Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion

Draft speedy deletion criteria (D#)

In order to help deal with getting rid of drafts that are pretty much never going to be approved no matter how much effort is expended on them, I am suggesting we adopt a new set of speedy criteria. These criteria would fall into a new general category, D# (for draft) and should apply only to pages actually in the draft namespace (userspace drafts falling under U# criteria). Here are the criteria I propose.

• D1: Business profile/cirriculum vitae drafts for which no reliable sources exist. This would apply to drafts that are written more like a business profile as one would see on Bloomberg or a cirriculum vitae, but are not so obviously promotional G11 applies. The sourcing requirement serves as both a WP:BEFORE check and as a bright line between "unsalvageable" and "Needs a lot of work but could be made acceptable."
• D2: Drafts about living people which would fail basic biographical requirements if they were articles and have remained unsourced for seven days. A large number of drafts we deal with in -en-help are of people who are not notable and whose articles have no sources and no chance of being sourced due to being virtually unknown. The seven-day requirement is for parity with WP:BLPPROD.
• D3: Drafts which have not been edited for six months. This would basically be renaming G13 to D3. Whether or not this is a good idea is dependent on how we want to treat userspace drafts. This should be refundable, as G13s are.
• D4: Drafts primarily written by undisclosed paid editors with no significant edits by other editors. Note that this criteria can, and should, be contestable at WP:Requests for undeletion provided the editor(s) disclose(s) and is unblocked. The key here is undisclosed; disclosure should instantly negate the criterion. We should not be making undisclosed paid editors' efforts at getting work anything but impossible.
• D5: Drafts that have been repeatedly resubmitted and declined/rejected (3+ times) without any significant work being done to improve them. At present a draft that has been constantly resubmitted without improvement is usually rejected and (often) sent to MfD where they get deleted; this would allow us to get rid of drafts whose writers aren't taking any criticism on board and are just blindly resubmitting in hopes of getting a credulous reviewer. The key here is repeatedly resubmitted and declined/rejected...without any significant work; a summary rejection as the first one or evidence the author(s) are trying to improve the draft should negate a D5.

Opinions? —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^{Takes a strong man to deny...} 18:40, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

• What problem is this trying to solve? Why is it necessary to delete these drafts before they are eligible for G13? Do you have evidence that MfD is overloaded? How is D4 compatible with editor privacy and with editors who are incorrectly accused of UPE (note that a speedy deletion criterion for UPE has been rejected multiple times previously)? How do you propose to make D1, D2 and D5 objective (they are not currently)? How is D2 compatible with WP:NODEADLINE, especially as the purpose of draft space is to allow articles to be developed over time without needing to meet all the sourcing requirements immediately? Do these proposals meet all the WP:NEWCSD requirements (note at least three of them fail the objectivity requirement as written)? Thryduulf (talk) 18:58, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
• As per Thryduulf; also, you should not choose CSD codes until a criterion is approved for use. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:20, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Meh. If someone's proposing multiple new criteria at a time, it makes it easier to discuss them individually. —Cryptic 23:57, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
• D2 is misplaced; it should be discussed instead at WT:BLPPROD. (As, as it happens, it already is.) —Cryptic 23:57, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
• These are either unsuitable for speedy deletion or miss the point of draft space. Draft space is intended for articles which aren't up to scratch yet, the fact a draft is badly written or doesn't meet mainspace standards doesn't mean it should be deleted.
  • D1: "more like a business profile" isn't a very objective standard, and processes which require people to search for references should not be done through speedy deletion. Editors disagree about what constitutes a reliable source all the time. The fact that a draft is written like a business profile is also not a good reason to delete it in itself, as it's a content issue which could be addressed.
  • D2: if you really want to do that then it should be an expansion of BLP PROD, but as I said when this was proposed there it also misses the point of draft space. It's perfectly reasonable to start a draft without putting the references on straightaway. Drafts are vastly less visible than mainspace articles.
  • D3: this expands G13 to include userspace drafts which aren't AfC submissions, which is a huge expansion which goes against previous consensus.
  • D4: this is asking the reviewing admin to judge whether a draft was created by an undisclosed paid editor, which is difficult to judge accurately. Previous proposals to delete all content added by undisclosed paid editors haven't gained consensus so the fact that a draft was written by an undisclosed paid editor doesn't necessarily mean it should be deleted.
  • D5: I don't think this is much of a problem. If someone stops working on a draft for six months then it will be deleted under G13 anyway. If they keep working on it then then the draft may come up to scratch. The fact that an AfC reviewer has declined something doesn't mean the draft is unviable, and deleting something after the third decline would be very harsh to the editor who worked on it as they would have any chance to address the third decline (they might not even see the reason before the draft gets deleted). There don't seem to be many cases like this at MfD.
• Hut 8.5 08:42, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

  I agree with all of what Hut 8.5 says. The whole point of draft space is to avoid overzealous deletions that might otherwise happen in article space. Regards SoWhy 09:16, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

• I think we need to consider this, and I am not sure that some of the objections are valid.
  • D1: the distinction should be whether there is any conceivable chance that the article might be improvable. For drafts meeting criteria D!, some of them are conceivable sourceable and notable, and I have even seen some which can be expanded into decent articles, eithe by the contributor of someone else. But some are so clearly not that we might want to have a deletion criterion of this sort. But unless we can devise clear-cut criteria for this, this is not something for speedy. If we do anything of the sort, it would need a time delay, and be refundable.
  • D2 is worth discussing. Quite a few of these are just names, and will remain so forever. But , as for D1, unless we can devise clear-cut criteria for this, this is not something for speedy. If we do anything of the sort, it would need a time delay, and be refundable. This could be either part of BLP PROD or as Draft -- there are existing speedy criteria with a time delay.
  • D3 I personally would include userspace drafts, but I do not think there is consensus. If we do establish a separate Draft section, there would be a point of moving G13 to it.
  • D4 Although previous proposals to delete all material by undeclared paid editors have not been approved, a great many of them are covered by provision G5, editing by previous blocked editors and their sockpuppets. This applies only to edits made after the principal or one of the sock accounts was blocked, but some admins have interpreted it more liberally, on the basis that this is an technical distinction (it is not just a technical artificial distinction, but a good and real one for people blocked for most other reasons) . I haven't done it, but some have, and I would not blame any who did.
  • D5. I think this is valuable and ought to be included, with some cautions. The primary caution as I see it is that about 10% of drafts are still being wrongly declined--for reasons of style or slightly inadequate sourcing or incompleteness that could be fixed in mainspace, and for which an article would never be deleted. (There's a much higher percentage of drafts being declined for the wrong reasons) There's some real benefits in doing this: repeated submission afddd to the backlog and the work, for those articles which in general simply aren;t worth the effort. It is extremely rare that someone after repeated declines will suddenly start wmaking sensible improbvements. I've seen it, but very seldom. However I would use a more restrictive level than the suggested criterion: 4 or more times, including declines by at least 2 different reviewers, and without any attempt to address the problem.
• I'm one of the very few people who try seriously to rescue drafts at G13. If something is not done to remove the large percentage of hopeless ones at an early stage, I am likely stop working in that area altogether. It's difficult to screen a large number with any degree of accuracy, and if my colleagues will not even indirectly assist, that's not something likely to encourage me to continue DGG ( talk ) 01:30, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
• Generally support development here. NB. First preference is to delete draftspace and to tell new editors to edit mainspace before creating drafts. Newcomers should not be directed into AfC, but should be directed to mainspace. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:43, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
• D1. D1: Business profile/curriculum vitae drafts for which no reliable sources exist.

  Support but reword to "D1: Business profile/curriculum vitae drafts for which no independent reliable source is provided.

  This should be Sticky PROD style, 7 days. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:43, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

• D2. Support, BLPPROD should apply to drafts. In the meantime, send all unsourced BLPs straight to MfD. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:43, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
• D3. G13 -> D3. OK, no opposition. Assuming that this covers AfC drafts in userspace? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:43, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
• D4. Oppose in favour of Wikipedia:Quarantine promotional Undeclared Paid Editor product. Many UPEs are socks of experienced editors. Deleting their work clears the slate for them to try again better. Rapid deletion prevents non-admins from joining the dots, and so it a losing strategy. Content-blanked archived UPE product titles will make it very easy to spot the next paid attempt. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:43, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
• D5. Oppose. Continue to send these to MfD. The numbers are not so great. Repeated declines often are cases of bad decline comments. Repeated Rejects are rare, which I attribute to the clarity of the Reject message. "Repeated" implies an active disagreement, and all active disagreements are worth an attempt at discussion. Often these are well held at MfD. Often they are better held at user_talk as a editor behavioural issue. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:43, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
• Why not blank? It seems that simply blanking such pages would solve the problem here, maybe with some kind of notice template. Then, after 6 months, the abandoned draft criteria kicks in. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 05:39, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
• Given that we appear to be !voting now, for the record I strongly oppose all the criteria as proposed (and at most of them in principal too). As this has been open a couple of weeks without any attempt by anybody to rectify any of the insurmountable problems identified with the proposals as written I'm not sure why this section hasn't been closed as a waste of everybody's time yet? Thryduulf (talk) 13:15, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

  because people are continuing to comment and add suggestions . Since my posting just yesterday there have been two new ones, both worth considering. Dealing with drafts is a problem, and the way to fix it is not to give up on. it. DGG ( talk ) 17:00, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

