Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 30

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There is an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Reducing VfD load about ways that the size of VfD might be reduced. While there is still much discussion about possible new procedures and policies, there is a general consensus that one way to reduce the size would be to encourage editors to use other processes before or instead of nominating a page for deletion. Some of these other processes are:

1. Research the subject. A lot of articles are placed on VfD because of very little/poor content, but then kept because the subject is determined to be encyclopedic, even if the article in its current state is not. Nominators should put more effort into finding out if the subject of the article is keepable, and make sure it is correctly categorized/stub-tagged/cleanup-tagged.
2. Patience. Two applications of this -
   1. Give an article at least a little time to develop; It is understood that some RC patrollers feel they need to take action before an article disappears off the RC page, but nominating an article for VfD within minutes of its creation is often inappropriate. Use the "Watch" button - it won't kill us if a questionable stub is created and sits around for at least a couple of days until the author gets a chance to work on it.
   2. "A month" isn't exactly a long time either; many VfD's seem to be based on "this article's been around for a month (or 2 or 3) and nobody's worked on it!!!!!" Nobody knowledgeable about the subject may have found it (especially if it hasn't been categorized/tagged/listed) or had time to work on it. Not all editors are Wikipedaholics.
3. Categorize/Stub-tag/Listing on the appropriate "needs attention" page. In conjunction with the two points above, an article may not have been "placed" or linked to a place where an editor with knowledge of the subject can find it and fix it.
4. Merge and Redirect. Any editor can do this. See Wikipedia:Merge, Wikipedia:Redirect and Wikipedia:Duplicate articles. This would help with sending "cruft" articles/info to a place where the info will get attention from informed sources, and unnecessary/inappropriate stuff can get deleted without clogging VfD and requring admin attention. Also Move can be used by any logged-in user, when appropriate.
5. Use the article's Discussion page to raise questions about an article's appropriateness. Also, discussions on the talk pages of articles related to the subject can be especially useful in determining if an article should be merged with a larger article.
6. So fix it. While "write about what you know about" is certainly useful, it's definitely not a rule or requirement or anything. No reason that editors couldn't or shouldn't do some research (even if it's just online research) and make some improvements themselves rather than VFDing it.
   

Please note that this is not a suggestion about changing policy or procedure. This is simply "spreading the word" about some possible ways that we can reduce the size of VfD, and so this will be posted in several places around Wikipedia. Thanks for listening. Soundguy99 15:31, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

---

Todays Vfd seems overburdened by vanity pages. I added this thought to the sixth or seventh vote, and realized the common thread was Date of Birth. So I wrote this ageistic suggestion: "

• Speedy Delete 'WOT' -- dob 1986, age 19! 'Perhaps need a guideline that someone has to be at least 25 or subject to speedy' would thin these vanity/hoaxes into something we should be spending our time on. say {{Agetrigger}} could immediate place the arty into a basket for 'merit review'... while making the arty invisible on the web. The occasional legit pop-star/icon/boy scientist/mass murderer can then be gated in w/o rewarding the hoaxer by giving them five+ days of fame."

• Whether this is feasible is for the code people to say, but allowed articles should have an equivilent trigger allowing the arty so that someone doesn't freshly tag it... presumably protected by some password key, known only to administrators, and necessarily, something that could not be duplicated into a new vanity hoax, or deleted from the one it actually belongs to and with. Presumably, the article would still be edit accessible, except for the header and tail which involve the locks. Some hash code keyed to the article title should do the trick as this sort of 'lock'. Drop me an email if my drift is going amiss! Fabartus 00:58, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This kind of vanity article isn't susceptible to pre-emptive thinning out by putting up an age criterion because those who are making the articles would simply lie about their age.

On the frequent comments I see about VfD load, I will only say that really there is no need to trudge through all the silly vanity listings if you don't want to. A listing that doesn't attract a single extra vote over a five-day period will be deleted if the nominator recommended that. But the listing does have to be there on VfD just in case the article is about a notable person--as in the recent Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Cheryl Campbell, where the problem was apparently that the nominator didn't recognise the name of the actress.

I don't see any point in making articles about young people invisible in any case. It might be a useful trick to defer creation of all anonymous new articles for an hour or so, but that's a different matter. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:38, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Um, lots of people under 25 are notable, and even more people over 25 are not notable. As regarding the rest of your suggestions, Fabartus, please read m:instruction creep. Soundguy99 16:02, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I see the cocktail I nommed isn't the only one out there, see Category:Cocktails. Did something happen to Wikipedia is not a recipe book while I wasn't looking or should most of these be deleted? Some have sufficient story to make them valid articles, but ones like Soviet cocktail shouldn't be kept in my view. --W(t) 06:18, 2005 Jun 5 (UTC)

• We decided that more drinking would help reduce wikistress. . . . . Soundguy99 02:15, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Wikibooks includes a recipe book - Cocktails should have some sort of link to that or they will just continue to be added...  The Steve  02:30, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)
  • Wikibooks actually includes two recipe books now: a Cookbook and a book on Bartending. Some of the recipes had conflicting names, as I understand it. The problem appears to be that list of cocktails and cocktail are both not clear about where recipes (as opposed to encyclopaedia articles) are. (cocktail says that the recipes are at list of cocktails.) Uncle G 02:38, 2005 Jun 6 (UTC)
    • Wikibooks:Cookbook:Cocktails actually is a redirect to Wikibooks:Bartending:Cocktails. It looks like it was moved over back in April sometime. I can't speak to the duplicated names issue; presumably that can be straightened out through their local disambiguation process...? Evidently the wording at Cocktail needs to be changed so we don't suggest that recipes are at List of cocktails. --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 02:53, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • Yes, it has been straightened out. The separation into two wikibooks did that. Uncle G 03:24, 2005 Jun 6 (UTC)

Here's my suggestion:

• Cocktail articles that are no more than recipes should be transwikied to the appropriate Wikibook. On Wikipedia, the articles should be redirects to List of cocktails.
• List of cocktails should have a prominent notice directing people interested in recipes to Wikibooks. (Maybe the boilerplate notice that's there right now needs to be enhanced?) Hopefully cocktail authors will be able to figure out this subtle hint, too.
• Articles on cocktails with significant historical or cultural significance can be retained in Wikipedia, those articles can still be linked to from List of cocktails. Other cocktails should not be internally wikilinked; if they are described in Wikibooks perhaps they can have external links there.

