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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Jiang (talk | contribs) at 07:20, 22 January 2004 (vote). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

A summary of earlier discussion follows.

Miscellanaeous

  • Biased articles: The statement that biased articles should be be given an NPOV dispute notice rather than listed on VfD was revised to say "However, list articles if rewriting the facts in an NPOV way and removing unattributed opinions would leave no useful information."
  • Administrators' judgement: GrahamN felt sysops should not have to use judgement because all decisions should be made by consensus. Evercat and FearÉIREANN felt this was unrealistic as 100 deletions occur a day. GrahamN proposed a Pure wiki deletion system, which Axlrosen supported.
  • Cleanup: Martin suggested pages where a unanimous agreement to delete had been reached on Wikipedia:Cleanup could be deleted. Camembert objected.
  • Policy discussions on VfD: Taku added to the policy that pages which serve the Wikipedia community such as VfD and Cleanup ought not be listed on VfD as that is not the place to discuss policies. Angela agreed but removed it from the policy page as it may confuse people about whether pages in the Wikipedia namespace are perhaps not allowed to be listed for deletion. She felt that saying VfD shouldn't be listed on VfD was stating the obvious.
  • Sub-stubs: dave sought clarification that the deletion of sub-stubs was acceptable after Jiang reversed his deletion. The policy supports dave's decision but there are mixed views on how stubs should be treated, so such deletions may be regarded as controversial by some.
  • Day Pages: MrJones asked whether there should be a policy on whether pages about days (Pi Day, Yellow Pig Day etc) are allowed and whether there ought to be a separate wiki for them. Maximus Rex explained that such pages are kept if they concern real verifiable days, and felt a separate wiki for them may not be useful. He suggested merging them into one page.

Major Change Proposed

(initially by Fuzheado with modifications by Daniel Quinlan)

  1. Time on the list has been reduced from 7 days to 5 days.
  2. Only usernames which are at least 1 month old can vote (F version was 5 days)
  3. Only usernames with at least 100 non-minor edits can vote (F version said 100 edits)
  4. Deletion requires a 2/3 majority in order for page to be deleted (F version was 3/4)


The rules for who is allowed to vote

  • Dysprosia supported points 2 and 3 but queried whether 100-edits was enough to prevent ballot stuffing, but also noted that rapid 100-edit-making would be really visible.
  • 129.234.4.10 felt the page author should be allowed to vote regardless of number of edits. Fuzheado thought this reasonable.
  • mav said "non-minor" should be replaced with "valid".
  • A hitherto unknown user, Wanwan, objected to the proposal as it precludes frequent readers from voting, and thought this would create a new class of wikipedia users, disenfranchised from voting. Kingturtle explained that these users were still allowed to comment on VfD, even though their votes might not be counted. Whilst Wanwan strongly objected, Kingturtle and Maximus Rex maintained it was necessary for the prevention of 'sock puppet' votes. Wanwan suggested votes be checked by IP, which Fuzheado explained would not work as users were coming in via proxies such as AOL. Wanwan suggested it may be better to remove the desire for ballot stuffing by having a stricter policy on what was allowed to be kept.
  • Jake strongly disagreed with the 100 edits ruling, feeling that "10 valid edits to articles" would be better. He later said 50 is an option... 10 could be too easy, true. Maybe 25. He also stated he would prefer 2 weeks to a month, but did not feel strongly about this. He proposed that invalid votes be marked with "this user has less than 20 edits" rather than "invalid vote".
  • Fuzheado agreed 1 month was too exclusionist as we are trying to avoid sock puppets, not "prove your worth." He also coined the term Sock Puppet Avoidance Threshold (SPAT)! Fuzheado supported the idea that edits must be "valid", not necessarily "non-minor".
  • Kingturtle thought the number should be between 25 and 100 and later said a full week and 100 edits seemed fair. He also stated that users should not be allowed to vote on articles that are older than they are but should have the right to make comments on the VfD page.
  • Axlrosen felt anything more than a week and 25 edits too much and edited the policy to reflect this.
  • Cyan suggested a rewording of "Sysops clearing out VfD are permitted to disregard votes and comments if there is strong evidence that they were not made in good faith," which he believed was the de facto policy anyway. This was endorsed by Fuzheado, RickK, Angela, and Martin
  • Fuzheado presented Talk:List_of_caucasian_people/delete as an example of how the avoidance of sock puppet votes changed the outcome of this page's fate. Camembert objected as this deletion should not have been based purely on votes anyway. Angela (who deleted the page in question) said that the recent policy modifications hadn't actually affected her decision to delete the page but that it provided support if she was asked to defend the deletion. She felt she often had to justify deletions in terms of numbers, even though that may not be the underlying reason for her decision.
  • Camembert said that if a policy page which is quite clear about whether such-and-such a page should be deleted or not, these things should over-ride bare numbers.

