Wikipedia talk:Managed Deletion

Voting Open Also note that I protected the project page (not this one) because voting is underway. If there are problems with it, please let me know, or, if you're an admin, just unprotect it and let me know that you needed to. It should be self-evident why the page is protected but, well, for those who wonder, it's so that people who vote "for" it don't end up being counted as having supported something that gets changed.

How can I vote if the page is protected? Filiocht 14:16, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Cast your vote on Managed Deletion/Voting. It's where the "Vote Here" section header/link leads.   &mdash;Triskaideka 15:02, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Day One
I think this is a significant step in the right direction. Many articles tagged speedy should be deleted, but don't meet the narrow criteria. Getting rid of junk before it gets mirrored is also very desirable. Georgre and I seem to have a bit of difference of opinion on substubs (see User:Niteowlneils/csdornot/--I think the second case is a keep, Georgre probably would think Delete), but I believe that is a separate, and far more contentious issue. Whether it is through this proposal, or a major expansion of speedy cases, I strongly support formalizing getting rid of junk content more quickly. Niteowlneils 18:53, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm inclined to favour this, but I'll see what others have to say. zoney &#09619;  &#09618; talk 19:08, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm strongly against this proposal as it stands. Admins are just regular users who have been trusted to respect the consensus of the community. I'll trust them to recognise a CSD and deal with it, but that's it. They should not be given roles where their opinion is considered greater than that of any other user (which is what this does, by allowing them to decide what needs to go to vfd). This is basically a quickpoll for articles, but restricting the voting to admins. I can't see this happening. - 19:13, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC) Lee  (talk)

Seems a good proposal to me. It's evolutionary and doesn't affect the current operation of VfD and CSD other than removing some of the load if it works. I take Lee's point that giving sysops a new duty is a cause for caution, but I can't see any viable alternative. Wikipedia is changing. The question is simply whether we manage this change. Andrewa 20:13, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The process makes sense. The criteria worry me. I would be more comfortable evaluating this proposal if I had a set of case studies or examples of what would or would not qualify for each of the five criteria. Something on the lines of the "Precedent" page. Rossami 20:48, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC) I would also ask how articles get nominated to this process. Is it an implicit restriction that only admins can make this nomination? Is there a process for elevating a nomination off the VfD page? Rossami 20:58, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Drafts/placeholders for precedents
 * Managed Deletion/Clear advertising
 * Managed Deletion/Obvious vanity
 * Managed Deletion/Political speech
 * Managed Deletion/Jokes
 * Managed Deletion/Hoaxes
 * Managed Deletion/Substubs

"What I was thinking of" day 1
Ok, this policy is supposed to belong to the project, not me. I will answer a couple of things just in terms of what I was thinking, and I'll take recommendations on how to clarify, if clarification is needed.


 * 1) The admins-only thing: Two sides to this.  First, what Lee said.  I take the point.  The trick here is that any failure to reach unanimity defaults to VfD, so it only takes one person to say "hold it," and it will go to the usual scheme.  This is at present designed as admin-only voting because this is a subset of CSD and most emphatically not a replacement for VfD.  It will bleed off some of the pressure from VfD, yes, but only in the really obvious cases.  Second part:  I do need to be clear that anyone can nominate to this page.  Just as with CSD, anyone can nominate for Managed Delete, just as anyone can now apply a CSD tag.
 * 2) The criteria: Yep.  We're going to disagree on this one.  I'd like to work that out in common as we go.  Right now, I'm more concentrated on the process and the idea.  The specifics will be something that we do disagree with.  I hope that we all nominate to Rossami's candidate pages for the time being so that we can get a sense of the sorts of things people think fit the criteria.  This way we will get a trial run at seeing how far apart we all are.  Niteowlneils disagrees about substubs, and others will disagree about others.  First, we should remember that these criteria are for consideration.  It would still be possible for Niteowlneils or anyone else to offer a single objection to any candidate, and then it would go to VfD.  However, I'd almost like to see some agreement that the approach is sound before we try for the much more difficult task of figuring out the ways in which CSD would expand.
 * 3) I hope it's clear from everything that I've written, especially the time line and the quorum, that I am not interested in anything radical. This is not a backdoor power grab.  Rather, this is a pressure valve for two deletion schemes that are currently straining at the seams, and I have specifically invited, and continue to invite, people who I know disagree with me about what is and is not a speedy deletion candidate because I don't want bitterness or surprises.

Finally, remember: I'm just the proposer, not the owner. If you think there is any soundness in the approach, please make it better. If you don't, then please hold off for the voting, assess it again, and vote against it. I promise that I will do all that I can to make this process as respectful as possible. Geogre 00:18, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Which admins?
I think this proposal could help a lot with some really serious problems. But which three admins? I believe that any "jury" system needs to be explicit and specific about jury selection, to the point of being legalistic, in order to not be open to abuse on that front, and I don't see it addressed. Any three admins, the first three that jump in? (IMO that would be open to abuse.) Or do you see a rota — having three specific admins pre-selected by some automatic system, to deal with each particular delete listing? I would suppose so, but in that case, what about the voluntary and free-time nature of all Wikipedia work, administrators' tasks as well as everything else? What about Real Life getting in the way? Bishonen 00:41, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Rota: A rota or jury system is a possible alternative, and I have a feeling that it will be one of the major proposals to consider later. My thought at present is simply any administrators who come along. Geogre 01:08, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * I see. In that case, I hope a majority will vote against juries consisting of any admins who came along, or more pertinently, juries consisting of any single admin who came along and saw that a type of page that he/she felt strongly about had been listed for Managed delete and then called in a couple of reliable friends. I don't mean by that scenario to sound cynical about the integrity of admins, who're trusted members of the community, but surely the whole point of having a jury of three rather than just one individual, and of having a veto for each separate member, is to not leave everything to individual human integrity? In the Speedy delete and the VfD proces, where admins act on their own, possible rogue actions are attempted to be contained by having strict criteria for how to do things. In the proposed Managed delete system, the criteria would as I understand it be less strict, and the containment of possible corruption would instead be inherent in the jury system. If admins are left to select themselves for jury duty, there won't be much real containment at all. Self-selection  might hardly ever be abused, it might actually never be abused, but at the lowest it would always to ordinary users look open to abuse. I see it as an invitation to rumor-mongering and conspiracy theories.
 * The bulls needn't be left in the china shop [Altering now obsolete remark that was in reply to deleted parts of Geogre's comment.] A rota system wouldn't have to take extra time and leave pernicious pages alive for longer (one of the things Managed deletion is designed to avoid), IMO, if there is an automatic and therefore very simple and fast jury selection system in place. I know it's too soon to suggest details, but I was thinking something like having a master list of all admins that have agreed to be part of the scheme (because it should definitely be voluntarily), and picking a fresh group of three from this list for each article, or each group of ten articles or whatever. The  picking  should not be by any kind of human hand, but by, say, some  randomizing computer software, or some unambiguous alphabetical system, or by looking to see which of Shakespeare's collected works those monkeys typed next — just as long as its automatic and not open to manipulation. (Bringing the monkeys nectarines at critical moments would be prohibited.) As I said above, though, on the other hand automatic selection would leave us with all sorts of risks of admins' Real Lives getting in the way of the scheme. But that could hopefully be solved with some managable cluster of detailed provisions. Bishonen 08:58, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * I can only support this proposal as under these circumstances - when we know who is going to be voting on the things. Allowing the first three admins who come along to delete opens up a whole world for abuse (I'm thinking more of admins allowing stuff to go through that is questionable, than of admins deleting legit articles).  Of course, then the problem of who to select arises - there could be dozens of articles a day to supervise and vote upon.  Does anyone really have time to do that?  How are we going to select the admins that we let judge?  I'd prefer a democratic option, but that raises some problems as well.


