Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion: Difference between revisions

Read this before proposing new or expanded criteria Shortcut WP:NEWCSD Contributors frequently propose new (or expansions of existing) criteria for speedy deletion. Please bear in mind that CSD criteria require careful wording, and in particular, need to be Objective: Most reasonable people should be able to agree whether a page meets the criterion. Often this requires making the criterion very specific. Uncontestable: It must be the case that almost all pages that could be deleted using the rule, should be deleted, according to consensus. CSD criteria should cover only situations where there is a strong precedent for deletion. Remember that a rule may be used in a way you don't expect, unless you word it carefully. Frequent: Speedy deletion is intended primarily as a means of reducing load on other deletion methods such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion and Wikipedia:Proposed deletion. These processes are more discriminating because they treat articles case-by-case, and involve many points of view; CSD sacrifices these advantages in favor of speed and efficiency. If a situation arises only rarely, it's probably easier, simpler, and fairer to delete it with one of the other methods instead. This also keeps CSD as simple and easy to remember as possible, and avoids instruction creep. Nonredundant: If the deletion can be accomplished using a reasonable interpretation of an existing rule, just use that. If this application of that rule is contested, consider discussing and/or clarifying it. New rules should be proposed only to cover situations that cannot be speedily deleted otherwise. If you do have a proposal that you believe passes these guidelines, please feel free to propose it on this discussion page. Be prepared to offer evidence of these points and to refine your criterion if necessary. Consider explaining how it meets these criteria when you propose it. Do not, on the other hand, add it unilaterally to the CSD page. this header: view • edit

I know we have been through this before, but it comes up over and over. I thought we had agreed in older discussions, that user talkpages of IP Users known to have been engaging in long term vandalism, or other forms of systematic vandalism (POV pushing, spam, &c.) should never be deleted. Some related discussions.

• Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive_36#Misuse_of_G6_to_delete_user_talk_pages
• Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive_33#User_talk_pages_of_IPs
• Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive_33#U4 (U4 is now deleted; see also following discussion!)
• Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive_33#Problems_with_the_the_proposed_U4 (gives some examples of where things go wrong)

At the moment, there is not a direct CSD for that, though they can be deleted under routine housekeeping, deleting of blank pages or pages without meaningful content. So now the sequence comes up again, one user sees an 'ancient' user talkpage which does not contain a lot of useful information anymore, so blanks it, and a second one deletes it as blanked. And we are again at the point that (sometimes important!) tracks are deleted.

In fact, I now saw that a talkpage of an IP with a long track of vandalism, which is actively blocked at the moment (block of a year!), was blanked 3 months after being blocked, and some time later the talkpage was deleted.

In short, although by far the most of these deletions are indeed uncontroversial, some are not, and hence, they can not be deleted under any form of CSD .. I again argue that deletion of user talkpages (even of IPs) should be done only very, very carefully under a CSD criterium, and certainly not semi-automated. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:41, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: By far the most of the deletions that triggered my comments here, were absolutely fine, it is maybe just 1% or even less of those deletions, which are a problem. But those can be quite a problem to track for those working in the field of fighting those long-term vandals. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:52, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Although I ended up here in a different way, to get a quick feeling of them, see deleted user talk pages which have received XLinkBot warnings. From the top 50 I found already two of editors who are actively blocked, still the pages have been deleted. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:07, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK, just to give an example. Without using admin tools, can we have quick consideration whether the editors who have abused:

• nutmeg.ws: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

have actually been warned enough that their blatant spamming would warrant blacklisting? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:57, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be no ambiguity about this: it is agreed that user talk pages are not deleted except under exceptional circumstances. this is indicated, for example, at WP:DELTALK, and I am sure I have seen a much more strongly worded version of the same idea, though I don't remember where. It is important that we have record of what has been posted on user talk pages for future reference, and this is even more important with IP users than with registered users, as we do not indef-block IPs. If, as you say, administrators are deleting these pages "as blanked", then that is puzzling: as far as i know there is no provision for deleting a page just because it is blanked except for "author blanked" (CSD G7), and that does not apply here, as the criterion specifically says "a page other than a userspace page or category page". JamesBWatson (talk) 10:47, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have informed the editor in question that I raised this here, the criterium used was G6 for that one. Many of the XLinkBot-warned pages were deleted from CAT:TEMP (last year), even indef blocked ones (which should not have been deleted, so that is not a recent situation). I do think that we should firmly state some things that should not be deleted somewhere, even if other speedy reasons would have applied. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:02, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Agreed. U1 for example explicitly excludes user talk pages, so there is nothing in the wording that needs to be changed. I think the correct course of action is to talk to the administrator(s) who violated WP:CSD in that way and ask them to restore the pages. If they decline, take it to WP:DRV as out-of-process deletions in violation of policy (that is quite specific about such pages). You are correct that it's good to keep such pages and the admin(s) in question probably just didn't realize that policy has changed when it comes to CAT:TEMP and IPs. Regards SoWhy 11:11, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I did discuss it with/notifty the editors in question, and I did check already quite some, and most deletions are 'fine' (even if out of process). The problem is, that this keeps coming back and back. There are cases where they easily fall into the criteria, but it is a recurring case that admins then apply them too widely. I still feel it should be restricted here, and maybe also more strictly on CAT:TEMP. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:27, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In my career, I've blanked at least 30,000 of these pages, the vast majority of which had no more than two or three messages on them dating back to 2005-06. I do it primarily to reduce link load, especially from disambig links. IPs are dynamic. After a few years, even a heavily warned persistent vandal/school IP may be reassigned to an innocent household. bd2412 T 11:52, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

BD2412, that is not the problem, and I do not disagree with the blanking (though I'd prefer replacing with a neutral template or leaving certain tracks on them, that would make it even easier). Yes, they might be reassigned, but if two years ago an IP was spamming, and got warned and spammed again, then changed IP, spammed again, and now again, then still, that spammer was warned, the editor was warned. That is what I mean with 'systematic vandals', it is in many cases of those POV pushers and spammers, physically, the same person, only now on a new IP. If the pages are deleted (and that is what I have the problem with) then those tracks of whether the (physical) editor was warned in the past are very hard to find. I can tell you which 50 IPs a spammer has used, but if the pages are all deleted I have to check the deleted revisions of all 50 to see whether the spammer was somewhere in the past warned for his actions. If the pages are not deleted, then that is reduced to only checking the blue-linked pages. And even better, non-admins (also consider cross-wiki editors who follow spam-tracks and are admin on, say, nl.wikipedia, and not here) can do that work, otherwise it only adds to the workload of the (few!) admins who actively follow spam tracks ..