Any thoughts? --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 02:45, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. --W(t) 06:26, 2005 Jun 6 (UTC)

• I'd agree. Radiant_* 14:08, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

I've come across a number of articles such as 32 universes that have been vfd'ed, gone through the voting process, but then have had nothing further done to them. The example article I mentioned was nominated on the 25th - 12 days ago. It has no indication that the decision is being postponed in some way. Are there any specific steps to get them moved along? --TheParanoidOne 21:01, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Old. Like everything else on Wikipedia, closing out the old discussions is a volunteer activity. Discussions get closed when someone has interest, experience and ability. The backlog of discussions that have expired but not yet been closed tends to run between 4 and 10 days (though it's been much higher at times). Be patient and it will get closed eventually. Or even better (especially if you are an admin), review the Wikipedia:Deletion process and help us stay caught up. Thanks. Rossami (talk) 21:37, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. --TheParanoidOne 22:25, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

At Lucky Octavian's VFU which I brought to VFU, RickK voted keep deleted on the grounds that "the admin has the clear right to assess the votes and determine how to interpret them". I'm a bit interested in finding out how many people would "interpret" Lucky Octavian's VfD debate as a consensus to delete the article. For me, if I found out that a closing admin started interpreting my merge votes as endorsements for the article's deletion I would be quite astonished. What about you? Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:32, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I count 3keep, 7del and 3merge, which means that there is a consensus that this does not deserve its own article. Thus the info should be merged and this article become a redirect. IMHO --MarSch 13:51, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. In my humble non-sysop opinion, I would tend to read a small majority of delete votes, combined with merge votes and only a few keeps as an opportunity to merge as a sensible compromise. The redirect also tends to cut down on recreation of the articles, so we can avoid having to go through VfD again. Then again, I'm a closet mergist, so maybe I'm biased. --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 14:35, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I know reducing VfD lod is curretly a big deal, so here's a little help I can offer. First, have you noticed a lot of articles listed for deletion that are "already transwikied?" Well, a lot of times there were previous VfD decisions for transwiki. Also, a lot of times the discussion drags on even when there is a clear consensus to transwiki, and only then is it marked, and then there is some confusion as to whether it needs to be deleted or relisted. So I'm here to tell you that I transwiki all tagged articles for transwiki to Wiktionary within a day or two. So if you see a candidate for transwiki listed please mark it while it is listed, so I can transwik it first. This will prevent double listings, and most likely allow many clear-cut cases to be closed early. --Dmcdevit 06:54, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The current page says:

You don't have to vote on every nomination...

but with 100+ nominations per day, that seems like a useless admonition now. Who would even try? —Wahoofive (talk) 17:07, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

A number of committed people, from both extremes of the deletionist spectrum, with what some might call an axe to grind.

James F. (talk) 19:45, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I vote to Delete this phrase. :-P Jayjg ^(talk) 20:31, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Whats the status of Unsolved problems in Egyptology? (27th may) An anon has removed its VFD header, and asserted on the talk page "keep", but is that correct?

The page was there for 5 days. It was nearly 50-50 keep/delete tally (7k-8d). No real concensus to delete. So I thought'd I'd archive it. -Anon

While you do not have to be an admin to close a VfD discussion, it is a bad idea for an anonymous user to do so. Anonymous users do not have Talk pages by which controversial decisions can be challenged, etc. Anonymous users are not even allowed to vote in VfD discussions, much less to exercise the necessary discretion in the interpretation of comments and policy. To make matters worse, the user did not follow the Deletion process. I have reverted the edits made by the anonymous user and returned it to the queue for regular closure. I'm sure the anon user was trying to be helpful and did not realize the full implications of being bold in this case. Rossami (talk) 22:21, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Erm, anon users are actually allowed to vote on VfD. OTOH, closing admins/editors are definitely allowed to ignore or discount those votes if it seems likely that those votes are sockpuppets or meatpuppets, or the anon has a fishy edit history, or is defending his/her own article, or is a newbie vote, especially one that is simply a vote with no reasoning given. And I agree that it's a really bad idea for anons to close VfDs. Soundguy99 17:29, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Given User:204.56.7.1's pattern of edits, I think you're being over-kind (anon's watching the VFD page? Is that odd or what?)

The user is actually several as it is a library. But the one invovled with the Unsolved problems in Egyptology is not a vandal in my opinion. The user was under the impression that after 5 days vfds are immediately closed. Falphin 19:57, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 21:58, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)) Just cos its a library doesn't make it several users. And I never said she was a vandal.

Please take a look at a proposal at User:MarSch/deleteproposal for changing the deletion process. --MarSch 14:24, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

WP:VFDL is not up date any more, but currently stops at June 10. Am I the only one using that page? It's much more convenient than the individual pages if you want to find your own votes. Martg76 22:34, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ouch! That page takes eons to load... --MarSch 15:12, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Would it be possible to have a navigation template for the days on Vfd, updated daily by bot, so that users can work their way between days? Susvolans (pigs can fly) 07:55, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Or, failing that, "previous day"/"next day" links on each day's transclusion. Yeah - anything that makes navigating vfd even easier would help. Grutness...wha? 02:03, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Usually, the nominator is a different person from the author, and votes "delete". However, there can be exceptions:

• The nominator is a different person, but votes "keep": The article was tagged as VfD by someone, but they never bothered to nominate it,
• The nominator is the same person, and votes "delete": The author has created the article by mistake, or regrets creating it, but is not an administrator.

But what about the case where the nominator is the same person as the author and votes "keep"? I can't think of any useful reasons to do that for. — JIP | Talk 15:56, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Wait, actually "the article was tagged as VfD by someone, but they never bothered to nominate it" can qualify for nomination by the author for either "keep" or "delete" votes. So, considering the nominator is the tagger:

• The nominator is not the author, but votes "keep": The article's talk page, or other discussion, proposed it for tagging as VfD.
• The nominator is the author, and votes "delete": As above.

But what if the author tags their own article as VfD, nominates it, and votes "keep"? It seems like a waste of VfD. — JIP | Talk 16:02, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps it's a dare, or a sort of round-about hint that he'd like consideration as Article of the Day...? Paul Klenk 06:44, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Some editors vote for or against a VfD without providing any reason. Given that "it's not about the votes", this seems to be a useless jesture. It is also annoying to editors who take the VfD seriously. We can't obviously, enforce a ban on unexplained votes, but we could put a recommendation on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion:

"Because VfDs are conducted on the basis of consensus instead of a vote count, please provide a reason for your vote. Failure to do so could result in the administrator disregarding your vote in determining the outcome of the discussion."

