Propose adding to the page the CSD criterion "BLPDELETE".

This is a speedy criterion that has been in practice for several years. I suggest it should be added after G13, but not given a number, as it is already well known as "BLPDELETE"

The current main policy section covering is:

• WP:BLPDELETE aka Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Summary deletion, creation prevention, and courtesy blanking

It is also mentioned at:

• WP:BIODELETE aka Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Deletion of biographies and BLPs

Its origin and more information is at:

• WP:BLPBAN aka Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Editing of Biographies of Living_Persons#Special enforcement on biographies of living persons, which was "superseded" with loss of clarity. I believe that nothing in practice changed, so this remains a good source of information.

I suggest that the text added should be:

Location, new last Level 4 heading under Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#General

BLPDELETE. Pages in violation of the Biographies of living persons policy

Refer to Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Summary deletion, creation prevention, and courtesy blanking (WP:BLPDELETE).

See also:

Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Deletion of biographies and BLPs (WP:BIODELETE) and

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Editing of Biographies of Living Persons#Special enforcement on biographies of living persons (WP:BLPBAN).

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:36, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

withdraw in favour of SoWhy's better idea. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:26, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

WP:BLPDELETE and the relevant part of WP:BLPBAN are already covered by G10. WP:BIODELETE hasn't the first thing to do with speedy deletion. —Cryptic 02:37, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I think that is not true, and certainly not clear. G10 mentions BLP, but tied to "negative in tone". {{Db-negublp}} predates BLPBAN. The overlap of G10 with BLPDELETE is quite limited, BLPDELETE does not require negative intention. Aside from BLPPROD, there is no other mention of BLP on the entire page. WP:BIODELETE, which explicitly references BLP, speaks to the broader picture of BLP deletion within which speedy deletion sits. Cryptic, are you opposing any improvement documentation at CSD that BLPDELETE is a speedy deletion criterion? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:21, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

WP:BLPDELETE does specifically relate to non-neutral material and a large part of it does involve the negative unsourced material covered by G10: "Summary deletion is appropriate when the page contains unsourced negative material or is written non-neutrally". Hut 8.5 06:46, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't think we need to include a criterion for this here. This policy isn't intended to contain every valid reason for deleting a page. Its major use is for summary deletion reasons which aren't documented elsewhere. The proposed criterion wouldn't serve any useful explanatory function as it just directs the reader to another page, and anyone who looks up BLPDELETE would end up at the BLP policy anyway. Nor is there any doubt that people are allowed to perform BLPDELETE deletions under policy. The proposed heading is also misleading as BLPDELETE is a lot stricter than just violating BLP. Hut 8.5 06:46, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

The policy *is* intended to contain every valid reason to *speedy* delete a page. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:58, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

The introduction to the policy does imply that the cases listed are the only valid reasons to delete a page outside of XfD and PROD, but that's not actually true. Pages listed at WP:CP for at least seven days can be deleted at the discretion of the reviewing admin, for example. You'd also be justified in speedily deleting something under Wikipedia:Child protection. I'm happier with SoWhy's alternative idea. Hut 8.5 20:38, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

WP:CP is copyright problems - which would probably fall within G11 G12, so that's what I would pick from the drop-down. Similarly, for child protection, G10 is likely to apply. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:43, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I had never stumbled onto WP:CP before. I think you mean G12? I thin CP sounds more like an XfD/PROD process. The disguising feature of a speedy deletion is that an admin might delete it without advertising it anywhere. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:59, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, G12 not G11. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:52, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

G12 is supposed to be for unambiguous copyright violations. Any other types of copyright violations should go to WP:CP, and it's a separate reason in the deletion dropdown. It's not really an XfD process as there's no sort of consensus determination involved and it isn't like PROD as it doesn't result in (usually) automatic deletion. The reviewing admin just has the option to delete a page which has been there for seven days if that's what they think is necessary to resolve the problem. It is in that sense closer to speedy deletion in that it involves a judgement call by a single admin. Hut 8.5 12:05, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose. If it's clearly a disparaging violation, G10 can handle it. But oftentimes people invoke BLPDELETE when WP:PRESERVE works equally. BLPDELETE explicitly states: "If the entire page is substantially of poor quality, primarily containing contentious material that is unsourced or poorly sourced, then it may be necessary to delete the entire page as an initial step, followed by discussion. Page deletion is normally a last resort." (emphasis added) That's not a speedy deletion criterion because those require (see top of this page) that they are "objective" and "uncontestable" and no discussion. BLPDELETE does not fit those requirements. If you want to mention it, I think the best idea is to add a sentence to G10, e.g. "Other pages violating the Biographies of living persons policy might be eligible for deletion under the conditions stipulated at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Summary deletion, creation prevention, and courtesy blanking, although in most cases a deletion discussion should be initiated instead.". Regards SoWhy 07:17, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support SoWhy’s alternative, add a sentence to G10, e.g. "Other pages violating the Biographies of living persons policy might be eligible for deletion under the conditions stipulated at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Summary deletion, creation prevention, and courtesy blanking, although in most cases a deletion discussion should be initiated instead.". —SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:58, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support this alternative - a separate criterion isn't needed. Incidentally, I'd also oppose the addition of any un-numbered criteria as that would just overcomplicate things and cause confusion. ƒirefly ( t · c · who? ) 10:02, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Agreed with SoWhy's version. Stifle (talk) 10:00, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Yeah, this looks good. G10 will be a bit wordy, but that's reasonable given its importance. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 13:29, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
    • Since there was no opposition for a month, I went ahead and  added it. Regards SoWhy 14:45, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

• WTNB-TV (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Back in March when this article was created, an editor tagged it as A7. The nom was declined with the admin saying "A7 does not apply to TV stations". Excuse the pun, but that's news to me. I generally think of TV stations as companies.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:36, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

The decline reason might sound too absolute but I do agree with the general reasoning. You will have a hard time finding TV stations that have not some degree of coverage anywhere and no claims of significance whatsoever. Take your example, it can easily be redirected to Heartland (TV network)#Tennessee per WP:ATD and has a RS covering one of its shows. Regards SoWhy 14:41, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

(ec) Given it takes a lot of money and a specific government licence to create an actual terrestrial TV station (as opposed to an internet-only one, which any old Joe Schmoe can do and hence can fall under {{db-web}}), the odds of it being mentioned at least in one reliable source are pretty high. Also, the company that runs the station may change while the station's ident remains the same. The ground rule of A7 is - you are about to unilaterally delete something without discussion and shortcut the regular consensus-based deletion process, so if in doubt, don't. User:Ritchie333/Plain and simple guide to A7 explains more. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:43, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

But being mentioned in at least one reliable source does not provide a claim of notability. Natureium (talk) 14:45, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

A claim of notability is not required for A7. The criterion uses a lower standard for a reason. Regards SoWhy 14:48, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Indeed. Try running for RfA and say that A7 means "not notable" - you'll get a bunch of opposes! Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:49, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

