Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal/13

This is part of Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Proposal.

13 (attack pages)

 * Short articles that serve no purpose but to disparage their subject


 * This proposal reflects actual practice. Such pages are generally deleted with no objects, thus the proposal is to reword policy to match reality.
 * This is to get rid of attack pages. That may sound redundant with deletion criterion G3 (vandalism), but it isn't obvious from either WP:CSD or WP:VAND that creating an attack page is a form of vandalism. That may explain why attack pages tend to end up on VfD.
 * For example, "Susie is a dirt ass trick".
 * If you are unsure about this proposal, consider that there is a proposed test run to try it out for a month.

[ vote] – discuss

Votes
'''This proposal is no longer open for voting. Voting closed on July 19, 2005 15:11 (UTC).'''

Support

 * 1) Pburka 4 July 2005 15:28 (UTC)
 * 2) Mike Rosoft 4 July 2005 15:34 (UTC)
 * 3) This reflects current practice and should be codified. A и D я 01D TALK EMAIL July 4, 2005 15:56 (UTC)
 * 4) Would prefer without the word 'short' - Naturenet | Talk 4 July 2005 16:35 (UTC)
 * 5) What Android said. Hermione1980 4 July 2005 17:08 (UTC)
 * 6) Mr Bound July 4, 2005 18:29 (UTC)
 * 7) as above. DES 4 July 2005 18:35 (UTC)
 * 8) Indeed, sadly abuse is common - this needs codification. Oliver Keenan July 4, 2005 18:55 (UTC)
 * 9) humblefool® 4 July 2005 21:19 (UTC)
 * 10) NatusRoma 4 July 2005 23:59 (UTC)
 * 11) Weak support because we do need something like this. But is it specifically ad hominem attacks?  Strong support if so.  Also, we could probably scratch "short" from that.  If somebody wrote an article like HGH quackery about the bully in their second-period gym class, I should hope we could speedy it.  (On the other hand, HGH quackery is a necessary article, discussing intelligently and in good detail about a scam.) --Idont Havaname 5 July 2005 00:01 (UTC)
 * 12) codifying current practice (ad hominem would be better) JesseW 5 July 2005 00:31 (UTC)
 * 13) (but concur that ad hominem would be better). -Splash 5 July 2005 01:25 (UTC)
 * 14) Support - if the attack is against a person notable enough to have an article, it can be deleted and put in the requested articles queue. -- BD2412  talk July 5, 2005 02:10 (UTC)
 * 15) Since I already do it, I'll support this proposal. Denni☯ 2005 July 5 02:50 (UTC)
 * 16) Statutory clarification is always a good thing. &mdash; Phil Welch 5 July 2005 03:03 (UTC)
 * 17) mikka (t) 5 July 2005 03:26 (UTC)
 * 18) I already do this, and have never had an objection.-gadfium 5 July 2005 03:30 (UTC)
 * 19) Accepted practice. Fuzheado | Talk 5 July 2005 03:53 (UTC)
 * 20) I believe this generally falls under the no context criterion, but I don't guess codifying this would hurt anything. I would favour adding an example to the proposal, though, such as "e.g. Susie is a dirt ass trick". BLANKFAZE | (&#1095;&#1090;&#1086;??) 5 July 2005 04:04 (UTC)
 * 21) This is redundant with "Attention-seeking vandalism: Adding insults..." on WP:VAND, but common enough that we should make it explicit. --Cryptic (talk) 5 July 2005 04:33 (UTC)
 * 22) Easier than follwing the vandalism route. Harro5 July 5, 2005 05:52 (UTC)
 * 23) FCYTravis 5 July 2005 06:49 (UTC)
 * 24) Xoloz 5 July 2005 06:55 (UTC)
 * 25) I think it's useful to make this explicit. --G Rutter 5 July 2005 09:07 (UTC)
 * 26) reasonable proposal. JoJan 5 July 2005 09:12 (UTC)
 * 27) Support. I think that pure attack pages are almost valid speedies anyway under the "pure vandalism" rule, but I think making this one firm is a good idea. Sjakkalle (Check!)  5 July 2005 11:03 (UTC)
 * 28) And not just short ones. &mdash;Theo (Talk) 5 July 2005 11:08 (UTC)
 * 29) Support, obviously. -- Schnee (cheeks clone) 5 July 2005 12:32 (UTC)
