Wikiquote talk:Votes for deletion/Archive/1

Cleanup
Some cleanup here would be very welcome. Some of the articles listed have been here for quite some time and even the ones that did get deleted are still listed here (for a reason that I don't seem to grasp). Any willing and able sysops around? :) TOR 02:15, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * For cleanup, we have to decide how we keep the log: to erase them and only put a link to history, or to create an archive? On my experience, if we have a complicated discussion which will be useful to reflect to our deletion policy later, it would be useful to archive it, but most of routine deletion can be simpled removed. The articles recently kept are worthy to list on the page to avoid listing again. And I propose a new category and/or template like m:Template:Can'tDelete to keep the articles which is impossible for us to delete under current technical restriction. --Aphaia 17:28, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * I've implemented your   and tagged the appropriate articles. &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 05:39, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * I just noticed that Wikipedia also has a   tag that makes it clear that the tagged page will be deleted eventually. (I've also created it here.) With this new tag, I'm not sure why one would need the "can't delete" one, since I would assume that an admin wouldn't know they couldn't delete a page until they tried it, and they wouldn't try it until the decision had been made to delete it. Can you explain this? &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 06:22, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Sorry for late, I missed your question. Well I meant originally "(we) can't delete technically", but this expression has surely ambiguily you pointed out. So I agree to switch "Pending deletion" willingly. --Aphaia 02:22, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Revisiting old VfDs
I was just reviewing the Votes for deletion archive (which, if I'm not mistaken, should be titled "Wikiquote:Votes for deletion archive" to get it out of the article namespace). I have two concerns: Over and above these issues, my question is, do we have any policy for revisiting old VfDs? &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 06:13, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) Tomb Raider is still VfD-tagged, but isn't on the main list. Kalki was reluctant to delete it, as it has possibilities (that haven't been capitalized on yet &mdash; it still has no quotes). I think we should either de-tag it or move it back to the VfD list.
 * 2) Adam Margolin is also still tagged. I would like to move him back to the main list because I am certain he should be deleted. Why? Let me list my objections to the pro-Margolin arguments made:
 * 3) * His Wikipedia article has been tagged for deletion (pending technical problem resolution), so a much larger audience than ours failed to find him notable enough to keep among 500,000+ articles.
 * 4) * As far as notability goes, I have more Google hits than he does. I doubt he's well-known outside of a very small circle, and if that circle is a college, how does that make him notable? Lots of people are very well-known in school &mdash; to their fellow students, while they're there. I could probably create an article on Nickelodeon General Manager Larry Jones based on being his friend in school, but what has made him notable is his work with Nick-at-Nite and TV Land. (It's a shame, too &mdash; he was a hilarious comedian.)
 * 5) * As far as the length of Margolin's article goes, I have more quotes on my User page than this article has. (Personally, I feel that the least of mine is more interesting that the "best" of his.) Lots of inanity doesn't make an article worthwhile.
 * Not sure if there is a procedure here but on Wikipedia inclear decision can be relisted on vfd after a few months with a reference to the previous discussion. I would support deleting both of these -especially the second which I thinkl I may have voted against on Wikipedia as well. Rmhermen 21:58, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * If I recall correctly there have been such a procedure yet ... Relising seems to be a good solution. I prefer voting on them again to digging out old revisions. The former is much clearer.
 * As for unclear voting, on meta folks keep unclear votes on the VfD page and continue to vote. Some candidates are kept during monthes. We need sometime (or now, I'm not sure) to make our deletion policy much clearer. --Aphaia 00:12, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree that we need to clarify our process. The top of the page directs you to Wikipedia:Deletion policy; however the English Wikipedia uses a five day turnaround on deletion votes which is clearly to short for this project. I dislike the completely open-ended alternative as the pages are too likely to have been changed multiple times between votes. I would suggest perhaps a one week time for articles that receive a clear consensus with mutiple votes and the remainder get moved to an "ongoing" or "not yet resolved" section of this page for perhaps a month. After that I would suggest de-listing them and adding the deletion debate to the article talk page. Rmhermen 15:29, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * With respect to archiving, I think we can keep them all for the time being as they are few but I not that it is odd that new vfd listing go on the top of the page but when resolved go to the bottom of the archive page. That may be my fault and probably should be changed. Rmhermen 16:12, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wikiquote-specific deletion process
I was reviewing all the Wikipedia material on the deletion process last night, and it seemed to me to be far more overhead than we need here yet. (I was planning to copy over one or two relevant pages, but the major ones each refer to complex processes and variations that lead to other pages, and so on. I wanted to better understand the existing WP and WQ processes before I tried to adapt the pages.) I think we need to consider a simplified process not too different from what's been done here already, except quicker action on deletes, now that we have more sysops. Might I make the following suggestions? (The suggestions have been transferred to the Wikiquote talk:Deletion policy topics below. Jeff Q 07:33, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)) I suspect that many other side issues may come up as we copy and adapt Wikipedia instructions, but these can be discussed on the appropriate instructions' talk pages. I'd also suggest we take the process adoption slowly, starting with a new Deletion policy, so we all (sysops and users) have a chance to consider each new set of procedures. &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 17:45, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Lag time for deletions
 * Order of VfD and VfD archive
 * When to move to archive
 * Loose or firm deadlines
 * Wikiquote-specific deletion policy pages