 * Conclusion - it could work, but your proposal is a bit too vague at the moment. Lankiveil 04:06, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)


 * Does the current requirement to stay for at least 48 hours and accept even one dissent as don't delete address the concern that three admins could inapropriately delete? That gives 48 hours for one who disagrees to arrive. Jamesday 03:01, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * Rotas seem cumbersome to implement, and I have difficulty envisioning it working well. It would also look out people like me from contributing, as I somestimes feel like lending a hand, and sometimes not. Wouldn't it be simpler to just allow all admins to vote? They have minimum 48 hours, so if a number of admins get into the habit of looking through the list any wrong nominations should be moved to vfd. If an entry has 3 delete votes and no keep/vfd votes at some point after 48 hours it can be deleted. (we might want to raise the 48 hours a bit to allow votes to be better reviewed in this case) Thue | talk 09:42, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Just my 2p's worth...
As an admin for a long time, let me just opine that we are moving into a progressively more bureaucratic era. Frankly, it is a full time job keeping up with policy changes, and the sets of rules and proposals for rule changes which sporadically break out. Let us have some common sense here. Out and out junk is immediately visible to most admins and can be deleted or be flagged for asap deletion with no problem. Most admins can spot a spurious request for a speedy deletion; most? no, I would say all. Vfd is cumbersome, and needs a better interface mechanism, but it does work; if mirror sites are an issue, we should maybe word our mandatory backlink and GDFL line to include a disclaimer that includes a caveat about the timeliness or otherwise of the information. That would also have the double benefit of pushing people who are interested in the subject to our pages. What we don't need is MORE policy and process. We need BETTER policy and process. Sjc 09:12, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Patent nonsense
One more thought. If this process goes through, I recommend moving most patent nonsense into this process rather than the current speedy delete process. I don't mind the "alskdjf" definition of patent nonsense staying a speedy but there is still too much contention over the second definition. They would be better handled here. Rossami 14:03, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Absolutely one of my primary objectives, Rossami. Geogre 18:48, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"What I was thinking" Day 2
Rossami brings up one of the main reasons for a managed delete system. "Patent nonsense" is the most often interpreted of the speedy deletion candidates. We all know that "kjljkljdfad" is patent nonsense, and we all know that the articles with nothing but "sample.ogg" over and over are patent nonsense. We all pretty much agree that an article on Devon Smith with content that says, "Sux at Madden Football i so rule" is patent nonsense. However, there are many articles just beyond that hypothetical Devon Smith that are nonsense, but may not be "patent" nonsense. Some folks, like Rossami, cut the line very tight. Others, like myself, cut it pretty loose. Managed Delete allows us to have a spot for the ones that are not quite obvious but which are so obvious as to not profit from a longer deliberative process.

Sjc's argument is the one that worries me most. This proposal does not add more procedure or more paperwork. In fact, it's a way of shielding us from overly legalistic definitions. It allows for "common sense" that's actually held in common. By asking 3 administrators to agree, we have, I hope, a better sense of what is commonly believed by trusted users. However, by having any dissent at all, any uncertainty, revert to the established VfD, this might well keep the common sense from becoming a narrow oligarchy. That was my hope, anyway. Geogre 03:54, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Assorted ideas
In general I like this proposal and I support the idea of doing something to address the listed problems. If this fails, I think we should consider broadening the criteria for speedy deletion a bit. &mdash;Triskaideka 22:32, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * 1) If people object to the "first three admins to vote" format, what about five admins? Or what about shortening the time period to 24 hours but taking votes from as many admins as care to contribute in that time frame?  I don't know that I like that last idea; just throwing it out there.
 * 2) I'd suggest that articles should only be allowed to go through this process once. If an article deleted via this process gets recreated, I think it should go to VfD automatically.  Is there an easy way to tell when this happens?
 * 3) Rachel Buck, which just came up on VfD, is IMO a perfect case for this suggested policy. Doesn't fit any of the criteria for a speedy delete, but it's obvious that it's going to get deleted.  Would it fall under one of the existing categories, e.g. "Clear advertising", or should we consider another category, such as "Vanity"?

Assorted comments: 1. Well, adding yet more self-selected admins wouldn't do anything to address the concerns I outline above. 2. You suggest recreated articles should go to VfD, really ...? Seems to me that would abort the point of the proposal, and give the vandals back control of how long/how high maintenance VfD is allowed to get. You didn't mean they would automatically be Speedy deleted? (I think recreated articles are automatic Speedy candidates now.) 3. Yes, right, Rachel Buck is a perfect example, and I also agree that broadening the criteria for Speedy will need to be considered if this proposal fails. VfD, if not broken, is breaking, and tempers there are fraying so much that I for one hesitate to visit it at all. Indeed I hope Geogre, in his role of little Dutch boy trying to plug the hole in the sea-wall, won't be swept away by the tide of redundancy and nonsense, but if he is, we'll have to hold back the tide in some other way. Bishonen 23:45, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Point taken re #1; I was just thinking that a couple more admins would offset other users' perceptions that a few biased admins showing up together could exercise undue authority. Re #2, though, I did mean VfD, not speedy.  If Managed Deletion is implemented, it will be used to delete articles that authors could previously have argued for on VfD.  We already see on VfD that people sometimes vote to delete an article that actually deserves inclusion because they mistake it for one of the categories covered by MD&mdash;advertising strikes me as the most likely one&mdash;until someone comes along and points out that the subject has actual merit.  I don't know if automatically sending recreated articles to VfD is the best solution, but I would feel better if authors had some opportunity to argue for the merits of articles in these proposed MD categories, if they feel strongly enough.  If they don't have VfD as a remedy, then they'll take their case to VfU instead, and I don't think that's what we want.   &mdash;Triskaideka 00:32, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Clarification
So, let's say that the first three admins to vote on something all vote to delete, in a span of 4 hours. The next day, I discover this and object. Would the article in question then go to Vfd? Or be deleted summarily once its 48 hours were up? [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 00:45, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