  As I noted out of band to SoWhy, this forum tends to the bold-oppose-support rather than lending itself to idea-level discussion. I do not think it fruitful to perpetuate the former and certainly do not think the latter should be chased away. --Izno (talk) 17:53, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

• D1, D2 and D5 are all good rationales for deletion. Anything fitting these can and should be nominated for deletion at WP:MfD. A large number of cases resulting in SNOW deletions per an objective rationale is probably well considered to be a pre-requisite for a D* WP:NEWCSD. MfD is not seeing a lot of these, so NEWCSD#3 ("frequent") is lacking evidence. D4 fails on multiple points. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:06, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
• I think drafts such as Draft:Ajay Motkari, Draft:Azam Dahri, Draft:Hurais Khan, and Draft:Pqtrick are good cases for D2 or something similar. Otherwise, as I've said before, some will just abuse an unrelated criterion such as G2. Yeah, I could just take them to MfD, but they'll just say I'm a time-waster. To be honest, they might have a point, even if it has no basis in policy. It may nbot be a massive load on MfD, but it's still an unesccessary one; the conclusion of such discussions are foregone. That is exactly what CSD is meant for. Adam9007 (talk) 17:33, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Why is it necessary (or even beneficial) to delete these before they are eligible for G13? What problem are they causing that speedy deletion is the best/only way to solve? Thryduulf (talk) 16:30, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
    • Thryduulf, It adds unnecessary load to MfD. There's little point in having a deletion discussion about clearly non-notable autobios and the like; that's why we have criteria such as A7. Do we really have to wait 6 months for stuff that'll obviously never pass muster in a million years to be deleted just because it's in draftspace? G13 is meant for serious drafts that might actually one day stand a chance of being published, not stuff like Draft:Pradeep Kumar Singh. There's also the risk of BLP violations (that would be dealt with much more quickly in mainspace because we have things like A7 and BLPPROD) standing for up to 6 months. Adam9007 (talk) 02:20, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
      • The whole purpose of draft space is to give users a reasonable time to work on an article without it needing to meet all the criteria for articles immediately. The consensus of the community is that "reasonable time" means 6 months. G13 is not "meant for serious drafts that might actually one day stand a chance of being published", indeed the opposite, it is intended for abandoned drafts that nobody is interested in. If there is a BLP issue then the following options are all available: (1) remove the part of the draft that is a BLP vio, (2) speedy delete it under G10, (3) nominate it at MfD (in all cases alert the WP:OVERSIGHT team if there is a serious issue that needs suppression). If there is no BLP issue then just ignore the draft and it will be gone in 6 months. There is no evidence that MfD is seeing so many nominations of drafts that a speedy criterion is required to take the pressure off - because drafts get deleted after 6 months routine nominations are just a waste of everybody's time. So I'll ask again, what is that actual problem that requires deletion sooner than G13 that needs speedy deletion to solve? As an aside what are your objective definitions of "clearly non-notable autobios and the like" and "serious drafts that might actually one day stand a chance of being published"? Thryduulf (talk) 03:29, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

        Thryduulf, I highly doubt that G13 was ever meant to prolong the existence of stuff that obviously has no place in an encyclopaedia. By 'clearly non-notable autobios and the like', I mean articles that basically amount to this: Joe Bloggs is a person. He likes this; he likes that; blah blah blah. Nothing to see here; move along. Like the ones I linked to above, which are exactly the sort of things A7 is meant for. If such a page were in draftspace, it wouldn't be incubated on sight, it'd be zapped on sight. Why should it hang around in draftspace for 6 months? Why should drafts be exempt from the same treatment just because they were created in draftspace first? By your logic, we should stick such articles in draftspace for 6 months and only then delete them. I'm guessing Wikipedia:ACTRIAL is the reason why there are now so many drafts that would be CSD-eligible if they were in article space. If so, it has actually been counterproductive in a way: because they're in draftspace, they can't be CSD'd under the current rules. However, the fact that they're being improperly CSD'd anyway under G2 or something else speaks volumes. And by 'serious drafts', I mean an actual, genuine attempt at an encyclopaedia article, as opposed to a load of waffle about something nobody cares about. Adam9007 (talk) 04:13, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

        Once again, draftspace is explicitly intended for things that are not suitable for article space, that it contains pages like you comment means it is working as intended. You have still not explained why them being around for six months is actually a problem (other than you not liking them). Your definitions of what you want and don't want to see in draft space are not even close to objective (they are closer to "I know it when I see it"). If people are using G2 to delete pages like that then they need to stop immediately because they are abusing their admin tools in one of the most serious ways possible. Thryduulf (talk) 11:18, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

        Thryduulf, Once again, draftspace is explicitly intended for things that are not suitable for article space We're talking about stuff that's not only unsuitable for article space, but unsuitable for Wikipedia whatsoever. I've just come across Draft:Andrea fortier. It was tagged as G2 because it was the creator's first edit. Had it been in mainspace, it would be A7'd and A1'd on sight, and rightly so (we do have WP:ATD-I for cases that aren't necessarily hopeless). If my experience is any indication, drafts like that are overwhelmingly deleted at MfD, usually well before G13 kicks in. Why? Because they're junk, and not at all worth keeping, even for the "grace period" afforded to drafts. Adam9007 (talk) 23:31, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

        If there are no BLP, copyright or attack page issues then the only choices you have are (a) wait for G13, or (b) waste your and someone else's time. Literally every other action than ignoring it is pointless. These drafts, in draftspace, are harmless. There is a good reason why applying article space speedy deletion criteria to draft space is rejected every time it is proposed: the purpose of draft space is to allow a time and space for people to write articles that are not suitable for article space (yet). Whether they will ever be is irrelevant. Thryduulf (talk) 00:16, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

• The problem seems to be "drafts on hopeless topics" - that is, draft that no reasonable editor would ever see becoming notable any time in the near future, so it's pointless to continue. With that in mind, how about simply updating G13 to include "Drafts that have been rejected and not edited by a person for 30 days may be deleted under G13 as a soft deletion." The soft-deletion will cover the rare cases where some hopelessly non-notable topic becomes notable for some unforeseeable reason (e.g. in 2015, if someone would've written about some high school poet named Amanda Gorman, it would have been rightly rejected). It will also cover many cases of sock-puppetry when the page is not G5-eligible due to it being created before the first block or ban was issued. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 16:26, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

  I'm going to have to echo Thryduulf's response to Adam above - what harm are these drafts doing sitting around? They aren't indexed, they will be deleted eventually, and if there are any PII issues they will already be handled under existing processes. Primefac (talk) 16:37, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

  I agree, there's no good reason to delete drafts after one month instead of six months just because they've been rejected. The fact that someone rejected a draft doesn't even mean the draft is hopeless or non-notable, it's perfectly possible for an AfC reviewer to decline something saying "This is probably notable but you need to do XYZ". Hut 8.5 18:53, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

• "Hopeless topics" per se are not a problem with being left in draftspace for months. Allowing quick deletion on the sole judgement of a single editor creates more problems than the none solved. What if that sole editor is wrong, or biased, or is biting? "Hopeless & harmless drafts" are what draftspace is for. If it is not "harmless", identify an objective problem, and nominate it at MfD. Many SNOW deletion discussions are important evidence in support of a NEWCSD. At the moment, I think there are two good cases for building evidence. One is something "obviously made up by the author", like CSD#A11 but in draftspace. The other is for BLPPROD in draftspace, an "unsourced BLP". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:19, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
• Strong oppose D2 as written. We have hundreds of drafts at Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/United States judges and justices with rudimentary information. These individuals are inherently notable, and a handful of them may be still-living people, but for the most part, the drafts are currently unsourced. They are steadily being worked through, but at a pace that will take another year or more to complete. There is no good reason to delete these in their current state, as they contain no contentious information. BD2412 T 01:22, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
  • This is a very good point, even if most of them aren't living people. This is a good reason to send things through XfD for an extended period, so as to gather information on what sort of things could be caught. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:57, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
    • However, it muddies the waters for the lots of made up stuff about other people, in draftspace. I think the lists of missing judges and justices belong better as subpages of the WikiProject, where, if there are any questions, the WikiProject can be assumed to be responsible for irresponsible pages amongst them. Also on these drafts, their names surely came from some source, why not add that source to each draft? At least, for sure, for biographies of living people, which again most of your drafts are not. At mfd, I continue to believe that “unsourced BLP” is a good reason for deletion. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:49, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

So essentially, D2, D3, and D5 are less controversial than the others, but part of the issue is essentially a lack of draftspace pages at MfD? I should note that, other than D3 and D5, most of these are based off of situations I've encountered regularly while working wikipedia-en-help, where a good 80% of the questions are "why was my draft declined" and a good 90% of those are drafts on businesses that only cite pressers, or biographies of living people that are woefully undersourced (of which a few are completely un-sourced). I think part of the reason for the lack of MfD is because people are less willing to send a draft to MfD unless the author really just isn't getting it (Indeed, D5 was doped up because most of the draft MfDs I've seen/participated in have been cases where an article was repeatedly resubmitted without any additional effort put into it). —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^{Takes a strong man to deny...} 19:20, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• If people don't see any benefit from nominating them at MfD, why do you think there is a need to speedy delete them? Speedy deletion exists so that regular deletion processes are not overwhelmed by things that will always be deleted. If they aren't being nominated at XfD then they cannot be overwhelming XfD. Thryduulf (talk) 21:10, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
• The Draft: namespace was created in approximately late 2013/early 2014. Is somebody able to go through the last seven years of MfDs in order to find out (a) how many pages in Draft: namespace were nominated at MfD; (b) how many of those closed as "delete" for any reason not covered by the CSD criteria as they existed at the time; (c) if there were any trends in the type of Draft: page that were deleted following a MfD - for example, were many of them autobiographies, garage bands, upcoming records/games/films. If the nomination rate is low, or if the proportion deleted is low, or if there are no recognisable trends, then we don't need new CSD criteria and the existing MfD process can handle any Draft: for which none of the G criteria apply. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:28, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

  Having attended MfD regularly, my comments from memory:

  (a) In the lead up to G13, the number was huge. G13 was created, and there was pushback on weak nominations at MFD, including RfCs, I think linked from WP:NMFD (don't nominate due to notability) and WP:DMFD (teditious resubmitting is a reason to nominate)

  The nature of the pushback on excessive busywork nominations was to "keep" and leave for G13. Most cases are well characterized as "harmless worthless". Nominators tend to stop nominating when most of their nominations result in keep.