 * Hey all you Wikiquotians, I've just created a beta Deletion policy. Please review it at your convenience and let me know what you think. I'll be transferring the above issues over into its Talk page over the next day or so, so they can be discussed separately. &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 05:29, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Transfer of suggestions done. Might I suggest we pick up the deletion policy discussions at Wikiquote talk:Deletion policy? &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 07:33, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Vote closing dates
I've added closing dates to some of the VfDs I initiated, so people have a clear idea of when they can expect a sysop to tally up the votes and take action. (I'm proposing this as a general policy over at Talk:Deletion policy.) I want to see if people think this is a good, bad, or inconsequential idea. &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 09:08, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Proposed change to Votes for deletion and archive
I've been getting a headache trying to consider so many different aspects of what we are trying to do with VfD and its archive, so I created two pages, Proposed Votes for deletion and Proposed Votes for deletion archive. The first shows the current VfD with the following changes: The second, the archive page, has the following changes: I invite everyone to use these proposed pages in the discussions on organizing VfD and the archive, so we have a visual example of some alternatives to the live version (which we obviously can't mess with). I would like comments not only on the technical aspects, but also on the instructions, which I urge people to read as if they didn't already know the procedures and were trying to figure out how to do each of the three steps. (The existing instructions seem to me to assume some experience and knowledge of terminology.) Thanks. &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 11:59, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * It only has a small sample of the candidiates.
 * They're all in chronological order, with the newest at the bottom.
 * There is a bold link at the top to make it easy to add a new entry.
 * The instructions are rewritten for each audience of the three steps of a VfD: (1) creating it, (2) voting on it, and (3) tallying the votes and taking action. The audiences are, respectively: (1) someone bold enough to request a deletion, (2) any Wikiquotian, and (3) sysops. Each group need only read the instructions for what they have to do. (They're very short, of course, with more details found elsewhere.)
 * The header styles are changed to (A) de-emphasize the instructions, while provide a link in the TOC to jump to them, and (B) to allow the "edit new section" function to create a subheading under "The deletion candidates".
 * The pending-deletion problem articles, which one get that way once they've been declared deletable, are moved to the archive. In fact, this quick and dirty proposal doesn't show it, but I'm assuming that all articles, once they've been decided on, will be immediately moved to archive.
 * There are three main sections: (1) Kept articles, (2) Deleted articles, and (3) Articles pending deletion. The section headers use the same higher-level markup (=SECTION=) as the main page, so sysops can cut and past each entry directly from VfD to the archive without changing the headers.
 * Under each section, the articles are sorted alphabetically. (For this test, I didn't care whether they were alphabetical or chronological, but we already had a chrono example [the live archive], so I did this one alpha. Already I see a problem with alpha &mdash; where do you sort punctuation and Chinese characters?)

Yoda & Jar Jar Binks
I have closed the "Yoda & Jar Jar Binks" as inconclusive, because of a spate of problems with the vote:
 * It was converted from a vote on one article to a vote on two articles shortly after creation. Many subsequent voters failed to make clear how they felt about both articles.
 * Several people voted "keep" because they seemed to believe the alternative was to remove the quotes from Wikiquote, apparently not noticing that the original proposal was to merge them into Star Wars.
 * Several people signed their votes with text that did not match their user IDs or IPs, making them illegal.
 * One person failed to sign their vote, making it invalid.
 * Many people edited the whole VfD page and left no (or a confusing) edit summary, making it hard to find their votes in the VfD history.
 * At least one person added a vote in the middle of doing other things, making it hard to find their vote in the history.
 * The vote went on way too long (understandable given the limited sysop resources at the time, and the difficulty in tallying such confusion).
 * The "Yoda" article was merged and redirected in the interim, contrary to policy, although understandable given the seemingly never-ending vote.

As a result, I'd have to say that this is the most inconclusive vote I've ever seen in a Wiki. I plan to archive it shortly and call for a new vote specifically for Jar Jar Binks, with a two-week duration, post notices of the vote in Village pump, Talk:Jar Jar Binks, and Talk:Star Wars to encourage an audience of interested parties. &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 02:23, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree with Jeff Q and support his decision. The vote was a mess and better to restart in more organized forms. --Aphaia 06:31, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree with closing this vote but would like to not that I don't believe that merging Yoda was a violation of policy. Rmhermen 14:49, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

