Wikipedia talk:Cleanup/Archive 1

Various
Should there even be an "over two month old" section? In the Leftovers page, it says that articles that have "remained uncleaned after two months." Maybe we should move all of the articles currently there to Leftovers and get rid of the heading. Other suggestions? Astarael

Why do people feel compelled to create entries that are simply lists of things? Listings are unnecessary when one has a searchable database. For example, instead of maintaining a list of "authors from Norway", people should just do a search on "authors AND Norway". IMHO, the only reason to have lists is when the list is organized for a specific additional order (for instance a chronological order). Lists are archaic when a searchable database is available. What do others think?


 * Maybe this is why -- WormRunner 19:13, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)
 * Sorry! Full text search has been disabled temporarily, for performance reasons. In the meantime, you can use the Google search below, which may be out of date.


 * And at a more basic level because 'author AND Norway' would hit lots of people who weren't authors or from Norway, and it might miss out writers from Norway. Indexes are good, though autogenerating them would be better. Morwen 19:23, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * Yeah, but I just think its sort of silly for humans to be manually indexing things in the age of computers. A manual index will miss out writers from Norway too.  A good index is great, but I'm just not convinced that manual indexing will keep up with the information being added to Wikipedia.  If I add an article on a Norwegian author, how am I supposed to know to also update "List of Authors from Norway", "List of Authors Named Lars", "List of Mystery Authors", etc.?  I'd rather just enter a good article and have the computer do the organizing.

Here's my proposal. A good, separate "list" type entry should meet two conditions: (a) the list must be "containable" and (b) the list must illustrate an additional order to the listing. For "non-containable" lists it should be clear that the list does not try to be comprehensive and is more of an example that could be included within another entry. I'm not saying these criteria would be a hard rule, but should be considered for cleanup discussions.
 * Example 1: A List of famous gay, lesbian or bisexual people is not containable -- there are estimates that at least 1/10th the population is gay so the list is potentially limitless. Just listing all the ballet dancers would be exhausting.  Such a list is futile -- it will never be complete.  My suggestion would be that under the Homosexuality entry there would be a subsection that gives examples of famous homosexuals without trying to be comprehensive.
 * Example 2: A "List of U.S. Presidents that were Homosexual" would be a much better type of list. There are only so many U.S. Presidents overall, and the ones that were openly homosexual is a small list, so the list is containable.  If the list is also put into chronological order, then it would meet my criteria that it shows an additional order to the listing.
 * Example 3: The List of matrices does not provide any additional order. It should be merged into the entry on Matrix.

One good reason to have a list page is the Related Changes function, which is useful if you want to monitor changes for say Games or Airlines. Not that I disagree with the above.

Any chance of a section specifically for articles which someone thinks might merit VfD, to give a week here for them to be expanded or redirected before they join the clutter at VfD? Should stop a quarter of VfD entries from ever qualifying and it'd be nice to work on them before lots of people spend their time judging them. JamesDay 09:21, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * How would you like to set it up? -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 18:15, Oct 19, 2003 (UTC)


 * After further thought I suggested a possible scheme on wikien-l during the delete discussion there. JamesDay 23:41, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * Hmm. I have been thinking about this a bit. Maybe they do not need their own section, but maybe we could just have some way of making them stand out from the rest of the entries. Like say enclose the entry withing ''' emphasis. Just a thought. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 00:58, Oct 29, 2003 (UTC)


 * Sounds fine to me.JamesDay 02:14, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * Ok. Without opposition; will implement after several hours have passed. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 02:38, Oct 29, 2003 (UTC)


 * Going ahead with the emphasis adding. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 14:04, Oct 29, 2003 (UTC)

Maybe this isn't very important, but... why are there line breaks between the list-item '*'s and the entries themselves? That makes the list look quite ugly IMO. --bdesham 23:29, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * I think enough people have expressed they don't like the formatting of the page; so I guess it needs to be improved. But do let's try to not get into a nonproductive edit war over the matter. Maybe people could just add a sample entry or two as they would like the formatting to work, below. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 01:56, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC)


 * How would this (below) look, any better? -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 07:05, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC)


 * That looks great. If there's no objection here after a couple of hours, I'll go ahead and change it. --bdesham 13:44, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

re: Sign with your sig only&#8212;no timestamp please
 * When was this added? I thought it was meant to be anonymous. Has that changed? If so, I object to the change. If not, the instructions need to be made clearer. Angela 06:34, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
 * p.s. I kinda like this Cleanup thing now.


