Template talk:Xfd-privacy

Coding correction
Shouldn't it be ? Currently, on the AFD day page it links to the history of the AFD day page which isn't exactly helpful. It also lacks an HTML comment that says where it came from. Kotepho 08:33, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, done. Stifle (talk) 00:40, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Changed it so that the subst part is includeonly, this should accomplish what we're trying to do. Stifle (talk) 10:26, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Using this template seems to confuse the AFD bot, as it doesn't realise the discussion is closed, and so doesn't remove the day's page from the old discussions - unless you combine the clsoed AFD with Template:at and Template:ab - any way to fix this? Proto ///  type  14:57, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't edit this page properly (?) but we've made a page Courtesy blanking to more fully describe what is going on, and perhaps it should be linked from the template itself? Sdedeo (tips) 20:16, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Default
Shouldn't the default of the discussion result being delete rather than keep? It seems to me that this is the most common result for the discussion that needs to be blanked. Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 11:00, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Formatting
How about changing the formatting of this template so that it matches the standard archive box, minus the discussion: 
 * This is an archive of a closed deletion discussion for the article below. The actual discussion is hidden from view for privacy reasons. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result was Redirect ~ trialsanderrors 10:19, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Henry the Puffy Taco

 * — (View AfD)
 * Deletion discussion removed on request. Please do not restore or otherwise edit this discussion.

? ~ trialsanderrors 11:33, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Useless?
The stated purpose of this template seems to be the "desire that potentially offensive subpages be hidden, so that insulting discussions are not shown on Google." However, Wikipedia's robots.txt file is already set to disallow search engines from indexing any AfD subpages. Thus, this template doesn't seem to actually do anything to achieve its stated goal.

It is, I suppose, possible that there could be some rogue search engine somewhere out there that ignores robots.txt; but if so, there would be nothing preventing it from fetching and indexing old revisions of our pages, since the same robots.txt mechanism is used to declare those out of bounds as well. So even if that were the case, courtesy blanking would still not reduce the visibility of AfD discussions on search engines in any way.

Of course, this template isn't really doing any harm either, and I suppose it may offer some psychological comfort to someone who has previously found their way to an AfD discussion about themselves and comes checking back to see if it's still there. But we shouldn't be fooling ourselves that this template is about visibility in search engines, since it has absolutely no effect on that. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 17:58, 16 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Even if all search engines ignore pages because of robots.txt, there are good reasons to use this template. It's intended to take out of plain view statements that should never have been made in the first place, without actually deleting the important discussion in which those unfortunate statements were made.  --Tony Sidaway 19:11, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Categorization
editprotected

Please recategorize this template from Category:Wikipedia administrative templates to Category:Articles for deletion templates. Thanks. Mike Peel 18:54, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Seems reasonable, so I've made the edit. - auburn pilot   talk  19:18, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions for improvement
I came across this template in this version of a deletion sorting page that transcludes Articles for deletion/Ryan Pierse, which uses it -- or rather, which consists of it.

I don't like it:
 * There's no top-level or other header ("==(=(= =)=)=="), meaning that when transcluded it doesn't show up in any contents list.
 * It says "The actual discussion [...] can still be accessed by following the "history" link at the top of the page" but when the AfD transcluded it's difficult to find it ("the page"), let alone its history.
 * It also says "Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page ...)", but any resurrection of the article's talk page is likely to lead to speedy deletion.

Therefore I suggest that it should be rewritten
 * to include a header, a link to the AfD, etc.
 * to mention the possibility of Deletion Review but avoid any suggestion of writing on the deleted article's discussion page.

What say? -- Hoary (talk) 10:22, 29 October 2008 (UTC)