When those warnings are so difficult to find, 'we' run into two problems: a) we have a heavily spammed link, but if the editors were not warned we should be careful with blacklisting, resulting in warning, waiting for re-occurence and re-considering, and b) when we blacklist a link and get a request to de-blacklist, we often get as remarks 'I don't see any attempts to warn the editor' .. well, that is because many editors are not able to see the deleted revisions, and it is again back to the few admins who do this work to 'show' what has been done.

I above gave an example of how difficult it is to find the spammers, let alone to see whether they were sufficiently warned: which of the spammers of nutmeg.ws were warned, and do we expect that they 'got the message' (yes, all the user talkpages are deleted; it does not involve IPs)? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:04, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

BD2412, regarding 'even a heavily warned persistent vandal/school IP may be reassigned to an innocent household', sure. But one of the IPs in question has a long history of vandalism, and a block log. During the last block (of a year), the IP removed the tag notifying it was a school (2 months after the beginning of the block), subsequently blanked (less than a month after the last edit), and now deleted (5.5 months later; while the block is still active). The IP, however, is still registered to Griffin University (and strangely enough, if the IP is still assigned to that school after the block expires, I do expect the vandalism to start again .. after the previous 1 year block was finished, the vandalism started again 2 days later). It is fine that the pages are blanked when the IP has changed owner, or the IP is dynamic, but when that is obviously not the case, tracks get difficult to follow. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:23, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. IP and registered users' talk page should never be deleted, in my opinion, especially when we deal with problematic users. Blanking is ok, but I have strong reservations about deletion, as per User:Beetstra above. The only case I think an exception could be made is that of a user exercising his wp:right to vanish... Salvio ( ^{Let's talk 'bout it!}) 11:04, 28 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have based the above discussion mainly on my work in the anti-spam research, but one can envisage that a part of a discussion is on a user talk page of an IP, upon which edits to mainspace are based. Deleting the history of such a page deletes that discussion. Everyone is always basing this on 'it may be a completely different user, who cares', but one of the previous owners can have done really 'interesting' things, and I think that is what counts.

Regarding that, I have, boldly, expanded the text regarding user and user talkpages. Normal exceptions (right to vanish, request of 'owner') apply, of course. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:47, 28 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I'm concerned, that's completely OK. Salvio ( ^{Let's talk 'bout it!}) 13:11, 28 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, I strongly support Beetstra's position. For still more details on just how critical spammer talk page preservation is to our spam mitigation efforts, see the earlier discussions he linked to at the beginning of this thread. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:25, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree as well. We should be speedily deleting IP user talk pages very rarely and only under a narrow set of circumstances. — Satori Son 17:04, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that these should never be deleted. I'd like to see a wholly automated system in which IP address user pages for unblocked IP's which have not edited in, say, a year would be automatically bot-blanked and replaced with a standard template. bd2412 T 16:55, 5 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd prefer 'bot archived' (as this keeps some of the 'tracking' templates alive!), and when auto-blanking/archiving is implemented, then that should respect long blocks (static and notorious IPs are routinely already blocked for a year, and longer blocks are not strange; if the IP is still blocked, do not archive). It should also keep in place any standard templates (like {{sharedIP}} and friends). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:03, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I just saw this template on TFD: Template:Soviet Secondary Division seasons. It seems to me there should be a speedy criterion for templates like that one. There's absolutely no use of having a navigational template where none of the articles it links to exist. This would be an easy one to deal with: simply create some of the articles. But generally, I think we should be encouraging users to create articles first and then create the navigational templates to link them, not the other way around, and adding such a CSD criterion would help that. Robofish (talk) 12:26, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How frequently does this occur? If it's rare then there probably isn't a need for a dedicated criterion. Possibly we could include it as an application of G8. Hut 8.5 12:48, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It comes up every now and then. If extended to cover templates containing only one link - which might be a good idea, as they're not useful either - it would come up considerably more often: there are lots of them, like Template:Tahiti Championnat Enterprise, on TFD at the moment. Robofish (talk) 12:58, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I could see having this as an extension to G8 or T3, but only if the template has been around for long enough that it can be assumed that the articles are not in progress. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 14:30, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would make sense to extend T3, because then the creator and others have seven days where links could be added. We definitely do not want to delete templates if articles linking to them are in the process of being created. Fiftytwo thirty (talk) 14:58, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Hut 8.5 here: While such templates may be created once in a while, TFD can handle them perfectly well and TFD also allows further community input whether a template is really worth deleting or whether it could rather be turned into something useful instead. Regards SoWhy 17:07, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with SoWhy and oppose such a criterion. You can PROD it, if you wish to encourage the creator of the template to create the articles it links to, or you can take it to TFD. Salvio ( ^{Let's talk 'bout it!}) 07:30, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Srimad Vaghbat Geeta is nommed as an empty article. My browser won't even render whatever alphabet this is written in, I just see a bunch of little boxes. How are we to determine what the article is? Is this just a limitation of my browser, can anybody else read it? Beeblebrox (talk) 16:50, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That looks like a foreign script. Its length alone warrants a CSD, for sure. ScottyBerg (talk) 16:54, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How can you be so sure if you don't know what it says? Beeblebrox (talk) 16:56, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The script looked Hindi to me, but Google Translate returned it as Bengali. In any case, it's just one word, so I think it is safe to assume it's an A1. However, I will list it at WP:PNT for a second opinion (could be a G10 too!) -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 16:57, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's been deleted already. I think that it was correctly listed under A1, just on the basis of its length. We don't need a translation under such circumstances. ScottyBerg (talk) 17:00, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just for the hell of it I went to a Bengali online dictionary. As best I can make out it says something along the lines of "almighty fire of god." I could be laughably wrong.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 06:06, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't read the article (it was zapped before I got there); however, in such a case, I would have tagged it as {{notenglish}} and let people over at WP:QTN deal with it. Worst case scenario, the article gets PRODded and deleted in seven days instead of few hours. Salvio ( ^{Let's talk 'bout it!}) 07:24, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what I should do in these two situations. My first dilemma: what if an image is uploaded with a public domain license even though it is obviously copyrighted, but it wasn't copied from a URL, rather, another souce like a magazine. How can I use {{db-? (edit: sorry, I forgot to replace "?" here with "F9}}." as I was writing it. ) My other dilemma, something that is actually happening is that I'm noticing that some images are uploaded with a public domain license again even though it isn't in the public domain, and while the image can be found online, I don't know if pointing to any one URL is ok. For example, File:4tomorrow 2010.jpg. It's a single cover, but the uploaded claimed creation of it. I can't find it on the band's official site, but it's found in various different blogs, where it is recognized as the cover to the song. But some of the blogs with the image also let others download the song, therefore making the page itself a copyright violation. Eventually, I can't find any good URL to use. Sorafune +1 18:45, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't F9 (unambiguous copyright infringement) specifically address such situations? ScottyBerg (talk) 18:57, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict):For the first one, F9 would work, for it states "Images (or other media files) that are claimed by the uploader to be images with free licenses when this is obviously not the case;" it says to "include a rationale below this tag if it was copied from a source other than website", which could even be put in the url section and display as plain text. As for the file (Which was deleted per F10, but you say that it was an image, so I'm not sure how that applies), I would look for the correct version either from a RS or the Band itself, and remove the non-free media designation and remove it, deleting it per orphaned fair use. If there was no way that we could reliably say that that was indeed the cover, I would see no reason to have it (and often times the album might not be notable, and be redirectable/A9 able). --Fiftytwo thirty (talk) 19:00, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd have though F9 would apply to the second situation too, if I understand it correctly. He said there was a PD claim while it was obviously not PD. ScottyBerg (talk) 19:48, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, yes, but an album cover is also a valid application of fair use. --Fiftytwo thirty (talk) 20:03, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If the image description page doesn't claim fair use (and in the given case it doesn't) then F9 applies. The F10 deletion may be because the deleting admin wanted to use F9 but hit the wrong option by accident. Hut 8.5 20:21, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