 * I won't be signing my listings or comments. And compulsory signing I would resist strongly. But I am not personally going to make too big a fuss if some people like to leave their little John Hancocks in there. Maybe it livens the place up, maybe not. It seems that the habit of not signing still remains as the default. It's just extra keystrokes you don't really need. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 06:53, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)


 * It most certainly would liven the place up. That's why I object. Angela 07:00, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
 * I agree. See below for my comment that it is only suggested as optional for those who want notification or a time limit on deletes. I do not advocate or support it for other use and wouldn't personally use it for deletes either - but I think some would only list here with that option. I like this place nice and quiet.:) .JamesDay 22:02, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * I like the fact that no-one shouts at me for listing a stub and not for fixing it. And that I can call something unencyclopedic without having to justify the term. And that if someone I call non-famous actually is famous, the listing can just be removed rather than sitting there as a grounds for attacking me. It's much nicer. :) Angela


 * Hm. Perhaps &#25140;&#30505;sv would like to explain his grounds for preferring signatures? Is it just precisely that he thinks this page needs more argumentative exchanges? -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 08:49, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)


 * I frankly would feel a bit leery about calling an article, say, "POV nonsense" w/o identifying myself as the source of the opinion. -- Smerdis of Tlön 21:57, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

re: mailing list (why is this on the mailing list and not here anyway?)
 * it's on the list because there was an ongoing deletion redesign discusson there and I mentioned listing here first as one way of reducing VfD traffic. This place would end up getting half of the articles reworked and the VfD would never happen for them, cutting traffic and disagreements there. JamesDay 22:02, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

(&#25140;&#30505;sv said we could just use a day tag like VFD, or code timestamps that said 'early morning/ 'late night' etc.)


 * I don't think it's necessary to be too specific about the timestamps. Is anyone really going to object if something is moved from here to VfD half a day early? The alternative to timestamping everything would be just to timestamp something when you decide it should go to VfD, then it can go 1 week from that date. A lot of things on here aren't affected by that anyway as they are not being listed for deletion, just for improvement. Angela 07:54, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)


 * I tried something new with the break-headers, it's just an experiment; feel free to comment. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 08:49, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)
 * I like it JamesDay 11:45, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * I agree about not being too specific. The tildes are convenient if someone wants to use them. month/day or month works for me. Just an option for some limit so people who want one will list here without thinking that it'll be shunted off into a corner and never dealt with. I agree with your desire for some limit (though a longer one) elsewhere as well, for the same reason.JamesDay 22:02, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

re: signing.

I'm the one who mentioned it on the list. I do not advocate it for all entries or suggest making it required for any. The only reason I mentioned signing was to provide a convenient way for people who though something should be deleted to both say that they wanted notification and to give a time limit it they wanted one. I do not propose or support making name or time (or day or week or month) stamp anything but entirely optional and at the discretion of the person making the entry. I do advocate it for deletion candidates only if the person wants that notification and/or time limit. Entirely optional. I'm trying to get those who list over at VfD more comfortable with using cleanup instead. I think some will want these things, even though I personally wouldn't use either. JamesDay 22:02, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * Perhaps signatures in themselves are not bad, if they don't encourage posing and or making statements instead of helpful guiding comments. I have edited the first bullet point of the preamble to state that verbose comments will be edited for brevity. I confess I removed a few signatures as well when I last formatted and cut excessive personal statements. I promise not to do it again, but I think we need to be strong about not letting rhetoric, statements about other users and such soil this page... -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 10:54, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)


 * Agree about shunting. There's not so much urgency here. Just shift debate to the right talk page, say thereis one and point there for it... with luck it'll all be over before the issue escalates to VfD. JamesDay 11:41, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Eh? Forgive me for being dense, but what exactly are you agreeing about? -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 11:54, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I didn't give you the context first and the first sentence didn't make sense without it. I agree about moving away the verbose things and suggest doing the same for any arguments which happen. Those could be moved to the article talk page and a link added. And this also proves that it's time for bed here...:)JamesDay 13:10, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Just curious: why are some cleanup articles boldeded? Dysprosia 10:44, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

All those articles in imminent fear of being listed on VFD are bolded. Should probably make the fact more prominent in the intro. (for reasons, see top of this talkpage) -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 11:05, Oct 30, 2003 (UTC)

Moving listings from VfD to Cleanup

 * I've started to copy fresh VFD-candidates I personally think are salvageable on Cleanup, since I am not quite bold enough to just simply move them outright. But maybe it might not be a bad idea to move obviously salvageable articles there, with the note that they came from VFD, and should be returned, if no fixup was forthcoming. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 11:58, Oct 31, 2003 (UTC)


 * I have no objections to that as long as it isn't simply way of preventing an article being deleted by sneakng it off to cleanup and then removing it from the page when no-one's looking. If things genuinely go back to VfD if they are not fixed (and within a short enough time span - one or two weeks) then I think it's worth trying. Angela 12:11, Oct 31, 2003 (UTC)