2/3 majority needed

  • Oliver P. felt it was all "utterly, utterly wrong!" as we shouldn't decide the fate of articles by voting at all. The purpose of commenting on Vfd should be to try to settle the question of deletion firstly by pointing to our existing policies, and secondly by rational debate. He thought votes without comments should be ignored and arguments should be judged on their merits not on whether a user had 100 edits or not. He said more definite policies about what material is eligible for inclusion were needed to avoid having to argue similar points over and over again. If a page is contrary to Wikipedia policy, it should be deleted, regardless of how many people want it kept and vice versa. He thinks that cutting the amount of time that something stays on Vfd to save space on the page is not scalable.
  • Fuzheado disagreed and said that even with firmer policies about what is included, there will still be debate about the interpretation of them so a voting process is needed. He pointed out that we want debate and comments, not just a vote. Oliver P. felt the policy put too much emphasis on numbers and Kingturtle suggested renaming VfD "Concensus for Deletion.
  • Angela pointed out the problems of people not aiming for consensus. They vote and then go away rather than following the discussion. RickK added that there are people who will vote "no" just to deny consensus to anything. Fuzheado agreed.
  • Oliver P. said voting eradicates debate and adding up votes gives a meaningless figure, because if votes are made over a period of time during which the article is constantly changing, each vote is effectively for a different article! Hence, people should give reasons for their decision.
  • GrahamN advertised his meta:Pure wiki deletion system (proposal) as a solution to the voting issues which FearÉIREANN criticised. Further discussion was moved to meta:Talk:Pure wiki deletion system (proposal) and Wikipedia talk:Edit war.
  • Camembert asked that the 2/3 rules not be enshrined in official policy and let the sysops use their judgement instead. Fuzheado thought it was best to leave it in the policy so the process was transparent . Camembert thought Wikipedia:Requests for deletion would be a better name, and that the policy should allow flexibility.
  • Daniel Quinlan proposed that a sysop may delete if > 1/2 majority and < 2/3 super-majority and should delete if >= 2/3 super-majority. Camembert liked this extra flexibility. Jake was firmly against allowing cases with less than 2/3 be deleted. Daniel Quinlan thought requiring more than 2/3 was silly and sysops' judgement should be trusted. Angela said that if sysops deleted with less than a 2/3 agreement, there would be too many VfU listings. She also said the "Sysop should delete if >= 2/3" was wrong because often people vote before changes are made to the page and that votes sometimes go against established policies. In these cases, even 90% of votes to delete do not mean a page should be deleted. Martin agreed.
  • There was some sort of vote in which Kingturtle and Jake participated, but no-one else knew what they were voting for.

Unsummarised discussion

Consensus vs. 2/3rds

I thought we'd agreed a rough policy on consensus vs 2/3rds at Wikipedia:Deletion_guidelines_for_administrators#Rough_consensus - maybe folks here didn't know (I should have added more cross-links, perhaps). See exitsing discussion at Wikipedia talk:Deletion_guidelines_for_administrators Should the discussion be moved there? Martin 21:26, 8 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Good point, but a lot of people prefer actual numbers. Eloquence's call to the mailing list for Jimbo to assert some fixed percentage is what kicked this off I think. The 2/3 is just one way to quantify rough consensus. Angela

I think "just one way" - is right. I'd prefer sysops made their own decisions (and stood by those decisions) on what rough consensus is, at least for the time being. That's what's happening in practice, I don't see an overwhelming amount of support for changing that. Certainly not for changing it to any specific set of criteria. Martin 00:14, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I don't disagree. Angela

Has anyone addressed the point that different votes are for different articles? It's rather an important one, I think. -- Oliver P. 06:52, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Does editing imply support?