G6 begins with a statement that it is for uncontroversial deletions. Would it be appropriate to say that anyone, even the creator, may remove a G6 deletion tag? This criterion strikes me as being rather similar to a prod in that it's only for matters that aren't disputed, so the disagreement of a creator (even if no other editor disagrees) proves that it's not uncontroversial and thus not an appropriate case for G6. Nyttend (talk) 21:50, 9 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It would seem reasonable to me to have the G6 templates worded like the G7 ones, for there should be no reason that the author should reject. The only problem I could see is the {{db-disambig}} template, which is lumped under G6 even though it is very different from the other reasons for deletion, particularly if there is a page where the author intends to fill in red links. --Fiftytwo thirty (talk) 23:56, 9 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Another G6 template which should not lead to a contest that aborts the whole process like a PROD would be {{db-copypaste}}. Sometimes new editors need to know that a copy-paste to a new title is not the same thing as a page move, and that's why this is the only G6 template that contains a user notification shortcut. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 01:58, 10 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like spending a few minutes talking to the user on his/her talkpage could alleviate new users fears, and after they fully understand, the template could be restored (Unlike a PROD, there should not be any rule about reapplying the template). Perhaps also that template could be designed to be more self-explanatory by being designed to have more emphasis on the merge instead of the deletion, designing it like {{db-histmerge}}. --Fiftytwo thirty (talk) 00:55, 11 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It should be pointed out that some G6 scenarios would preclude the creator, or anybody else from removing the tag. {{db-afd}} (AFD is closed "delete" but the closer doesn't delete the article) comes to mind. If we want to make it so a G6 can be removed by anyone then perhaps the "db-afd" scenario could be merged into G4. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 18:47, 12 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think that G6 has become a catch-all of little used deletion reasons. How often is db-disambig or db-xfd actually used? --Fiftytwo thirty (talk) 20:54, 12 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To answer your question, quite often (no I don't have any statistics), especially the second. I have deleted articles tagged with db-disambig though. Peter 20:58, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

I think that the best move is to modify some of the templates, but keep the anomalies of G6 with hangon messages. --Fiftytwo thirty (talk) 21:04, 12 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Still, I wonder if it would make more sense for db-xfd to be covered under G4 instead of G6. A page exists despite a consensus that it should not, whether that reason be that it was recreated or never deleted. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 23:07, 12 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's quite a good point; I'd support adding a corollary to G4 saying something like "this also applies to pages for which a deletion consensus has been achieved at the appropriate deletion discussion; see {{db-xfd}}". Nyttend (talk) 06:31, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So my proposed solution would be as follows:

• The |self = yes parameter would be added to {{db-g6}}, which would make it look like {{db-unpatrolled}}
• {{db-move}}, {{db-movedab}} and {{db-copypaste}} would be redesigned to be like {{db-histmerge}}
• The {{db-xfd}} template would be incorporated under G4
• The {{db-disambig}} template could be either a) Kept as an anomaly, b) Merged under A3, c) Merged under G8, or d) Something else
• Unlike a PROD, all of these templates can be reapplied to the article if removed

Comments? --Fiftytwo thirty (talk) 16:24, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well if author contests the deletion it should be considered by the deleting admin, and if it was supposed to be uncontroversial, then it proves that it was not. Quite often I see that the reason is not explained why it should be deleted. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:51, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I mostly agree with 52-30's suggestions; all look good except for the final one, since I still don't think we should speedy anything under G6 if it's contested unless the contestant changes his/her mind. One other idea, however — since we can't quite be sure what to do with the db-disambig, could we simply make it a separate criterion? I'm going to propose that in a new thread; please offer comments below. Nyttend (talk) 17:38, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I guess the reasoning behind the final idea was so that if a new user saw the words "speedy deletion" and removed the tag, but then another user talks to the new one to explain that the deletion is occurring for histmerge/moving purposes, then the user will consent to have the deletion performed. I think, however, redesigning the templates as I said above will help ease newcomers' fears. --Fiftytwo thirty (talk) 18:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, yeah; I guess that nobody would really object to this once they understood what was meant. Perhaps we could replace "perform other non-controversial technical tasks" on the template with "perform other routine technical tasks"? Nyttend (talk) 18:43, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to propose an additional category F12 to deal with an apparent gap in speedy deletion policy. Photographs pirated from news agencies are a major liability for us. They have a high commercial value and the agencies are aggressive about issuing takedown notices and suing for infringement (the Associated Press is currently suing Sheperd Fairey for his famous Obama poster, which is only based on an AP image, and agencies have issued bloggers and individual website owners with hefty demands for payment for images used without authorisation).

