Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy/Archive 1

Old talk
I do not want to see this list of "deleters" expanded. I do not wish to see a hierarchy develop at the Wikipedia and certainly having a select group of people with this authority will create one. Additionally the decision to bestow this right on a given person could fuel dissent from those who feel "entitled" for whatever reason but have been "overlooked".

The three people with deleting authority (at present) are all Bomis Inc employees. The rule that "Bomis employee = deleting privileges" is simple and non-controversial. Three people should be more than adequate to handle the responsibilities. Anyone else can use the Page titles to be deleted to direct admin people to these pages. - MMGB


 * I agree wholeheartedly, Manning. I would tell 'em to earn their keep, except that we're not paying them. -MichaelTinkler


 * I completely agree as well. Having some volunteers with deleting powers and others without would be disasterous, IMO. Leave such powers with the official administrators. --Stephen Gilbert

What you say makes a lot of sense. Right now, the deleting workload is minimal. By the time it's too much for Bomis employees, we'll be able to pay more people to work on the project, I imagine. (Right now the project doesn't even pay for me. :-) ) --LMS

Is it okay if we have Wikipedia policy/Pages which have been permanently deleted (or maybe Wikipedia/Page titles which have been permanently deleted)? It would be useful (and interesting) to know what's been permanently deleted; note that Magnus's software will give us this log automagically, if we want. --TheCunctator


 * I'd rather such a log was kept off-site, and where miscreants couldn't easily find it and simply ressurrect the deleted pages. - MMGB

I tend to agree, MMGB. I don't feel very strongly about this, but the risk of abuse by admins in deleting pages is far smaller than the risk of abuse by vandals of the information of what pages were deleted. The only reason to have the "deleted pages" list displayed is to let people know that everything is above-board, which is a really excellent reason. I don't really care if sober adults see what pages I've deleted, and indeed it might help the sense of openness the community naturally has, some small amount, if they can see what pages I've deleted. But, again, I'm not sure that is more important than removing the incentives to vandalism, which such a list might be. --LMS


 * Why don't we try it, and if it becomes an incentive to vandalism, we can take it down or change the situation? I'm glad you can see the merits of the proposal. --TheCunctator


 * I actually don't think the proposal has much merit. I really don't see what purpose the list would have.  I also don't think that your personal page on Meta-Wikipedia is the place for such a list, Cunctator.  Eh? --LMS


 * I do. Eh? --TheCunctator


 * I'm sorry you feel that way, C. I'm going to have to insist that you not use it for that purpose.  --LMS

What about other Wikipedias? Who´s going to perform a "good practices code" on our pages? As we're quite "forgotten sons", who will take care of us? I mean, the Spanish one on which I´m working now, for instance, had suffered from vandalism on Basque Country pages, obviously related to the political status, and the evidence is still there. Are you going to look after our pages?.--Edgar

The problem with the other Wikipedias is that we don't speak those languages well enough to help; I think the best we can do, until we raise enough money to hire people to lead those projects, is to lead by example. I wish it could be different. --LMS
 * For each non-English Wikipedia, you could assign a Wikipedian or two who speaks that language fluently and who you can trust to delete pages there. -- SJK


 * If someone trustworthy wants to volunteer, sounds good. Could someone make appropriate changes to the non-English Wikipedias page and other relevant pages? --LMS

- My admittedly newbie opinion is that misspelt names should not be allowed in. This is, after all, a reference work. Inaccuracies should be purged. Wayne Gretszky is what sent me searching for a page talking about deleting pages. ATM Gretszky redirects to Wayne Gretzky, but is it really beneficial? Eventually search engines will update and dead links will phase out. --Colin dellow

I have seen that it is very desirable not to delete pages, but only do #REDIRECTs, will be keep doing that, even when a page is some mispelling (especially mistyping, like Wofgang Amadeus Mozart)?

If there is a consensus that some pages should be deleted every now and then, I'd put the previous one on the list.