VfD list order vote
There is a vote in progress at WQ talk:Deletion policy#Order of main VfD to determine what order entries should be listed on VfD (newest-last, newest first, or alphabetical). Please add your vote and/or comments there no later than 01:00 23 April 2005 (UTC). Thank you. Jeff Q (talk) 01:15, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Remark to sysops
What is the rationale for the following passage: Candidates on which any other conclusion than deletion was chosen, they remain listed until the original poster has seen the explanation, or in any case after about a month, the page can be delisted from VfD and archived. (Slightly edited for grammar by me, please revert back if I got it wrong.) Does the  "original poster" refer to article's author or to the person who nominated the article for deletion? This seems unnecessary complexity to me, why not simply delist after two weeks and if the decision was not delete, put a link to archived debate and short notice of the result to article's talk page, where all interested parties can see it? jni 14:13, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * I think this may have been added because of a somewhat contradictory pair of statements in the beta Deletion policy, concerning how long articles should remain listed on the main VfD page before they're archived. (See When to move to archive, in the paragraph following Aphaia's second numbered list of steps, for an explanation.) I plan shortly to revise the text you refer to (and the beta policy) to match the results of that discussion. Everyone, please feel free to review it and add your own comments there. &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 06:56, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * I've made revisions to the deletion policy, based on policy discussions, that supercede this text, so I also updated the introductory text on VfD. &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 01:51, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Restored unfinished VfDs for images
While restructuring the VfD archive, I realized I'd erroneously archived two VfDs for some images (5 images total) whose votes had never been completed. I don't recall why I made this foolish error. I've restored them with the pages' full titles, including links, to make it easier to review them. I apologize to the Wikiquote community for my mistake. &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 06:39, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your working! As for your errors, don't mind, you've restored them, and it makes no serious effects, I assume. Ah but your confession remind me my recent errors; I deleted an article (at least one, or two) whose votes had not been completed. I have no idea why I made it. I apologize to the Wikiquoet community for my mistake... --Aphaia 08:22, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Adding new deletion requests
Aphaia has implemented a new "Submit a new request" link on the VfD page, and moved the category and interwiki links out of the way to allow the new entries to be safely added at the bottom of the page. However, this requires three other changes that we haven't made yet. First, we must stop adding requests at the top. We've been doing this regularly for the past few months, but it will quickly make a shambles of any order in VfD if some people use the new link to add entries at the bottom, and others add entries at the top. Second, the current newest-first order must be reversed. I'll go ahead and do that right now. Third, we should add the relevant instructions on using this new link to the introductory text, which is beginning to get long. I am going to change the intro paragraph to use the TOC structure from Proposed Votes for deletion, so it'll be easy to jump to the candidates list, while providing room for detailed instructions on each of the three stages of a VfD. This is perhaps a good time to consider what else from that page, if anything, we want to bring over. &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 02:00, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * While I was adding the instructions that go with the new link (which replace the old "Boilerplate" section, it seemed to me to be a good time to add the instructions for each of the four steps of a VfD (including reviewing old discussions). I think that actually implements everything else from the proposed version. Please look this change over and let me know if I've been too bold. Thank you. &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 02:41, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Explicit vs. implicit votes
People have probably noticed that I'm kind of a stickler for following procedures when possible. I do this because it's very easy in a community of very different minds for people to get upset about irregularly-practiced rules. One thing I've been doing is distinguishing between explicit and implicit votes for deletion. I've recommended that people write in bold, one-word actions to make their votes clear, althought that's not always possible. But there are many kinds of implicit votes that perhaps other sysops (with more experience than I) would count, but I'm not too sure about. Examples: How do other, more experienced wikians handle these situations? &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 02:06, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * For the Mnemonics vote, I only counted the two explict votes, although I gave some informal credit to the user who posted an administrative message in the article (rather than on the Talk page, or nominate the article for VfD), and to Eustace Tilley, who tagged it for speedy deletion but never voted on VfD, because their intent was clear. But when I did this, I thought about the Reirom user whose vote I didn't count because they failed to sign it, against policy. (I had no qualms about ignoring the forged Reirom votes.) For that reason, I don't feel comfortable counting implied votes not posted by the user on VfD, because someone could reasonably argue that we should go hunting for these implied votes. I think we should insist that people (A) vote on VfD, and (B) sign their votes &mdash; end of story.
 * In many VfD entries, the original nominator is not obviously saying "delete". In fact, they often seem to be asking what should be done. Rmhermen often says we may not need or probably don't want, or asks if something should be deleted. I myself often do the same thing. When I do it, I believe I am not voting, but asking about a deletion, and unless my intent is quite obvious from my nomination, I will post an explicit vote under the nomination, often long after I create the entry. I hope people don't see this as an attempt to vote twice; it's just that many VfD nominations are used as a way to come up with an alternative to deletion, so we cannot assume that the nominator is voting "delete". Since I rarely see someone else both nominate and vote, I get the feeling that I may be alone in this practice.
 * Generally agreed with Jeff, specially the necessity to keep the rule as strict as possible for everyone (I don't intent to request other editors anything, but in general principal). As for counting votes, I think the basic and robust way is to count only explicit vote, and if circumstance is allowed according to the common sense, the nominator can be counted as voters, but statement on talk or other place is better not to count here on VfD. So shortly, "Hear, hear!" ;-) To keep the rule and its application as simple as possible, that is a good way to keep the community whose member have different thoughts and cultural background, I think. --Aphaia 02:49, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * That sounds fine. I do hope that as the project progresses we will have less of the imprecise nominations as we understand what we want here and have clearer rules. Most cases usually end up with a clear consensus. In close cases I would suggest erring on the side of saving rather the worrying about whether the nominator wanted to register an implicit delete vote. Rmhermen 03:05, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Cleenup"
On WQ:VFD a vote "cleanup" was voted. I think "cleanup" as a variant of "keep" but at least now it is not a type of votes we think proper votes. On the other hand, it is very frequently used on English Wikipedia so perhaps many editors will use it, if they prefer it.

Is it better for us to accept it as one of our legitimate vote (besides keep) or see it just as a variant of keep? Any opinion will be welcome. --Aphaia 00:09, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Improvement of Votes for deletion
Following the growth of our project, Votes for deletion become more active than before, and new challenges seem to emerge. For example, I introduce here two new topics - relevant discussions are found also on WQ:AN or whatever I forgot ;p. Aph.
 * Way to archive: already discussed on VP, see Wikiquote talk:Votes for deletion archive.
 * Term of votes: curently we vote for two weeks. In many cases it is okay. For some cases it seems too long, for some cases a bit short. Some improvements will be fine.
 * Revision of speedy deletion policy. Current policy is a dead-copy of former WP policy, if I recall correctly. Recently we speedy deleted some disruptive images (or images uploaded for vandalism), but it isn't included to the policy itself. Or edit by impostor (I deleted it by request, because I thought it as obvious "vandalism" - a part of speedy deletion candidates ). Reflection of our custom to the written policy will be helpful.
 * Definition of "rough consensus"; how much ratio of votes are preferable, that is a question.

