Wikiquote talk:Speedy deletions/Archive 1

Obsolete list
Thanks for declaring this list obsolete, Kalki. It seemed kind of silly to me to have to post a notice here now that one can just check the category. &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 20:18, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Archive
Do we need any archive of the former speedy deletion candidates? I couldn't find any reference to a speedy-deletion archive here or at Speedy deletions. I suppose this make sense, as this list is primarily for articles whose lack of merit is non-controversial. I ask because I'd like to delete the "current" list, so as to discourage people who may not read the instructions (having proposed SDs on Wikipedia or other wikis before), but would reconsider when they saw no place to add new candidates. (I'd also like to make it clear right at the top of the article that we're using Wikimedia Categories exclusively now for SDs.) &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 16:19, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * I support for that we have no special log for speedy deletions and get rid of the list on the below. When we need a log, we can give a look to Special:Log. If necessary, we may have a rule "if you delete an article without no discussio, as SD, you may (or must) note " PD SD" (speedy deletion) at the top of its deletion reason." --Aphaia 07:05, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * What do you mean by "PD" here? If you mean "pending deletion", that term seems to be used primarily as a signal that an article can't be deleted because of the block-compression error. That's an artifact of trying to delete something that's already been chosen for deletion; it's not a reason to delete something. Shouldn't the specific reason it was chosen for a speedy deletion (like what we should encourage people to put in the tag) be what we put in the deletion log? Or are you talking about the reason listed in the article itself (i.e., the info in the db tag)? In that case, "PD" still doesn't really tell us why it's being deleted, unless I'm missing something. &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 09:43, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * sorry type of SD(speedy deletion). I can't figure from where this tweak has come .... ;=X
 * what I thought of were:
 * SD: test
 * SD: same to already deleted pages
 * and so on. The point is, once it is headded with "SD" we can pick them up easily from the deletion log. --Aphaia 03:10, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Prefixing the deletion log entry with "SD:" makes sense. (I see you're already doing it.) It might be a good idea to add "VFD:" for the others. (We shouldn't assume any not tagged are VfD, because people will occasionally forget to follow procedure.) We should add this to Deletion process, once we create it. &#9786;


 * But getting back to my original point, Eustace's recent attempt to call attention to the renewed Reirom assault by posting here reinforces my point about clearing out the existing list of speedy deletion candidates. I'll remove them all shortly, so there will be no need for obsolescence reminders at the top and bottom. &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 00:47, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, indeed. Things go much better. Thank you for your cleaning.--Aphaia 23:05, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Policy
Currently I heard from some editors "if a main article was deleted, so its talk should be or could be deleted too." I don't oppose it but I can't find this rule among our current rules. Supposingly our rules were imported from Wikipedia in early days where speedy rule has been updated recently (just before a few months).

I think we are also better to update our list and clarify some points if necessary, Like how to treat an image already transwikied to Commons, or page containing only interlang or category and so on.

Any suggestions are welcome. --Aphaia 23:05, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * You raise some good points, Aphaia. I've been assuming that we delete Talk pages because Wikipedia:Deletion process says "If appropriate, delete the article's talk page or any associated sub-pages first." It makes no specific statement about Talk pages in the Speedy deletion section, but that section is so terse it looks like an oversight, and I could see no plausible reason that one might preserve the Talk page of an article bad enough to warrant speedy deletion, when Talk pages for VfD candidates are casually recommended for deletion. (Wikipedia apparently doesn't give any guidance on how to interpret "if appropriate". In fact, the whole issue of Talk page deletion seems to be an afterthought.) &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 01:36, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * As far as transwiki images, I believe that's a transwiki policy issue that should be discussed at Category talk:Transwiki. If pages have no quote content, only category tags and/or interwiki links (i.e., not even the framework data we've been discussing at WQt:DP#Policy on framework articles), they sound like good speedy-deletion candidates to me, unless there's a reasonable hope for near-term quote additions. &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 01:36, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your instruction, I agree on they sound like good speedy-deletion candidates. --Aphaia 00:50, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Anon's user page and talk
Sometimes we talk to anonymous users via talk pages. Invitation for registration, request for stopping some unwelcoming edits, and any necessary communication. I think those "anon's talk" can be a good speedy-deletion candidate. I think it necessary too. Not only because in most cases the unregistered users (in my opinion) is not a part of community in the true meaning -- and it doesn't mean "anons are evil" for sure, -- but mainly for technical reasons, that is, IP addresses belong to a machine, not an individual. Once I got a message when I was editing as an anon user on a wiki where I was inactive, and this apparently had been designated to another editor. For avoiding misunderstanding, I propose to speedy those talks after the message would be read for sure or a certain length of time would pass. And I add "anon's user page", though it is possible to create such a page technically, sould be deleted for the same reason. If an anon would like to have his or her own user page, this editor could have it as an registered user, I think, so this deletion is not unfair to treat those people. It is a strange idea, but I have seen some anon editors tried to create such pages on other project... --Aphaia 00:50, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * I have several thoughts on this subject.
 * Assuming there is no User page, we should be careful about deleting Talk pages. It's my understanding that they help sysops track repeated abuse. Perhaps we should consider deleting them after 6 months, with a warning 2 months before proposed deletion that the page will be deleted after such-and-such a date? This would give users, especially from fixed-IP networks, a chance to either save anything from them or get registered before the deadline.
 * If there is a User page, might this not reflect a user's wish to remain anonymous? This would be unreasonably rude to other users if they are using a floating-IP network, but if they have fixed-IP, perhaps it isn't. I've seen arguments that a registered user is more anonymous than an IP, since one can track down an IP address, but the counter-argument is the need for a registered user to provide an email address.
 * If we decide to delete IP-based User pages, we should again provide decent notice, like 2 months.
 * &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 04:27, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Your ideas are decent, but proposed terms seem to me a bit long. 6 months waiting is not useful avoiding confusion. Almost half edits submitted to this project are made by anons, and sometimes anons communicate each other, it is fine, but if it is a sort of squattering, dynamic allocated IP in particular it might be rude as you said.
 * I agree anyone can stay anonymous, if they want. We shouldn't force them to register, and I didn't mean it.
 * The difference of fix and dynamic, I think it is not a great difference. Again I say, IP is assigned to a machine, not a person. It is not same that a person connects to the net always from one address, and that this address serves only him. So smaller though, there is still a prausibility of confusing.
 * German Wikipedia allows sysops to delete anon's talk speedily, and if I recall correctly, there is no dispute around this rule. Perhaps our case is a bit different from them, reflecting the differences of two projects, but I guess things go in a similar way rather than quite differently.
 * One factor we should consider is how frequent an anon visits the project. My rough observation says one month or two. Or they visit rarely - once a half year - or never (assumingly registered but no evident).
 * So my idea is that: we delete them after 1 months from its creation, with a warning at least 2 weeks before deletion. After 4 weeks pass, we can consider them speedy.  For user page, I think a warning or invitation for register should come first, but feel one month is enough wait for him to register. --Aphaia 15:55, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Pages with only link(s)
From WQ:VFDA

