Wikibooks talk:Deletion policy/Archive 3

Policy Vote Relanuch
To simplify things and to make it easier to find the voting area, I've restarted the whole policy vote and will advertise it much better this time. The policy has been changed slightly as well, so it does need a whole new vote if just for that alone.

For the vote, please go to:

Policy/Vote/Deletion Policy

and cast your opinion on the whole thing. I find it unlikely that it would not be approved by Wikibookians, but I've been surprised in the past by things like this. --Rob Horning 03:16, 3 March 2006 (UTC)


 * The deletion policy was made official on 11:35, 30 May 2006. --Swift 16:33, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

doctor m-pov
problematic. This probably includes Sociology, Psychology, Political Science, Religion, Philosophy, Ethics, Morality, and Metaphysics. I would love to write a book on each of the above, but that is back burner stuff compared to THINKSTARSHIP. I could offer to generate a start-up of stubs, but honestly, the problem here is that there are too few Wikibookians and too many cranks in the world. This place has been swallowed in the mire of the form of groupthink which is just the back up of how long it takes for you guys to find and read and sort what you have. On the other hand, Wikipedia is chok full of people. The solution here is for Jimbo to make a general plea on Wikipedia for people to come over here and help us with the back up. Otherwise, starting 10 books as a way to chill the system is going to backfire, and we will just end up with a lot more crackpottery on top of the stuff we have. Allow me to interpret a bitin my own mind what i think Jimbos smart interests are. This place as just a library of any old material is going to quickly become the kind of crackpottery asylum that the rest of the internet rots inside of. The only rational way to insure the success of this endeavor is to limit the primary scope specifically to factual materials. I am sure that once we have bookshelves full of hardcore and serious information on most subjects, Jimbo will be a lot more likely to okay something a little more adventurous. Coming up with a fact based approach to Religion (As a for instance) is not as easy to do as what you might think considering that it can be expressed in a single sentence. Some moments, I'd like to become a super troll and hit 10000 articles on wikipedia with the simple statement "THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS NEUTRAL POV!" (There isn't. Epistomology tells us that we can approach finer and finer levels of subjectivity towards objectivity, but kind of like time dilation in black holes, you can never reach the goal of being truly objective. Tools for getting us closer to objectivity are great, but we have to admit that even they are subjective applications of subjective principles.) Because I started this with the prfix "doc" I feel I have to leave you with the solution. POV Problematic topics like the ones I listed above should be studied here by specific axiom. That means catching up on the logic textbook. It means an article which is about a single statement, its linkages to assorted paradigms, its truth vale, its linkages in relationship to other axioms, its linkages in terms of syllogisms to other axioms, its history, its politics, and anything else that is relevant. Otherwise, we end up as a noise mirror of Beliefnet.com (Which is a helluva lot of noise and very little content.) If you go look at the aforementioned internet site, one thing that will not be readilly apparent is that there are really only 50 paradigms each juggling only a few hundred primary, and a few thousand auxillary axioms. Me an a good bot programmer could convert all of that noise by re-sorting Beliefnet according to where specific axioms pop up. What the Bot would find is that a specific axiom has been used probably close to a million times on bnet. What this tells us is that noise is easilly covered up quickly by more noise. just vanishes. Rather than madly deleting things, consider putting them in a POV bin, labeling them, disclaimng them, and asking the public to participate in appropriate vivisection, sorting, organization, and research, so that a better thing can be created. Prometheuspan 01:48, 8 March 2006 (UTC) http://www.beliefnet.com/
 * multiple pov ;
 * There is a very fine line and a very difficult one here involving the subjects which a lot of people would like to consider themselves experts on but in which in fact they are just hobbyist babblers. I myself sometimes cross that line probably in subjects which i don't have the serious info on. For instance, what i actually know about Rocket science might fit into a shoebox scribbled on cardboard scraps.   What I know about Psychonautics or Psychology is another thing, and the fact that I have serious knowledge on a few topics gives me the perspective to know the difference. Many people don't know the difference, and the anti-intellectualism rampant in our society doesn't serve to let them know.
 * The solution to your problem is to have well developed on site documents generated by the community on the topics which are POV
 * As far as all of the deleting goes, I think it is great to delete something that you know you have a better treatment of, and a clear sign of a big hole that the next ignorant hobbyist will fill if it

