Wikipedia talk:Over-hasty Speedy Deleters/Archive 1

Post by Terraxos and replies
Great essay. While speedy deletion is an important process, it's an easily-abused one - and this is particularly harmful since, as you point out, mistakes made with the CSD criteria aren't easily spotted, and may well never get noticed if the author of the deleted page doesn't complain.

Perhaps hating speedy-deleters is a bit strong - they carry out a necessary duty, after all, and even the best of them make mistakes occasionally. But it's true that bad application of the CSD criteria can cause more damage than bad behaviour in just about any other area of the wiki, and for that reason, admin candidates who want to focus on CSD should expect their contributions to come under particularly careful scrutiny. Terraxos (talk) 07:26, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I was asked about the title on my talk page, but that's why I explicitly stated in the intro, that I don't really hate them... but I like the title for two reasons: 1) I've said it "I hate Speedy Deleter's" before and then gone on to explain what I meant and 2) even more important, it is catchy. People are more apt to read the essay than one titled "Problems with CSD."--- Balloonman  PoppaBalloon 07:37, 6 December 2008 (UTC)


 * The problem with a lot of CSD'ers is that they aren't doing it with Wikipedia's fundamental values in mind. They don't see it as cleaning up/doing maintenance - they see it as experience points that add to their resume that they will inevitably bring to RfA. They are under the very mistaken impression that editors will support them resoundingly because of how many CSD's they placed, and not the quality of their work or the caution used in calling it right. They seem to think that adminship is a position of respect and honour and the next level of WikiLife - they see it as a badge of a great editor of Wikipedia, and not as a sign of a trusted and experienced contributor who does a bit of maintenance work here and there.. One time I removed a vandalism-speedy tag from an article that probably shouldn't even be deleted, even via AfD. It's this kind of careless CSD tagging that could potentially scare off newcomers who tried to do something productive for the project.  Master&amp;  Expert ( Talk ) 08:10, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
 * That is kinda lumping them in together, but I agree to a large extent. You might like to include something User:WilliamH once said to me at a London wiki-meet; "users seem to treat New Page Patrol like a firing range". Personally I've seen quite a few users who's attitude isn't "does this page deserve deletion?" but "how can I get this page deleted?". "aha, copied off another site. Copyvio! Oh, it's your site? Well it's pretty spammy.. oh, you've cleaned it up? Well I'll tag it as a non-notable organisation then..". Ironholds (talk) 09:48, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I quite like this essay, it brings up some good points. I agree with the comment over G1, I have found myself that this criterion is frequently misused. There does seem to be a misunderstanding in part of the community of what patent nonsense is, Articles for deletion/Poo brown. shows this up a bit. A1 (no context) is another one the essay does not mention that people sometimes misunderstand. Furthermore I am glad non-criteria gets a mention, compliance with them can be quite poor at times. One such non-criteron I would cite in particular is "Reasons derived from Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. Wikipedia is not: "a dictionary", "an indiscriminate collection of information", "a crystal ball", etc.", yet I have seen quite a few admins deleting pages citing just WP:NOT for example. Camaron | Chris (talk) 11:03, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I think not
I made about 700 accurate CSD tage before becoming an admin and I've made nearly 7,000 deletions since with 1 going to WP:DRV. Speedy deletion is the best thing going, assuming admins have a WP:CLUE. I for one do not hate (yes I know it was clarified above) people nominating or deleting attack pages or spam. If people know what they are doing speedy deletion is one of the best ways of keeping this website credible. Pedro : Chat  22:51, 6 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, not all taggers or deleting admins are as conscientious as you Pedro. DuncanHill (talk) 22:53, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree... there are excellent taggers out there... unfortunately, there are just enough bad ones to give the whole crop a negative rep. CSD is absolutely necessary--- Balloonman  PoppaBalloon 22:56, 6 December 2008 (UTC)q
 * (mutli ec)You flatter me! I guess the thing is that they should be. When I first got +sysop I thought "oh this is easy, hit CSD and AIV and just delete / block accordingly". It honestly staggered me how much perfectly good stuff was sent to CSD and how many good faith editors went to AIV. Nevertheless, good CSD work is simply vital IMHO - excising rubbish very quickly (given our 2+ million articles) is essential. Pedro : Chat  22:58, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
 * CSD is necessary, but correct tagging is important. I'm in a pretty good boat; at my last RfA my tagging was described as, among other things "exemplary". While cleanup is good, it has to be cleanup 1) of bad material and 2) cleanup of bad material through the proper channels. Case in point; I just created an article previously deleted (don't worry, this one is all good) where the deleted one was "Person X was awarded the Croonian Medal in year Y" and not only was it deleted but it was deleted under DB:NONSENSE.Ironholds (talk) 23:12, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

G1 / A1
One thing - I'd suggest that much that is wrongly tagged with G1 could be correctly tagged as A1; for example your "A day the is rumored to be the day after cyber monday. In fact it is just dirty lies spread by business teachers which give there students something to do." Good essay, though. Black Kite 22:30, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Bigger problem than I thought
I just took a look at the currently tagged articles, and wow I had no idea there was so much bad CSD tagging! User:Roux does CSD tagging, but has very rude user and talk pages and reverts any comments on it. User:TrulyBlue also seems to get a lot of comments about bad taggings but keeps doing it anyway. --Apoc2400 (talk) 14:24, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * If you find bad taggings, remove the tags and decline the speedy. Uninvolved editors are allowed to do so, as long as they're acting in good faith (meaning: "no meatpuppets"). I'm not sure how many nonadmins there are reviewing them, but I did for a bit before I got my bit (i swearz, i didz not do that on purpose). It's probably better to have non-admins review, in fact, as you guys don't have the option to delete (I'm not suggesting making it mandatory, there're too many for that). If it's really a problem, ANI might be able to do something about troublesome CSD-ers. Cheers. lifebaka++ 22:36, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I have removed speedy tags (as an uninvolved editor) only to find the tags re-added by the original tagger, and the article then deleted (and then eventually re-created as a wrongful speedy). I have been wrongfully accused by admins of removing speedy tags from articles I created, when I did no such thing, and then attacked by other admins for complaining about it. DuncanHill (talk) 22:39, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry to hear that. I've removed tags or replaced them with proper ones (proper to the best of my knowledge). I don't remember that ever resulting in edit-warring or anything similar. Let alone problems with admins. Either I've been lucky or you've been very unlucky.   SIS   23:25, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I wonder if we could get a button in Twinkle to remove a CSD tag and put a comment about it on the taggers talk page. --Apoc2400 (talk) 23:33, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Ask the folks at WP:TWINKLE, I'd say. I once made a suggestion there and I got my wish. They do listen.   SIS   23:47, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

You've asked for it
Please do not make personal attacks. Wikipedia has a strict policy against personal attacks. Attack pages and images are not tolerated by Wikipedia and are speedily deleted. Users who continue to create or repost such pages will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. Thank you.   SIS   02:00, 7 December 2008 (UTC)   [Only joking, of course.]