The non-free content criteria recognise the undesirability of using agency photos. They are excluded from fair use on Wikipedia except in certain very limited circumstances: "Unacceptable use ... A photo from a press agency (e.g., AP), unless the photo itself is the subject of sourced commentary in the article." (WP:NFC#UUI). There are a few cases where that criterion is likely to be met - for example, the famous Tank Man photo - but the overwhelming majority of agency photos will come nowhere near this standard and will fail to meet the non-free content criteria.

Unfortunately, speedy deletion nominations of agency photos currently fall between two existing file deletion categories while exposing us to unnecessary legal risk. Such photos are clearly copyright infringements, but if they are nominated under F9 ("Unambiguous copyright infringement") then the provision of a claim of fair use - whether or not it's valid - provides a get-out clause. In such cases we thus have to fall back on F7 ("Invalid fair-use claim"). An image tagged as such can stay around for up to seven days before being deleted. The problem is that Wikipedia is at continuous risk for as long as the image stays up.

We need to take a shoot-on-sight approach with agency photos:

• assume as a default that they cannot be used under fair use, since that will be the case for upwards of 99.9% of them;
• delete on sight; and
• only allow an uploader to re-upload if he can provide firm evidence of fair use that can be verified prior to re-uploading.

Ideally, such claims need to be given very stringent scrutiny by a range of experienced editors, perhaps through obtaining a consensus for inclusion at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files. That is the only way we can minimise the legal risk here. Therefore I suggest a new category F12:

F12. Agency photograph used under an unverified claim of fair use.

An image sourced to a photo agency (e.g. Associated Press, Reuters) requires a verified claim of fair use before it can be uploaded to Wikipedia. If an image has been uploaded without a verified claim of fair use, it may be deleted immediately. If the uploader wishes to re-upload an image deleted under this criterion, verification of the claim of fair use must be obtained before re-uploading the image. Verification is to be obtained by requesting a review from [?Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files].