Incidentally, I think that edits to an article should be counted as implicit expressions of support for that article (unless overridded by more explicit statements); explicit support for some general policy should be counted as implicit support for deleting/keeping articles according to that policy, and explicit support for deleting/keeping some article should be counted as implicit support for deleting/keeping another equivalent article. Martin 00:14, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Hmmm. Nice idea, but you expect me to remember how people have voted previously in order to take that into account in future decisions? I'm not too sure that's realistic. Angela
It's not realistic if you want to be mathematical about it - but if you're just going by judgement and instinct, then these are the kinds of things that (imo) naturally filter in. Martin 02:14, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Oh well, in that case, yes they probably do filter in, as do many other factors beyond a simple 2/3 count. I might report the reason for deletion in terms of numbers but the decision is rarely based on that alone. Angela 02:24, Nov 9, 2003 (UTC)
I very much disagree. (1) I've edited an article that was on VfD that I thought should be deleted. I didn't know how the vote would turn out, and if it was going to be kept, I might as well make it better. (2) I think it will be very subjective as to when two articles are "equivalent", and also to some extent when an article falls under a particular category or policy. Axlrosen 21:24, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Perhaps I should clarify that edits to an article are only implicit expressions of support - if someone explicitly votes for deletion, then that's what counts. I reckon the creator of an article, and the majority of those who've made major edits to it, probably want to keep it, even if they don't actually vote as such (perhaps they've left, for example). Martin 21:38, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I disagree (that edits imply support). What are we discussing anyway? Is there a real disagreement or proposed change? The current system seems to be working fine. Daniel Quinlan 22:44, Nov 9, 2003 (UTC)
No, I'm not proposing a policy change - just giving my thoughts on what influences rough consensus. Martin 23:17, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I also disagree that editing implies support. I've edited articles which I think should be deleted, and articles which I have no strong views on one way or the other. -- Oliver P. 06:52, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

-> Wikipedia talk:Candidates for speedy deletion

Undeletion without listing on "Votes for undeletion"

The categories of page eligible for speedy deletion currently include "previously deleted content, where the page was not listed on votes for undeletion."

It seems that Angela is happy with the idea of sysops undeleting pages without listing on Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion if they think that the proper process has not been followed. I'm happy with that, too. So should the above rule be removed? -- Oliver P. 02:44, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Maybe it just needs tweaking to something like: "content previously deleted according to this deletion policy, where the page was not listed on votes for undeletion". I believe we were trying to guard against people continually recreating articles that had already been discussed on VfD and deleted with a near consensus. Gah, this is legalistic. Martin 02:47, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)~
Reword. Don't remove. Angela
Thanks for clearing that up, both of you. -- Oliver P. 04:09, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Shouldn't the undeletion policy be at wikipedia:votes for undeletion or else wikipedia:undeletion policy? Martin

Ok. Angela

I have a proposal: would it be fine to delete plural redirects iff all the links pointing to that redirect are fixed? Dysprosia 00:13, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)

No. Somebody may link to the plural in the future, and deleting the redirect may also break links from outside the Wikipedia. --Camembert
Good points. So much for that "brilliant idea" of mine :) Dysprosia 07:42, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy/redirects for discussion of the new guideline about moving titles to /partial history pages.


Various updates

I don't think any of these are controversial, but...

  1. "In general, admins will follow a process" -> " You can expect admins to follow the process" - perhaps over-optimistic, but judging from the deletion log and traffic on VfU, I think this is stronger than "in general"
  2. "process of listing on VfD" -> "process below" - updating for multiple pages
  3. "deleted test" for speedy deletions by non-admins - it's either that or normal VfD, I guess. This might be dodgy, but I wasn't sure what else to say. Umm.
  4. List articles that contain no verifiable information - people do this anyway, and even most inclusionists dislike unverifiable content, so make it explicit.

