably by means of c:Special:Import, but also possible by copy/pasting as long as we adhere to attribution).

Thoughts? Courtesy ping User:MGA73, User:Explicit, User:Ixfd64 as people often involved in the process. Magog the Ogre (tc) 15:30, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

I am thinking that there are too many situations where we want to keep such talk pages, e.g:
  • I think that some Wikiprojects care about images even if they are on Commons, so I'd be quite wary of deleting them.
  • Discussions ... I don't think they are always copied to Commons and I would not automatically assume they'll stay there or be appropriate there. True, I think that telling people to use the Commons talk page for Commons images would make sense but that has nothing to do with speedy deletion.
  • Boilerplate messages might be worth deleting if they discourage being used on otherwise empty & inactive pages. For example ((talk page)) does say This template should be used only when a talk page requires it. There is no need to add this template to every talk page. Do not create a talk page that contains only this template. - was there ever discussion on whether talk pages created solely with that template are CSD-eligible?
Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:22, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
For what it's worth, there is an ongoing discussion, advertised on T:CENT, proposing the deprecation of that guideline. Sdrqaz (talk) 17:55, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for the ping. I see no reason to keep talk pages in those situations listed by Magog. Is it possible to find an example where the page should not be deleted? --MGA73 (talk) 18:32, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I'm leaning towards this not being a good idea, certainly as proposed. WikiProject templates and (per the discussion Sdrqaz links to) talk header templates are useful, and verifying whether all discussions have been copied with full attribution is not something that we should be expecting someone patrolling CSD cats to do quickly and reliably. Something like talk pages with no meaningful history (if we can objectively define "meaningful") might be doable but I'm wondering both how frequently it would get used and what benefit deletion would bring to the project? Thryduulf (talk) 18:36, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
I think that generally file talk pages consisting of WikiProject tags for files hosted on Commons are kinda pointless and wouldn't oppose being able to speedily delete them. Copy-and-pasted discussions is iffy for attribution reasons. Elli (talk | contribs) 18:39, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
I can definitely see situations for keeping local talk pages for deleted files, especially if there is a lot of valuable discussion about a particular image. Perhaps there should be a template for requesting that the talk page not deleted. So something like ((keep local)) but for file talk pages. Ixfd64 (talk) 20:19, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
((G8-exempt)) already exists for this purpose, but given that any of these file talk pages with a non-trivial history should be carefully examined (locally and on Commons) by a human in all cases, I think deletion should be the exception not the norm making such a template redundant in this situation. Thryduulf (talk) 21:07, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
I'm finding myself in agreement with Jo-Jo Eumerus and Thryduulf. Files don't suddenly become irrelevant to WikiProjects when local uploads are deleted in favor of files on Commons, they are still within the scope of those communities. I am ambivalent towards ((talk header)), as the documentation's long-standing instructions have shaped my opinion in that talk pages with just this template are not particularly useful, and admins routinely deleted them in the past citing WP:CSD#G6. In regards to actual discussions on file talk pages, do these occur often? Is the workload of copying/importing those discussions worthwhile? plicit 03:46, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
File talk page discussions are pretty common but they usually don't get an answer. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:26, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
Mainly because they only have one watcher - the person who created the discussion. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:55, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
On this subject see WP:Village pump (idea lab)#Bot collation of questions on low-watched talk pages for an idea of how to make this less of a thing. Thryduulf (talk) 17:04, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
As a recent example, File talk:London Montage L.jpg was created today by Fhd34521 (talk · contribs) - it has two watchers. One will be Fhd34521, but I have no idea who the other one is, since the corresponding File:London Montage L.jpg doesn't exist here, being an image on Commons. File talk:Arms of William George Hunt.svg (another where the file page is hosted on Commons) has no watchers at all. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:35, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