For that matter, A7 doesn't have anything to do with sources at all. Plenty of things are mentioned in reliable sources that can make no credible claim of significance. Natureium (talk) 14:55, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Not directly, however, coverage in reliable sources indicates that there might be something worth having. After all, if significant coverage establishes notability, some coverage should be enough to establish significance as a lower standard. Regards SoWhy 15:24, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Such prevarication. The decline reason was wrong. Assuming the station article has a credible claim of significance, it should have been declined for that reason. Redirecting an a7 is another kettle of fish.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:52, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

If the decline was wrong, it would have been nominated at AfD and SNOW deleted, surely? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:53, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Surely not. Lots of non-notable articles at Wikipedia don't get taken to AfD.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:58, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

• If a redirect is possible, isn't the speedy tagging always incorrect per WP:ATD? Regards SoWhy 15:21, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

• While A7 doesn't explicitly not apply to TV stations, being a television station with a terrestrial broadcaster is enough of a claim of importance or significance to deny A7. So the deletion explanation is valid, though unnecessarily confusing. In this case, a redirect to List of television stations in Tennessee would also be a WP:ATD. power~enwiki (π, ν) 15:27, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi. I think I may be misunderstanding the criteria for CSD G6 (disambig) and some clarification would be greatly appreciated. The criteria says it applies to pages that "disambiguates only one extant Wikipedia page and whose title ends in "(disambiguation)" (i.e., there is a primary topic)". As I understood it (based on WP:ONEOTHER), that meant disambiguation pages that have "(disambiguation)" in their title and list only one other possible entry other than the primary topic. However, I tagged Aleksandr Yatsko (disambiguation) under CSD G6 which was declined by Spinningspark with the reason "The page disambiguates more than one article. Further, the primary topic does not have a disambiguation header." So to clarify, the "only one extant Wikipedia page" refers to all the entries including the primary topic? And the "whose title ends in "(disambiguation)"" refers to the title of the primary topic and not the title of the dab page itself? Thanks in advance for any clarification on this. Bennv3771 (talk) 10:27, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

I think you are definitely misreading the criterion. Note [3] in the guideline reads "If it links to only one article and does not end in (disambiguation), simply change it to a redirect." That is clearly differentiating that case from zero disambiguations. If that were not the case, there would be no need for the note. You refer to WP:ONEOTHER, but seem to have failed to read that the disambiguation page ought to be marked with {{One other topic}} for "a period of time". If you had done that and it had not been challenged, and had added a hatnote to the primary topic, I might have considered it uncontroversial and deleted, but it would still be slightly in IAR territory. And that's putting aside the question of whether the footballer really can be considered a primary topic, which I find dubious to say the least and this might really be WP:NOPRIMARY. As it was, without the hatnote, there would have been no disambiguation left at all, so it was a no-brainer decline. SpinningSpark 11:10, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

@Spinningspark: Thanks for the clarification. I see your point about adding {{One other topic}} instead. Note [3] in the guideline refers to disambiguation pages that do not end with "(disambiguation)" though, which Aleksandr Yatsko (disambiguation) does. Bennv3771 (talk) 11:14, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

That's right. If only the primary topic: Pages without "(disambiguation)" are redirected to the primary topic. Pages with "(disambiguation)" are speedy deleted. --Bsherr (talk) 11:17, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I realise the note does not apply to this case. What it does do is clarify the counting system (whether counting from zero or one). SpinningSpark 11:19, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Recently I have seen several user sandboxes being deleted under criteria G3. This is usually because the text in them describes a fictional character, organization, or event. If such pages are outside of the sandboxes, then they should be speedily deleted as hoaxes. However, the Sandbox is meant to be used for testing. The sandbox even has a disclaimer ({{user sandbox}}) saying that the page is not an encyclopedia article. {{uw-vandalism1}} even tells users to use the sandboxes if they wish to experiment. So in my opinion, CSD G3 should not apply to sandboxes. Of course, other criteria (such as G10) should apply to the sandboxes no matter what. funplussmart (talk) 12:11, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

While WP:Vandalism applies in any namespace and to any page, sandboxes should only be deleted as such if bad faith creation is evident. This does include drafts that are evidently hoaxes since sandboxes are not a place where you can create your hoax for later use. Other than that, it's hard to answer the question since it always depends on the circumstances. Regards SoWhy 12:18, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

If a user sandbox is being used to host a draft article (especially an AfC submission) then yes I think it's perfectly reasonable to delete it under G3 if it's a hoax. Hut 8.5 20:48, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

The problem is that I am seeing G3 being applied to good faith fictional content where the author has made it clear that the subject is not real. funplussmart (talk) 21:36, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

There has been some previous discussion about this. See Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 33#Userpage exception for G1 and G3. Wikipedia:User pages#User pages that look like articles already explains (very well, I personally think) when G3 should be applied to a user page, so I'd propose simply paraphrasing that explanation: "For pages in the user namespace, it applies to fake articles that egregiously present false information." What do you think? --Bsherr (talk) 00:11, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

I think that if it is within the author's own sandbox (not another user's) and the author never attempts to present any fictional content in the sandbox as fact, then G3 should not apply. I can think of a scenario in which a good-faith editor would create a fake article in their sandbox: If the author is not experienced in the creation of articles, they can practice creating some in their sandbox. We can consider such pages experimental pages, which is exactly what sandboxes are for. Now the sandbox should NEVER be moved outside of the editor's own user space. Doing so would of course obviously be vandalism, which G3 covers. But, as SoWhy said, such sandboxes should only be deleted if bad faith is evident. funplussmart (talk) 21:36, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Never attempting to present any fictional content in the sandbox as fact sounds consistent with not egregiously presenting false information, yes? --Bsherr (talk) 11:06, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes it does, Bsherr. funplussmart (talk) 04:01, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Note also that an article about a fictional subject that does not make it clear the subject is fictional could be an attempt to mislead, it could be written from an in-universe perspective (e.g. by someone who doesn't know Wikipedia's policies about this), or it could just be poorly written. Only some of the first sort are going to be vandalism. Thryduulf (talk) 12:40, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

I have always used T3 in deleting unused templates of election results tables when they duplicate a table hardcoded into an article (and got at least a couple of hundred redundant templates deleted as a result). However, a few were recently turned down on the basis that the wording of T3 doesn't allow this. Given that it seems to be a widely accepted practice to accept this interpretation (the most recent one I nominated under T3 was deleted), I wondered whether we could amend the wording of T3.

Currently it reads:

Templates that are substantial duplications of another template, or hardcoded instances of another template where the same functionality could be provided by that other template, may be deleted after being tagged for seven days.

Perhaps it could be reworded as:

Templates that are substantial duplications of another template, hardcoded instances of another template where the same functionality could be provided by that other template,or unused templates that duplicate content hardcoded into an article, be deleted after being tagged for seven days.