I propose to create a new speedy criteria - "an article which only contains either links including interlang links." It is less useful than encyclopedic articles (which can be transwikied to Wikipedia sometimes!) This criteria will help us to avoid link spamming. Any opinion? --Aphaia 14:53, 27 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I support this. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 15:02, 27 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm reluctant to add too many specific entries to WQ:SD. Can we just interpret "no meaningful content" to include "no quotes whatsoever"? Our interpretation must necessarily be different from Wikipedia's. It seems common expectation that a WP article has some basic value if it talks about the title subject, even if it seems poorly thought-out, which is why WP favors improvement of such an article over speedy deletion. But WQ gains no real value from anything that doesn't include at least one quote, although a basic intro (like a WP encyclo stub) is enough to encourage WP-like expansion, so it reasonably gets nominated for VFD in order to call attention to it. But slapping nothing but links seems to me to be of so little value that it might constitute "no meaningful content". Otherwise, is this not just another form of useless but recoverable stub, which should be VFD'd? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 12:12, 2 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I would like to note my deletion of Freydis under the "no meaningful content" interpreted thusly. I would welcome feedback in case anyone thinks I have acted outside policy. Thanks ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 05:39, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Another proposed speedy criteria
"Talk pages with nothing except flames and banter" -- see for example Talk:Avril Lavigne. Occasionally I have even deleted such pages, but now I've looked and I acted outside policy. These pages are actively detrimental, since they encourage users to engage in the flame war. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 04:38, 2 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I couldn't find anything obvious in our policy after a quick search that discusses the elimination of flames and banter, but I'm certain that we've had a least an unwritten policy (based on WP guidelines) that Talk pages are for discussion about the article content, not its subject. I'd like a little time to uncover exact WP and WQ policies and figure out the precedents. Meanwhile, we have been deleting such inappropriate banter on occasion since Kalki's solo time, so we're not breaking precedents by doing so. We're still using unwritten traditions coming from a tiny-staff situation that predates the relative "explosion" of sysops back in April 2005, so we may have a little time to sort this out officially before adding yet another SD criterion. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 12:20, 2 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Slight correction to my above statement: I did notice that WQ:NOT includes "[Not] a discussion forum", which I interpret to mean "not for discussing anything but the article content, and that only on Talk pages". (It could perhaps use some clarification.) That doesn't make clear how we handle inappropriate discussions, but it does provide an implicit policy for not allowing them. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 12:27, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Very short pages criterion
Case #4 in the current WQ:SD article says the following:
 * Very short pages with little or no definition or context (e.g., "He is a funny man that has created Factory and the Hacienda. And, by the way, his wife is great.").

This is a direct copy from Wikipedia, and isn't very Wikiquote-centric. A Wikiquote equivalent might be something more like this:
 * Very short pages with no quote content, and little possibility of becoming a robust article in the near future. This includes articles with nothing but links and articles about unpublished or unreleased media that have yet to provide sourceable quotes. This does not include article stubs with single quotes, which should be reviewed by VFD.

This may address some recurring problems we've had with long-term and possibly permanent stubs, including the one mentioned above in Pages with only link(s). I would differentiate this from case #1, "no meaningful content/patent nonsense", because unlike garbage and nonsense, these articles appear to be attempts to provide content, just not very appropriate content. Opinions? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 13:00, 13 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, I've been deleting those: Herman Hupfeld Early Doors Christopher Caudwell (politician) Mark David Chapman Surej Anwar The Austere Academy and other similar cases have all been a victim of my Speedy-Delete button. If anyone thinks I've done something wrong (even non admins -- while the original text is not viewable, the deletion comment almost always contains the original text), I would welcome feedback. I guess that means that I agree, but it might also mean that I'm a rogue admin :) ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 07:53, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Defamatory & personal contact cases
I've just speedy-deleted two VfD candidates because the content was obviously about non-notable people and contained clearly defamatory and privacy-invading statements. We do not currently have a policy on such material, but I was concerned about potential legal implications of material that could be expected to become quickly searchable given Wikiquote's high Google profile.

