Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal/Z

This is part of Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Proposal.

Z: The deletion process isn't broken, no need to fix it by extending CSD

 * Instances of instruction creep, of which this is one, should be resisted.

[ vote] – discuss

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

Support

 * 1) Tony Sidaway|Talk 5 July 2005 14:51 (UTC)
 * 2) DavidH July 5, 2005 19:10 (UTC)
 * 3) * DavidH's 250th contribution was at (or after) 03:55, 9 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 08:34, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 4) I supported one, I think. Would happily support none - David Gerard 5 July 2005 22:05 (UTC)
 * 5) So far no practical change found --Mononoke 5 July 2005 23:28 (UTC)
 * 6) * Mononoke's 250th contribution was at (or after) 03:29, 10 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 08:34, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 7) 's is the only practical proposal in the lot. The rest are vaguely worded and fix problems that don't exist. Pburka 6 July 2005 00:08 (UTC)
 * 8) Expanding CSD is not the way to fix problems with deletion mechanisms and is only to likely alienate potential good contributors and provoke more vandalism. Kappa 6 July 2005 00:13 (UTC)
 * 9) Weak support. While I have supported some of the proposals, I'm not convinced that a significant problem exists in the first place that requires significant changes.  JYolkowski // talk 6 July 2005 02:13 (UTC)
 * 10) This "random shotgun fire approach" to reform is awful. We should be debating each point individually to reach consensus, not voting endlessly in hope of finding consensus.  Too many open policy votes at once encourages "vote & move on" behavior instead of genuine intelligent discussion.  This is not at all well aligned with Wikipedia principles.  Unfocused 6 July 2005 13:28 (UTC)
 * 11) *Please note that this was discussed for at least six weeks on Deletion_policy/Reducing_VfD_load. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; July 7, 2005 14:03 (UTC)
 * 12) **Over the course of those six weeks, consensus on at least one individual point should have been attempted without needing to vote on everything, all at once. Please see my summary of objections comment located here: Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Proposal  --Unfocused 7 July 2005 15:22 (UTC)
 * 13) Will vote nonetheless, but wish to point out the foolishness of bypassing useful discussion. James F. (talk)
 * 14) Some support. There is a big grey area between it is not broken (at all) and it desperately needs to be fixed. I'd say the situation at VfD right now is somewhere in the middle. Although the volume of the nominations is large and growing, which creates much work, the big majority of articles that are listed on VfD should not be speediable, in my opinion, especially most articles which are nominated because the subject is said to be not notable. Generally speaking, determining notability is too subjective and too prone to errors to leave it to one person. Although I'm critical of most of the suggested changes, I think that regular evaluation of the deletion policy is a good thing and I appreciate the efforts of the creators of these polls to improve the process.   Sietse 7 July 2005 11:54 (UTC)
 * 15) The existing proposals are not needed, all but the most obvious cases should be refered to VfD. CSD is only for articles that are farbeyond a reasonable doubt not worthy of inclusion. Klonimus 8 July 2005 08:35 (UTC)
 * 16) Support, as per Sietse. I may vote for some of these anyway, but Speedy Deletion is a very dangerous (and since deleted text is gone) largely unverifiable process. Septentrionalis 20:44, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 17) Support. While I support one or two of these new proposals, I am fairly uncomfortable with this whole process. As has been said, speedy deletion is dangerous, and these new criteria effectively make it impossible for anyone to make a case for a particular article. The VfD listing are large, but I really cannot see that as anywhere near the problem that most of these new proposals would introduce. – Seancdaug 02:04, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
 * 18) Speedy deletion is not broke and doesn't need any fixing. Yes, it annoys deletionists that they have to pursue a process to rid us of articles that they don't like, but that process is a useful safety valve. As far as VfD is concerned, we'd be much better off with a rotating deletion panel. VfD is only a "burden" if you have taken it on yourself to be a deletion arbiter -- which increasingly has become a role new users have taken. Grace Note 02:37, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 19) Support.  The gains from lightening the load on VfD are not as great as the loss of scrutiny and consensus on deletions.  As for the VfD load: You don't have to vote on every nomination; even consider not participating if a nomination involves a topic of which you are ignorant or consensus you agree with has already been formed.  -- Norvy (talk) 02:38, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 20) Support. - McCart42 (talk) 14:07, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 21) Support - this set of proposals is a deletionists charter. CalJW 17:17, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 22) Support More and more resources go into this whole kittenkaboodle; don't make it worse; one can over-'bureaucratize' Lectonar 10:26, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 23) Support Speedy delete covers what it is intended to cover. Amicuspublilius 19:57, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 24) * Amicuspublilius's 250th contribution was at (or after) 22:48, 17 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 02:18, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