I think the suggestion to keep all pages came as a means of avoiding dead links in search engines. I've encountered similar mispellings (Martin Scorcese); I would like to do away with them also but I'm not sure it would be a good advertisement for Wikipedia to leave dead links. I guess whatever action is taken depends on how common the misspelling is? It seems that wikipedia does not fuzzy-match search results; is that the case? - I think there are two things discussed here. One is deletion of data. I don't like that. The other is moving data from an unsuitable location (a misspelling) to a correct one. I don't think this is a problem.

If someone creates a new page with a misspelled name and you spot it the day after, I think it's a good idea to move the data and remove the misspelled entry. Of course you should also use search to make sure that any other links to the page are changed. If the misspelling is on an old page so that it can be suspected of being in search engines like [|Google], then I guess a redirect is better. --Pinkunicorn

Hi Pink, a redirect in that case is definitely better. Since ordinary users can't delete pages but only the data they contain, you might as well make the page with the misspelled title point to the one with the correctly spelled title. We do this all the time, and search engines like it (why not give poor spellers a positive result for their trouble? So Wikipedia catches the poor speller traffic--grand!). Colin, it would have been a little better to have asked this question in the FAQ or on Wikipedia chat rather than making an entire new page for it. By this time we have thought through most of the basic issues, so it's not a matter of debate, it's a matter of us informing you what the consensus is. --User:LMS

Ah, my mistake. For some reason I thought the proper system here would be to put freshest comments at the top of the page, hence the misleading positioning of my comment. I didn't create this page, it just appeared to be the most proper forum when I ran a search. Anyway, question answered, lessons learned, one step closer to being better informed. :) --User:Colin dellow

Oh, I thought this page looked familiar! I think it's a really old one. Sorry, Colin. As you can see, I was indeed confused by the position of your comment. Isn't interesting how the place where your comment is put conveys semantic information... --User:LMS

Just to add one more thought, the cost of having a misspelling with a REDIRECT is probably pretty low, and it's not like some is going to have a page on someone else name of Wayne Gretszky. The only disadvantage I see is that it makes search results somewhat noisier; ideally having a way to tag a page as not being searchable, only reachable directly might be nice to have. Though first I want search results to put the best result -- pages with the request name in them -- at the top of the search list. --User:Belltower

I think I want to strike rule number three:
 * Do not delete anything that might in the future become an encyclopedia topic. Hence, just because someone has written a completely worthless article about John Doe, that doesn't mean we should permanently delete the topic, John Doe, from the database.

Someone (I think Jimbo, at least) has made the point that, if we do not permanently delete blank articles from the database, others, working on topics that link to the blank article, might think that an article exists. Moreover, there really isn't any particularly good reason to save many archives for presently blank articles. Perhaps we could make a rule to the effect that if, in our opinion, the archive is for some reason valuable, we won't delete the blank article; otherwise (which means in most cases), we should.

What do you all think? Shall we strike it? I think we should. --LMS
 * I agree Larry. If the page is blank, I say delete it. However, I'd make an exception for blank pages which can sensibly be redirected to another page which has content. -- SJK

Hm, I just posted to wikipedia-l about that asking for a clarification. Koyaanis Qatsi, Saturday, April 6, 2002

- Wouldn't Policy on permanent deletion of pages be a better page title? I really don't care for the double wikipedia. This will be changed over by me if nobody objects. --maveric149


 * Well, I object -- this is a discussion of policy, not the policy itself... JHK 08:27 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)

The main page certainly has the appearance of more or less settled policy &mdash; it's even protected. I agree with maveric149.

&mdash; Toby 11:08 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)

Hi, may I ask why we're deleting subpages that have been around for a long time, instead of leaving them as redirects? I just teased Ed Poor for wanting to delete a bunch of subpages of Middle Earth, since these have all been archived by search engines. I guess I was wrong; they're being deleted by the truckload! I remember people being chastised on Votes for deletion for voting for these pages. Now anybody that does a Google search for the words "Middle-earth" and &lt;fill in the blank with most anything&gt; (look at Article deletion log and try it for yourself!) will quickly come to the conclusion that following Wikipedia links is a waste of time. Are we really having space issues that these redirect orphans can't continue to bring in traffic from search engines? &mdash; Toby 03:19 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)


