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Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy 


Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 18 June 2008. The result of the discussion was Speedy Keep.
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Deletion of talk pages

As I was reading through the deletion policy, I didn't see info about deletion of article talk pages. When an article is deleted, is the talk page of that article also deleted (assuming there has been discussion on the talk page)? I can see that in some cases, you'd keep the talk page in the event that the article comes up again and is legitimately valid later as an article. However, I can also see that nonsense articles (e.g an article of Nvenaidifasveni) with discussion can have their talk pages deleted. 71.243.218.126 (talk) 17:34, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

There are (unfortunately) many, many pages covering aspects of the inclusion/deletion policy. Talk pages are routinely deleted at the same time unless there is a compelling reason not to. An example of a reason to keep would be on old page holding the deletion discussion. (We used to archive the deletion discussions on the article's Talk page.) That happens so rarely now that it's a speedy-deletion criterion (G-8) to automatically remove the Talk page of a deleted page unless there is a an obvious useful purpose to the page. Rossami (talk) 23:39, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
My view is that if there has been extensive and useful discussion of sources and other matters, without any BLP concerns, then talk pages should be archived somewhere. A good rule of thumb is that if there has been enough discussion to have the talk page archived, then deletion should not be automatic. Sometimes, the main page can be recreated as a redirect, and a link to the talk page of the redirect can be left on the talk page of the destination. I do hope people don't blindly delete talk pages of redirects... Carcharoth (talk) 14:46, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
I came here looking for something slightly different and was wondering if someone could help. What is the policy for deleting a talk page for an article that has not been deleted? I was going to comment on a possible missing item in an article, but saw that the corresponding talk page has been deleted... and can't tell therefore if the item I was going to mention had already been considered and discarded. Jim (talk) 18:03, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
Talk pages of articles that currently exist are deleted only in special circumstances: when the talk page was created mistakenly (e.g. editing test) or inappropriately (e.g. copyright violation). Legitimate discussion, even if it is about an issue that is quickly resolved, is almost never deleted. If you could identify the article, I could let you know what content was on the talk page before it was deleted. –Black Falcon (Talk) 19:25, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposal: apply WP:BEFORE to speedy close in certain cases.

Greetings. As a regular participant in AfD and frequent closer of debates, I often see discussions where an article on a topic of questionable notability that has a clear potential merge target whose notability is not in doubt. Some examples:

  • Fictional topics such as characters, settings and story elements of notable books/films etc.
  • People associated with notable groups/organisations, such as band members, sports team members and political officeholders.
  • Artistic works, such as songs, books and films, by notable artists.

Typically, the articles are of poor quality, and the debate focuses on whether the outcome should be merge, redirect or keep. As is often the case in deletion discussions, the discussions can be very acrimonious and taken personally by participants. In light of this, I propose that we should start enforcing the directive on our current AfD page (WP:BEFORE) to "[c]onsider making the page a useful redirect or proposing it be merged rather than deleted" before nominating for AfD, as "[n]either of these actions requires an AfD". Doing this would have two main positive effect:

  • Reduce the bitter argument, acrimony and divisiveness common in so many deletion discussions.
  • Keep Articles for Deletion for serious discussions about deleting articles whose notability is in question.

The need for the first is widely called for by those of us despairing at the WP:BATTLEGROUND nature of AfD, and is reflected in the great tension and fighting over notability guidelines like WP:FICT, disruptive wars over "cruft" and several top-level mediation processes. The need for the second positive effect is what has motivated the introduction of WP:PROD and WP:CSD amongst other developments.

So, if this proposal is a good idea in principle, the next question is how it would be implemented. As it would be a not-insignificant change, I propose that it would be implemented conservatively, at least at first. An uninvolved administrator (or non-admin?) should speedy close deletion debates which meet the following conditions:

  • There is an obvious merge target (nominators often admit such)
  • A substantive debate has not yet started e.g. there are few comments, comments which are mostly arguments to avoid, the nomination is only a few hours old etc.
  • There is no reason to speedy close that would override this one i.e. a speedy delete as copyvio or speedy keep as a disruptive nomination

The closing admin should then replace the Afd notice on the article with a {{mergeto}}, tag the target article with {{mergefrom}} and start a heading on the appropriate talkpage with a standard merge proposal heading and a short explanatory note linking to the closed Afd (this process could be easily automated). What does the community think?Skomorokh 16:22, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Update I forgot to cover how the merge discussion would play out; time limits are certainly important as Protonk noted. So how about these stipulations:

  • If the merger discussion, though listed by the admin in their close, does not attract any attention in [insert time period] (a few days? a week?), anyone can bring the article to AfD where it may not be speedy closed as a merge candidate again.