Term of votes
Curerntly we vote for two weeks exactly. If someone votes after the closure, this wouldn't be counted. This procedure is clear, and I like it.

Two weeks vote has its merits. However it has also demerits.
 * The candidate article would be improved or informed its notability and survive (like Veronica Mars).
 * Time brings consideration. A good but busy Wikiquoter has a larger chance to review VfD and vote than in a shorter term of vote. Research on topics is easier.
 * Anyway our VfD is not so expanded - for now.
 * If all voters support for delete in the first day of its vote, in other words, it is very obvious a policy violation, this article will be kept at least two weeks.
 * VfD is expanding, and difficult to review - one year ago we can keep discussion for months. Now we have almost as same number of candidates as we had in several months. Someday the current VFD system will need to modify.

There are some ideas to improve (not meaning all of them should be applied at once).


 * If an logged on user proposes to extend, and another editor agrees to that, the vote could be extended up to one more week.
 * Each votes continues at least ten days (not two weeks as currently)
 * Each votes continues at least one week (seven days), if different opinions arise however (like "keep" vs "delete") or extention is requested, it could be extended at most more two weeks.

Any other modificaion will be possible. Those changes would be helpful, or not. I love to see your proposals and comments. Aph.


 * Some quick observations for community consideration: Current policy mandates at least two weeks, but in practice, most votes are closed after almost exactly two weeks. This is because many nominations include a 2-week deadline, and the rest are retrofitted with deadlines by a sysop. This is merely practice, not policy. We also have no policy on who can extend (or contract) a deadline, why they might do it, or how for long it might be extended (or contracted). &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 01:11, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I, too, feel that two-weeks-at-least is too long. The problem with the two-weeks deadline is that *every* (if you pardon my French) sniveling teenager's vanity page spends at least two weeks in our archives. Perhaps there can be different times for different VfD reasons? VfD because "article has no quotes" (but is on a notable issue, such as Veronica Mars) could be longer (since improvement is easy and obvious), whereas "obvious unnotability" could merit a one-week. Again, being able to request extensions could solve the obvious problems with votes being decided too quickly, perhaps modified by "a vote which hasn't gotten at least 4 votes is automatically at least two weeks. As one of the retrofitters with vote-closing-dates, I must say I wasn't even aware of the at-least vs. exactly distinction to my shame. These are my jumbled thoughts for now...does anyone plan on writing up a deletion policy draft of our own that we can edit to consensus? MosheZadka 05:21, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * We have a beta deletion policy at Deletion policy which we've been following more-or-less for several weeks. We can (and should) propose changes on its talk page and vote there as well. &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 10:01, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * We've had some recent "keeps" that shorter periods might have made "deletes":
 * Veronica Mars could have gone down in 7 days not because of unnotabiity, but because its new-user supporters took a few days to learn how to vote properly. (Some never did complete a proper vote.) This could have easily happened to any article.
 * To Kit looked like a vanity page until just short of 7 full days, when an anon gave us the info we needed to confirm notability.
 * Anything Goes looked like a vanity/non-notable page to its 2 voters during its first 11 days until I described it and updated the article.
 * If we go to a shorter minimum period, it increases the obligation of the community to monitor VfDs, and of the sysops to monitor and act on them swiftly. That said, I would like to see a shorter period myself. &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 10:01, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Thank you for examples Jeff Q. They suggested 14 days votes match our current community. I withdraw my proposal to shorten it. Then how do you think of extention? Or it is just okay "if you find a new reason to delete a once kept page, you may list it on the VfD"? Or is it better for us to have a set of rules on extention, like "tie-break" rule? --Aphaia 10:29, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm trying to figure out how to balance the rigidity of rules vs. the potential chaos of none or of informal practices. Here are some nearly random thoughts. We currently have no requirement for a closing date or extending an existing one, other than the 14-day minimum. I already occasionally extend some votes (by no more than a day) to synchronize them to make it easier to close in a group, and I've established a longer vote period for one or two votes (1 month for one, as I recall), so I feel comfortable establishing longer periods. I think extension should be restricted to syops; otherwise, all someone would have to do to single-handedly prevent a deletion would be to keep extending the close date. Anyone can establish a closing date, though, as long as it's at least the minimum. And anyone should be able to make an argument for extension. How about this: any sysop can extend a close date by a reasonable amount with a reasonable argument, made either by themselves or any Wikiquotian. Also, adding a few hours or so to group closures in a 24-hour period can be done without discussion. Nothing concrete; just some guidance that will stand unless and until problems arise. And as far as reopening a closed "keep" vote, maybe three months as a minimum wait? Thoughts, anyone? &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 10:23, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Consensus on votes
Though it wouldn't be nice to write clearly a number of criteria, and to rely on common sense, in my opinion it would be nice each member of community share opinions on decision making. If sysops close votes without clear community consensus, or precisely when they close votes, there is no clear match of opinion on the consensus making, it will be problematic somedays. There is almost no problem because most of votes are accompanied by unison of "delete" or "keep", but sometimes we face difference of opinions. A certain sysop think about 67% is criteria, another 75% - which is better to have higher or lower (both have merits and demerits). --Aphaia 22:54, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Another quick comment for community consideration: The vast majority of VfDs are decided by sysops and no more than perhaps 2-3 non-sysop users. This tends to make sysops feel that VfDs are primarily a sysop activity, which they aren't supposed to be. (Our responsibility is to judge the vote result and execute the community decision.) But without more community participation, "consensus" is a kind of "executive committee" decision. More community opinions improve the sense of consensus, regardless of the percentages. &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 01:15, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Jeff, I feel you're hardly being fair here with the numbers. Because of WQ's size, a user who cares enough to vote on a few VfDs, assuming he does other things here too, can be easily promoted to a sysop thus keeping the numbers of voting non-sysops small artificially. You can't say on one hand "WQ needs more sysops" and on the other hand "why do we not have more non-sysops voting" :) MosheZadka 05:25, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Actually, MosheZadka, people don't get "promoted" to sysop just because they do maintenance work; otherwise, I would have already nominated you for sysophood based on your substantial contributions. (I'm still hoping to do so after you establish some more history on Wikiquote. &#9786;) If we had 20+ more people (less than 1% of the registered users) participating in votes, I doubt we'd get even half that many on board as sysops. (Some folks who have done a lot of maintenance work have, in fact, turned down offers for nomination.) My point was to add to Aphaia's earnest solicitation of opinions from the entire community by reminding folks that a democracy without participation is basically handing over decisions to an executive committee, which the MediaWiki world tries to discourage. I look hopefully toward a time when the Wikiquote community gains the problem of how to choose the next set of sysops from a large number of candidates. &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 09:21, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * One thing I like on English Wikiquote is (currently) all of sysops are caring for VfD fairly and some other editors participant sometimes. On other projects things don't go along in a same way - for example, on meta, only few of around 50 sysps are involving into the similar votes, with some non-sysop editors and we tend to delete "because there is no dissent during 15 days". It is somehow effective, and legitimate (no one opposed actually) but strongly doubtful if it is "democratic". I don't accuse my meta colleges, but only would like to point out there is a danger of a POVizing result. For thoughtful judgement, the more, the better. Please remind yourself on the recent vote for Anything Goes. The more eyes on VfD help to save those articles and assure to delete policyvio stuffs (for example, thanks to our Polish collegue TOR). I don't say every editor should take part in VFD, but I would be happy many editors express their opinion, specially if dispute on votes are somehow complicated. It helps us to establish consensus not only particular vote but also deletion policy to an extent. Same things would be applied to other decisions.
 * Once from my friend I heard the early days of Anthere on French Wikipedia, she is one of best admins on Wikimedia project in my opinion. She made some proposals on policies on French Wikipedia but the community gave her no response - neither objection nor dissent. She felt - I heard so from my friend - anxiety if her proposals were so petty and just ignored or people were so content that they felt no neccesity to give her further comment. Finally she convinced she was just trusted (and in my observation it is almost true - if sysops do their work properly, the community gives them little comment; in other cases they will be complained). But it is obviously clearer and more constructive if sysops or policies are accepted explicitly by the community. Shortly it is constructive to the whole project to have a tight communication on any policies. It helps also to clarify details and makes our project and its governance less cabalish and more transparent. (For that point, we are a bit weak - we need better designed instruction pages, guidance, or portal pages and so on in my opinion). And importance of participation is actually primary - it would be useless to discuss how much ratio is appropriate, if only three or four regulars take part in discussions always. --Aphaia 10:20, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I want to move this thread, wholly, into Wikiquote talk:Votes for deletion. Anyone else for or against? ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 4 July 2005 18:09 (UTC)
 * Seconded. --Aphaia 5 July 2005 04:20 (UTC)

