Wikipedia talk:AfD reform/Old proposall

If there is a great deal of mixed support/opposition for one of the proposals but not the other, the strawpoll section should be split for clarity. If there is much more opposition than support, then I'm taking this proposal to WP:RFA &mdash; yes, I'll be nominating this proposal for adminship! El_C 13:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
 * New proposal is now up. Will deal with the issue of a grace period (perhaps for articles which meet certain minimum requierments) at another juncture. El_C 12:14, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

=Old proposal=

AfD Reform
Much like VfD, AfD has become a mechanism which often suffers both from a lack of effectiveness and a toxic atmosphere. There are two key problems which result in it being largely a self-defeating process. The first relates to the improper usage of AfD listing, and the second to the lack of accessibility beyond what is often an AfD-specialist crowd.

Minimum steps
The problem arises when AfD are listed without any notice, effectively circumventing normal editorial procedure: the use of article and user talk pages. Most of those reading this proposal have seen &mdash;and removed&mdash; blank (without the discussion) npov, merge, etc. tags being placed. An AfD is an even more drastic step and yet all too often they are listed without the nominator undertaking the effort to contact the author on their talk page and placing queries on the article talk page. The solution to this problem is simple: AfD must be seen as the last recourse. Accordingly:


 * Providing the author with a grace period of a few days. Users will not be permitted to list AfDs without taking the time to notify the author on both their talk page and the article talk page. This will reduce the strain on AfD and will reduce the stress that a vote-based platform induces. Under special circumstances, when whole sets of articles may also face AfD nominations, the steps must involve an even more intensive and extensive prior discussion and grace period, than with individual articles (to take place in a suitable central place, such a pertinent wikiproject, a category talk page, and of course, always, the courtesy of notices on user talk pages of author/s).

AfD surgery
[The following was my answer to Kim when he asked what it would take for me to visit AfD regularly] One of the worse aspects of AfD isn't so much its volume, which is of course great, but its aggregate form, organizationally. This works, on the one hand, to deter most editors (whose interests tend to be more narrow than everything), and especially specialists with particular expertise, from involvement with AfD aside from isolated cases; and on the other, turns AfD into a realm where a few AfD-specialists, who can bare its irrational disorder reign supreme. The solution to this problem is also quite simple: AfD must be categorized, and this categorization must take place in the listing stage itself. Accordingly:


 * Much like article RfC, AfD will be divided into various categories (i.e. geography, history, comic books, television, politics, etc.). Thus, the nominator will have to choose which category an article belongs in as part of the listing process itself, with the result obviously reflected in the overall presentation. Having the ability to list an overlapping entry in more than one category will also be useful. With the categorization in place, the day-by-day timeframe for archiving may also be altered (or not: this can exist side-by-side with the current method), so that one is able to see all (or most) of active politics or film or literature, etc. AfDs, rather than the disorder of everything, which by virtue of being everything (that is, chronological order=topical disorder), needs to be archived into wholly separate pages much more frequently.

Support & opposition
To avoid convolution, please only sign your name and place any and all comments on the talk page. If you only support/oppose one of the proposal, please note "support 1," "oppose 2," etc. Otherwise, just a signature with a time stamp, please. Thank you for your consideration.