Stub Deletion Policy
I'm trying to think of where the best place to argue this point, but I'm going to request that the policy discussion take place on Wikibooks talk:Stub instead. This is just a notice that the discussion is taking place there. --Rob Horning 12:47, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Video and game walkthroughs
I propose that all new books that are "video and game walkthroughs" are suitable for speedy deletion (see Staff Lounge for details, but essentially Jimbo is saying that Wikibooks shouldn't be hosting them). Whilst time should be given to remove existing books to a suitable alternative location, it makes sense to nuke new ones at birth. I would suggest that anyone deleting a book under this criterion should leave a message on the author's page explaining why it is being deleted, and offering to keep the page available for a week to allow that author to copy text for his own records, Jguk 06:09, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
 * If deletion of all game walkthroughs is consensus, then I think speedying new ones makes perfect sense. Kellen T 18:32, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Further amendments
I've made a number of further amendments (see this diff that I think are needed for this proposal to be ready to be enforced. I'd now be happy to make this switch (though no doubt others may wish to comment before allowing the policy to go final (although it could, of course, still be amended after going final)), Jguk 18:43, 20 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I looked at your changes, and I have to admit that I don't like some of them. First off, many VfD discussions are ended by majority vote, and it makes no sense to change that fact, without first defining what "concensus" means in this case. Must we reach 100% agreement before acting at VfD, or should an admin just go with the jist of things? Before stating how VfD should not be resolved, we should start listing the specific ways that it can be resolved. Also, I don't like your wording of the "personal essay" clause, it adds too much ambiguity, and ignores the original purpose of that point: to try and preserve information that was posted in error on wikibooks, and otherwise would be a candidate for speedy deletion. Other then those two points, I agree with all your other changes and wordings. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 00:24, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * If VFDs are being decided by a majority vote, then the admins administering the decision are doing it wrong. Kellen T 09:35, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, VfDs should not be closed with a simple majority. Consensus on most Wikimedia projects is defined more as a supermajority (roughly 75%). -- LV (Dark Mark) 18:19, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Then somewhere we should specifically define what a supermajority is, precisely what a concensus is, and exactly what the rules are for ending a vote, so that there is no ambiguity. Don't say that one way of doing things is wrong without proposing an alternative. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 01:06, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
 * There is no proposal... it is how things are done. -- LV (Dark Mark) 01:24, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Consensus is not tied to a precise number, though on WP "rough consensus" is usually set at around 80%. The consensus process is illustrated in Image:Consensus2.png. Coming to consensus about an issue (deletion, policy, textual changes) involves following this process. The gist of it is: act in good faith, treat dissenters with respect and try to resolve their concerns; if the community is unable to resolve their concerns, it can ignore them, but this should be avoided when possible. This also requires a large majority; the higher the better; the lowest percentage probably being around 75%, depending upon the circumstances. Kellen T 01:31, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Add old redirect pages to speedy deletion
According to naming policy the Book:Chapter naming convention is no longer allowed. Could we add pages that have been moved to a corresponding Book/Chapter page, to the list of parameters needed for speedy deletions. --Swift 09:32, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Assuming all bad links and redirects are fixed, I think it is safe to say that old redirects, that are unused, may be speedily deleted. If we can get more people to agree on this measure, we can add it to policy. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 14:00, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
 * One huge problem I've seen with automatically deleting almost all redirects (something User:Jguk has been doing for quite some time) is that some redirects do have some value.... at least at the book level. I don't mind that most redirects to individual chapters/sub-modules get deleted routinely as it seems unlikely that most pages would not be referenced after there is a page move.  Still, it is a very good idea to scan the "what links here" to see if any content points to that page first.  For some very popular Wikibooks, it might be useful to see if any external links reference the redirect by doing a google search, but that is something to worry about on a case by case basis.  --Rob Horning 14:09, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh, yes. Sorry. I should have mentioned the criteria that all links must have been updated. How is:
 * A redirect page that does not conform with naming policy if all links to it have been updated.
 * Suggesting that external links be checked is a good idea. Perhaps there could be a section at naming policy on speedy deletion of the books that confirm with the old convention, that would mention this. --Swift 17:44, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I like the sound of that, and it makes good practical sense. I can forsee some dissenting opinions, from people who think that "less is more", and that admins should have the freedom to delete a useless page without being instructed to do so. Either way, I'll put a note up at Staff lounge, to let people know that we are considering an addition to the policy. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 18:29, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Really? I understand "less is more" but their freedom is hardly reduced since the Deletion polciy doesn't order the deletion. That aside, I personally just wanted it so that petty "ordinary" editors such as I could quickly delete the pages by alerting someone with the proper priveleges. --Swift 04:28, 1 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Sounds reasonable to me. Kellen T 08:20, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