 * Toby, at first I removed all the text from (and requested deletion of) the "subpage" articles. Then, after discussion with LDC and Maveric and Brion, I started just replacing the text of subpage articles with REDIRECTs to the new articles. This has left several dozen blank pages, I'm afraid. But soon Google and other search engines will have re-indexed Middle-earth and every part of it (even Rivendell) will be instantly available. Ed Poor 08:47 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)

But why are we going out of our way to create broken links in search engines, even temporarily? As mentioned, this seems reasonable is space is an issue, but not otherwise. I've seen this come up several times before, and I never noticed a consensus that we should delete instead of redirect &mdash; OTC, popular opinion seemed to go the other way. Did I miss a (public) discussion somewhere? &mdash; Toby 11:08 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)

I forgot, there's another reason not to delete these: We no longer know what their history is (unless we look in ). Thanks to Julie's talk page for reminding me. &mdash; Toby 11:17 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)


 * I should also point out that the "Move page" feature of the wiki software (is this still restricted to sysops?) automatically creates a redirect from the old title to the new title. ---Brion VIBBER


 * Yes, it's still resticted to sysops &mdash; see next item. &mdash; Toby 11:38 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)

I just want to say that I am in 100% agreement with Brion and Toby about not deleting old page titles when their content has been moved to a new page title. My reasoning is in many other places so (See Talk:Middle-earth). I will, however, recreate any deleted page title as a redirect if it is deleted solely because it is no longer the article's title. --mav 19:32 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)

Good for you! Too bad that that doesn't restore the history (unless it was moved by secrect sysop superpowers). &mdash; Toby 13:27 Jul 25, 2002 (PDT)

(I'm separating the two distinct issues for clarity of presentation.)

Yes, the "Move page" feature's still resticted to sysops. &mdash; Toby 11:38 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)


 * Should it be? Some of these massive renaming projects would go a lot smoother using it; for one thing, edit histories wouldn't be divided over two pages. --Brion VIBBER 11:59 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)

I think the main reason it was originally restricted is that it was buggy and dangerous. If it proves to be more safe and reliable, I think unrestricting it would be fine. I'll ask the list, though. --Lee Daniel Crocker


 * It's certainly had some exciting bugs in the past, but seems to be safe now. Any additional bugs are only going to turn up if it gets used, so... --Brion VIBBER

Well, I just reported a bug with it. Not one that would have caused much harm if even an anonymous user had been involved, but we may want to gamma test (if that's the correct word) more first. In theory, however, I see no objection to Brion's implicit suggestion to open things up. &mdash; Toby 12:28 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)


 * Noted; I've submitted a fix for the bug, as yet untested. I dunno about anonymous users, but we might 'gamma test' it by opening it up to all logged-in users (just like image uploads). Keep banging on it and yell when it breaks... --Brion VIBBER

Suggestion for non-existing pages
I have a suggestion for deleted pages. After all, most other sites feel free to rearrange their content and have Googlers occasionally land on 404 pages. However, other sites usually give helpful links, whereas Wikipedia gives a cryptic "Describe the new page here".

With that in mind, I suggest that we alter the behaviour of the software when pages that don't exist are browsed. This would be just for pages accessed with a regular URL, "ghost" links and "edit new" pages are not affected. This would allow us to keep our database clean of redirects from old page names.

Text of requested page would read:


 * The page you have requested from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia does not appear to exist on the system.
 * It may have been moved to:
 * < insert results of a page title search on the URL text here, if the load on the server allows it >
 * You can try a search :
 * If the page does not exist, you can write it yourself ( suitable quick intro to the wiki concept & link to "welcome newcomers" )
 * If the page does not exist, you can write it yourself ( suitable quick intro to the wiki concept & link to "welcome newcomers" )


 * Tarquin, please submit this to the Feature Requests tracker; it's a good idea and less likely to get forgotten there. --Brion VIBBER


 * Will do. -- Tarquin 09:10 Jul 25, 2002 (PDT)

Bullet 6
This policy is vague, especially bullet 6. I think the policy should be the inverse: "Do not delete pages that can become an encyclopedia article in the future." Jeronimo