Wikipedia has two specific cases which I think are worth considering adding to our own (despite my usual reluctance to add SD cases): disparaging content ("insult pages") and attempts to correspond with individuals. Both of these are a form of vanity page, but have special circumstances that recommend immediate deletion. Insult pages directed at non-notables can cause legal problems on defamatory and privacy counts, and, in my opinion, are much clearer than the legal issues surrounding copyvios that we still invoke VfDs for. Pages that are obvious attempts to contact non-notables may also violate privacy issues when archived in a global search engine like Google, and are obviously not quote content.

I concede that I may be too worried about such issues. I'd like to know what the community thinks about these cases. Thank you. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:25, 24 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I must admit I had an itch to SD them, but I was stopped by not having a policy, so I whole-heartedly support an addition of policy which would allow deletion. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 02:57, 25 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I initially responded at the village pump, but will restate here: I agree with the idea that pages obviously created as just a place to post invectives against acquaintances should be speedily deleted. I don't perceive that there can be any valid reasons to keep them. ~ Kalki 04:37, 25 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Wholeheartedly support; I would like to add an speedy-request instruction, "if you find so-and-so recommneded, you are strongly recommended to blank it and then put tag to attract sysop attention.
 * For preventing sysop abuse, a sort of report would be recommended to invite another sysop to review the emergent deletion supposedly. --Aphaia 12:21, 25 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I'd considered blanking the pages, but I generally don't like to do this during a VfD, since the problem material isn't visible. But I realize that my distaste is probably illogical, since (A) it's still reviewable for anyone who takes the trouble to check the history, and (B) speedy-deleting the articles as an alternative makes the material only reviewable by sysops. (This might be what's been giving me this feeling of overreaction; I'm thinking now my dislike of page-blanking is too strong.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 17:58, 25 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Aphaia, could you explain what you think is useful for a "report" to help prevent abuse? Would a mandatory notification on WQ:AN be appropriate, or do you have something else in mind? I definitely would like to have something in place to encourage a prompt review by other sysop(s). ~ Jeff Q (talk) 17:58, 25 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Perhaps we can have a Speedy deleted for review page, where admins could add pages which they deleted, but would like review? An alternative (that I hear some support on wp) is that even a sysop is not allowed to SD a page one-sidedly: anyone can tag a page for speedy, and a sysop can delete any tagged page that he has not tagged himself. For any but the most urgent cases, I believe this would make a good policy. Any thoughts? ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 18:04, 25 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I thought a page either WQ:VFD or WQ:AN. But perhaps it was illogical to limit the case; all speedy deletion could be reviewed, though currently we rely on other sysops totally and seldom try to review their actions. At least that is my case.
 * Perhaps it is the time for us to have a set of rules about deletion/undeletion/review system, not only deletion. Currently I have no steady idea where will be the best place we deal with controversial deletions and their review.
 * Though only sysops can review the deleted materials, it is nice for all of the community can easily notice the series of action in question. Perhaps WQ:AN is not an exclusive page, WQ:AN is enough to this purpose, or a report on VFD can be archived after getting a review(s) by other sysop(s). --Aphaia 20:03, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Instruction decreepting
Current list is as follows:


 * 1) No meaningful content or history (eg "sdhgdf"). See patent nonsense.
 * 2) Test pages (eg "Can I really create a page here?").
 * 3) Pure vandalism (see dealing with vandalism).
 * 4) Very short pages with little or no definition or context (e.g., "He is a funny man that has created Factory and the Hacienda. And, by the way, his wife is great.").
 * 5) Reposted content that was deleted according to Wikiquote deletion policy. This does not apply to undeleted content that was undeleted according to undeletion policy.
 * 6) Pages created and edited solely by a banned user, after they were banned unless the user has been unbanned. See bans and blocks. This is slightly controversial!
 * 7) Redirects with no history which have been created by moving user pages out of the article space. (Sometimes new Wikipedians accidentally create user pages in the main article space. Move them into the user space using the "Move this page" tool to preserve their history, and consider waiting a day or two before deleting the resultant redirect.)
 * 8) Articles which have already been moved via the transwiki system.
 * 9) Deleting an image which is an exact copy of something else, redundant, and unused.
 * 10) Users requesting the deletion of their own personal subpages.

I remember there used to be a proposal in Israel that any proposed law that needs a budget should have an appendix saying where the money is supposed to come from. In the same spirit, since we are contemplating adding cases, I would like to remove cases first, to forestall instruction creep. Here is a suggested updated list, containing only the above cases, but not all, and some are merged.


 * 1) Pages which contain neither an introduction to the topic nor any quote. This handles the patent nonsense, vandalism, and the very short pages clause
 * 2) Reposted content that was deleted according to Wikiquote deletion policy. This does not apply to undeleted content that was undeleted according to undeletion policy.
 * 3) Redirects with no history which have been created by moving user pages out of the article space. (Sometimes new Wikipedians accidentally create user pages in the main article space. Move them into the user space using the "Move this page" tool to preserve their history, and consider waiting a day or two before deleting the resultant redirect.)
 * 4) Articles which have already been moved via the transwiki system.
 * 5) Users requesting the deletion of their own personal subpages.