 * 1) Instruction creep should be avoided, but this proposal isn't instruction creep. It's an attempt to address issues pointed out by literally dozens of users, and allow them to spend less time on deletion and instead focus on writing articles (and yes, I realize that they could already do so, but this should make it easier). Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; July 5, 2005 15:11 (UTC)
 * 2) I agree with User:Radiant! here. DES 5 July 2005 15:14 (UTC)
 * 3) I support some, but not all, of the proposal. — Bcat (talk | email) 5 July 2005 15:51 (UTC)
 * 4) This is not instruction creep. Sure deletion isn't broken per se, but it would always use improvements. BLANKFAZE | (&#1095;&#1090;&#1086;??) 5 July 2005 16:17 (UTC)
 * 5) VfD is so overloaded with rubbish that the CSD do not catch that finding a discussion on an article that is worth discussing is very difficult (from e.g. the TOC) without trawling through all 100+ articles listed each day. And if you miss a day...-Splash 5 July 2005 16:46 (UTC)
 * 6) The VfD process isn't broken, but it is completely overloaded. These proposals are aimed at improving it. -- Joolz 5 July 2005 17:28 (UTC)
 * 7) This is hardly instruction creep. In fact, one proposal actually clarifies existing policy. VfD is severely overloaded: amending speedy deletion so that more articles that would clearly be deleted on VfD and can be identified as such by reasonably objective criteria would help; handling them through VfD just wastes people's time. Not al of these proposals are good, but some are, and simply rejecting them all in a blanket vote throws the baby out with the bath water.   &mdash; Gwalla | Talk 5 July 2005 18:33 (UTC)
 * 8) Although I oppose many of the proposals in this initiative, there are several which accomplish admirable goals; clearly, a revision with respect to personal attacks and children's vanity articles is useful and warranted.  Xoloz 5 July 2005 19:19 (UTC)
 * 9) Having recently been promoted to Admin status, I have been learning just how much work is involved in processing of VFDs. Even if these proposals only allow speedy deletes of half the articles that have no realistic chance to survive a VFD vote, that will be a significant reduction in the amount of grunt work being performed. --Allen3 talk July 5, 2005 20:31 (UTC)
 * 10) * Well we're talking about the following steps in the case of an unopposed delete: Insert finalize templates into VfD article; delete article; delete talk page if required. When I do closing I nearly always do it for marginal cases, where the work load is a quite a lot more--spend some time weighing up the discussion, do a bit of background research, check provenance of votes, decide whether to delete, and if keep remove the VfD template.  Even so I usually find time to add a pointer to the VfD (which isn't, strictly speaking, part of VfD).   But you're not talking about marginal cases here, are we, we're talking about articles that are such obvious deletes that some people think they should be speedied.  In which case we're not losing a lot by having a bit of scrutiny. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 5 July 2005 21:02 (UTC)
 * 11) **No amount of scrutiny is going to save articles on bands looking to make their first recording or on students claiming their primary accomplishment is reaching high school. I am looking to reduce the administrative overhead so the marginal cases can receive the attention the deserve. --Allen3 talk July 6, 2005 16:29 (UTC)
 * 12) *** It isn't intended to save such articles, which are rightly being listed on VfD. It does however save articles that are wrongly VfD'd (which is a considerable fraction of all articles).  Articles that are wrongly speedied, however, require much more work to detect.  Expanding the speedy categories will create more administrative workload, not less. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:28, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 13) Sorry, no. There are lots of articles on VFD each day which could quite easily be speedied but don't fall under present criteria, IMO. David | Talk 5 July 2005 20:52 (UTC)
 * 14) Wait a minute here. Am I the only one that sees the irony in calling a vote on whether this is instruction creep? K-I-S-S. --Dmcdevit July 5, 2005 22:30 (UTC)
 * 15) I'm not sure if Tony is trying to be cute or if this is some kind of point.  He has repeatedly tried to make the case that the status quo is fine.  The community repeatedly disagrees.  As interest in this suite of proposals shows, many people think that we should continue to refine our processes.  Instruction creep is to be avoided.  This is not an example of it.  (Arguably, some of the specific proposals are but they are being defeated piecemeal.)  Rossami (talk) 5 July 2005 22:46 (UTC)
 * 16) * I'm surprised that there could be any question over this. To recap, I started out pretty much where I ended up--wondering what all the fuss is about and why we need to take these decisions away from the best discussion forum we've got and into the hands of individuals of unknown research skills. This proposal is my honest opinion and examination of all the proposals so far has only solidified it. As you may see from the 14 against, 5 6 for,  vote at present, I'm not alone, even if I'm not in the majority. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 6 July 2005 00:18 (UTC)
 * 17) Agree with the above, esp. Radiant!, Blankfaze, and Gwalla. Hermione1980 5 July 2005 22:52 (UTC)
 * 18) Oppose. The backlog on VfD is ridiculous right now. After 5 days they should be closed, but articles are currently getting much more time than that.  Also the VfD listings for each day are filled with vanity-garbage that needs to be disposed of, not protected.  Standing still when change is needed makes lousy real-world policy. --Scimitar 5 July 2005 23:39 (UTC)
 * 19) Oppose - from the perspective of an RC/VfD patroller, there are squillions of useless articles on VfD that waste everyone's time to deal with. Nobody's suggesting that CSD be expanded to include articles of any particular controversy. What these proposals do is give admins the tools they need to effectively deal with articles that are clearly and unambiguously unencyclopedic. Spend a day doing RC Patrol and VfD and you'll understand. --FCYTravis 6 July 2005 01:23 (UTC)