Comments? Ground Zero 20:10, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It used to be explicitly listed in the header of the main VfD page but was removed (with a lot of other stuff) when the header was trimmed back. (See m:instruction creep.) It remains in the Deletion policy but it is not strongly worded there. It is clearly explained in Wikipedia:Guide to Votes for deletion although it is buried down in the sixth paragraph of the Discussion section. Rossami (talk) 21:49, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Rossami. But does anyone agree with me, for the reasons I've identified above, or for other reasons, that it would be a good idea to put it make into the main VfD page, instruction creep notwithstanding? Ground Zero 17:58, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree. However, I don't think VfD regulars read the heading text any longer, so you'd have to advertise it by other means. I think, at the very least, users voting should put one reason, even if it's "Delete per User_Name". --Deathphoenix 20:23, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You're right that regulars don't read the header, but putting it there would enable people to refer to it when others vote without a reason. Over time, it would encourage better behaviour. I also agree that "Delete, as per Bob Terwilliger" as an acceptable reason. It's a short cut that still explains why. Thanks, Death. Ground Zero 20:31, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Can we drop the google-test template please? It's making a crowded page even more crowded. I'm perfectly capable of Google-testing something myself without a pre-built template. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:53, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It is listed at Templates for deletion. Please vote there if you want it deleted (as would any sane person). smoddy 17:55, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

On the June 16, 2005 VfD page, there's a bunch of full sized images included inside the deletion discussions. This to my mind at any rate, is inappropriate, distracting, and a bad use of images. So... should these be apppropriate for use on VfD pages? (I have not noticed them being used before, in the quite a long time I've glanced at VfD) 132.205.95.65 20:02, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I've removed the images, which were added by Longhair, Proto, and dunc. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 20:37, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

I've requested to change the name to Votes Regarding Deletion. Superm401 | Talk 04:06, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

• Why? AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 04:55, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

This is a question that comes up from time to time. The name Votes for deletion is perhaps nonideal for two reasons. The use of the word votes implies that it is a democratic process, a referendum, a ballot—and unfortunately, it encourages a sort of winners versus losers all-or-nothing attitude towards discussions. Not only that, but it encourages misguided individuals to use sockpuppets or attempt to stack the discussions under the mistaken impression that sheer numbers are key. The second issue–which Android79 seems to be hoping to address–is that by calling this Votes for deletion, a particular course of action may seem to be advocated. Votes regarding deletion may be perceived as a more neutral statement.

As far as my two cents are concerned (and if a change and all its attendant updating and chaos were absolutely necessary) I would suggest Deletion discussions to dispense with the voting connotation. (The shortcut WP:DD is still available, too.) Mind, my preference is to leave well enough alone unless there's a really overwhelming desire from the community to make a change. --TenOfAllTrades(talk) 05:21, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia:Article Deletion says what this page is about (unfortunately WP:AD goes to accuracy dispute) without making unwanted references to voting or any other way we go about deleting articles. --MarSch 13:42, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

See #Moving this page above. smoddy 13:45, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I don't think renaming is particularly useful. Sockpuppet will keep voting and removing tags. However, moving this pages, would also require the change of numerous templates {vfd} {vfd top} vfd bottom} etc, etc, etc and other pages in the Wikipedia namespace. Why move if it only has a minor effect on the problem you want to solve. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:59, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)
  • It's a meme now - you'll never get consensus to name it anything other than VFD. Although you may get away with renaming the page to Wikipedia:Violent Factionalizing Debate :) Radiant_>|< 15:15, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
    • I second that proposal. -- Plutor 15:51, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Some time ago I proposed naming it something like "Editorial review." I do think that "votes for deletion" is somewhat abrasive. However, the reality is that it is rejection, and a rose by any other name would still have scratchy thorns. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:58, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• The name "Votes for Deletion" is bugging me. We're not deleting votes, we're deleting articles. First, pretty much every other Wikipedia names it "Articles for Deletion" ("poistettavat artikkelit" or something in the Finnish Wikipedia, "artiklar som börde raderas" or something in the Swedish Wikipedia). Second, for deleting anything other than articles, the name even in the English Wikipedia is "Foobar for Deletion", not "Votes for Foobar for Deletion". — JIP | Talk 1 July 2005 10:37 (UTC)
  • What would you do then if you think a User: page or a Wikipedia: page should be deleted? They are not articles. Currently, they get on VfD together with the rest. --cesarb 1 July 2005 13:38 (UTC)
    • Then it should be named Pages for Deletion. Calling articles "votes" when everything else is called by its right name strikes out at your face as inconsistent. — JIP | Talk 1 July 2005 14:10 (UTC)
      • Templates, redirects, categories, and images, all of which have their own processes for deletion, are also contained on pages. Articles is too specific; Pages is too general. Things that are not templates, redirects, categories, or images for deletion is much too long. ;-) AиDя01DTALKEMAIL July 1, 2005 17:13 (UTC)
        • That's true, but the "everyone other does it that way" argument still stands. I've just checked the interwiki links for languages I readily understand. Finnish, Swedish, French, Spanish and Portuguese call it Pages for Deletion. German calls it "candidates for deletion". No other Wikipedia seems to call it Votes for Deletion. If they can do it, why can't this Wikipedia? — JIP | Talk 2 July 2005 08:42 (UTC)

What happened to the edit links on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Log/2005 June 19? RickK 20:30, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

Someone added __NOEDITSECTION__ to Template:Vfd top. It has already been reverted, but one of the discussions must still have it. We just need to look at the 100+ of them and remove any __NOEDITSECTION__ left. --cesarb 21:26, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think I got them all for June 19. Related changes and a tabbed browser can be really helpful. --cesarb 21:39, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The user who nominated an article for deletion can prematurely close the VFD with a keep result, unless the "delete" opinion has already got more votes. - Sikon 12:31, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• m:instruction creep. If there's at least one delete vote, then at least one user would want the nomination to stand. Even if it's a snowball-in-hell nomination. Radiant_>|< July 1, 2005 10:06 (UTC)

From the top of the page: This article is about votes for deletion. For the fictional organization mentioned in A Series of Unfortunate Events, see V.F.D..

Is this really necessary? It sems like an unnecessary disambiguation template. I don't see any reason for this (it's a pretty obvious, standard, Wikipedia page), so I've been bold and removed it, though if you disagree, feel free to rv me. Bratsche^{talk 5 pillars} June 29, 2005 19:28 (UTC)

• No, definitely not necessary. There's no need to disambiguate something in the article namespace from something in the Wikipedia namespace. (In some cases it's helpful, but this is not one of those cases.) That was added by MichTheWeird, whose only other contributions thus far are to create an attack page and defend it on VfD, and also add some nonsense to a talk page and then copy it to BJAODN. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL June 29, 2005 19:41 (UTC)

As always, the backlog is pretty big. Here's an idea to make it a little easier to manage. I always find it annoying to page through an almost-done day of discussions looking for those few that aren't closed yet. For those days with only a few discussions left to close (say, twenty or less), how about a listing for each day of the number of overdue discussions and links to them? For example, June 16th and 17th would look like this:

• June 16th
  • 1 discussion left: Quantum sort, Boat Loans, SDIC, ASU Cares, WP Carey, Toronto-Centre-York (Senate division), SMARTCODE CORP.
• June 17th
  • 4 discussions left: Bang (Korean), Don Black, Impure salt, Akilam Two, et al., Plaque conspiracy, Spirit of Wine, Gigantic Fish (Miguzi) (name unknown), Coram Deo, Sheila gavin, Steve Shaw, Xenox, Ernest Aaron Rowe, NewsIsFree, Comparison of web browsers (security), Heiko and Selina Niedermeyer, Daniel percheron, Age of Mythology storyline, Kristoffer ericson

Comments? Even if this doesn't gain support, well, there's a big list of discussions that need to be closed. :-) AиDя01DTALKEMAIL June 30, 2005 01:09 (UTC)