I removed the banned user clause (we don't ban here, we only block -- banning means a person isn't allowed to come back, under any user, and edit. Since I've never seen anyone banned, the usefulness of this clause is doubtful). I also removed the image clause, which is useless ever since we disabled image uploading. I have not added any cases in the above: my aim is to lower the number of cases, so that we have more "virtual instruction room" to add more cases. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 08:04, 17 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I think Moshe's list makes sense as a base from which to add some of the newer proposed cases, rather than just add to the existing list. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:03, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Major revision to WQ:SD
I propose a major revision to Wikiquote:Speedy deletions, to be implemented as soon as practical, in order to help resolve the outstanding issues listed above, to allow all editors to nominate more obvious speedy-deletion candidates, and to reduce the current VfD workload in order to free up time to work on all the other numerous policy issues. The basic approach would be this: These are broad outlines. I plan to spend some time in the next week or so working on Speedy deletions/Draft to flesh this out, but I would really appreciate suggestions and thoughts. (I recommend they be posted here, not on the draft's talk page, because the latter currently has no discussions, and I think it will be better to copy an approved draft into the existing article and post its edit history on this talk page, than to replace the current policy with the draft page, losing all previous edits.) I am going to try to drive this quickly, as we have considerable experience here with policy initiatives that just peter out without such a drive. We really need this update! ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:24, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Start with MosheZadka's reduced case list above.
 * Add appropriate items from w:Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion, including (but not necessarily limited to) attack pages, unremarkable people or groups, and copyright violations.
 * Revise all cases with Wikiquote-specific wording and examples.
 * Tag each case so that it can be linked to by editors citing specific cases (and include information on how to cite, either with instructions or templates).


 * Okay, I've made a huge revision to "The cases" section. It has unfortunately increased the number of actual cases considerably, but they are now broken into specific types of pages (like Wikipedia's list), so it's a little easier to sift through them. I decided to recommend these Wikiquote-tweaked versions of WP cases because the closer we adhere to WP practices, the less controversy we will generate. Furthermore, many of the new WP cases address growing problems at Wikiquote as well, which suffers even more because of the dearth of administrators, who not only must execute SDs, but also must do a lot of support work for the VFDs created for pages that previously haven't been speedy-deletable.


 * I recommend that if anyone wants to discuss a specific case, they should create a new topic for it here. I anticipate that at least a few cases may generate significant discussion, and we don't want to mix up all the different discussions under just this current heading. Thanks in advance for any comments or suggestions. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 07:59, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Talk pages?
The draft currently does not mention talk pages at all. I think we need at least two cases: Also, a minor point but I believe the cases should be numbered so we can talk about G1, A3, R1 etc. as a reason for CSD like in WP. jni 13:10, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) orphaned talk pages (that do not contain significant discussions about deletion/notability/copyright) like Wikipedia rule G8.
 * 2) MosheZadka's "only banter and flames" suggestion. See above on this page.


 * The problem with numbers is that whenever a case is added or deleted, any discussions citing those numbers no longer make sense. I've been citing WQ:SD case numbers for the past year, and this revision will break every one of them. This would happen if we adopted WP's method as well. The only way to minimize the impact is to give each case a short name. This has the additional benefit of not being cryptic, which is important when dealing with newer editors, who are the most frequent contributors to speedy-deletable pages. One of the things I really don't like about Wikipedia is that the wizened policy editors have a tendency to forget the general audience and to write more like programmers than prose authors, despite the fact that policy is supposed to be read and understood by all. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 17:57, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I remembering thinking about how to fit the talk page case in, but I obviously forgot to complete the thought. &#9786; I've just added it to the "general" cases. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 18:04, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Flame and banter talk pages
Jni suggests above that we include MosheZadka's recommendation to delete talk pages that include nothing but flame wars and banter. (MZ's banter example comes from an earlier version of Talk:Avril Lavigne; a full flame war isn't hard to imagine.) Even though this content is undesirable, I'm not sure this is a good case for speedy deletion. Wikipedia's current guidelines on talk page usage suggest that the community there isn't completely behind disallowing general discussion of a subject. ("Wikipedians generally oppose the use of talk pages just for the purpose of partisan talk about the main subject" isn't exactly a forceful statement.) My own WP experience in advising chatters to stay on-topic about the article, not the subject, tends to confirm this mild ambivalence, at least when the chatter isn't significant. I'm also a little uncomfortable with the apparent lack of similar policy at w:Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion, and how open to interpretation "flaming" and "bantering" might be. However, if we can make a concise statement that follows a general WP practice, I'd be likely to support it. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 18:35, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think this should really be covered under speedy deletion. I'm not really sure if pages like that should be deleted at all, or just archived away by an administrator. The line from the Talk pages guideline ("Wikiquotians generally oppose the use of talk pages just for the purpose of partisan talk about the main subject", emphasis mine) seems to leave wiggle room in saying that while talk pages shouldn't be just banter/flames (or "partisan talk"), it doesn't say they can't (i.e., it's a strong suggestion, but not a rule). If banter or a flame war were to become a valid reason for speedy deletion, I'd at least like to see that particular part of the talk page guideline tightened up. &mdash;LrdChaos 20:21, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Housekeeping
I think my tendency toward pedantry must have mede me split WP's "housekeeping" case into needlessly individual cases. I've replaced 2 existing "general" cases with the WP housekeeping case, which is just as appropriate for Wikiquote (and includes 1 specific case I missed). ~ Jeff Q (talk) 18:38, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Speedy renaming of categories
Something seems wrong with the grammar for the first sentence of "Speedy renaming of categories." Right now, it's "Empty categories that have qualify for speedy renaming under the following guidelines:", and I just can't seem to parse that out. Also, assuming that the "empty" qualifier is meant to be there, wouldn't anything for that be first matched by the "empty category" rule? &mdash;LrdChaos 20:21, 31 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I've fixed two problems with this copy of a WP policy. First was a typo; the correct sentence begins "Empty categories that have qualified", which makes sense. Second, I noted that we're talking about old, incorrect category names, and that the pages in the category should be transferred to the new name before deleting. In other words, categories SD'ed under this rule will typically start out non-empty, but be emptied after a category renaming and before the speedy deletion. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 16:14, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Redirects created from page-move vandalism
Should a case be added for redirects created as the result of page-moving vandalism? Under the current guidelines, it seems like such a thing would fall under "Pure vandalism", but with the proposed cases, the two applicable cases would be General:Housekeeping or Redirects:Redirect of implausible typo, it's not clear that either of those actually covers the situation. &mdash;LrdChaos 18:05, 4 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I should think that the "vandalism" aspect of the "nonsense" case under "General" is sufficient. We could probably say something like "vandalism (including redirects from vandalistic page moves)", but I don't see a need to be so specific. I don't want to encourage vandals to come up with ever more clever forms of vandalism that force us into rule creep. To mangle an expression, if it quacks like a vandal, its edits and moves should treated as vandalism. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:13, 4 May 2006 (UTC)


