Wikipedia:VfD decisions not backed by current policies/poll

There are several dozen criteria under which a page can be deleted, these include those listed at Wikipedia:Deletion policy, Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, and some pages on specific issues like Wikipedia:Verifiability. There is no obligation on VfD voters to have their votes conform to policy, nor should there be. However the question arises: should some mechanism be introduced to ensure that only pages that are listed as being eligible for deletion under current policy are deleted.

Note: this poll is still just a proposal and is not yet active

Main question

Should some new mechanism exist for blocking or limiting the deletion of pages when the decision to delete is not based in any current Wikipedia policy? Or are current pages mechanisms such as the need for a consensus on VfD, and review by Votes for Undeletion, sufficient?

The problem is that policy has become a great baggy monster, if, as you noted, there are several dozen reasons for deleting an article. Given that there's a page named Wikipedia:Deletion policy, this page should be the one and only place where users should go to find reasons for deletion, and administrators should go to evaluate them. The starting point has to be a good policy. Without one, it's not reasonable to decide whether decisions are agains policy, or to determine whether a new mechanism is necessary. Fg2 01:45, Oct 31, 2004 (UTC)

Something new is needed

this poll is not open yet.

Current mechanisms are enough

this poll is not open yet.

1. Postdlf 21:47, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
2. Radiant_* 14:55, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC) - there's no need for this instruction creep; Wikipedia should not become codified law.

What should that mechanism be?

Question One

A larger than usual consensus (e.g. three-quarters) should be needed to delete articles when such a deletion would be counter to standing policy.

Articles should already be getting something like 3/4 support in order to be deleted; a simple majority is hardly enough. +sj+

But they don't. Admins commonly delete articles with as little as a 60% vote in favor of deletion, and admins refuse to undelete such articles when they are listed on votes for undeletion. anthony (see warning) 17:58, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

When I clear out VfD I generally use two/thirds majority as being necessary for deletion. If I keep anything that is more then two third in favour of deletion I get complaints. - SimonP 18:35, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

The problem is with the terminology "rough consensus". We should set a firm threshold. RickK 19:48, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

Rough consensus means that people have to do some work and research. A firm threshold encourages cheating. Mozzerati 21:39, 2004 Oct 23 (UTC)

Ideally, the administrator reviewing the discussion would read through the comments. Maybe a 60% delete vote with excellent reasons for deletion should be deleted, and an 80% delete with a few excellent reasons for keepign should be kept. I don't think there should be a hard limit, rather the reasoning should be the main thing looked at. This would completely discourage cheap voting methods, as it would come down to what actually made more sense. I'd be willing to review discussions I didn't vote in, in this manner, However I have taken up a bit of more active voting stance on VfD the past month or so, as I noticed more and more good articles being deleted. Also--I think that the longer the discussion, the more likey it should be kept. Why? Because if there is enough to have such an argument its more likely that the article at question is or is very near to being encyclopedic. —siroχo 22:24, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

A hard threshold should be set only if we want to admit that we are not requiring consensus. The only way to set a hard threshold and require consensus would be set the threshold at 100%. But that is not to say that 100% agreement is needed to have consensus. Consensus is not a percentage. It's not important who votes for what. What's important is that an effort is being made to take everyone's concerns into consideration. One person might want to delete, because the article clutters up random page. But another person might offer to code up a random page feature which excludes the article. Another person might want to keep, because the article is a stub and that user plans to expand it. But another person might suggest that the article be moved to a User subpage until the article is completed. Consensus is an attempt to satify everyone's concerns. VfD does not work like this at all, and setting a hard vote limit would make things even worse. anthony (see warning) 01:38, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• In theory I think a hard threshold is bad, and would encourage vote garnering and copy/paste voting - but in practice, it doesn't really matter for short VfDs, and for long VfDs admins aren't likely to read the entire piece anyway.

So how would it be determined that a deletion would be counter to standing policy? Would all VfDs be submitted to this secondary review automatically, or only by active listing? Would this then just trigger a second vote, but with a higher standard of consensus? How would it not merely turn into the ability of a minority to arbitrarily make it more difficult for a majority to get an article deleted? Without a sense of the procedures involved, I can't judge this proposal. Postdlf 21:43, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Should deletions ever be contrary to policy? If there's enough consensus to delete an article that's not covered by policy, then we should change the policy. For articles that are clearly detrimental to Wikipedia, we should have a means of hiding them from search engines (including the internal search engine) while the debate goes on. So I would not favor a higher ratio such as 3:1.