Interlim
After discussion we have reached the following:
 * Two weeks vote is adequate at least under the current circumstance. Necessarity of extention is another issue and it needs some clarification (like "only sysop can decide if a vote would be extended").
 * The criteria about consensus is still uncertain. All participants however seem to agree we need or are better to share it. And we need much wider voice. --Aphaia 5 July 2005 23:39 (UTC)

Excessive blank lines in VfD
In case anyone was wondering why VfD was acquiring massive amounts of wasted vertical whitespace, it's because, when you do a section edit to delete a section (e.g., to archive a VfD entry), it leaves behind at least one extra blank line. Just FYI. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 06:51, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Notability
MosheZadka seems to be nominating a lot of people based on notability. What does that even matter? The w:Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Precedents for notability don't address individuals. The FAQ says:

Q: Is it acceptable to add quotes which you had come across on the internet and are relatively unattributed? A: Yes, those should be added under Anonymous, but it is suggested that you do a search of that quote to see if you can find who said it.

If these quotes were added to the Anonymous page it would be OK? 66.109.99.18 20:36, 19 October 2005 (UTC)


 * No, if it's a personal quote, it's a personal quote. The FAQ question regards those quotations many people throw about but have no definitive source, but which aren't exactly "proverbs". The FAQ addresses the case where the quotation itself is notable, in spite of the individual not being notable. Also note that wikipedia precedents are not strictly followed here: this is a seperate community, with its own rules. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 23:34, 19 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Actually, w:Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Precedents does address individuals, just not in an explicit section. Specifically, it mentions that students, teachers, professors contributing only papers (not books), show contestants, celebrities' relatives, vanity-press authors, book characters with little information, and band members outside of bands are not generally notable. Nor should one consider this a complete list. For instance, blogs are not considered notable, so one should expect that the bloggers themselves would not be as well. It should also go without saying (but I'll say it explicitly) that anyone less notable than these groups of people is also insufficiently notable. In short, Wikipedia considers articles on many types of individuals inappropriate for inclusion. Wikiquote follows most if not all of these guidelines.