 * That makes sense, once I read "content" as also including the title, which I hadn't originally. Any thoughts about when the new policy might become more than a draft? &mdash;LrdChaos 20:22, 4 May 2006 (UTC)


 * About a month ago, or so I'd hoped. I'd planned to finalize this quickly, but I've been dawdling about proposing a specific timeframe. I think it's time now to announce an imminent switch to the version in the draft in, say, 2 weeks, giving some time for last-minute comments. But I first want to make one more pass over the existing comments, tweak anything that needs it, and then make announcements and direct comments for the change on several commonly watched pages, so that we have a good-faith effort to involve the community. But I usually spend several hours prepping such stuff, and I've only been getting to quick things on the wikis lately. I'll try to tackle this in the next 2 days. If I haven't by then, I couldn't blame you you or someone else for getting impatient with me and forging ahead anyway. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:43, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

"No content" clause
In the VfD discussion for "Kyle XY" (which, eventually, will be archived here), Jeffq mentioned, under the new criteria of this draft, an article with no quotes would be speedy-deleteable. I checked the draft criteria yesterday, and it doesn't seem like the "no content" clause could be used in a case like that, where the article had an introduction, but contained no quotes. However, the phrasing of the clause ("Articles which contain neither an introduction to the topic nor any quote.") appears not to apply when an introduction, but no quotes, are present.

Would it be a good idea to include a "no quotes" section, either as a new criteria or by changing the way the "no content" clause is defined? &mdash;LrdChaos 14:38, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, nobody responded directly to this point, so as I implement the new WQ:SD shortly, I'll leave the existing text in place. I would suggest that, however tempting it may be to axe quoteless articles with an intro, Wikiquote might conceivably be better served if we nominated such an article for deletion and give folks a few days to scare up some quotes. We'll see how it goes in the upcoming trial run of the new SD. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 16:20, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I just wanted to bring this up again; I think that with the new draft in place, a couple of pages have been speedied as "no quotes", and right now there's a page that has an introduction but no quotes (which brought me over here to check the exact wording, and then back to this discussion). I think it's a perfectly reasonable position for us to take that an article has to have at least one quote in order to not be deleted on sight; if the quote is inane, or wrong, or whatever, then the page can be taken to VFD. I think that it's clear that the point of Wikiquotes, and a page with no quotes has no place here. (That said, it's important to make sure that when the page you see has no quotes, it isn't just because someone blanked the quotes.) —LrdChaos (talk) 15:18, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Thoughts on the draft

 * 1) Sounds great to me! Good work Jeff! Essjay Talk • Contact 10:34, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Awesome. Among the new criteria I love to see "Unremarkable subject" specially. (BTW, we need to "copyvio" now?) --Aphaia 10:58, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) * I think we do need copyvio, but that's a big topic to bite off, and I didn't want it to slow down all the other critical SD revision. For now, I'm informally blanking obvious copyvios and including a history link on the article page (and VfD nomination, if there is one) to prevent search-engine caching while making it easy for readers to examine the evidence. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 14:46, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) ** I see. And totally agree with you on that we are better to shift to the newer one, even if it lacks copyvio section. By the way, a derivative thought has come to me since before. Soon we have speedy candidates from the wider areas than before (or now) and a potential danger of controvercies around the validation of such verdicts done by a sysop would increase (it is phenomena that I have seen on many big projects; battlefield of deletionists vs inclusionists). So I presume now the time has come we need a new policy on Undelete pages? --Aphaia 10:58, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) *** Most definitely. Undelete is long overdue. At the moment, the only recourse folks have that I've been suggesting is posting complaints to WQ:AN. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 16:38, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Major deletion revision
I've just posted a summary of imminent bold actions I intend to take, along the lines of the above discussions, at Wikiquote talk:Deletion policy. Briefly, they are:


 * Update Speedy deletions with the text of Speedy deletions/Draft for a 1-month trial period, per Aphaia's suggestion above.