However, maybe all is not lost. Setting a higher ratio such as 3:1 is not by itself particularly effective, since it could be met with as few as three votes to delete. But if coupled with a minimum number of votes (e.g. 24), and reasoned dialog, it could become a viable alternative. Let me expand on that a bit. Let's imagine that Wikipedia:Deletion policy lists all the valid reasons for deleting an article, and none of them applies to the article in question. If 18 people can give a non-policy cause for deleting an article, and six or fewer (subject to a minimum of 24 votes) oppose, perhaps the article can be deleted without changing policy. Simple votes that say "delete" but give no support should not be counted. I'm not wedded to these numbers; they're only for illustration. Fg2 02:00, Oct 31, 2004 (UTC)

• If a VfD has a clear consensus either way, this policy would be irrelevant. If it does not, then it is already a contentious and heavily-debated issue, and this policy would add an additional contentious issue on whether everything is going according to policy. The essential problem is that rules can be interpreted in several ways. For instance, many articles that can be construed as vanity or nonverifiable can also be construed as not so. Thus they could be construed as running counter to policy, leading to a meta-debate that is essentially pointless. Radiant_* 14:55, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

Support

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Oppose

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Question Two

When an article is proposed for deletion which doesn't fall under any of the current reasons for deletion [as established by consensus and listed on Wikipedia:Candidates for deletion], the discussion period should be extended to at least two weeks to allow additional discussion.

Not a bad idea, in most cases the problems arise because certain people don't show up to vote in any given week. For example neither Mark nor Anthony nor Intrigue voted much last week, while Improv, George, and RickK continued their normal habits. This pushed VfD to make far more deletions than usual. Giving two weeks for votes where there is no set policy would help alleviate this concern. - SimonP 18:35, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

I object to this only on the grounds that there will be constant debate as to whether or not an article falls under any of the current reasons. We already have the argument concerning schools. Also, there are people who are trying to get the length of time article are on VfD cut short because of the large size of the VfD page. I personally don't have a problem with extending the voting time for all articles to say, 10 days, but I'm sure many would. RickK 19:45, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

On the contrary, there is no actual reason to delete anything nonnotable, aside from outright vanity, the only reason corresponding to that is no potential to become encyclopedic. Perhaps we can make this rule hard and fast.... if people vote to delete because of lack of notability, the discussion would be extended as research was done, and more people gave input. —siroχo 22:24, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

I've added a bit of clarification. Presumably we'd start off candidates for deletion as a more clearly defined version of Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. Any category getting 80% support for deletion would be added, and the category would only be removed if 50% of people support its removal. In fact, for articles which fall under these categories, we could shorten the time spent on VfD, say to three days. These three days could be used solely to determine whether or not the article falls under this category. An example category could be "Movies which have grossed less than $100,000 and are not otherwise exceptionally notable." A vote of "Keep, all movies are notable" could be thown out, because consensus has already been reached that not all movies are notable. On the other hand, a vote of "Keep, this movie grossed $102,000" which wasn't disproven, or a vote of "Keep, this movie is exceptionally notable because it was listed on IMDB's bottom 100 movies of all time" would be a valid vote for keeping. Any reason for deletion not on the list would require a two week period, where objections to the reason itself were valid. If one wanted, ey could simultaneously start a vote on whether or not to include the reason in future reasons for deletion. These two types of deletion could even be listed on two separate pages, which might be enough to convince some of those concerned with the size of VfD to accept it. In fact, we could have two separate vote sections, one for the reason and one for the article. Presumably the votes for the articles themselves would be obvious, and wouldn't get very long. It's also likely that the majority of the discussion would be over the reason, which would be grouped for all the articles falling under that category instead of repeating the same arguments over and over again. This would greatly cut down on the size of VfD. None of this should be set in stone, though. If people support the general idea, the details can then be worked out. anthony (see warning) 02:05, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I don't think 'notablity' is a good criteria for deletion, and there is no consensus to include it as a reason. Any movie that can be shown to have really been made should be included. Intrigue 20:25, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I could not disagree more. Any movies that can be shown to have really been made? Should we encourage people to dig out their camcorders and make short films of their pets, and call the result suitable for wikipedia? I should hope not. Notability is an important way to make sure that the encyclopedia is not filled with banal trivia, excessively local information, and other things that don't belong in an encyclopedia. The potential to be encyclopedic, to me, comes in two parts -- firstly, that the article itself is in a form such as one would expect in an encyclopedia. Secondly, that the topic is something that belongs in an encyclopedia. While I feel that the first is important, I tend to base my VfD votes more on the second, and "not notable" typically means to me, directly, that the second criteria is false. It's true that VfD is an important policy area on Wikipedia for me, as I think that the encyclopedia is made progressively worse by the inclusion of bad articles. I feel very threatened by your efforts to denote nonnotability as not being part of encyclopedicness and as thus not being a valid reason to delete. --Improv 13:48, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Support

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Oppose

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Question Three

Any VfD vote where no standing policy is given as a reason for deletion can be moved from VfD/Old to a separate page. There it will await either an explanation of what policy it falls under, or the introduction of a new policy that will allow for its deletion.

