Meta talk:Requests for comment/Update of Meta:Deletion policy

←Proposed text

Request for comments on the approval of a new Meta-Wiki deletion policy (discussion)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Comments

I beg to move that this project considers the update of our Meta:Deletion policy. The draft deletion policy I present you to your consideration has been co-authored by Jo-Jo Eumerus, Stefan2 and myself, with suggestions from Syum90. Thank you, —MarcoAurelio 09:31, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

• Meta talk:Requests for comment/Update of Meta:Deletion policy/Draft-stage discussion - discussion when creating the draft proposed for your consideration.

Overview of changes

Please give an overview of changes between the current and the proposed policy. --MF-W 10:55, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Sure. I'll do it shortly. Sorry for not doing so before. —MarcoAurelio 10:57, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

I think I posted a table yesterday with the changes and has vanished even from history? That or my memory fails. O_O -- Will re-do. —MarcoAurelio 08:58, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Okay, so (and this time better I do not forget to hit the "Save" button):

• With regards to the requests for deletion, the process is basically the same, but now we stablish as mandatory to notify the page creator and or relevant page contributors after nominating the page. Some of us do it as a courtesy.
• Most speedy deletion criterions are unaltered. We've added a couple "generals" such as attack pages, and a new "possible copyright infringement", which is somewhat a slow-speedy-deletion for doubted copyright infringements, that will be tagged with {{possible copyright infringement}} and after 7 days they'll be listed at CAT:DEL automatically. On images, we update the criterions. Authors think that since Meta-Wiki has restricted local uploads, it is not needed to create a large list of speedy deletion clauses.
• We regulate the use of our old friend {{looks useless}}, and set a time after pages tagged with this template can be deleted, which has been set on 60 days.
• We put into the policy the process for undeletion. Nothing new, because it's what we've been doing by common sense. Now it's simply written.
• And, finally, we regulate the use of the revision deletion feature.

This is not a closed draft, and amendment proposals are more than welcome, so if you think something is missing (or viceversa) feel free to comment. Thanks, —MarcoAurelio 14:52, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

I've wanted to comment/reply since months, but somehow never got round to it. Several things:

1. My personal feeling is that it would have been better to make proposals to change wordings of the current policy. This way at least I would feel like it's easier to compare. I didn't read through the speedy deletion section of this proposal thoroughly, because I trust it will continue to contain the common sense reasons for speedy deletion, regardless of how they are explained in detail.
2. I made a change at the "looks useless" section which to me makes it clearer. Please check whether it's in accordance with the intended meaning.
3. I also wonder about the sentence "The deleting administrator may at their discretion convert the request into a deletion discussion or decline it altogether." there. Does it mean "An administrator who sees a page that has been tagged {{looks useless}} since 60 days may as well start an RFD instead of deleting; or remove the template"?
4. "sometimes individual revisions will be hidden because their content is abusive or infringes on policies" does not seem like a regulation at all.
5. "After at most one week after the posting of the request, an uninvolved administrator will process the request": why "at most"? Shouldn't it be "at least"?

--MF-W 01:02, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi MF-W, sorry for the late reply. With regards to the comparaison, I didn't just wanted to patch yet again the policy and instead offer a new text. The General section of the speedy deletion contains four new clauses which are not in WM:DP: advertising or other inappropriate promotion, attack pages and content which is clearly out of scope, and the last one: possible copyright infringement. The speedy deletion clauses for images are changed not to allow this abnormal situation that is Meta hosting copyright infringements even after Meta:Fair use has been passed as explicitly denying the possibility, and complying with the Terms of Use and the Resolution on Licensing. With regards to point #3, yes, that's the intention. WRT point #4, I can understand that but there's some regulation afterwards, and WRT point #5 you were right and I changed it accordingly. Regards, —MarcoAurelio (talk) 17:21, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

A review

OK, my own review of the policy is here, I generally subscribe to the notion that any policy and guideline needs to have convincing reasons to exist, otherwise it is nothing more than pointless red tape/bureaucracy that can also create conflicts and timesinks artificially from harmless actions that merely happened to violate the text of it, as well as being harder to memorize and follow generally ("TL;DR effect"), and finally a lot of people overestimate the usefulness of written down procedures. I'll be thus somewhat minimalist.

• Neutral. Useful if author input could change the assessment, could be considered process wonky otherwise.
• I approve of the economical handling of image deletion criteria. OK with the copyright and attack provisions too, both of these are potentially serious concerns.
• I'd probably shorten the "looks useless" section a bit; instead of Notwithstanding, if the deletion is uncontested it does not mean that the material can be automatically deleted, and the deleting administrator can decline the deletion if in their own judgement the material is not useless or in scope. In doubt, administrators are encouraged to open a formal request for deletion. I'd say The deleting administrator may at their discretion convert the request into a deletion discussion or decline it altogether.
• Undeletion ... mmm, wonder if it could be shortened a bit.
• The revision deletion policy seems to be taken straight from the English Wikipedia one, right down to the overuse of emphasis. How frequently do controversies over misuse of rev-del happen here? Seems a bit like having a policy for the sake of having it.

