Wikibooks:Reading room/Proposals/2010/November

Proposing new deletion process
I thought this up on the bus today. Basically it is a temperary deletion process which (hopefully) helps WB clean up its low-quality pages quicker. I know this is the kind of proposals the always end with no consensus; I'm just proposing on the off-chance that this gets community support.

Basically, my idea is like this:

If a book
 * Has not been developed for three years (edits like anti-vandalism, adding status, or removing deprecated classifications do not count)
 * Has a TOC
 * Which is incomplete
 * AND only a module or two are partly written
 * Which is complete
 * AND most modules are not written; the ones that are written are incomplete
 * Does not have any sort of introduction whatsoever that states the direction of book development

Then it can be put through a new deletion process. The proposer tags the book, and after 7D it gets listed at a cat. An admin, who did NOT propose the deletion, comes over and checks whether the book fits the criteria. If it does, (s)he deletes the page immediately.

I know this idea is kinda 'undeveloped', so suggestion and criticism from Wikibookians is needed to shape the proposal. Kayau (talk &#124; email &#124; contribs) 09:58, 20 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose. One of our primary tasks is it is to provide and preserve any valid contribution of content in a reusable form even if the content isn't useful for a Wikibook, we should strive to find it a home. This is why our deletion policy protects stubs. The only reason to delete a stub is already covered on our policy, having no intrinsic value or the existence of a better replacement. --Panic (talk) 10:27, 20 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I am only proposing a way to delete books without meaningful content and which future contributors cannot improve on more quickly. Like this discussion, which was unanimous delete. Kayau (talk &#124; email &#124; contribs) 10:41, 20 October 2010 (UTC)


 * That project could have been improved, it provided some information. In that particular case I chose not to oppose the deletion because the content was easily reconstructed. I see that sort of RfDs as a null actions, not beneficial (as space is not an argument and the content is not in fact "deleted") but also not detrimental to our project unless people start to lose valid time discussing the gray line that defines what a stub is... (Some of the characteristics you list can include valid content.)
 * Stubs deletions should be down there on our priorities list, if "reduction" is important to someone there are enough merging jobs pending... --Panic (talk) 10:54, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

You are describing a process that already exists. It is called "speedy deletions". You tag a page or book with and it is added to Category:Candidates for speedy deletion. Any administrator can look over the work and immediately delete the work if the criteria are met. Anyone can turn a speedy deletion into a requests for deletion nomination though if there are questions or objections. Some of your past nominations at requests for deletion would of met the speedy deletions criteria for example. --dark lama  11:30, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Er... i guess so? But I don't believe books with a full TOC can be CSDed? Kayau (talk &#124; email &#124; contribs) 09:23, 21 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I sort of like your idea, but without supporting the idea of deletion... yes, I know, that makes no sense. I wish I knew how casual users (readers of books, not contributors) used Wikibooks. I would like to think they go to the main page and head to the bookshelves they are interested in, and think "ah, good a book on WWII, just what I wanted to read". This way they would only come across, say, books that were at least 50% complete. This, incidentally, is why I prefer bookshelves to subjects as books appear in subjects even if they are stubs which doesn't present WB in a good light to someone who has come to read a book. I think it is more likely though that the casual reader uses the search box and therefore is likely to get presented with a selection of incomplete books, stubs, pages that aren't part of any book (we have loads of single page "books") and so on. Basically a sub-standard Wikipedia. Chances are they never find our good and featured books and go away never to return. I would love some kind of way of "hiding" the work in progress from the casual reader which didn't involve deletion. Obviously we still want links to work in progress so the reader can become a contributor, but keep it to one side so it doesn't clutter the more complete work. QU TalkQu 11:37, 21 October 2010 (UTC)