 * 20) The proposals at least present some basis. This, on the other hand and quite ironically, would be a CSD on the mainspace. --Sn0wflake 6 July 2005 01:51 (UTC)
 * 21) Oppose. VfD is out of control, and getting worse. Jayjg (talk) 6 July 2005 02:38 (UTC)
 * 22) Oppose. For the multiple reasons listed by other editors above. Blank Verse  ∅  6 July 2005 02:44 (UTC)
 * 23) &mdash; Phil Welch 6 July 2005 04:25 (UTC)
 * 24) oppose. Sasquatch′↔Talk↔Contributions July 6, 2005 04:46 (UTC)
 * 25) Oppose- it is broken and it definitely needs fixing- VfD is now too big to look at effectively. --G Rutter 6 July 2005 07:44 (UTC)
 * 26) Oppose Stewart Adcock 6 July 2005 09:05 (UTC)
 * 27) Oppose. There aren't only two categories: broken and perfectly OK. A system can gradually become less and less adequate as the situation changes, and that's what's happening here.  We're swamped with VfDs on articles many of which should be, and are overwhelmingly voted to be, deleted.  Rather than being worried about "instruction creep" we should be worried about bureacracy creep, in which the clerical processes take up more time than the business of writing an encyclopædia. --Mel Etitis  ( Μελ Ετητης ) 6 July 2005 09:44 (UTC)
 * 28) VfD is horribly overloaded with articles that were never going to be kept anyway. There is nothing wrong with fine-tuning deletion policy to ease the burden on VfD. &mdash; Trilobite (Talk) 6 July 2005 11:05 (UTC)
 * 29) I have opposed many of the proposals, but I see their point. VFD is desperately overloaded and will continue to swell if we don't find a way to remove burdens from it. Nonetheless, I disagree strongly with the assertion that this proposal is a case ow WP:POINT. Sjakkalle (Check!)  6 July 2005 11:11 (UTC)
 * 30) Wikipaedia is drowning in crap--Porturology 6 July 2005 13:17 (UTC)
 * 31) * 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) 08:34, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 32) ➥the Epopt 6 July 2005 13:55 (UTC)
 * 33) &mdash; Dan | Talk 6 July 2005 15:20 (UTC)
 * 34) Laura Scudder | Talk 6 July 2005 20:13 (UTC)
 * 35) Carnildo 6 July 2005 22:19 (UTC) The VFD process is badly broken right now. If I didn't skip over votes that are unanimously for deletion, it would take me several hours a day to keep up. --Carnildo 6 July 2005 22:19 (UTC)
 * Why shouldn't you skip over votes that are unanimously for deletion? Why should one user expect to "keep up" with VfD?  One user isn't expected to "keep up" with Recent Changes patrol.  You're setting yourself up to burn out.  I research every VfD vote I cast, but that's why you don't find me voting on hundreds every week.  Ow!  My brain hurts at the thought of "keeping up"!  ;-) <FONT COLOR="#006699">Un</FONT>focused 6 July 2005 22:31 (UTC)
 * 1) Oppose.   ral  315  July 7, 2005 05:33 (UTC)
 * 2) Ricky81682 (talk) July 7, 2005 09:00 (UTC)
 * 3) Oppose. The size of VfD is a disincentive for users to contribute to the process which, IMHO, is a Bad Thing. Physchim62 7 July 2005 09:47 (UTC)
 * 4) jni 7 July 2005 12:15 (UTC)
 * 5) Oppose I no longer follow VfD because of the huge investment in time required to wade through the frivilous listings to get to any that are deserving of discussion and review.  Overall, in two years, the project has become much less inclusionist, a shift that I support.  Changing the CSD is long overdue, and many of the proposals for doing so are valid.  These CSD changes will in effect codify and expedite existing practice; little will be deleted because of them that would otherwise have been kept.  The Uninvited Co., Inc. 7 July 2005 20:03 (UTC)
 * 6) Oppose. This is the opposite of instruction creep: giving wider latitude to users to affect Wikipedia content boldly.   &mdash;thames 7 July 2005 21:00 (UTC)
 * 7) Oppose. VfD has grown substantially since I started participating in it. It may not be broken, but these proposals are at least an attempt to address its problems, rather than insisting that there is no problem, despite much evidence to the contrary. <small style="color:#00A86B;">A и D я 01D <small style="color:#B87333;">TALK <small style="color:#0047AB;">EMAIL July 8, 2005 01:01 (UTC)
 * 8) Oppose per my support votes on certain other pages in this area. --Angr/undefined 8 July 2005 07:13 (UTC)
 * 9) Oppose. Some of the proposals are reasonable and would simplify the VfD process. -- Rune Welsh ταλκ July 8, 2005 09:20 (UTC)
 * 10) M e r o v i n g i a n  (t) (c) July 8, 2005 09:37 (UTC)
 * 11) oppose. However, we invite supporters to help with the VfD process! Brighterorange 8 July 2005 21:19 (UTC)
 * 12) It doesn't solve anything by calling any calls for reform "instruction creep" This link is Broken 9 July 2005 16:10 (UTC)
 * 13) Oppose. The deletion process isn't broken, but it could use some reform. TheCoffee 21:47, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 14) The deletion process may not be broken, but it's become as ineffective as hell and really needs the shot in the arm the passing of a few of these proposals will provide. Denni<font color=#228822>☯ 00:15, 2005 July 10 (UTC)
 * 15) Oppose. Deletion process has at times departed greatly from common sense. Any policy that requires "Johnny P is an awesome dude! He rocks!" to remain in wikipedia for at least 5 days is broken. Work is needed to get the two in sync. -R. fiend 02:08, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Oppose. And perhaps I'll insert proposal ZZ - The "Proposal Z is ironicly self-referential and should go straight to BJAODN" proposal. Aaron Brenneman 16:05, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Aaron Brenneman's 250th contribution was at (or after) 05:20, 11 July 2005, so (s)he may not have suffrage. See caveats. &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 08:34, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Ouch - missed that criterion. I'm striking through my vote.