"What I was thinking" Day 3
Some excellent points are raised here.
 * 1) For [User:Meelar|Meelar's comments: I have attempted to clarify what I think should be the case in an amendment to the proposal (see a tweak to the language in "Procedure" and a new "Caveat 3"). Since, at this point, this is a juried but non-deliberative system for administrators to act upon but for all users to nominate to, any objecting administrator should undelete the deleted page, list it on VfD, and leave a note in the listing indicating that that action has been taken.  Since the Managed Delete page is not designed to take the place of Speedy Delete or VfD, there is no need for "Votes for Undeletion" and no obviation of the requirement to list on VfD if there is an objection.
 * 2) For Triskaideka's comments: There is a lot there. First, I don't really want to get into the issue of how many admins or non-admins at this point, but I take Bishonen's and others' comments to heart.  When this is ready for a proposal, I will write (or anyone else may) an alternative voting mechanism as an alternative in the voting so that people can vote for the scheme I'm proposing now vs. one wherein all Wikipedians (other than the article author) may vote.  I must say again, however, that I feel very strongly that this should not be an open field.  If it is, it merely replicates VfD, and this process is not meant to take anything but obvious stuff from VfD.  However, the process is designed for speed, and we should be thinking of it as more of an expansion/quality control for Speedy Delete than anything else.  Increasing the requisite number to five is not a particular problem, but I cannot see it being much higher than that.
 * The trick to recreated content is that a VfD-deleted article will have a history on it. A speedy deleted will, too.  However, I will amend the "Procedures" section to indicate that the deleting administrator leave a tag or word on the article's talk page indicating the process.  I absolutely agree that recreation should go directly to VfD, and not back to Managed Delete nor Speedy Delete.  If it has been recreated, and it's nonsense, the author may benefit from a hearing on VfD.  It is also quite possible that a VfD after Managed Delete is a sign of an improved article.  I will amend the "Procedures" section accordingly.
 * Rachel Buck is an excellent example of why we need the Managed Delete page. Some administrators would speedy delete that article, and many Wikipedians would apply the CSD tag to it.  By policy, neither should.


 * 1) For Bishonen's comments: I don't know whether increasing numbers is the solution or not. I do think that a 48 hour minimum will help.  It's not as if a fourth person couldn't come along and declare a minority opinion; it's just that only three are needed.  I think this will stop the "first three to come along" problem.  Otherwise, I don't really know how it can be done.

Thanks to all for their comments and very constructive input. I am rather more encouraged than I expected by the comments so far, and I may amend our timeline a bit and move this to genuine policy proposal (with announcement on Village Pump) early. Geogre 03:39, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Day 4

 * That sounds good; I was skeptical, knowing that I often disagree with you on deletion matters, but this is a solid proposal. One more question: would the votes be archived somewhere? Personally, I hope not; instruction creep is rampant. But what would procedure be? [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 04:24, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
 * I don't see any reason to archive them. The MD page itself will have an archive via its History.  Anything beyond that seems excessive. Geogre 12:47, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Then I misunderstood your process. I thought you meant that the "voting" would occur on the article's page itself.  (Hence the way I worded it when I reformated the process into a numbered list.)  By your reply above, I get the impression that you are talking about a separate discussion page, perhaps modeled after the current VfD format.  Please clarify?  Rossami

Rossami, I was thinking, in fact, of a page like the current CSD, not VfD. I most emphatically do not want it to be a ground for argument, which is why votes should be only "keep," "delete" or "vfd." That page would, of course, carry its history, so it would be a good way of checking back on previous listings, and I think it would be better than marking up the article. After all, we have to notify each other somewhere that the following pages are candidates, so why not have a simple choice-of-three vote below each entry? I'm not sure if this is different from what you were thinking, better, or worse. Geogre 18:43, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Just different. I'll tweak the process to try to reflect that better.  Rossami

I fully agree with the reasoning behind this proposal. VfD is too huge and something needs to be done about it; kudos to everyone (esp. Geogre) who has worked to develop this idea the past several days. I know I'm coming late to this discussion as a contributor, though I have been watching it develop these past few days.

That being said, I'm not sure that I'd support this proposal in its current form. As others have already said, adding a third method for deletion will add to the confusion of new Wikipedians We have dozens of pages in the Wikipedia namespace as is. Worse, it will generate more work for all involved (except those creating the candidate articles, of course ;-)). I concede that these two drawbacks are inevitable, yet we must do something about reducing VfD to something manageable. Just minimize the amount of instruction bloat, and I'll give it my full support.

Here are my suggestions for minimizing the amount of maintenance that will be associated with the addition of a third system:
 * To minimize confusion to the average user, recommend MVfD (ugh... better acronym?) as the deletion template of choice. Many new users are already confused by the difference between WP:SD and WP:VFD. I recommend using MVfD as the catch-all, default place for deletions. Per the proposal, admins will have the option of moving to VfD or speedily deleting it at MVfD. Experienced users who know all the subtle differences between SD, MVfD, and VfD can skip the first step, listing the article on the appropriate deletion page. Admins can always summarily move inappropriate listings, like they already do from SD to VfD.
 * Keep the MVfD lead friendly; aim it at the average Wikipedian. Keep all the rules and caveats that admins need to know on a separate page.
 * I'm making this suggestion now and immediately withdrawing my support for it. It's a bad idea, but it's inevitably going to be suggested, so let's just get it out of the way now: Instead of admins, have periodic mass elections of a "deletion management congress" to take care of deciding deletions. (The congress size and term lengths to be determined.) Why is this a bad idea? (1) Instruction creep, (2) more politics. Admins have already gone through this political process at WP:RFA; why do it twice? And no, we're not extending admins' jurisdiction at all. Admins already have the power to delete; we're just defining their authority more clearly.

Sorry for the lengthy post; I'm afraid I had more than two cents burning a hole in my pocket. &bull; Benc &bull; 23:25, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

A different (or maybe complementary) idea
Is there some way we could put a norobots meta tag on pages while they are no VfD? That would presumably address a lot of the Google/mirrors issue. -- Jmabel 02:30, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

Why admins?
Simply because currently the VfD process is slow enough that some admins improperly ignore it and delete articles which are not speedy deletion candidates, and the community has not yet been willing to act against those admins. This proposal provides a "fire and forget" approach, making it almost impossible to justify deleting immediately where there is any chance of doubt or dissent. It also provides a fast way for an admin to ask for a second or third opinion from another admin before acting alone. Increased consideration by admins before deletion sounds like a good move to me. Jamesday 02:58, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

VfD by the (rough) numbers
I've been doing the majority of the VfD deletions over the last month. While currently VfD is not unmanageable, it is approaching its limits and will have to be altered in the near future. Below are my fairly rough estimates of how VfD content breaks down.

Of the ~30 articles placed on VfD each day:
 * 50% are deleted
 * 25% are vanity articles
 * 10% are neologisms.
 * 5% are hoaxes or of dubious validity, it often takes some digging to determine this fact
 * 5% are blatantly POV in content and title
 * 5% other
 * 35% are kept
 * 15% are people or things nominated as not notable but that do not reach consensus for deletion
 * 5% are fictional characters or things that are kept or merged into other articles
 * 5% are neologisms that get enough Google hits to survive
 * 10% other
 * 10% are redirected to related topics without merging
 * 5% are transwikied

From this one can see that the greatest room for cutting down VfD is by more quickly getting rid of vanity articles on things such as bands, people, websites, and software. These are vanities is almost always readily apparent and in 75% of cases deletion is unanimous. In those cases where someone objects it is usually the new user who created the article or Anthony. If these were kept off VfD the size of the page could be cut by up to a quarter.

Another room for easy saving is keeping those pages that will be transwikied off of VfD. When a source text, recipe, or 9/11 victim, or obvious dict. def. is listed on VfD everyone knows the outcome and it wastes our time to have it spend a five days on VfD. It would be much more efficient to simply add these pages automatically to the list of things to be transwikied.