Too complicated. Allow removal, as below.

Rick's argumet, that there will be constant disagreement, applies here too.Mozzerati 21:39, 2004 Oct 23 (UTC)

Support

this poll is not open yet.

Oppose

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Question Four

Articles placed on VfD that meet no existing criteria for deletion can be immediately removed by anyone from VfD.

Better; simple. Likewise, "Articles that can be effectively merged instead of going through the deletion process can be removed as soon as this happens."

This used to be policy. "If another solution has been found for some of these pages than deletion, leave them listed on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion for a short while, so the original poster can see why it wasn't deleted, and what did happen to it. This will prevent reposting of the same item. After the original poster has seen the explanation, or in any case after about a day, the page can be delisted from VfD." It was changed by Benc [1], who claims such a change was requested on the talk page, but I see no evidence that there was consensus for this change. anthony (see warning) 18:05, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for tracking down the change, anth! I always wondered why that changed. We should institute a different change instead, something like this: (+sj+)

If you fix a VfD problem by some softer means, as in a redirect, merge, or drastic rewrite, please comment out the previous comments (with < !-- ... -- >) and add in their place a note of the form "Fixed via redirect" or "Unlisted by submitter".

I agree that any such policy would have to allow some time for the nominator or others to respond. Pages that are currently nominated as non-notable may very well also be unverifiable or vanity articles, which are both accepted reasons for deletion. - SimonP 18:35, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

The whole point of VfD is to decide, by consensus, if the criteria for deletion are met, when some people say they are and others say they aren't. The only way to make this decision would be to let the VfD complete. Then, if the vote is keep, we know we can delete it immediately from VfD :-) Mozzerati 21:39, 2004 Oct 23 (UTC)

Part of our notion of due process is not to remove things from VfD until they're done, except possibly in cases of mass-adds. I am even bothered when the submitter, even if convinced as part of discussion, removes the VfD nomination themselves (as sometimes happens) --Improv 13:47, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It's fine to leave a bare link showing readers how the article was fixed. But the discussion itself can be left out of the burgeoning page. The active users of VfD should be more strongly aware of the fact that the system works better, the easier it is to browse. +sj+

That would be sufficient. --Improv 17:32, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Support

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Oppose

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Question Five

Anyone opposing a particular reason for deletion can sign a page which allows any third party to add that person's vote of "Keep" to any page discussing deletion based on that reason.

Not a bad idea, but there would have to be a similar one for deleters as well. This would also address the uneven turnout idea. This idea also has the added benefit that no policy change would be necessary. There is no rule against "bloc voting" and if a group of Wikipedians decided to support such an initiative they could do so immediately. - SimonP 18:35, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

This is not necessarily true - voting in the name of another has led to arbcom action in the past. Snowspinner 20:05, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

I was not aware of this, could you point me to where this discussion is archived. I do quite like this option. It doesn't force anyone to do anything they do not want to, but at the same time it can be used to give some heft to any policy decision. - SimonP 20:49, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

In fact there is something very similar going on already. With the list of seventeen schools added just recently many users are saying "delete schools are not notable" and those votes are being added as a block by Mandel. - SimonP 21:04, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

This is kind of true [2] but he's being open about it and should be simply told that the votes aren't valid. He can only speak for himself.

I don't like this at all. I think that vote counting is the wrong way to go in consensus issues. Its a good basic starting block, but the reasoning and discussion are what should determine the final action. —siroχo 22:28, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

This would be completely unfair if an option was not also given to allow people to vote "delete" for every article. I'd much rather decide each one on individual merits, but if people are going to pull this garbage, then I guess this would be needed. Ambi 03:56, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It would be helpful so such peoples votes could simply be ignored. People who always vote delete or always vote keep are showing a lack of judgement. --Improv 13:47, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I oppose delegating votes either for or against deletion. That turns Wikipedia into a battle between two political parties. If people care enough to watch VFD and to vote, then their vote deserves to be counted. If they don't, then let's not count their vote.

Support

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Oppose

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Meta-Question

This poll is based on the fundamentally flawed premise that there is any sort of restrictive list of valid reasons for listing a page on VfD. Since no such list exists, any attempt to declare a policy to deal with such violations is an impossible policy that cannot meaningfully be passed.

I agree with this meta-question to a certain degree -- I feel that notability tests follow from encyclopedic requirements. --Improv 13:47, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Support

1. Radiant_* 14:57, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

Deleted articles may instead moved to user sub pages

• A related policy proposal is under discussion at Wikipedia:Countdown_deletion.

