Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Vanished user 342562/Sandbox/WikiProject United States Government invitations

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 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the discussion was Move. This whole discussion is a mess, and has become meta - I think it is clear that this page is useless where it is, and the only place it may be useful would be to the project, so moving it to WikiProject United States Government/Invitations as it could possibly be of use to that project in the future. — xaosflux  Talk 00:27, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

User:Vanished user 342562/Sandbox/WikiProject United States Government invitations


Old invitation page for WP:WikiProject United States Government that was supposed to be run by an unapproved bot that stopped in 2008 and under the page of a vanished user who stopped editing in December 2008. Ricky81682 (talk) 22:22, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep due to no reason offered delete. Or is there a WP:BOTS consensus to reverse all the unapproved bot edits?  If so, please link.  MfD does not engage in bot business.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:13, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Userspace is also not supposed to a storage place for pages that look like project pages. If this page had been widely used by the WikiProject, then "moving it into project space or merging it with other similar pages already existing there" would be appropriate. I will ask at the project talk page if people find this useful. The fact that this was run through an unauthorized bot which I presume subst it that hasn't been active since 2008 is evidence that it is not in wide use (or any use) by the project itself today. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:52, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
 * It looks like a talk page template, not a project page. I would expect that every use was substed. No issue with merging/redirect/moving into the WikiProject. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:57, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
 * It's a page that would belong to the project, namely invitations to the project itself. There's no reason why a user would have a version of this. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:41, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I can think of two reasons immediately. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:16, 14 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Question Has it been used? Does the project want it? If the answer is "No" to both, then delete by analogy to WP:TFD. This is essentially just a template that's been kept in userspace. If it's not been used, has no hope of being used, and would never survive in templatespace, there's no logical reason to keep it. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 19:09, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
 * This is the equivalent of MedInvitation and other WikiProject-specific welcoming templates. The WikiProject appears to be largely inactive (and might be a good candidate for merging into WikiProject United States as a task force).  However, given that our normal approach is to assume that all WikiProjects might someday be WP:REVIVEd, and since this is the sort of thing some eventual revival-minded editor would need, it might be best to move it to Template: space and add the template to the project's main page (so that it can be found).  WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:56, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Support doing this, and leaving a redirect behind so that the user may find it easily. (NB redirects are cheap).  Wouldn't the easiest thing to do be to transclude and link this template onto the WikiProject page?   --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:15, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Why? It would just be an orphaned unused template in templatespace then for possible invitations to a project that seemingly is either inactive or has no interest in it. There's no evidence the project wants the page. I already asked about it. If the project is revived and there's interest for doing invitations again, someone could ask for restoration and then move it and use it. I don't recall many projects doing this kind of inviting in the last few years so I don't see where there would ever be an interest in this template. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:51, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * It's really no different to why we don't delete all inactive WikiProjects. It won't be in template space, and in userspace or a WikiProject subpage being an orphan is not important. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 20:41, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * It's not an inactive WikiProject though. It's a template. The standards for templates are different. Now, at MfD things are a lot more wishy-washy, but the fact that this is a vanished editor ticks the "no credible hope of ever being used again by this editor" box that gets us past the preliminary "let's not screw up someone's userspace if we can avoid it" hurdle. In the vast majority of userspace cases, MfD is applying rules that only make sense with article-like content; things like STALEDRAFTs and FAKEARTICLEs. This is neither. The right move is, presuming we've demonstrated nobody wants or is working on this, apply the same standards that TfD would: If it's not been used, and nobody wants it, delete it. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 16:53, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * No, templates, particularly templates not used in mainspace but usertalk pages, in userspace are not ruled by the same standards as templates in template space. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:59, 16 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep. Editor could return, unvanish, restart the project and use this page. Better to be safe than drive them away if they see that their work has been deleted without any reason. 166.176.57.236 (talk) 19:17, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * User:103.6.159.83 asserts that User:166.176.57.236 is under a ban. — xaosflux  Talk 13:16, 20 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete its not being used. Its not going to be used. Its not been used. If not deleted it should be moved to Template space. Legacypac (talk) 06:30, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
 * It is only useful to the WikiProject, and so is better as a WikiProject subpage. If it is felt that it doesn't belong in this userspace, move to WikiProject United States Government/Invitations.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:53, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
 * At which point we can subject that to deletion at MFD since the project doesn't seem to have any interest in it? If they had started the page there and the project didn't want it, would that have made any difference? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:03, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
 * It is obviously part of the WikiProject. The editor who created the page obviously did it for the WikiProject, that makes it part of the WikiProject.  I see no reason to delete it.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:19, 22 March 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.