 * More troubling is the idea about populating Anonymous with quotes found on the Internet. FAQ is meant, as are most FAQs, as a quick response to frequent questions, so one cannot get all the subtleties of general Wikiquote policy from this incredibly brief page. But that statement does seem to imply that anything on the Internet is postable to Anonymous, which isn't the intent. It directly contradicts Wikiquote's goal of accurate, verifiable quotes. We should probably make the inclusion guidelines for Anonymous a bit clearer. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:49, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Imminent move of VFDA entries to subpages
I am proposing an imminent, significant change in the deletion close process — changing all the entries in the current Votes for deletion archive into transclusion links — so please review the discussion at Wikiquote talk:Votes for deletion archive and comment as soon as possible. Thank you. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 08:58, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Format change to aid new VFDA structure
One major problem that has prevented some needed reorganization of Votes for deletion archive has been that the current VFD system creates H2 headings for each entry. (This comes from the use of the "&action=edit&section=new" arguments to the "Submit a new request" link, which follows standard MediaWiki talk-page topic creation of H2 headings.) Although this provides a nice horizontal line under the heading to aid reading, it has the unfortunate consequence of complicating display on the archive page. Current organization and proposed future organizations of VFDA all require at least two levels of headings above the individual entries, which means the entries themselves must have H3 headings.

There are several ways to deal with this:
 * 1) Live with the current organization.
 * 2) * PRO:
 * 3) ** Nothing to change.
 * 4) * CON:
 * 5) ** VFDA has a monstrous and nearly useless TOC already. This will only get much worse.
 * 6) Use ordinary links instead of transclusions for listing of entries on VFDA.
 * 7) * PRO:
 * 8) ** Entries can be listed at whatever level is convenient.
 * 9) ** The VFDA page becomes a quick-loading simple list.
 * 10) * CON:
 * 11) ** It requires readers to click on each link to examine the entry. This is no problem if one knows the article title, but prevents someone from searching the entire VFDA page for text they recall being part of the VfD discussion.
 * 12) ** It requires an additional step for an already complex VfD closing process, which only 3 people have ever performed as it is, and only 1 (myself) regularly. (And I've had to correct several of the other closings, as well as a few of my own.)
 * 13) ** Transclusions are already implemented and provide some simplification to the archive process. Also, they don't seem to be having the horrible performance impact I'd earlier predicted.
 * 14) Change the "Submit" headings to H3.
 * 15) * PRO:
 * 16) ** This will allow implementation of a new, useful TOC for VFDA without changing the VFD close process.
 * 17) ** This matches the current structure of Wikipedia AFD entry subpages, which implemented this change for similar reasons.
 * 18) * CON:
 * 19) ** I don't know how to implement this yet. (But I will figure something out if this is a good idea.)
 * 20) ** The nice horizontal rule under the heading disappears. (On the other hand, the wiki links in every standard VFD entry heading serve a similar purpose, Wikipedia AFD seems to get along fine without the horiz-rule, and we can probably make a style change for just the WQ:VFD page if people really have a problem with this.)

I plan to investigate an automated means to implement H3 headings for the "Submit a new request" topic generation. This is part of my general effort to make VFD nominations, closures, and archiving easier while accomodating the predictable growth of the entries from Wikiquote growth. Any suggestions or ideas on this matter are welcome. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 06:01, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Unnecessary VfDs
I was just closing the Shuvo Bakar VfD when I noticed that we'd already VfD-deleted this several months ago. A previously deleted article is speedy-deletable under the existing Deletion policy. We should start checking any new nominations (or articles we want to nominate) for their presence in WQ:VFDA. Two quick ways to do this: I've just checked all existing VfD nominations (from "Jan Kaim" to "Boyd Rice and Friends") and verified there are no duplicates currently. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:11, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Open WQ:VFDA and do a case-insensitive find on the article name. (We've had cases of articles recreated with similar names or case differences, so this method is more accurate — and faster — than checking the TOC.)
 * 2) Go to the target article and click on "What links here" to see if Votes for deletion archive or Votes for deletion archive/ARTICLE_NAME is listed. (Since I've created subpages from all existing VFDA entries, and I'm currently the only one closing VFDs, for which I always create a subpage, there should always be both.) These links may be from an old VfD, or merely from a reference to the article in another one's VfD entry. If you find them, then you need to go to the page to examine it. (The subpage is vastly quicker and easier to examine, and its content is identical to the main VFDA page's transcluded text.)

New VfdAnons template
I've copied over the "AfdAnons" template from Wikipedia as VfdAnons, since we seem to be having some cases where anonymous users with no edit history are entering votes. &mdash;LrdChaos 17:54, 10 May 2006 (UTC)


 * There is a bit of a problem with this template, in that it assumes Wikiquote is as enlightened as Wikipedia about ballot stuffing. I had a conversation quite a while back (don't recall the location, but I think it was a policy talk page) with a Wikipedian about how VfDs are not supposed to be votes. I naively defended the voting system in an desire to avoid the appearance of arbitrary decisions. I'm afraid that WQ has "grown up" enough now that we suffer from WP-like problems on rare occasions. I see that our policy still currently points to WP to explain "rough consensus", so we're somewhat covered, but I anticipate having to work on Deletion policy and related pages to tighten this up in the near future. Meanwhile, it looks like we finally need this template. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 18:16, 10 May 2006 (UTC)