With seemingly a consensus and no comments in the last ten days, I've updated the policy. --Swift 02:26, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * As with the complaints I had when I deleted the Wikimania 2005 proceedings, there is also the issue of external links pointing to Wikibooks from external websites other than Wikibooks. This should be part of the deletion process, and doesn't necessarily require a full VfD, but does require some care on the part of the admin performing such actions.  At the very least, using the "What links here" should be used, as well as perhaps a google search using the "link:" tool to find what links to the page being deleted (see this example).  There are other tools, including the Wikimedia tool server that can help out here.  --Rob Horning 19:32, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Hate to bring up an old topic, but I would prefer a redirect to a deletion. Deletes don't save any space on the server, while redirects take care of links outside of wikibooks, and bookmarks on forums or other people's computers. --Dragontamer 21:01, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Feel free. Issues shouldn't be left faulty just because they are old.
 * I understand your argument for redirects, most of the old convention pages probably aren't linked to by anything. Wikibooks isn't all that well known yet and while backwards compatibility is worthwhile, cleaning up unused pages to make tools such as Special:Prefixindex (and autoTOC) more useful is a reasonable justification.
 * Actually, on the deletion argument, I'm afraid I'll have to reveal my ignorance: I was under the impression that the software purged deleted pages &mdash; permanently removing them from the db &mdash; after a while or only kept a certain number of the most recent ones. Is this incorrect? --Swift 17:22, 21 November 2006 (UTC)


 * In my suggestion for the policy change, "if all links to it have been updated." was meant to also refer to external links. Perhaps this should be made more explicit? --Swift 17:22, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I just noticed that this is mentioned on the policy page. Do you have any suggestions about rewording that, or is it a modification that came after your comment above? --Swift 17:44, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

state where it is more on-topic
Rather than arbitrary[1] deletion of things people write that don't quite fit into wikibooks, it would Be nice to point out (to those people) some other location(s) where people enjoy that sort of thing.


 * [1] decided by a judge or arbiter, rather than by a law or statute. Why isn't this in arbitrary?

I would like to recommend that when people post a notice on WB:VFD, they not only put a notice on the corresponding page telling of its proposed deletions, but also include a link to one (or more) other wiki where that sort of thing is more on-topic.

Should that link go on the soon-to-be-deleted page, or in WB:VFD ?

By more on-topic, I don't expect a deletionist person to be familiar enough with all 3494 other wiki to know exactly which wiki is dedicated to that particular topic.

I merely expect the deletionist person to be familiar enough with at least 2 other wiki, so you can say "this sort of thing would be more on-topic at that wiki".

It doesn't exactly have to be on-topic at that wiki either. The people at that wiki can forward it to some other wiki where it is "more on-topic than here".

Hopefully that document (and the people who wrote it) will eventually find some wiki where it actually *is* on-topic. Hopefully they will find it before going through all 3494 other wiki :-).

There's probably a way to say this in much better, shorter version.