I wouldn't want this sort of thing to be used as a tool by inclusionists; and if nominators address why the AfD should not be speedied as a merge proposal, it should not be. Hope this clears up some of the problems with the proposal.Skomorokh 17:46, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Second update Protonk makes a good point about the problems of scope w.r.t. "merge targets". I think we can address this with a simple and intuitive marker:

  • Article a is a suitable merge target of article b if one should expect coverage of topic b in an article about topic a.

This severely restricts the scope of the AfD's this proposal would pertain to. I'd also like to mention that this proposal is not for articles which are likely redirects; merges only. Skomorokh 18:22, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm ambivalent. I think this is a well thought out proposal and seeks to address clear harms. I'm less sure that those harms would be addressed by the proposal. First, I agree that most debates where merger is an option result in discussions where consensus is difficult to judge. I also realize that a merger or redirect is a usually a compelling option for the article. An easy example I can think of is this AFD, where the closing admin vocalized the clear split among participants. But I don't like the idea of adding some additional step prior to nomination of an article. I am going to guess that (casting a wide enough net), most articles have a logical "parent" or "sibling" article. In this case, almost any deletion discussion could be turned into a merger discussion with a few suggestions. For some articles, this is better (all of those 40K articles would have been better merged than deleted and redirected). for some articles, this is worse (forks made due to WP:SIZE or POV are better assessed on their merits than merged into the parent article). For most articles, the result is probably neutral. But merger discussions have no time limits and their outcome is not compulsory. for example, the 40K articles I mentioned (a good source of acrimony if ever there was one) were brought to AfD because a small number of merger discussions failed (or received no comments and the subsequent mergers were reverted by IP editors). In this case, 90% of those AfD's would have been sent back to the talk page as proposed mergers even though the nominators judged (IMO, correctly) that the results from a small sample of attempted mergers would represent broader outcomes. In some cases this was noted explicitly in the nomination, in other case this was not. So the result (following this proposal) would have been to speedy close each AfD, list a merger discussion and wait some undetermined period of time. Then, following the merger discussion on the pages, the articles would be variously relisted or merged. this outcome isn't the end of the world, but I feel that it is a needless complication to the issue. How do we solve the problem without generating too much gridlock? I don't know precisely. My guess would be to reverse the order--make "mergers" a possible binding outcome of AfD. This would have to be tightly patrolled to prevent pages which aren't reasonable candidates for deletion from being listed in an alternate, more binding venue for mergers. But it would provide a less acrimonious outcome to the problem. So right now I'm going to have to oppose this as a policy change, but I think it is a good start and a compelling idea. Protonk (talk) 17:00, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Protonk wrote a better response than I did (below). I agree that "merge" should be a valid outcome of AFD but not necessarily "binding". Here's why... The current results of AFD are "keep" and "delete". "Keep" requires no action on the part of the closing admin other than to close the AFD. "Delete" requires actually deleting the article. Either can be done in a few minutes of the admin's time at most. "Merge", however, takes longer and is not something that an uninvolved admin can always do (often takes too much actual knowledge of the article content). For this reason, "merge" as an AFD outcome really means "keep with a recommendation to the editors that a merger be carried out". The merging editors can reference the AFD as support for their edits but the merge/redirect cannot be considered complete until someone other than the closing admin finishes the merge.
--Richard (talk) 17:15, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
That's probably a better possible choice of outcomes. I think that sort of outcome has emerged in a few cases. I've seen AfD's closed as no consensus with an admonishment to merge placed on the talk page. Protonk (talk) 17:25, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict with Protonk) Sorry, I understand the motivation of the proposal but this is too much process creep. Anybody can suggest to the nominator that he/she withdraw the AFD nomination and create a merge nomination. If the nominator agrees, it can be done and should be done by the nominator.
IMO, your proposal giving the admin the right to override the judgment of the nominator is a bad idea (reduces the burden on the nominator to weigh "merge vs. delete" and gives the admin the power to impose his/her judgment over that of the community).
"Merge" is a legitimate outcome of an AFD discussion. If the AFD is going to be acrimonious, it's likely that the merge discussion would be also. Lack of civility cannot be fixed in this way. If you see such in progress, step in and ask people to calm down.
--Richard (talk) 17:02, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments Richard. A few points in response.
Process creep': Nominators are already directed to pursue merges/redirects before deleting, so this does not add any extra process for nominators, the idea is very easy for admins to grasp and can be easily executed automatically, it's easy for those who want to comment in the Afd but find it closed (follow the direct link added by the closer, add comment there). Debates that have a likely merge outcome don't 'have to be dealt with in this way, I would just like to enable closers to do so.
