User:The Bipolar Anon-IP Gnome/afterrestore


 * The problem in a nutshell ...

A new editor creates a "work in progress" article that gets tagged for WP:Speedy deletion by Some Other Editor as part of their WP:New pages patrol activities ... when the author returns the next day and the article has been deleted, their only clue is the courtesy warning message left by the editor who tagged it, so they become the author's first point of contact to find out WTF happened.

This happens so frequently that I have created a "boilerplate greeting" just to deal with it ... the following essays are a continuation of that effort to educate the nuggets about how things work here regarding the speedy deletion of articles that do not satisfy the WP:Notability guidelines in the opinions of at least two other editors, one of whom belongs to the group known as WP:Administrators.

Sometimes a stub of an article gets deleted Too Quickly, and the author may request that it be restored so that they may be allowed to continue improving it ... the second essay introduces a Protocol to minimize friction from proposed and speedy deletions that attempts to reduce the Serious Bad Karma sometimes caused by simply not knowing how things work here on Wikipedia. &mdash;68.239.79.82 18:43, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

What to do after your speedy delete has been restored
If you do convince the closing admin to restore the deleted article be sure to add a note to that effect on the article's talk page ... seeing an article recreated without any notice that it was restored by and admin looks suspiciously like the author has recreated it in defiance of the CSD, and another user may look at the edit history and assume that the author removed the CSD tag in violation of procedure ... this can result in harsher responses from both editors and admins who were not previously involved.

At worst, an admin who sees multiple  tags for the same article on the author's talk page, just hours or days apart in their time stamps, may even salt the article to prevent recreation after they speedy delete it for the second or third time ... miscommunication, pure and simple.

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by ignorance and/or stupidity."

- Hanlon's razor

I guess this kind of notification is primarily the responsibility of the admin doing the restore, but the author shares responsibility for altering others as to the true nature of the "recreation after deletion" ... another alternative is to use your sandbox to whip it into shape before posting it again, so as to avoid the premature tagging of a "work in progress" that actually has merit for inclusion.

OTOH, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" (John Philpot Curran) ... here's a tale of a WikiTroll who kept creating nonsense articles:


 * created:


 * This is the kind of behavior that editors and admins assume when they see multiple nn-warns for the same article on a user's talk page ... sometimes that indicates that a  was removed, and then another editor tagged it a few hours later, unaware of the previous DB and nn-warn because they didn't check the author's talk page first.


 * In this example, the names were close enough to each other that at first glance it appears to be multiple nn-warns for the same article ... the delete log for the one that was salted shows four incidents between


 * 2007-05-03T18:42:52 (db-groupdb-repost) and
 * 2007-05-04T11:11:21 (CSD G1: Patent Nonsense)


 * That's 18 hours between the second (db-repost) speedy delete, salting the page to prevent its recreation again, and imposing indefinitely block on.

This kind of experience makes some editors and admins quick to respond to multiple warnings about the same subject on a User Talk page ... in this case, I had put a  on an article, and was in the process of adding a   to the author's Talk Page, when I saw some of the previous warnings ... so I went back to add a db-repost, had an edit conflict trying to save it, and finally realized that an administrator had zapped it while I was editing it.

Long story short ... when I came across it again on New pages patrol, I notified an admin, suggested salting it, and moved on ... only later did I discover that the user had been blocked forever by the Powers That Be. Happy Editing! &mdash; 06:14, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

What to do when a speedy delete tag is removed
"O! Creator, grant me the Courage to change the things that I can, the Strength to accept the things that I cannot, and the WikiTools to make the difference."

- Anonymous WikiGnome

The choice of how to tag an article is subjective, which is why any unregistered editor can say, "This looks bogus," but only Administrators can say, "Yes, it's beyond redemption in its current or foreseeable state," or else, "No, let's hang on to it for a while and see if it can be improved."

Changing a  to a   is one way to grant newbies more time with an automatic timeout period (five days), and you don't have to be an admin to do that ... sometimes, an editor decides to go directly to WP:Articles for Deletion in order to get a consensus opinion on the fledgling article as quickly as possible; ironically, this gives the author even more time (up to a week) to find help and make improvements.

OTOH, an overwhelming and nearly unanimous chorus of Delete or Keep/Merge/Redirect opinions can close the debate in less than 48 hours, as was the case with WP:AfD/Rest Among Ruins ... they're not "votes", BTW, because the decision will be based on the quality of opinions expressed, not the quantity, and sometimes one well argued Delete can trump a dozen lame Keep comments by fanboys of the subject ... some editors may advise Salt to prevent an article's recreation by repeating miscreants like User:Nwilson123, who has been indefinitely blocked from editing because of their mischief.

Now, as the author of this protocol, I sincerely try to follow these steps faithfully, but I'm one of Those People who do not "suffer fools gladly" ... still, I've found this to be a Path of Least Resistance if you can just stay on it ...