Support

 * El_C 13:25, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

 * Sjakkalle (Check!)  13:51, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Rossami (talk) 14:21, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Dr Zak 19:20, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Creating the catagories could simply slow and complicate the process, and notifying authors is guarenteed to do that. --InShaneee 19:26, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Completely delays process. Plenty of articles are clearly AFD material but escape speedying on a technicality, and prod tags are immediately removed. We've had this before, and I'm afraid nothing's changed. Stifle (talk) 00:07, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
 * CanadianCaesar Cæsar is turn’d to hear 08:37, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Sjakkalle's objection
Before I start, I want to mention one of AFD's greatest strengths: It is really pretty effective at getting rid of bad articles. OK, sometimes I see an article deleted which I think could be kept, sometimes an article which I think should be deleted is wound up being kept. But outrageously poor decisions are in fact relatively rare. Most of the results made on AFD are not disputed. In that sense, AFD as it now is does "work". We also have do have the safety valve of WP:DRV. It is far less than perfect, and there are perhaps things that can be tinkered with, but it does work. Now regarding these proposals I have objections to both of them. First, requiring a "grace period" between article creation and AFD nomination will make it far more difficult to catch bad articles, because a sizable chunk of these are caught by people patrolling the Special:Newpages (Note that I agree that nominating things for deletion after one minute is not very helpful, but people should not submit new articles before they are ready to stand on their own feet, if it's a long project, use your userspace). Second, splitting up the AFD section into various pages by topic seems to be instruction creep, making it far more difficult to nominate articles for deletion because the nominator needs to know about which topical AFD list the debate should be submitted to. Also, it is more difficult to navigate the AFD pages if it is split up into many pages rather than lumped together on one page per day as it is now. I am not sure this is a great problem either, not all votes are from AFD regulars, several are from people who spot an AFD tag on an article they happen to look up. Anyway, that's my thoughts, sorry about displaying such a negative attitude... Sjakkalle (Check!)  13:52, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
 * That's okay, I expect strong opposition from AfD regulars who want it to invade the wikipedia further. :P So long as people like me can't be bothered to look at the mess that is everything lumped together, it'll remain your instrcution creep domain! El_C 14:02, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I strongly agree that it is inappropriate to nominate a good faith attempt at an article too quickly, but the concept of the "grace period" and notification are, in my opinion, unworkable. In addition to Sjakkalle's concern about decreasing the utility of Special:Newpages to find and eliminate a stunning amount of uncontested junk, it seems to me that mandatory notification violates the principle behind WP:OWN - that none of us is the author of any page. Mandatory notification would send a contradictory signal.

My argument against categorization is that it further balkanizes the project. Our best editorial decisions are not the ones made by the "experts". That's the model used by traditional encyclopedias. Our best decisions are the ones that get widespread visibility and community discussion. For all its perceived faults, the current process does that reasonably well.

Operationally, I have concerns about how the categorization would be set. Once you start to split discussions by topic, where does it end and how do you stop it? What stops people from sub-categorizing "Religious deletions" into "Islamic deletions" into "Shiite deletions" into ... ad nauseum? I can not think of that as good for the project's decision-making.

Categorization will also exacerbate the "quorum" problems we have. No, there is no official quorum for a deletion discussion, but discussions with low participation are generally relisted for futher discussion. We split off WP:MFD months ago. MFD sees far less participation than regular AFDs. Debates are being relisted all the time there - pointless administrative work. This last is a solvable problem, but it's still a cost that should not be ignored. Rossami (talk) 14:42, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Dr Zak's observation
AfD is straightforward in getting rid of doubtful articles and downright horrible when it's asked to set policy. We have guidelines for a bunch of things, and as they are descriptive, not prescriptive, the "keep" voters find reasons to keep and the "delete" voters feel upset for not being listed to due of Wikipedia's default to keep things.

Categorizing things won't really help, I can't see why it would.

If you are referring to the recent mess over the Jewish stub cleanout what might help is a separate forum where the merits of group nominations can be discussed and taken to AfD once the waters have been tested. I've been thinking to propose that. Think it might help? Dr Zak 14:13, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

HKT's proposal suggestions
I think that this AfD reform could be enacted in a way that would only attract more voters. Sjakkalle states that "AFD as it now is does 'work'." This is true, but there are problems and the system can be further improved. El C's concerns are valid: Many articles make it to AfD without the knowledge and input of interested parties. Some deletions that might otherwise have been kept (and probably improved) are not even noticed for a while or at all, rendering WP:DRV irrelevant in those cases. Nevertheless there are drawbacks to both proposals.