• I would prefer not. VFD closing is such a heavy task already that adding to the burden by keeping a manual log and count of very old unclosed debates is tough. By the way, one of the reasons that some debates take a long time to close is that some of those debates are borderline, and it takes some pretty thorough analysis to figure out what should be done, and therefore many closers just pass them and hope it can be resolved later. Imagine for instance a debate with 6 short-reasoned delete votes followed by a very late rewrite and 2 keep votes. How should that be closed? If one closes it as a delete you get hit for ignoring a clear delete consensus, if it is closed as a keep you get hit for ignoring the fact that the article was rewritten. So passing it by and let someone else decide is a safer option. It can really help if people can look at these very old debates, read the article being discussed and then cast a late vote which may clarify the issue. Sjakkalle (Check!) 30 June 2005 13:24 (UTC)
• I think it is a good proposal. It would definately make it easier to get to the action. Sjakalle mentions this in his last sentence, so I don't understand why he's opposing.--MarSch 2 July 2005 14:38 (UTC)
• I think it's a good idea but it's not necessary to add any new instructions or pages.
  1. You can already do this on the VfD/Old page using the Individual very old debates that have not been closed by an admin section. Copy a link to the discussion into that section and close the day-page out. Debates have lingered in the "not yet closed" section for months while readers attempted to gather more facts, relevant ArbCom decisions were reached, etc. That section hasn't been getting much use lately but perhaps it should.
  2. If your sole problem is finding the unclosed discussions, may I refer you to Korath's stylebook tip for suppressing closed discussions? I added it to my userspace and love it. It automatically blocks all the closed discussions from my screen. The only ones visible are the ones not yet closed. There are a few side-effects but the last MediaWiki release made it pretty easy to switch styles. Switching to any other style and reloading the page automatically unsuppresses the section(s). Rossami (talk) 4 July 2005 04:43 (UTC)
     • And now there's an even better option for Firefox users. See R3m0t's script for wpvfdhide which allows you to hide and unhide the closed discussions at will. Rossami (talk) 4 July 2005 08:37 (UTC)

I spend a part of each day processing speedy requests, about half of which actually require VfD intervention. The process of nominating an article for VfD is three stages, and invariably, I get tired of the process before I run out of articles which should properly be here. It seems to me that speedy and VfD run in conflicting paths - speedy is not nearly flexible enough to meet the demand of the (mostly vanity) crap that arrives each day, while VfD is seriously overburdened by the resulting tax on its resources. I have proposed elsewhere that speedy might perhaps require more rigid criteria for nomination (such as at least stating why an article has been tagged). At the same time, I don't think facilitating nomination on VfD would seriously increase its load. I would propose a single template of the form {{subst:vfd|pg=blabla|text=whatever}} to replace the three templates currently required to nominate an article. In short, if speedy can be modified to cull more of the seriously egregious articles, and VfD can be streamlined to make nomination easier, we all stand to win. Denni☯ 2005 June 30 02:16 (UTC)

• Funny you should mention that. There's a policy proposal being worked on for this going on at Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL June 30, 2005 02:32 (UTC)

• • Making it easier to nominate an article for vfd would be great. I just don't see how it would work. I've heard someone mention time-ordered categories, but I don't think we have those yet. --MarSch 30 June 2005 12:19 (UTC)
    • Correct, we don't. The problem is that you can't use a single template, since you really must 1) tag the page, 2) create a discussion page, and 3) link the latter from today's list. I suppose one could make a javascript macro, or a 'delete' button at the top of the page that does that. Radiant_>|< July 1, 2005 10:08 (UTC)

• • • • See User:Korath/autovfd.js and its talk page. It adds a "vfd" tab next to the watch/unwatch tab at the top of monobook, and in other places on other skins. smoddy 1 July 2005 10:25 (UTC)

The July 1 page recently got messed up; I think it was caused by putting a CSD notice on the subpage for the Wolfgang Bader (Goethe-Institut) discussion. As a result, errant CSD notices were scattered throughout the July 1 page. Since the discussion subpage was itself deleted, I can't tell who put the CSD notice on it or if this really caused the problem in the first place. All I know is when Merovingian removed the subpage from the listing, the errant CSD notices went away.

Anyway, the point to this is: weird things can happen when you add notices to transcluded subpages or delete them. The best way, IMO, to deal with discussions that have been prematurely closed by a speedying of the article is to just close it with {{subst:vt}} and {{subst:vb}}, giving the "result of the debate" as speedy along with the admin who speedied it. Preserving the history of the "debate" up to the point where the article was speedied is probably a good idea as well, as it can be used easily by non-admins to discover previously-deleted articles and would make proceedings at VfU less hairy. If no one objects, I will add language regarding this to WP:GVFD. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL July 1, 2005 17:05 (UTC)

Could someone please delete Aaron Kraus and take care of whatever archiving is necessary for Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Aaron Kraus? It seems to have fallen through the cracks some while ago. Isomorphic 3 July 2005 01:12 (UTC)

Done. The lack of the normal header on the VfD pages appears to have been what let this one go unnoticed. --Allen3 ^talk July 3, 2005 01:23 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Tools#VfD tool wpvfdhide hides VfD discussions which are already closed on demand. This is useful both for finding unclosed entries in the logs and for finding things which weren't speedied in the current VfD day pages. The latest link to it is at User:R3m0t and it requires Firefox and Greasemonkey. r3m0t ^talk July 3, 2005 13:57 (UTC)

There should probably be an intray somewhere on the VfD page for deletion subjects which have got lost in the wash judging by the fact several are mentioned on this page and here is another one Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/The Keeper of Holyroodhouse. This is the obvious byproduct of something falling in the cracks between a delete and a merge, a merge I am going to complete, but a dumping ground for these zombies might be useful. MeltBanana 4 July 2005 00:52 (UTC)

These happen when the user doesn't do step 3 (adding to the VfD log). When you find one of these, you can add them to the latest log, adding a comment to the votes page saying you did so. To check if it's the case, just go to the "What links here" link from them; if it doesn't show a log page and is not from 2004 or before, it's an incomplete nomination. --cesarb 4 July 2005 01:08 (UTC)

I formally request that an admin close the VFD vote as KEEP on Starfleet ranks and insignia. The VFD tag was posted by a user who has some very strong feelings about the existence of this article on Wikipedia. In less than twenty four hours, we have 20 keep votes against 2 delete and many users have expressed a degree of shock that this was ever even considered for VFD. As the situation is unlikely to change, I am hoping to get the VFD tag removed and close this vote. Of course, if admins decided to keep it opne that is fine. I also say that the person who put it for VFD had every right to do so, as he felt he had a case and wanted a vote. There's nothing wrong with that and this request is not an indication of anger towards the VFD, just a hope for a speedy resolution. -Husnock 6 July 2005 20:39 (UTC)

Not likely. Policy and precedent agree neatly here: every entry gets its minimum of five days on VfD, except speedy deletion candidates, whose nominations may be closed prematurely. Righteous indignation is no grounds for premature delisting; even trolling isn't (when Jesus was put on VfD by a huckster, the article got five days of people lambasting the nomination, but it wasn't closed before its time). It doesn't pay off to make exceptions, even in obvious cases; you'll just get people arguing that clearly their article shouldn't be nominated, etc. Drafting exact policy on this (X% of keep votes in Y days) is a waste of time and effort. Let the discussion run its course. If it's clear-cut, it's clear-cut.