Okay, on a more serious note, I'm pleased to see that what started as a small thread on my Talk page turned into an essay within 24 hours. Impressive. Generally speaking I agree with what you're saying, CSD rules should be applied properly. Obviously. And mistakes will be made. We're all human. As explained earlier, I don't think things are as bad as you feel they are. I'm sure there are trigger-happy CSD taggers but I also think the rules around CSD prevent major damage. These safety measures are of course no excuse to blindly tag every new page in the wiki, but they do make the system fairly safe. I wouldn't call them "nice sounding platitudes", as you did. The same goes for your "nobody reads WP:YFA". How is that the problem of the CSD tagger? You (rightly) expect CSD taggers to strictly follow the guidelines, yet it's apparently okay that people don't read YFA or save drafts in article space instead of in sandboxes. My friend, that doesn't add up. If the CSD tagger has to know and follow the rules to the letter, then so has the editor. (By the way, I have had my experience with getting stuff deleted, be it only once, so don't wipe me on the "people unfamiliar with article building" pile, please.) Finally, this speedy deleter doesn't fit the stereo type at all, so at least that's something I'm really pleased about.   SIS   02:38, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Balloonman isn't saying all speedy taggers fit the "no article work, treats it like an rpg" stereotype; just the small minority that fuck it up for the rest of us (yes, CSDer and proud). The problem is that the most visible things in any place, but especially on the wiki, are cock-ups. A thousand good CSD deletions go quietly under the radar, but some erroneous ones get far more attention, meaning that the only tagging people see is the crap tagging. Hence my general guideline at RfA (If I've heard of the candidate it is usually a bad sign). Ironholds (talk) 02:40, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't get me wrong, I'm not feeling attacked.   SIS   02:54, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, we don't have anybody named.... hmmm, I'll leave that to SIS an myself ;-)--- Balloonman  PoppaBalloon 22:41, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, it is something I've been toying with for a week or two... your questions helped me to solidify my position/thoughts, and I decided to take them and write an essay.--- Balloonman  PoppaBalloon 03:00, 7 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I disagree with SIS. Many editors are new users and don't know all the rules. CSD taggers should be experienced people that do know the rules. We _need_ editors who don't know the rules yet, they are the future writers of great articles. We _do not_ need CSD taggers that don't know the speedy deletion rules.
 * I created the article on Asahi Kasei, one of the largest companies in Japan. Soon after it was speedily deleted. Luckily, I didn't give up that easily and recreated it with more claims for notability. That was almost three years ago. Do our CSD taggers have better standards now? --Apoc2400 (talk) 13:49, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Pleae show me were I said we need CSD taggers that don't know the rules.   SIS   21:45, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * You didn't Apoc did.--- Balloonman  PoppaBalloon 22:34, 8 December 2008 (UTC)


 * You said If the CSD tagger has to know and follow the rules to the letter, then so has the editor. That is what I disagree with. Editors, especially new ones, should be allowed to not know the rules as long as they have common sense and are willing to learn the rules. --Apoc2400 (talk) 23:34, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, my fault. I completely disagree with you, though. <b style="color:#8080ff;">  SIS </b>  23:48, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * No problem. --Apoc2400 (talk) 23:53, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Idea: grace period
How about this? Speedy deletion tags may not be applied to articles created less than two days ago for criteria G1(nonsense), G2(test pages), G11(advertisement), A1(no context), A5(transwikied dicdef), A7 and A9(unimportant). That would give the writer a little time to finish editing. Those articles are in no hurry to be deleted anyway. It would also encourage new page patrollers to work at the end of the queue (~30 days old) instead of fighting for who can snipe the easy targets first. --Apoc2400 (talk) 23:51, 8 December 2008 (UTC)


 * This would effectively end new page patrol. Skomorokh  23:52, 8 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I have done some new page patrol, but always browsing from the back of the queue. Also, tags for criteria other than those listed above can be added right away. --Apoc2400 (talk) 23:56, 8 December 2008 (UTC)


 * This would result in always having a generous amount of utter nonsense, blatant advertising and crappy MySpace bands on the wiki. And each one will at least survive for 48 hours. I'm not sure that will help a lot. I don't think we need a '48 hour rule'. (Besides, there are already enough rules which are not being followed properly. Right, Balloonman? ;-) <b style="color:#8080ff;">  SIS </b>  00:16, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Indeed. And with advertising at least; when people add spamtastic pages about hyperglobexmegacorp and their username is hyperglobexmegacorp-pr it is very difficult to assume some kind of good faith and give them 48 hours hanging around. In addition (using those specifically) going "hey guys, we'll host your ad for 2 days without complaint" is like smearing your body with jam, grabbing a log and beating the shit out of the nearest bee's nest.Ironholds (talk) 02:30, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
 * This idea has been bandied about before, see the discussion on the WT:RFA pages for the link... I think it was back in April on WP:CSD where it was in full bloom.--- Balloonman  PoppaBalloon 05:06, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