Imposing admin judgement on the community I don't think this is any different from an admin speedy deleting a page the nominator thought was non-notable but actually failed to assert notability. The community gets it's say in the merge discussion, and can bring the topic to AfD if there is no consensus to merge at the article talkpage.
Acrimony in discussions I respectfully disagree that the merge discussions would be just as acrimonious as deletion discussions. When someone nominates for an article to be deleted, it sends a message of "your effort is worthless and unwelcome" to the article editors. A merge proposal, on the other hand, says "this topic could be better treated elsewhere", which is a far less antagonistic message, I think. Now consider inclusionist AfD contributors; nominating for deletion an article where a merge would be acceptable is a comment on the worth (the "notability") of the topic, something keep !voters who identify some way with the topic often take personally – "this topic could be better treated elsewhere" is definitely less of a challenge on the worth of the subject.
Merge as an outcome I personally feel that AfD should be kept strictly for keep vs. delete debates, but this proposal would not require that at all. Discussions could still close as merge, smerge or redirect, it's just that some debates which are predominantly going to be about merge or not merge can be pre-emptively shifted to the correct forum.
I hope this clarifies things, Skomorokh 18:14, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
I think (Richard, let me know if this is words in your mouth) the problem is ordering rather than discussion. I think the proposal is better applied following an AfD rather than prior to. In the case of some hypothetical article, I would rather have the discussion continue with editors knowing that "proposal to merge" or "merge" were appropriate outcomes than have it removed and listed as a merger discussion. In this case we can have a merger discussion under the sword of Damocles (as will probably be the case either way), but withsome direction. Rather than "have this merger discussion or the article goes to an uncertain fate at AfD" the admonition could be "have this merger discussion or the article gets turned into a redirect or deleted". Protonk (talk) 18:00, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
As a closer, when there is no significant opinion voiced in favour of deletion, I typically close as no consensus and start a merge proposal on the article talkpage. I'd like this to become more common, but that's another story. Regarding the admonition; under this proposal it's "have this merger discussion and if there is no serious opposition go ahead and merge, or the article goes to an uncertain fate at AfD". Regards, Skomorokh 18:26, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Protonk, thanks for your insights, very helpful. I've made two updates to the proposal to address some of your concerns if you'd like to respond to them here. Skomorokh 18:22, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll respond more fully later today. I want to agree with you on your point above about merger discussions being less acrimonious (on average) tha deletion discussions. Although we can easily find all the "Celebrations--->Reactions to 9/11" merger discussions to learn that merger discussions can be filled with vitriol, I think that you are correct on average. The large contingent outcome that deletion represents is a powerful motivator for people to solidify their stances. I think that mergers are generally supported or opposed with more equivocation than AfD's. I have seen plenty of AfD's with "ZOMG, strongest delete possible, I will uninstall WoW and...leave Wikipedia if this stays" and "Stong keep!!!! Article X (on something like a minor sidekick in a b-movie) is the most important article on any subject ever." So on that point we agree. I'll come back in a bit and let some other editors comment first. Protonk (talk) 18:32, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Great, thanks for your interest and very helpful critiques thus far. Skomorokh 18:57, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Ok. I've thought about this a bit and here is what I think. I agree with richard that imposing the before section of the deletion process as a policy represents instruction creep. The best possible analogy I can think of is the DRV process. Editors are exhorted to talk to the closing admin before listing a XfD at DRV but refusal to do so is not a reason to endorse the close or remove the review. Discussion is expected socially but not mandated because of the added hurdles it would represent for novice users. At the same time, the issue of instruction creep is not a deal breaker. It represents some drawbacks that must be overcome by the gains from implementing this policy. Here is my suggestion:
  • Codify the practice of closing AfD's as no consensus to delete, remanded to a merger discussion (or words to that effect). For afds where a merger possibility exists and would solve the underlying problem.
  • Don't treat it as some external speedy close but as an expected outcome from consensus. In other words, give it to admins as a tool but wait until some user (or preferably more than one user) has presented the idea independently. However it should still be a "speedy closure" of some sort, allowing admins the option to do so before the 5 day period without fear that the article will go to DRv for process reasons.
  • restrict the practice to AfD's that (as you said) can't be speedied otherwise AND restrict these kinds of closures from articles where merger discussions have occured recently or where mergers won't fix the problem (BLP, OR, Hoax, V, etc).
  • Set a two week time limit for the merger discussion. If the article isn't merged, then return it to AfD.
