Wikipedia talk:Deletion review/Log/2013 January 4

UFC 157: G12 speedy deletion
Copied from WP:Deletion review/Log/2013 January 4 (integrity diffs:, )


 * I reopened this. If this delete were actually overturned, we would restore the contents of UFC 157 to here and provide a pointer to its history. This kind of thing is precisely why REFUNDed material should never be permitted to be merged. It's OK to let contributors know what the list of sources for the deleted article was to aid them in building new content, but to refund the material and have another editor merge it into another article, all without DRV, basically acts to subvert the original delete without discussion. If I was a jerk, I could have speedied 2013 in UFC as an unambiguous copyright violation of the original article, but, despite all too common of opinion, I'm not a jerk.&mdash;Kww(talk) 03:25, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
 * No objection to you reopening it, since obviously I misunderstood what you were intending. However, I'm even more confused now — what more may need to be done, and why does this need to remain open?  Nyttend (talk) 07:04, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I am not sure what has been reopened. Is it really the case that if List of fancruft is REFUNDed to me and I incorporate the text in Barack Obama, a jerkish admin can within policy delete by G12 the latter entire article? Moreover, my reading of WP:CSD suggests that not even a newly created sectional redirect (replacing an AfD-deleted article) can be G4 deleted (but I think they sometimes are). 2013 in UFC was created after the AfD of UFC 157 had been closed (though its history is now opaque) so for most people in practical terms it was not available as a merge target to be considered. Two people suggested merges and there was somewhat broader support for a compromise between the territorial arguments of delete and keep. Thincat (talk) 10:28, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
 * That "jerkish admin" would be on firm ground if he reverted your merge and rev-deleted all revisions in which it appeared.&mdash;Kww(talk) 15:20, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
 * G12 is not delete an article which has some copyvio material it's "...where there is no non-infringing content on the page worth saving. Only if the history is unsalvageably corrupted should it be deleted in its entirety; earlier versions without infringement should be retained. ". So they might remove unattributed merged stuff, but not delete the whole article. --62.254.139.60 (talk) 18:05, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I understand and accept the above two comments. I have clearly misunderstood the remark about speedying 2013 in UFC. Thincat (talk) 20:03, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh, it was this DRV that was closed and reopened! Thincat (talk) 10:46, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I know this is entirely theoretical, but if a sysop used G12 to justify deleting material that originally appeared in Wikipedia article, then they'd be crushingly overturned at DRV on grounds of epic failure to comprehend the terms of use that are linked at the bottom of every page. It wouldn't matter that the original material had been deleted.  Just saying.  :)— S Marshall  T/C 14:39, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Not true. I certainly use it for unattributed cut-and-paste problems. Pasting unattributed material is a G12, even if we are the source. In general, though, it's better to find other ways around it.&mdash;Kww(talk) 15:20, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not commenting on the rest of this DRV, but I have to say that I can't see where that usage of G12 is at all supported by policy. Jclemens (talk) 06:56, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Without any comment on the rest of this discussion, I agree with Jclemens that this is not a use of G12 consistent with any policy I know of. If material has been copied within Wikipedia without attribution then the correct course of action is to attribute it and, if appropriate, leave a message for the copying user. The inclusion or removal of such material in an article should be decided on encyclopaedic not copyright grounds. Obviously this is not necessary where the inclusion is vandalism (e.g. I have vague memories of George W. Bush's article being replaced by a copy/paste of Shrub), in which circumstances the vandalism is reverted/deleted as vandalism in the same way that the pasting of an irrelevant copyrighted external source into an article would be. Thryduulf (talk) 17:36, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
 * It's a side issue, but I'll stand by my use of G12 in such situations. Let's take a pretty standard example. Someone takes the entire contents of "Color blindness" and pastes it under the title "colour insensitivity", manually installing a redirect at "Color blindness". Screws up the history royally, on top of any naming concerns. I'll typically undo the manual redirect and delete the unattributed pasted contents with G12. G6 could apply, arguably A10 could apply, but I normally use G12 because it addresses my specific concern. I'm not deleting it because of duplication (A10), I'm deleting it because it was improperly licensed. It's quite possible to violate Wikipedia's copyright terms, and it's possible for our own editors to do so.&mdash;Kww(talk) 18:08, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
 * In that scenario you should not be deleting anything. You should be reverting the undiscussed move of "colour blindness" and making "colour sensitivity" a redirect to it (or reverting to that redirect if one existed previously). If the title is not a plausible redirect (e.g. "seeing in black and white only") you should delete it per A10, which is intended for such purposes. If you are unsure you should redirect it and then send the redirect to RfD. Yes, it is possible for users to violate our copyright, but it is possible for others to fix this and per WP:ATD and other guidelines, deletion should be a last resort. Thryduulf (talk) 18:39, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Meanwhile retaining a byte-for-byte copy lacking appropriate licensing or attribution? Putting in a new redirect after deleting the problem is an option. Deleting the target and performing the move properly is an option. Deleting the target and restoring the original article is an option. Leaving improperly licensed and unattributed material in an article history when a perfectly good and licensed copy of it exists somewhere else isn't an option. At least not a good one.&mdash;Kww(talk) 18:56, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with Kww that deletion is the best solution to this example case. The copy should not be left unattributed in the redirect's history, and using Copied is ridiculous overkill. Flatscan (talk) 05:06, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Is WP:ATD no longer policy? I've noticed an increasing tendency to pretend it doesn't exist.— S Marshall  T/C 12:00, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Certainly it's policy. The issue here is that in the hypothetical, the material is already being retained. The motivation behind ATD is to preserve material, and the material is being preserved in a correctly licensed and atributed from. The other case, which started the discussion, is a case where an editor uses REFUND to unilaterally bypass an AFD discussion. In that case, the discussion has already taken place, and the material has already been deleted per that discussion. The balancing act is between maintaining licensing and not allowing editors to overrule AFDs. It's hard to find a policy compliant approach that fulfills both goals. I think we need to move this discussion somewhere else, but it's clear to me that refunded material should never be allowed to be merged, and we need to figure out how to ensure that is enforced.&mdash;Kww(talk) 15:09, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * How does retaining the copy improve Wikipedia? Is it worth the work of placing a proper ? You know that I disagree that WP:ATD dictates that "deletion should be a last resort" in all situations and at all costs (quoted from Thryduulf above, but I've seen it before). Flatscan (talk) 05:26, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this has always been why ATD is unpopular: the delete button is an easy solution to a lot of problems. ATD is and has always been about editor retention. I realise ATD makes things harder for sysops. Its purpose, together with WP:PRESERVE, is to stop you deleting and reverting things, so that it's easier for new editors to make a difference with their early edits and to see how they have received a reward for their little effort in the form of a credit in the article's edit history. However, the objection (properly understood) is to the use of G12 to delete material that we're using in accordance with the terms of use. That's not appropriate and I would expect DRV to take a dim view of it.— S Marshall T/C 12:37, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I rarely interact with inexperienced users, but I would leave a minimum of uw-c&pmove to explain the situation. Do you also oppose fixing a cut-and-paste move? That uses the delete button (db-copypaste) and moves the revisions away from where the user expects to find them. A material detail of the example is that the copied text is not "in accordance with the terms of use" – it lacks the attribution required by WP:Copying within Wikipedia and WP:Copyrights. If the cut-and-paste move did somehow satisfy WP:CWW, the juxtaposition of incompetence and specialized knowledge looks like disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point. Flatscan (talk) 05:28, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I think an explanatory template removes the potential sting from the situation, provided the new user can find their edit and see the difference it's made.— S Marshall T/C 12:10, 9 January 2013 (UTC)