Any thoughts? -- ChrisO (talk) 15:31, 11 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. Press photos from agencies such as the Associated Press and Getty Images are in fact not prohibited on Wikipedia, their use is simply strongly discouraged - WP:NFC#UUI, point 6. And sometimes we have to use press images because they are the subject(s) of articles. Additionally, please bear in mind that a copyright violation does not exist until an uploader claims work which is not theirs as their own. -FASTILY_sock^(TALK) 18:14, 11 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose Fastily is right. Also, it's not our job as editors here to change policy based on a potential legal risk. So far nothing like this has happened afaik. The foundation has a lawyer to deal with those things and unless he says that there is a reason to do so, we shouldn't (not to mention that no major agency would be crazy enough to sue Wikimedia - the bad press this would generate would offset any benefit they could get from doing so). Also, if fair use is claimed, it's not an infringement anymore. It's only an infringement if the uploader claims that the image is their own work and we can handle those with F9 just fine. Regards SoWhy 19:02, 11 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak oppose I note first that I disagree with the above about the meaning of WP:NFC#UUI, that policy does not "strongly discourage" such use, it says that such use is "not acceptable." I also do not support the statement "a copyright violation does not exist until an uploader claims work which is not theirs as their own". However, neither quibble gets around the fact that I don't think the cases where a news image qualifies as fair use are infrequent enough that we should ignore the cost of putting news sourced image edits on the CSD "express train." Unless the overhead of slower deletion mechanisms is grinding progress to a halt, I lean towards opposing this proposal. --Joe Decker (talk) 20:54, 11 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak oppose. ChrisO, I agree with your basic calculus; images from press agencies and image clearinghouses are nearly always used gratuitously, and will fail NFCC#2 (respect for commercial opportunities) in almost every case, since the whole point of their distribution of images is to maximize the commercial leverage of that distribution. However, there's no need for a separate criterion here. The seven-day delay built into various file deletion criteria is an artifact of a former software limitation that prevented undeleting those files, but that limitation no longer exists. If allowing speedier deletion of bad fair use images is believed to be warranted, we could simply amend CSD F7 to remove the requirement for a long delay, provided the uploader has had an opportunity to amend the fair use rationale. This would require a little extra work from administrators, but mostly it would just change the timing of inevitable deletions. I'd suggest this approach rather than one that allows splitting hairs over what constitutes an "agency photograph". — Gavia immer (talk) 23:57, 11 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: I do not know whether a new speedy category is the best way of dealing with this situation, but I do know that there appears to be a gap in how we deal with it at least some of the time. Please see my comment on today's ANI thread. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:01, 12 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• oppose fair use is fair use and the source of the photo is generally irrelevant for a fair use claim being made.--Crossmr (talk) 11:51, 12 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • That might be true, were it not for the fact that "fair use" is a catch-all invoked by many to mean "I feel like using it and I don't agree with how Copyright works". In practice, a photograph is almost impossible to justify as fair use unless it's an absolutely unique photograph of an historically significant event, or when the photograph itself is the subject of the article. Unlike an extract of text, or a still frame from a moving video, we're not just making fair use of an extract of a protected work, we are copying the entire work in the case of a photograph — the barrier for justification is all the higher. — Coren ^(talk) 20:20, 12 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. The fair use criterion should be provided at the time of uploading, and in the case of a commercial photograph, there is no valid reason to go through a lengthy discussion. Some things need to be done right upfront. We wouldn't be allowing people to upload other publications without an upfront valid fair use rationale, and we'd be deleting them on sight as copyvios. Risker (talk) 04:46, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - (cross posted from Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Close_of_File:NorwaySpiral.jpg_DRV) Clause 6 [of Wikipedia:NFC#UUI] against press agency photographs is really weird. Instead of accessing whether the image is usable, based on the merits of the image, we look at who took it. So if it's a freelance photographer who has caught the image, then low resolution, low quality fair use is allowed. If Associated Press took the images, then we can't? So non-free images are only allowed if the potential financial losses (which are mitigated by the low quality reproduction) are directed towards independent photographers? That's not particularly fair. - hahnchen 15:32, 12 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - there is no legitimate fair use reason for using any non-iconic press photo. Were press agencies so inclined, they could sue us for royalties and would win. Unfortunately, many/most Wikipedians have no understanding of the law and just want to slap a tag on it and use it. --B (talk) 13:22, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose if the only reason for treating these images differently from other fair use images is that their presence constitutes unacceptable legal risk then a policy to treat them differently should be introduced on the advice of the Foundation or their lawyers. Hut 8.5 14:14, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Foundation does not get involved with such decisions regardless of the legal necessity. If they do, then they are not a content host, but rather a content provider and legally cannot hide behind the various protections they enjoy (eg not being sued for libel). You're not going to find a direct statement about this or most other specific content issues. If you use a copyrighted image in an inappropriate, then you, personally, could get sued, but the Foundation (since it is only hosting content that we create) would be immune. (In reality, I would not think that the media organizations would want the bad press of suing a Wikipedia editor, but that doesn't mean we should do something we know to not be a legitimate exercise of fair use.) --B (talk) 15:04, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm not a lawyer and neither are you, but you can't have it both ways. If you're going to insist the Foundation can't advise on this, then we should be perfectly willing to let individual users upload these photos, get sued, and have their lives very publically ruined. The end result would be much fewer such obviously-infringing uploads our admin corps would have to squander their time policing and deleting. The whole idea of maintaining common carrier status is to immunize the Foundation from liability, in which case the whole argument of "we have to remove these immediately or the Foundation might get sued!" falls apart. —Korath (Talk) 07:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose the existing criteria are fine, it is either a copyright violation, an invalid fair use, or perhaps a valid fair use, but just because it comes from a news agency does not meant that it automatically has to be deleted. It means that one of the fair use criteria is unlikely to be met. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:47, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The problem with not having this as a criterion is that it makes it virtually impossible to get these clearly infringing images deleted for certain topics when they have to be taken to IFD. Discussions are overwhelmed by the editors of an article and the actual legal correctness of the image is secondary. There was a 2005 court case Video-Cinema Films, Inc. v. Lloyd E. Rigler-Lawrence E. Deutsch Foundation in which the non-profit defendant used an 85-second clip of a 5-minute performance from a work by Video-Cinema Films. Video-Cinema Films had as their primary purpose licensing use of this film to others. (This seems to be directly on point to our use of press photos.) The court ruled for Video-Cinema Films because allowing its use under a claim of fair use would negate the plaintiff's ability to market its product. (Why buy it if you can just claim fair use?) This is exactly on point to what we are doing when we use press photos. --B (talk) 13:15, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy deletion shouldn't be used as a way to trump or overrule the normal long-form process. If the problem is that IfD routinely keeps images that fail NFCC#2, that's properly addressed by reforming IfD, not by trying to get around it. — Gavia immer (talk) 17:10, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Classes of content that are never appropriate (regardless of how popular they may be) get turned into speedy deletion criteria. All speedy deletions trump the processes. That's the whole point. --B (talk) 18:08, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have spotted a discrepancy between the wording of one of the Arbitration principles and the wording on G4.

From Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Principles#Deleted content (My bold)

Statement of principle

If content is recreated in the main Wikipedia namespaces after having been deleted (via articles for deletion or speedy deletion), it may be speedily deleted

From Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#General (My bold)

G4. Recreation of a page that was deleted per a deletion discussion.

A sufficiently identical and unimproved copy, having any title, of a page deleted via a deletion discussion. This excludes pages that are not substantially identical to the deleted version, pages to which the reason for the deletion no longer applies, and content moved to user space for explicit improvement (but not simply to circumvent Wikipedia's deletion policy). This criterion also excludes content undeleted via deletion review, or which was deleted via proposed deletion or speedy deletion (although in that case the previous speedy criterion, or other speedy criteria, may apply).

I note that although G4 states that there may be other criterion that makes it a candidate for speedy deletion, it does explicitly state that G4 does not apply to previously speedily deleted articles, whereas the Arbitration principles says that it does apply.

What are your thoughts? I shall be putting a note at WP:AN and Wikipedia talk:Arbitration about this. Stephen! ^Coming... 10:40, 12 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The "Arbitration principles" page is a historical one and lists principles that have been adopted in past arbitration cases, some of which are years old by now. (I do wish the page were more up-to-date; as an arbitrator who drafts some of the decisions, I could use it.) In particular, if you click on the link, you will see that the "Deleted content" principle you quote is from a case that was decided in March 2005. Our deletion policies and procedures have become more nuanced (and frankly more complicated) since then, and you should rely on the current policy rather than an old arbitration case as the best source for what the current guidelines and procedures are. Hope this helps, as I do wish that sometimes the principles adopted in arbitration cases got a little more attention outside the context of the case (compare User talk:Newyorkbrad#see also for an example). Newyorkbrad (talk) 10:49, 12 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Gotta love instruction creep... Would it be possible to add a note at the top of the Principles page to state that it isn't updated as frequently as other areas? Or something like that? Its just that I was under the impression that Arbitration sets precedent which is adopted across the project, and so G4 here was not reflecting what had been decided by Arbitration (rather than evolving which is what appears to have happened). Stephen! ^Coming... 10:57, 12 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The only ArbCom case where this principle was cited was Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Anthony DiPierro 2, which goes back to 2005. Only the part of the criterion statement that was relevant to that particular case has been cited at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Principles#Deleted content. The exceptions for articles that have been recreated with substantially different material, or where a previously unnotable subject finally became notable, did not apply in this particular case. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 17:21, 12 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And, after all, if an article was speedied and then recreated identical, it could still be speedied under the original criterion... ;) Salvio ( ^{Let's talk 'bout it!}) 17:41, 12 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is not the least theoretical--people re-create them this way dozens of times a day, and of course they do get deleted again, and , if it keeps happening, protected against re-creation. It also starts the series of warnings that can lead to getting blocked from WP. DGG ( talk ) 01:19, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reading a principle as if it were a forever fixed part of wikipedia policy is a mistake. The principles have more context than that and that needs to be considered i.e. some of the case detail. Additionally the expression of principles is the arbitrators understanding of the community interpretation of a given policy (etc) at that point in time, it isn't the arbitrators dictating policy, the community can subsequently change policy either explicitly or by long running interpretation/application in a differing way. --82.7.40.7 (talk) 15:43, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