  (c) I personally have always !voted "delete" for WP:YAMB cases, as violating WP:NOTPROMOTION. For biographies, I push for "delete" if it is really a WP:CORP failure belong to the set: "A company, its product, founder, or CEO". I usually maintain that a deletion reason is something listed at WP:NOT, and that deletion reasons do not include "hopeless" or "not notable". My !vote matches the result more often than not.

  I think I agree that a new D CSD is not justified. However, I do support sticky BLPPROD in draftspace, and in the meantime I consider "unsourced BLP" to be an excellent deletion reason at MfD. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:50, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

  So basically, since G13 was introduced, MfD is not being swamped with Draft: articles any more and the existing processes are sufficient to handle the other cases without being overloaded. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:11, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

  That’s right. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:31, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

• We should probably go through all of these criterion proposals one by one to avoid confusion. SK2242 (talk) 13:20, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Modification of F7

Remove "a. Non-free images or media with a clearly invalid fair-use tag (such as a {{Non-free logo}} tag on a photograph of a mascot) may be deleted immediately." from criteria F7

This criterion allows files to be deleted simply because they have an incorrect non-free fair use template, it takes a matter of seconds to just replace it with the correct template. It doesn't make sense that an otherwise appropriate file would be deleted because the uploader put the wrong template, something which may WP:BITE new users, and if there are other issues which actually concern the file itself, such as its fair use rationale, these should be addressed instead. Files with no fair use tag can be deleted after seven days, but a file with an incorrect tag can be deleted immediately, that seems a bit weird. I would propose removing this or converting to delayed speedy deletion, but I can't see a situation where a file would be deleted solely due to this, so this seems redundant to me. Dylsss^{(talk contribs)} 00:01, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Tweaked the header, as it's huge. No content change otherwise. Primefac (talk) 01:23, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

I think there are actually multiple situations here.

1. The fair use rationale provided by the template is invalid, but it is clear that a different fair use claim would be valid. These should just be corrected.
2. The fair use rationale provided by the template is clearly not correct, but it is not clear whether a different fair use claim would be valid and/or it's not clear what that claim would be. These files need to be discussed.
3. The fair use rationale provided by the template is clearly irrelevant and it is also clear that there is no alternative fair use rationale that could be valid. Speedy deletion seems appropriate here.

The intent of the criterion is that it applies only to situation 3, but I agree the language could be tightened. I don't immediately have any good ideas how to do that though. Thryduulf (talk) 02:13, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Thryduulf. To clarify, this criterion refers to the tag below the fair use rationale, the tag below is not a fair use rationale, e.g., this speedy deletion criterion is referring to {{Non-free album cover}}, not {{Non-free use rationale album cover}}. And it is not feasible that situations 2 and 3 would happen, because if there is none applicable, you just use {{Non-free fair use}}. Either 1. Use an applicable template from Category:Wikipedia non-free file copyright templates, 2. Use {{Non-free fair use}} if none are applicable. There is no reason for this speedy deletion criterion to exist, and it makes less sense the more I think about it. Dylsss^{(talk contribs)} 02:44, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

{{Db-badfairuse-notice}} even says the same thing

... because it is a non-free file with a clearly invalid licensing tag; or it otherwise fails some part of the non-free content criteria. If you can find a valid tag that expresses why the file can be used under the fair use guidelines, please replace the current tag with that tag. If no such tag exists, please add the {{Non-free fair use}} tag, ...

This is in addition to the fact that this notice is in itself quite confusing and misleading, specifically or it otherwise fails some part of the non-free content criteria, files cannot be speedy deleted immediately due to the fact that it fails a part of the non-free content criterion. As said in WP:F7, Invalid fair-use claims tagged with {{subst:Dfu}} may be deleted seven days after they are tagged, if a full and valid fair-use use rationale is not added. and Non-free images or media that have been identified as being replaceable by a free image and tagged with {{subst:Rfu}} may be deleted after two days, if no justification is given for the claim of irreplaceability. If the replaceability is disputed, the nominator should not be the one deleting the image. These are delayed speedy deletions, not immediate, so this notice is actually incorrect in the fact that it is notifying the uploader for an immediate speedy deletion, not a delayed speedy deletion. The notice also says If you can find a valid tag that expresses why the file can be used under the fair use guidelines ... This also misleading because the tag does not explain why a file can be used under fair use, it simply specifies the license, the type of file, and acts as a disclaimer, a separate fair use rationale is still required. Additionally, if you tag an image because it is from a commercial source and it is not the subject of sourced commentary, the talk page notice explains the A. criterion of WP:F7, and explains absolutely nothing about the B. criterion. Dylsss^{(talk contribs)} 01:34, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps adding "that cannot be repaired" after the parens might make it clearer that it only applies when the tag cannot be fixed? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:44, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Possibly, but would that ever happen? There are 82 non-free tags in Category:Wikipedia non-free file copyright templates, and {{Non-free fair use}} if none are applicable for whatever reason. AFAIK there's no issue with using the general Non-free fair use tag, so that would result in no files ever being deleted for this reason because they would all be trivial to fix. Dylsss^{(talk contribs)} 11:07, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I'd otherwise suggest that the wording be changed to refer to the fair use rationale template e.g., using {{Non-free use rationale software cover}} on a biographical picture, instead of the fair use licensing tag. As I've said above, the fair use tag is just a static template which does not even take any parameters apart from whether the file has a rationale (so that it can hide the instructions to the uploader). The fair use rationale may still have other problems and is not as trivial to fix as simply copypasting a template. Dylsss^{(talk contribs)} 00:41, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

It also appears that only a handful of files are deleted under this criterion. In 2020, 107 files were speedily deleted as F7 according to quarry:query/52087, 85 of those 107 were by Whpq and 8 of those 85 files were nominated under this criterion as having an invalid fair use tag according to their CSD logs. Dylsss^{(talk contribs)} 01:23, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

As one of the few admins that answer F7 nominations, I note that files are basically never deleted for this reason. Swapping out an inappropriate fair use tag is a very simple thing to do. -FASTILY 03:15, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

• The policy does say at the start that people should consider whether a page can be improved before nominating it for speedy deletion. This applies to all the criteria, not just F7. Hut 8.5 12:43, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Deprecate criterion a. from F7

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Criterion a of WP:F7 is removed., with the remaining three points renamed as appropriate (a to c). Primefac (talk) 23:27, 17 March 2021 (UTC) updated, because apparently this was some sort of supervote. Primefac (talk) 14:59, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

---

Should the criterion a. "Non-free images or media with a clearly invalid fair-use tag (such as a {{Non-free logo}} tag on a photograph of a mascot) may be deleted immediately." be removed from WP:F7? Dylsss^{(talk contribs)} 22:32, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

This criterion is almost never used, it's extremely trivial to fix, all that has to be done is find the appropriate fair use tag from Category:Wikipedia non-free file copyright templates, or even just replace the tag with {{Non-free fair use}}. It also does not make sense that a file without a fair use tag is deleted after 7 days, but an incorrect one is deleted immediately. It exists for an issue that can be fixed quicker that it would take to delete the file, and it appears to be contrary to WP:CSD and WP:Deletion policy due to the fact that pages should be improved instead if possible, rather than nominated for deletion (and this issue can always be fixed instead of resulting in deletion). Deleting an otherwise appropriate file because it had the wrong template is really quite WP:BITEy as well. Dylsss^{(talk contribs)} 22:32, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Survey (F7)

