Meta talk:Deletion policy/Archives/2006
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Cleanup
I gave 'unusual/unrelated content' its own special-case section. This page, particularly the last section on special cases, could use further cleaning up. Sj 04:07, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Proposed overhaul
I'd drafted an overhauled deletion policy at User:Pathoschild/Sandbox (see crosspage diff). The proposal has been organised into three sections: Consensus deletion process, Criteria for speedy deletion, and Notes. (The current policy has no apparent system; it is organised into 2 overall sections, one of which has no subsections, the other of which contains the rest of the page and includes content that isn't applicable to that section.) The content has been extensively rewritten so that the text flows better, is more concise, and is simpler, and has been somewhat expanded.
One of the most important changes involves the criteria for speedy deletion. These have been extensively modified; several similar clauses have been merged together, a few expanded to cover all pages (instead of a specific namespace), and they are now organised in a much more human-readable manner. New criteria include legitimately blanked pages, trivial deletions, pages violating copyright, unneeded or broken redirects, by-permission-only images, and pages redundant with a project other than Wikipedia. The banned contributor clause has been tweaked; it no longer suggests that all their contributions be deleted, only those where bad faith can be assumed or which do not benefit the Meta-Wiki.
Beyond the above, it is updated to more accurately and clearly reflect current procedure and guidelines. What thinkest thou? // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 06:31, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
- "May 19, 2005" seems arbitrary to me. It comes from the English Wikipedia's mailing list "wikien-l", and Meta is not English Wikipedia. I suggest that the special rules for content before 19 May 2005 be removed. The relevant clauses favor nonfree images from before 19 May 2005; I think that we can delete those as quickly as we delete any uploaded after 19 May 2005.
- The old policy also refers to 19 May, so I think this is something that should be removed. --Kernigh 01:53, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
- I'd like something like w:Template:db-catempty also here, maybe add it as 4th point to "CSD - Miscellaneous".
- It's not clear what "group" deletion means on the process page, is what I added there okay? Does the deletion policy cover such cases? For a list of unused language pages the Rfd carried, now there are still two pending "group" deletion requests: "other pages" under "misc", Hilfeumleitung (help redirect) under "group". Not all individual pages marked by
{{Rfd}}or similar at the moment. - One of
{{Looks useless}}or{{checkup}}might be redundant. Maybe integrate it somehow in the deletion process: I like the "prod" procedure on w:en: where it works (unfortunately only in the main namespace). -- Omniplex (w:t) 03:20, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
- I agree with the cutoff and category CSD suggestions, and implemented them in the proposal. I'm not sure the Proposed deletions ("prod") process would work as well on the Meta-Wiki. This project has far fewer contributors and far more important but unwatched pages. Such a process may lead to the deletion of pages that would never be deleted if users were aware of the proposal. The current system is still capable of bearing the load of the nomination discussions, and it could easily be scaled in the future by splitting it into different pages as Wikipedia has done.
- I assumed the "Group" section on Requests for deletions referred to WikiProjects and associations, but it could very well refer to groups of pages. The new criteria "Unneeded or broken redirects that do not have a serious edit history" should cover those redirects. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 04:11, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
- Requiring categories to be empty for one week, as Pathoschild's current version requires, would probably require the category to bear the
{{delete|This category is empty. --~~~~}}tag for one week.
- Also, there are some references to "Wikipedia" that need a fix. (The old policy has some of these references too.) For example, "Meta-Wiki's rules in terms of content are not as clear as Wikipedia's rules" might not be true, as Wikipedia has multiple language editions and not one set of rules. "Discussion and formulation of the wikipedia project itself" should be changed to permit the same for all Wikimedia projects, including projects that are not encyclopedias. (I saw that phrase on a Meta page somewhere, so there is at least one other place that might need fixing.)
- I have refrained from editing the proposal because it is a subpage of a user page. --Kernigh 20:31, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
- Feel free to edit the proposal; I've just moved the page to Meta:Deletion policy/Proposal to encourage collaboration. I corrected several of the references you mention, which were carried over from the current policy. Regarding the category deletion, that is indeed how I imagined they would be tagged. We might perhaps create a secondary template for this, so that they don't clutter the CSD category. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 22:08, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Implemented after two weeks without any opposition. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 03:44, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Minor issues
- The link ending with #desysop is broken, and I found no evidence in the WM:RFA edit history that it ever existed (?!?) - in about 5 probes out of 1000 versions. "Desysop" is of major importance for anybody editing on en:w:.