The only other room I see for significant improvement is cutting down the listing of fictional characters, high schools, and lists of trivia. These pages are almost always kept, if sometimes by only slim margins, and make up another 10-15% of what is on VfD each day. - SimonP 05:31, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

Purpose of this proposal?
I see that the purpose of this proposal is to take pressure off of VfD, partially so that we don't get proposals every once in a while of getting rid of it. One problem I see with 3 admins, or even 5 admins requiring to vote is that many articles on VfD just simply don't get that many votes from the whole community anyways, so how could we expect that we can get enough admins to vote? It also opens up the admins to spurious charges of pushing an agenda, for example, or acting as a dictatorial bloc. To achieve the same proposal of taking pressure off, why not just say that any article that gets 5 straight delete votes as the first votes on a VfD is removed? There really is no need for everyone to see a big long line of delete supports and clutter up the VfD page, which is one of the major complaints. In fact, a couple of the votes in the past week had a concensus of "speedy delete" which was duly carried out by the admins, so far, it's required something on the order of 10 votes to do so, making it easier to do would (I think) pull a lot of room away from VfD. The discussion can be replaced with something like "The first 5 votes of this VfD was for delete for a valid Managed Deletion reason, the article has been speedy deleted, for further information, the talk page for the deleteion is here." Of course, we'd have to make clear that ballot stuffing is a "Bad" action, and sockpuppeting should be strictly enforced against. -Vina 09:11, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In general, I like this proposal as long as it does not decrease what can already be deleted speedily. I disagree with the opposition above that it shouldn't be only admins voting since CSDs are already admin-only decisions, I can't see how that differs here. I'm not sure about the idea for having a rota of admins. Perhaps allow any admin to take part, and if it turns out some are abusing this, remove them from it. So, by default any admin can vote apart from "removed admins" which could be a list of admins who were removed via a vote after being found unsuitable for this task.

The purpose of this proposal is to eliminate unilateral deletions by administrators
 * Could this be reworded? I'm sure you can't actually mean you want to eliminate all unilateral deletions considering hundreds of these take place each week.

''No listing may be removed in less than 48 hours. ''
 * I don't understand this part If it's had the 3 admins vote and has been deleted, what benefit does keeping it here have? If this is for the purpose of other admins checking things, couldn't they do that via the deletion log? (It's worth noting that when MediaWiki 1.4 goes live in a few weeks the deletion log will be a special page which is searchable, so you could go to a version of the deletion log that contains just the pages that had the "managed delete" template in them.

Angela. 11:26, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

"What I was thinking" Day 4
Wow, there's a ton.
 * Benc's comments are really well reasoned and fully measured, and I appreciate them. I'll try to take them in pieces, as they deserve full answers.  First, I completely agree that the Managed Delete tag should be the default action for new nominators and that experienced Wikipedians should do others.  I had imagined a page with listings added dynamically, something like the current Clean Up page (a wiki page), with tags applied by users and listings made by anyone with an interest.  I also agree with making the writing of the policy in two phases: "Policy" and "Instructions."  The latter should be written in a user-friendly and less "inside" manner.
 * Jmabel's question is a good one. I'm a bit of a naif when it comes to the technical side.  However, while I think his proposal is necessary, I don't think it's sufficient at this point.  There are rumors of one troublesome Wikipedian who uses mirrors to cache deleted content so that he or she can re-insert it in Wikipedia later.  I'm not sure that it's a complete solution to the propagation issue, but it's definitely something that I would support being done immediately and from now on.
 * Jamesday's support is welcome. It was, in fact, a chief purpose of mine to allow administrators to slip out of the "autocrat" imagery and, at the same time, to allow people to have a sense of community opinion and realize that some of the nonsense doesn't need debate.  However, since any dissent equals VfD, I don't think it's possible for it to get evil.
 * SimonP's numbers and recommendations are solid and one of the most logical things I've seen. I have changed the criteria to include obvious vanity and tributes.  I have to worry somewhat about abuse of that latter, in particular.  When we've made mistakes on VfD, they've been most often made by thinking something vanity when it wasn't (e.g. the current Tom Smith (filker)).  I was aiming this proposal at the most dangerous speech, where VfD actually doesn't work because of how long it takes.  In particular, the political campaigning on Wikipedia scares me, and, for that matter, the possibility of shadow networks.  I don't think we need to add the Transwiki stuff at all, because simply having this page will bring needed-transwiki pages to the attention of experienced Wikipedians who, we hope, will just go ahead and enter the article into the transwiki queue and end the trouble with that article.  Again, though, a breakout of how and why and what we delete is invaluable. Geogre 14:06, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Vina's argument is certainly valid. I, in fact, very much like the idea of early removal with a certain number of "Delete" votes on VfD, but there are a lot of problems with that.  The biggest one is time.  VfD can rack up 8-10 "delete votes" in "the middle of the night" (whenever that is for you).  I have seen several where the lemma was a bit of specialist information, delete votes racked up, and then another continent woke up for the morning and entered a string of "keeps."  By going with admins, I hope we slow that down.  The biggest problem, though, is author and sock puppet "keep" votes, as well as a few folks who just vote "keep" on everything because they disagree (or don't understand) with VfD.
 * Angela's comments are well taken. I will change the language on the preamble immediately.  I did want to assure the reader that the purpose of this policy was not to create more power for autocrats, but to ensure that this particular, often maligned, function of the necessarily autocratic power was considerate and communal.  As for the 48 hours, that's to do with timezones.  I think each admin should have a full day to consider/go through.  24 hours is therefore built in.  Add to that the various timezones and potential for the West Coast of the US nominating and someone in Germany reading, and 36 hours is probably the real minimum.  36 hours is an odd number, so (shrug) 48 hours seemed like a good, round number. Geogre 14:00, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Day 5
So far, the fifth day has been quiet.

I think the deletion process could be improved; I'm open on the specifics. Maybe it would be easier to just shorten the decision time needed on VfD to three days. Maurreen 18:10, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Timeframe
The page currently says that the vote will be open for four days. I think that is way too short: it may well be that some people just cannot vote, even if they wanted to, because they'd happen to be absent from Wikipedia for these few days. After all, many of us do have a life outside Wikipedia. I think the voting period should be about two weeks long. Lupo 18:14, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

New Subproposal
I will answer Lupo and Maureen a bit later, but it occurs to me that one thing that's really, really going to need to be done is to really check out the criteria. I nearly want to make a subpage for the criteria so that we can improve and clarify the language there. I say this because the particular category of Vanity is going to be a tripwire. Geogre 20:40, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What I was thinking, Day 5

 * For Maurreen's comments: The idea of this proposal is really to widen slightly the Speedy Delete and to use that to lessen the load on VfD while, at the same time, heading off some of the most dangerous content from the VfD deliberative process. Speeding up VfD itself isn't a bad idea, but I will say that I think VfD needs to be time consuming.  It is a place of deliberation, with a little reasoning with each other.  It's just that some things really ought not take that debate, and this proposal is an attempt at getting the stuff that doesn't need debate out of a deliberative process, but only when they are very, very clearly deletes.
 * For Lupo's comment: I suppose you're right. I had wanted to have us hash out the proposal with a very, very long lead up and then get the votes done in a straightforward manner.  My point is/was that policy proposals seem to die during voting.  People get to the votes (usually because the proposal has been protected or guarded by Cerebus during the lead-in) and then fight with each other ruthlessly.  The fight goes on and on, with blood in the water, and then all the armies form their usual lines, and then the proposal fails in a funk of disgust, indifference, and animosity.  I wanted the community to work out its differences and then just vote.  Just say yes or no.  No beating each other up, no hate, no grudge matches.  That's why I wanted to make the voting period briefer than usual.  I will amend to 7 days, though.  I will also, of course, extend voting, if the vote is going slowly and people want it extended.  I didn't want the silence anyone with a short vote.