G10
I was one of the people who helped shape our speedy deletion criteria in the beginning. But when I now see how this policy works in practice, it often makes me deeply sad. I don't have a solution; at the time when we wrote the policy we felt it was the best we could do, and maybe it still is. I haven't read your essay yet as I don't have the time now to delve more deeply into this. The reason I came here is because there was an incident with G10 which troubled me, and while I was looking at WT:CSD, pondering about what to write, I noticed your message, so I thought I'd point you to User talk:Fram. &mdash; Sebastian 20:47, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe we need to do that again; rewrite the SD criteria, that is. Expand some things, change the wording as to make clear some of the things brought up here, so on.Ironholds (talk) 21:05, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
 * You might be interested in my reviews of A1 and G1 deletions... I don't think the wording is the problem, it's that people ignore the rules to simply delete.--- Balloonman  PoppaBalloon 21:12, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
 * We just need a way to catch them, then. On occasion (for my own interest, mainly) I've stuck a page that isn't doing any harm but which stupid speedy deleters might tag on my watchlist to see what happens and then admonished the person unlucky enough to tag something in swedish as "db-nonsense".Ironholds (talk) 21:16, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

My thoughts
I've done a speedy deletion or two on occasion. I learned long ago to avoid any actual article content because that always leads to people on my talk page asking about the article. I almost want to eliminate A7 and A9 (when did we get an A9?), but I know that most of the crap deleted under those two criteria are MySpace bands. So... what to do, what to do? --MZMcBride (talk) 07:15, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
 * We got an A9 when we faced the problem that we could delete those MySpace bands easily, but we had to send articles about their recordings ("MySpace band's first limited noone-signed-us MySpace-released EP") to AFD/PROD. Imho it's a good supplement to A7 to clean up. Regards  So Why  09:43, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Seems like a ridiculous reason to add a criterion and it underscores the excessive pedantry people use when applying criteria. "Oh my God it was an article about a completely non-notable book and you deleted it A7!11! Abuuuuuuse." --MZMcBride (talk) 14:47, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Could we not just have a simple "blatantly fails even Encyclopedia Dramatica's notability standards but isn't a site/club/company/plebian/cd I recorded at home"?Ironholds (talk) 17:54, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Some text on G11
As I said over at WT:CSD, one of the criteria I see getting misused a lot, both by taggers and admins, is G11 on WP:SPAM. The trouble is that people who work in NPP and such tend to see a lot of spam all the time, and because of that they tend to see borderline G11 cases as full-blown ones. Quite a few G11 taggings could be relatively simply reworded and copy-edited so that the majority of the spam concerns are gone. So, I'd like to see something to the effect of: = = = G11 ===
 * Blatant advertising. Pages which exclusively promote some entity and which would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic. Note that simply having a company or product as its subject does not qualify an article for this criterion.

While there are many companies who would use Wikipedia for promotional purposes, many cases of even the most blatant advertising contain useful information and should be worked on rather than deleted. Probably someone can word it better than me. Anyways, it's also below for merciless editing/revision before sticking in the essay proper. Cheers, everyone. <i style="color:green;">lifebaka</i>++ 05:24, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

G11

 * Blatant advertising. Pages which exclusively promote some entity and which would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic. Note that simply having a company or product as its subject does not qualify an article for this criterion.

While there are many companies who would use Wikipedia for promotional purposes, many cases of even the most blatant advertising contain useful information and should be worked on rather than deleted.

G11 (another version)

 * Blatant advertising. Pages which exclusively promote some entity and which would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic. Note that simply having a company or product as its subject does not qualify an article for this criterion.

While there are many companies who would use Wikipedia for promotional purposes, many articles that contain even the most blatant advertising also contain useful information, and should be worked on rather than deleted, if the company is possibly notable.


 * I made this change on the basis of my own experience, where I do usually try to rewrite the article if the company is important enough. There is of course no point in working extensively on an article for something that isn't going to make it anyway. DGG (talk) 03:22, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

ahh, another one
See Articles for deletion/The Mall Challenge, speedy closed by an admin as vandalism/obvious misinformation. For those of you (admins and the sort) who can see the page you can tell it is neither 1) patently false (although it is patently non-notable and WP:MADEUP) or created in bad faith to harm WP. Silly wabbit admin, G3 is for trolls! Ironholds (talk) 08:16, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

stealth deletion
Another contributor wrote above that "there are just enough bad CSD taggers to give taggers a bad reputation". Actually, I think the proportion of bad taggers is a couple times past the boundary of enough to give the projects quality control volunteers a bad rep.

But I have two related concerns:

There is a gap in how deletions are recorded in the wikipedia's deletion logs. The entries for articles deleted through afd record a link to the afd. Other entries list a CSD code. The problem I have with this is that the deletion log does not distinguish between the usual speedy deletion and deletions where the deletion relies on the sole judgment of the administrator. In the usual speedy deletion:
 * 1) one contributor applies a speedy deletion tag;
 * 2) then if the tagger follows the deletion policy they advise the person who started the article;
 * 3) an adminstrator comes along, and if they agree the tag is appropriate, they delete the article, and the deletion log entry is made.

If the tagger follows the deletion policy the article creator has a note on their talk page. This note is important for several reasons, including:
 * 1) if the article was created because they didn't fully understand the wikipedia's policies the note provides feedback for them that can help them bring their efforts into compliance with policy. It helps them learn not to repeat the mistake that lead them to create the article.
 * 2) if the article didn't actually merit deletion, the article creator can initiate a discussion that will lead to its restoration, and the administrator who deleted it in error can refine their understanding of policy, so they don't repeat their mistake.

Administrators are authorized to speedy delete articles on their sole authority. About a year ago I was looking at an article that contained a list. I remembered making sure that list didn't contain any red-links. So I was surprised to see it contained three red-links. When I clicked on one of them it had been deleted about four months ago. I left a message on the deleting administrator's talk page, asking for an explanation. It turned out all three had been deleted by the same administrator. In fact he deleted eight articles I started that night.

The deleting administrator was on a wikibreak. So I went DRV. I got mockery from a number of people who looked at the deletion log, saw the valid looking deletion codes, and admonished me for not understanding the speedy deletion process. But when the articles were userified it turned out (1) the administrator had deleted the articles on their sole authority; and (2) practically everyone who looked at the articles agreed the tags were bogus.

I understand that there are emergency situations where an administrator has to delete article without having a second set of eyes look at them. Libel or slander for instance. Some administrators, when they encounter an article they think qualifies for speedy deletion, apply a speedy deletion tag, just like everyone else. But some other administrators feel infallible enough they just go ahead and delete articles on their sole judgment. And the gap in the deletion policies is that they give the responsibility for informing the contributor who started the article to the quality control volunteer who applied the tag. When the administrator does not rely someone else to tag the article then no one informs the article creator.