 * 30) Support. &mdash; Ram-Man (comment) (talk) July 5, 2005 14:33 (UTC)
 * 31) I don't oppose this, but it seems like needless instruction creep for something so obvious. Angela. July 5, 2005 14:37 (UTC)
 * 32) I've always thought they should be speedyable, anyway. — Bcat (talk | email) 5 July 2005 15:48 (UTC)
 * 33) Support. Reflects what is current practice for many admins.  (I don't do this unless my conscience will let me stretch the definition of vandalism to cover the case.) The word "short" should be scratched; remember it for the one-month review. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 5 July 2005 20:14 (UTC)
 * 34) Support. This is a common special case of vandalism, but it is not immediately obvious that it's covered by vandalism policy. Although it would not actually change policy, it would clarify it.   &mdash; Gwalla | Talk 5 July 2005 22:29 (UTC)
 * 35) Support even without the limiting criterion of "short".  Frankly, I consider this redundant with the vandalism criterion but this is an acceptable way to clarify the point.  Rossami (talk) 5 July 2005 22:31 (UTC)
 * 36) Support. Attack pages don't deserve 5 days on VfD. --Scimitar 5 July 2005 23:31 (UTC)
 * 37) Support. Most of these articles already qualify under "Very short articles providing little or no context". -- BMIComp (talk) 6 July 2005 00:01 (UTC)
 * 38) * Bmicomp's 250th contribution was at (or after) 06:21, 5 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 08:27, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 39) Support. &mdash; Asbestos | Talk 6 July 2005 01:01 (UTC)
 * 40) Support. Reflects what I understand to be correct practice. Plus, going the suggestion of going through rigmarole of several days voting for a clear-cut attack page seems silly. Hopefully (!) a Wikipedia who makes it to being an Admin, posesses commonsense & has passed their 'Recognising an attack page from other pages' test ;) so there shouldn't be any real potential for abuse. Whitehorse1 | July 29 2024 (UTC)
 * 41) * Whitehorse1's 250th contribution was at (or after) 07:33, 6 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 08:27, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 42) Support. Golbez July 6, 2005 02:30 (UTC)
 * 43) Support. Reflects practice, and attacks are anti-Wikipedia. Jayjg (talk) 6 July 2005 02:33 (UTC)
 * 44) support. attack pages should not be tolerated. Sasquatch′↔Talk↔Contributions July 6, 2005 04:40 (UTC)
 * 45) Support. -R. S. Shaw 6 July 2005 05:17 (UTC)
 * 46) Support. As long as CSD is run on a "tag-n-bag" system where two separate people are involved; one to tag an article CSD, and the other to agree and delete it. Un</FONT>focused 6 July 2005 07:29 (UTC)
 * 47) Support Stewart Adcock 6 July 2005 08:56 (UTC)
 * 48) Support. Current practice. Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης ) 6 July 2005 09:34 (UTC)
 * 49) Support the wub  "?/!"  6 July 2005 09:40 (UTC)
 * 50) &mdash; Trilobite (Talk) 6 July 2005 10:57 (UTC)
 * 51) --Porturology 6 July 2005 13:13 (UTC)
 * 52) * Porturology's 250th contribution was at (or after) 12:28, 10 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 08:27, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 53) ➥the Epopt 6 July 2005 13:49 (UTC)
 * 54) Laura Scudder | Talk 6 July 2005 14:25 (UTC)
 * 55) Support Should be codified. -- Aphaea *  6 July 2005 15:01 (UTC)
 * 56) Standard practice already. &mdash;Charles P. (Mirv) 6 July 2005 15:41 (UTC)
 * 57) This is open to misuse, so I'm going to be watching for it on the test run. Support for the time being. --ArmadniGeneral 6 July 2005 16:27 (UTC)
 * 58) Support specifically states what is currently standard practise. The possibility that people who don't like how an article portrays something they like will use this guidline to get a good article removed isn't there, since it still has to be confirmed by an admin, just like people trying to speedydelete any random page for no reason at all. Fieari July 6, 2005 22:00 (UTC)