New criterion: pages that are unambiguously intended to support a scam

The idea of this criterion was prompted by ABN_Assets, on the basis that many people accept the existence of a Wikipedia article as strong evidence that a company actually exists, is reputably large, and safe to use.
In the case of ABN assets, it's alleged that a scammer has set up a website that has nothing to do with the very large, similarly-named ABN AMRO, and leant weight to their creation by writing a Wikipedia article about "ABN Assets" (including, quite naturally, the external link). Articles like this are almost certain to get deleted eventually, but the longer they sit there, the greater the number of people who get scammed before we catch up, and the greater the incentive to scammers to write more scam-articles. At the moment they don't quite fit any category. The nearest match is the blatant hoaxes bit of G3 (vandalism and hoaxes), but scam articles aren't vandalism, and have quite a different appearance to a hoax; a successful scam page isn't pushing belief to the very edge, with a weird tall story, it's just a rather dull page about a financial services company. Even the external link isn't necessary, because the scamee probably knows it already. The articles aren't covered by G11 unambiguous advertising, because they don't need to be written in an advertising style; they're not there to advertise, just to look solid and respectable.
I am therefore proposing either a new category for articles that obviously have no value except in lending weight to a likely scam, or a change in the wording of G3 from "Pure vandalism and blatant hoaxes" to "Pure vandalism, blatant hoaxes and scams", with matching text in the explanatory paragraph, that it may be used for a page which is unarguably lending weight to a scam, for example by reinforcing the existence of an organisation that doesn't exist. Any thoughts, or is this just unnecessary/daft? Elemimele (talk) 18:04, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Unnecessary and not a good idea. If it isn't a G3 hoax, and it isn't G11 advertising, and it isn't A7 "no claim of being an operating business", we can afford the week to discuss it. The example article has existed for 10 years, what's another week? User:力 (powera, π, ν) 18:11, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
Concur that G3, G11, and A7 should cover off most cases of this. -- Whpq (talk) 19:02, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
Additionally, I don't see any way to make what Elemimele describes into a criterion that is objective enough to support speedy deletion without having to do and lay out research as to why you believe this is intended to support a scam. Which is precisely what deletion discussions are for and speedy deletion is not. Either it's obvious enough to meet the current G3, G11 or A7 criteria or it requires more discussion. Regards SoWhy 19:38, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
Plus, while the AFD is open, the article can always be tagged with ((hoax)) to warn readers that the content might not be verifiable, thus removing any benefit the potential scammers could have from the article's existence. Regards SoWhy 19:41, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
Fair comment, all! I didn't know about the ((hoax)) tag, which does the job. Elemimele (talk) 20:33, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
I agree with SoWhy. I don't know how we can determine whether something like this is a scam without either signficant investigation or reference to reliable sources, neither of which are at all suitable to speedy deletion. If there is RS coverage then the scam might be notable and if so in some cases it will be possible to rewrite the article to be an NPOV article about the scam rather than promoting it, but all that will require discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 23:19, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
A scam is a hoax, and using Wikipedia to perpetrate a scam is vandalism. If a "likely scam" is likely enough so to merit speedy deletion under any criterion, then G3 is that criterion. If it isn't quite that cut-and-dried, then label it ((hoax)) and AFD it. Largoplazo (talk) 00:05, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

A7 and radio stations

I always thought that A7 applied to radio and TV stations. However, Ritchie333 thinks otherwise. Seems to me stations are companies/organizations of some type, commercial, non-commercial, whatever. Am I wrong?--Bbb23 (talk) 15:10, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