Thanks, all. Geogre 13:30, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Question: Juries and Jury Pools
Above, Bishonen, and privately others, have proposed a pool of voters. Additionally, Benc brought up the subject to dismiss it. It is perhaps time, seeing that the general proposal is not terribly objectionable, to talk about mechanisms of voters in particular. Bishonen's comments will be reprinted here, along with Benc's, and I will paraphrase an idea offered by another user whose name does not appear here.


 * 1) If admins are left to select themselves for jury duty, there won't be much real containment at all. Self-selection might hardly ever be abused, it might actually never be abused, but at the lowest it would always to ordinary users look open to abuse. I see it as an invitation to rumor-mongering and conspiracy theories.
 * The bulls needn't be left in the china shop [Striking out obsolete remark that was in reply to deleted parts of Geogre's comment] A rota system wouldn't have to take extra time and leave pernicious pages alive for longer (one of the things Managed deletion  is designed to avoid), IMO, if there is an automatic and therefore very simple and fast jury selection system in place. I know it's too soon to suggest details, but I was thinking something like having a master list of all admins that have agreed to be part of the scheme (because it should definitely be voluntarily), and picking a fresh group of three from this list for each article, or each group of ten articles or whatever. The  picking  should not be by any kind of human hand, but by, say, some  randomizing computer software, or some unambiguous alphabetical system, or by looking to see which of Shakespeare's collected works those monkeys typed next — just as long as its automatic and not open to manipulation. (Bringing the monkeys nectarines at critical moments would be prohibited.) As I said above, though, on the other hand automatic selection would leave us with all sorts of risks of admins' Real Lives getting in the way of the scheme. But that could hopefully be solved with some managable cluster of detailed provisions. Bishonen 08:58, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * I can only support this proposal as under these circumstances - when we know who is going to be voting on the things. Allowing the first three admins who come along to delete opens up a whole world for abuse (I'm thinking more of admins allowing stuff to go through that is questionable, than of admins deleting legit articles).  Of course, then the problem of who to select arises - there could be dozens of articles a day to supervise and vote upon.  Does anyone really have time to do that?  How are we going to select the admins that we let judge?  I'd prefer a democratic option, but that raises some problems as well.
 * Conclusion - it could work, but your proposal is a bit too vague at the moment. Lankiveil 04:06, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)


 * Does the current requirement to stay for at least 48 hours and accept even one dissent as don't delete address the concern that three admins could inapropriately delete? That gives 48 hours for one who disagrees to arrive. Jamesday 03:01, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * How about having a requirement that an admin can only vote on every xth article? That will solve the rota problem of assigning someone who is not on wikipedia for a while, and also solve the problem of having one person vote to keep/delete everything regardless of merit. It would be much easier to implement (you'd have to keep a log of things deleted under this program, but you'd probably want to do that anyway). You could also more easily adjust this number as the actual performance of the system requires. If there was a problem deleter/retainer, you could work that out with some of the systems mentioned above. As to the possibility of an admin pile-on, I think that is a bad idea. An article that gets 9 deletes and 1 keep is not the same as an article that gets 2 deletes and one keep. 3 votes is a good number, remember this is supposed to be for things that are obviously delete-able vanity etc. Obviously taking the first three votes and having it open 48 hours isn't compatible, maybe have requirements on time if people think it's important to get a time-zone cross-section. One vote every 16 hours, or something like that. - cohesion [[User_talk:Cohesion|&#9742;]] 18:46, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * cohesion [[User_talk:Cohesion|&#9742;]], I'm not entirely sure I understand the suggestion. I think it would be pretty difficult logistics to have some kind of software-driven tally of what each person voted on.  It would be ok, though, if we just politely asked admins not to vote on every candidate, but to vote on every third or something.  Then again, as I've said elsewhere, I'm a naif about software engineering.  The other bit I really didn't understand.  If the 48 hours stay, then what we're talking about is a minimum of 3 votes needed.  3 are all that are needed.  However, if you saw something that you knew was an obvious injustice, you could hop on to make a protest, and that would divert to VfD.  I.e. the point here is that once something is nominated, it can't just be kept:  it can only go to Clean Up or VfD or Away. Geogre 00:41, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * No, I don't mean software driven, just a rule, and since I would assume we would keep a record of what is deleted we could just look and see if someone is voting on every one. It seems more simple to me than the other alternatives, mainly the idea was to allow for people to be missing for a while without throwing the system off and protecting the system from being run by only the most "motivated" - cohesion [[User_talk:Cohesion|&#9742;]] 18:35, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
 * Rotas seem cumbersome to implement, and I have difficulty envisioning it working well. It would also lock out people like me from contributing, as I somestimes feel like lending a hand, and sometimes not. Wouldn't it be simpler to just allow all admins to vote? They have minimum 48 hours, so if a number of admins get into the habit of looking through the list any wrong nominations should be moved to vfd. If an entry has 3 delete votes and no keep/vfd votes at some point after 48 hours it can be deleted. (we might want to raise the 48 hours a bit to allow votes to be better reviewed in this case) Thue | talk 09:42, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * 1) *I'm making this suggestion now and immediately withdrawing my support for it. It's a bad idea, but it's inevitably going to be suggested, so let's just get it out of the way now: Instead of admins, have periodic mass elections of a "deletion management congress" to take care of deciding deletions. (The congress size and term lengths to be determined.) Why is this a bad idea? (1) Instruction creep, (2) more politics. Admins have already gone through this political process at WP:RFA; why do it twice? And no, we're not extending admins' jurisdiction at all. Admins already have the power to delete; we're just defining their authority more clearly. &bull; Benc &bull; 23:25, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