 * 59) * Fieari's 250th contribution was at (or after) 03:43, 11 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 08:27, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 60) Carnildo 6 July 2005 22:13 (UTC)
 * 61) Support (prefer that "short" is removed) – ABCD 6 July 2005 22:50 (UTC)
 * 62) Kaldari 6 July 2005 23:13 (UTC)
 * 63) Not oppose. Caveat per Angela. Nohat 7 July 2005 02:21 (UTC)
 * 64) It's what I do anyway, and will continue to do so. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 7 July 2005 02:47 (UTC)
 * 65) Support.   ral  315  July 7, 2005 05:31 (UTC)
 * 66) SupportTobycat 7 July 2005 08:19 (UTC)
 * 67) Support - Aaron Hill July 7, 2005 09:11 (UTC)
 * 68) Support of course. jni 7 July 2005 12:05 (UTC)
 * 69) Support -Harmil 7 July 2005 14:41 (UTC)
 * 70) Support "People who support, suck." Oh wait... <font color=#FF0033><> Who<font color=#00Ff00>? <font color=#FF00FF>¿ <font color=#0033FF>? 7 July 2005 16:51 (UTC)
 * 71) Support The Uninvited Co., Inc. 7 July 2005 19:54 (UTC)
 * 72) Support. <font style="background: black" face="Courier" color=#FFFFFF> Grue  7 July 2005 20:47 (UTC)
 * 73) Support  &mdash;thames 7 July 2005 20:57 (UTC)
 * 74) Support friends of gays included. Dunc|☺ 7 July 2005 21:06 (UTC)
 * 75) Support. It's always good to let policy catch up with actual practice.   [ +t, +c, +m ] July 7, 2005 21:16 (UTC)
 * 76) Support -  Tεx  τ  urε  7 July 2005 21:29 (UTC)
 * 77) Support. Very strictly defined so should be policed well. David | Talk 7 July 2005 22:37 (UTC)
 * 78) Support per above arguments. --Angr/undefined 8 July 2005 07:03 (UTC)
 * 79) Strong support. Support would be even stronger if the word "short" were not in the proposal.  Long articles that are nothing but attacks should be deleted too.  Kaibabsquirrel 8 July 2005 08:20 (UTC)
 * 80) M e r o v i n g i a n  (t) (c) July 8, 2005 09:25 (UTC)
 * 81) Unbelievable that people are voting aganist this. Neutralitytalk July 9, 2005 09:33 (UTC)
 * 82) Agreed This link is Broken 9 July 2005 16:02 (UTC)
 * 83) Support Gwk 9 July 2005 16:43 (UTC)
 * 84) * Gwk's 250th contribution was at (or after) 02:40, 10 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 08:27, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 85) --Doc (?) 9 July 2005 18:43 (UTC)
 * 86) Support. I've seen quite a few of these. TheCoffee 21:36, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 87) Support. Though these are already usually deleted, it's good to have it explicited stated. -R. fiend 21:46, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 88) Support. The idea that we shouldn't delete these is bizarre. Gamaliel 17:32, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 89) Support. Peter Isotalo 17:37, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 90) Support. Of course! --Canderson7 18:53, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
 * 91) Support. --Allen3 talk 21:58, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
 * 92) -- nyenyec ☎ 00:33, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 93) Strong Support this is already done often and is practice that should be retained --Mysidia 13:13, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 94) * Mysidia's 250th contribution was at (or after) 18:25, 9 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 13:21, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 95) Weak support - I agree with this but if passed it should be dealt with in WP:VAND, not a rule for CSD. Consider attack articles a form of vandalism, don't make a special CSD rule for them. - McCart42 (talk) 13:53, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 96) Johnleemk | Talk 15:00, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 97) Dsmdgold 15:03, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