Cheers, Number 57 20:19, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

• There needs to be some language that makes it clear this does not apply to templates that are always substituted ({{Anchor comment}} is the first to come to mind). Thryduulf (talk) 13:45, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
• Thryduulf's caveat is exactly why this situation is not and should not be covered by speedy deletion. A summary process is not right for that kind of determination, even if it means a largely uncontested TfD, of which we have many. --Bsherr (talk) 14:05, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

It is already impossible to edit Wikipedia with old Unicode-impaired browsers, and there is a clear consensus for deleting redirects catering to such browsers, see this RfD discussion. I propose to add the following criterion as a sub-criterion of G6 (uncontroversial maintenance:

• Redirects from titles containing incorrectly encoded characters, provided that the target page does not specifically talk about the encoding error.

I propose this because I've successfully speedied several such redirects per either WP:G4 (recreation of page deleted per XfD), or {{db-xfd}} (XfD closed but page not deleted), pointing the administrators to the above discussion. Thus, adding this new criterion will not make any new pages speedyable, but it will leave the G4 queue for actual recidivists. As there are countless ways to get mojibake and such redirects are gonna get speedied anyway and are still sometimes being created, i propose ) either adding a {{db-mojibake}} template, or expanding the wording in {{db-error}} to accomodate them.

The “provided that” clause is to make this criterion uncontestable and exclude from the criterion misencodings of the byte order mark () and the replacement character (�), since they are likely to be misencoded consistently andd searched for, and the target pages talk about the misencoding. Nowak Kowalski (talk) 15:26, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

I have created Category:Redirects from mojibake to track non-examples of the proposed criterion. Nowak Kowalski (talk) 16:08, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

• Strong oppose because some encoding errors are common (as noted) and so provide useful search terms, and because there are so many possible different encoding errors it is not possible to reliably distinguish between them and other sorts of errors (which may or may not be worthy of a redirect). By all means nominate them at RfD but they require human discussion. It's not completely clear from your post, but if you have been nominating redirects for G4 speedy deletion when those specific redirects have not been discussed and deleted at RfD previously then this is an abuse of speedy deletion and must stop immediately. Thryduulf (talk) 16:50, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Redirects that have not been discussed have been nominated as G4. An example from today is é citing Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 November 22 as the discussion. ~ GB fan 18:25, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Æ-‡å—åŒ-ã‘ was deleted using G4 and db-xfd today. ~ GB fan 18:30, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
    • @GB fan: Then that was deleted out of process. G4 is only for pages that substantially identical recreations of something deleted following a deletion discussion (a redirect at a different title to a different target is as far from that as you can get with a redirect). {{db-xfd}} is even narrower - that's only for pages explicitly discussed at XfD, not even substantially similar ones. Stop such nominations immediately. Thryduulf (talk) 21:50, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
      • @Thryduulf:, I know that. I declined the first one because it wasn't eligible for speedy deletion. Another admin deleted the second one. Nowak Kowalski was the nominator on both. ~ GB fan 22:04, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
        • @GB fan and Nowak Kowalski: sorry, I misread and so pinged the wrong user. Incidentally I am entirely unsurprised to see yet another incorrect speedy deletion from that user. Thryduulf (talk) 22:08, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
      • I have restored both incorrectly deleted redirects. Obligatory ping to RHaworth so he is aware. -- Tavix ^(talk) 22:19, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
• Why? How does it improve the project to delete those harmless redirects? Are the causing any problems? Confusion? Deleting redirects creates more work than keeping them does, so one should be able to explain why they should be deleted anyway. Regards SoWhy 17:44, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose per SoWhy. No actual problem apparently needs solving and no benefit is derived, plus their is the potential to do harm. It is claimed that it is "impossible to edit Wikipedia with old Unicode-impaired browsers" (evidence?), but that is irrelevant. The relevant question is, is it possible to read Wikipedia with an old browser? Are any of these browsers still in use? Where is the evidence for this? SpinningSpark 17:56, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

  Moreover, if somebody does fancy running an ancient, Unicode-impaired browser, why not make their life a little easier? – Joe (talk) 18:04, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

  Workarounds for Unicode-impared browsers have been removed with this Phabricator ticket. There is now a hidden field on the edit page with the text “ℳ𝒲♥𝓊𝓃𝒾𝒸ℴ𝒹ℯ” — any edit attempt which mangles these characters (this is not a requirement of font support!) is blocked. You seem to be concerned about users of old browsers. Rest assured that they can't read Wikipedia, as the servers require modern versions of TLS (encryption) to connect — see my below comment. Nowak Kowalski (talk) 15:18, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

  If I'm reading this report right, then since 4 August 2018 there have been people viewing Wikipedia using browsers including Internet Explorer 4 (which I believe has no unicode support) and Internet Explorer 6 (which has incomplete support at best). Thryduulf (talk) 22:22, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

  You must be reading it wrong, because anyone running a Windows version so old to have IE6 or below would not be able to even connect to Wikimedia servers with IE, see wikitech:HTTPS/Browser Recommendations: “Our sites no longer allow pageviews from IE-on-XP at all.” My random guess as due to why you are seeing these entries is user agent spoofing. Nowak Kowalski (talk) 15:18, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

  That might all be true but can you really be certain that there are no readers with TLS-compatible browsers and encoding-problems? Also, you seem to forget that there might still be links on other pages pointing to mojibake article titles which will break if we delete them. For that reason alone, both WP:R#KEEP and WP:EXTERNALROT suggest keeping redirects whenever possible. So there are multiple reasons to keep those but I've yet to hear a reason to delete them. Regards SoWhy 17:00, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose The group of these is too diverse, with an unclear boundary. So RFD should be used. en-masse RFDs should be OK for similar encodings. If RFD actually comes up with a clear consensus on particular kinds of redirects, and there are a lot of them them make up a speedy delete criterion, but presumably these are not being created much now-a-days. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:29, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

See [1], [2] and recent Special:Contributions/Innotata @Innotata:

These local description pages all seem to involve DYK use, which per Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive_44#Description_pages_for_Commons_images_-_F2 are specifically exempted from F2? Andy Dingley (talk) 22:01, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

This makes sense for featured pictures, but it really doesn't for DYK, since the whole DYK image tag and category system can be and has been replicated exactly on Commons - a number of images have only ever been tagged on Commons - and there's no need to keep a canonical list of past DYK images as there is for current featured pictures. In fact, most images featured on DYK today aren't tagged at all as it's become optional. —innotata 22:09, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Featured images can be marked as such on Commons, see c:Category:Featured pictures on Wikipedia, English. What's the difference? --Stefan2 (talk) 23:10, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Indeed, and some other language versions don't use local descriptions to tag featured media. However, with featured pictures the Commons tag doesn't work exactly the same way, and there's seen to be a need to categorise all featured pictures locally because their status as featured picture is ongoing; DYK images don't have any ongoing status, they can't be demoted. So there isn't any justification for the duplication of tags... —innotata 02:23, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Actually, thinking about it, why do I care anyway? It's only DYK, not anything important. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:26, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

• DYK images are often loaded on Wikipedia and then cascade protected to prevent vandalism. Bu then after coming off the main-page they should be G6 deleted again. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:35, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Per the evidence of G4 misuse identified above in relation to mojibake redirects (and confusion in an RfD a few days ago that it applied to redirects created at the same title as an article deleted at AfD), it might be worth clarifying in the criteria how G4 applies to redirects.