Regarding the first proposal, Sjakkalle notes: "...[R]equiring a "grace period" between article creation and AFD nomination will make it far more difficult to catch bad articles, because a sizable chunk of these are caught by people patrolling the Special:Newpages." Rossami notes that the current system allows editors to "eliminate a stunning amount of uncontested junk," while a blanket notification requirement would render junk elimination more tedious. Rossami also notes that a requirement to notify the article's creator would seem to indicate a disregard for WP:OWN. I would address these concerns with the following proposal modifications:


 * In a scenario where the author is also the only editor (excluding minor edits), only the author need be informed. Otherwise the most active editors (or most active recent editors) to that article should be notified.
 * Owing to cited concerns, a grace period usually seems impractical. Since the AfDs last for several days, that should serve as a sufficient grace period for involved editors to respond to the AfD. However, a grace period seems appropriate for significantly edited articles. Perhaps a standard for requiring a grace period should be something like wherever an article has no less than 20 edits by no less than 4 editors.
 * In an article that is clearly pertinent to one or more WikiProject, a notice must be left on the talk pages of those WikiProjects.

Regarding the second proposal, cited concerns include instruction creep, balkanization, ad nauseum compartmentalism, low voter turnout, and navigational difficulty. I think that it would be worth the instruction creep if the system could be modified to attain better AfD review. Regarding ad nauseum specificity, I think that the community can enact a categorization system that is only specific enough to encourage many more editors to check AfDs frequently or place specified pages on their watchlists. Even basic categorization would go a long way to relieve the burden on editors monitoring AfDs for specific types of articles. I would address the other concerns with the following proposal modification:


 * Set up a semi-automated double listing system for all AfDs - one on the regular AfD page and one on the categorized pages.

I've often been sorry to see that I missed votes in which I would've liked to participate. I have also been disappointed to see votes go by without input from a community of interested editors. I'm glad to see this helpful proposal in the works. HKT 19:54, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Support for categorization
Though I would object to mandatory talk page notification per WP:OWN, and am somewhat dubious of "grace periods", I actually think categorization is the strongest aspect of the proposal. We should of course only have broad categories (e.g. Religion rather than Islamic topics). I would think when we switch formats the AfD topic areas recieving less posts per day than a single master list would be a good thing; perhaps these could be grouped by week or maybe month (depending on how finely we cut the topic areas) rather than by day which would make things move at a more comfortable pace for some of us. Having an AfD organization for broad topic areas would also I think facilitate the development of more basic standards of what is considered notable in the different topic areas.--Pharos 03:01, 24 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I think there's merit to the general idea, but I'm not sure how it would work technically. Are there other categories on transcluded pages? I'd guess that the log page would end up in all of the categories. -Will Beback 06:24, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Putting a simple link and redirect to the listing on the main AfD page from all relevant subject AfD pages might be the most practical method. HKTTalk 17:08, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Putiing wikitext in tags means that it operates on the individual page but not on any where it is transcluded.  So, we do not have a technical problem here.  Incidentally, the  tags perform the opposite function.--Pharos 19:08, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Stifle's opinion
Instruction creep Stifle (talk) 10:56, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

=New proposal=

What I'd like
Is to watch a certain category (and thus its subcategories) for a tagged article. For example, watching the Microsoft category and then getting informed, via a new-talk-page-message like-thing, about any Microsoft-related article nominated for deletion. Apologies in advance if this has already been mentioned :). RN 06:06, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Reactivating WPDS
Hello,

There has been some movement toward reactivating (and reforming) WikiProject Deletion sorting. See the discussion page, where discussion is currently focused on automation and reforming the sortpage structure. Please feel free to join us.

WPDS is a little different from the proposal here, as it does not require anything from AfD nominators or from MediaWiki developers. Nor does it require any change to existing deletion policy and procedure. Instead, it relies on sorting AfDs independently into a relatively large number of topical pages (debates are not forked, they are simply transcluded into topical pages).

While this project was an abject failure a year ago, we may now be able to make it work. Anyone with an interest is more than welcome to kibitz (or even participate). Cheers, -- Visviva 09:32, 15 August 2006 (UTC)