• Support removal as proposer. Dylsss^{(talk contribs)} 22:32, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support, rarely used, and redundant to other forms of countering abuse of non-free images. (Introduced back in 2006 after this discussion; at that time, the English Wikipedia was extremely liberal with non-free content and asking for detailed non-free use rationales was a new thing). —Kusma (t·c) 23:16, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support per my comments above. -FASTILY 03:18, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support per proposer. Fixing should take precedence over deletion any day but there is also no reason (anymore) to treat cases of 7a. differently than cases of 7d. Regards SoWhy 13:23, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
• No opinion, but just want to state that the example given in F7a would be useful to retain in F7d. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 12:08, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support per nom and SoWhy. Levivich ^harass/_hound 19:17, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support per proposal. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:19, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support, reasoning makes sense. --Yamla (talk) 19:20, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
• Weak support only because it fails the "frequent" test. It is otherwise entirely sensible, because the main use case for the subcriterion was people uploading stuff and slapping any tag on until they found one that didn't get the image deleted. Files deleted under the subcriterion were rarely if ever "otherwise appropriate". And "fixing" as a priority over "deleting" does not apply to non-free content, about which we must be extremely strict. Stifle (talk) 09:10, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
• I am very uncomfortable with this. I outright reject the claim that these are "extremely trivial to fix"; while some images that meet the letter of this criterion are reparable, many can at best be converted to a slightly slower criterion, usually 7c, and almost never is the new criterion reparable. Infrequency is reason to reject a new speedy deletion criterion, but not by itself enough to remove one without an aggravating factor like misuse, which nobody's tried to show. Infrequency itself hasn't been shown either: the quarry search linked above is a very specific search on deletion summary, which will find deletions of files tagged {{db-f7}} but not ones deleted with an F7 rationale from the deletion dropdown, let alone ones where the admin typed something. In particular, it would identify maybe one in ten of such deletions I've made. As a trial, I just looked at twenty pages from Special:RandomInCategory/Screenshots of web pages; of them, six were plainly mistagged, of which I retagged four and speedied the other two under this criterion. (This is promising. A couple years ago when I was the most active admin deleting images, at least one in three new images tagged to that category were speedy candidates.) Yes, I could've let the F5 clock on File:Granted-patents--geographic-origin-2019.png run out, and yes, I could've tagged File:NoraAunorGusi.jpg as replaceable instead. But this misses the entire point of F7a, which Stifle alludes to: the images deleted with it are the ones where no effort whatsoever has been made to meet WP:NFCC or WP:UUI, and maintenance on a wiki only works if it takes less effort to fix actions by bad actors than it does for them to make them. The idea that you can just retag them all as "{{non-free fair use}}" and that that makes them ok is indefensible and deeply irresponsible. —Cryptic 04:42, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support Cryptic's comments show that over half were repairable so this criterion is failing the "uncontestable" requirement and that others could be speedily deleted under a different criterion so it is also failing the "nonredundant" criterion. Thryduulf (talk) 11:23, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support NFCC is too complex to make snap decisions. When the tag is wrong, it can usually be replaced with a correct tag (e.g. replacing {{non-free logo}} with {{non-free character}} for a mascot). –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 20:54, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

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

RfC: Misuse of G2 in draftspace

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The consensus here seems to be that WP:G2 criteria should not be any sort of hybrid-A3 criteria, or otherwise be used for anything that isn't clearly a test edit (e.g. to quote someone below, "Can I really write anything here and it just shows up on the web?" type of content).

There has been expressed a potential desire to deprecate G2 entirely, as it is potentially being misused and/or abused, though that is outwith the scope of this RFC and did not have enough support to be considered as an "outcome" of this discussion. Primefac (talk) 20:41, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

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Exactly what is covered by G2? Should A3 be expended to include drafts or be merged into G2? Adam9007 (talk) 18:19, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Not to derail the above discussion about making drafts exempt from certain criteria (including G2), but I have just been as good as told that it's common practice to speedy-delete drafts that would be A3s as articles under G2. The same goes for drafts that would be obvious A7s as articles. This is not the first time I've raised this issue, so this is definitely something that needs addressing. Adam9007 (talk) 18:19, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

• Don't delete them since that's the whole point of draft space in the first place. If there's a problem with big backlogs, just throw a template on them that says that they need a lot of work to be suitable, which would also remove them from the backlog categories. After that, wait for the eventual G13. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 19:13, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose this has been proposed before, and I'm sure there are plenty of discussions about it in the archives. It completely misses the point of draft space. The idea of drafts is that you can work on content without having to bring it up to mainspace standards straightaway to avoid deletion. Deleting drafts just because they're short is therefore counterproductive. The same goes for deleting drafts which don't indicate the subject is significant. Nor would there be any particular value to the encyclopedia from doing so, as the draft would be deleted under G13 if not worked on anyway. A3 and G2 are completely separate concepts, it's entirely possible for an article to have no meaningful content without being a test page, or for a test page to have meaningful content. Hut 8.5 19:56, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

  Hut 8.5, That doesn't address the improper G2ing of such drafts. The two cases which prompted me to start this discussion are Draft:Paul Davidhizar and Draft:Nathuram verma, and there are a further 7 linked to on my talk page discussion I linked to. If G2 and A3 really are discrete (and I'm not saying they're not), why are pages that would be A3s in article space being tagged and even deleted under G2? Adam9007 (talk) 20:02, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

  For a start the fact some people aren't abiding by a policy isn't a good reason to change the policy. But quite a few of the examples linked to from your talk page are genuine editing tests in draft space, for which it is appropriate to use G2. This one, for example, consisted of one line of someone mashing a keyboard followed by random bits of markup. It's clearly someone experimenting with how the editing interface works and is therefore a test page. A few others seem to be experiments trying to find out how infoboxes work, or people writing their own name which may well be them testing how the editing interface works. The key point is that they weren't just short, they had content which indicated that the author was testing. Hut 8.5 20:25, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

  Hut 8.5, I can't see those pages, but I was told they were empty. Pages with infoboxes or any sort of content are not empty. For a start the fact some people aren't abiding by a policy isn't a good reason to change the policy There are those who'd say that if a mistake becomes common enough, it's no longer a mistake. I'm not saying I agree with that (because I don't); I'm just saying that's what some people believe. Adam9007 (talk) 20:31, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

  Two of them had no content other than the AfC template (Draft:Kandar Lutung and Draft:Puqlive). The others had some sort of content. Draft:Rihansh Singhania and Draft:Faizan NooRi contained broken attempts to write infoboxes. The latter also had some text but it makes no sense to me whatsoever. Draft:Yoosuf Ramzeen read "Name- Yoosuf Ramzeen Date Of Birth- [date]". Draft:Prashant sandela read "I am prashant sandela. i born in [date]". I don't think the ones with just the AfC template were valid G2s but the others aren't much of a stretch. Hut 8.5 20:40, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

  Hut 8.5,

  • no content other than the AfC template - would be A3'd in article space.
  • Name- Yoosuf Ramzeen Date Of Birth- [date] - would be A7'd in article space.
  • I am prashant sandela. i born in [date] - would be A7'd in article space.

  Without actually seeing the others, I can't comment on them (though if they were genuine attempts to write content (even if it's just an infobox) they weren't tests).

  If it wouldn't be G2'd in article space, I see no reason why it should be G2'd in draft space. Adam9007 (talk) 20:49, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

• Here's how I see the G2 problem. WP:GCSD states that the G criteria apply to every type of page with exclusions listed for specific criteria, and so apply to articles, redirects, user pages, talk pages, files, etc. Read the specifics for each criterion to see where and how they apply. and WP:CSD#G2. Test pages says, in full, This applies to pages created to test editing or other Wikipedia functions. It applies to subpages of the Wikipedia Sandbox created as tests, but does not apply to the Sandbox itself. It does not apply to pages in the user namespace. It does not apply to valid but unused or duplicate templates. Note that there is a specific exemption for User space, but there is no similar exemption for Draft space. So those who use G2 for draftspace drafts are, technically, not in the wrong. Perhaps we need to alter the third sentence to read It does not apply to pages in either the user namespace or in the draft namespace. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:38, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

  Redrose64, No-one here is questioning whether G2 should be used for drafts. The problem is that G2 seems to be being misused as a catch-all for drafts that would meet an 'A' criterion if it were an article (by the way, there's a discussion above about exempting drafts from certain criteria, including G2). Adam9007 (talk) 22:41, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose extending A3 to draftspace, and continue to oppose the misuse of G2 in draftspace. G2 must be used only for pages that are genuinely tests, not article drafts that one editor thinks are below some arbitrary quality threshold. Thryduulf (talk) 16:52, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

  Perhaps we should add some language like "this does not apply to pages intended to be articles or drafts of articles, regardless of quality or likelihood of surviving a deletion discussion."? Thryduulf (talk) 17:03, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

  Thryduulf, this does not apply to pages intended to be articles or drafts of articles That won't work I'm afraid; most people would say that the pages in draftspace being speedied (rightly or wrongly) under G2 do not fit that description, and are the sorts of pages that others have tried and failed to gain consensus for a new criterion for. Adam9007 (talk) 18:58, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

  Speedy deleting a page when there is explicit consensus that type of page should not be speedily deleted is an abuse of admin tools and anybody doing that needs a speedy trip to WP:ANI. Thryduulf (talk) 19:03, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

  Thryduulf, But is there an explicit consensus that blank drafts and drafts that would easily be A7s as articles should not be speedy-deleted? The fact that empty drafts are almost routinely being speedy-deleted suggests otherwise, even though A3 theoretically only applies to articles. It seems that there's no consensus on exactly what does and does not constitute a test page. This should be clarified. Failing that, G2 should be rescinded as too subjective. Adam9007 (talk) 20:45, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

  G2 should absolutely be clarified. See for example Wikipedia talk:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Andrea fortier, where due to my assumption that G2 is closer to what's commonly called a "test edit", I had assumed that a draft created with what seems to be no intent on making it an "article" that it would be considered a test page. For reference, the draft's content was something along the lines of "[Some Person] is shaggy and very sexy". Perryprog (talk) 20:51, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

  Perryprog, So far, the only real clarification we have is WP:Identifying test edits, which is only an essay. And I think that's more to do with edits to pages than pages created for testing purposes. Adam9007 (talk) 20:53, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

  Right—my point was I had assumed the wording of "test page" was meant to be an inclusion of what's traditionally considered a "test edit", hence the need to be clarified. Perryprog (talk) 20:55, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