My Feelings on the Matter

 * Bishonen has a valid proposal, and I will work it up, below, and hope to be fair. Having a jury pool would be a potential solution.  It could simply rotate down a list every 2 weeks, without necessarily any sophisticated electronic intervention or voting.  There are some problems I can foresee with that, but it would have one important advantage in that it wouldn't leave the management scheme open to those I call "the motivated."  I.e. the people always on guard to make sure that no game stuff gets in and those on guard to make sure that no substubs get deleted won't volunteer themselves always or swoop in to override community standards.  It would also mean that three liberals who might let a Bush-bash in or three conservatives who might want a Kerry-bash go in won't quickly act out of motivation.  To me, the biggest drawback is that we sacrifice the opportunity of expertise at the same time.  A math subject coming up is going to baffle me, while someone like Ambi or Wile E. Heresiarch or Timwi might know it intimately and realize that it should be sent to clean up, or might know that it's nonsense.  By being even handedly blind, it might be as good as bad in that way and yet liberate us from the cabal.  Additionally, it might be possible to include on such a list trusted users who are not yet administrators (see below).
 * Linkiveil is more concerned with keeps and thinks the proposal is vague. Granted, it's vague at present.  I hope we can move into a specifying process now.  However, I would remind him that it takes three consequetive keep votes for a candidate to be kept, and then it moves directly to Clean Up.  Also, though, any dissent in either direction sends a page to VfD, so I think it's unlikely that trash will be kept as-is or that good sense will be speedy deleted, given the 48 hour time frame.
 * Benc proposes elected jurors only to immediately suggest that such is a bad idea. I generally agree with him.  However, I do think it's possible for a simple jury pool list to be drawn up.  It would include all administrators, arranged perhaps in alphabetical order (to avoid having the dangers of oldest/newest turn into "no longer here/hyperactive" or "random" not be random), and the list would be divided by 24 weeks.  That would mean that roughly 10 admins at a time were on "jury duty."  Every 2 weeks, the bracket would move down.  It's a possible solution, and I will try to reflect that in the subproposal that I make in a moment.
 * Anonymous Coward writes me and says that he disagrees with any admin-only scheme, since it is inherently cabalistic. He would like users in general to nominate themselves or be nominated for the jury pool.  I cannot quite agree with that, since this is a matter of speedy deletion and is not meant to be deliberative.  However, I do think it would be possible for reliable users to be put on jury duty if they were nominated by an administrator and received a unanimous vote of 10 in favor.  After all, this is not the same thing as extending speedy delete power.  This is only as a function of the following sub-proposal and not an amendment to the general proposal.

Summary feelings about the possibilities: In summary, I think it is possible to create a jury pool. I, personally, feel that it will slow down the process, but I agree that it would be a step toward freeing the deletion process from the apprehensions of authors and users. Geogre 18:33, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Proposed Sub-Policy
Proposed Sub-Policy: ''The following is my draft at a sub-proposal. I will leave it in place for 24 hours for amendment and change by any and all. When the whole policy is proposed for voting, this sub-proposal will be offered alongside it as an option.'' Geogre 18:31, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * For Managed Deletion Policy #2, the following should be read:

2. A list of all Wikipedia administrators will be prepared with administrators listed alphabetically. The list will be divided into groups of ten. Each group of ten will be on Managed Deletion Jury Duty for two weeks at a time. The weeks of the year will be divided into 26 segments and numbered (beginning with January 1). Each jury duty will begin with the start of a new 2 week segment and will conclude at the end of that 2 week segment. In addition, trusted Wikipedians may be added to the Managed Deletion Jury Pool by being nominated by an administrator and receiving the endorsement, wtihout dissent, of nine other administrators. The user will be required to gather these endorsements on a user subpage and link to that subpage next to his or her name on the Jury Pool listing. Such a person will not be able to perform deletions, but he or she will have verdict rights on the Managed Delete page.
 * Geogre 18:40, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Umm, this scheme sounds pretty clumsy to me, & therefore people will be inclined to shirk it. I guess I don't see why people can't be on the jury when they want, or not. Wile E. Heresiarch 05:43, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * Why not just let all admins vote. If the article can't be deleted within 48 hours then other admins have a chance to come by and object to any biased voting. Seems much, much simpler, and should work. Also, no need to have a seperate list for trusted non-admins. If they are so trusted then just make them into admins, anything else is another layer of bureaucracy. And lastly, no admins should ever feel forced to participate; enough people are willing do help out of their free will. Thue | talk 09:58, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I should be clear: this is not an idea that I endorse, quite. It's just an alternative. When it comes to voting, I plan to propose the proposal as listed on the project page, but I'll give this alternative for folks who feel that procedure #2 is a reason to vote No. I wanted to be fair and work with people who had that objection, and so I wrote the above, but my own feelings, and the thing I endorse, is still the proposal as it was. As for Maureen's comments, I understand, but I think we always have that problem. The people who go to the Speedy Delete page now are self-selected and have an interest in pruning, so this doesn't make things any worse. I think it makes it better in that it gives 48 hours and allows folks to glance at all the candidates and either speak or not speak. Geogre 13:01, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Suggested changes to wording here
No suggestions, just food for thought:

The rotation scheme and some other stuff seem a little complicated, but I don't have any better ideas.

One thing to consider, though, is whether self-selection might bias the proces toward deletion. That is, would the admins more interested in pruning Wikipedia be more likely to take an active part in the process? Maurreen 04:14, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Compulsory jury duty is not possible
''Making jury duty compulsory for all admins is alien to Wikipedia culture and also a practical impossibility. All the work that we do here, ordinary users and admins alike, is on a voluntary basis: people pitch in with what they can, when they can. Admins do have more duties than other users, but they get to pick the admin tasks that they're comfortable with from among a wide range of them. Also I don't know of any other task that is set in stone in time like this: that says, no you can't go on holiday this week, you can't be busy at work, you can't freely decide to take a wikibreak to reduce stress, because this is the time of your 2-week jury duty. I did try to emphasize above that any rota system had to be voluntary, and this is my alternative suggestion for the sub-proposal:''

A dynamic jury pool of Wikipedia administrators will be created by means of administrators listing themselves on an alphabetical list. They can remove themselves from this pool, and re-enlist in it, at any time of their choice. The weeks of the year will be divided into 26 segments and numbered (beginning with January 1). Each jury duty will begin with the start of a new 2 week segment and will conclude at the end of that 2 week segment. Each time a new segment starts, the next ten administrators listed at that moment will automatically begin jury duty for the next two weeks. --Bishonen 15:08, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[Don't think the trusted user complication is necessary--trying to simplify.]


 * I like that. I will make the change.  It's a lot simpler. Geogre 18:01, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

comments from Wile E. Heresiarch
Hello. I don't know where to put these so here they are. Thanks to Geogre for taking the time to put this together. I think it has a lot of potential. Anyway here are my comments.


 * 1) Name: "Managed Deletion" seems to suggest vfd and speed delete aren't managed, and doesn't suggest anything identifiable about the process. How about "Semi-speedy delete"?
 * 2) Under "Case for Change": I'd say a good motivation for semi-speedy is that with WP's increased traffic, there are more crappy articles than ever, & it's very time consuming to process all of them on vfd.
 * 3) Recreation of semi-speedy deleted articles: I'd say these are speed delete candidates.
 * 4) Criteria: I'd say cut the list of criteria entirely. The criteria should be the same as whatever criteria are applied to vfd now. Listing some other criteria for semi-speedy is needless work in the proposal, and articles will inevitably leak through the gaps in the list.
 * 5) Timeframe for deliberation & voting on the proposal: I'd say 7 days for deliberation and 7 for voting isn't enough; somebody's going to miss it. I'd say 21 days for each part is OK. There's no hurry.

Thanks again to Geogre for pulling it all together. I think it's a great idea. Wile E. Heresiarch 05:55, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Recreation of deleted articles
Articles that are recreated after a full discussion and VfD vote are automatically eligible for deletion as speedy-deletes. I would argue that the recreation of an article that has not been through the full VfD process is more often than not evidence that the decision is sufficiently controversial to deserve a full discussion. Speedys and managed deletes are supposed to streamlined processes to get the obvious and non-controversial decisions out of the way so that the rest of us can focus our time and research on the tough calls. They should not be used to circumvent the VfD discussion process.