 * Update Votes for deletion to reflect the new archive process and a 7-day "lag time". The lag time will be phased in starting 14 September, per my suggestion.


 * Create a simplified Deletion review page similar to Wikipedia's, grouping by year instead of date.


 * Update Deletion policy to reflect all the changes.

Please review the detailed explanation at WQt:DP and comment there, so these actions (and any tweaks) can be more easily coordinated and implemented. Thank you. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 04:49, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay, folks! We are now operating under a completely revised speedy-deletion policy, verbatim from the current draft version, with the following exceptions:
 * It is tagged as a trial policy, which I've defined as "official during the trial period". (Please examine Trial policy to see if my wording is acceptable.)
 * It omits the proposed "Copyright violation" case, exactly as the draft recommends. Here is the omitted case:
 * It has a reworded note preceding the case descriptions which better fits a live policy.
 * Oh, and I fixed a capitalization typo (Administrators → administrators) in the first paragraph.
 * Oh, and I fixed a capitalization typo (Administrators → administrators) in the first paragraph.

I think that we should probably make further changes to the live policy, not the draft, as this is a trial period. I invite discussion on this. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 18:54, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Major update to deletion policy
I have just done a major update to Deletion policy to accomodate the accumulated changes of the past 17 months. It is still marked as a policy under revision, so I invite everyone to discuss these changes at Wikiquote talk:Deletion policy. Thank you. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 21:46, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Numbering cases
Aphaia has just added a set of numbers to the cases, much like w:Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion uses, and as jni recommended above at Talk pages?. I've argued (also at "Talk pages?"; see that for details) that we should stick with named cases. Let me summarize some pros and cons: There may be more advantages and disadvantages; I ask everyone to think about this a bit. I'm pretty sure that, if we decide we do want numbers, we can add a second label tag to make links like WQ:SD work, on top of the name links. Of course, if we decide the names aren't desirable, we can get rid of those as well. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 09:44, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
 * PRO numbering
 * Shorter! "A3" is definitely easier to write than "Attack page", especially in edit summaries and deletion log comments.
 * Follows WP's general practice, even if not in exact numbering.
 * CON numbering
 * Harder to remember.
 * Harder for non-sysops to understand. (WQ:SD is at least a little self-documenting.)
 * Old discussion links will cease to make sense when cases are renumbered (as has just happened with this update).
 * Our numbers are, and probably always will be, somewhat different from WP, causing confusion.

"No content" vs. "No meaningful content"
It looks like one of the things we lost in going to this new policy is the "no meaningful content" clause, which isn't present here. I know that some people (myself included) have continued to delete some pages with that justification, but it doesn't seem like the policy would support deleting some of these pages, which may have one or more meaningless quotes (but quotes nonetheless) and no introduction. The problem is that the quotes themselves would not be considered patent nonsense; they use actual words, and are sometimes actual sentences, but often have no association with the page title (as an example, I recently deleted a page titled "YTMND"; it's content was: "Do a barrel roll!" -Peppy Hare, "STAR FOX 64", Nintnedo 64, 1997    For some reason, this is a popular fad going on right now on the net. Not sure why the hell it would be, but...yeah.

actually, this is a meme from 4chan :eng101: It's nonsense, certainly, but doesn't meet the definition of patent nonsense.

Looking back at the old policy, there wasn't much in the way of description for what qualified for speedy deletion, but the very name of the case gave it broad application that our current "no content" clause lacks, both in name and in definition. Wikipedia's CSD A1 seems to be the sort of thing that we could use; our current "no content" clause appears to be derived from that (using a fundametally similar example). —LrdChaos (talk) 19:52, 5 October 2006 (UTC)


 * It was derived from WP's A1 case. I shortened the name to make it easier to type, especially as we now have a more detailed explanation of what it covers, which includes several kinds of useless content. This goes back to my reluctance to use the inscrutable "A1"-style designations that also forces us to watch numbering and links as we make changes. But I'm not against restoring the old wording. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 00:02, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * It just seems to me that the current description specifically excludes this sort of situation. The "neither an introduction to the topic nor any quote" part means that you can only delete a page if it lacks an intro and also lacks quotes; "a variety of non-article text" (the phrasing of which could probably be tweaked a bit; what constitutes "article text" when the page contents are quotes?) seems to mean that pages without any quotes can be deleted, which I suppose covers pages with no quotes. What follows that in parens seems to almost contradict this, however, as simply putting quotes to a page implicity represents "attempts to correspond with the person or group named by its title." We might need to deviate more from Wikipedia, in phrasing at least, because of the inherent differences in missions and content; I'll try to work up some suggestions for changes in the next few days. —LrdChaos (talk) 01:20, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Trial period results
Well, it's been slightly more than 1 month since we switched to the new speedy-deletion policies. Since we billed this as a trial period, we should review how things have gone in that time and decide how we want to proceed. I would suggest one of three paths, but I don't claim these are the only ones: Since I've been pushing all of this, I'd like to get everyone else's opinions before commenting further. (Or maybe I'm just chickening out. &#9786;) Comments? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 21:49, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Revert to the old policy. This doesn't preclude making subsequent changes, but they'd go back to individual discussions instead of the coordinated mass-change.
 * 2) Accept the new policy. This also doesn't mean we can't discuss further changes, but they would start from the new situation.
 * 3) Extend the trial period. We may want to take more time to consider the major changes as a group.