 * 98) Conditional Support - Provided, that this page is only meant to attack its subject, then i'm for the deletion.  Otherwise, if there is true information on the page, then i say it should stay. --ZeWrestler 15:14, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 99) Nifboy 00:16, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 100) MarkSweep 01:22, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 101) Shanes 06:12, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 102) Support Dan100 (Talk) 09:20, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
 * 103) Support – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 16:43, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
 * 104) Support. Should be codified. Although the objections raised below should not be taken lightly, I think a trial period will show if this one invites to overuse. / Alarm 18:26, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 105) Support since it reflects current actions. A Test Run Proposal B plug: With 92% support, with Test Run Proposal B, this criteria would deserve an 7 week long test run, after which 12 people would be needed to initiate a revote, and a second revote if they still felt it was unfair. After which it becomes canon and considered as permanent as any other criteria.Inigmatus 18:29, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
 * 106) * Inigmatus's 250th contribution was at (or after) 17:21, 12 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 18:40, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 107) Support. Pavel Vozenilek 19:40, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 108) Reflects current opinion, IMO. Feydey 23:41, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 109) Support. I suggest after this policy is implemented we keep track of which pages are moved for speedy deletion based on this proposal. I don't doubt that this policy is a good idea if applied as stated, but we should be careful to prevent it from being misapplied. --TexasDex 04:17, July 13, 2005 (UTC)
 * 110) * TexasDex's 250th contribution was at (or after) 23:18, 12 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 05:40, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 111) Support, makes sense. IanManka 06:10, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 112) * IanManka's 250th contribution was at (or after) 06:55, 13 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 09:30, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 113) Support. --Algebra 22:48, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 114) * Algebra's 250th contribution was at (or after) 23:16, 14 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 00:02, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 115) Support Vegaswikian 05:12, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 116) There's always WP:VfU for the inevitable errors that will creep in. We need something to increase the throughput of VfD; better to fix a few errors in a quick system than use a slow, expensive (in time/energy) system. Noel (talk) 02:04, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 117) Support It has been my experience that these get created every hour, and usually get deleted within minutes. Most admins I have encountered speedy them on sight. Only new users actually send them to VFD. Casito⇝Talk 03:04, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 118) Support EnSamulili 10:34, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 119) Support--Carl Hewitt 20:43, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 120) Support Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 21:02, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