So what's the process for getting this (or a better, shorter version) into the "Deletion policy"? --DavidCary 18:30, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Admins should speedy delete when people feel that the specific book will benifit
Hello, I was wondering if anyone else agreed with this, and possibly add it in some form to the policy. I think it is a good measure of when to speedy delete. This expands on allowing speedy deletes from the author (because the author obviously feels his book will benefit with the deletion) and may serve as a good benchmark in general. --Dragontamer 20:55, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. Maybe generalize it a bit more? "Admins should speedy delete pages in which there is a general concensus by book contributors or the Wikibook community as a whole." Seems to be common practise anyways. I also think though there needs to be some excepts made to the wording on deleting redirects either that or as a whole. I don't think redirects should be any more special then any other pages when deciding whether or not to delete them. I think most redirects typically should be temperary to direct users to the current page rather then remaining permenate. At the very least how dated a link is on a website should be taken into account when deleting redirects. My reasons have nothing to do with "saving space" since I know it doesn't, rather how much less cluttered special pages, search results and the like become from removing unused redirected. --darklama 22:14, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * To both of you: Why is there a need to speedy delete. If there is a consensus, why not just demonstrate that on the VfD page. Create the discussion, have people comment and then, a week after the last comment, delete. The whole thing could take ase little as ten days. There is hardly a need to delete in less, is there? To shorten the process, you can add a comment after a few "votes", asking people only to add their comments if it might affect the debate so that the debate can be closed ASAP. --Swift 02:05, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Say, someone makes a new page for the C++ book called "Maeking Classes". He then writes up everything, but on the next day, realizes his spelling mistake. He moves the page, and puts up the original page for speedy deletion. Additionally, there are obvious and blatant vandalisms that occur on this site regularly, and it is necessary to get rid of them as soon as possible.


 * Should a non-admin notice a vandalism, or is in the case of the author, he should put it up for speedy deletion. If an admin (or anyone else) has any doubt about that page, we are pretty much instructed to turn it into VfD instead. --Dragontamer 04:13, 18 November 2006 (UTC)


 * In your "Maeking Classes" example, the page would already qualify under "A page that is nominated for deletion by the original author with no other contributors." I agree that we could modify the existing criteria to include something like "moved to a better named page, and the page is believed not to have any links from outside Wikibooks". --Swift 15:54, 21 November 2006 (UTC)


 * We can only speedy delete something if it is blatantly disregarding policy. The tag is there for say, authors and other RC patrolers to put on, so that admins can delete later. --Dragontamer 16:40, 21 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Not quite. As I mentioned above, if you are the only contributor, you can have the page speedy deleted.
 * If the speedy delete criteria doesn't apply, just VfD it, ask that it get fast-tracked if there are no dissenters and the issue will be solved within two weeks. As I see it, SD is largely a tool to coutner the non-meaningful-content testing or vandalism &mdash; things that should disappear off the project as soon as possible. The VfD exists in order to avoid any possible conflict between editors and I think we should be careful with SD if it risks contended stuff being deleted without discussion. --Swift 17:54, 21 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I believe speedy deletion is ment as a tool to alert admins of contents that may violate Wikibooks policy (such as vandalism and copyright violations), new pages created in error that are no longer needed and pages that already have concensus by the book editors for deletion. Things basically, as I understand it, that need no discussion and there is no question as to whether the contents should be deleted or not. VFD is mostly for contents that needs discussion and is questionable as to whether it should be deleted or not, as I understand it. Thats why if something in SD is questionable, it should be changed to a VFD request and discussioned in WB:VFD. The policy already discusses using ones best judgement when making the decision of whether or not to delete a page. I think the point is to try to clarify a little more what to take into account when making this decision. --dark [[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]] lama 20:58, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Thinking about this, I'm actually starting to soften up to Dragontamer's idea. Perhaps it isn't so important to have a VfD debate on things that have been discussed within the project, but still I feel that those agreed upon deletions should have a buffer period where dissenters can object.