 * Second that opinion. There has been some movement to delete stubs, but I tend to expand more stubs than I create new articles, so it'll be hard to convince me of their redundance... -Ato


 * I think there must be some useful content to even consider a page an stub. If i go to the most wanted list, follow the first 100 titles and create pages that say "This is a most wanted article" i will eliminate them from the most wanted list, and create hundreds of links with no information. Those should be permanently deleted immediately, without even listing them in the votes for deletion page. However we should make sure that in the whole history of the page there is no information either. Newly created nonsensical pages would qualify to summary deletion. If this is discussed somewhere else,please point me there. AstroNomer


 * I agree. Delete no content entries on sight. --mav

Copyright violations
How long should we wait after someone has noticed a copyright violation before deleting it? -phma


 * You should try to rewrite it so it no longer is in violation. Lir 10:24 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)


 * I say a week so long as the content is replaced by our copyright violation boilerplate. --mav

Mimos Berhard was deleted. It is not listed as being deleted on the deletion log but it is gone. (?)


 * I believe you mean Mimos Berhad, which is alive and well. --Brion 10:31 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

QUOTE: Do not delete anything that might be a common misspelling of a title. Redirect those pages to the correct spelling. (This can actually result in higher traffic to the website. E.g., if philisophy is created, we might as well just redirect it to philosophy, since "philisophy" is one of the common misspellings of "philosophy.")

No wonder this sight has problems. With this golly, gosh, fellas, if we keep misspellings we will get more hits, I would bet that not one single person who was involved in coming to this brillant conclusion has ever run a SUCCESSFUL business. You don't gain viewers (clients) by offering garbage, you get them by quality and that is particularly true of something purporting to be an Encyclopedia. Note GOOGLE says: Did you mean???? - If the powers that be think this nonsense should continue then at least insert the words: MISSPELLED - REDIRECTED TO: XYZ ....DW


 * There's certainly a case for an alternate redirect syntax. I've been pondering for a while the idea of having #MISSPELLING foo for these. -- Tarquin 23:59 Dec 18, 2002 (UTC)

Delete the page - PERIOD! This is a learning site, not one to confuse and delay people in their searches. The redirect setup now causes confusion. It is time to get professional. I have no objection to crappy, incomplete articles, (although the laziness tees me off) but they can and will be fixed eventually as part of the building process. Get rid of the redirects: It turns people away when three variations, of which 2 are misspelled, show up as your Encyclopedia's choice? PREPOSTEROUS & AMATEURISH.....DW


 * Surely deleting these redirects will "confuse and delay people". Somebody searches for "philisophy" now, they find the article they want, and because "philosophy" is spelled correctly within that article, they learn how to spell the word to boot. Delete the redirect and the searcher finds nothing. I don't see how that would be an improvement. --Camembert


 * I agree. There is no reason to delete common mispellings. BTW DW, it is "site" not "sight". --mav


 * I agree as well. BTW mav, it is "misspellings", not "mispelling". :) Chas zzz brown 00:48 Dec 19, 2002 (UTC)


 * BTW, Mav misspelled the plural, not the singular :-) At least correct the correct tense, if you are going to correct it... -- RTC 00:53 Dec 19, 2002 (UTC)


 * Insert foot here -> O: Exactly why we should support common misspellings. --mav

What a bunch of nonsense! Stop with the little "club" patting each other's back (I've seen it before from you guys), and use your brains, limited though they obviously are. This site (and I always call it "SITE" unless my limited little brain is running faster than my fingers), has 'not been successful because of its lack of direction from someone with SUCCESSFUL business experience. Morons want to maintain the status quo because of their lack of business acumen combined with tunnel vision and the need to control. Get real! Encyclopedias, none, nowhere, no how, zip, rien, offer spelling variations. It's this lunacy that is sinking Wikipedia and one day soon all the hard work of people with a PROFESSIONAL attitude who make REAL contributions, will evaporate. Rarely does one encounter such blatant stupidity. It is obvious that you have no business training or experience so GROW UP....DW


 * Very drôle. --Camembert