I have suggested a couple of places that:
 * 1) administrators reserve their power to delete articles without prior warning, and without a second set of eyes for actual emergencies;
 * 2) when administrators feel they have to delete an article where there was no prior warning, they should advise the contributor who started the article themselves.

This suggestion received a lot of resistance. One administrator told me he would if I was that concerned I should learn how to modify the wikimedia software to automate this task, because advising the article creator would be too time-consuming.

Just as with ordinary speedy deletion, if the good-faith article creator who doesn't understand policy isn't told that someone is clearning up after them, they are likely to keep making the same mistake, over and over again. In the long run this could be more time-consuming than the heads-up those administrators couldn't understand the necessity of.

And, when it is the over-confident administrator who made the mistake, they are likely to keep making the same mistake over and over again.

I think of the deletions an administrator has made, on their sole authority, when they don't tell the person who started the article a "stealth deletion". Geo Swan (talk) 09:01, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion does not have to mean impatient tagging
One problem seems to be that some CSD taggers seem to base their work on the belief that articles "should" be almost perfect from the beginning. (One CSD tagger just compared page creation with book publishing..) This is most obvious with A3 tags, but it could play a role with other criteria, as well. It seems to me that there is a systemic problem: Most CSD taggers find their pages through recent page patrol, so they make a judgment about a page before the editor is done. Any ideas what to do about this problem? &mdash; Sebastian 02:09, 1 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Editors could use the tag to signal they do not intend to abandon the page.  An info box with a red linked image and repeated information really is not content.  A page called "Michael Jackson's death" with a infobox that said "Died on ...." really isnt much of an article now is it?  Article space is not a sandbox or test area to play around with an article.  New_article2 states that a user should try creating an article in their own userspace first.  WP:New_article7 says to avoid having extremely short articles to avoid deletion.  Under "While an article is being created" it says "If you know that your article will require multiple edits and/or or a significant amount of time to properly list references and/or make presentable, it is recommended that you place the template  on top of the page to signify to other editors that it's a work in progress. Articles tagged with the construction template are generally not subject to deletion except under certain extreme circumstances (e.g., if left unedited for a week or more)."  Thanks and happy editting.--TParis00ap (talk) 05:32, 1 September 2009 (UTC)


 * You have the wrong approach to the problem imho. Yes, we know all about those things but someone new will usually not read WP:YFA and just start a new article, copying another article's layout if we are lucky. The problem is, as Sebastian points out, that some NPPs have a too high standard when it comes to new articles. We need to educate those people to not simply tag everything but to allow time for improvements and/or to improve things themselves. Regards  So Why  06:04, 1 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, I feel slightly accused and targetted by Sebastian which is why I took a stance opposite of the subject. I dont feel the post and method the discussion began here was all that civil because I feel publically called out for something I felt was a minor mistake.


 * However, why do taggers have to be slowed down? Speedy deletion tags give the authors a quick idea of what the problem with the article is and they have the option to use the  tag which is in the template of every speedy delete tag.  If they truely haven't just posted and abandoned the article, as I stated above, they would see the speedy deletion tag during their next edit.  Administrators also have the option of waiting to delete.  There is no hurry unless the page is an attack page.  You can't put the entire responsibility on the taggers, the administrators actually carry out the deletes.  Just because I tag a page doesn't mean it will neccessarily be deleted.  As Sebastian proved, Administrators have a mind of their own and they will not always agree with the tagger which is perfectly fine.


 * This is why I only have NPWatcher privillages and not admin privillages. I'm still learning the ropes while you administrators are supposed to be seasoned veterans.  You should not blindly delete.  I make calls in my own judgement about how I feel the guidelines are written.  Sometimes my interpretation of the guidelines will not be the community consensus and that's fine because I am learning.  An administrator will eventually come along, see the tag, and say "Nice try, but I dont think so."  The process works, why make a fuss?  There are checks and balances in place and I don't see what the problem really is other than an annoyance on an administrator's part that he has to educate a tagger on community consensus.


 * If the problem truely is that you feel new edittors are not getting a fair chance and welcoming opportunity to create new content, then don't delete the pages. Leave the speedy delete tag in place though, or change it to a PROD.  It gives the author some indication that there are problems with the page that need to be fine tuned.  The  tag only means the page will be forgotten and abandoned.  Of course, I set pages I mark on my watchlist, but I don't think everyone does this.


 * I just dont understand the point in using speedy delete tags on pages that are ~30 days old. If a page is that old already, why are we in such a rush to delete it?  The purpose of a speedy delete tag is to be quick.  Why not make a "Delete in 30 days" PROD tag?  It just doesn't make sense to say, "Hmm, here is a blank article, I will leave it alone for a period of 30 days upon which time it will suddenly become critical that such an article be deleted as quickly and speedily as possible."--TParis00ap (talk) 12:30, 1 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I have since read Why_I_hate_Speedy_Deleters and I want to point out that Balloonman puts as much responsibility on the administrators as he does the taggers. I think that is a fair viewpoint and Sebastian and I are a perfect example of the successful relationship between a CSD tagger and an administrator.--TParis00ap (talk) 13:24, 1 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Ultimately, the onus is on the admins... they are the ones making the final deletion and should be the ones educating others.--- Balloonman  NO! I'm Spartacus! 14:08, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Requested move
no consensus to move. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 20:12, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Why I hate Speedy Deleters → User:Balloonman/Why I hate Speedy Deleters — Mostly personal opinion of Balloonman ("my !voting history" in the lede), which is outside the realm of most Project pages. Syrthiss (talk) 13:11, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Survey

 * Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with  or  , then sign your comment with  . Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.