Obviously, we need to word the rule carefully so that we can still deal with obvious abuse and trolling but I would prefer for the general philosophy to be "if it's controversial, send it through the full VfD". Rossami 14:16, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree that controversial articles should go through vfd, but recreation of deleted articles isn't controversy, it's trolling. What's the proportion of recreated deleted articles that are honestly controversial? Is it more than 1% ? If someone wants to recreate an article, votes for undeletion is the appropriate venue.  Wile E. Heresiarch 15:04, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree that the proportion of articles deleted under the current VfD process is small. Unfortunately, I don't think we can extrapolate that experience to the Managed Delete model.  Willful recreation of an article after a full VfD discussion is trolling.  Recreation after a speedy may or may not be trolling.  As recently as last month, we had new users come to VfD saying that "I just assumed that the computer ate my article so I entered it again".  Given the wider latitude that is being granted to Managed Deletes, I suspect that we will catch more articles that were created without ill intent.
 * Frankly, if I thought that votes for undeletion was working, I'd be more inclined to agree with you but 1) I don't think that page gets enough traffic to function well and 2) a non-admin does not necessarily know that the article was deliberately deleted which makes it very difficult for him/her to know how to petition for the undeletion. Rossami 19:57, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Obviously I share the concerns Rossami mentions. How do people feel about this change the the wider deletion process: any time an article deleted according to one method is recreated, it gets listed for deletion according to the next method in line. Thus, in the extreme case:


 * 1) An article is created.
 * 2) It gets listed as a CSD and is accordingly deleted.
 * 3) It is recreated.
 * 4) It gets listed at Managed Deletion.
 * 5) It accumulates the necessary votes and is deleted.
 * 6) It is recreated.
 * 7) It get listed on VfD.
 * 8) It accumulates the necessary votes and is deleted.
 * 9) It is recreated. This and all subsequent deletions are immediate speedy candidates with no chance for appeal (or, at any rate, if someone really thinks the article belongs, they'll have to obtain permission by making a case for it on the Village Pump or somewhere, but hopefully this isn't just the author trying to circumvent VfD).  Furthermore, users who persist in recreating their article after it loses on VfD are considered vandals and may be subject to appropriate measures such as banning.

The big (not to say only) problem with this idea is that it requires an easy way for nominators to find out whether and by what process an article was previously deleted. Is a search of Deletion log sufficient? Maybe it should be okay for normal users to act in good faith, without research, when listing articles for SD or MD, but the deleting administrator should check the deletion log before acting.

Maybe this is too much extra work. But I'm still concerned about summarily deleting any articles without giving the author a fair chance to argue their merits. &mdash;Triskaideka 20:25, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Miscellaneous comments

 * I agree with Triskaideka about the re-creations.
 * "Quick deletions" might be a better name than "managed deletions," because it doesn't imply that others are unmanaged.
 * I think the set-ups for scheduling the admin pool are more complicated than they need to be. I think the original idea might be best (if I understand it right):
 * The deletions would require the support of any three admins in 48 hours, with no admin objecting to the deletion.

Maurreen 05:07, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * I don't remember whether this was covered or not. I expect any page nominated would be tagged, so the person who put it up could know what's up? And, less needed, but worth thinking about, so they could possibly correct the problem ?
 * Yes, I'm going to have to find out how to create a template. The template would go on, and then the nominator would add it to a page, pretty much like Clean Up now.  Below each would be the votes.  The nominator's time stamp would be the indicator of the 48 hour period.  So, if I nominate Cindi Adams I just say "Vanity" Geogre 20:41, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)  You then look at the timestamp next to my nomination to start the 72 hour count for staying on the page and 48 hour count for when someone can act upon it.  Any dissent, and the dissenter just goes ahead and lists it on VfD (no need to wait for 48 hr, because there is no arguing or changing of votes).  Geogre 20:41, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Final Thoughts before the vote

 * Ok, I agree with the name change. Granted, I liked the cool factor of having it called "MD" and candidates being "CMD"'s, and I want to keep the cool factor.  The better names that aren't as cool are "Juried Deletion" and "Early Deletion."  The latter is the best explanation of the process, without the highbrow terminology of the former.  Henceforth, this will be called Early Deletion.
 * 1) The matter of what to do with recreations is hard. I have to admit to being a softy on this one.  I think that recreation could be a sign that the author is unaware of why it happened, so I'd say that a recreated Early Delete go to VfD.  In fact, I think this lets us be even more iron clad when it comes to our rules about speedy deleting of recreated VfD articles.  If something is recreated twice, I think it should be a banning offense, but that's another matter for another policy for another time and not contained here.
 * So, the voting form will be as follows: I will change the name of the proposal but leave it in this name space to preserve all of the discussions.
 * 1) The policy will be largely as it currently is otherwise, complete with the "recreated articles automatically go to VfD." This has the additional advantage that an altered or improved version of a recreated article gets a deliberation.
 * 2) The preamble and "Case" of the proposal will be changed to include the overburdening of VfD as a reason.
 * 3) Voters will get a chance to accept the policy as is or with one change: the Procedures #2 above, which will be offered with Bishonen's language. Geogre 20:37, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Instructions to voting administrators
Last-minute tweak: can/should we add some words of guidance for the administrators in casting their ED votes? Specifically, I think we should tell them two things:


 * 1) That they should be generous in sending an article on to VfD. If they have a reasonable doubt that the article should be deleted, there's no harm in a few days of community deliberation&mdash;even if they themselves intend to vote for its deletion.
 * 2) That an article shouldn't be deleted by this process merely because it falls into one of the ED categories. For example, an obvious vanity page on a notable subject could be cleaned up.  A substub shouldn't be deleted because it is a substub, but rather because it is a bad substub.  Administrators should consider the precedents and the spirit of this policy when voting.

This doesn't have to be a separate section; it could be a couple of sentences in the "Criteria" section. &mdash;Triskaideka 21:16, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * I think so. More to the point, though, we have a whole "Instructions and Procedures" thing that's going to have to follow the adoption of this proposal, if it is adopted.  In that, I think we're going to want to make it really, really clear that "when in doubt, VfD."  Also, though, that's where we'll have instructions for novice nominators, etc.  I anticipate that being a bit longish, and I'm not sure it's really part of the proposal per se. Geogre 01:26, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I wish I wasn't coming to this so late, but I didn't realise the voting procedure was going to start so early. However I've been trying to think of a good system like this for a few weeks. Some thoughts:


 * 1) Early deletion is a much better name than Managed Deletion. Actually my preference would be to call it speedy deletion and rename the current speedy to instant deletion.
 * 2) This is going to either be ignored or cause a rethink. I believe we don't need to restrict voting to admins (admins weren't meant to have special voting powers). Examining the list of stuff currently on VFD that would qualify for Early deletion shows that most receive no votes to keep at all. What I would suggest in replacement is:
 * 3) Anyone can vote, however there are the usual restrictions on anons and low-edit users to guard against sockpuppet problems
 * 4) There must be a minimum time before deletion - suggest 12 hours, to guard against conspiracies of people going round deleting articles in a few minutes
 * 5) We no longer need unanimity - instead a substantial majority (suggest 3:1). Specifically this is so that three voters to delete can override a single objector (e.g. the author).
 * 6) Still keep the listing after it is deleted to allow objectors to call for an undeletion
 * 7) In case of doubt the thing just goes to VFD.