G4 used to explicitly say that a speedy deleted page could be re-deleted under G4. This was changed in July 2006. [1] The principle was a correct statement of the policy in 2005. --B (talk) 16:31, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's not much of a discrepancy. G4 states that an article cannot be speedied just because it was speedied before, but it CAN be speedied if the original reason for speedying it still applies (ie it forces the admin to check why the article was deleted the last time, and use that reason rather than G4). Since there must have been a reason for the first deletion (ya think), it follows that the article can still be speedied - it just requires the admin to carry forward the original reason.Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:59, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A recent archive of this page included a discussion about a CSD reason for "how-to" articles. Unfortunately, the archive occurred before any type of consensus could be made. The criteria discussion was getting tweaked to a point where it could be given an up or down vote. I'd really like to see this happen. Here's the latest version of the CSD proposal, in the same style as existing CSD reasons:

A11. Recently created articles written in second-person style that include instructions about how to do something.

A recently created article that answers a "how do I" question, where the article does not contain any encyclopedic information that is not already included in relevant articles. Articles titled with instructional titles, such as "how to do X", are unencyclopedic and inherently lend themselves to WP:POV. Other articles with content that is written in an instructional style are also eligible for deletion. Articles that discuss techniques of performing scientific or other notable endeavors (Methods of detecting extrasolar planets), or proper titles of works (How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days) do not fall under this criterion.

Here is the latest sample of a how-to, called Advanced Placement English. — Timneu22 · talk 13:20, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

comment - I took two minutes to fix this up here. I realize you described this as the "latest" example rather than the "worst" but it wasn't too much work to turn it into a somewhat-respectable article. Thparkth (talk) 13:59, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The work you did does not reflect the original article; similarly, the work to change a blatant {{advert}} into a three-sentence stub often keeps the article title but none of the original content. So why do we have G12? Everything is a judgment call. — Timneu22 · talk 14:02, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose - deletion of such articles would never be urgent, would always involve a judgement call, and would often be controversial. Three good reasons why speedy deletion is the wrong way to handle them. Thparkth (talk) 13:25, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  I believe the criterion is objective — "most reasonable people should be able to agree whether an article meets the criterion" — as well as uncontestable. As discussed earlier, all the "A" deletion reasons take some judgment and this one is no different. As for the urgency factor, keeping these types of articles endorses a single person's point of view; these types of articles are just as harmful as advertising articles, which of course have a speedy reason. Plus sending these to AFD when they are almost always deleted is a waste of the community's time. — Timneu22 · talk 13:38, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose - agree with Thparkth above re the lack of need for haste. AfD is always available - in some cases it may be possible to rewrite the article or merge the information into another article. CSD should only be for articles that are potentially damaging, rubbish, spam etc. Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:36, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  It is always possible to rewrite any article, as discussed before. Since any article could be improved, why have CSD at all? — Timneu22 · talk 13:40, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's hard to see how "I luv my cat", "Przzyzzxx", or "Adrian is the dj at the Dog and Duck in Hendon" can be improved - except by not existing. Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:52, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You're talking about vandalism and/or nonsense. My discussion in the archive discusses "A" reasons only, and advertising. These things could be rewritten if someone really wanted to. — Timneu22 · talk 13:53, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Then why the need for a speedy deletion category? Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:03, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This subdiscussion belongs elsewhere. I have complaints (see archive) about the subjectivity of all CSDs except the examples you cite. But I don't want to get off topic here; I'm hoping this discussion is about CSD for blatant how-to articles, like craig's list and youtube examples below. — Timneu22 · talk 14:06, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would point out that you started it. And it is relevant - if an article is not a threat to the organisation (as copyvios and attack pages are) and is potentially capable of improvement (as vandalism and nonsense are not), what is the hurry in removing it? Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:33, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What's the rush in deleting advertisements? — Timneu22 · talk 15:27, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Blatant advertising threatens the integrity of the encyclopaedia - also there's usually a COI because the creator of the spam is the owner of the company. How to upload a vid to YouTube may be inappropriate material for the project, but it's not a threat. Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:18, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why does blatant advertising threaten the integrity, but blatant how-to does not? Can't someone rewrite the "blatant advertisement" to be encyclopedic? There is a huge double-standard here. Speedy delete advertisements that could be rewritten, but don't speedy delete advertisements for ideas — that's what a how-to article is. This makes absolutely no sense. — Timneu22 · talk 17:21, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, you've lost me here. Wikipedia can't appear to endorse products - that's why we get rid of promotional articles written by company owners/authors of books/inventors of time machines etc. In 99% of cases, the articles that get deleted are about non-notable products anyway. If the product were notable, someone would have written the article already. If I write How to make sachertorte what am I advertising? Am I promoting sachertorte any more by writing an article on how to make it than I would be if I wrote an article on its history? I could actually write, in the Sachertorte article, how sachertorte is made, as long as I couched it in the correct style. The only objection is a style one - articles should not be written as if in an instruction manual.Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:33, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(deindent) I'm arguing your "what's the rush" point, which is hypocritical. I believe you could take 50% of the "blatant" advert articles, do some research on the topic, and write a stubbed article for the product or business. Yet we have G11 to just delete these articles immediately, even if they could be rewritten. But here you (and others) argue that blatant how-to articles should not speedily deleted, and should be given an attempt at a rewrite. In the rare instance that any of this how-to content is saved, the content is moved to another article anyway (as per WP:NOT#HOWTO). Goodness, why can't this be seen:

• G11 says "Pages that are exclusively promotional, and would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic."
• I'm proposing A11, which is about ideas (someone's idea of "how to" do something) that would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic. And if the title is "how to do X", then the title will need to be changed, regardless of the (almost always useless) content, so it's not even the same article.