Where someone objects to the deletion of an article, typically because others claim it is non-notable but the first person claims it could be worthy of a place in Wikipedia, they may volunteer to mentor the page. If the VfD ends with a "delete" vote, the page will be moved to their user space. The page should then be edited and improved with the aim of eventual re-inclusion. Only after a successful undelete vote may the page be moved back to the main space. If no information is added to the page for more than six months, it may be speedy deleted by anyone (even though it is in the user's space) provide more than one weeks warning is given, either to the article's talk page or the user's talk page (suitable for warning about multiple pages which will be deleted together). This process may be blocked only if the majority of the votes explicitly state a belief that storing the material anywhere would be harmful to wikipedia.

Candidates for this treatment must

• be articles (not images or other multimedia objects)
• have been edited by at least two users prior to listing on VfD. Edits marked as minor do not count.
• not be subject to deletion through other processes such as copyright violation
• not be about the mentor or an organisation controlled, even partially, by the mentor.

I want to propose this as a mechanism which will make less controversy about losing people's hard work whilst encouraging those who oppose deletion to improve articles. I think that the schools debate has got to the extent that stupid useless stubs are being defended to the death whilst articles which, to me, seemed to be close to encyclopaedic and could probably be saved with just a couple of days of research, have been deleted. Mozzerati 09:23, 2004 Oct 30 (UTC)

My only concern about this is that it will be abused to keep vanity pages intact and turn userspace into personal webspace. Snowspinner 15:46, Oct 30, 2004 (UTC)

Personally, I think that to some limited degree that's not such a problem (that's what people's own user page is for; subpages are available for similar reasons);

• the pages are clearly primarily responsibility of that user, not wikipedia
• people won't normally link to the pages
• the pages don't show up in the random page list

but I do see the concern: if it got to be too much garbage it may become irritating. I've made some changes to the proposal to address them. To improve this we could also set a limit (50? / 20 + number of articles mentored back to undeletion?) on the number of pages someone could mentor at a time.

Mozzerati 20:36, 2004 Nov 1 (UTC)

What if there were a clause specifying that an article's creator couldn't be the one to host it? Or, better yet, that the volunteer to mentor it can't have edited the article prior to its VfD listing? Snowspinner 21:19, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

I thought about that myself, but I decided that it might rule out the person best qualified to improve the article (since they have access to the material). On second thoughts, if the person has the material but failed to get the article going then probably the mentor is more needed to help direct their work. If others don't see a problem then I can support this change to the vote. What about articles edited by many people? Isn't there a risk of difficulty finding an appropriate mentor?? Mozzerati 21:51, 2004 Nov 1 (UTC)

• Note that deleted articles are already moved to user pages of whomever cares enough to adopt it (see WP:AN). There's no problem with that, as long as it's done in good faith and not to circumvent VfD. Having them watched and then deleted for a period of time (e.g. six months as suggested) is only viable if done by bot. Radiant_* 15:12, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

Support

this poll is not open yet.

Oppose

this poll is not open yet.

Rules

This poll will last two weeks from its start. Anyone may vote for any many or as few options as they like. Anyone may add additional options if they so desire.

Please advertise this vote on the Recent Changes page. RickK 19:48, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

If and when such a poll goes ahead it will be announed. - SimonP 20:44, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

Discussion

Well here is my proposal for a poll on this matter, please raise any objections you might have with the questions or format.- SimonP 17:05, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

• I am not aware of any actual examples of deletions contrary to current policy. I contend that your likely purported example, that of nonnotability, is in fact a clear part of current policy, falling naturally under nonencyclopedic grounds. --Improv 17:38, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • I do, however, wish to thank you for leaving a note on my user page to take a look at your poll. While I feel that you've gone grossly over the bounds with regards to the VfD issue, it speaks well of you that you make sure to gather the attention of people you know disagree with you (Postdlf being another) for your proposal. --Improv 17:42, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This poll fails to get at my problem with the page, which is not that I object to removing listings from VfD that violate policy. Rather, it is that the only policy to my knowledge that exists for listing of pages on VfD is the vandalism policy and "Don't Disrupt Wikipedia to Prove a Point." That is to say, there are no deletion criteria for VfD, and thus any question of how to enforce them is premature. Snowspinner 19:54, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

But should there be? Why do we have polls and debates on inclusion policy if they are essentially meningless? - SimonP 20:44, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

We might argue that they're efforts to help build consensus. --Improv 21:48, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Quite. "Consensus B doesn't agree with earlier consensus A" doesn't invalidate consensus A or consensus B, although they can both inform a future consensus C (yes this is a grossly simplified analogy). -Sean Curtin 01:42, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)

SimonP, is this poll open or not? If it's not open, I suggest you make it clearer so people will stop voting in it, and delete or move their comments elsewhere. At least, it seems to me that people are confused. --Improv 22:41, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Fine, I guess I'll assume it's open for consensus-building, absent your response, and start to comment. --Improv 13:31, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

SimonP - I would like to see a reasonable estimate (and some examples) as to whether this would actually reduce the amount of work on VfD. Radiant_* 15:14, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)