I'd appreciate feedback on the third, in particular... Martin 22:37, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)

candidate for deletion or other action

This is silly: for other actions, don't use VfD. Anyone listing a page on VfD as a candidate for some "other action" is abusing the process (IMO, YMMV, etc). Martin 23:50, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Copyvios should be listed on wikipedia:Possible copyright infringements, or you may choose to inform Wikipedia's designated agent if you are the copyright owner or their representative.
To keep Votes for Deletion down to a reasonable size, articles that are proposed for deletion because they are written in a foreign language should be listed at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/foreign language. If you can speak (and translate!) another language please feel free to watch that page... if a page comes up in your language.. maybe you can do the translation and save useful content from deletion.

I removed these, as they duplicate the extensive list of deletion-orientated pages earlier... Martin 20:25, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

-> Wikipedia talk:Candidates for speedy deletion

Tildes

Hi folks, I made the four tildes <tt> because they're easier to read on my computer that way - without it they look like one squiggly line. How's it work for you? Tualha 01:47, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Proposed changes to deletion policy organization

A few recent entries on VfD have been for articles that were good topics, things we'd want articles for, but were just written badly: one a rant, one nonsense, one in French. Looking at the last few days, I see this happens fairly often. Such articles should be fixed, not deleted - and indeed these were fixed, and quickly. (Wikiwiki!) They should be listed on Cleanup, not VfD. (If they stay there for a while with no improvement, then VfD, as with Post-colonialism in literature.)

This is covered in Deletion policy - Section 2, bullet points 2 and 4 - which suggests to me that people are posting on VfD without carefully reading the policy. To try to remedy this, I propose the following:

  • Swap Sections 1 and 2 of Policy, putting what to list (and what not to) before how to list. That ordering will hopefully cause people to stop and think before posting, and cut down on the unnecessary ones.
  • Further, we should emphasize the importance of (the new) Section 1 in the top matter.
  • I'd also like to see something along these lines right near the top: "When in doubt, list it in Wikipedia:Cleanup, not in Wikipedia:Votes for deletion."
  • Finally, the message at the top of VfD should be emphasized - bigger font, italicize the "please", red font - something.

Discussion?
Tualha 06:26, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The first point is a good one, I think. The rest will fail - no matter how large instructions are, some people will ignore them. Trying discussing with the individuals involved on their talk pages, and convince them that cleanup would serve their needs. Martin 22:57, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)
True, some people will still ignore it. But it might be significantly fewer people than the number who ignore it now. I'll retract suggestion 4, it'll probably be too obtrusive, but I'm sticking with 1-3. Tualha 01:08, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)
If you think reordering would help, then you could try that, but I expect the problem is that people just don't read it at all, or possibly they don't agree with it. I disagree with you about the foreign language articles being a problem. These are currently dealt with very well by the Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/foreign language subpage. The pages are listed there with the aim of getting them translated and/or moved to the appropriate Wikipedia, and the page contains instructions on contacting the appropriate Wikipedia's embassy member. The only thing wrong with that page is probably the name as people don't really vote on deletion there unless they understand the language and can verify that it is nonsense. Cleanup would be a bad place to list these as they would simply be lost and very hard to find for people coming over from other Wikipedias to help with. Until Cleanup is working properly, which currently I'm not convinced about, I see no problem with people making inappropriate listings on VfD. Things get fixed a lot faster there than they ever will on Cleanup. Angela. 18:29, Jan 4, 2004 (UTC)

-> Wikipedia talk:Candidates for speedy deletion

"Voting policy"

The stuff about voting policy and 25 edits and suchlike has previously been discussed here, and I don't believe it even has a majority of support, let alone a consensus. Can we delete it from the page? From talk:Brianism, it seems to be causing confusion. Martin 18:59, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Really? I thought the 25 edits part was supported. I agree the 2/3 idea was more contentious, but I feel the "sock puppet avoidance threshold" should stay in, and the idea that it is still merely a proposal should be removed. Cyan's suggestion that sysops clearing out VfD are permitted to disregard votes and comments if there is strong evidence that they were not made in good faith should also be added. I'm surprised it wasn't already considering the support it got at the time. 25 is still very low. Many people were suggesting 100 edits when this was discussed in November. I can't see any reason for this to remain under the heading "proposal", though there probably isn't much point leaving the 2/3 ruling in. So, can we forget all about 2/3 and let people make up their own numbers, but keep in the 25 - just as a suggestion, not as something you need to spend hours checking every time you look at VfD - but a simple way of justifying the outcome when half a dozen sock puppets turn up? Angela. 10:20, Jan 18, 2004 (UTC)