 * 1) Oppose. The instruction creep-label shouldn't be waved about unless it's about something serious. Making slightly harsher CSD-criteria is not serious. Peter Isotalo 17:52, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose. I see this as being clarification and extension of existing policies and practice rather than instruction creep.-gadfium 00:33, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 3) -- nyenyec ☎ 00:50, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 4) I honestly thought I'd seen it all, but, surprise, surprise! Expanding speedy deletion criteria is instruction creep? Well, perhaps if the new criteria are overly specific, but try reconciling that with the discomfort of people when it comes to letting admins handle deletion on their own. And in any case, it's pretty damn obvious the deletion process is broken. How long are we going to keep up the current system? Until we have a subpage for every 12 hours on VFD? Every hour? Johnleemk | Talk 14:50, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 5) * Comment: This observation surprises me greatly. Until two or three months ago, VfD was a huge transcluded page of around 1GB (if I recall correctly) which was accessible to very few editors on dialup and not a pleasant load even on broadband.  That so many people regard the current very lightweight, easily loaded page as "broken" in some manner is mind-boggling.  On instruction creep: yes, setting more speedy criteria would encourage the making of decisions based on rules rather than commonsense (see my analysis of bad speedies in Proposal 1).  VfD encourages the latter kind of decision to be made in the light of a discussion of the proposed deletion. Quite a few articles that are believed by administrators to be deletable turn out to be not-so-vanity, and are kept (again see Proposal 1 for examples).--Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:20, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 6) ** Comment: One word for you: scaleability. In the short run, there are little problems with VfD (aside from the fact that every time I load one subpage of it, I'm reminded of the whole VfD page six months ago, which led to the current situation). In the long run, there will be hell to pay if we don't figure out some way of reducing VfD's load. Stopgap measures, as long as not rushed into in a foolhardy manner, are better than stalling and waiting for something better to come along, or worse, pretending the issue of a non-scaling system isn't a problem. On a different note, I absolutely agree with the sentence "setting more speedy criteria would encourage the making of decisions based on rules rather than commonsense". As a matter of fact, I would strongly prefer it if we could just follow common (which, alas, is all too uncommon) sense. Unfortunately, inclusionists have this thing with giving such a limited group of people almighty power on the big red delete button, and so would I, frankly, considering the huge fuss over what constitutes "common sense". Johnleemk | Talk 14:40, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 7) ***"Common sense" is at the heart of what we're talking about here. See my vote above. Many articles that common sense says should be exterminated on sight have to sit through VfD for 5 days because of rules. If we allow common sense to be the criterion we get all sort of people shouting "open to abuse", and they have a bit of a point. -R. fiend 15:46, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 8) VFD doesn't seem to scale with the growing numbers. Shanes 06:27, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 9) VFD is very broken. Dan100 (Talk) 09:30, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
 * 10) Something has to be done. Feydey 23:59, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 11) Ditto. --<font color=#0355B9>Barfooz  <font size=1 color=#76A67D>(talk) 02:19, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 12) All of us have good intentions, I assume. IanManka 06:42, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 13) * 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) 09:33, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 14) Oppose. You're telling me I'm involved in instruction creep when you created Proposal Z!?!?!?!?!??!!??!?!?!?!?!?!??!?! Superm401 | Talk 05:19, July 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * 15) Oppose! The VfD nomination numbers will continue to rise, and the number of obviously vain articles will increase as Wikipedia continues to grow in popularity. We must adjust, and there are many good proposals here to aid us in doing so. -- BD2412 talk 19:48, July 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * 16) Oppose. --Algebra 23:06, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 17) * 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) 00:06, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 18) Oppose. VfD has too many entries that require research before voting.  If any of them can be killed before they get there it allows anyone with an interest more time to spend looking at articles they may wish to vote on.  Vegaswikian 05:22, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 19) Oppose as per above reasons. - Sikon 04:52, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 20) We need to improve the throughput on VfD, plus to which I always am in favour of giving admins more room to use their common sense. There's always WP:VfU when the inevitable mistakes happen. Noel (talk) 02:12, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 21) Oppose 100-200 people voting about rules is way better than 5-10 people voting in VfD. EnSamulili 10:39, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 22) Oppose. One proposal does not have the right to invalidate all the others. They should be dealt with individually. Superm401 | Talk 13:58, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
 * 23) * This is Superm401's 2nd oppose vote on Proposal Z - see number 55 above. -- Norvy (talk) 04:26, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 24) Oppose--Carl Hewitt 20:32, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Comments