My understanding is that both the title and target need to be identical, or almost identical, to a redirect deleted at RfD. Different spelling errors, accents/ligatures/diacritics, phrasing, typos, etc. in the title means it is significantly different.

If an article is deleted under G4, redirects to it can be deleted under G10 G8 but not G4 unless the redirect was discussed independently of its target, no matter how many times the target has been deleted.

Redirects created at the title of a page deleted at AfD/MfD/TfD/CfD are not eligible for G4 speedy deletion unless there was active discussion of redirects in the XfD with consensus against redirecting it, and even then this does not apply if the redirect is created to an unrelated target.

I do not know how to condense this into something suitable for incorporation into the criteria. Thryduulf (talk) 22:06, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps this can be condensed to Redirects are only eligible for G4 if their title and target are exactly identical to the discussed redirect. Tazerdadog (talk) 03:50, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

• That would leave some edge cases, e.g. when the target page is moved and the recreated redirect is pointed to identical content at the new target (either initially or by a double redirect being fixed), however they are unlikely to pose any significant burden on RfD, so its almost certainly an acceptable tradeoff for the unbeatable simplicity. Thryduulf (talk) 12:02, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

• G4 already says it only applies to recreation of pages that are sufficiently identical to the deleted version. Neither a redirect created in place of an article nor a redirect that is similar to one that was discussed is eligible for speedy deletion under G4. If an admin does so, it's a problem with the admin, not with the criterion. Regards SoWhy 17:03, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
  • The problem is that the interpretation of "sufficiently identical" is being taken to include other redirects of the same type as some discussed at RfD (see the section above), which is wrong but understandable so some clarification is needed. Thryduulf (talk) 18:54, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
• If an article is deleted under G4, redirects to it can be deleted under G10 G10? You mean G8 surely? Adam9007 (talk) 20:32, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
  • I do, yes. I knew it didn't sound quite right and should have checked why, sorry. I've corrected myself above. Thryduulf (talk) 21:28, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
• Your proposal is redundant; if either title or target is different from what was deleted before, it's quite obviously not a repost. There's no reason to tolerate G4 deletions of redirects in any other condition. Nyttend (talk) 01:36, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Also, there is a very blurry line between minor copyediting and major copyediting with regards to G5. wumbolo ^^^ 16:48, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

The difference in wording reflects that the purposes of those two speedy criteria are different. For an article created by a sock of a banned user, we don't want to encourage that behaviour by leaving their articles in the mainspace. But this is not a strict obligation, and editors are allowed to argue that leaving the article would benefit the encyclopedia. Making substantial changes to an article, such as removing paragraphs of fancruft or adding references, is one way of doing that.

As for the fuzzy line between minor and substantial copyediting, if you're in doubt consider PROD or AfD instead of speedy. Reyk _YO! 08:26, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

When it comes to speedy deletion (under whatever criterion), if you're not certain that something is deletable, then tagging something for speedy deletion is never appropriate. As Reyk says, if you're feeling that something is borderline, don't tag it. ‑ Iridescent 08:30, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Amen to that. Regards SoWhy 09:04, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Why do we delete these, anyway? Take your typical abandoned draft that's in a userspace sandbox: we might be deleting older (unrelated) content in past revisions, and I don't quite get the point. Why don't we just blank these pages instead? It's one thing to find blank pages in draftspace, mainspace, etc., but in userspace a blank page is perfectly harmless. (We already have an exception for blanking userspace pages: G7 cannot be applied to a userspace page merely because the creator blanked it.) Of course, if there's any problem with the content or the history, the situation's totally different; I'm only talking about deleting a page that qualifies for deletion only under G13. Nyttend (talk) 23:33, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

PS, if we just blanked these instead of deleting them, we could save a good deal of human labor. We currently have bots that tag G13 candidates; if we started blanking old userspace drafts, rather than deleting them, we could instruct the bots to do the blanking themselves, since (unlike deletion) anyone can reverse that kind of action, and a false positive won't have a significant effect as long as the bot's standard "you have an abandoned draft" message contains instructions on how to use the page history to perform a revert. Nyttend (talk) 23:36, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

So if someone wants to start another draft on the same topic, they keep the history that's unrelated to the current draft? That seems unnecessary. Natureium (talk) 00:43, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm not clear about your intention, so let me give an example. You create a page in your sandbox, you get tired of it, you blank it, you write a draft article in the sandbox, you submit it through the AFC process, and it gets rejected. You don't bother to do anything more with it, so after six months the bot tags it. Under the current system, the page gets deleted: not only the abandoned draft, but the other stuff too. If you'd just left it blank, you would have retained the old stuff, which is good if you ever want to go back and try again. Why delete it when blanking would work? Since I'm talking about content that doesn't warrant deletion under some other criterion, I can't see the benefit, especially as a bot could do the blanking without a problem because anyone (including the user who created it) can just put it back in the event of a mistake by the bot. Nyttend (talk) 02:23, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

I like this quite a lot, and think something like a pure wiki deletion system should work well in user space. The only downside I can see is that if all is done by bots, we lose an opportunity to let humans check whether the page should be deleted for a reason other than G13. But on the whole, if we can avoid going through WP:REFUND, why not? —Kusma (t·c) 05:18, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

• Because Wikipedia is not a free web host. Guy (Help!) 08:54, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
• We do only delete via G13 drafts in userspace created by AFC, which I imagine likes to keep its pool of drafts clear of the garbage. Other drafts in user space must be processed through MFD. --Izno (talk) 13:19, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes, but I'm not clear why you're saying that. I'm talking about blanking, rather than deleting, AFC-created drafts in userspace. And JzG, doesn't blanking generally suffice for enforcing NOTWEBHOST? For example, if you find that someone created a wiki-game page in userspace and then blanked it (a long time ago), and the page hasn't been edited since, would you be inclined to take the page to MFD? Nyttend (talk) 21:32, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
    • I'm making sure you're aware it's only AFC drafts in user space since we sometimes have a confused editor show up thinking it's any draft in user space. As for the why, here is the original RFC and here is the implementing RFC. Feel free to peruse. --Izno (talk) 21:53, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
      • I'm well aware of the origins of the criterion; if you peruse, you'll see that I participated in (and supported) the discussion that resulted in the creation of G13. So once again, why do you mention MFD, since it's totally irrelevant to the issue of G13-deleting-versus-blanking of AFC-process userspace drafts? And how is blanking a problem from AFC's point of view? Like deleting, blanking helps to clear the garbage from the AFC pool. Nyttend (talk) 22:19, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