DJ Clayworth 14:14, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This is remarkably close to what I had in mind. I assume that list of "early delete" criteria remains the same; obvoius trolling, hoaxes, rants, and so on. Implementing this "early out" procedure would take a lot of load of VfD. -- The Anome 08:24, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

New "revision of" MediaWiki message
I tacked a bit onto the MediaWiki "Revision of" message to forestall misuses of historical revisions of pages, like the one noted in point ii of the Managed Deletion argument. It warns the user that the revision is out of date and suggests they view the current revision to avoid factual errors and vandalism. silsor 04:16, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

I'd rather see expanded speedy deletion, with a 24 or 48 hour period for any legitimate objections to be made. Common sense should apply when determining if an objection is legitimate. - Triona 00:29, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * If we expand speedy delete, but allow as much as 48 hours for objections, I think we're sort of losing the concept of "speedy". Does that mean the pages that say "save page", or "ghjghjghj", or "john is a loser hoo eats his poop" will have to remain here for that long? -R. fiend 05:20, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Early deletion vs. Speedy deletion
I'm a little confused by the logic of those people who think this proposal gives sysops too much power, yet want these cases in question to be candidates for speedy deletion. If speedy deletion is expanded to include the cases in question then any single sysop can delete them on sight. With managed or early deletions (or whatever they're being called now) it takes a few sysops, making abuse by any sysop more difficult. Either way, sysops are the only ones who can delete articles, and I don't think that's going to change. -R. fiend 05:02, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I would suggest, since the vote is going poorly, that we instead tweak the "speedy deletion" criteria, which have been unchanged for a couple of years. Borderline cases will end up getting undeleted if "speedied" in poor judgement. We could also tighten up the "speedy" process to only apply to recently created pages, to prevent abuse in the various sorts of turf wars we sometimes see. uc 21:51, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Test Drive
Is there any chance that we could try this for a while and see if that works before making a final decision? at0 21:18, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Alternative proposal: Quarantine
AFAIA, the real problem is propagation of false info during VFD. I suggest the following: articles eligible for "managed deletion" (silly, harmful, nonencyclopedic) are moved to subpages that are seen only by logged in users and are not mirrored and banned from web crawler bots. Voting is by usual crowd, and there is no time pressure. If you think there is some merit in this approach, I (or you) may elaborate it further. Mikkalai 08:14, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree that we should have a mechanism to quarantine pages. Perhaps we could just change the database mirroring system to prevent certain pages from being mirrored. Adding a tag or creating a new namespace may be a sensible way of doing this. However we quarantine this material people should be able to access it by ticking a box "Include quantined articles in your search?" or "Include quarantined articles in your database download?".

I think that there is also an issue with the size of the page Vfd. I think we should change the way this page is structured. Why not have a deletion context just like the the discussion context for a page. So each page would have a Talk page and a deletion page:


 * Meme
 * Talk:Meme
 * Deletion:Meme

The page Votes for deletion could then just be some explanatory text with a link to Category:Pages on votes for deletion and a list of links to the articles deletion pages. This would allow the pages to be listed in order of submission but would keep the discussion on the Deletion pages.

The text for the Vfd template should become:

 This page has been listed for deletion.

Please see this pages deletion discussion page for justifications and discussion. If you don't want the page deleted, read the deletion policy and vote against its deletion. You may first wish to review some of the common deletion phrases. Please do not remove this notice or blank this page while the question is being considered. However, you are welcome to edit this article and improve it. For a list of all pages up for deletion see Votes for deletion.

We could alternatively reduce the size of the deletion subpages by implementing the following procedure:


 * If you agree with the proposer of an article (and all votes so far are in agreement) then do not vote if in so doing you would increase the number of votes to 3 or more (i.e only vote to second the motion).
 * If you disagree with the proposer make your vote. The voting time will then be 5 days from when you voted.
 * If you are an admin and 5 days have passed since proposing the vote then the article may be deleted if it has been seconded (so long as no one has opposed the motion).

(A possible caveat to the above could be: The creator of a page should not be allowed to vote against it's deletion.) This would allow clear cases of propoganda and vanity to be dealt with quickly but would respect the general wikipedian principles.

I hope others can build on these suggestions. :) Barnaby dawson 10:51, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I like the QUARANTINE Proposal.--AAAAA 22:11, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Deletion requests
I would like to direct people to look at Deletion requests, which is an old proposal for deletion redesign made by Eloquence which came much closer to reaching consensus support. With a few tweaks, this could be the solution. anthony (see warning) 12:26, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Categorized deletion
Would anyone object if I placed a link to Categorized Deletion at the top of this Managed Deletion page once the vote ends tomorrow? &mdash;Lowellian (talk)  22:36, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)
 * Sorry I didn't see this before. I have no objection to mentioning the alternative, but I'd rather not have it on the top of the page, where it essentially diverts consideration from this proposal, as if it has been made obsolete.  That's why I reorganized it to the bottom in an "Altneratives" section. Geogre 17:53, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Gerrymandering?
I am concerned that the extension of this voting process may appear to be gerrymandering. It looks that way to me in any case. A vote is either concluded or it isn't.Sjc 15:33, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Gerrymandering? What the heck?  No districts are being redrawn.  Let's look at the facts.  First, the pages have all said, from the very start, that the vote might be extended if it was requested.  Second, extensions of votes are common on proposals that don't get enough attention.  Third, this proposal had 50 people voting for it, which is more people on the "pro" side than most proposals get on both sides.  Fourth, a number of people have expressed genuine lack of awareness of the nuances of the proposal and have said that they are only realizing late what it really entailed.  Therefore, it seemed to me reasonable to allow the extension of voting, since that extension had always been said to be possible if requested and because I know that a lot of the people who are voting "no" are giving rationales that aren't justified.  Again, it won't cause any harm.  Would it be better to simply re-propose the policy in 2 weeks? Geogre 17:52, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Certainly, this is not gerrymandering. I think what Sjc was trying to say was that extending a vote indefinitely until the proposal passes would be rather questionable. Does not the fact that so many people did vote for it, on both sides, indicate that the proposal has already had a fair chance? &mdash;Lowellian (talk)  04:05, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)

Gerrymandering is now taken to include the extension of a voting boundary of any kind to influence an outcome. Language moves and evolves. Sjc 07:51, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Well, if you say so, Sjc. I'm don't want to argue the word.  As for extending it forever, that won't happen.  This week will be it.  I do hope, since motives are being questioned, that all notice that I have not campaigned at all on this proposal.  When voting opened, I fell totally silent about it, except for one headnote on the voting talk page.  Beyond that, I haven't argued.  When the voting closed, I did have a bit of a comment.  Leaving that seems proper, to me, because we are in an extension, and not a vote.  There will be no further extension.  I can say, though, that someone, and not me, will propose something similar again.  This was by far the least radical change anyone has proposed.  People have got to think carefully about what expanding Speedy means and what early removal from VfD means.  Both of those are far scarier than what I had proposed. Geogre 14:40, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)