  • This may still be too much added process (also, I've probably stolen/modified some of your ideas shamelessly), but I like it. We can pick out articles that might help to be merged/redirected and allow that to be a more 'official' expected first step. Hopefully this will result in more discussion prior to the AfD and more complete nominations. I could see future AfD noms that include an explanation why the article isn't an obvious merger candidate. Thoughts? Protonk (talk) 16:32, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
    • Except for the early closure and the arbitrary timelimit on the merger discussion, we already have this option. And while it's not used as often as it could be, it's used with some regularity by our better closers (though the wording is usually "keep with recommendation to merge" rather than "no consensus"). The one part that I dislike about this current proposal is that it will encourage still more early closures which, if history is any indication, will lead to a increase of nominations to DRV. If merger is a good idea, letting the discussion run for the normal 5 days won't hurt the project or the suggestion. Rossami (talk) 20:01, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
      • As I've pointed out "the discussion" is not the same when it is a talkpage merge proposal as when it is an AfD discussion; less acrimony and hostility. It shouldn't spur any DRV's because the discussion will simply have changed forum. We have a culture wherein when editors don't like the existence of a particular version of a particular article, they nominate it for AfD. This is disruptive and destructive and needs to change. Skomorokh 01:33, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Rossami about speedy closes. I think they are often a mistake, in the absence of special cases like disruption, withdrawal, or copyvio. There seems to be an increasing trend that way, and it does lad to deletion reviews--which almost always put the article back for a full time, or for unhappiness with the result. They should be strongly discouraged. Otherwise, I think making very specific the possibility to merge is a much better idea than treating merge merely as a form of keep--for all the reasons given by various people above. It is in particular less likely to lead to a destructive merge eiyyher deliberately or accidentally, when that is not the consensus. DGG (talk) 01:29, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for commenting, DGG. Could you clarify what you mean by "making very specific the possibility to merge"? Thanks, Skomorokh 01:33, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
  • As a general comment I like this proposal in general. Even if some good admins open a merge discussion after no consensus closes with the option to merge, I think the project would be helped by the addition of a concrete policy option for an outcome and a time limit on merger discussions from AfD (before the article is returned to AfD). How would people feel if the speedy close bit were removed? Skomorokh, I know this is an important part of your proposal. How do you feel about the prospect of implementing either your proposal or my counter proposal with the "speedy" bit removed? Protonk (talk) 01:46, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't think that would formally change anything; I already routinely close Afd's with a small minority of delete !votes as "'keep/no consensus to delete, editors are welcome to join the merge discussion on the talkpage". If you think that closers could be persuaded to do likewise, I'd love to see it. It would not go as far as my proposal, nor would it have the adantage of avoiding unnecessary and unnecessarily divisive deletion discussions, but it would be a big improvement over the status quo, if it became standard practice. It's a lot easier to change a rule than to change a culture, however. Sincerely, Skomorokh 01:55, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I think it would. If we (for the sake of argument) decided that AfD's with a merger possibility could be closed as "discuss merger for 14 days and return to AfD for keep/delete if merger discussions break down" we could induce the two sides to cooperate. Some of the acrimony will never go away. Some people will argue that WP:N should be interpreted to include important daughter articles for notable subjects and such inherited notability is critical to building a complete picture of many fictional subjects. the other side (including me) will argue that WP:N doesn't and shouldn't make that a possiblity, that the encyclopedia should be written about notable subjects and not bent to accommodate non-notable subjects. That is a source of disagreement that will not be solved by this or any similar proposal (under the deletion policy umbra). But a "discuss then remand to merger" option with some force behind it will soften arguments in the initial AfD and eliminate the "ZOMG, you never tried to merge this" arguments in the second AfD. Assuming that this becomes part of the practice of AfD's, people will eventually respond by tempering their comments. If I am defending an article that may be merged on the first AfD, I don't need to pull out all the stops to argue to keep it. I can make some keep arguments and then make moves toward a compromise. Likewise with delete stances. It doesn't 'cut short' debate on subject like this but I see where DGG is coming from there. Speedy closes lead to DRV's, which are a pain in the ass. Protonk (talk) 17:13, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Counter-Proposal I don't think it goes far enough. I actually think that any AfD where the nominating editor fails to indicate that WP:BEFORE has been followed prior to nomination should be closed as disruptive. There are too many "I don't see any sources in the article" AfD's, and WP:BEFORE expects that nominating editors do their homework before involving the community in a debate. Obviously, this is presumably at odds with consensus, so I present it as a discussion point, knowing that consensus can change and believing that, in this case, it should. Jclemens (talk) 01:35, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Changes by AMIB