 * Oppose The point criticized are valid but are rooted in the history of the page. Since it was originally a personal opinion by Bman, it still contains relicts of it. But since then, so many different people have edited the page that it would be incorrect to move it back to his userspace. Instead, we can just rewrite those few instances where his personal experience is referenced without taking a bit away from the essay's meaning. Regards  So Why  13:34, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * If I may, 'so many different people' is overstating it by a lot. Substantive edits to the text are pretty much Balloonman, you, lifebaka, and Ikip.  Most of the other edits are grammar or spelling.  I wonder what the substantive contributions from multiple editors are on other project-space pages, in comparison? Syrthiss (talk) 13:45, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Even three different people substantially editing a page makes it more than the page of a single person (which would be fitting in userspace), don't you think? Point is, the essay is now more a collaboration piece and as such belongs in Wikipedia: namespace. The fact that there are still references to its previous nature just means those references needs to be changed. Regards  So Why  14:17, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I suppose you will be willing to take on the rewrite, SoWhy? Otherwise I must support this.  Majorly  talk  14:14, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * It's always somebody else's problem, isnt' it? I'll see what I can do. I think removing the introduction and changing the title pretty much is all there is to do. Regards  So  Why  14:17, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Support unless it is substantially rewritten, with a different title (e.g. Why Speedy Deleters are bad).  Majorly  talk  14:14, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose This essay is cited by numerous people at CSD and RfA... not just the few people that Syrthiss mentions. Numerous people have come to me to thank me for writing it---take a look at the barnstars that I received explicitly because of this essay.  So, yes, I would say that more people have embraced the article than the few you cite.  As for the title and first person... hmmmm, those aren't those often used as literary devices and a means to get people hooked?  This is an essay not a policy or a guideline or even a WP entry.  The key is that it is cited and used by others, recognized by others, essays do not reflect the acceptance by the wider community.  If I want to keep it "pure", eg my version, then yes, this should be in the user space, but as it is intended to be an essay that others can use and educational---and I'm open to others editing it---then the project space.  BTW, just a note, it is common courtesy to notify key people when this type of discussion is going on... especially when the key person is easily identified.--- Balloonman  NO! I'm Spartacus! 14:42, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I didn't see any such recommendation to do so on the requested moves page, or an easily plonked template, or I would have. My apologies.  Syrthiss (talk) 14:46, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree with much of the essay, yet it sits here in project space as some sort of "official" essay. In your userspace, it was perfectly fine. People were still able to link to it there, and edit it. Moving it to project space, regardless of intention, makes it look more official than it should. There are many essays that are widely agreed upon - example WP:BEANS, WP:SNOW, WP:SPIDER, WP:DENY, etc. That's why they are in the project space. This is someone's personal story. I would go as far to say it is inappropriate to be in the project space, because of how personal this essay is. So what if many people use it and cite it? They are still able to link to where it should be, userspace.  Majorly  talk  14:58, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Per policy, Essays are the opinion or advice of an editor or a group of editors. No formal attempt to gauge their widespread consensus has been made. Essays may be created and written by any editor. They do not speak for the entire community. In other words, "I don't like it" is not sufficeint grounds.--- Balloonman  NO! I'm Spartacus! 15:11, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Anytime that you are dealing with an action that would directly affect a specific individual, that is expected. In this case you are dealing with moving an essay to a specific user's user space.  What would have happened if I had come back and said, "Absolutely not.  I do not want that piece of garbage in my user space, I moved it out because I now think it's crap?"  Or I might have said, I'd rather have it deleted than moved back to my space.  Of course, I'm not saying either of those, but you never know.  One of the reasons to have an essay like this in the main space is because it keeps it as part of the projects and affords the essay protections it doesn't have in the User space.  In the User Space, I am free to delete it if I choose---even if others make major edits to it. Heck, others could completely rewrite it and I could still delete it if it's in my space.  In the Wikipedia space, it takes an MFD to get it deleted.  I personally think this essay has reached the point where it should be beyond the whims of an individual to make that decision, which is why I oppose moving it.  This essay is at the point where other peoples input should be required.  Plus, the purpose of essays is to share the thoughts of one or more wikipedians.  The essay tag explicitly reads that it might be the advice/opinion of a single editor.  Nor does an essay have to represent a dominant perspective---you can have contradictory essays.  "I don't like it" is not a valid reason... which is the reason that I see above.--- Balloonman  NO! I'm Spartacus! 15:07, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * And "I like it" is all I see for reasons for keeping it where it is. I'm not saying delete it. I'm saying move it to an appopriate location. I'm not sure how you can describe what is essentially your personal account as anyone elses thoughts. Yes, they may share similar thoughts, but it's all about you. It's about as appropriate in the project space as User:Majorly/RfA is. Obviously, you're not going to agree to moving it back because you moved it out, but please consider rewriting it so it's less of a personal account.  Majorly  talk  15:13, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Per policy, Essays are the opinion or advice of an editor or a group of editors. No formal attempt to gauge their widespread consensus has been made. Essays may be created and written by any editor. They do not speak for the entire community. You have not given a single reason to move it except that in YOUR opinion nobody else could possibly agree with it, which has already been debunked.--- Balloonman  NO! I'm Spartacus! 20:23, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Support, without any prejudice towards the content of the essay (which I happen to largely agree with). – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 15:16, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose The article should progress towards becoming a guideline rather than regressing back to user space. The content and title need more work but this is a common problem which just requires more input from other editors. Colonel Warden (talk) 16:52, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * And you will be working on it? I asked this question to SoWhy above. If it's decided to keep it where it is, I expect those who are wanting it kept here will be doing a bit of work to get it up to scratch. Because it's in an unacceptable state at the moment.  Majorly  talk  18:17, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Compared with the previous version, all parts written in first perspective are gone now as far as I can see. Is this enough in your opinion? Regards  So Why  19:33, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose - A fine essay on an important Wikipedia topic that belongs in project space, not user space. I might support a reasonable change to the title, if that is the issue. Rlendog (talk) 18:35, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * And much of the content which is Balloonman's personal views and experience, that couldn't possibly be shared by anyone else.  Majorly  talk  18:36, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The content does a pretty good job of summarizing my views. Essays do not have to reflect a consensus position, if they did they would likely be guidelines. Rlendog (talk) 20:17, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose I gather Balloonman is either retiring or becoming more inactive (though I saw him edit just a few hours ago) ... if so, I imagine this page will be changed quite a bit in his absence and that it will become largely "not his", so it should not be userfied. And as per some of the other commenters, that has already happened to some extent.  -- <B>Soap</B> Talk/Contributions 18:56, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose this is an essay in Wikipedia space. I see nothing imapprpriate about the current content, and aside from that a name change can't fix or settle content disputes regardless. — V = I * R  (talk to Ω) 05:02, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Add humor which should address the objections to the title. Essay could be more visible; was its background always this light? Essays are personal opinions, put in one place to save typing - none of them are official; Syrthiss should write, and quote, his own - and should feel free to point out that this is only as essay. If it persuades people, as opposed to overawing them with initials, then the same opinions longhand would have done so too.  Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:15, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose adding a humor tag. While the name was a little tongue in cheek, the essay is pretty serious.  A humor tag would say, "don't take this seriously."--- Balloonman  NO! I'm Spartacus! 17:10, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Discussion
I took a look and this page has been viewed at least 179 times in August alone. (NOTE: you have to look up each redirect individually as it appears that as far as the counter is concerned a redirected page is the page being viewed, not the actual page being viewed. Here are the counts for this page 60 + 19+ 35 + 41 + 15) Other essays have much fewer  views Avoid template creep ca 130, Common sense on courtesy 61, Comparison Articles and Original Research 49, Concept cloud 46, Competence is required ca 180, Conflict paradox 35, Adjectives in your votes 42, BLP policy advises fix over delete 90, and About translating German Wikipedia 114, Credentials are irrelevant 79 and the opposing view Credentials matter witth 55---those counts were not the lowest counts I found they were all of the counts I found via judicious sampling (and then checking for redirect pages.)  Yes, there are other essays with more, but these were found without ANY effort on my part. But it is clear that this page gets more views than most essays in the wikispace. Furthermore, if you want to check the number of links to a page, this one has more than all of the ones I cited above. Heck, you could get rid of the links that SoWhy or I added and still get more links than most of those pages!--- Balloonman  NO! I'm Spartacus! 15:24, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