Besides, being listed on VfD is not a mark of shame; some of our best articles were listed on VfD once. JRM · Talk 6 July 2005 21:40 (UTC)

Thats a good answer. We will wait out the storm as it were. P.S.- Jesus was put on VFD?!? Do I hear thunder? -Husnock 6 July 2005 21:54 (UTC)

Actually, nominations like these make for a fine opportunity to really pin down the criteria for VfD. Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Jesus is a fun read. JRM · Talk 6 July 2005 21:58 (UTC)

There are examples of exceptions. Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/L._Paul_Bremer ended with speedy keep. Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/George W. Bush was in fact deleted (the debate that is, not the article). Sjakkalle (Check!) 7 July 2005 10:06 (UTC)

I am going to dispute those examples. Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/George W. Bush was an April Fools joke - supposed to be funny for the day and then the "discussion" was shut down. Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/L._Paul_Bremer was prematurely closed out of process. Had I seen it, I would have immediately re-opened the discussion. We got lucky that time and it turned out not to be controversial but our own history has taught us repeatedly that prematurely closing a discussion creates far more ill will and confusion than leaving the discussion in place for a few more days. user:JRM is right - the Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Jesus example is the right way to go. Rossami (talk) 7 July 2005 12:43 (UTC)

However, there does seem to be some precedent for speedily removing a debate if all the votes are to keep and the original nominator withdraws their nomination: See Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Lucky 6.9. Oh geez, all of this is putting me on an administrivia high. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) July 7, 2005 14:24 (UTC)

The situation here (noticed by at least three editors) was it was felt that the original VFD nomination was created by the nominator to "get back" for comments left on the Featured Article Candidate Page. At least one user wrote that it was an abuse of VFD and another wrote he found the entire VFD insulting. I wonder if, in cases such as that, VFDs can be closed quickly if its clear that the VFD itself should never have been made. -Husnock 9 July 2005 05:24 (UTC)

The problem in the past has been that we would immediately get into arguments over whether it really was a bad faith nomination. I can remember more than a few which were attacked as "bogus" or "retribution" nominations but then were defended as reasonable questions. We argued and argued and it still took the full 5 days. I know it's difficult to be patient when you really believe the nomination was in bad faith but the very fight is a form of feeding the trolls. In my opinion, the best way to get the encyclopedia back on track is to shout down the nomination with lots of "keep" votes then let the process run its course. Rossami (talk) 01:02, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

We have Templates for Deletion for deleting templates, so why is this called Votes for Deletion, for articles? --pile0nades^{talk | contribs} 7 July 2005 04:53 (UTC)

Good question. I think it's historic. Hmm, would anyone be histrionic if we changed it? Kim Bruning 7 July 2005 08:03 (UTC)

Uh oh! It's that time of year again... This is periodically brought up, and most people generally agree that the name may not be optimal, but it's definitely not worth the effort to change it. Consider not just the debate for a new name (for one thing, VfD covers Wikipedia namespace too, not just articles) but fixing all links, redirects, etc. and reeducating people. It would be quite a mess. Anyway, I suggest you take a look through the archives (don't have the links at the moment) and see the previous discussions on this. --Dmcdevit July 7, 2005 08:19 (UTC)

Personally, I think that it would now be worth the effort (huge as it is) because an increasing number of editors appear to believe that our process is democratic rather than consensual and this name reinforces that belief. I remember the periodic debates about this and even mindful of these I hold this position. —Theo (Talk) 7 July 2005 08:26 (UTC)

Well, actually, I guess "definitely" was a bit strong :). I'm not really partial either way, as long as I don't have to do the cleanup! (I guess a bot would make it more likely, or widespread support). I appreciate your point, though I do think we could come up with a better name than AfD. I like "Requests for deletion" better, I guess (and then there's two RfDs, not that anyone really cares about RfD :) --Dmcdevit July 7, 2005 08:55 (UTC)

Yes, this page should be called Wikipedia:Articles for deletion and the Main Page should be called Wikipedia:Main page, etc. It sucks, but there are a lot of things that are just done this way because they've been done this way. I'm in favor of moving everything, but I know that I'm in the minority. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) July 7, 2005 14:26 (UTC)

Can some admin please remove the Jew York Times article? It's been up for vfd for 2 months now. It has 3 "deletes" and 1 "keep" (which was entered by the author of the article). Monkeyman 7 July 2005 20:18 (UTC)

Done. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 7 July 2005 20:38 (UTC)

I can find no record that the VfD discussion page (Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Jew York Times) was ever posted a the VfD day page. Technically, the 5 day discussion clock has not yet started. Opening the VfD page is only the second step of the three-step process. Despite being an obvious delete candidate, I have to consider this an out-of-process deletion according to our current rules. Rossami (talk) 7 July 2005 20:52 (UTC)

Sorry — I should have checked. I went straight from here to there. I should have realised that the long delay in closing it meant that something wasn't right. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 7 July 2005 21:16 (UTC)

It should have been speedied as crap. Tomer ^TALK July 7, 2005 21:43 (UTC)

That is explicitly not a speedy-deletion criterion. If you would care to make a specific recommendation about which specific WP:CSD case you think applies, the discussion can be considered for early closure.

This brings up an interesting case. The author of the article started it and then he immediately listed it for deletion (probably because he thought it would get listed as 'speedy delete'. There should be an exception to the 5 day rule in cases like this. Monkeyman 7 July 2005 23:39 (UTC)

No. What he did was exactly appropriate under the Votes for Undeletion rules. If you review the deletion log, you will see that this article had already been speedy-deleted. The author of this latest version obviously thought that was inappropriate. (Frankly, I agree with the original author. While this is deletable, it met none of the very specific and deliberately narrow criteria for speedy deletion.) Speedy deletions may only be used in non-controversial situations. If a speedy-delete is contested in good faith, the article is restored and immediately nominated for a full VfD to determine the community concensus. That process is now on-going. In a perfect world, the author should have used the VfU process to petition to have the article restored rather than simply re-creating it but we should be forgiving to those new to the process. Rossami (talk) 8 July 2005 01:09 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Proposal#13_.28attack_pages.29, which I regard as a legitimate interpretation (a clarification, not a change) of #4 at WP:CSD#Articles. Tomer ^TALK July 8, 2005 01:24 (UTC)

A reasonable interpretation. I would disagree with its application in this case because the version of the article which was speedy-deleted was not, in my mind, an attack page but was an attempt at a neutral description of an epitaph epithet. To clarify the proposal you cite with a slightly more extreme example, that case would never be allowed as justification to speedy delete the nigger article. No matter how offensive you consider that term, our article is a neutral and balanced discussion about the term. The author had a reasonable case that his draft was an attempt to be equally neutral. You may disagree but as soon as we are at the point of disagreeing, it's no longer speedy-delete territory. Rossami (talk) 8 July 2005 04:23 (UTC)