I have some concerns about the changes made by AMIB to this policy page and would like to see what others think.

I'm not sure that neologisms belong in this sentence as RS's can often be found for them (as Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms notes. Heck, the whole point of that article is not to have entries for terms that don't have RS's that define the term rather than just use it. Being a neologism isn't a reason for deletion as far as I can tell from the article (though it is used that way all the time in AfDs).
  • "Any other content not suitable for an encyclopedia."
  • I'm not sure how I feel about that one. First of all, WP:NOT covers things like NOT#PAPER and NOT#CENSORED which aren't exclusion guidelines. Secondly, I don't think WP:NOT defines what is not encyclopedic, rather it defines defines what is not wikipedia. A minor, but important, point.
I largely think the other changes improve things.Hobit (talk) 00:57, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

"Any other content not suitable for an encyclopedia" has been in there for ages and ages; I simply moved it to the bottom.

Being a neologism used to be its own reason for deletion, but now it's mostly because most neologisms fail WP:N. I merged the line about neologisms to the "Can't be verified in reliable sources" because of this gradual shift in practice. The line still links the neologism guideline, which helps clarify what a reliable source is in the context of sourcing an article about a neologism. Neologisms are pretty uncontroversial nowadays anyway.

I'm trying to wrap my head around a way to merge the rest of the "no reliable sources" lines without stepping on any of the notability controversies. Haven't done anything with it yet. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:33, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

What happens when a Deleted article re-appears?

There is an article Luka Magnotta which was first cleaned up due to the multitude of unreferenced claims in the biography of a living person, and then the article was nominated for deletion, and then it was deleted due to the fact that he is a person of no notability, and now someone has re-created it with what appears to be a copy and paste of the original article. Does this have to go through the entire process of deletion again, or can the entire article be deleted straight up by an admin? 65.96.67.105 (talk) 12:39, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion, specifically criterion G-4 which addresses the recreation of content which has been previously discussed in an XfD discussion. (It's already been applied to this page.) Thanks. Rossami (talk) 14:44, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Prodding user pages

I've proposed that user and user talk pages should not be eligible for PROD. See WT:PROD#Prodding user pages -- Ned Scott 06:57, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Alternatives to Notability

I feel that notability is too restrictive a guideline for deletions and too subjective.

I propose a more pragmatic criterion for deleting articles: Usefulness.

The encyclopedia is a tool. Each article should be judged by whether it provides a marginal enhancement to the usefulness of the encyclopedia to its users. Some articles may not be notable but they still provide useful information to many people. For example the article on github is not about something very notable but is definitely very useful to many people. The pragmatic criterion of usefulness is I think better than notability. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.229.186.246 (talk) 23:11, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Given that the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/GitHub is clearly leaning towards keeping the article, on the grounds that is is notable, it's probably not a great example of Wikipedia's notability standards being "too restrictive" and "too subjective." --Stormie (talk) 01:23, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
There is no way that "provides a marginal enhancement to the usefulness of the encyclopedia to its users" is a less subjective criterion than "has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". –Black Falcon (Talk) 15:36, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
I think that an article on my cat would be "useful" to me. If I were selling a house than an article on the house would be "useful" to anyone thinking of buying it. Obviously neither of these is a good topic for an encyclopedia article. Hut 8.5 18:15, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Relisting AfDs

Apologies in advance if this already been discussed, but...