Protocol to minimize friction from speedy deletions
<!--
 * To avoid duplication, I have copied the protocol to WP:FLAG-PROTOCOL. &mdash;72.75.70.207 08:43, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) If it looks bogus (e.g., it reeks of WP:Vanispamcruftisement), or it fails a quick scan for Attribution (e.g., no references or citations whatsoever), then:
 * 2) Put   on the author's User Talk page Note: This is a generic warning of your intention to tag the article for deletion ... you can always come back later and update/correct the warning if it's the wrong one.
 * 3) Put   on the article's Discussion page (to get the ball rolling) Note: This is also a generic "Article lacks WP:A to satisfy WP:N" boilerplate message, so you should also include any other arguments for deletion, both to begin a discussion and as background for any administrator who investigates the tagged article.
 * 4) Put either   or   on the article's Main page Note: This is a judgment call: either give them a few days to reconsider a "Good Idea, Bad Decision" (or, if it was an incomplete "work in progress", to make a case for it not being deleted), or else "Kill it before it grows!"
 * 5) MOVE ON Note: At this stage, Some Other Editor may change a   to a   (or take it directly to AfD) to allow more time for improvements.
 * 6) If   is removed by the author, then:
 * 7) Put   on the author's User Talk page.
 * 8) Revert (UNDO) the article page (with an appropriate edit comment)
 * 9) Document the incident on the Discussion page (sign your post) Note: At this stage, an article might get deleted Too Quickly, in spite of a , and have to be restored by an admin ... this can sometimes be mistaken for flagrant disregard of warnings on the author's User Talk page Note: The author may just give up at this stage and blank the article, in which case ...
 * 10) Put a message stating "author blanked page (CSD G7)" on both the Discussion and the author's User Talk pages
 * 11) Put  on the article, not
 * 12) MOVE ON.
 * 13) If   is removed by Some Other Editor (even an admin), then:
 * 14) Document the incident under the "lacks WP:A to satisgy WP:N" message on the Discussion page, along with any other arguments for deletion
 * 15) Consider expanding WP:N to a more specific WP:BAND, WP:BIO, WP:CORP, WP:WEB, etc.
 * 16) If WP:BIO or WP:BLP related, then add   with
 * 17) Put   and   tags on the article
 * 18) Put any other appropriate tags and Categories to article, e.g., ,  , and   or
 * 19) If either a ,  ), or   gets summarily removed (i.e., without any comment or improvement), then regardless of who did it:
 * 20) Start leaving messages on the other editors' Talk pages
 * 21) Adding a   is optional, depending on how courteous you feel towards this alleged newbie
 * 22) Put a comment about the incident on the Discussion page, along with any further arguments for deletion
 * 23) There is no 5th step.
 * 24) At this stage, I usually still assume Good Faith, so I do some "Monkish" WikiGnome stuff to the article, like:
 * 25) General spelling/grammar/format cleanups and wikilinks
 * 26) Researching ISBNs and publishers on Amazon.com
 * 27) Adding   and   templates as examples of stylistic representations based on consensus
 * 28) Changing an external link to a   that uses the URL provided by the Some Other Editor
 * 29) If any tags are removed or there is no movement after a few days, e.g., the time during which a   would have expired, then:
 * 30) Put a comment on the Discussion page (this should ping anyone who has the article bookmarked)
 * 31) Put   on the article
 * 32) Put   on the author's User Talk page.
 * 33) If the   is removed by an administrator, then MOVE ON.
 * 34) If the   is removed by the author, then:
 * 35) bring it to the attention of an administrator
 * 36) MOVE ON.
 * 37) If the   is removed by Some Other Editor, then either take it to AfD, or else MOVE ON.

Like I said, I try to follow these steps, but sometimes I just contact an admin for an early intervention before it escalates ... this protocol allows time for improvements, because haste is the Dark Side of the speedy deletion process ... so I encourage all new pages patrol and Counter Vandalism Unit editors to try it for a while, and don't bite the newbies! :-)

"Helpful hint ... Flag the author's Talk page before you tag the Article ... that way, the warning will still be in your edit history even after the article is deleted, when all references to it evaporate from everyone's edit history ... also, the author's Talk page will contain documentation of the incident, so 'pity the fool' who tries again after a speedy deletion."

The point is to be sure and leave a paper trail ... if it ever becomes necessary to voice your opinion in Articles for Deletion discussions, or Three-revert rule arbitrations by the Senior Partners, then you can simply say, "'Please see the Discussion page and the author's Talk page for my prior unsuccessful attempts to resolve this matter.'"

 'Nuff Said! &mdash; 06:05, 9 May 2007 (UTC) -->

It's not YOUR article
Remember ... no electronic document is really "gone forever" ... you just have to convince an admin to restore it ... and as the user who merely tagged it, I have neither the authority nor the data base access rights to restore an article once deleted ... but if a Higher Power decides that it was prematurely judged unworthy, then so long as the author is willing to do the legwork to find and add the WP:Reliable sources (it's their responsibility, after all), I'm usually willing to work on the cosmetic aspects of it, e.g., add  templates to replace simple external links, and find ISBNs for   references so that it looks more encyclopedic.

OTOH, see WP:Ownership of articles ... you have to be civil with other editors who disagree that your article's subject is sufficiently notable to have an article in Wikipedia, and there are procedures to keep the process fair and as open as possible.

Try to remember that the warnings are generated by templates ... this was the response of one editor to a  placed on their User Talk page when I put a   on their "work in in progress" article ... "I don't like your language young man. Please eject yourself from this website. 12:44, 5 May 2007 (UTC)"

And Some Other Editor accused me of violating WP:CIVIL just for not using the template! ... I provided my argument for deletion on the article's Discussion page (echoing the sentiments of another editor), instead of on the User's Talk page ... I restored a  after they deleted it ... later, when the author had added more links, another editor removed the tag ... so I just added some   replacements with ISBNs that I researched, and Moved On.

Be careful of Hot Buttons ... a  and its associated warning stencil will ruffle fewer feathers than a   and its warning ... and never put a   where a   will do just as well ... trust me, I've seen it happen, and it's not a Pretty Sight.

Here's a before and an after of one page that might easily have been tagged with, but I researched  the subject on IMDb so that I could add a  , and broke the single paragraph into three ... that's basically what we WikiGnomes do ... and note that this Wikipedia article has Much More biographical information than the subject's bio on IMDb ... they have a better  listing of his TV appearances, but that's their job, and the reason why we have templates to link to the actors and films in their database (so we don't have to copy them here, or make explicit links to them). Happy Editing! &mdash; 07:14, 9 May 2007 (UTC)