I regularly blank useless AFC submissions in userspace. Most are so useless there is no point moving the page to Draft space. The current system of a bot listing the pages for action is better than the suggested blanking - which would result in most of this junk never beeing blanked. I am not sure what exactly is being proposed but it sounds like a move that would make cleanup less systematic. Legacypac (talk) 03:03, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Why would systematically blanking pages lead to most of them never being blanked? —Kusma (t·c) 08:45, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

There is no system to bring them forward after some time stale to be blanked. You are free to blank them of course but how will you find them? Also without G13 the official sanction to remove them is gone so you will face criticism for mass blanking by the process for process crowd. Also there are tens of thousands of problematic non AfC userspace pages that should be removed but very few editors work on them. Legacypac (talk) 08:52, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Should this kind or redirect be given its own criteria (example)? A user created some of them only to make the link blue on 2014 Asian Para Games, main article. Hddty. (talk) 07:54, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

No. These are not speedy-worthy redirects. The links can be removed from the main article but these kinds of articles ("SPORT at EVENT") follow an established pattern and the creating editor probably just wanted to emulate this. Plus, those are redirects with potential, i.e. someone might want to create those sub-articles later. Regards SoWhy 08:11, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

I believe these should be deleted in order to make the link red (to encourage article creation), but that is a matter for WP:RFD, not for speedy criteria. —Kusma (t·c) 12:46, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Ttgg66 (talk) 20:27, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

• Not done This isn't an edit request, it's a text dump from WP:COMMON. Hut 8.5 20:33, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure if anything has changed or if I'm simply having more Drafts on my watchlist but I've been noticing a lot of Drafts deleted under G11. As a new page patroller I am no stranger to G11s and regularly use that tag myself. However I've now seen at least a couple occasions where there are good faith efforts at creating an article that are wiped away (or proposed to be wiped away) through G11. These articles certainly weren't ready for mainspace, but they weren't in mainspace they were in drafts and were going to have to go through AfC. Maybe they'd have been approved, maybe not, but I think something is off when these drafts are summarily deleted without any real chance to improve them. I am not in favor of saying no G11 for draft space at all but would love to see more editor caution in tagging drafts as such and admin in approving those tags. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:34, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

I have seen cases (rarely though) where a draft starts out as promotional PR speak because that's the only text the author has just starting out, and then the draft is improved to the point where it becomes acceptable. In general I don't like seeing a G11 tag on an draft unless the draft has been around for a while and isn't improving. But early on in the life of the draft? No, not really. ~Anachronist (talk) 03:09, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

I have processed a lot of AfC submissions. Many of them are so clearly G11 I tag them immediately for deletion. Why waste volunteer time rereviewing spam? Legacypac (talk) 03:48, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

You're definitely an experienced AfC reviewer. But I think there's a big difference between a draft that has yet to be submitted or has been submitted once and one that has been declined a couple of times. Draft space should be, in my thinking, a place where articles can be incubated and improved; it's why we don't allow most speedy delete criteria and why we let drafts sit for six months before being deleted (maybe). Summary deletion feels different there than it does in mainspace where it harms the credibility of the encyclopedia. We invite editors of declined drafts to the Teahouse for a reason - the idea that a draft would need to be fundamentally rewritten to be accepted, which is the G11 standard, doesn't strike me as troublesome or a waste of volunteer time. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:00, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

I am also for applying a higher G11 standard for drafts. I know some of our AfC reviewers are on an anti-spam jag and are using G11 as part of this. I fear admins are not giving due considerations to WP:ATD for these drafts. No way for me to know though because deleted stuff is in a black hole. ~Kvng (talk) 03:52, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

A lot of Draft SPAM is created for the SEO benefits created by the links and mirrors. A Wikipedia link from Draft space is almost as good as from mainspace, and well meaning editors who promote keeping SPAM around in Draft are only facilitating the abuse of the site by Spammers. I'm a big advocate of promoting the less than perfect but notable pages for the big world of editors to work on, but the chances of either a disinterested or connected editor rewriting a topic that meets G11 are slim to none. Legacypac (talk) 07:59, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

How are SEO benefits achieved in these cases? I thought draft space is not indexed by Google and others, so links from there should not turn up? If there are really SEO benefits, maybe we can find a technical solution to prevent that, thus eliminating the incentive to create such drafts. Regards SoWhy 08:11, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

No index links are an important part of sculpting inbound link profiles for SEO. Been that way for a few years now. Legacypac (talk) 09:59, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Quite a lot of G11 spam in draftspace is lightly edited press releases, i.e WP:COPYVIOs; many or I'd say most are on non-notable topics anyhow; and for things that meet G11 criteria it is better to start anew. The main thing with spam is that even removing the buzzwords and making it not obviously spammy doesn't really fix the issue; it just hides it. To write a neutral article one must start with the reasonable intention of doing so with multiple independent and indepth sources. Galobtter (pingó mió) 08:04, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. Many articles started and start out without sources and with POV language because they are oftentimes created by enthusiasts and fans that want to tell the world about how great this or that is. In many cases, we wouldn't have strong, well written articles if no one had started a bad article first that someone thought worth to improve or that the creator has later returned to fix when they gained more experience. Regards SoWhy 08:22, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes, this is broadly true. I would normally only go for G11 in draft where there is either sockpuppetry or COI/UPE. Guy (Help!) 08:44, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

COI/UPE is the root of nearly all G11 drafts. Random 3rd parties don't tend to create SPAM. Legacypac (talk) 08:54, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Certainly, articles without sources and issues of promotional or fan POV can become good, that's not really what I'm talking about. I'm more talking about articles like "Bizco provides the best furniture solutions..contact us at" sort of stuff, where it obvious the goal is to spam wikipedia, and not merely an enthusiast writing in a fan perspective; for those articles there is no value in their content because it is better to start afresh, and the editor is very unlikely to be able to rewrite that into something useful (if there is any utility there - the vast majority of companies spammed are not notable). I haven't really found in my experience, or at-least I can't recall any cases of merely an enthusiast or fan creating an article that meets the G11 bar and I'm not going to tag G11 things created by a fan, but most G11able stuff in draftspace is a obviously a COI or UPE editor spamming non-notable companies or similar Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:08, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

• Wasn’t there a consensus against COI/UPE being speediable demonstrated on this page earlier this year? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:27, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

  G11 has and still does require the text to be promotional, not the intent. What Legacypac probably means is that in many cases of COI/UPE, the text screams spam as well, thus making them eligible for G11 in general. Regards SoWhy 09:57, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