  I've just been threatened with a block for removing improper CSD tags on blank drafts, proving my point entirely. Adam9007 (talk) 21:09, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose per the reasons mentioned aboveSea Ane (talk) 21:20, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
• Answering the actual question in the RFC, not the intent behind it: G2 covers only pages that are test edits. Since nobody creates pages reading "Can I really write anything here and it just shows up on the web?" anymore, and hasn't for a decade and a half, in practice it either requires mindreading, or is redundant to the keyboard-mashing variety of G1 patent nonsense. Even with mindreading, the sorts of pages deleted under A3 are much more likely to be article requests than editing tests. Also, A3 is objective, and merging it into G2 is going in the wrong direction.
  I started to do a survey of G2 deletions a couple years ago (User:Cryptic/g2); of the 51 I got through, at best two were correct G2s that weren't redundant to another speedy criterion. I doubt much has changed since then. —Cryptic 05:04, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

• So G2 is unclear and used incorrectly. With most deletions being covered by other CSDs, should we repeal it instead? I note that we have precedent where misuse was an important factor in repealing T2 and T3. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 21:02, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

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

G13 deletionism

The idea that any draft that has not been edited in six months is automatically eligible for deletion is patently ridiculous. I thought Wikipedia was about creating content, not just deleting it because nobody has worked on it for a while. G13 should stop immediately. Alternatively, I will be making edits to all old drafts to ensure they are not deleted and remain around for users to work on. 2A01:4C8:496:B51F:647D:63A1:E2F7:FFE0 (talk) 13:21, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Despite my deletionist tendencies, I am in full agreement with this. I find G13s to be counterproductive and damaging. I cannot tell you how many times I have been actively editing (in general) and have had a draft I wasn't prepared to send to mainspace but was taking my time gathering sources/energy to edit the content, only to receive a G13 notification and have the draft deleted within minutes of the tag placement. I can't imagine for editors who don't edit often how frustrating it is. CUPIDICAE💕 13:24, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

I think there is a use for G13. There are quite a few drafts out there that are simply never going to be worthy of an article, yet there isn't any specific reason to delete them immediately. I do believe, however, any draft that has had a modicum of work put into it shouldn't be G13'd (as in, there's a chance the topic itself is worthy of inclusion as an article). See also here, which I occasionally go through and sort by smallest first to look for clearly "hopeless" drafts.

I suppose my point is: I really don't think G13-ing drafts that even have a small potential of becoming an article is worthwhile. Perryprog (talk) 15:14, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

G13 shouldn't be used to get rid of cruft is more the point here. G13 only serves harm to the encyclopedia. If anything, we need to revamp how we do speedy deletions. There is no reason a 14 year old YouTuber should have a draft sit for 6 months about his Roblox channel that will never be notable. There need to be better criteria to get rid of crap than G13, which is worthless. Moreover, I think G13 should be changed, at minimum to allow for a period of time to sit, like prod. And active editors drafts should also be ineligible. CUPIDICAE💕 15:17, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes - I’m glad I’m not the only one. I’ve started editing older drafts to protect them from deletion. If we all do this then no drafts will be deleted and no editors’ work will be thrown away. 2A01:4C8:496:B51F:647D:63A1:E2F7:FFE0 (talk) 15:30, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

There is {{promising draft}}, which I doubt anyone would disregard if it's added. Perryprog (talk) 15:40, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Editors routinely remove and/or ignore that template, for what it's worth. Primefac (talk) 17:09, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Primefac, I did not know that. That's rather frustrating. Perryprog (talk) 17:17, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it's one of the more bitter points of contention at WP:AFC, though it's reached a bit of a stalemate in the last few months. Primefac (talk) 17:33, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah... you're right; I hadn't really thought about it before, but that is pretty ridiculous (both on the "cruft" aspect and the harm that G13 can cause). Perryprog (talk) 15:39, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps one way to resolve this would be to add a criterion to G13, perhaps something like "Any pages that have not been edited by a human in six months found in: [...] and which would be speedily deletable under criteria A1, A2, A7, A9 or A11 if they were in the article namespace (all requirements must be met.". Unfortunately G13 is necessary to reduce the number of drafts speedily deleted inappropriately using other criteria (it doesn't eliminate the problem, but it does reduce it) and it's existence is what is preventing other bad ideas like draft prods getting consensus. Thryduulf (talk) 17:00, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

I think the way to resolve this, personally, is to change G13 from a speedy deletion criteria to a PROD. If no one comes along in a week to save it, great let's delete. And if someone thinks its worth saving great. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:48, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm skeptical that doing the same thing but adding a few days makes much of a difference. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:58, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

I will speak from my own experience, but having drafts I created just deleted was frustrating. And I was 100% capable of following the procedures to restore them (including since becoming an admin, refunding myself). What is it like for someone not as well versed in the ways of Wikipedia? I'd rather not create barriers of entry to notable topics being created. If I'd had a chance to remove the tag with "yeah I'm still interested in this" that would have felt better. And might have given me a push to work them. What it's meant practically is that I no longer create drafts in draft space, creating them instead in userspace and this has meant that no one else can come along and help me improve them. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:46, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Agreed, but why is this an argument to still create barriers, but with a few more days added on? Why isn't this an argument not to continue on deleting indiscriminately based only on time? If it's the reminder that's good, we can easily automate that and even invite someone to request deletion if they've lost interest, rather than giving them an expiration date. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:08, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

• Barkeep49's suggested reorientation from G13 to PROD seems a useful way to obtain oversight of impending cases, especially now that User:SDZeroBot/PROD_sorting provides a nicely structured summary of current PROD articles.AllyD (talk) 18:16, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Oh I like that idea. I more or less agree with OP's underlying point -- that an arbitrary 6 month expiration date for everything in draftspace has never been a good idea. And of course these A-level criteria would be added to the G-level criteria that already apply. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:58, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

As an admin who works with many stale drafts, I have a different view of it than most other folks. First, there are anywhere from 150-300 drafts that hit their six month period every single day and probably a half dozen editors and admins who go through them. So, whatever system you come up with has to be able to scale up and we need to recruit more editors, like S0091, who are willing to review and assess hundreds of old drafts.every.single.day.

I believe the G13 status was devised partially because there are thousands of old drafts, sitting around, gathering dust. Most that reach the six month point of inactivity were created by new editors who spend an hour writing a draft and who never return to further edit it. A large proportion of aging drafts are simply blank pages with just a page title. If you look at Category:AfC G13 eligible soon submissions, you'll find over 3,000 drafts that are between 5 and 6 months old. We have a few wonderful editors and admins (like DGG) from AfC who go through this category and "save" drafts that have some potential. More help here would be welcome!

As for me, I always honor the Promising Draft tag and delay a G13 deletion when I see one. Now that we have a new bot notifying draft page creators when their drafts are approaching the six month period (YEAH!), I think there will be fewer deletions and fewer requests at WP:REFUND to restore deleted drafts. That's a win-win for everyone and for the project. The goal, as I see it, is to have drafts that are being worked on and I think sometimes a G13 talk page notice is a reminder to editors that they have a draft out there that they have forgotten about. And remember, ANY draft, whether it is an empty page or a few sentences, that is deleted for its G13 status can be restored upon request unlike other types of speedy deletion or deletion discussion. Like a contested PROD, it is one of the few forms of deletion that are reversible upon request and the Twinkle notices tell draft creators exactly what steps they need to take to restore their drafts. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:17, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

This kind of misses the point. G13 is a failure. We shouldn't be deleting drafts merely because of age. If they're unsuitable because they're inherently unenctclopedic with no hopes of ever improving, we need to modify the g-criteria to apply to drafts. There is no harm in a draft that isn't otherwise breaking policy/consensus (ie. not a totally unsourced blp, rotting away or spam or cruft/webhost material) sitting for Wikipedia's existence. The problem with G13 is actually a problem with the lack of ability to reasonably delete crap from draftspace. CUPIDICAE💕 18:25, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Maybe a combination of both might make more sense. After 6 months without changes article space speedy deletion criteria could apply. I agree that if the draft has some value and a chance to make it to main space, the time without edits is probably not a good enough criteria, but if for example an unambiguous promotion article has been unimproved for 6 months I think it could make sense to delete it from draft space. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 18:40, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

G11 applies to draft space. If it's so unambiguously promotional, it shouldn't be sitting for 6 months. CUPIDICAE💕 18:54, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Praxidicae, as someone who has looked over tens of thousands of old drafts, I would guess that the ones that have the potential to be articles that were rejected by AFC is about 10%. And I think that is being generous. The vast majority of stale drafts are self-promotional autobiographies about wannabe singers or blank pages or messages about someone's favorite person on YouTube. If you want drafts to be tagged for deletion based on their lack of quality, then you have to start getting AFC reviewers to tag more for speedy deletion and that would require an change in attitude among reviewers. Most of the stuff I see could have been tagged for deletion as test pages or other CSD reasons earlier than six months but they haven't been. So, if Wikipedia is going to do away with CSD G13, then you to find an alternative like having draft reviewers doing more tagging for deletion sooner.

And I encourage people considering this question to not think of their own experiences with drafting an article but actually look over some stale drafts in Category:AfC G13 eligible soon submissions and make up your mind. Look at actual stale drafts and ask yourself what should be done about them. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:12, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

• I used to be vehemently opposed to WP:G13, but I eventually came to understand that we need some way of cleaning up drafts that stand no chance of going anywhere. I don't know why {{promising draft}} isn't used. What we do instead is just keep gaming G13 by making a nonsense edit every six months, which is silly. A perfect example of where {{promising draft}} would have made sense was Draft:St. Andrews Church which got rescued from G13 several times by DGG and myself, and eventually KJP1 came along, gave the draft the work it needed, and it it is now living in mainspace under St Andrew's Church, Penrice, where it is a valuable addition to the encyclopedia. To directly address the question at hand, I'd be happy if any of three things happened:
  • G13 got turned into PROD.
  • G13 required that you also cite a second WP:CSD which would apply if the draft were in mainspace in its current form.
  • We got back to using and honoring {{promising draft}}.

