User:The4lines/Presumptive removals

This is an expansion to User:Moneytrees/Money's guide to CCI section on Presumptive removals. All credit goes to Moneytrees for writing this.

Presumptive removals
In some cases, sources used by the CCI subjects are inaccessible, or money would have to be spent to access them. In these cases, it is best to remove the content inserted. Note that this is a last resort option; try and find if you can access the content before doing this. Presumptive removals may also be warranted in cases where the subject copied a specific thing (e.g. plot summaries), figuring out where the subject copied from would be too difficult, or where the CCI could be wrapped up quicker by just removing everything. If the sources are inaccessible and removing everything would be too difficult, tag the article for presumptive deletion, although those are only for worse case scenarios.

Example on how to conduct a Presumptive removal
(This example is from Bill Hathorn's CCI.) CCI encourages presumptively removing content inserted in listed edits if you can't access the sources cited/no source is cited but the content is suspicious. They should be used as a last resort, or if spending time tracking down the source would take too long (like in a CCI where someone copy+pasted a bunch of plot summaries into articles; it's best to remove them all instead of figuring out what came from where). When presumptively removing content, try and remove as little as possible of what other people have written, and try to avoid removing refs and photos; visual editor is easier to use than source editing, although it'll occasionally glitch out when you remove a lot of refs. To tell if the inserted content is still in the article, (since articles are edited and overwritten over time), take the diff link and paste it into the "URL comparison" box and run the comparison on the article, which well then show if it's still there. You don't need to remove anything considered "basic prose", which are simple statements of fact examples can be seen here. Edit's not made by the contributor don't need to be removed, so if the contributor makes an addition to an article they didn't created, you just need to worry about the content they inserted.

Now for a example, I pick Bill Workman. I got the history of the page, click oldest, and then look for the last edit Billy made, this one (you can ignore small edits other users made in between). I take the diff link and compare it to the article in earwig, and it's mostly the same; time to burn it all. I remove everything except the lede and infobox in visual editor, and then save with the edit summary:

You'll probably be using that summary a lot; I've pasted that summary on my CCI sort and CCI guide page for easy access, when pasting remember to remove the "INSERTNAME" tag. Once the content is removed, go to the talk page, click "new section" and then simply write  like I do here,  To mark the listing as done, write something like "P. removed". I include an Hammer (Last Stone First End)/, but your choice with the hammer. Keep in mind, you'll often end up removing a lot of text. On bigger/more important articles, people may notice and question you, sometimes aggressively. Keep calm, and honestly explain why if someone asks.