• I think all speedy deletion criteria (other than copyvios and G7s) should be applied in draft space with a very light touch. Certainly nothing in draft space should be tagged for G11 speedy deletion until the author has been given a chance to improve it (i.e. it's had a {{advert}} or similar on it for a month and the concerns have been explained on the talk page) unless there is evidence of bad faith (not suspicion, not absence of evidence of good faith) and . It is far, far better that we have a little bit of spam in draft space for a short while than we throw away good faith articles that start out spammy. Thryduulf (talk) 12:08, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

I've tagged several Drafts G11 just today. There is no point trying to get a spammer to rewrite their spam especially when the topic is unlikely to be notable anyway. I don't think anyone is throwing out good faith articles that start out spammy. I see plenty of G11 material just rejected and not CSD'd (on resubmission) and I personally only CSD the most clear cut cases, often after several rejections for being promotional. Legacypac (talk) 21:06, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

• I have tagged a number of drafts for G11 when they are very obviously never going to be accepted (eg: "Tyler-Courtney Jones is a 16-year old YouTube Instagrammer. He likes Ed Sheerhan and wants to grow up to be a singer like him. His songs are going to revolutionise the singer-songwriter industry, and he is absolutely and supremely confident he will be the next big thing. Tyler-Courtney's next shows are scheduled to be the Royston Vasey Youth Club and St Cuthbert's School for Boys Christmas fair") or a seriously bad idea to exist on Wikipedia full-stop (eg: "Crazy Maisie (b. Chardonnay Aimee Chavwick, 29 September 2001) is a political activist and adult actress who has defended the right of women in the porn industry. She has appeared in [big list of wholly inappropriate and NSFW titles]. She signed an exclusive deal with the Sunday Sport so she could pose nude on her 16th birthday" - with no sources outside two tabloid newspapers) ... anyway, you get the idea. These sort of instances are rare. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:24, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

I've also noticed on quite a few occasions that spammers/UPEs were using draft space to duck autoconfirmed. They would create the article in ten edits, wait four days, and then promptly either copy and paste or move it to mainspace. Draft space is not for the storage of inappropriate material, including blatant ads. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 13:35, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Seraphimblade, Can they play the same game in User space? ~Kvng (talk) 19:47, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes Legacypac (talk) 21:06, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Kvng, yes, and I've seen that done too. Fortunately, at least in the cases I saw, a patroller caught on when it got moved to mainspace and tagged it, but still better that it didn't happen at all. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:59, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

There are lots of ways a spammer can go to get auto or extended confirmed. Having a non-deleted record of their edits does help provide context when investigating someone for the non-admin among us. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:58, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Incubation of spam does not seem to be a compelling reason to use G11 in Draft space. What Legacypac said earlier about the noindex SEO loophole is the only strong argument I've seen here. Is it possible to work with Google to close that loophole in Draft space? Arguments about keeping Draft space tidy don't hold water for me because of G13. AfC has recently implemented a reject process which can kill zombie drafts. ~Kvng (talk) 17:06, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

• I'm probably one of the more prolific wielders of the G11 stick at AFC, I've tagged thousands of blatant WP:Vanispamcruftisement drafts, very few were turned down by the second opinion admins. Quite frankly this idea can only come from someone who has absolutely no clue at all about the meaning of the "Great Firehose Of Ordure (GFOO)" appellation. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:31, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

The last handful of drafts I tagged as G11 were Draft:Hannah Sneddon, Draft:Kimberly Minatti, Draft:Connor Murray and Draft:Maggie Claydon - all of which were deleted by other administrators. And as discussed on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red, I'm currently doing a review of biographies of women to see if any declined drafts can be improved and expanded to the point of acceptance. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:38, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

• I do delete drafts under G11 but I try to apply a more lenient standard than I would in mainspace. I'd be happy with amending the policy to say something along those lines. Hut 8.5 21:10, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
• I use this also, and in fact I urge that it be used a little more. But as I understand it , the standard for promotionalism in Draft this has always been more permissive. Permissive as it may be, still some drafts are going to be complete advertisements, & suitable for deletion as G11. DGG ( talk ) 05:16, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

I just started reviewing draft articles as part of AfC, and here are a couple test cases:

• Draft:HOLLA Group
• Draft:Association of Imaging Producers & Equipment Suppliers

The first one is written by a SPA with two edits total; in the queue for 7 weeks; non-notable company & very promotional. Would you guys tag is for G11/A7? The advantage of tagging vs declining would be to take the draft out of the queue so that another AfC reviewer can move onto something else. The second draft is pretty much the same situation. None would survive AfD if moved to main space. I would appreciate feedback on these two items. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:42, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

• HOLLA Group may well be notable. Look at the range of highly credible media coverage and the scale of the downloads they have had. I might approve it with a little more checking.
• AIPES is an industry association with close ties to the EU and some sort of oversight or advisory role in the EU. Not really a commercial promotion situation, though associations do need to promote themselves to some extent. I'd want to see some independant coverage on them and a trim on the organization details before approving the page. It has promise. I would not tag either G11 - there are tons of better candidates for G11 in Draft. Legacypac (talk) 02:37, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
• I agree with K.e.coffman that HOLLA is not notable given lack of articles about it rather than product and my support of WP:INHERITORG as part of WP:NCORP. I would G11 in mainspace and decline in draft.
  I would not tag AIPES as G11 in either draft or mainspace and can find indicators of notability without too much trouble. If I found in mainsapce I would take a weed wacker to much of the article as not encyclopedic but depending on what a deeper investigation of notability uncovered either mark it as reviewed (or reviewed with a notability tag if I thought it a close call) or tag it with notability and leave it unreviewed. It's very unlikely I would nominate for AfD. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:49, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

There are preferred WP:ATDs for both of these. The idea that not deleting these clogs the AfC pipeline assumes that when declined, these will be be promptly resubmitted without substantial improvement. Sometimes that happens. Mostly the author either abandons or makes some improvements and not usually immediately. If resubmitted, it is not too much work for subsequent reviewers to look at the diffs and determine whether to quickly reject again or have a deeper look. This is not clogging, this is what we do at AfC, help authors improve their drafts. ~Kvng (talk) 01:24, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

• Neither are hopeless. HOLLA offers the choice of writing the article about the company or the product. A more knowledgable promotional editor would in fact have done it on the product, because in article space software is not susceptible to A7. It would be fairly easy to turn the present article into an article on the product, and the worst promotionalism could be removed. whether it will ever end up an acceptable article depends upon someone who knows and cares working on it. For now, it should get declined. the article on the organization is like many other similar ones: they are very hard to find sources for that pass NCORP, and they are hard to write non-promotionally without being directory entries. Sometimes they are kept at AfD nonetheless if the organization is sufficiently important. It should be declined, with a request for references and to tone down some of the claims of importance. G11 is for worse than these two--there enough of them to make it worthwhile to look at the new submissions, now that it is so easy to do so, and get the very worst out of the pipeline as soon as possible. In terms of the spammers, it can have a good effect to reject them as early as possible. DGG ( talk ) 05:27, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