Any of those would still let us clean up the trash while preserving things that are worth preserving. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:10, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

• Suggestion How about a trial period where A1, A2, A7, A9 and A11 apply as "G6" to draft articles that have not been edited in five months. This would give us a sense of what is "left" when the 6-month counter is reached, which will help us make a more informed decision. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 19:12, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Do not use G6 for this. That's the most abused and misused criteria we have (in addition to being overloaded with disparate legitimate things). Temporary criteria should be in the X series. Thryduulf (talk) 19:14, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
• There are several different types of drafts that end up as G13 candidates:

  First, drafts that nobody has submitted. Some of them are so hopeless that apparently whoever saw thought the simplest thing is to let the disappear -- which is OK. except that we should be alert to vandalism and BLP violations, but others are cases where the contributor either didn't understand what to do or wasn't interest enough. Of these, a few are likely to pass AfD as they are, though they may be better with some editing for format in mainspace; when I encounter them, I accept them--in my areasit's about 1 or 2 per batch of 200 G13 candidates, and about half the drafts aren't ones I'm competent to look at, so the real number is about 3 or 4. . Another group are promising article candidates though they need work--in my area there are about 2 or 3 per batch ., so the real number is about 4 to 6. What I would do if I had the time is improve them and then accept them, but I rarely have the time for more than a very few. I usually do a partial fix, and move on, and hope the next time around someone will notice. (This is emphatically not a good way of handling these--we need to not just refer to workgroups, but recruit active editors for them)

  Second, drafts that were declined and then improved, but not resubmitted. They're pretty similar, unless the contributor is still around, in which case they need to be reminded. I accept what I can, and try to at least partially improve the others.

  Third, ones that were never seem to have had a proper checjk for references. I usually just mark them, and hope someone will deal with the,. We need a better way for them aklso. .

  Fourth, and these are the ones that really worry me, are the ones that were declined incorrectly, and not followed up. I am still seeing drafts declined for minor formatting errors in referencing or similar trivia, such as not suggesting categories, or a need to add links. There's also the more understandable cases of ones that just need removal of incorrect material, or addition of the references from other language wikis, or a failure to understand the subject well enough, or to know know our actual criteria in the subject, such as notable academics declined for not meeting GNG, or those where the key element of notability wasn't spotted--the most common is for lack of notability while not spotting that someone is a member of a legislature or holds a major honour. I accept these, unless they need major fixing also, in which case I leave a comment.

  All together, they make up 5 to 10% of the vulnerable G13s. I consider them our fault , and our responsibility DGG ( talk ) 20:38, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

  There's afith class, where the recommendation was to merge , and it was never carried out. This also bothers me. Saying there's an existing article, so try to improve it, is good advice if the draft has nothing important. If the draft ddoes, the user is very unlkiely to be able to merge the content appropriuately, and an experienced editor needs to do it--like one of us. I mark these, buit again I don't usually have the time. We need a better way here also. DGG ( talk ) 20:42, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

• I suggest lowering the G13 time limit from 6 months to 1 month, or something like that. Perhaps then people won't be so eager to misuse other criteria. Adam9007 (talk) 20:48, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

  I strongly oppose this. Firstly the intention of draft space is to give people time to slowly work on articles until they are ready for mainspace. One edit every six months is sort of acceptable for this, one edit every month is very much not. Secondly, the issue we're trying to solve here is that too much is being deleted, this proposal would make that much worse not better. Thryduulf (talk) 22:04, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

• I'd support requiring that G13 tags stay on an article for a week or so (as with C1 and a few of the file categories), or having some process by which drafts marked as promising by an experienced editor are exempt. I'm a regular at WP:REFUND, where the vast majority of the work is handling requests for G13ed drafts to be restored. The workload there keeps increasing, the number of edits to REFUND went up by 44% between 2018 and 2020, and there aren't many admins doing it. Quite a lot of this is drafts which were recently deleted which probably wouldn't have been if the author had been given a chance to object. Sometimes these editors post comments saying that they aren't sure why these drafts were deleted, note that they didn't know the draft would be deleted due to inactivity or they think the draft was deleted because there was something wrong with it rather than just the passage of time. Sometimes REFUND gets G13 restoration requests from experienced editors who clearly know what they were doing, for drafts on obviously encyclopedic topics. I think there is value in having G13 though as there's quite a bit of undesirable stuff even amongst the drafts where someone requests restoration. Serious BLP violations are rare but it's common to see undiscovered copyright violations, obvious corporate spam or autobiographies. Hut 8.5 20:55, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
• I have to agree with Liz, and unfortunately disagree with the developing consensus that G13 somehow harms the encyclopaedia. In my opinion G13 is necessary to deal with the vast number of drafts that are simply abandoned in an unusable state. The query my bot uses to find drafts that haven’t been edited in at least 5 months shows that there are currently over 5000 such drafts. From a brief, unscientific sample large swathes of these appear nowhere near ready for mainspace, and many are never going to be - many are either patently non-notable people (e.g. so and so is an up and coming YouTuber), corporate profiles that come nowhere near meeting WP:NCORP, or simply pure nonsense. There are far too few people willing to review and improve worthy drafts (I certainly will return to doing so at AfC when I’m back on the active list) compared to the number of drafts that exist. Without G13, the backlog would build without limit. For what its worth, I oppose any ‘weakening’ of CSD G13. ƒirefly ( t · c ) 22:58, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

And I think your bot giving editors a head's up after drafts have not been edited in five months is the actual solution here. I think editors just need to be reminded of their drafts and then they will make an edit to them or return to actively working on them. You don't need a week-long PROD-like waiting period if you let editors know a month ahead of time that they drafts are nearing the 6 month point. I think the frustration comes out of Hasteur Bot going out of commission last summer and these 5 month notices disappearing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:18, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

User indeffed
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I am the original poster here, having to edit under an account on a different computer because it seems some people cannot handle dissent and blocked my original IP. I am however grateful for the support my idea has received. In response to the deletionists - no, a bot notifying people is completely insufficient. What if the person returns after the deletion has already happened? They have to go through the bureaucracy of WP:REFUND just to get their own work back?! I will begin mass-editing older drafts to ensure that none meet the G13 standard. Once G13 has been repealed, obviously that will no longer be necessary. Ewalker33 (talk) 12:42, 13 February 2021 (UTC) Ewalker33, I have no dog in this fight, but I would warn you that if you start mass-editing G13-eligible drafts just to prove a point, you will likely be blocked for disruptive editing. If you are legitimately making positive contributions then that is less likely to happen. Primefac (talk) 12:49, 13 February 2021 (UTC) Of course, again, Wikipedia cannot handle dissent from the groupthink. Ewalker33 (talk) 12:55, 13 February 2021 (UTC) sigh... this isn't Nineteen Eighty-Four. There is plenty of room for dissent (hell, this entire discussion falls into that category), but there's a right way and a wrong way. Discussion is good, [{WP:POINT|pointy]] editing is not. Primefac (talk) 13:11, 13 February 2021 (UTC) Okay, but the discussion seems to be "lots of people don't want drafts deleted" vs "two people who think deletion is good". Seems pretty clear that something should be done. Ewalker33 (talk) 13:15, 13 February 2021 (UTC) Who says something won't be done? The discussion is 24 hours old, and discussions like these take at least a week. Primefac (talk) 13:16, 13 February 2021 (UTC) Well something's being done now. Over a hundred drafts saved from those who just want to tear others' work down. Ewalker33 (talk) 13:18, 13 February 2021 (UTC) For trying to make a point, you sure are missing it. Primefac (talk) 13:23, 13 February 2021 (UTC) Correction - something was being done until I was blocked. Still, it proves my point. If we all just edit old drafts - even just adding a full stop - they can't be deleted. The 150 or so drafts I edited are now safe for another six months. Also, Primefac, I forbid you from interacting with me as per Wikipedia:Harassment. Ewalker33 (talk) 13:25, 13 February 2021 (UTC) Ewalker33 If you want to extend your block to an indefinite one and a ban via discussion at ANI, I can help you accomplish that because you don't appear to be here to actually improve anything. You cannot get consensus by brute force, so rethink your strategy. CUPIDICAE💕 13:26, 13 February 2021 (UTC) I doubt you'd find anyone here who would agree that this is any sort of harassment, but I have no issue with avoiding further non-administrative interaction. Primefac (talk) 13:32, 13 February 2021 (UTC) I have reverted all {{promising draft}} edits. I'd suggest that people who want to G13 these drafts point to this discussion, though I've linked this in the rollback summary. Blablubbs|talk 13:34, 13 February 2021 (UTC) So your judgement about what is promising overrides mine does it? Unilaterally you have decided that your opinion is better? Ewalker33 (talk) 13:46, 13 February 2021 (UTC) To be honest, it doesn't even matter. The point is that the drafts can no longer be deleted under G13, as they've been edited. Ewalker33 (talk) 13:48, 13 February 2021 (UTC) Ewalker33 So you're admitting here to block evasion and mass disruption? CUPIDICAE💕 13:52, 13 February 2021 (UTC) I am admitting to saving drafts from deletion by editing them. What exactly am I disrupting? Am I stopping anyone else from doing what they want to do? No. Also, I forbid you from interacting with me further as this is now Wikipedia:Harassment. Ewalker33 (talk) 13:55, 13 February 2021 (UTC) Ewalker33, this isn't your talk page. If you want an IBAN, take it to ANI or arbcom. Blablubbs|talk 14:03, 13 February 2021 (UTC) Ewalker33, my opinion doesn't matter. What I've decided – or, more accurately speaking – observed, is that you're a) evading a block by your own admission and that you are b) disrupting the encyclopaedia to make a point in a discussion – your edits don't show "judgement", they show indiscriminate tagging of drafts because you'd like to win an argument. Both of those are valid reasons to revert your edits, not to speak of your gaming of the system simply because you don't like it. Blablubbs|talk 13:59, 13 February 2021 (UTC) I think my point is made, but editing will resume when possible until G13 is gone. I will not place the promising draft template, but I will edit all drafts that are approaching the six month date to prevent deletion. Ewalker33 (talk) 15:31, 13 February 2021 (UTC) Ooookay this all went off the rails pretty quickly! Just for the record, your original IP does not appear to be blocked - perhaps your IP changed to one that is blocked in between your original edits and your return. Secondly, I implore you not to resume mass-editing of drafts. If you do, you will almost certainly be indef-blocked for disruptive editing and/or disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point. Yes, technically if you edit them they're not eligible for G13... but what good does 'saving' worthless drafts from speedy deletion do? If you feel strongly about saving worthy drafts, I'd suggest looking through this category and picking some to bring up to the standards required for mainspace - i.e. do something constructive. ƒirefly ( t · c ) 15:46, 13 February 2021 (UTC) Why don't you do something other than threaten someone? You are also forbidden from interacting with me in any way as per Wikipedia:Harassment. Ewalker33 (talk) 17:12, 13 February 2021 (UTC) I'm entirely unsure what part of my message could be construed as a threat or harassment, but I will happily refrain from interacting with you if you wish. ƒirefly ( t · c ) 17:28, 13 February 2021 (UTC) User indeffed, clearly NOTHERE. Primefac (talk) 17:35, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