Maybe I remembered wrongly. Wishful thinking? Anyway, I'm fine with Cyan's proposal that sysops may disregard votes and comments if there is strong evidence that they were not made in good faith - I'd suggest adding that to wikipedia:deletion guidelines for administrators, under the section on "rough consensus". If you really think the 25 edits rule would be valuable in addition to that, then I won't object. Still, aren't we all intelligent enough to work out when we're just being trolled? Martin 15:13, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)


Deletions as an impeachment

There should be a list of criteria under which deletion can be made. This list should be made by consensus. An entry can then be brought up on articles of deletion, specifying the specific ciriterium (or criteria) under which the entry is being charged. If there are not at least two objections within 5 days, the article is deleted. If there are objections, then a vote is made on each particular criterium, solely as to whether or not the entry is in violation of that criterium. Upon 3/4 vote after 5 more days (which starts whenever the second objection is made), the entry is deleted. Anthony DiPierro 23:14, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Proposal for reorganization

How would people feel about this structure:

  • Wikipedia:Cleanup
    • Our guideline should state clearly that readers should list anything they consider fixable on Wikipedia:Cleanup first. That means: If the information can be salvaged, or the article edited into proper form, it needs to go through the cleanup process. But there will be no punishment in case this step is skipped -- we trust readers to use their own best judgment as to when to use Cleanup. Emphasis is on should.
Yes, we should do this:
  1. —Eloquence
  2. Tuf-Kat
  3. Angela
  4. Anthony DiPierro
  5. Jwrosenzweig
  6. Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
  7. UtherSRG - but make a {{msg:cleanup}} to alert folks
  8. Cyan
  9. Jiang
No, we should not do this:
Yes, we should do this:
  1. —Eloquence
  2. Tuf-Kat
No, we should not do this:
  1. Angela - There are problems with the name in that it has other meanings on other wikis
  2. Jwrosenzweig
  3. Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
  4. UtherSRG - keep Deleted test.
Abstain
  1. Anthony DiPierro (I don't understand what the point of this is)
    • The point is to have a name that is more self-explanatory than "Deleted test".—Eloquence
  2. Cyan
  3. Jiang
Yes, we should do this:
  1. —Eloquence
  2. Tuf-Kat
  3. Angela
  4. Jwrosenzweig
  5. Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
  6. UtherSRG
  7. Cyan
No, we should not do this:
  1. Anthony DiPierro (current name is more accurate)
Abstain
  1. Anthony DiPierro (Again, I don't understand. What's wrong with Wikipedia:Possible copyright infringements?)
    • The point is to have a name that is more inclusive and shorter than the current one.—Eloquence
    • Thanks, I've changed my vote. The new name seems less inclusive, not more inclusive. Anthony DiPierro 01:10, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia:Deletion requests
    • Controversial pages can be listed here. Only consensus matters. If no near unanimous counsensus can be reached within 7 days, the page cannot be deleted. Roughly as VfD operates now, with one important exception: Every opinion needs to be justified. If it appears that a participant has clearly failed to respond to an argument, their opinion also has lesser weight. This makes "Keep" and "Delete" comments effectively "Me too" posts that can be ignored.
Yes, we should do this:
  1. —Eloquence
  2. Tuf-Kat
  3. Angela (for one month trial, main VfD only)
  4. Jwrosenzweig (but concerned this will become a battle royal over what constitutes a "justifiable" argument)
  5. Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
  6. Cyan
  7. Jiang
No, we should not do this:
  1. Anthony DiPierro (only opinions recommending deletion should need to be justified. "Keep" with no justifications simply means that you don't agree with the justifications for deletion.)
  2. UtherSRG Don't split requests & votes. Requiring a justification just means "me-too-ers" will copy someone else's justification.
  • Wikipedia:Deletion votes
    • No page could be listed here until it has undergone the Wikipedia:Deletion proposals page. The arguments for and against would have to be summarized, probably by the person adding the page to this list. This adds a certain burden which prevents abuse, and also provides readers with useful information to inform their votes.
Any page listed here would have to remain for another 7 days. During this time, people only add "Keep" and "Delete" votes without justification -- the discussion period is over. After that time, the votes are counted, and any page with 80% or more support for deletion is removed. Having this separate would ensure high participation rates
Yes, we should do this:
  1. —Eloquence
  2. Tuf-Kat
  3. Angela (I'm not happy with the % being so high, but will accept it for one month. Main VfD only)
  4. Jwrosenzweig (I agree with Angela: another note, though....how will we combat sock puppets?)
  5. Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
  6. Cyan
No, we should not do this:
  1. Anthony DiPierro (Delete votes should be justified. We can't be removing pages solely because 80% of Wikipedians don't like it.)
  2. UtherSRG Don't split requests & votes.
  3. Jiang (stick with 75% or lower)
Yes, we should do this:
  1. —Eloquence
  2. Tuf-Kat
  3. Angela
  4. Jwrosenzweig
  5. Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
  6. UtherSRG
  7. Cyan
  8. Jiang
No, we should not do this:


Rationale:

There have been concerns, notably by Jimbo, that the VfD process is overused and fallible. There have also been concerns, especially by myself, that the lack of clear guidelines turns deletion into a constant guessing game as to which action is in compliance with policy and which is not. These guidelines are relatively simple to follow: On anything controversial, try to reach consensus first. If that fails, you can call for a vote, but you have to organize it properly.

Any parts of this scheme that end up getting more support than opposition will be implemented as a 30 days trial period, pending of course any major flaws that are pointed out, very strong objections or a proposal which receives much wider support. I would like to state that this is more a reorganization than a completely different scheme -- we are doing both votes and consensus based decision making right now, but in a more chaotic way.—Eloquence 05:06, Jan 14, 2004 (UTC)

Can you clarify the proposal to split into separate consensus/votes pages is applying to the main VfD only (for this trial period at least)? Angela. 00:51, Jan 22, 2004 (UTC)

Proposal discussion

Summarized comments

Summarized thread between Eloquence and mav: mav felt that voting before discussing the proposal was a bad idea. Eloquence argued that the poll was based on lengthy discussions of the past, and a relatively small change to the existing system compared with other proposals. He agreed to modify the proposal to include a discussion period, however. (Summarized: —Eloquence 17:16, Jan 14, 2004 (UTC))

Summarized thread between Eloquence and MyRedDice: Martin (MRD) feels that small changes should not be lumped together with big ones. In accordance with that opinion, Eloquence has split up the vote into several smaller parts. Eloquence has clarified that the proposal does not imply the deletion of any existing specialized subpages of VfD.

Unsummarized comments

I've made comments on the various aspects of it, but I think these would be a lot clearer were they made on separate pages.