 * I think we can accept the new policy, though there are a couple of possible changes in the near future that recently came up (most notably, the "real" limiter for the "unremarkable subject" clause, and maybe making "no content" more clear as to "no meaningful content). —LrdChaos (talk) 02:29, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I've copied two related postings by 121a0012 and Fys from Wikiquote talk: Votes for deletion below. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 18:48, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * We've now had a couple of months' experience with this new policy, and it seems to be doing the job. I suggest it's time to make it permanent.  121a0012 15:45, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Seconded. Seems to have caused no new problems while solving many old ones. Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 17:20, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I haven't followed this policy revision very carefully, but I'd go with accepting the new version. jni 13:36, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Unless we get some reasonable objections, I propose we remove the "draft" status at or after 18:00, 20 November 2006 (UTC) (approximately 1 week from this post). Perhaps this will also encourage us to tackle the subsequent issues, as LrdChaos mentioned. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 17:15, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Per Jeff's suggestion, and hearing no opposition, I have marked the policy as adopted, official, and in force. Essjay ( Talk )  07:03, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Proposed rule for single-quote pages
Add in the "articles" section:


 * 5. Single-quote page. An article containing only a single quotation, the title of which is the same as, or nearly the same as, that quote, may be speedily deleted.  Such article titles are not likely to be typed in the same way more than once, and a search engine can find the quotation no matter which article it is in.  If the quotation is worth preserving (from a notable source, original, and not already present in the Wikiquote collection), it should be copied to an appropriate person or theme page prior to speedy deletion.

Comments? 121a0012 03:09, 18 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Two:
 * I would say "… appropriate person, creative work, or theme page…".
 * We might recommend that if the quote is legit and has at least an attribution, the sysop SD'ing it check to see if it's been copied to such an article before axing it, and/or that whoever does copy it include a credit to the article creator in the edit summary. (That is, if we could somehow say all this without turning it into an essay instead of a simple case description.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 03:13, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Proposed change to "unremarkable subject" case
A few times now (well, at least twice that I can recall), speedy deletion on the grounds of "unremarkable subject" has been proposed for pages that don't meet the criteria for that ("a real person, group of people, band, or club"). In one case, the subject was a fictional character, and in another, an apparently user-created Google video. In the first case, it was pretty clear from the outset that the subject was indeed not notable; the second (which at this time is still an open discussion) appears to be heading the same way.

Considering these cases, and I strongly suspect there will be others, would it worthwhile to eliminate the "real person, group of people, band, or club" criteria for the "unremarkable subject" case and make such a speedy deletion option available to any subject that doesn't claim or seem to have notability? I think it might be a good idea; I can't think of any problems that might arise as a result of such a change. —LrdChaos (talk) 15:02, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I definitely support this change. As far as I can see, notability should be proven for anything that is in wikiquote -- otherwise someone could use this loophole to put up a page for a fictional character that was created out of thin air (and is obviously not notable). ~ UDScott 21:46, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I support this, but with a caveat: we really ought to establish some policy for disagreements that arise. We sysops can make mistakes, and there is no universal, unambiguous standard for notability or non-notability. It's inevitable that we will occasionally overreach. Therefore, we should have a protest mechanism that's a little more organized than posting to the closing/deleting sysop (or another one) or to Administrators' noticeboard. We've been talking about implementing a Deletion review, but haven't done so yet. I've been trying to summon the focus to make a draft of this, but I'm afraid I'm taking much longer than expected to regain my enthusiasm for serious work. Does anyone else want to take a pass at this? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 23:01, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Just for the record, as of May 2007, we have Deletion review, even as draft and no deletion has been reviewed yet. --Aphaia 15:02, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Addition of "no quotes" clause
Something I've mentioned a few times on WQ:VFD and brought up when this was a draft policy is adding a clause for deleting articles with no quotes. The current "no content" clause specifies that pages lacking an intro AND quotes can be speedy deleted, and I think it's very clear that it doesn't permit the speedy deletion of pages with an intro but no quotes. I propose that we either add a "no quotes" clause, or rephrase "no content" to include pages without quotes. I have some proposed wording for a new "no quotes" clause:
 * No quotes. Articles which may contain an introduction, but do not contain any quotes. This does not apply to pages where quotes are present but their accuracy disputed, nor to pages from which quotes have been removed.

I'm sure that could stand a bit of refining before going "live", but I think it works at getting the point across: it's OK to delete a page with no quotes, as long as it's always been a page with no quotes. —LrdChaos (talk) 17:00, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I support this policy change, LrdChaos. I think this would be useful in weeding out some of the useless pages without unneccesarily burdening us with multiple VFDs. ~ UDScott 17:08, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Support. 121a0012 20:23, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm inclined to support this, but only if we come up with a practical system of holding off at least a week on new articles. We're getting more not-unreasonable objections to our habit of deleting (or nominating for deletion) new articles within hours — sometimes minutes — of their creation. We do this for practical reasons (namely, that we find these new articles through mechanisms like "recent changes" that only show the latest stuff, and there are precious few of us working on it), but I'm concerned that we're beginning to risk alienating potentially valuable contributors by our exigency-driven haste.