I assume you meant epithet, not epitaph.  :-p Tomer ^TALK July 8, 2005 04:50 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. More proof that I shouldn't try to type late at night. Rossami

I feel that this is (or should be) a FAQ question but was unable to find an answer. Could someone explain how to add the VfD to one's watchlist. TIA. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 03:04, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Go to User:Sjorford/VFD pages and click on all the links in the bottom section. —Cryptic (talk) 03:31, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

I have begun to notice many articles, recently, that have been speedied before or after listing on VFD. I am not sure why that is done, but that gave me an idea, which I wish to "borrow" from WP:FPC. Why not have a period where we can figure out if the article can really be speedied or the nomination is even valid (I seen at least a few speedy keeps, since the VFD were started by socks/trolls). I am not sure what to call it, but it could be something like "Proposed VFD" or something to that effect. Not sure how yall will think about it, but it is worth a shot. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 03:38, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

This VfD is now something of a mess; in addition, -Ril- (talk · contribs) has taken charge of it, and is treating it as his personal fiefdom, deciding which comments stay and which go, deleting criticism of his actions (on the basis that they're from sock-puppets — allegations which are mostly not only unproved but unlikely). Experience tells me that my intervention would only add fuel to the fire; could someone else try to clear up the mess and rstore order? the wholething seems to be a skirmish in what's become a prolonged campaign between -Ril- and a group of other editors (some of whom, but not all, probably are sock-puppets). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:11, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

If someone is removing others' comments then that's simple vandalism. Whether he thinks they're sock puppets or not is irrelevant. Block him. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:18, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

He seems to moving comments that he disagrees with to Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion/Authentic Matthew, rather than actually deleting them, - SimonP 21:34, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure that excuses him. Finding a result from a contentious VfD is the job of an admin, not of a user with a Bombus ruderatus in his super-caputular protection. -Ril- should leave the votes alone. smoddy 21:42, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Any chance of someone intervening? As I said, -Ril-'s response to me is knee-jerk hostility, so I'd have no good effect. (I'm morally certain that he's Lir (talk · contribs), though an IP address check was apparently negative.) --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 20:40, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

GNAA trolls were attempting to start a meatball:ForestFire re: Kick the ass... GNAA articles. I put out the fire. This fire stays out. Anyone recreating or undeleting said pages might find themselves blocked. :-)

Kim Bruning 01:48, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

You have the most inappropriate, idiosyncratic use of smilies I've ever seen. Unless you're just evil, of course. JRM · Talk 17:47, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Whoops. Almost forgot: :-) JRM · Talk 17:47, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Of course I'm evil! You ever doubted? Kim Bruning 17:49, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Jocularity aside, don't threaten to block people for doing things that don't violate policy, please, not even jokingly. Which I'm pretty sure you weren't doing. Putting forth your arguments, then asking people nicely, is bound to be more productive. Especially if one considers the only people who can "undelete said pages" are administrators, and the last thing we need is sysops warring over something like this. Comments like these just rub me the wrong way, y'know? JRM · Talk 17:56, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

In the end I ended up not blocking people at all, but hadn't changed the statement here. I'll admit to having dropped dead in my bed after a long night ^^;; Kim Bruning 18:16, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

There there. At least now you know what happens to people who put out forest fires: they get burned. Or at least a burnout... JRM · Talk 18:20, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

IMHO, I think some of the VFD's were created by GNAA socks themselves for a laugh or two. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 21:16, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Hi. I am somewhat new around Wickipedia. I recently have been helping out in the (disambiguation link repair project) and as I have been going through correcting bad links I have noticed several candidates which I strongly believe meet the criteria for VfD. Is it bad form to submit multiple such articles in a single day?Barkeep49 01:44, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

• Nope. VfD regulars routinely make several nominations a day. As long as you are making nominations in good faith and provide a reason for deletion that jives with policy and guidelines, it'll be just fine. If you need a hand with the process, leave a message here or on my talk page; I'll be around for at least a little while. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 01:49, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the offer and response. I did one earlier today and it has been receiving votes so I think I did everything right... after several edits :)Barkeep49 01:53, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

There has been some confusion recently on whether a vote to 'redirect' would qualify as a keep or a delete. In my own opinion (as well as the WP:GVFD) people vote 'redirect' if they find the content discardable; if they didn't, they would vote 'merge' or 'keep'. Any thoughts? Radiant_>|< 08:55, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

• When I close debates ending with redirect, I keep the history unless the redirects vote specifically request the history deleted. The history underneath the redirect is usually quite harmless as long as it isn't copyvio stuff or something else evil (see e.g. Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Colon health), and if people are interested in accessing and reading this, why not let them? Sometimes parts of the old content has been merged into another article already. Also, it might take a little load off my, and other VFD closer's backs, if we allow non-admins to close the debates with a clear redirect consensus. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:28, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Of course the history is harmless, and I have no problem with non-admins closing a nomination. However, let me paraphrase my question... if an article got three votes to delete, three to keep, and three to redirect - would that be considered a two-thirds majority to delete the article? Radiant_>|< 10:31, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
    • Well, OK, I count "redirect" votes in the "delete" category when it comes to whether or not the content should be discarded. So if "delete"+"redirect"+"userfy" amounts to less than two thirds majority, I normally will keep unless the comments convince me to act differently. In the situation you gave (3 delete, 3 redirect, 3 keep), we have exactly a two thirds majority to discard the content, a borderline case. If I close such a debate instead of playing safe and passing it over, hoping for one or two late votes to tip the balance, this is a case where the comments need to be carefully read. A thing I often do in such a situation, is review the article, decide what I think should be done with the article, and cast a vote, then wait for another admin to come along and review the debate, hopefully clarified by the late vote. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:48, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
• A "redirect" vote may be an opinion that Wikipedia should not have an independent article at that title but it is not a "delete" vote. Deletions destroy article history, require admin powers to view old versions and require admin powers to undo. Turning an article into a "redirect" does none of those. In the case you describe above, I would first rely closely on the comments (not the mere vote count) to make the call. Depending on the comments, some "redirect" votes should be interpreted as "keep" and others as "delete". It's a tough judgment call but a necessary one when the voters are ambiguous. In the hypothetical that I have only the votecount info (3 delete, 3 keep, 3 redirect), I would (and always have) close it as a clear "keep" decision (with 2/3 majority to keep the page history). I would then go on to comment that there exists a 2/3 majority opinion that the article should not have an independent existence. I would be bold and make it a redirect. But I try to make it clear in my comments that the "redirect" part of the decision was an ordinary-editor action, not a binding part of the VfD decision. Rossami (talk) 13:33, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
• Of course I did not mean to imply that a 2/3 majority to delete equals a consensus to delete. That would depend heavily on circumstances. Radiant_>|< 13:50, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Is there any policy about deleting media associated with pages that are deleted? For example, if various images were uploaded to illustrate an article but this was deleted, what is the fate of the images? Usually, these become orphans. Should they automatically go on IFD? There must be 100s of orphans as a result of VFD. JFW | T@lk 19:44, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

• If you find such an image, you should decide 1) if it's worthwhile (if inserted into a vanity article, it may be a vanity picture; if inserted into an advertisement, it may be copyvio), and 2) if you can think of another place that may use it (ask at WP:VP if you must). If either fails, you can list it on IFD - being an orphan image is sufficient reason for listing there. Radiant_>|< 21:08, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

I reluctantly tolerate folks commenting below new users' votes for deletion to indicate that they're new users. I was vaguely amused when a recent vote of mine got tagged in this way; I've read Wikipedia for a while now and have contributed edits from a number of IP addresses.