  1. Cleanup proposal: This should not only be for pages you regard fixable. It should be for pages you have doubts about. For example, you are unsure if something is fictional or a person isn't really famous, so you put it on cleanup to see if other people agree before risking being humiliated on Vfd by listing someone who does turn out to be famous
    • "You have doubts about" is already implied in current policy. That should not be changed.—Eloquence
      • In that case I don't see that the proposal really changes anything about cleanup. A
        • It makes a clear recommendation that pages which are considered fixable should be listed. This is separate from the cases where people have doubts. Often pages are listed on VfD by people who are very confident that they should be deleted, yet would agree that they are fixable.—Eloquence
          • This supposed to be the case for cleanup now. Clarifying that would be a good idea, but I don't see that needs to be part of this proposal. The intro to VfD just needs to be clearer that that is what people should do. A
  2. Delete me proposal: Neither support not oppose this name change.
  3. Copyright problems proposal: What's wrong with the intro? I can't see a reason to remove it. The name change is good though.
    • Intro can be linked, just like the extremely long intro on VfD has eventually been summarized and linked. Quickly getting to the list is important.—Eloquence
      • Ok. You don't really need a formal proposal with a vote to do this though. Just edit the page. :) A
        • The proposal is meant to describe the structure as it will look when the reorg is complete, not every part of it is substantially different from what we have now.—Eloquence
          • I think it should be taken out of the proposal then so when people are voting it is clear which parts they are voting for. The current poll above would suggest people oppose the whole policy, and therefore oppose the removal of the copyvio instructions, when actually they might not oppose that at all. The change should just be made. A
  4. Deletion requests proposal: Oppose. Gives too much weight to minority opinions if those supporting the ideas of one position can not mention that support.
    • They can mention it, but it does not matter. Only the facts and arguments do in this discussion. It's not a vote.—Eloquence
      • What I'm worried about is one person coming up with stupid reasons for keeping something and the fact that 100 people disagree with those reasons being overlooked. However, as long as the page is moved to the voting stage when there are remaining objections to keeping/deleting it, rather than just being kept/deleted on the basis there is one troll giving stupid reasons to keep/delete something, then this shouldn't be an issue. A
        • If the reasons are stupid it should be possible to show that, no? If the person is trolling, Wikiquette is applicable.—Eloquence
          • It probably needs to be seen in action before I will be convinced on this point. I would support running it for a trial period, of say one month, with an additional vote at the end of that month to see if we should return to the current system. A
  5. Deletion votes proposal: Why is this needed in addition to the Deletion requests page? If consensus has already been found there, why would you vote again? Also, 80% is too high.
    • You would vote if consensus has not been found, in order to bring about deletion in cases where very few individuals have raised spurious arguments that are rejected by the vast majority of Wikipedians. 80% is not too high if you consider that we have no threshold at all right now. The point is to improve the current system by means of compromise -- many people would never agree with a lower threshold. So the question is whether an optional 80% threshold is better than no thershold at all.—Eloquence
      • I'm still unsure on this. Currently, the reason for someone's vote is given with that vote, which means the reason can be taken into account when deciding whether to delete the page. ie- if the reason is stupid (I just like this page) the vote can be ignored. The new system would let people vote without reasons, so pages will end up being kept for the wrong reasons and against policy. A
        • That's what the summaries are for -- give people an idea of what arguments have been made pro and con. Perhaps shortliners should still be allowed, but that is a minor implementation issue.—Eloquence
          • It needs to be more flexible than a strict 80% rule. The current policy states 66% or a "rough consensus". I see no reason to change that. A
  6. Undeletion requests proposal: Neither support not oppose this name change.

I also strongly oppose the implied deletion of the VfD subpages. There is no reason whatsoever to remove pages like WP:PSTBD or VfD/foreign. These operate in a completely different way to the main VfD and therefore it would be highly damaging to try and force the main VfD procedure onto them. Angela. 13:41, Jan 14, 2004 (UTC)

My updated view on this is that I would support it without the 80% rule, and if it was agreed that the first month was only a trial with the possibility of switching back at the end of that month. Also, this should apply for the first month only to the main VfD, not to any of the subpages. Angela. 21:48, Jan 14, 2004 (UTC)
I support Angela in this. There is no reason to delete them.
Agreed on keeping WP:PSTBD or VfD/foreign. Those two, only, seem to be almost totally uncontroversial as ways to offload traffic from VfD. Jamesday 15:59, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Consensus is impossible. There are people who will vote "no" just to be arbitrary. Note that I have stopped doing that on VfD. RickK 16:30, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The "implied deletion" of the VfD subpages interpretation by Martin was not implied by me at all. I have no strong opinion on this and we will have to see which organization makes most sense, preserving the current one after the initial change.—Eloquence

Reading this discussion for the first time, I noticed one thing about voting that was not mentioned: a requirement for a quorum, or a minimum number of total votes cast, on any one article, for a deletion to take place. (I have no idea if this has been brought up & debated to deaht in the past.) It just seems to me that without such a rule, it would be possible to abuse VfD by removing a number of articles in less-known parts of Wikipedia under the radar before anyone noticed what was happening. -- llywrch 19:07, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Eloquence says "Yes, let's start atomizing everything, split it up on 20 different talk pages, and make sure that nothing ever happens". Presumably sarcastically?