So, my sense is that most of this is good, some parts could maybe be shortened, and the revision deletion bit is still a problem.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:18, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Hi. I've shortened a bit the looks useless section as per your suggestion. I don't find the RevDel section problematic though. Undeletion: I'm not sure how to shorten it. I think it covers the process pretty well. —MarcoAurelio 11:08, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

The RevDel section needs to lose the misuse of italic and bold tags, there is no need to shout in a policy page and it makes the policy look like a rant. I'd use something like Applying revision deletion to log entries should only be used for grossly inappropriate content as actions recorded in logs (e.g blocks) are meant to be easily reviewable by anyone. For the undeletion policy, what about replacing An uninvolved administrator will decide whether to undelete the page or not. Requests for undeletion need to be addressed in at most one week after they were posted, however no undeletion will take place based solely on the lack of addressing of an undeletion request. Valid requests for undeletion includes infringement of this deletion policy or the inclusion policy; but decision will be made on a case-by-case basis. with After at most one week after the posting of the request, an uninvolved administrator will process the request. Pages may be undeleted if they meet the inclusion policy or the deletion did not conform to this deletion policy; a mere lack of comments on the undeletion request is generally not sufficient. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:21, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

• On the one hand, I appreciate that this draft moves away from the silly numbering system (what meaning does "G7" have for any non-regular?). I think that (save the revision deletion section) it is otherwise good. Only suggestion would be renaming "trivial housekeeping deletion" to "routine housekeeping"; no need to include deletion in there I don't think. – Ajraddatz (talk) 20:42, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

  Oh, and perhaps no need for a "reposted content" one. It could just be deleted with the same rationale as the first. – Ajraddatz (talk) 20:45, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

  MediaWiki:Deletereason-dropdown will need updating in that case. I also agree with Ajraddatz's other proposals. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:12, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

  Sure, but only if this proposed policy is enacted. —MarcoAurelio 09:43, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I've shortened the undeletion section as suggested by Jo-Jo Eumerus. As for the RD, can you help me? What's exactly what needs to be removed? The criteria? Shortening the last paragraph wrt. log redaction? I think we need some sort of criteria. Sorry if the use of bold words looks like shouting, never was my intention. Thank you! —MarcoAurelio 09:43, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

I've shortened the text a bit. Please let me know if it satisfies you. I'm finding a bit diffult this section: on one hand, there's no need to import enwiki policy, on the other hand, it should be clear when the use of the feature is approved and when it is not. Regards, —MarcoAurelio 09:49, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

The RD section seems OK to me now. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:48, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Spam

Hi, I think we could also add a reason to delete revisions: spam; especially the edit summaries when they include spam links. What do you think?--Syum90 (talk) 11:55, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Done. —MarcoAurelio 10:59, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Private Informations

Page has private information? What your opinion? Murbaut (talk) 13:19, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Oversight covers the suppression of pages with private information on the cases mentioned there. On user pages, those can be deleted per author request and, on other cases, the common sense rule can be applied. If folks think a special case should be added to the policy I'd not mind either. —MarcoAurelio 11:48, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Oh Murbaut (talk) 14:23, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Ban

I propose to replace "content created and edited solely by a banned or globally banned user after they were banned" to "content created and edited solely by a indefinitely blocked or globally banned user after they were banned or blocked", because the meaning of "ban" is unclear as there're no local ban policy in Meta.--GZWDer (talk) 06:19, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree. —MarcoAurelio 09:56, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

I also agree, it makes it clearer.--Syum90 (talk) 15:16, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Done. —MarcoAurelio 12:13, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Should we expand "banned" to "banned or locked" in the first case and expand "banned or blocked" to "blocked, banned, or locked" in the second case?   — Jeff G. ツ 00:05, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure about that but we can certainly apply common sense in a case by case basis. I think we should clarify that banned on meta means also "indefinitely blocked user" as we don't have a formal ban process here and it's been practice here not to distinguish between the two. If you're indefblocked here you're not allowed to edit, in general. As global locks are not applied on normal (ie non spambot) users, I think we can expand it to those cases when needed. —MarcoAurelio 10:26, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Meta doesn't have a community so the wording doesn't make sense, but I would note that my user-page was deleted per this clause which was not made in bad faith, and I only had a block shorter than 2 (two) days for "irritating stews", yet my user page was still deleted by this criteria so I am not exactly a fan of it, and now admin wants to perform a history merge with it. An idea in the idea lab was also deleted per this which also wasn't created in bad faith, so undeletions of pages not created in bad faith should just be able to be made and be restored without prejudice. --Donald Trung (Talk 🤳🏻) (My global lock 😒🌏🔒) (My global unlock 😄🌏🔓) 12:33, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

After a year...