- The subsections could be rearranged, general as is (7 points) adding the point "trivial deletion" from miscellaneous, and a new second section "depending on namespace" for the rest (7-1 points).
-- Omniplex (w:t) 08:33, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
- That link was part of the previous policy; I assumed that an administrator could be listed for dysysoping on Meta:Requests for adminship under the header "desysop", which would be added for the purpose.
- The current organisation allows users to quickly find and reference criteria. For example, I can find image-related criteria by checking General and Images, or articles under General and Articles. This becomes increasingly useful as we add new criteria to streamline the consensus deletion process. Miscellaneous is redundant with General, really; perhaps we could fuse the entire section into General as criteria G8:
| 8. | Maintenance or other trivial deletions (such as minor and uncontroversial deletions, unneeded or broken redirects without a serious edit history, talk pages with no accompanying content page, and categories empty for a week.) |
Comment: speedy policy, etc.
Thank you for reorganisation, it becomes now more constructed than before. However I need to indicate some complaint, since I haven't noticed this discussion and everything is new for me, even you feel my complaint has come too late.
- Two weeks discussion is too short on meta, in my opinion. There are fewer contributors, who are involved into other project(s) than meta and sometimes are very busy there, including private wiki or mailinglists. And they consist in a core of meta editors at the same time. In future, I expect you won't be so haste; again I say, two weeks are too short to rewrite one of major meta policies. In my preferences, at least one month is expected, but I don't know how other editors think about that.
- Now go to specific things - New speedy policy says as its eighth criteria: Pages clearly irrelevant to the Wikimedia Foundation, unless they have a known and definable historical context. I strongly oppose this idea, after I have seen many pages which shouldn't be deleted had been tagged as speedy, or even deleted by a unexperienced sysop, like some deletion of Linuxbeak on March. (I don't say that in a bad feeling, just want to have you think such incidents can easily happen, and really happened in the past) Admittedly there are many articles on which all editors agree on their irrelevancy, but I think, it is not a good reason to put pages we need to work efficiently (even not so frequently) in danger of speedy deletion by hands of a sysop who isn't involved into the activity that page serves and hence can't understand how it works. Summary: this criteria should be suspended, unless it is reworded properly to avoid situations mentioned on the above. --Aphaia 17:00, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- Although I agree that a major proposal would require a long period of time to ensure that there is consensus, I do not think that the changes were significant enough to be considered 'major'. Two weeks of discussion is, I think, sufficient for a significant, but not major, change to an existing policy. I'm rather reluctant to extend such delays because of the (subjectively) slow rate of progress. However, I realise that not all users are as active on the Meta-Wiki as I am, and I'll wait longer next time if you remain convinced that it is necessary.
- Criteria G7 (irrelevant content) already disclaims its application to situations you describe. It emphasises "clearly", and is meant for unambiguously clear cases like spam, home pages, petty biographies, et cetera. Pages which might be relevant or might have a historical context (such as old essays) are not clearly irrelevant. If an administrator misapplies the criteria to pages which are not clearly irrelevant, the fault rests on the individual administrator. Note that the previous deletion policy also included this criteria, but without the caveats included now. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 17:47, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Misc. 2. Unneeded or broken redirects
I found speedy-tagged redirects on Category:Deleteme and strongly doubt if it is a good idea to delete them. They seem to have been created as result of moving, and somehow aged (some are two years old or more). Those redirects could be bookmarked or refered externally, and for the sake of consistency, I prefer to keep them, specially old ones. Anyway redirects make no big harm and if a page has existed under a certain name during a significant length, we can esteem their history as well pages with history of edits, in my opinion.
So I propose to modify Misc 2, for example, adding description "created recently" or sorts. Your comment will be appreciated. --Aphaia 18:12, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
- English Wikisource uses soft redirects so their deletions are deferred.--Jusjih 18:42, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
General criteria for speedy deletion
The general criteria for speedy deletion refer to any content created on Meta, so I've added the phrase "or media files" to the 7th criterion to clarify it. Korg + + 23:27, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
- Sure, no objections. MaxSem 11:58, 27 September 2006 (UTC)