 * Actually I have been thinking about that a bit. That, and the problem of having somekind of timestamp so they don't stay there for ever. How about if we were to move the debate which has already taken place on the entry at VFD into a special "freezefile" (in addition to listing on Cleanup of course). That would provide a timestamp for each entry removed, would prevent cheating deletion via Cleanup, and if no one fixes the article, the debate can start where it left off previously, by copying the removed debate back to VFD. The freezefile would store the debate. No one should edit it but to move stuff from VFD, or back into it. We could probably keep a pretty darn long backlog of frozen debates there, since the majority of them would be shunted there, before much debate at all had occurred. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 12:53, Oct 31, 2003 (UTC)


 * Seems a good idea to me. This will stop people complaining that something should have been put here when it was at VfD. Instead of complaining, they can just move it, and those that really dislike the Cleanup page can continue to put things at VfD safe in the knowledge that someone else will bring them over here when appropriate. Angela 13:42, Oct 31, 2003 (UTC)

"NEVER list stubs for redirection or deletion"?
Someone put this after an entry, which seems a proposed policy rather than discussion of one article, so I moved it here:

"NEVER list stubs for redirection or deletion if they have the potential to be unstubbed."

At present I disagree with that. I suspect that the vast majority of stubs have the potential to be expanded. Left on their own, however, many won't be for long lengths of time. The stubs or sub-stubs that get listed on Cleanup tend to be of the particularly poor type; for example those of less than one complete sentance, often with less data on the subject than the article they were linked from. IMO such non-articles can be of less actual use than a red link or a redirect. If no one has shown any inclination to improve or clean them up after some time, in some cases deletion or redirection may be for the best. -- Infrogmation 11:38, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

"Sub-Stub"
I started using this term to refer to the minimal articles of less than one full sentance (usually newbie contributed), for example Leap the full text of which at writing is "Named after a leap that O'Donovan made while fleeing English soldiers" -- not a full sentance, no wikilinks, raises more questions than it answers (where is it? Is it a town, city, river, or what? Who was O'Donovan?). Resently I've seen some other people list things as "sub-stub" when they have several sentances, but the article is still quite poor. Perhaps if were going to be using the term, we should have a general agreement as to what we mean by it. -- Infrogmation 11:47, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Format of "Cleanup"
The format of the cleanup page is very unclear. There are about 4 or 5 sections called "NEW", then a few "OLD". Why can't we use actual dates like VfD? Also Cleanup is not mentioned in the Deletion policy anywhere, what is it's exact status with respect to the VfD, etc., i.e. is actively used like VfD, how many people are actually checking this page regularly life VfD?

Subpages
On Wikien-L, Jake suggested Cleanup be split into subpages. I think this is an excellent idea. Often if people want to fix something, there's going to be particular types of things they would rather fix. Here's the categories he suggests for those who don't read the list:


 * Cleanup -- lists the others, will probably be the misc dropoff
 * Cleanup/copyvio -- It's a possible copyvio.
 * Cleanup/foreign -- It's in a foreign language.
 * Cleanup/short -- It's not even a full paragraph.
 * Cleanup/rename -- The name is unworkable, and a better name is unknown or disputed.
 * Cleanup/odd -- Material seems idiosyncratic or unverifiable.
 * Cleanup/pov -- Such a POV rant, some would call it unfixable.

Obviously we already have foreign and copyvio, so I don't see a reason for duplication of effort in creating new versions of those. Also, I strongly object to Jake's notion that this should replace VfD. It should work alongside it. I see no real need right now to insist that pages be listed here first. Perhaps for some pages that would be beneficial, but not for all pages. VfD still has the advantage that it is extremely popular and people are way more likely to fix a VfD'd article than one simply listed on Cleanup. People love VfD so launching an outright attack on it will only make people resentful of the Cleanup idea. Keep both but aim to gradually bring people around to the notion of Cleanup rather than trying to force them to use it right now. Angela 18:28, Nov 7, 2003 (UTC)

Image Cleanup
There are quite a few big images (either wrong format bmp, png, or huge resolutions). Rather than list all of them here, like I was starting to do :), should these be cleaned up (i.e. resized/converted -> reuploaded -> deleted)? Perhaps we should have a Upload Cleanup page? Dori 18:43, Nov 16, 2003 (UTC)


 * Subpages are allowed in the Wikipedia namespace so Cleanup/images would seem best. Angela 19:11, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * Such a page would be quite handy for people with image-editing software (myself included) to focus their efforts on. Additionally, we could conceivably have a Cleanup/audio page, though audio files seem to be even more rare than images. -Smack 18:47, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)