... I think we can move on and call this approved? —MarcoAurelio (talk) 10:28, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

It's ok for me, but probably we should make a final votation.--Syum90 (talk) 14:14, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Above I still have some unanswered questions. --MF-W 23:26, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Common sense section

Maybe we should add a section that roughly says that nothing in this policy prevents employing speedy deletion when it is obvious that it can be deleted applying good faith and common sense, even if the reason is not listed in the policy itself? —MarcoAurelio (talk) 17:23, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes. Perhaps not describe it as common sense, but just say that admins can delete according to their discretion in cases that are not discussed in the policy. I'm never a fan of hard-coding practices too much. – Ajraddatz (talk) 20:17, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

A section is probably too long, though. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:08, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Corrupt, missing or empty files

Green Giant proposed at this section of Meta talk:Deletion policy a new speedy deletion criterion for files: 4. Corrupt, missing or empty: Files that are corrupt, missing, empty, or contain superfluous and blatant non-metadata information. I think it's a sensible one and also one of the cases which common sense could apply. In any case I see no harm in adding it to this proposal without prejudice of being added to the current policy as well if this RfC is not approved before. Regards, —MarcoAurelio (talk) 18:02, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Another trial close here

Except for my one question below (following new section), is everything else now satisfactory? Can we close this? StevenJ81 (talk) 14:25, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Technical notes (only) in anticipation of close

Procedure

Change "for at least one week" to "for a minimum of one week" (just a bit better grammatically) ( Done)

General–Author Request

Do we need to specify anything further about "user request in user's own space", just for the record? ( Done) And what's our policy about removing user talk pages when the user page is gone and the talk page's only contents are (a) a welcome template (even if subst'ed) and/or (b) warning notice(s). (That question is especially valid WRT an IP user talk page. I seem to recall a discussion about that recently, but don't recall the result.) ( left alone)

Images

Most places allowing image uploads try to get rid of ones that are outright not in use. (But maybe that falls under {{Looks useless}}.) ( not changed)

Miscellaneous (Empty categories)

Perhaps reword as "Empty categories. Categories empty for at least a week, excluding those stating that they should be retained even when empty." (One would hope no one tags that sort of empty category, and that no sysop would delete one, but we might as well be clear.) Done
StevenJ81 (talk) 15:34, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Suggestions incorporated as above. StevenJ81 (talk) 22:37, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Immediate deletion of RFL and PCP pages

I have already taken the common-sense liberty of speedy-deleting new RFL and PCP pages that had no policy justification and/or were clearly otherwise spurious or inappropriate. Question, though, is: does that need to be included explicitly here somewhere? Or does that simply come under LangCom's jurisdiction and we don't worry about it here? StevenJ81 (talk) 14:27, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't mind those being mentioned here (or maybe mentioning 'request pages', being more generic, to cover more that those) if it makes people more confortable. In any case if the requests are vandalism, they should be covered already. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 17:14, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

@MarcoAurelio: Problem is that sometimes such requests are vandalism (or are by known LTA's, in any case), and sometimes not. The guy who created the recent CPP to close Wikispecies is a troublemaker and gadfly, but whether that request actually crosses into "vandalism"—or the proposer crosses into "LTA"—is pretty borderline.

On further thought, I think I'll generally leave this issue alone. If a request (either way) crosses into vandalism (or the requester is clearly an LTA), there are already sufficient grounds for speedy deletion. If not, but the request is spurious or does not conform to policy, there are sufficient grounds for a speedy close (though not a speedy deletion). (See LPP#Initial proposal and the very first bullet point in Langcom/handbook for new project requests, and CPP#Decision for project closure requests.)

About the only situation that somewhat falls through the cracks is when someone creates a request that s/he is not "qualified" to create. (My example: only registered users may create RFL [new project] requests. But maybe there are other examples here, too.) There are three possible solutions to that one:

• We delete the page anyway (per "Common sense") and let someone object.
• We add the following item to your policy under "Miscellaneous":

  "Request pages. Request pages created by someone not permitted to do so under the rules of that type of request (such as a 'Request for new languages' by an unregistered user)."

• (if technically possible) Simply prevent the possibility technically. Is it possible, for example, to limit the creation of new subpages of RFL to autoconfirmed users only (while allowing anyone to edit existing subpages)?

Thoughts? StevenJ81 (talk) 15:19, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

About the last point: Certainly, similar to former filter no. 55. --MF-W 15:25, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Attempt to finally close this after 2.5 years

I incorporated a couple of minor suggestions (see just above). At this point, can we close and pass this? StevenJ81 (talk) 22:41, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

• Fully agreed, I just scrolled here to make the same statement.--Cohaf (talk) 18:55, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Closing

OK. This discussion is closed, and the revised policy is being incorporated at Meta:Deletion policy. Just one question, though, @MarcoAurelio: Is the "Notes" section of that page supposed to remain, or does this version of the policy completely replace what is currently on the page? StevenJ81 (talk) 17:10, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks much for moving forward. For me the notes section can go. It contains outdated info and processes which ain't helpful IMHO. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 17:40, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

OK. Thanks. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:46, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.