 * If it's a big enough problem, would it be a good idea to keep the WQ:VFD page as semi-protected? Or would that come across as too hostile towards anons and new users? Personally I don't think the chances of a legitimate user finding this page in their first three days (or however long the semi-protection blocks them) are particularly high, and I doubt the ones that do would be too offended if they have to wait a little while to start voting, since they wouldn't be coming to wikiquote for the purpose of voting. Koweja 20:51, 29 June 2006 (UTC)


 * No less an esteemed Wikian than Angela came down on us when we tried to implement a restriction on anon editing, specifically a block to page creation to reduce the incidents of anon-created vanity pages, pranks, and vandalism. (The participating editors, who unsurprisingly were all actively-editing sysops, were nearly unanimous, with only 1 neutral and no "against", until her statement.) Her argument was that "there are far fewer users here, so restricting who can edit when the project is so small could have a very negative effect on its growth". Although I don't think the proposal was that controversial, it seems to still be so on WP, and I certainly can't disagree with her argument, given my own frequent complaints about our tiny group of frequent editors. In the face of this, I feel uncomfortable implementing a block on anon editing of WQ:VFD unless we see a much greater problem. (I also don't want to encourage editors to register just so they can vote for their vanity pages, which seems to be the most likely outcome of such a move. See alternate approach below.)


 * We have pursued another venue for this — that anons don't get to vote on VfDs (i.e., their votes will be ignored by policy) — but the only place this currently appears, I believe, is in Voting, which is still in draft status (and probably will be for a long time, for much the same reasons for Angela's anon-editing objection).


 * In the absence of clearer policy, various VfD closers (including myself) have been using their judgment to de-value or even dismiss votes registered by editors whose only contributions are one or more of: (A) VfD votes on 1 topic, (B) the article(s) under discussion, (C) their user pages, and (D) vandalism, disruption, or prank-article creation. In other words, we've only counted votes from users, registered or not, who show at least a minimum interest in participating seriously with Wikiquote. That's how we stand for now, I think. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 07:41, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Nominating templates for deletion
Is there a short list of steps for nominating a template for deletion, particularly in how to include a notice in the template? I'd like to nominate intro, and since there isn't a "Templates for deletion" place here (like there is at WP), I'm guessing that the vote would take place here, but I don't think that including vfd in the template is the right way. &mdash;LrdChaos 17:34, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry about failing to notice this question earlier. That is indeed how we've been doing it. I don't this this has been an issue before, as we've only nominated unused templates so far (that I can recall), but perhaps we could add the vfd tag inside the new element so it wouldn't bizarrely appear in any pages that use the template under discussion? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 07:46, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * That's what I ended up doing when I nominated Template:Intro for deletion. That template happened to not be used by any pages, but potentially, if a template used on several pages is eventually nominated for deletion, it would be invisible to anyone who didn't watch WQ:VFD, because most people aren't going to see the vfd tag because they don't access the template directly. Maybe we should have a different vfd tag for templates that is less intrusive (so it can be included directly on the page), like Wikipedia's Template:Tfd. &mdash;LrdChaos 13:10, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Since we've had exactly 5 VfD'd templates in nearly 3 years, including Template:Intro, I don't think we need a new page to watch yet. We probably should add a note to Deletion policy about no-including the tag, though. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 17:42, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that it's not something we direly need, and maybe we'll never really need it. I've gone ahead and added a short bit of text to the Deletion policy page about using for the vfd tag on templates. &mdash;LrdChaos 18:30, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * w:Template:User Child has a nifty deletion notice that appears as fine print inside the template when it's displayed in an article. We might try implementing something like this, so that readers will notice a template deletion nomination. But look quick — it may be deleted soon! ~ Jeff Q (talk) 18:19, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Decrease of voting period
It seems that VFD is getting quite a bit busier these days. We currently have 40 pages with open voting periods, compared to only 12 pages six months ago. Since we also have slightly larger involvement in VFD now (I know of about six routinely active participants, compared to about two from 6 months ago), we can consider shrinking the voting period for VFD nominations.I suggest stepping down to 10 days from the current 14. It should be enough time for anyone to get their voting in, while also working to keep the number of current votes down a bit. It's not a huge problem right now, but Wikiquote is getting larger, a little at a time, and the number of deletion nominations is likely to rise, not decline. &mdash;LrdChaos 02:15, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Agree with LrdChaos. Ten days is a good enough time for the voting period. Most of the voting occurs within the first few days of nomination, so that the shorter time proposed here would not be unreasonable. - InvisibleSun 03:47, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I support an even greater reduction. Though I don't usually get involved with this page much, with the traffic increase that has been occurring I think a minimum consideration period of only 7 days would now be sufficient for clear decisions to be made, and that seems to be a fairly standard timeframe on many of the other Wikimedia wikis. ~ Kalki 05:17, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Completing the long-pending major update to Speedy deletions would significantly reduce the number of active VfD entries. I also worry that good-faith, non-vanity Wikiquote editors aren't as quick to learn and address the problems that often cause nomination, although how much of that is actually abetted by the long review period is anyone's guess. Nevertheless, I support a reduction to 10 or even 7 days. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 07:04, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * By the way, if we do decide to shrink the review period, I would suggest (A) a phase-in period that would allow us to keep adding entries to the bottom, but not get the list out of its chronological closing order; and (B) a bold notice to be added to new VfD entries during the transition that the new review period has been shortened to X days. As long as there's a bold notice, I'm not too worried about surprising VfD'd-article editors, as most nominations are for new articles from new users, who are unlikely even to have read any policy. Example of a phase-in: if we go with a 7-day period, and September 14 were our last 14-day nomination date, all nominations from September 15 through 21 would end on September 28, so that all nominations from September 21 on would be 7 days long. It would mean a very busy September 28, of course, but I believe our VfD closers could plan to handle this with sufficient notice. I'll even commit to doing the whole day myself if necessary. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 07:37, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * My thoughts here as a newbie at WQ and from past experience at WP (a bit less of a newbie) I think that the fourteen day exposure is excessive. The five day voting/commenting window at WP seems adequate. And, if in a user's opinion, a mistake has been made because of that user's vacation/accident/ neglect or whatever, then there is a review mechanism (mostly but not always used by trolls) so that those mistakes can be corrected. There should be of course consideration for scale; I'm comparing WQ's fourteen day total list at about 40 articles to WP's 150 each day articles (with five days of exposure equals 750 articles) being active. The situation there (WP) has become so burdensome that a procedure has been implemented to nominate articles to even be admitted to VFD. Given all of that, the proposal to reduce WQ's VFD window to seven days (instead of fourteen days) seems reasonable. WQ will get bigger and the list will get longer.
 * While I'm at it, another observation (again, from a newbie) is that there seems to be more tolerance at WQ to submit an article to VFD rather than speedy delete. The degree of tolerance is of course in keeping with one's past experience with WQ's culture and my feeling is that a bit less tolerance with trolls/vanity/nonsense articles would be appropriate. The culture/rules shouldn't be changed abruptly but rather influenced towards a stricter position by consensus on those articles that are tagged with speedy and if the community deems otherwise well, they will say so. --hydnjo talk 20:34, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * On Wikiquote, vanity articles aren't in a category which can be speedily deleted. I think it should be remembered that it was not so very long ago that Wikipedia did not have a provision for speedily deleting vanity pages - July last year, having rejected a similar proposal in January 2005 - so Wikiquote is hardly lagging way behind. Votes for Deletion is not so very grossly oversized as to have become unmanageable (it hasn't even gone to transcluded discussions). The problem seems to me to be the fact that obvious problem pages remain for at least a fortnight before they are removed, and long after it has become clear that they have no way of surviving a vote. So I do support a lowering of the time. However, with such a small number of frequent VFD voters, it would be wise to allow some time for checks to be made or for the author of a doubtful page to come back to argue its case. No procedure inevitably gets it right and without a 'Votes for Undeletion', it is appropriate to 'go the extra mile' (George H. W. Bush, December 1990) for doubtful pages. Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 21:42, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * hydnjo and Fys raise an interesting problem, whether they knew it or not — we don't currently have a deletion review system. Deletion policy mentions Votes for undeletion, but it does not yet exist. (In the very rare situations that I've seen someone complain about a closed vote — maybe twice in 18 months — I've recommended that users post a note to Administrators' noticeboard. No one ever did that I recall. Most continued responses seem to be recreating articles under different names or vandalizing VfD participants' pages. But that should change as we grow.) Perhaps as part of this reduction of "lag time", we should finally implement a deletion review. But it's not clear to me how this would be made effective, given that the same folks (both sysops and non-sysops) would probably be involved in the review as the original discussion. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 23:05, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The reason for having a deletion review protocol is to make damn sure that there is a place for a legitimate argument against deletion to be recognized (after the fact). There is nothing magic about the official (five day, seven day or fourteen day) window to vote, it's just the usual. If some new information comes along later well then, just reconsider. If no consensus is achieved to do otherwise then the previous decision stands. --hydnjo talk 01:06, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Interesting discussion. Thank you for all, it is good always to have a close discussion on general policy.