 * What concerns me about nearly all of these proposals is that they take discussion of content away from VfD, which is precisely the reason for which VfD exists. To take one proposal that I find absolutely terrifying, "An article about a website that does not assert having had an impact beyond its core group of interested people, nor having had media coverage, nor having at least 5,000 users. If the assertion is disputed or controversial, it should be taken to VFD instead", this would have supported the speedying of the article about that gay archive that was listed a few weeks ago.  It has no media coverage to speek of, it has no impact beyond gay people and those who study homosexual issues, and the number of users in the past year, say, is unknown but could well be in the low thousands or even less.  This is why VfD exists, so that when a hothead goes to delete such an article wiser, cooler heads may have their say, and may prevail. And again we have this phrase "does not assert".  That's utterly baffling.  Why is it up to a stub article to assert anything beyond the most basic facts?  If an article lacks material, the solution is to add material, not to delete it.  --Tony Sidaway|Talk 5 July 2005 16:02 (UTC)
 * If an article cannot have material added, however, it should be deleted. Of course we can take it through VFD, but if it's obvious from the beginning, we don't need the bureaucracy. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; July 6, 2005 10:06 (UTC)


 * Blankfaze suggests that the deletion process "could always use some improvements." Certainly, but how is the deletion process improved by removing article deletion from discussion and getting administrators to perform deletions on their own judgement? Administrators aren't chosen for their excellence as researchers (though many are).  And what one person cannot see in an article, another person often does. This is why we discuss deletions. Speedies are only intended to catch obvious rubbish. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 5 July 2005 16:27 (UTC)
 * Agree. The way to fix VfD is NOT to construct rules for CSD which are too narrow or open to interpretation. Time to explore other ways of reducing VfD or at least streamlining that process with a more automated one.  -- Netoholic @ 5 July 2005 17:33 (UTC)
 * Actually, we've been discussing that for over a month. Personally I would support a kind of automation, but I'm not sure if people would support an automated deletion bot. Another suggested proposal was Countdown deletion. A third was informing users of what does and does not require VFD (which is a work in progress). Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; July 6, 2005 10:06 (UTC)


