Wikipedia:Managed Deletion

This proposal, which became Preliminary deletion, became inactive in October 2004.


 *  Voting has concluded. Voting has been extended to October 15, per voter request. 
 * As of October 8, the proposal had failed, although it received a great deal of support. This page will be left in place for a short time for review and consideration, and voting may be re-opened, if it is needed.
 * Cast your vote at the page Managed Deletion/Voting
 * Please read the following carefully, as some of the wording may have changed.

Introduction
The purpose of this page is to propose third category of deletion candidates, beyond the speedy delete and yet not to the level of votes for deletion. These will be Early Deletions.

I. The Case for Change
A number of alarming new developments have emphasized a need for a change in speedy delete and VfD categories.

i) Cause: Propagation to mirrors
 * Political speech that is clearly outside of the bounds of an encyclopedia that is designed strictly to be used for active campaigning has begun to appear more and more frequently on Wikipedia. Similarly, political speech intended to establish legitimacy for a political cause (such as a monarchal claim) has appeared.  In both of these cases, the VfD process has been engaged.  During the VfD debate period (five days by statute and usually seven to fifteen days before actual deletion), these articles will have virtually unanimous "delete" votes and yet will remain on Wikipedia.  During that time, some Wikipedia mirror sites may gather up the information.  Thus, it is possible for warriors to put material on Wikipedia knowing that it will be deleted and yet hope for its being picked up by a mirror site.  If any mirrors mirror each other, Wikipedia has been used in a subversive manner.

ii) Cause: Outside web use
 * The John Kerry edit wars showed us all something. That people wished to go to war over whether or not Kerry's wound was "minor" or not is unsurprising in a US election year.  However, partisans of the Bush side provided a link to the biased and POV edit in one of their online campaign resources.  They were able to say, essentially, "Encyclopedias confirm that Kerry didn't deserve his first purple heart."  In such a case as that, there is nothing the following proposal can offer; however, if biased, criminal, extremely dubious, or advertising speech were created in a new article, the VfD process would allow it to be linked and used by the outside web world.

No, NO, NO!

They could not truthfully quote Wikipedia as saying that Kerry "did not deserve a Purple Heart". I'm sure that no Wikipedia article ever said, point blank, that "Kerry did not deserve a Purple Heart". (If there was such an article, please put a link to it here, and I'll apologize for shouting.)

What they could say, and what I'll bet they did say, is that they found information in the Wikipedia which supported their claim that Kerry did not deserve a Purple Heart. Such things as:


 * a report that the wound he got his first Purple Heart for, was self-inflicted (he throw or fired a grenade, a fragment from which struck him)
 * a report that the wound he got his first Purple Heart for, was too minor to merit a medal (a doctor removed it with a pair of tweezers)

Please don't use bad examples to make your case. I might actually accept that we need 'swift deletion policy' (no pun intended), but I cannot and will not support your case if it's based on a bogus example. Please supply a good example. --Uncle Ed 14:50, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

iii) Cause: "You mean this isn't a speedy delete?"
 * Inevitably, VfD gets hit with articles that are obvious deletes. They rack up ten to fifteen "delete" votes with no "keep" votes but that of the author, and someone will say, "This is really a speedy delete candidate."  In some cases, that person is correct.  In most cases, that person is not correct because the article is an obvious delete but not a speedy delete.

iv) Cause: VfD is too long
 * Every few days, someone on the Village Pump will argue that VfD is too long. VfD reaches over 40kb routinely, even when there is not a contentious debate on it.  Indeed, it is so long that some people do not list articles there, and many more do not go to vote there.  This proposal will not reduce the lengthy debates.  Nor will this proposal eliminate the vital deliberative nature of VfD, but it is designed to cut down on the clutter and make it a truly deliberative page.

v) VfD is overwhelmed
 * On September 23, 2004, there were thirty-one new nominations to VfD for the single day. Of these thirty-one, almost all were proper deletion candidates and received nearly unanimous "delete" or "redirect" votes.  The nominators to VfD were acting appropriately, and yet it was extremely difficult for voters to consider all of the candidates.  The sheer volume of nominations can make it virtually impossible to reason together and consider articles carefully, case by case, which is what VfD is for.

vi) Cause: Inappropriate CSD tags
 * Things languish on Candidates for Speedy Deletion because administrators look at the articles and see that the tagged item is undesirable, but, simply put, not fitting the narrow definitions of a speedy delete.

II. Proposal
Proposed: That there be a new category of deletion entitled Early Deletion. Articles listed on the Managed Deletion page will under no circumstances remain listed for more than 72 hours. Under no circumstances will the listing be removed in less than 48 hours.