In either case, the article needs a fundamental rewrite, so why does G11 exist but A11 cannot? — Timneu22 · talk 17:40, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Because not. Also, there's a fine line between debating a point and harassing an editor for having a different view, and you're about to cross it if you keep on like this, so I suggest you dial down the intensity a bit. Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:49, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ridiculous. I simply want to know the source of the double standard; I ask a simple question and can get no answer. There is no harassment here. — Timneu22 · talk 17:50, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose "Waste of the community's time" is not a valid reason for a speedy deletion criterion. No one is forced to comment on any AFD, so any time-wasting is purely voluntary. Thparkth has named three good reasons why this is a bad idea and I think they are valid for this situation and in order to fulfill our WP:PRESERVE policy. Regards SoWhy 13:43, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  "Waste of community's time" means that these articles occur frequently, and are always deleted via AFD, which is why a CSD reason is a necessity here. But I'm happy with admins deleting on WP:IAR grounds, but it seems only a few have the guts to do so. — Timneu22 · talk 13:53, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  Note that previous examples included How to post a Craig's List ad and How to post a YouTube video or other similar examples. Surely there must be a CSD to remove these, right? — Timneu22 · talk 13:59, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Although you keep insisting this, you have so far failed to prove why there must be such a criterion. Just because such articles are usually deleted, it's not a requirement to do so using speedy deletion. PROD and AFD can handle it. Regards SoWhy 18:21, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would simply like an answer to my question: G11 is for articles that would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic; how-to articles also require a fundamental rewrite, so what is the difference that makes this criterion wrong but G11 is right? — Timneu22 · talk 18:23, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Because people try to misuse Wikipedia for spamming purposes far more often than to post how-to guides. And valid G11 taggings have to be deleted almost every time while those you propose often are more ambiguous and may possibly contain material worth saving. Regards SoWhy 18:30, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Valid G11 taggings" can often be rewritten in a non-promotional manner, but G11 makes us choose not to. This is my problem with the double-standard, and frankly it is still unexplained. — Timneu22 · talk 18:34, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak oppose. I tend to agree on the fact that articles such as these aren't pernicious enough to justify/need speedy deletion, and that most of them can be dealt with by PRODding them. Salvio ( ^{Let's talk 'bout it!}) 16:26, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. The "second-person style" part of the criterion statement can be remedied with simple editing and will always leave something that's no longer speedable if it wasn't already speedable under another criterion to begin with. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 20:45, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  What about the absolute clear-cut case of an article titled "how to do X"? This is a clear violation of WP:NOT#HOWTO. — Timneu22 · talk 20:58, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  That's what we have PROD for. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 21:27, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  Argh. But a topic like that is never encyclopedic, so PROD simply delays the inevitable while allowing people to remove the tag. It's like allowing advertising articles for seven days. — Timneu22 · talk 21:49, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. While some of these articles can be stubbed, the reality is that if they hold no encyclopedic value in their first form, they hurt, not help the project by degrading the quality of the content. There is no reason that we should have "how to upload a youtube video" around. PROD can sometimes fall through, and most of the articles that would be tagged would not require great judgment whether or not it a) has a second person tone and b) lacks encyclopedic content. It requires much better judgment to judge A7. This is not supposed to be a catch-all criteria; and with the wording proposed above, it is not to catch essays, merely to delete uncontroversial how-to articles. The "where the article does not contain any encyclopedic information that is not already included in relevant articles" is supposed to catch only articles where there is no possible chance of deleting helpful content. "Second person tone" is not the only criteria for deletion, both parts have to be satisfied. With a properly designed tag, we can reduce the possible "bite" factor to newbies, certainly more than some snow AfDs can appear with these type of articles. I agree though, with some editors above that waiting seven days does not cause as much damage as an advertisement and other speedy deletions, and as this clearly will not gain consensus, there is not a huge compromise in the integrity of WP without A11. --Fiftytwo thirty (talk) 20:57, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. In my view, the benefit of not having to wait 7 days to delete the small number of articles in this category is outweighed by the difficulties explained above by Thparkth.--Mkativerata (talk) 21:06, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - I don't know that the wording is right, but a criterion for "unencyclopedic subject" would be a good criterion. That would include "how to" articles where there is no chance of it becoming an encyclopedia article. Something like "How to build a magnometer" could potentially be merged into magnometer or even turned into a useful article. But "How to remember your multiplication tables" and "How to beat the final level on Grand Theft Auto XXX" are clearly unencyclopedic topics. "Unencyclopedic subject" would also cover topics like "what happened in recess today" or "Mrs. Smith's 2nd bell homework assignment". Technically, neither of those are speedyable (neither the homework assignment nor the thing that happened are a person, organization, web content, or individual animal), though we would all agree they should be. --B (talk) 21:37, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  The proposal by B includes obviously WP:MADEUP topics - I tried to get consensus before for just such a criterion, but wording that was tight enough couldn't be agreed. I think articles that are self-declared to be on topics that the author has just invented, experienced or thought of should be speedily deleted. Fences&Windows 21:45, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  A user's own experience includes a user's instructions for something like "how to post an ad to Craig's list". This is really a big old gray area. — Timneu22 · talk 21:51, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  This is a terrific point. I've seen my fair share of "Mrs. Smith's homework assignment"-type articles. What to do about those? Is "unencyclopedic topic" a valid CSD? Or will we get the same arguments: oh, but you can save some of that information!? This is worth a look, too... but again if more admins would just WP:IAR, these obvious junk articles would be deleted via {{delete}} tags with appropriate reasons ("homework assignments not encyclopedia material!"). — Timneu22 · talk 21:49, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You know, somehow, I really really don't think admins deleting articles out of process is the brilliant idea you seem to think that it is. Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:54, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. For the same reasons I gave before. Fences&Windows 21:45, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose these articles don't get created that frequently and can often be cleaned up or transwikied (Wikibooks is much keener on editor-written how-to material than we are). Hut 8.5 22:03, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously not going to happen

Clearly there is more opposition here than I'd like to see. I really think this is because the people opposing don't patrol new articles. Stinks. But can we at least create a subpage, Wikipedia talk: Criteria for speedy deletion/Commonly denied requests, that includes a list of things that are commonly rejected? I saw on the archive that someone else mentioned how-to articles. I'd start that subpage with:

• How-to
• Essay
• The WP:NOT stuff. (Apparently there was a discussion a while ago that articles defined in "what wikipedia is not" do not qualify for CSD.)