• I don't think either of those qualifies for speedy deletion in draft space. While both have promotional wording it's not bad enough to avoid giving the author the benefit of the doubt in draft space. The second one is getting very close to the point where I'd be prepared to delete it in mainspace under G11 though, there isn't much text in it which isn't promotionally worded. This doesn't mean they should be accepted or moved to mainspace though. Hut 8.5 10:14, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

There seems to be consensus here that these are not great G11 candidates. I hear from other AfC reviewers that their G11 proposals rarely get kicked back by administrators. So, I'm interested to hear what our CSD administrators would have done if either of these had been tagged for G11. ~Kvng (talk) 14:52, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

• Thank you all for the feedback; I will go ahead and decline the drafts on advertisement grounds. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:15, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

While we are on the subject of tagging drafts as G11, which I in general support, I have a question. Occasionally, in reviewing AFC, I see a draft that has been tagged as G11, but is still pending AFC review, and, on my review, I disagree with the G11, but think that the draft is not suitable for article space and may or may not ever be ready for article space. I decline the draft, for notability reasons, and either as 'adv' or as 'npov'. So far, so good. But I disagree with the G11. Sometimes I have contested the G11, but have left the G11 tag on the draft, and it usually then goes away, and without a comment that the challenge was denied. Either the reviewing admin doesn't read the talk page, or the reviewing admin has lower standards of G11 than I do. So, in the future, should I continue to contest the speedy deletion using the button for the purpose (and wonder whether the statement is actually read), or should I actually pull the G11 tag? I am very reluctant to pull a CSD tag that was applied in good faith by another reviewer. I think that if a reviewer thinks that a page should be speedy-reviewed, I should let an admin speedy-review the page. But I now don't know if this means that the admin will actually read the talk page challenge, in which case I should challenge on the talk page, or if the admin only looks at the draft page and the tag itself.

So: Should I continue to question what I think are unduly harsh G11s, or should I pull them?

Robert McClenon (talk) 02:07, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

I just reviewed language around this today as I had not contested a speedy deletion claim in draft space before. The clearest statement of policy I found came from this very page: "The creator of a page may not remove a speedy deletion tag from it. Only an editor who is not the creator of a page may do so." (formating in the original). As I was not the creator of the page I felt I was in the clear to remove the tag and so I did. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:16, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

The Admin will need to also delete the talkpage, so hopefully they read it. I'm in the habit of G11ing spam without declining the page first. It seems more direct/less encouraging. Legacypac (talk) 02:53, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Robert, if you believe the draft does not rise to the level of G11 then you should remove the speedy deletion tag from it. ~ GB fan 10:32, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

If you believe that any page tagged for any speedy deletion criteria does noes not meet the requirements of that criteria then you should always (unless you are the author of the page) remove the tag. This applies regardless of namespace or criteria. Thryduulf (talk) 10:50, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

If you do remove a speedy tag but any other speedy tag applies you should retag it. Legacypac (talk) 06:01, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Under the fourth paragraph in the "Introduction to criteria" section, change "You can copy and paste such warnings to the talk pages of the creators and major contributors, choose from others listed at Category:CSD warning templates, or place the unified warning template, {{subst:CSD-warn|csd|Page name}}, which allows you to tailor your warning under any particular criterion by replacing csd with the associated criterion abbreviation (e.g. g4, a7)." to "You can copy and paste such warnings to the talk pages of the creators and major contributors or choose from others listed at Category:CSD warning templates."

I think this change is a good idea because I noticed the CSD-warn template has been deleted as an "unused template." Therefore, it should not be mentioned here anymore. 24.5.8.227 (talk) 00:43, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

This request seems in good faith, but I'm bothered that a substable template was speedy-deleted because it is not in-use. Does anyone watching this page wish to dispute that deletion either with RHaworth or at WP:DRV? --Izno (talk) 00:57, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Courtesy Ping: @RHaworth:. Tazerdadog (talk) 05:30, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: the template has been restored. feminist (talk) 18:27, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Hello, just wanted to come here for a sanity check. I just ran across User:AviatorTJ/SpaceKraft in CAT:CSD; it would definitely qualify for U5 were it newly created, but it's seven years old. Is the criterion meant for pages of any age, or should it be used only for recent creations? The criterion doesn't say anything about dates, but on the other hand I don't remember the last time I saw a page tagged for U5 that wasn't rather newly created. It would help if we expanded the criterion with a date comment, either "should only be used for recent creations" or "may be used regardless of the date when a page was created". Nyttend (talk) 20:40, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

There is no reason for any time limits. It takes time for us to find and action pages Wikipedia:WikiProject_Abandoned_Drafts/Stale_drafts Legacypac (talk) 20:47, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

The criterion does not specify a time limit so there isn't one. It is irrelevant how long people take looking for things. I don't see it as a "Blatant misuse of Wikipedia as a web host" so I don't think U5 applies anyway. Thincat (talk) 21:16, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

I might actually say the opposite — newer items are more likely to be something that might in good faith get worked on, while a userpage (from an editor that) has been inactive for seven years is unlikely to materialize into anything useful. On this specific case, it seems (from the user talk comments) like a fairly COI-driven attempt at a draft, probably for personal purposes, but not necessarily an explicitly U5-able page. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 21:20, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

• In implemention discussions for U5, time was well considered. Age of the page and time inactive of the user. The consensus was that neither was an important factor. This page is actually typical of the driving problem, old drive-by dumped NOTWEBHOST pages. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:22, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Per Amory, this is a (very poor) attempt at an encyclopaedia article not anything that can be deleted under U5 (nor should be subject to speedy deletion). And the disagreements here about whether it is or is not a NOTWEBHOST violation are a perfect example of why the criterion should not be expanded - it is not objective. Thryduulf (talk) 22:32, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
    • Deleted. Amory or Thryduulf, if either of you wants me to undelete it, I will; just don't call it junk, since "junk" is not an objective description of anything :-) Meanwhile, since consensus was that neither was an important factor when the criterion was created, I've expanded the criterion. Any objections? Nyttend (talk) 22:38, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
      • PS, I'm leaving for church in a few minutes. If either of you two (or anyone else) wants it to be undeleted and I'm gone, feel free to leave a request at WP:REFUND, and remember to link this diff as proof that I'm fine with the undeletion. Nyttend (talk) 22:45, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
      • Every speedy deletion criterion applies regardless of the age of the page, except for the handful which require a waiting period. Hut 8.5 22:41, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
        • The objection is bloat. It’s a non-information statement. If every non-information statement were included, policy would be useless. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:44, 18 November 2018 (UTC). It also applies regardless of the length of inactivity of the user. Another non-information statement. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:45, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
      • I’d call it borderline. SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:42, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
      • @Nyttend: I think Thryduulf was referring to #Proposal/RfC - Extend WP:U5 to the draftspace above when saying it should not be expanded. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 23:13, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
        • @Amorymeltzer and Nyttend: yes indeed my "should not be expanded" comment was about its applicability to other namespaces not the mention of the timing (I'm neutral about that as it's the least of the problems with the criteria). Thryduulf (talk) 23:25, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
      • @Nyttend: That was very much not a U5 candidate - it was an abandoned draft encyclopaedia article. That it wasn't a very good draft and wouldn't have survived MfD is completely irrelevant. U5 is only for "writings, information, discussions, and/or activities not closely related to Wikipedia's goals" - any attempt at an encyclopaedia article is closely related to Wikipedia's goals. A very bad deletion. Thryduulf (talk) 23:25, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
        • Okay, I'll restore it. That's the fundamental problem with any criterion based on WP:NOT — how am I supposed to know what's closely related and what's only tangentially related? I would immensely prefer to get rid of it entirely, because "Most reasonable people [cannot necessarily] agree whether a page meets the criterion", to modify the box at the top of this page. Nyttend (talk) 05:02, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
          • This was central to the implementation discussion. Some judgement is required in many cases, but implementation was/is justified by (1) the very large number of pages that would be (and were) SNOW deleted at MfD, (2) the objective requirement of no serious contributions in the user’s contribution history. Experienced editors can be trusted. I have not seen or heard of any cases of U5 misuse. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:55, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