However, the same vote that was tagged "first edit" was also subsequently edited to have "invalid vote" in front of the vote text; that is, my actual vote text was edited rather than the comment being placed below it. The word "keep" in my vote text was also un-bolded.

Is this bad? When is it okay to actually edit someone's vote text? --Takeel 17:24, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

• I only edit vote text when a user has forged another user's or nonexistant user's signature or has made other provably false claims (altered timestamp, etc.). Adding "Invalid Vote" in front of anything on VfD should not be done (except by the closing admin as an aid for their own tallying), as it is left up to the closing admin's discretion what exactly constitutes an invalid vote. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 17:43, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
  • (Yet more edit conflicts, prepare for possible redundancy.) Looking at the edit you are talking about, it was User:Takeel's first edit; whether it was Person:Takeel's first edit or not is much harder to tell, which is why we base suffrage on your username rather than your username plus previous anonymous contributions. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 17:49, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
• I guess this falls in the category of 'not very nice'. If you've read VfD a bit, you're probably aware that votes from anonymous or new users may be ignored by the admin that closes the debate. There is no strict rule for that, and it really depends on the circumstances - the intent is to filter out such things as 'me too' votes from people coming from some external message board (see WP:SOCK for details). The intent is not to keep new users from voting.
• Editing the vote text is entirely wrong in any circumstances (with the possible exception of removing personal attacks, which is debatable). Adding 'invalid vote' is not very nice, since that is not always clear cut (and just because someone says a vote is invalid, doesn't make that true). I don't know what circumstance you're talking about, it may have been a vote with a lot of seemingly spurious votes, and someone who got a bit angry at them. I'd say don't let it bother you, and after less than a week people will no longer bother you when voting. Radiant_>|< 17:45, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
• Edit conflict, so I'm probably being redundant here. Oh well. Radiant_>|< 17:45, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

I just ran across an article on VfD that had received only two votes and that had been posted barely five hours before the debate was closed. It seems a little hasty to me, given that this is VfD and not CSD. I had always thought that articles appearing here had five days to demonstrate their merit before a final decision was reached. Is this unrealistic? (BTW, I have no opinion in favor of or against the article itself. My concern is with the process.) Denni☯ 00:38, 2005 July 23 (UTC)

Manning Bartlett closed it early as a purely procedural matter. From his edits, he apparently believes that the deletion discussion about article you cite, The Cosmology of Love, should be consolidated with a related deletion discussion. Since the complete text of this article is "Poetry collection by Matthew Charlton", I am inclined to agree that the fate of this article should probably follow the fate of the Matthew Charlton article. It's a bit unusual but not unreasonable. Rossami (talk) 04:18, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I've noticed a few votes for "smerge" in today's VfDs. Could someone enlighten me as to what this stands for (and possible also add it to the VfD guide)? --fvw* 06:18, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

User:R. fiend#Smerge. —Cryptic (talk) 14:04, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I propose that redirect should not be used as a vote. Instead, every deletion vote should be considered a redirect vote if all of the following holds:

• The page or its history does not include copyright violations
• The page, its title or its history does not contain other material clearly not fit to remain even in history
• There is a page that could serve as a reasonably helpful redirect target (i.e. it would not typically be deleted at WP:RFD)
• The vote does not explicitly state that redirection is not an option

Reasoning:

• Redirects reduce the risk that an article that has been removed according to policy is recreated
• Avoids breaking inbound links to Wikipedia from regular sites and from search engines
• Less contentious than deletion, since the material does not get eradicated from Wikipedia. May pacify retentionists/inclusionists.
• Does not require an admin to actually perform the procedure – reduces the gap between users and admins
• Redirect votes are very confusing at this time when tallying the votes. Should they be counted as deletes or keeps if there is no clear "winning" side?
• Policy is unclear on what should happen to a deleted page that is recreated as a redirect immediately after being deleted

So, what do you think? Sounds reasonable? Have I missed any obvious problems with this approach? — David Remahl 03:32, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, yes - if you don't want to delete a page, it should not be listed here. Any user can redirect a page - VfD is a request for admin-only deletions. In essence, a "redirect" vote should be counted as a "keep" vote. VfD is only for pages which need to be deleted, for one of the reasons listed in the Deletion Policy. Guettarda 03:43, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

That is true. But then I must ask why this page is sooo huge and getting larger. Do people really have such a desire to destroy? Or are they not aware of the option of redirecting? — David Remahl 04:16, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I wish I knew - time after time I see VfDs that don't meet the deletion criteria, or that say "merge and delete", as if that didn't violate GFDL. Guettarda 20:15, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Tony_Sidaway

The above RFC is completely on crack and those involved should be ashamed of themselves. If you look closely, you'll see it's actually sour grapes over one VFD debate they didn't like the closing of.

VFD performs a useful function about as damagingly as it could possibly be performed. It's being used as a substitute for cleanup, wikify, and copyvio. It's being used to push agendas of all sorts. It's constantly creating increased animosity between editors.

The VFD regulars are openly hostile to non-regulars. One of the arguments against breaking up VFD from the all-on-one-page to day pages a couple of months ago was that it would attract too many people to vote if the pages were more usable! I mean, what the fuck?

VFD the idea is one thing. VFD the present reality is pathological. More rules on it won't fix it - it needs to be taken out and shot.

MOTION: That while VFD nominally performs a useful function in clearing crap out of Wikipedia, its current operation and subcommunity is so pathological and damaging to the Wikipedia community that it should be removed entirely. Remove it completely. Then talk and think how to come up with something that works without becoming an engine for rancor.

- David Gerard 20:06, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I second the motion. There is no reason that deletion discussions can't be had on regular talk pages and over the other venues (copyvio) while a better method is developed. — David Remahl 21:59, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I deleted vfd, which triggered an RFC, which I deleted on the QT. :-) Uncle Ed 17:16, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

sorry for the "newbiness" but the project page appears deleted in my pc (links to it appear in red, i.e.). Is there something i am missing? — A/B 'Shipper 女 ^(talk) 19:57, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Holy crap, Ed Poor read the above rant on wikien-l and deleted VFD! Excuse me while I duck and cover ...