G2
Could someone please expand on CSD G2? If no one does in a few days, I'll give it a shot, but I would like to see someone more qualified than I explain it better. My understanding is it is pages that consist of Bold Text and Italic Text and type material with no real article content.--TParis00ap (talk) 18:47, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * That is basically my understanding of it. I have also used it in the past when a page looks like it may be vandalism G3, but I want to give the creator the benefit of the doubt. Syrthiss (talk) 18:52, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I've been seeing articles that are marked G2 like Muhje_Malueng_Hai and Ek_Raaz that I don't think qualify as G2s. I wanted to point the tagger towards this essay but there is nothing in the essay explaining G2.  You can't see it now unless you are an admin, but at the time I thought they should've been PROD.  It only says it is an underused tag.  Any help expanding would be great else I try WP:BEBOLD.  Thanks.--TParis00ap (talk) 19:00, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * A perfect example just came up. Purple_pineapples was marked as G2 when it should've been db-nocontext or db-hoax.--TParis00ap (talk) 19:07, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, I'd say G2 was right for that. Nocontext would work, as would nonsense.  Some articles like Purple pineapples there I assume are created because people want to see if they can create an article.  I don't think they intend for it to stand, either assuming that there is some kind of vetting that articles go through before they get published to the site or assuming that it will be deleted. Syrthiss (talk) 19:15, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok, than that is where I need more clarification because that kind of thought can be pretty dangerous to community consensus. With that thought in mind, nearly all new articles could be considered G2.  So is there some determining factor about which new articles are not G2 and must be PRODed or marked something else?  How do I know an article not marked any other CSD is clearly a G2 article?  I am not trying to be threatening or trap you, this is for my understanding.--TParis00ap (talk) 19:19, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I marked it G2 as I figured it was someone just playing around and making a page with whatever happened to be in their head. I remember reading somewhere the idea of "Can I really make a page here?" being a test page but i can't find it right now.  I guess it could have been G3, but I feel that G3 carries with it more of an assumption of malicious intent.  Like Syrthiss said above I use G2 sometimes when a page could be G3 but I want to give the benefit of the doubt. Dac04 (talk) 19:36, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I see both of your points, but I am a black and white mindset and I have trouble seeing grey. If you could define it a little better for me, I'd appreciate it.  I didn't change the CSD on the page because in all honesty, I am not positive of a G2 which is why I came here.  I just don't get what qualifies as a G2 besides what I have.  I dont see how I could determine it as a test of editting powers versus an attempt at an article that doesnt meet any other criteria.  I can see attempts at using markup, but test of editting powers is confusing to me.--TParis00ap (talk) 19:40, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * A black and white mindset is probably not so bad in a case like this. If you begin by the criterion, and not by your gut feel about an article, then you're safe. If G2 doesn't work for you, then it might be best to leave the G2 cases for others to whom they are clearer. (I really don't want to discourage you - see my post below. Just look at it like a tool: Imagine you're a painter, and you have one color in your palette that you can't relate to. Then there's no need to use it.) BTW: I just heard the term "black and white mindset" from Randy Pausch. You might enjoy reading (or listening to, as I did) his "Last Lecture". &mdash; Sebastian 20:45, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for being so conscientious as to bring this up here. For those who are not admins, here are the articles under discussion with their content before they were tagged:

I don't think it matters what they are called. They are all clearly not something we need to keep. Maybe all you need to consider is this question: Would it be appropriate to post the following message on the creator's talk page? "Thank you for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your test worked, and the page that you created has been or soon will be deleted." Imagine the person who created the page was someone for whose opinion you care - such as your customer, or the girl you want to impress. If you would feel comfortable saying that to his or her face, then it's the appropriate message. Obviously, you wouldn't say that if there was a real chance that it's well intended effort to start a good article. &mdash; Sebastian 19:43, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * That's why I bring this here instead of WP:CSD. Why_I_hate_Speedy_Deleters talks about articles that we know should be deleted but don't meet criteria.  I realize this is just an essay and not community consensus, but it makes a lot of sense to me.--TParis00ap (talk) 19:48, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah, yes, certainly has a point! (And it's actually a point about nominating, not just about the deletion.) With that in mind, I see how one could argue against speedying the first two articles. They appear to be the description of a movie and there is a chance that the editor will turn them into good articles, or do other beneficial work later. However, much as I am fighting for being more welcoming to newbies, I feel that, given how careless they were written, the chance is very unlikely that we're chasing a potentially good editor away. If the editor has potential, then  will understand why the articles were deleted. &mdash; Sebastian 20:02, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The point of me bringing this here isn't about the two articles though. I'd like more clarification either on WP:CSD or on this essay on what a G2 is.  It just doesn't seem very clear as far as my understanding of it.  But my understanding of  is that because of the nature of CSD as an unwatched/no oversight deletion, we need to tag articles exactly as the criteria says or PROD/AfD it as explained in .  That is why I would have put the articles I pointed out to PROD or, on the pineapple article, A1 or G3.  Apparently my understanding of G2 was a little stricter than the community understanding is, but I would like some clarification on how to properly apply it other than imaginging myself telling a friend the above.--TParis00ap (talk) 20:12, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Don't worry, TParis, you're already doing enough. I am not concerned about you, but about people who tag articles before they even spend one thousandth of the thought you invested in this. Unfortunately, we can't define this exhaustively, because reality is too complex - there is no given level of detail that once and for all defines all situations. At some level, we need to rely on the tagger's intuition, and that's OK. Taggers don't need to learn a long set of rules; I would be happy if every tagger just thought twice, instead of relying entirely on his or her gut reaction. &mdash; Sebastian 20:35, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Well you have yourself to thank for that. You brought this essay to my attention several months ago.  I just have a hard time when I have to, I really don't even know the word, think outside the box about objective material.  I am a computer programmer by heart and computer tech by trade and I often think outside the box but it's about a very targetted subject.  When you start trying to get me to wrap my head around concepts like "If it seems like they were testing their editting rights" it isn't clear anymore to me.  But, when all else fails, apply WP:FUCK and move on to the next article.--TParis00ap (talk) 20:39, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I remember ;-) Yes, I'm very happy that you're bringing this up here; I highly respect people who openly learn from past experience. I think we agree on this; by "move on", you just expressed what I meant above where I said G2 is just a tool which you don't have to use. If I had known you're a computer programmer I could have come up with better examples; you get the idea. &mdash; Sebastian 20:53, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I and a number of other admins have sometimes used G2  instead of G3 or G10, to avoid calling attention to the deletion, in the spirit of WP:DENY. The intent is to give the message: I see you want to test how stupid you can be without us catching you, well, here's the answer, and avoid the reaction, Ha Ha, they called me a vandal.    DGG ( talk ) 05:31, 1 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Hmm, that's an interesting way to look at it. I'm happy with the response I got.  I came here looking to seek clarification for others and I infact received it for myself.  I learned quite a bit here and I appreciate the input.  I also appreciate Balloonman expanding G2 for me.  Thanks ya'all.--TParis00ap (talk) 20:16, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Bold removal
I removed the following to talk:
 * Unless dealing with a vandal, it is better to wait a few days/hours to let somebody salvage an article and feel good about the process than it is to burn them.


 * Just because an article has zero chance of surviving an Article for deletion in its current format, is not justification to Speedy Delete it per Ignore all Rules! Some look at an article and see only one possible outcome—if the article has zero chance of surviving an Article for deletion posting in its current format then it will be deleted. They then look at Wikipedia:Snowball clause and see the original words, "If an issue doesn't even have a snowball's chance in hell of getting an unexpected outcome from a certain process, then there is no need to run it through that process." They then decide that this would be an acceptable use of Ignore all Rules. However, by not allowing for a full Article for deletion to happen, we do not allow the author time to possibly improve the article past its present state, resulting in the article being both kept and improved. In this case, by sending the article to Article for deletion we have educated an author on what is expected, given them a positive experience to Wikipedia, and gotten a better article out of the process. If we delete the article, just because we don't see it surviving in the current shape, then we deny the author the chance to improve the article and we might lose a valuable contributor to the project. Take this article, Donald G. Fink, for example, which was restored from Criteria for speedy deletion. People who cite Ignore all Rules/Wikipedia:Snowball clause as a reason to delete articles forget that "The policy is never more important than the goal behind that policy." The goal behind the higher standard for Criteria for speedy deletion is not delete articles, but to afford the articles creators a chance to salvage them!


 * The community has set the guidelines higher for Criteria for speedy deletion explicitly to afford authors the chance to salvage their articles. Thus, one should stand firmly behind these words: Just because an article has zero chance of surviving an AFD in its current format, is not justification to Speedy Delete it per Ignore all Rules.

Which was repetition of the above section. I would be interested in balloonman would name the article which became a featured article, in this section. Welcome to revert me, as I am not watching the page anyway.Ikip (talk) 09:29, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

People make mistakes
If you tag 100 articles with WP:SPEEDY tags a week and make 10 marginal calls a week and 2 total fsck-ups a week, you are probably doing more for the wiki than if you are doing only 10 a week, make 1 marginal call a week, and only make a big boo-boo less than once a month. Plus, as you get better at it your fsck-up rate will go down.

Admins aren't perfect either. The admins that regularly patrol CAT:SD should be somewhat better than the non-admin C:SD patrollers or non-admin taggers, but that will be in part from being able to study deleted edits and from talking to other admins. Admins who don't do regular C:SD work or who are out of practice won't be as good, but they should be better than their non-admin peers, because they have access to more study material.

Not all SPEEDY calls are obvious. Take the dividing line between "obvious hoax" and "hoax that needs to go to WP:AFD" - while most editors will agree "in general" where the dividing line is, if you have 100 that are "tough calls" and ask 50 editors to mark each of them SPEEDY or no-SPEEDY you'll get 50 different sets of answers. A7 is even more difficult, as the all-important "credible claim of importance" line has a grey area to it. Right now, there's an open question of whether a credible claim of "being a college professor" is a credible claim of importance. I expect given 50 random college professors at 50 random schools of random quality and reputation, the claim "is a professor in field of study at college or university" would generate similar varied results as a nearly- or barely-obvious hoax would.

Fortunately, if criteria are designed right, errors like these that result in improper deletion are articles that would be snow-deleted at AFD anyways, and errors on the other side will just result in a little more work at AFD, with a possible AFD closure of speedy-delete.

What we need to be careful of in designing SPEEDY criteria is that when people make tagging or reviewing errors, they don't delete things which could reasonably succeed at AFD.