I think the basic ideas are 1) In order to obtain an FM licence, you have to pay for one and pass a strict standards test, which means there are relatively few of them and they cannot be created indiscriminately. The "FM" bit is important, internet-only radio and TV can be created by anyone indiscriminately and does qualify for A7. 2) There hasn't been a wave of AfDs for FM radio stations making a CSD criteria necessary to stop bogging down the works with them. It might be a PROD or AfD job, for sure, but not A7. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:13, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
Are you implying that there are special considerations for FM stations that don't apply to AM or longwave or TV stations? Largoplazo (talk) 17:45, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
I agree with Ritchie - operating a licensed terrestrial broadcast tower is enough for a presumption of significance to survive A7. However, PROD and AFD can and do delete articles on broadcast radio stations that don't meet notability standards. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 16:39, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
So, as I understand it, you're saying that FM radio stations are inherently immune from A7 because of the licensing requirements? That strikes me as bizarre, but is it true that FM licensing standards are the same in every country? And precisely what are those standards?--Bbb23 (talk) 16:45, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
I wouldn't go as far as saying "FM radio" = "A7 decline" though but in many cases, even if A7 would normally apply, WP:ATD will also apply. I understand the logic that these kinds of stations are too rare to require A7 but then again, "frequent" is a requirement for newly proposed CSD, not existing ones. Personally, I probably would have granted the A7 since there is no reason to assume that this station is significant in any way (and neither source in the article mentions it). But this discussion shows that this is not as clear, so erring on the side of caution in most cases of FM radio stations sounds like a good idea. FWIW, here's the licensing requirements of the Philippines. Regards SoWhy 17:05, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
@SoWhy: I don't see the licensing requirements on that page. Is there a way to verify that a station has a license?--Bbb23 (talk) 17:10, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
"Needs a licence" is most assuredly not a claim of significance - by that logic all houses and buildings I have ever been in and the vast majority of businesses would be banned from A7. On the specific case of Philippine stations, the links at the top of List of radio stations in the Philippines imply that there are thousands of such things and I am not sure that a FM Licence has any special significance. Bbb23 it seems like the website is screwed up a little; there are PDF links in the page source. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 17:19, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
In the specific case of ECR FM, my gut feeling is that there could be a potential redirect target to the town or college that hosts the station, per WP:ATD-R. I can't obviously see one so I've prodded the article. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:17, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
@Bbb23: if there is a reference that shows the station is licensed, my position is yes, you should need to use PROD and not CSD. In the specific case of ECR FM, neither reference actually mentions the station, and the school Eastside Christian Academy it is affiliated with doesn't have an article. The only actual source appears to be a Facebook page. It probably should be CSD-able. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 17:20, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
This debate reminds me of Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 81 § TV channels and A7 (August this year). Unfortunately, only two subject-area regulars responded my query, in effect saying that licenses to broadcast were assertions of significance. It's certainly not the most intuitive assertion of significance (hence the issue with these notability-adjacent criteria, given how subjective they are). Sdrqaz (talk) 17:47, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: The difference is that licenses to construct a building are very common - there are tens in all but the very smallest of settlements, cities have hundreds of thousands or millions. Radio broadcast licenses are not that common - I count just 23 at List of radio stations in Metro Manila. Any station granted a terrestrial radio broadcast license has an implicit claim to significance (given the available spectrum is finite and most countries have regulations about content, etc, they will need to be satisfied are/will be met), similarly any article about a station that has been actively rejected for such a license is also claiming significance (this would need mentioning in the article, and excludes things like non-serious and very-clearly-never-stood-a-chance applications). Low-powered stations like in the example fall into a class between regional stations (licenses are somewhat rare) and buildings (licenses are extremely common), but are often going to be notable in the context of their broadcast area so if there is content that meets WP:V then I'd definitely be looking to merge somewhere, taking it to prod or AfD after making sure relevant WikiProjects were tagged on the talk page, if I couldn't find a suitable target. If there is a target but no content or nothing verifiable beyond existence then I would redirect to a mention. Thryduulf (talk) 02:32, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: fixing the ping. Thryduulf (talk) 02:35, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
List of radio stations in Metro Manila has only 23 items, but the sources have considerably longer lists - c. 1197. Now myself I would probably pass on such an A7 since it's unclear to me whether something like that can be considered a claim of significance but I wouldn't consider it unambiguously wrong. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:41, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
@Jo-Jo Eumerus: The sources have longer lists because they list all the stations in the entire country. Assuming FM stations are spaced no closer together than 0.2 MHz, there isn't room for even 40 or so in the same reception area. Largoplazo (talk) 12:32, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

G14 of pages that have survived XFD

Should G14 be listed as an exception to Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#Pages that have survived deletion discussions? See Talk:Tiln, Nottinghamshire#Requested move 13 December 2021 for example. This would apply only in cases where the DAB page was previously at the base name at the time of the XFD, there were and still are only 2 uses and a primary topic later is created meaning WP:2DABS would then apply. In the case of Tiln the DAB was created in 2005, it was PRODED and AFDed in 2007 and Tiln, Nottinghamshire was created in 2008.

Example, a DAB page X is created listing 2 uses such as red links, DABMENTIONs or alternative/similar names such as X1 and X2, DAB page X is nominated for deletion on the grounds that the entries aren't valid/appropriate but its kept since its felt the entries are valid, X1 later has an article created (or a substantial mention in another article) but X2 is not notable or at least X1 is primary over it per WP:PRIMARYRED so X1 is moved to X and the DAb page is moved to X (disambiguation), X (disambiguation) should then be able to be deleted under G14 because WP:2DABS now applies.

Proposal:

"G14, cases where a disambiguation page only listing 2 entries, later one of those uses becomes the primary topic, per WP:2DABS a hatnote can link to the only other. This may apply if the page was moved to the base name (or a primary redirect was made) either as a result of consensus or done boldly as long as its not controversial that the use made primary is primary"

A DAB is not an article so if it only was ever a DAB then it only serves as navigation so its not like anything is lost if later a primary topic is created. Users may want to support this only if there has been an express consensus (say at RM or RFD) than a meaning is primary. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:23, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

RfC on merging U1 into G7

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


Should deletion criterion U1 (User requests deletion) be merged into deletion criterion G7 (Author requests deletion)? 12:55, 21 December 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chicdat (talkcontribs)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposal: expand F2 to cover certain file talk pages

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Unanimous opposition to this proposal. Primefac (talk) 01:34, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Creating an RfC to formalize the above discussion: should file talk pages for files on Wikimedia Commons that only consist of the following: boilerplate templates, WikiProject tags, and/or discussions which have been copied to Commons be eligible for WP:F2 speedy deletion? Elli (talk | contribs) 00:49, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.