A bot keeps Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Drafts up to date, where declined drafts can be reviewed and be re-evaluated by Women in Red participants to see if there are any "diamonds in the rough" that regular AfC reviewers might have missed. That's one way of avoiding G13. At the other end of the scale, there is no point retaining User:Nicole Atibula/sandbox; I generally err on the site of retention but IMHO that's a blatant G11 speedy and have tagged it as such. Since you have needed to be confirmed to create articles, the amount of "sludge" ending up in draft space has increased and all else being equal, I would expect to see an increase in G11 taggings. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:04, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

• Agree with Liz. Yup, G13 isn't perfect, but some of these new suggestions are magnitudes worse. Folks, I hope you'll actually try reviewing drafts before proposing "solutions". -FASTILY 03:14, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
• I feel like the obvious solutions here are being ignored. Avoiding the deletions of drafts of active editors would address a lot of concerns - and this is already de facto what many people do (users and admins) and moreso what should be done. Getting rid of the criteria altogether does not make sense - it's important to clear out drafts that will never meet inclusion criteria. Also, it's not like it's hard to recover a deleted draft - WP:REFUND isn't too much of a pain. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 20:51, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
• If you don't like G13, don't use draftspace or AfC. Use your own userspace. If you want to rescue a draft, move it to userspace and strip the AfC taggery so they don't move it back. See WP:DUD. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:31, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

  @SmokeyJoe and Elliot321: While this is debatably appropriate for experienced editors, it is unambiguously useless for inexperienced editors who are by far the most likely to be burned by the deletionism. Thryduulf (talk) 15:25, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

  @Thryduulf: this only applies to "new" editors who have been around for at least six months - and have not edited their draft in that amount of time. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 19:05, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

  New editors should not be attempting new pages on new topics in the isolation of draftspace. They should be become not new by editing mainspace. If at six months, they are still new, that proves my point. The problem is the enticements to new editors to start new pages, not G13. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:20, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• Deleting drafts after an arbitrary period of time is pointless. To put it simply and quickly: draftspace and pages within the scope of the AfC wikiproject do not need cleaned-up, deleted, or necessarily disturbed at all in reality. If G13 is causing too much of an overload at the refund counter, then another listing can be added to the litany of reasons to repeal it. Saavy individuals are not subject to the capricious six-month countdown anyhow.— Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 09:15, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
• We seem to be solving the wrong problem. As mentioned above, there used to be a bot warning after five months. Reinstating this seems the most sensible. Stifle (talk) 09:13, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

break 1

• Using the 5 month warning bot seems like an excellent way to handle this. Is it up and running now? I agree with what others have said about the number of low quality drafts. I'm an AFC reviewer that works the front of the queue, and quite simply, a lot of drafts are unable to pass GNG. GNG looks simple when you read it, but is interpreted more strictly than a new user would guess, and has a lot of nuances. In my opinion, you really need training (new page patrol school) or a lot of experience to really master GNG. And therein lies the crux of the problem. Our notability policies are too complicated for a new user or even average user to be able to self-assess their own articles accurately, therefore non-notable articles get created. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:02, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

  @Novem Linguae: The five month warning bot is currently running (it's FireflyBot) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 03:43, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

• Think it’s worth noting that 95% of drafts are created by single purpose accounts with no intention of contributing anywhere else or even going back to their draft. G13 isn’t perfect but it sorts out all the hidden crap. SK2242 (talk) 13:25, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Reordering of lead text

Right now the first three paragraphs are directed towards admins, and not until the fourth paragraph are other users mentioned. At first glance, a reader might think (as I did) that CFD only applies to admins, which is not the case. I propose to move the user info up, specifically "Any user can request speedy deletion by adding one of the speedy deletion templates," and reorder the paragraphs.

Current:

The criteria for speedy deletion (CSD) specify the only cases in which administrators have broad consensus to bypass deletion discussion, at their discretion, and immediately delete Wikipedia pages or media.

Deletion is reversible, but only by administrators, so other deletions occur only after discussion, unless they are proposed deletions. Speedy deletion is intended to reduce the time spent on deletion discussions for pages or media with no practical chance of surviving discussion.

Administrators should take care not to speedily delete pages or media except in the most obvious cases. If a page has survived its most recent deletion discussion, it should not be speedily deleted except for newly discovered copyright violations and pages that meet specific uncontroversial criteria; these criteria are noted below. Contributors sometimes create pages over several edits, so administrators should avoid deleting a page that appears incomplete too soon after its creation.

Anyone can request speedy deletion by adding one of the speedy deletion templates. Before nominating a page for speedy deletion, consider whether it could be improved, reduced to a stub, merged or redirected elsewhere, reverted to a better previous revision, or handled in some other way (see Wikipedia:Deletion policy § Alternatives to deletion). A page is eligible for speedy deletion only if all of its revisions are also eligible. Users nominating a page for speedy deletion should specify which criterion/criteria the page meets, and should notify the page creator and any major contributors. If a page needs to be removed from Wikipedia for privacy reasons (e.g. non-public personal information, a child disclosing the child's age, possible libel), request oversight instead.

For most speedy deletion criteria, the creator of a page may not remove the deletion tag from it; only an editor who is not the creator of a page may do so. A creator who disagrees with the speedy deletion should instead click on the Contest this speedy deletion button that appears inside of the speedy deletion tag. This button links to the discussion page with a pre-formatted area for the creator to explain why the page should not be deleted. If an editor other than the creator removes a speedy deletion tag in good faith, it should be taken as a sign that the deletion is not uncontroversial and another deletion process should be used. The creator of a page may remove a speedy deletion tag only if the criterion in question is G6, G7, G8, G13, G14 or U1.

Proposed:

The criteria for speedy deletion (CSD) specify the only cases in which administrators have broad consensus to bypass deletion discussion, at their discretion, and immediately delete Wikipedia pages or media. Any user can request speedy deletion by adding one of the speedy deletion templates, but only administrators may actually delete.

Deletion is reversible, but only by administrators, so other deletions occur only after discussion, unless they are proposed deletions. Speedy deletion is intended to reduce the time spent on deletion discussions for pages or media with no practical chance of surviving discussion.

Before nominating a page for speedy deletion, consider whether it could be improved, reduced to a stub, merged or redirected elsewhere, reverted to a better previous revision, or handled in some other way (see Wikipedia:Deletion policy § Alternatives to deletion). A page is eligible for speedy deletion only if all of its revisions are also eligible. Users nominating a page for speedy deletion should specify which criterion/criteria the page meets, and should notify the page creator and any major contributors. If a page needs to be removed from Wikipedia for privacy reasons (e.g. non-public personal information, a child disclosing the child's age, possible libel), request oversight instead.

Administrators should take care not to speedily delete pages or media except in the most obvious cases. If a page has survived its most recent deletion discussion, it should not be speedily deleted except for newly discovered copyright violations and pages that meet specific uncontroversial criteria; these criteria are noted below. Contributors sometimes create pages over several edits, so administrators should avoid deleting a page that appears incomplete too soon after its creation.