 * By "practical system", I mean something that allow RC patrollers to tag an article for review in a week or so, but only if we have folks who are going to actually do the reviews. I'm worried that if we make a practice of tagging articles with a "no content" template, we might not get enough people to take the next step and SD or VfD the articles after a short delay. (I'm not encouraged by the results so far of 121a0012's Category:Wikiquote no intro cleanup campaign; I suspect we're adding no-intros almost as fast as we remove them.) Can we do this? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 09:35, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't know that I'd support a week, but I would support some period of waiting and watching (perhaps something like three days). I agree that sometimes we're a bit overzealous in deleting or nominating for deletion when a new page is created, but at the same time, I don't want to foster the idea that it's OK for someone to drop in, create a page with only an intro, and then not bother adding any of the important content, namely quotes. —LrdChaos (talk) 14:52, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I concur with Jeffq and User:LrdChaos. BTW, the no-intro business isn't me -- I think it was started by MosheZadka.  Here's a proposed restatement of the proposal:
 * No quotes. Articles which may contain an introduction, but do not contain any quotes, and are at least three days old. This does not apply to pages where quotes are present but their accuracy disputed, nor to pages from which quotes have been removed.
 * As far as how to handle marking these, I'd suggest something like this: put a template on the talk page of every new article that puts it into a category Category:Pages for review from Month, YYYY. After an article has passed its "probationary period" and proved to be real, remove the tag and/or delete the talk page.  (It would be nice if MediaWiki provided a more direct mechanism to do this automatically, since all it takes is a database query to find out when the article was created.)  121a0012 16:51, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry, 121a0012 — when I said "cleanup campaign", I was talking about your recent suggestion at WQ:VP to work on no-intro, not the original organization, and I appreciate that you called attention to the problem. Anyway, although I'd prefer at least a week, I'd agree that 3 days would at least give new editors some time and reduce the likelihood of targeting active articles vs. "abandoned" ones. I'm not sure I see a point to a category by month if we're only delaying further action by three days or even a week, though. If we don't have sufficient ongoing editor-time to remove articles from an overall Category:Pages for review within a few days (either by SD/VfD tagging or content addition), we shouldn't be doing this delay step. If we do have the editor attention, monthly categories would only generate ultimately leftover maintenance pages. If this system is to work, I'd expect it to have only a modest number of articles at any given time in the category that editors can review (like we do "recent changes" or "new articles") to swiftly tag, de-tag, or (for sysops) speedy-delete. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 02:43, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, I deleted a no-quote article and found A1 says only "Articles which contain neither an introduction to the topic nor any quote." So "no quote but bio only" doesn't met our criteria of speedy deletion! (You may undelete my deletions, of course). I would also support to include this clause to Article part. --Aphaia 02:44, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I would definitely support the addition of this as a case for speedy deletion. A recent example was an article (Formiline) where the only content was an encyclopedic description of aindustrial company in Brazil. While the content was not nonsense and was meaningful, the page still does not belong here since it contained no quotes. These kinds of pages I think should be deleted on sight (which I did - although Aphaia called me on it since 'no quotes' is not yet an acceptable reason for deletion), but I also understand the need for a waiting period before deleting some pages that may or may not become viable pages as people add to them. In this case, I think that was highly unlikely, but I can see it for some people pages in particular. ~ UDScott 15:05, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I would just have liked you to pay attention to this discussion, UDScott, and the article you deleted seems to have no possibility to be expanded in a foreseeable future in my impression. It is okay with me - but I don't want to let this discussion die out.
 * Reviewing the whole discussion, I found there are two versions proposed, say
 * No quotes. Articles which may contain an introduction, but do not contain any quotes. This does not apply to pages where quotes are present but their accuracy disputed, nor to pages from which quotes have been removed.
 * No quotes. Articles which may contain an introduction, but do not contain any quotes, and are at least three days old. This does not apply to pages where quotes are present but their accuracy disputed, nor to pages from which quotes have been removed.
 * So we need to determine which version we are going to apply. I am afraid it becomes a burden for us to keep them at least three days, besides it may mean we need to make a limbo    for those articles (perhaps as a category), keeping them would make the project look crappy. So I rather prefer the version 1.  --Aphaia 15:33, 2 May 2007 (UTC)


 * It sounds like we might be considering a Wikiquote version of w:Template:Prod, Wikipedia's means of tagging articles that aren't obvious SD candidates but are so sub-standard that they can be deleted if there are no objections after a few days. This has the additional benefit of warning the creator of the imminent deletion, especially if we adopt WP's recommendation to notify the article creator on their talk page. I'm not prepared to set up and test a prod system right now, but if someone else wanted to do this, I'd probably support it. If not, I'm still a bit uncomfortable about summary deletions of non-quote articles that have potential, but I might not oppose it if there is a strong consensus to implement the simpler SD case. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 16:03, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd like to see a Prod system here as well - it would be a very effective middle position between speedies and full-out deletion debates. BD2412 T 06:43, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion, JeffQ. WP Prod system looks well-designed and a sensible solution. I'd love to test it. --Aphaia 08:29, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

See Proposed deletion It is now almost a bare copy of Wikipedia version, and need your further cleanup. I listed up relevant pages on my user page (User:Aphaia/Prod). There are a lots of templates etc on our sister project, but I expect we don't need all of them for now, even they are nifty.

We have to determine how many days we allow those prod pages to survive; three days as JeffQ suggested, or the equal length of VfD as Wikipedia does. But it would be better to discuss on Wikiquote talk:Proposed deletion. --Aphaia 10:28, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

New criterion
We should have a criterion for "obvious hoax" that is not quite nonsense.--Poetlister 17:02, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
 * And "quotes" from something before it is released? -- Herby talk thyme 19:08, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, under articles: 5. Unreleased material. This includes films not yet released, and especially pre-release material illicitly available.

Tyrenius 23:48, 8 August 2007 (UTC)