In the section on Wikipedia:Deletion_policy#Deletion_discussion the AfD process the policy currently says, "A nomination that gets little response after five days can be relisted if the closing editor believes that more time would be likely to generate a clearer consensus." This in general seems well reasoned to me, except for situations in which editors—albeit very few—have agreed with the nom and !voted delete and no one has opposed deletion. In situations such as these, the AfD is equivalent to a PROD: an editor has proposed deletion, 5+ days have passed, and no one has objected. (In fact, it's sort of an über-PROD, since not only has message been sitting atop the article saying "This article is being considered for deletion" but it's also listed at WP:AfD and possibly also at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting, so all interested parties should be well aware of it). It therefore seems to me that the debate should be closed as "Delete." Relisting, on the other hand, would allow more editors to potentially weigh in—and that's not inherently a bad thing—but the cost is increasing the number of active AfDs. Now maybe there's not a huge backlog—perhaps this a solution for a non-existent problem—nor have checked to see how many of the 100+ AfDs that get filed each day are relistings that would fit the above criteria. But not relisting these types of AfDs would mean at least a less work for closing admins, and a few more eyes available to look at the AfDs that actually are disputed.

I propose that the section be amend to read (new text in italics): "A nomination that gets little response after five days can be relisted if the closing editor believes that more time would be likely to generate a clearer consensus. If, however, a deletion discussion that has received little attention has at least one editor agreeing with the nominator and no editor has opposed deletion, then the discussion should be closed as "Delete", since this situation is essentially equivalent to an uncontested proposed deletion"

Thoughts? Yilloslime (t) 05:07, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

A prod doesn't have the effect of allowing WP:CSD G4 if the content is recreated. I'd rather trust closing admins to use common sense than add more WP:CREEP trying to clarify the situation. Jclemens (talk) 06:16, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Even notable subjects have been deleted by prod because the right person/people didn't notice. IMHO, we shouldn't be so quick to delete, if something is obviously going to be deleted who cares if it happens in one week or two? Many articles have been saved and some initial research would have shown they were notable enough but, it is easier to delete. Banjeboi 09:08, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Prod'ed articles are immediately restored on request, though, so it's quite a different situation to an AfD delete close. --Stormie (talk) 10:04, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
As far as I can tell most newbies wouldn't even think to ask but that's a good point. Banjeboi 10:11, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Heh. I didn't even realize the restoration process for Prod'ed articles was different, and I should have known better. Jclemens (talk) 01:07, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
It seems to me that the problem could more easily be solved through a quiet note to the closer that relisting in those kinds of circumstances is generally unproductive. If no one showed up to defend the article in the first five days, our history has shown that a few more days rarely changes things. Personally, I only advocate relisting when there is continued discussion with new facts being presented and where there is actual evidence in the discussion that more time is likely to be productive.
Or you could just close the discussion yourself. The discussion has, after all, been listed for the requisite time period and is subject to closure anytime after the 5 days are up. Rossami (talk) 14:39, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Respectfully disagree. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Diverse Harmony is a good example of an article given a last gasp - sometimes are found to be notable enough in the extension period. There are other articles that I found out after the fact had been deleted in similar circumstances - we need more editors looking at these articles with a variety of backgrounds and experiences. I'd much rather err by keeping an article around an extra week. Banjeboi 00:58, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose no reason to invoke an AfD with two participants automatically. The process works better with fewer mandated outcomes, rather than more. Protonk (talk) 01:14, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Auto-archiving

How about setting up automatic archiving on this talk page?--Kotniski (talk) 10:18, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I've boldly added a 30-day auto-archiving. Banjeboi 10:39, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Much better, thanks! Hobit (talk) 16:13, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
You're quite welcome! Banjeboi 21:43, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Summary Deletions by Wiki Clique

Surely we all must realize how badly the reputation of Wikipedia has suffered as a result of editorial bias and forced "concensus" by various Wiki Cliques who dominate the subject matter they've claimed as their turf, with their biased point of view rather than a NPOV. Sometimes this activity seems more like a Dungeons & Dragons gaming board than a truely free encyclopedia. Let's work together to make it better. Sincerely, Rusty Dr. B. R. Lang (talk) 14:22, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

It's hard to respond to this without specific examples. justinfr (talk) 16:04, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
His specific example is the article that he is attempting to write about himself, that just got deleted for the nth time, this time at the administrators' noticeboard. Dr. Lang, please don't take this the wrong way, but you are not notable enough to be on wikipedia as an unreferenced article. You need references to reliable sources that talk about you, that aren't written by you. Keeper ǀ 76 16:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
I should have assumed as much--I've been reading the AN debate. Thought maybe there would be something else :) justinfr (talk) 16:33, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
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