For most speedy deletion criteria, the creator of a page may not remove the deletion tag from it; only an editor who is not the creator of a page may do so. A creator who disagrees with the speedy deletion should instead click on the Contest this speedy deletion button that appears inside of the speedy deletion tag. This button links to the discussion page with a pre-formatted area for the creator to explain why the page should not be deleted. If an editor other than the creator removes a speedy deletion tag in good faith, it should be taken as a sign that the deletion is not uncontroversial and another deletion process should be used. The creator of a page may remove a speedy deletion tag only if the criterion in question is G6, G7, G8, G13, G14 or U1.

References

---

Thank you for reading my wall of text :) Cheers, Fredlesaltique (talk) 12:09, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I like it. The only thing I would suggest is swapping paragraphs #4 and #5 to keep the user-related parts of the lead together. Regards SoWhy 13:19, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree completely with SoWhy. Thryduulf (talk) 14:30, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Good idea, but I'd maybe go further and remove the admin-specific stuff altogether. The vast majority of admins will be familiar with CSD by the time they get the bit and those that need a refresher won't mind scrolling down. Precious real estate at the top of the page (i.e. the only thing most people read) should be reserved for information relevant to most/all editors. – Joe (talk) 14:56, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

@Thryduulf, Joe Roe, and SoWhy: Nice; glad to hear it wasn't just me. If one of y'all can edit it I'd appreciate it. Cheers, Fredlesaltique (talk) 12:21, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Generally agree but if the admin stuff is the last paragraph, I don't see a problem with real estate. Regards SoWhy 12:34, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

@Thryduulf, Joe Roe, and SoWhy: Could one of you please edit the article for me if you think the changes would be good? Cheers, Fredlesaltique (talk) 13:10, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

@Fredlesaltique: Patience. Since this is a change to a widely used policy page, we should allow a few days for more people to give their input. Regards SoWhy 14:42, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Ah ok will do. Don't mean to be pushy, just that since I can't edit myself I wanted to make sure it didn't get forgotten. Fredlesaltique (talk) 03:08, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

There haven't been any comments for a few days now so I'll implement this in a day or so unless there are some new objections or somebody beats me to it. Thryduulf (talk) 13:38, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Adding "hasty" to A7 and A9

A1 and A3 currently have the following at the end: Don't tag under this criterion in the first few minutes after a new article is created.

I suggest that the same text be copied to the end of A7 and A9. If an article has some minimal context and content (e.g. "John Doe was born in 1949 and lived in Townytown"), while somehow omitting (",a Nobel prize winner") for a few minutes, the same logic behind hasty in A1 and A3 applies.

According to User:Barkeep49 this is considered best practice already, and this is codified at WP:NPPCSD. I suggest that the policy be updated to reflect best practice. This has little effect on the evaluation of the speedy by an admin as that is generally well after ten minutes for A1/A3/A7/A9, but will influence CSD taggers to be less hasty.--Eostrix  (^{🦉 hoot} _hoot🦉) 18:18, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Generally, I agree, however, there are actually cases in which the eligibility is already clear at creation (unless A1 or A3), e.g. if the article is clearly already finished but the subject fails A7 or A9. If we add such a warning, it should be modified to encompass this situation, e.g. Since articles are often created in multiple edits, don't tag under this criterion in the first few minutes after a new article is created, unless further editing by the creator cannot reasonably be expected. Regards SoWhy 14:47, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

References

I agree with Eostrix completely. While I understand where SoWhy is coming from, I disagree that the added complication is worth it - unlike a G10 or G12 no harm will come to the project if these pages stay around for 10 minutes or even a few hours without improvement before being tagged. Also, "Unless further editing by the creator cannot reasonably be expected." feels like inviting arguments about what can and cannot be reasonably expected and why. Thryduulf (talk) 16:08, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

• I'm not especially sure adding piles more words will change the behaviour of new-page patrollers. Stifle (talk) 09:15, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Possible edge case on G5

I came to a case where I considered nominating a page creator by blocked user User:UniverseMan69. UniverseMan69 is a blocked sock of User:1917 Darwin, who, according to their userpage, is checkuser blocked and globally locked. The global lock checks out (April 2018), but according to the block log, 1917 Darwin is not (and apparently never has been?) locally blocked. Since the page was created by the blocked sock the month after the master was globally locked, I feel like this should be G5-able, but given that the master technically never received a local block, things get to be a bit ambiguous here. Am I just not comprehending something that should be obvious, or does G5 need a slight wording clarification to more directly indicate that global locks are also G5 stuff? Hog Farm _Talk 07:20, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• Avoiding a global lock should be treated the same way as avoiding a local block, since the effect is the same. And it would be pointless to apply a local block given that the global lock does the same thing. Hut 8.5 08:29, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• I am inclined to agree that global blocks should be considered like regular blocks. FWIW, the CSD policy does not specify local blocks and the blocking policy it refers to has Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Global blocks. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:31, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• Agree with Hut 8.5 and Jo-Jo Eumerus here. The point of G5 is to enforce WP:BMB. If you are not allowed to edit this project, your contributions are eligible for deletion. Whether (and how) the user is technically prevented from editing is irrelevant. After all, G5 also applies to topic-banned editors creating pages in the area of their topic ban and those users are usually not technically prevented from editing. That said, I would not be opposed to clarifying G5, e.g. by changing the wording to This applies to pages created by banned or blocked users in violation of their (local or global) ban or block, [...]. Regards SoWhy 14:55, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
• I agree with everyone above, G5 does apply. I'm not sure there is a need to clarify but I'm not at all opposed to doing so if others think it will be of benefit. Thryduulf (talk) 16:11, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Column width

Thank you, Izno, because your revert made me check the documentation, which has been updated. According to the documentation, that template now uses a default width of "30em", so there is no longer a need to set the |colwidth= parameter to that setting. Curious that you saw a difference, though, because if "30em" is now the "default", then my edit shouldn't have changed anything. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 15:50, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Paine Ellsworth, I didn't look for a difference, I simply knew the wikitext versions were effectively the same. (Well, not really, one uses inline style and one uses TemplateStyle.) The revert was to let you know. ;) --Izno (talk) 17:06, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Well, you were explicit in your edit summary, "this is not 2 columns", and of course it is two columns for some editors. Anyway, thanks again for the heads up! P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 17:32, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Draft:Testing

This is technically eligible for G2, but it looks like it might actually be of some use to the project. I'm wondering if G2 ought to exempt pages like this? Adam9007 (talk) 02:25, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

• It looks like a sandbox, and sandboxes are explicitly not eligible for G2. Also, speedy delete means that admins can delete the page, not that they must. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 02:34, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

  Oiyarbepsy, It's not specifically designated as a sandbox. The page has been G2 tagged before, so this needs to be clarified. Adam9007 (talk) 02:47, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

• I think the easiest solution here would just be to stick a sandbox template on the page or it's talk page to make it clear what it's being used for, rather than rewording G2 to account for edge cases. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 13:27, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Make A1/A3 more concise?

Currently, the last sentence of A1/A3 and its explanatory footnote read Don't tag under this criterion in the first few minutes after a new article is created.<ref name="Hasty">Consensus has developed that in most cases articles should not be tagged for deletion under this criterion moments after creation as the creator may be actively working on the content; though there is no set time requirement, a ten-minute delay before tagging under this criterion is suggested as good practice. Please '''do not''' mark the page as [[Wikipedia:New pages patrol/patrolled pages|patrolled]] before that delay passes, to ensure the article is reviewed at a later time.</ref>.

That seems like a lot of words just to say "wait 10 minutes before tagging under this criterion." Also, when new page patrolling, we are not supposed to mark any CSD page as patrolled, so that may go without saying. To keep it simple and crystal clear, is there interest in shortening this to Don't tag under this criterion until 10 minutes have elapsed since creation.? Thanks. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:59, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

I would keep the current wording. I think the current explanation is helpful. It clarifies that it is not a requirement, but a good practice suggestion reached through consensus. Also I don't think the last sentence refers to articles already tagged for CSD. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 16:30, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

No need to change anything. Placing arbitrary barriers in the way of improving the encyclopedia by removing inappropriate content is not helpful. New page patrollers don't need to start setting 10-minute timers before coming back and seeing the same one-sentence article. Stifle (talk) 10:01, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

A10 is a little bit confused to me

From this sentence "This applies to any recently created article with no relevant page history that duplicates an existing English Wikipedia topic". Sorry I can not get it. Why "with no relevant page history"? Suppose we have page A and page B, this means A and B have not any relevant history or they are independent pages. But in what case, they have relevant page history? And "duplicates an existing English Wikipedia topic" means A and B are not the same topic, what kind of topics are there? Is it the same content? Alphama (talk) 16:41, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Regarding "relevant page history", I will give two examples:

• Page A exists. Someone creates Page B, which covers the same topic as Page A. There is no "history" to Page B so it is deleted via A10.
• Page A exists. Page B is currently a redirect, which was made following an AFD. Someone converts the redirect back into an article that duplicates Page A. As there is "history" on Page B, it should be re-converted into a redirect.

This scenario is by no means the only situation where A10 may or may not come into play, but to me seems to be the most "obvious" as far as your initial question. Hopefully this helps. Primefac (talk) 16:54, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

To be honest, it's been percolating in my brain that we should repeal A10 entirely. There is almost never a legitimate case where it should be used, since 99% of the time, the duplicate articles are at titles that should be a redirect anyway, in which case deletion is neither required or desired. That, and determining whether there is relevant page history is not always a straightforward thing. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 16:59, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

It's fairly common to get non-english articles that are just a direct translation of articles we already have, e.g. ميا ليرر and جان إليز شيفر, A10 is perfect for those cases--Jac16888 ^Talk 17:38, 17 March 2021 (UTC)