Thoughts on creating the subpage? — Timneu22 · talk 21:55, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oi. I'm a new page patroller. You know that line I referred to before? You're standing right on it now, so quit making this a personal crusade. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:58, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My gosh, sorry for trying to help; I really don't like your attacking me here. This is a problem and no one has yet to explain why G11 is valid and A11 is not. I'll cite my example again: years ago I created MICROS Systems, which was repeatedly deleted upon initial creation. MICROS is probably the most notable POS system in the world. I don't remember the deletion reasons, but it was probably advertising/copyright. Let's say that was the case. I ask the question here again: why would that article be speedily deleted, when a rewrite was necessary for a clearly notable topic, but how-to articles that can never be encyclopedic aren't speedily deleted? There is a big double-standard that has yet to be explained. — Timneu22 · talk 22:08, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Timneu22, I've just noticed that all of your edits are marked as minor. Could you not do that - I would have thought an experienced editor like yourself would be familiar with this rule. I also note that your userpage is full of barnstars that you appear to have awarded to yourself. Never mind. So now you are saying that because you once had an article deleted because it was a copyvio and/or spam, you want a category where other articles that you don't like can be deleted. Poor show, man. Poor show. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:28, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I just saw this now. Goddammit man, this has nothing to do with an article that I once had deleted (as that was years ago), I just want to know why all the deletion reasons are so subjective that we delete valid topics sometimes and live shitty topics at other times. — Timneu22 · talk 22:50, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Because perfection is only for Allah? Really, they're not all subjective. Further, if subjectivity really is your issue, then you ought to be looking to reduce the number of CSD criteria, not increase the damn things. Better to send articles to AfD - that way there's more of a chance of someone rewriting it and less chance of it being deleted on an arbitrary decision. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:06, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have suggested that they aren't good (implied that they should be reduced) on the archive. G11 and all the A's (except "duplicate article") are pretty subjective, really. I mean, anything could be rewritten, so it's weird that some articles are given a chance while others are not. — Timneu22 · talk 23:09, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There was an RfC a while back, in which it was suggested that CSD be reduced to copyvio, spam and BLP violations, with a category for housekeeping deletions (leftover redirects etc). Nothing much came of it, although a couple of the categories had the wording tightened up.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:22, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It has been explained. Repeatedly. On this page. Nobody but you and maybe one or two other people perceive this as a big enough problem to warrant a new speedy criterion. It also seems to be extraordinarily difficult to come up with unambiguous wording for such a criterion. That you do not like this explanation does not make it invalid. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It has not been explained. I'm seriously not trying to beat a dead horse, and I really just want to understand. I know in my heart of hearts that half the G11s that I tag -- almost all of which are deleted -- could be given some time and thought, and then rewritten appropriately. Please tell me why an article like "MICROS Systems" would be deleted instead of rewritten. I want to know, for educational purposes. If you think I'm being a pest or trying to prove a point or something else, I'm not: I just want to know. I really think there is a problem. There's an even bigger problem if we're keeping any article titled "how to X", but I give up on that. I'd like to know why valid topics are deleted without thoughts of rewriting them. — Timneu22 · talk 22:48, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To me, the difference is that a G11 is generally a bad-faith piece of advertising, while one of these A11s is more of a misguided attempt to help. One should be discouraged via rapid deletion, the other is less urgent and can be discussed and (potentially) merged or improved. The difference is in the intent of the creator. ~ mazca ^talk 22:50, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's fair (and the best answer yet). However it seems many G11s (especially those that are contested) could probably be rewritten as a neutral stub for starters, and that they probably don't need to be deleted. — Timneu22 · talk 22:53, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As part of the "Modifying G6" discussion that I started above, some of us seem to have become unsure of what to do with {{db-disambig}} — should it really be part of G6 or part of some other criterion? I'd like to see something different: could we simply create a new criterion for disambiguation pages, using simply the current criteria that are stated on the db-disambig template? If we adopt my proposal, we won't be permitting any deletions that are currently prohibited or prohibiting any deletions that are currently permitted; I'm simply asking to clarify G6 by making one of its sub-criteria a separate criterion. Nyttend (talk) 17:42, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd support this - when we have a clearly-worded and unambiguous criterion as we do here, there's no reason it needs to be hanging around making G6 more complicated. Yes, it's "uncontroversial housekeeping", but it's somewhat outside the technical, you-shouldn't-even-notice-this-page-was-deleted style that G6 is really intended for. Far better to give it its own criterion, really.~ mazca ^talk 18:13, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On the subject of "you-shouldn't-even-notice-this-page-was-deleted style" then I think {{Db-move}} fits that more often than db-disambig. I've never had any protests about speedy deletes relating to cleaning up disambiguation pages, but moves can be presented (usually by the single editor who tagged the article) as uncontroversial, but when they happen a right fuss can be created. So they require a high degree of thought when deleting pages tagged with this, unlike the other aspects of G6. Not that I think db-move should go either, as there are clear cases that fall under this, and my problem with it is more people tagging potentially controversial moves without any discussion, than the wording of the criteria itself. Peter 18:48, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

• I highly support a new disambiguation criteria (eg. CSD D1). It will make G6 a lot less cluttered and is well worded, uncontroversial, and established by the community. --Fiftytwo thirty (talk) 18:24, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't. It's obvious what part of G6 is being referred to when something is tagged using it. I'm against creating a separate CSD for every eventuality. Peter 18:38, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

We already have the criteria for deletion of disambiguation pages; it's just that it's currently merged into another one. It's hardly instruction creep to rearrange existing criteria. Nyttend (talk) 18:39, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would prefer to see this merged into A3 if possible, especially in preference to creating a new set of letters. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:52, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]