Reviewing the recent votes and discussions, I agree it will make a sense to reduce our current discussion period. Seven days, perhaps, would make a more sense. In my intuition, five days are too short; most of big projects, like French Wikipedia or Japanese one, which have over 250K articles, set one week for their deletion vote. English Wikipedia, I suppose that it will be the first or second most familiar Wikimedia project for most of participants of this discussion, it is too much huge to compare with our project which has less than 10K articles as of yet.

I support also to set up "requests for undeletion" and its basic policy. Requests for undeletion will be not so much used, I expect, however it will be sensitive of us to place "the second court" for deleted items, if we are going to reduce the discussion length.

About speedies ... we have a good reason to change the status of our draft? I think there has been no strong opposition against it. We carefully discussed and examined it for a long time; if it is too bold to think it an official policy for now, how about considering it as "interim policy"? We'll use it as beta version and do a test. After one month or longer test period, or shorter, we will be certain what and how we would like to do more clearly, I expect. --Aphaia 10:07, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Agree with Aphaia, on all three points. 121a0012 02:19, 8 September 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)

Updated "process" section for transition
I have just updated "The process" section of this policy page to reflect several current practices and transitions, including the phased-in switch to a 7-day discussion period, the new Votes for deletion/Log system, and the move away from the implications of pure voting for VfD. Please review the changes and discuss any questions or issues here. Thank you. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 11:27, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

NOTE: Due to a memory fault on my part, I posted the phase-in date period on WQ:VFD as starting on 15 September, not 14 September, and failed to notice this until 121a0012 corrected the resulting bad math by moving the target closure time of all phase-in nominations to 0:00, 29 September 2006 (UTC). Since it's already 14 September, it seems wiser to go with the day-later start. Therefore, I ask all VfD date-stampers to use 0:00, 29 September 2006 (UTC) as the close time of all nominations added between 0:00, 15 Sep and 0:00, 22 Sep. Thank you. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 08:44, 14 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)