Procedure:
 * 1) Article is nominated for Managed Deletion by adding an early deletion template (template to be developed) to the top of the article's page and by recording the nomination on the early deletion candidate page (page to be developed).  Anyone may make this nomination.
 * 2) The article will be considered by administrators (see Caveat 1, below) (see also alternative mechanism).
 * 3) Three administrators must vote for any progressive action to take place.
 * 4) The three administrators will record their support or opposition to the nomination on the Wikipedia:Candidates for early deletion page.  Administrators may vote in only one of three ways:  "Keep," "Delete," or "VfD."  Comments and advocacy will be strongly discouraged.
 * 5) Upon achieving a unanimous three "delete" vote, an article will be deleted by the third consenting administrator after putting a summary note or template tag on the article's page.  No action will be taken on any article in less than 48 hours.  At the end of 72 hours, the article listing will be removed from the Wikipedia:Candidates for early deletion page.
 * 6) Failure to achieve unanimity:  If an article receives even one "keep" vote or one "VfD" vote, it will be referred to Wikipedia:Votes for deletion where deliberation will proceed under current regulations.  Similarly, if a page fails to get three votes of any sort within 72 hours, the candidate article will be listed on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion to be considered by appropriate methods there.
 * 7) Majority "Keep":  If an article receives 2 or 3 "keep" votes, the page will be sent to Wikipedia:Clean up automatically, with a note on its talk page to nominate the page for VfD if clean up fails its duty in a reasonable amount of time.
 * 8) Recreation of Early Deleted Content: If an article is recreated, it may not be subject to Managed Delete a second time. It should then be either kept or sent to Wikipedia:Votes for deletion, unless it has changed in such a way as to qualify for a speedy delete.

III. Criteria
Early deletion will be appropriate for any page which fit the following:
 * 1) Clear advertising with no amelioration or mitigation.
 * 2) Obvious vanity articles and homages to private enthusiasms (girlfriend tributes, local band puffery), where the subject has no notability or standing in the world or history.
 * 3) Clear and unambiguous political speech where POV is intrinsic and where the speech is intended to serve in ongoing advocacy and there is no mitigation.
 * 4) Jokes that are clearly such and where no valid content could be put in instead.
 * 5) Propagation of hoaxes where the article's existence is solely to increase the currency of a hoax.
 * 6) Substubs articles which contribute so little information that they are as good as a gap, articles where anyone performing the search already must know as much about the topic as the article gives, articles presenting less than minimal information about a topic so obscure as to not attract a knowledgeable editor for months and/or where Wikipedia:Clean up is not likely to help matters.

IV. Caveats
Caveat 1: Limiting voting to administrators is less democratic and less in the spirit of Wikipedia than anyone would like. However, Wikipedia:Early Deletion is not intended to be deliberative as much as juried. Therefore, it is not a place for argument. This category is an expansion of the duties of Candidates for Speedy Deletion and not a replacement for VfD. Like it, anyone may nominate, but, like it, the decision to execute the deletion will be administrative.

Caveat 2: Deliberative vs. juried: The purpose of this proposal is to eliminate unilateral deletions by administrators, to ensure that deletions take place with consensus. VfD is and remains afterward the deliberative deletion process, and that is why the default of any lack of consensus is to go to that page. However, managed deletes are juried, in that they require three consenting administrators.

Caveat 3: Timeframes: No listing may be removed in less than 72 hours. If a deleted article has an objector, that objector may undelete the article and refer it to VfD, with a note left on the listing indicating that such action has been taken.

Caveat 4: Criteria debate: Please go to this article's Talk page and follow the wikilinks to the precedents. A discussion of the language to be used for the criteria takes place there.

Discussion
This policy is in the voting stages. Once voting begins, no wording changes will be acceptable to the policy proposal itself. Amendments and alternatives require a 67% of all voters, total, approval to append.

Timeframe and Voting Considerations
Voting will begin on Friday, September 24, 2004 and remain open for two weeks (October 8, 2004). The opening of voting will be announced on Village Pump. Geogre 18:48, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Quorum: This proposal will be considered to have failed with fewer than twenty pro votes, regardless of the proportion of pro to con votes.

Page written by Geogre 17:44, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Certified Alternative: Jury Pool
''For II. 2., above, the following is a Jury Pool alternative.''

A dynamic jury pool of Wikipedia administrators will be created by means of administrators listing themselves on an alphabetical list. They can remove themselves from this pool, and re-enlist in it, at any time of their choice. The weeks of the year will be divided into 26 segments and numbered (beginning with January 1). Each jury duty will begin with the start of a new 2 week segment and will conclude at the end of that 2 week segment. Each time a new segment starts, the next ten administrators listed at that moment will automatically begin jury duty for the next two weeks.

Note to voters: This alternative is under separate vote. Those voting for the Proposal will be considered as "no" votes to the alternative. Those voting for the Alternative will be considered to have voted "for" the Proposal with this substition.

Other Alternatives
For a different proposal, see Categorized Deletion.

Review Votes Here
Note: Voting has closed been extended.