 * We are being asked to vote on 24 different votes at the same time. The whole thing smells like someone is throwing a lot of shit at a wall in the hope that some of it sticks. I feel like blanket-opposing, because maintaining the status quo is the "safe" option here. It is obvious that once any of these proposals pass, it will be impossible to go back (evidence: every other change in deletion policy for the last three years). However if we move forward slowly we are less likely to make mistakes to the deteriment of the breadth of coverage of wikipedia. Pcb21| Pete 5 July 2005 17:12 (UTC)
 * Please note that the first proposal is to hold a test run, for a month. Thus, we can still go back if something turns out, in retrospect, to be bad. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; July 6, 2005 10:06 (UTC)


 * I feel like being even more bold and cancelling this entire vote. If one person can decide to open it, then why can't we close it just the same.  Too many irregularities in this one.  Many of the proposals shouldn't have even been part of this since they are so obviously bad. -- Netoholic @ 5 July 2005 17:33 (UTC)
 * I wasn't aware you've been given a pocket veto. When did that heppen? -R. fiend 15:49, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Gwalla says "VfD is severely overloaded." Joolz and Splash agree. But is this the case? I've done VfD duty before and wasn't aware of severe overload--in fact until recently quite a small number of closers managed it just fine.  I've also suggested elsewhere that perhaps editors are rather too eager to list for deletion than they should be.  For instance we had 119 deletion listings for school articles in May and June, but only one of those articles was deleted and that was a copyright violation. Now 119 articles corresponds to around 1 day's worth of deletion listings.  So if we'd all been saved those 119 listings during May and June, all our closers could have taken July 4 off. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 5 July 2005 18:41 (UTC)
 * I was talking more about the non-admin end of things. Trying to trawl through the 100-per-day to find an article that actually might merit consideration and discussion is a significant task. I see many and think "delete such awful vanity about the pet dog", and by the time I've got to no. 50 I'm getting bored. I personally, usually keep going in hope, but having such a lot of VfD-cruft around doesn't make things at all easy. As for the admin-end of things, there is usually at least a 5-day overrun (beyond the usual 5 day voting) meaning that the VfD process is backlogged by something on the order of 100% (imprecise statistics, but I could find as many examples as you like). A few get speedied along the way, and a few have an admin with a 'special interest' in closing on time. But I think that's overload at both ends, not neither. If we cut, say 50% of the VfDs (arbitrary figure, but probably not unreasonable given the chart on the 'front' page), then our closers could a) bring the closure up to date and b)take 1 day in every 3 off, possibly including July 4. -Splash 5 July 2005 19:16 (UTC)