(And before anyone asks, the ArbCom is not accepting cases on this matter until the fallout is over.) - David Gerard 20:06, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

For those not subscribed to the mailing list: David's post, Ed's response, and the following messages may explain things a bit. (Or not.) Mindspillage (spill yours?) 20:13, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

A summary of different deletion proposals is available at Wikipedia:Deletion reform, for anyone interested -- Joolz 21:25, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Two more related links:

• Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Deletion_of_VFD
• Wikipedia:Requests_for_deletion

--Canderson7 21:33, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

I'm still trying to fathom this, on one hand he followed the spirit of WP:Bold on the other hand his actions were mostly to prove a point and are in contradiction to WP:POINT, VFD definately needs reform though and I think it's a fairly high priority since VFD has become a zoo as of late. Jtkiefer ^{T | @ | C} ----- 21:59, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

I will strike all my comments regarding VFD since I will be trying to stay uninvolved as much as possible until this whole situation with vfd is resolved. Jtkiefer ^{T | @ | C} ----- 00:11, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

See related thread at Wikipedia_talk:Votes_for_undeletion#VfU_notice_in_VfD

A long discussion is underway at Wikipedia_talk:Votes_for_deletion/Harry_Potter_and_the_Half-Blood_Prince_-_Full_Plot_Summary about how users are not informed when a page that's been deleted is up for an undeletion vote at VFU. So, I've taken the liberty to create {{vfu}}, which can be used in conjunction with {{TempUndelete}} to resolve this issue. Please look over the discussion at VFU's talk page. --Titoxd 02:09, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

VFDBOT, running under the aegis of the User:Uncle G's 'bot account, is now taking on a limited subset of the tasks previously performed by User:VFD Bot, which has been inactive for some while. The first updates are scheduled to occur sometime around 00:05 UTC on 2005-08-07. See the user page for full details of the tasks being performed. Uncle G 02:02:26, 2005-08-06 (UTC)

The message at the top of the VfD page is rather long, and contains a reference to a closed RfC and a moribund proposal. Would it be OK to trim/update it? -- Visviva 14:03, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

What is the proper procedure when a deleted page is recreated? (See Willosaurus & Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Willosaurus)

Fornadan (t) 15:26, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

• Assuming the recreation is substantially identical to what was deleted (as opposed to, say, an article on a different person that happens to have the same name) - edit it to add {{deleteagain}} and an admin will get rid of it. Radiant_>|< 09:31, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

Someone needs to set this up right away. Because of Wikipedia's growing clout on Internet search engines, Wikipedia.org pages come up as one of the top hits on any relevant search. For many queries, the Wikipedia entries themselves never stick around due to quality reasons, but the VfD pages now come up as the #1 hits on those queries! This needs to be fixed right away. -- PeteG 06:13, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

From http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/exclusion-admin.html:

Note also that regular expression are not supported in either the User-agent or Disallow lines. The '*' in the User-agent field is a special value meaning "any robot". Specifically, you cannot have lines like "Disallow: /tmp/*" or "Disallow: *.gif".

Thus your request might not be easy to accomplish. It depends whether

User-agent: *

Disallow: /wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/

would work,because it looks like a directory, even though it isn't one. And that probably depends on the crawler implementation? Pcb21| Pete 07:35, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

"Directories" don't exist in URIs—what matters are segments, and those are separated by a forward slash. So yes, this ought to work; a crawler (or for that matter any client) cannot see the actual directory structure on the host anyway. An alternative is to give VfD subpages an explicit expiration date so they aren't indexed beyond that, but while neat this solution is obviously too much work. JRM · Talk 07:53, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Sounds great! Can someone please implement this right away so we don't have more inappropriate archived VfD listings being redirected by folks like me? :) -- PeteG 07:56, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I always find it highly inappropriate how parts of the content of attack pages, which are ultimately deleted, may nevertheless be found with Google through quotes or discussions on the corresponding VfD-page. (They can't always be speedy deleted, as it is sometimes not clear whether claims that somebody is a notorious serial killer or paedophile are real or just a prank authored by some schoolmate.) Chances are that the VfD page will be among the first Google hits when searching for the name of a person, thus making the damage permanent in spite of the deletion of the page. A casual web searcher may not understand what s/he has found. Something should be done to stop both the pages themselves from being searched (or mirrored) as soon as a VfD tag is put on them and to stop search robots from finding the VfD page. Internal Wikipedia searches should still be possible, but external search engines should not have access to these pages. Uppland 08:13, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

The only thing that approach would achieve, is that Google would stop updating its index of the page. The old, bad, version would remain in their index even after it has been deleted. It's better to let it be deleted and hope that Google updates its copy as soon as possible. The VfD talk page evidence would serve as evidence that the claims in the article were unfounded. — David Remahl 08:18, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

This is not correct. Google will remove the page from its index when it encounters a robots.txt file. Detailed instructions are at [1]. The proposed solution should work; can someone please implement this right away?

By the way, let's be realistic -- if someone does a search and comes up with the VfD page created maliciously, non Wikipedians are not going to be savvy enough to check the talk page for the VfD page and weigh the arguments. Nor should they have to, since a VfD page isn't an approved Wikipedia article page, but a special audit/support page. This is why the VfD page itself should be restricted to Wikipedia searches. -- PeteG 08:40, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Why not make use of the existing robots.txt? If you blank the page, bar a link to the last history revision, then protect, this would work perfectly well. It might not be the most socially acceptable, but it meets your aims. [[smoddy]] 08:48, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

That would work, but blanking every single VfD page seems like a lot of work for those of us who do want to check back on them for whatever reason. Much better to change the robots file in the same way as suggested above. Pcb21| Pete 08:56, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the suggestion to block VfD pages in robots.txt. Make it so! -- Fenster 08:58, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Given JRM's assessment that my suggestion would work, I have proposed it to the developers. You can track the request at the MediaWiki Bugzilla - http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3081. Pcb21| Pete 09:06, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I believe that talk pages should be indexed... — David Remahl 09:13, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I am in danger of not understanding your comment because there are several themes going on here - when you say talk page you mean votes for deletion page, right? You concern is that if we implement this change to robots.txt there will be a period of time where the article page is in the SE index but the VfD is not, and the potential for misunderstanding during that period outweighs the benefits of them both being absent from the index later on. If that is correct, then I disagree with you for the reasons PeteG gave above. But of course, you should ahead and note your point on the Bugzilla page. If others agree with you as well, then they should speak up so that we don't make a mistake here. Pcb21| Pete 10:48, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Agree, it's very confusing :-). Yes, I did mean VfD page, sorry. But my point is that I believe that VfD pages should be indexed and searchable by Google (et. al.). They're part of the permanent records of Wikipedia, and I don't see any point in excluding them from the search engine indexes. — David Remahl 11:01, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

VfD pages should absolutely NOT be included in search engine indexes, precisely because they are not subject to group editing. Anyone can post whatever abuse comments they want, and Wikipedia rules generally prevent others from editing their comments substantively. For the same reason, talk pages and other "special" pages should not be indexed either. -- Fenster 16:34, 9 August 2005 (UTC)