My response is simple: I suggest splitting the discussion, because many of these things are (IMO) quite trivial, and can be implemented very quickly. Eg, rename wikipedia:deleted test to wikipedia:delete me - such a rename has already been discussed, at wikipedia talk:deleted test, with favourable reactions. Why wrap up something non-controversial with the controversy of votes vs requests - that is what's going to drag on and on.

Your rationale section is all about votes vs requests, so I suggest concentrating on that issue, since you seem to care about it the most. However, since you ask:

  1. Seperating off the intro from possible copyright infringements might make sense. You've not given any reasons for this in your "rationale" section. You do say later on that "Quickly getting to the list is important", but this can be done with the table of contents links already. I'd be happy to discuss this further though, but on Wikipedia talk:Possible copyright infringements, so we can get the advice of the legally inclined people who use that page.
    • I don't like TOCs on date-structured pages, but that's another matter. Besides being easier to navigate, not having lots of content on that page that is only of interest to first-time readers also reduces the page size, which increases performance.—Eloquence
  2. I don't see the reasoning behind the proposed rename of "possible copyright infringements". You've not given any reasons for this in your "rationale" section.
    • "Copyright problems" allows more general listings, is shorter and is more neutral.—Eloquence
  3. "deleted test" needs to be renamed, but I'm unclear why "delete me" is better than the alternatives on wikipedia talk:deleted test. You've not given any reasons for this in your "rationale" section.
    • "Delete me" is inclusive of all types of candidates for speedy deletion, and the imperative name is indicative of the special nature of the page (operated by "What links here").—Eloquence
  4. The votes for undeletion rename makes sense to me, since that page already has a completely different pace and style to VfD. I think I'll just go do it.
  5. The VfD split might make sense, and could relieve the pressure to continually add new cases to wikipedia:candidates for speedy deletion. Needs fleshing out with more details.
    • Which details?—Eloquence
      • Interaction with "VfD/foreign language" and similar pages. How formal is the vote? How do you resolve ballot box stuffing? What if there's more than one option? What if the page changes mid-vote? What if a change is proposed mid-vote? What if the opinions change after the vote is finished? Just flesh it out. Write the new "deletion policy" in your userspace somewhere. Martin

Martin 19:23, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I'm intrigued by the substantively different process Eloquence proposes for deletions. I would like to give it a trial period: a couple of weeks or a month would be sufficient. Unfortunately, the guidelines for acceptance of the proposal are pretty firm, and are not written with trial periods in mind. Happily, the guidelines for acceptance are undergoing discussion, and can easily be modified. I would support this change over a trial period with possible ratification at the end, but I don't have enough information to support it as a permanent change. Meow. -- Cyan 21:54, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

UPDATE: Because many users requested it, I have split up the vote into individual parts. Because existing votes were no longer applicable, these had to be remoevd -- please vote again for each part of the proposal!—Eloquence 23:22, Jan 21, 2004 (UTC)

From the vote comments: Requiring a justification just means "me-too-ers" will copy someone else's justification.--UtherSRG

I don't understand this objection - a copied justification could be simply removed without comment.—Eloquence
Why should a copied justification be removed without comment? If 500 people all agree "this is a dictionary entry" why should their vote only count once? That justifications must be unique was not part of your proposal, you should make it explicit if you intend this vote to count for that. Anthony DiPierro 02:41, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)
This is a misunderstanding - I don't think they should count the same. I just think redundant information can be removed. The information that someone agrees with a certain rationale is not redundant. If they do so for exactly the same reasons, however, these reasons need not be enumerated again, and can be removed. For example, if someone says "We have a policy against this type of pages, see XY", I could respond "I agree", but it would be silly to respond two paragraphs below "See the policy XY".—Eloquence
So what's the point of requiring justifications if you're just going to remove those justifications? Anthony DiPierro 03:06, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Please read my response again.—Eloquence
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