I suppose my view is tainted by my belief that the SD process is trying to do accomplish two tasks and we are missing a process for something between the VfD debate and the obvious breaches of policy. Perhaps we need a "requested delete" which would bypass the VfD but had a buffer period for objections. Perhaps that isn't necessary? Is this an interesting idea? --Swift 00:20, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Sensible for sure. However can this not be accomplished by the "reason" bit?  I marked one the other day because in the edit summary the editor had requested it (I think being a WP person they placed a non existent template on it). I do think it is important to take some care with the reason (as an RC pat placing them) -- Herby  talk thyme 07:47, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


 * In a way it can. I agree with Darklama's understanding of the SD tool. Perhaps we could make this more clear in the SD description. The two first types of pages he mentions (violations and mistaken creations) can already be deleted without delay. If the third (pages with concensus by the book editors) would point to the discussion where this reaches consensus, this too could be deleted quickly as long as there is no risk that someone might have missed it.
 * I see a possible scenario where an editor doesn't watch a specific book where the deletion discussion takes place and misses it. A vfd tag would sit around for a couple of weeks giving him a heads up to the discussion, but if it runs its course and the page is deleted shortly after the delete tag is posted, the user might get offended.
 * I don't think this is a likely scenario but given the importance of a good community spirit it is my oppinion we should strive to be thorough on this. In general I don't like being strict on rules, but I do think we should be strict on ourselves and not risk ticking anyone off for the sake of our own comfort. Clashes can brew very hostile environments and we should do as much as we can to avoid them.
 * Whether pointing book users to use the VfD, having a buffer period for such SDs, creating a new process for non-speedy deletes or something else, I'd be happy if we implemented a cautionary process here. Am I perhaps just being overly anal on this? --Swift 14:16, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Without real thought (). I'm probably something of a deletionist but I'm learning a more tolerant attitude here.  I started off with speedies (some of which were taken to VfD by others) but now I tend to put stuff on a seperate watch list if it might grow into something.  I also make far more use of qr-em tho I think this could be made a little less threantening? -- Herby  talk thyme 14:27, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Speedy Deletion is probably a misleading name. There is no guarantees made on how quickly or slowly pages marked for speedy deletion will be taken care of. There is no timeframe requirements for SD and VFD that I know of, so there may be times in which VFD is faster then a SD. If I understand correctly a VFD is generally considered to be closed when the last posting to it is a week or longer. So the only guarantee with VFD is that it may give a week in which people have time to notice. SD I think rearly gets used for books or pages that have concensus for deletion by the book editors, but perhaps it would be a good idea to suggest or require admins should be careful with such SD requests? Perhaps it should also be a requirement that a pointer to where the discussion took place be given in the reason description for such a SD request and admins should then check to make sure all active editors are aware of the discussion, by seeing if they pertisipated in the discussion or not and posting to the talk pages of those editors who did not to see if they are aware of the situation? Then again admins are free to change a SD request into an VFD request too if they have doubts about a SD canidate. I don't think there would be any problem with adding an explict cautionary process here. I believe admins are suppose to be cautious anyway about using any admin tool. I think making things clearer can't hurt and would like to see more information given showing that admins are just users too, with a few more tools ment to help the commmunity, to make the process a little less mysterious, intimidating and threatening. --dark [[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]] lama 15:04, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I keep getting told this - so feet first - change the **** name! Equally there are some things - vandalism, porn, racism (& I would have thought legally speaking copyvios) that should be dealt with speedily (I'll keep the rest of the conversation in my mind in my mind!) -- Herby  talk thyme 15:20, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


 * SDs are not supposed to have buffers. That is the very specific purpose that SDs are doing, and they do it quite well actually. There are the qr-em tags which are used for buffers however. Anyway, now that I think of it, I don't think this should be added to the policy, but used more like a rule of thumb. This is what admins should be thinking as they speedy delete material (that is, forgo the VfD process). If it is obvious that the book or the Wikibooks community will benifit from the deletion, then do it. --Dragontamer 05:43, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Lets keep on top of it now!
OK - I've been busy with the dustpan and brush both on the VfD page and this talk page. So
 * 1) I have marked as closed for deletion on five that seem conclusive to me (The Sims, Nintendo Power Volume 037, Remote_Viewing/Pr02, Cookbook:Banta Diet Cooking & Movie Making Manual-Film_Academy Training) and placed "impending doon" on them. If any passing admin would care to deal with the deletes soon that would be good.
 * 2) How about trying to stay on top of it now so that we can see what are actually current discussions needing our attention.

Thanks -- Herby talk thyme 13:21, 18 November 2006 (UTC)