 * 1) No reasonable level of "shortness" defined.  Would Criticism of marketing qualify?  Would be fine with a clarification to the existing vandalism CSD reason, but we don't need a vote on that - just someone to suggest phrasing on the WP:CSD talk page. -- Netoholic @ 5 July 2005 00:50 (UTC)
 * Criticism of marketing would clearly not qualify; it analyses marketing before disparaging it. That article just needs a big chunky NPOV or similar on it. -Splash 5 July 2005 01:25 (UTC)\
 * It's the "serve no purpose" phrase which scares me. Any politically-motivated admin might interpret that very broadly.  "Analyses" might be interpretted as simply a lead-in to the disparaging part, negating the protection you think that phrase provides. -- Netoholic @ 5 July 2005 02:43 (UTC)
 * 1) Weak oppose only because I think that WP:VAND should be updated instead. JYolkowski // talk 5 July 2005 00:52 (UTC)
 * Agree. Personal attacks posted as articles should be defined and covered in Vandalism, which then carries over to the existing CSD covering vandalism. -- Netoholic @ 5 July 2005 02:41 (UTC)
 * Instruction creep. We already delete personal attack articles, don't need a rule to tell us.  See also Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Proposal/Z. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 5 July 2005 15:42 (UTC)
 * I for one object to speedy deletion in the absence of an explicit rule authorizing an admin to do so. We shouldn't be speedying such pages under the current CSD, and they shoudn't wait for a VfD. DES 5 July 2005 16:31 (UTC)
 * Airing a defamatory statement on a discussion forum where it is broadcast to a wider range of viewers than might otherwise see it is contributory defamation. We don't put CSD before the law. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 5 July 2005 17:02 (UTC)
 * Most attack pages are not defamation in a legal sense. A statement of opnion is not defamation. and even statements of purported fact that might be technically defamatory probaly do not expose us to liability as long as they are clearly attributed, and we don't try to keep them out. But once we have a policy of removing such, we could in theory be liable for ones that get through.`Besides, defamation on user pages or talk pages (which happen quite often and are not subject to this policy) are at least as much "contributory defamation". In any case my point was not to permit these to stay, but to make our policy explicit so that we don't depend on unwritten extensions of CSD. DES 5 July 2005 19:33 (UTC)
 * I have to disagree with the assertion that most attack pages do not constitute defamation. Usually, information is presented as fact (without disclaimer) and with no discernable purpose beyond simple malice.  My view that these are typically defamatory, however, only reinforces my support.  Explicit institutional policy statements affirming governing law aid in shielding an institution from any legal action.  Wikipedia is safer and better with this in the CSD. Xoloz 6 July 2005 05:03 (UTC)
 * 1) Acegikmo1 5 July 2005 19:25 (UTC). An article about someone who is widely hated and whose author expresses such a negative bias can be turned into a good article; it should not be deleted.
 * 2) Too open to abuse - David Gerard 5 July 2005 21:55 (UTC)
 * No way, what constitutes an attack is clear to any reasonable person and leaving attack undefined is not at all open to abuse.Nathan J. Yoder 6 July 2005 13:37 (UTC)
 * 1) Oppose. Determining the "purpose" served by a page is too vague a concept. Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 July 6 07:49 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose because too vague and too vulnerable to abuse. Sietse 6 July 2005 11:12 (UTC)
 * 3) Oppose, far too open to abuse. James F. (talk) 6 July 2005 14:32 (UTC)
 * 4) Oppose per Tony Sidaway. This proposal is unnecessary because current procedures allow for these types of articles to be deleted. --Deathphoenix 6 July 2005 15:20 (UTC)
 * 5) Oppose. Articles of this sort are already speedied as nonsense or vandalism. Creating a policy that suggests that "disparaging" articles should be deleted would give censorious persons an excuse to claim that articles that they find offensive should be deleted -- e.g. Xenu or Alleged inconsistencies in the Bible. --FOo 6 July 2005 16:38 (UTC)
 * 6) Strong Oppose this is ripe for abuse by censorous admins. I imagine that such as CSD will become a tool for vandalism and censorship. Klonimus 8 July 2005 08:40 (UTC)
 * 7) Oppose.  Needless instruction creep. -- Ricky81682 (talk) July 7, 2005 08:38 (UTC)
 * 8) Oppose, already substantially covered under patent nonsense and vandalism policies, lends itself to abuse on touchy subjects. Gazpacho 8 July 2005 02:54 (UTC)
 * 9) oppose for the same reasons above. Brighterorange 8 July 2005 21:10 (UTC)
 * 10) Instruction creep. 24 at 9 July 2005 18:44 (UTC)
 * 11) * 24ip's 250th contribution was at (or after) 18:20, 10 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 08:27, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 12) Would allow speedy deletion of critical articles. "John Smith is a {expletive removed}" is already deleted. We purport to be presenting facts, so defamations of this kind cannot be defended and are removed on sight. Grace Note 02:58, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 13) By removing the POV content, it would be reduced to contentless (i.e. speedy), something still useless (may fall under other speedy guidelines, such as contentless) or useful. David Remahl 03:45, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 14) Oppose.  Attacks are insults, and therefore covered under attention-seeking vandalism on Vandalism.  It has been there since at least August 2004.  Get with the program.  Superm401 | Talk 13:33, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

Neutral

 * 1) Pages consisting solely of Suzie is a dirty whore or whatever can clearly be speedied. However the wording of this proposal "disparaging" is too broad and open to abuse. Pcb21| Pete 7 July 2005 15:22 (UTC)
 * 2) I would support this if it were only applied to people. Under this wording, something like Islamofascism might have been called a speedy candidate. Meelar (talk) July 7, 2005 16:41 (UTC)
 * And it would have been, since Mel Ettis and a few other admins didn't like the page. VfD is a powerful check on abusive admins. Klonimus 8 July 2005 08:41 (UTC)
 * 1) Great idea, but it needs some rewording. - Mgm|(talk) 12:25, July 12, 2005 (UTC)