 * Oh people are always saying stuff like that. "VfD is too big because I can't read it all."  Well you don't have to read it all, it's okay.  Just read the bits you feel like reading and then stop.  I find that the thing to do is just scan for stuff that looks like it might have been listed in error, as most other deletion listings take care of themselves.  I do agree that we could cut 50% of the VfDs, but we don't need to change the CSD's for that, just make fewer deletion listings. The current speedy criteria take very good care of the complete nonsense, so we're really left with vanity and possible ads. I see quite a lot of stuff that should not have been listed, particularly new stubs that haven't had a chance and are being listed for something silly like the nominator can't be bothered to do any research. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 5 July 2005 19:23 (UTC)


 * "...we don't need to change the CSD's for that, just make fewer deletion listings..." (Tony Sidaway) Good grief. As if making fewer deletion listings were all it took to reduce the amount of inane articles showing up. If I cover my eyes, will they go away? Denni<font color=#228822>☯  00:22, 2005 July 10 (UTC)
 * Apparently, there are people do want to read it all. Arguably, it should at least be possible for Joe Random User to read it all, because we want VFD to reflect consensus - and if it's too large to be accessible for the average person, then that person's vision will not contribute to that consensus. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; July 6, 2005 10:06 (UTC)


 * Looking at, say, VfD for June 24th, I see 117 deletion listings. They all seem to get a discussion adequate to the article, and some listings attract discussions involving a score or so of editors.  A very small few get just one or two votes but this is rare and doesn't seem to follow a pattern indicating VfD fatigue (I'd expect to get shorter discussions lower down the listing and this does not happen).  Comparing to the same period in 2004, I don't see larger participation (though far fewer deletion listings were made--none actually on June 24).  The claims that VfD is overloaded, in short, seem to be complete poppycock. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 6 July 2005 12:15 (UTC)


 * I do think some people get glued to VfD in some horrible way. Really it isn't necessary.  You don't have to vote delete for something you think should be deleted, for instance.  If an item is listed and the nominator votes  "delete", and it runs for five days and in those five days not one person says keep then the article should (and usually will) be deleted.  Honestly you  could go on vacation for a week or so and it wouldn't make much difference.  Most of these articles get delete votes right down the line, and there's nothing wrong with that because at least we get a chance to look and discuss, and a surprisingly large number of articles are saved during discussion as they are edited. VfD works. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 5 July 2005 19:38 (UTC)
 * So the solution to VFD being too clogged is for people to stop VFDing and voting on articles? Wow. --FCYTravis 6 July 2005 02:51 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. I personally don't find the volume of VfD a problem, it seems to be of sustainable volume and we clearly aren't short of administrator resources to handle it.  But if people don't like the size of VfD then they can adjust the size by making fewer nominations. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 6 July 2005 03:20 (UTC)
 * However, considering that the vast majority of VFD nominations do get consensus to delete, it seems that Wikipedia has grown so large that it actually needs this much cleanup. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; July 6, 2005 10:06 (UTC)


 * "The vast majority" isn't "all". As you and I know from schools, there can be massive differences of opinion on the deletability of articles.  There's nothing wrong with having 100 (or 200, or 300) articles listed on VfD, nobody is obliged to read them all and any of the (puts moist finger in air to check wind direction) 100 or so active administrators can easily process them. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 6 July 2005 11:55 (UTC)


 * There are too many interrelated proposals being thrown out piecemeal here for anyone to form a coherent picture of whatever consensus might arise out of this monster poll. I recommend throwing the whole thing out and replacing it with something a bit simpler.  I also feel like a number of the subproposals (including this one) are attempting to create false dichotomies.  Please consider this a blanket opposition to the entire main proposal.  Kelly Martin July 6, 2005 02:40 (UTC)
 * Polls are evil so don't vote on everything. Polls are evil so don't vote on everything. Polls are evil... *fades to black* JRM · Talk 6 July 2005 10:58 (UTC)
 * Indeed, I agree that this massive poll has been called prematurely and without due care to the needs of Wikipedia. Too many different proposals have been fielded. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 6 July 2005 15:54 (UTC)
 * Does that include the two you've added? Aaron Brenneman 15:56, 10 July 2005 (UTC)


 * There is nothing premature about this poll. I've been editing here since a time when things were way simpler, and there have been earlier efforts to modify speedy and VfD. The problem has always been that wrapping a number of ideas up and voting on them as a single package has meant that nothing got changed. This is the first time in my recollection that we are actually seeing the possibility of an outcome where things actually change. Denni<font color=#228822>☯ 00:46, 2005 July 10 (UTC)