 * You said "books appear in subjects even if they are stubs which doesn't present WB in a good light". However, maybe you've not taken a look at the subjects lately?  The status template I've been subjectively applying works with the subject pages to push more complete books to the top of those pages.  The ability to indicate completion status was one of the last few desires some people had before they were comfortable with the idea of discarding bookshelves completely. – Adrignola talk 12:41, 21 October 2010 (UTC)


 * No, you are right I hadn't been to look recently... it's certainly much better, well worth all the effort you've put in, thanks QU TalkQu 16:28, 21 October 2010 (UTC)


 * If you really want to hide books that are just getting started, you could customize the subject page. A bit off topic about the deletion proposal, but if want to customize the subject page (which I hope to do someday with Subject:Mathematics) then you could hide the 0% (and possibly the 25%) books into a type of incubation page (I imagine a subpage of the given subject) that would be linked from the subject page but would not be the first list of books a random person sees.  Assuming that people are entering through the subject pages.  But much like you I often wonder how (if?) people find the books they are looking for.  I still wish there was a way that books could automatically link back to their subject pages, so people might realize we have other books on the subject they are looking at. Thenub314 (talk) 19:09, 21 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I would recommend a pure wiki deletion system for something like this. There is little need to hide the historical revisions of the page from future editors.   Sj (talk) 15:55, 26 October 2010 (UTC)


 * It's not usable for all books, but for books that are being developed by classes and don't rigidly follow the traditional formatting of Wikibooks books, I will sometimes only place them in Category:Class projects until the class is done and/or the book has been finalized/cleaned up. Then a relevant subject category is added later. – Adrignola talk 01:09, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I came across WP:PROD (proposed deletion) and it sounds like Kayau's original proposal is similar to this. Anyone following this discussion would be well advised to read this linked page for background information. Currently the query tag is occasionally used like this for those in-between cases, but for new pages only rather than any. – Adrignola talk 00:44, 5 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, that process would work well here I think (I used to do the Proposed Deletion patrol at WP). It makes it clear, unlike Query, that the page is being considered for deletion and if the Prod is contested, that it'll go to RFD. QU TalkQu 09:24, 5 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually there are several query templates, and they are by no means restricted to new pages, but you are right they do serve as the in-between cases. I believe we were thinking/looking at WP:PROD when trying to figure out how to deal with the in-between cases to begin with, but wanted to keep it minimalistic, simplistic, expandable, and allow it to better fit our particular needs. It was felt that the whole WP:PROD process was a bit too much and something similar was unlikely to have consensus here, without introducing something like it slowly where people could chose to use the templates if they wanted to and where the idea would either be adopted or sink without needing to get consensus on an exact process for it immediately. --dark lama  13:06, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The idea was to allow a PROD-like process to develop naturally on its own. If people thought it was a good idea, started using the templates, and felt there was a need to define the process than a proposal would develop naturally on its own. In the past when people have tried to propose new policies they have usually failed to gain consensus, and some of that was felt might be due to being done before having developed a need for it naturally. --dark lama  13:11, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Template:BookCat
Would it be correct to always replace  with BookCat (example )? If it's desirable I could do it. A quick count of the last dump shows this wikitext being used >6k times in the main namespace. Relatedly, is there a way to automatically determine (sub)pages that don't have said wikitext but should use the template anyways (as was mentioned here)? --Bequw (talk) 15:11, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * That used to be added to pages before standardizing on BookCat. It's nothing urgent to worry about as it performs the same thing as the template on mainspace pages. – Adrignola talk 16:40, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Regarding the second question: if a subpage (i.e., non-top-level page) in mainspace is uncategorized and not a redirect, I can't &mdash;off hand&mdash; think of any reason it wouldn't be right to add BookCat to it.  The "uncategorized" part of that is needed, though, because there are some pages in mainspace that legitimately use customized means to achieve categorization effects that cannot be achieved by an explicit call to BookCat (either because a different categorization is needed, or because the call to BookCat needs to be indirect).  --Pi zero (talk) 17:07, 6 November 2010 (UTC)