We also need to educate SPEEDY taggers not to tag topics they've heard of unless they reasonably believe the topic is not wiki-worthy even if the current version meets A7 or a similar requirement. If you've heard of it, odds are you know or could easily find out if the topic meets notability guidelines and if it does, beef up an A7 article to the point that it could pass AFD. This is far more useful to the project than tagging it for deletion. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  21:19, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
 * By the way, humans making mistakes is one reason we should always have 2 sets of eyeballs on all speedy-deletions, save obvious "must delete" things like attack, copyvio, etc. that even non-admins are encouraged to fix or blank first and ask questions later. davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  21:46, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Please move this back into userspace
This has no place in project space. Just look at the first paragraph: "People who are familiar with my !voting pattern at RfA's know that I hate speedy deleters (CSD'ers)". Project space essays ought to be reflective of general opinion on matters (e.g. WP:SNOW, WP:NOTNOW, WP:SPIDER etc). This essay is Balloonman's personal thoughts, and there isn't even any attempt to make it more mainstream. There is a time and place for essays with such personal thoughts, and that is in the user's userspace. Project space should be for essays that actually reflect more than one person's opinion. Right now, this is Balloonman and Balloonman only and it's not right at all.  Majorly  talk  00:17, 16 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Since I, too, see many problems with speedy deletion, I would wish this page some prominence. However, Majorly is right that as it stands, the page has no place in project space. The most obvious sign for that is its name: "Why I hate Speedy Deleters", where "I" refers to one person - the creator and only major contributor of this essay. Maybe it could be merged with WP:Ten Commandments of CSD? &mdash; Sebastian 02:09, 1 September 2009 (UTC)


 * It's been renamed. I was linking to it from my page even before it was renamed.  This essay expresses a common opinion.  Project space essays do not need to be reflective of  general opinion.  They're in the Wikipedia: subspace, not in main project (i.e. article) space. I just came here to make it more general, and happened to the above 2 comments.  --Elvey (talk) 01:56, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

New title?
In case there is no consensus for the move request, we should think of a new title to remove the last traces of first-perspective from the essay. Any suggestions? Regards  So Why  19:40, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't mind a title change, the only thing that I would like to do is have an AKA preserved. Eg whatever title is decided upon, that it keeps a sub-title referencing the original name and maintaining the WP:WIHSD quicklink that has been used.--- Balloonman  NO! I'm Spartacus! 20:24, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I suggest a title that doesn't include the word "hate" because I felt offended and targeted as a tagger until I read the article. A name not including hate would encourage more folks to read it without defensive walls.--TParis00ap (talk) 21:25, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * But would you have read it if you didn't feel targetted? That is the trade off, Essay's are like magazine articles.  You want to hook the reader.--- Balloonman  NO! I'm Spartacus! 21:27, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Good point. And the essay did get me to read other things I have never seen before about CSD like the /examples page and the 10 commandments.  But do you really hate me? I just want to be loved.  No but seriously, isn't there any other way to catch someone's attention?--TParis00ap (talk) 21:43, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * How far into the essay did you have to read before you realized that we don't hate you ;-) Hopefully not long because the very introduction says that...  Case in point if I were to present 3 essays in front of you:
 * Why I hate Speedy Deleters
 * Field guide to proper Speedy Deletion
 * Ten Commandments of CSD
 * Which one are you most likely going to read first? Now all three of those essays say similar things, but I suspect that most people will gravitate to the one with the provocative title first.  As the essay states, would you be interested in "Why I hate a small percentage of CSD'ers?"  No, the title is catches peoples attention and gets them to read what the article is about.--- Balloonman  NO! I'm Spartacus! 22:32, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Well the essay was very clear on it's purpose and I understood it right away. But when the administrator Sebastian used it to point out...well just read the above...I took it as he really does hate CSDers.  The title itself is used to target CSDers when the essay's true intention isn't so insulting.  After rereading Sebastian's message, I feel if it wasn't on this particular page, I wouldn't have been so defensive and upset.  If the title had been different, I probobly would have seen it differently.--TParis00ap (talk) 00:54, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * In all honesty, I see your point there, which is why when I link to it, I try to use the WP:WIHSD's short cut---especially if I am being critical of somebody's CSD work.--- Balloonman  NO! I'm Spartacus! 15:19, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually, rereading it, I think it is fine with the name as is. It was de-balloonmanafied... and the "I" was made into a more generic term. There are other essays out there that use the first person pronoun... and I still think the provocative title gets people to read it. The number of people who have commented here (and on my talk page) about how they read it because of the title is proof enough for me.--- Balloonman  NO! I'm Spartacus! 21:37, 1 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I've reduced the lead, which was a bit verbose and rambled in a couple of spots. y'all an feel free to revert if you don't like it, since I WP:DGAF, but you may want to give it a chance. Smiley.png — V = I * R  (talk to Ω) 05:14, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

WP:WIHSD

 * From User:Ikip RE: WP:Why I Hate Speedy Deleters changed to Concerns about Speedy Deleters

Hello. Why did you move this article? There was a discussion on the move and the result was no consensus to move. Although I voted in support of move, I do not feel the essay should be moved after a move discussion could not achieve consensus. Please restore the article to its original name.--TParis00ap (talk) 04:21, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Please correct me if I am wrong, but a quick glance, I personally see little consensus here about the title of this essay.
 * The reason I moved this article to a more neutral name, is because I was linking to it at Newbie treatment at CSD and/or Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/new users and I felt the article's impact would be reduced and the title would also turn off a lot of editors. I support the ideas in this article, I just feel they can be presented a little more neutral, to appeal to a broader base. I have seen numerous MFDs over article names. See for example, Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:UBX/HatesUselessTaggers which was kept, but the author was forced to rename the article.
 * If someone feels that this article should be renamed back to WP:Why I hate speedy deleters, please go ahead. But I think if someone doesn't change the name voluntarily, less supportive editors will force the issue, or even try to get the article deleted, using the title as the central reason. I don't want that at all. I have nothing but praise for the content of this essay.  Ikip (talk) 09:14, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I was semi-retired when you made the move, but I've decided to undo your move. The title you gave is friggin boring... the WIHSD title is much more provokative and fun.  Yes, fun.  It is designed/intended to get people to read the article---just as headlines do on magazines.  Your title didn't attract people... it was boring.--- Balloonman  NO! I'm Spartacus! 21:43, 30 September 2010 (UTC)