This type of junk "contributed" by an otherwise non-contributor and abandoned is exactly what U5 is for. If someone wants to retire U5 start an RFC but in the meantime I've started Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:AviatorTJ/SpaceKraft Legacypac (talk) 06:12, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

• @Legacypac: Just because something should be deleted does not mean that it should be speedily deleted. Speedy deletion is explicitly the exception not the norm and only for those cases where consensus at a discussion will always be to delete. Even looking at just today's MfD listings it is clear that poorly written draft encyclopaedia articles do not always get unanimous consensus to delete. Thryduulf (talk) 12:20, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

I have always read C1 as meaning a cat could not be nominated until it had sat empty for 7 days, but @Liz: corrected me, to say the speedy nom. could happen immediately, but that the cat. would not be deleted until the seven days had passed. Perhaps a clarifying adjustment to the C1 language is warranted? UnitedStatesian (talk) 13:04, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

I fail to see the need. C1 has no waiting period after tagging, so whether you wait seven days and then tag or tag and then wait seven days makes no difference. Regards SoWhy 13:48, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

A new product or service may be an offering of an existing organization (perhaps one for which an article exists), and it may be the fault of the editor that

• it lacks citations to notable sources
• the value of the product or service is not well explained.

The combination may call for AfD, but at least there's a chance for others to pitch in. If the subject were an organization, CSD would not apply, hence my recommendation. Pi314m (talk) 18:51, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

• This has been proposed numerous times before, see the archives. It would be an extremely big expansion, so much so that several other perennial suggestions for A7 expansion would be included (e.g. books, films and software are all products). It would help your case if you could point to a large number of articles which are currently being put through PROD or AfD which would qualify for A7 if this was enacted. The categories of A7 are almost all areas where we have a subject-specific notability guideline, indicating that there are distinctive features of notable subjects that we can recognise. We don't have one for products or services. Hut 8.5 19:04, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

The categories of A7 are almost all areas where we have a subject-specific notability guideline, indicating that there are distinctive features of notable subjects that we can recognise. We don't have one for products or services Yes we do (well, sort of): WP:PRODUCT. Adam9007 (talk) 04:19, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Hardly. WP:PRODUCT is a discussion of whether information about products should be covered in the article about the organisation which makes the product, it doesn't give any guidance on whether a product is likely to be notable. Hut 8.5 11:15, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry but I got to oppose any such expansion. It fails pretty much rules #1, #2 and #3 on top of this page. Products are, not only because there is not a notability guideline to well, guide us, extremely subjective (#1). Also, in many cases the product was created by a notable entity, meaning alternatives to deletion exist that are preferable to deletion, such as merging or redirecting. Last but not least, products don't have articles created about them frequently enough to warrant speedy deletion (#3). Regards SoWhy 19:18, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

It fails pretty much rules #1, #2 and #3 on top of this page. A7 as a whole fails #1 miserably, yet it exists and is not likely to stop existing any time soon.

Also, in many cases the product was created by a notable entity, meaning alternatives to deletion exist that are preferable to deletion, such as merging or redirecting. The same is true for organisations, bands, clubs, organised events, and web content, yet they still fall under A7.

products don't have articles created about them frequently enough to warrant speedy deletion Articles on individual animals aren't exactly common (probably less common than products or services), yet they still fall under A7. Also, articles on things like video games seem to be becoming more common these days. Adam9007 (talk) 04:19, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Adam9007, reasonable people do agree on A7, near-always. Obviously, you and Haworth are outliers, situated on opposite ends of the spectrum. ∯WBG^converse 15:16, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose per SoWhy and Hut 8.5. This fails three of the four most basic requirements for a new CSD criterion and narrower aspects of it have previously been rejected for being too broad. Thryduulf (talk) 00:17, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

One of the key distinguishing features of pages and namespaces is their intended audience: readers (content pages/namespaces) versus editors (administrative/technical pages/namespaces). As a general rule, and with some exceptions (e.g. shortcuts), we avoid redirects that transport readers from a content namespace to a non-content namespace. R2 currently covers the specific scenario of redirects from the main namespace to non-content namespaces (except the Wikipedia namespace).

I think that we should also avoid (and speedily delete) redirects that transport readers from any content namespace to the User namespace. These redirects can lend undue gravitas to user pages (and subpages) and as a result mislead readers into thinking they are part of the encyclopedia proper. Therefore, I propose to modify R2 as follows:

This criterion applies to redirects (apart from shortcuts) from the main namespace to any other namespace except the Category:, Template:, Wikipedia:, Help: and Portal: namespaces, and to redirects to the User: namespace from the main or other content namespaces (Book:, Category:, File:, Portal:, and Template:).

If there are good reasons to have redirects from content namespaces to the User namespace, please share them. Thanks, -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 02:00, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose as not needed. These almost never appear at RfD, and when they do they are often speedily deleted under G6 (redirects created when pages created in the wrong namespace are moved) or G7 (author requests deletion, e.g. if they're leftovers from swapping pages or after a major rewrite). Of those that are not speedily deleted, most are indeed deleted but some are retargetted. So unless you can show that there is an ongoing problem with these then a change to the speedy deletion criteria is simply not needed. Just because something is undesirable does not mean that it must be speedy deletable. Thryduulf (talk) 02:12, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

  @Thryduulf: I agree with most of what you say, including that nearly all of these are already eligible for speedy deletion under G6. However, in view of that, would it not be better to clarify and use R2 instead of G6, so that a more informative deletion rationale than "general housekeeping" is used? Thanks, -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 02:51, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

  I've very much in favour of moving things out of G6 (see my proposal for an R4 on this page for example), and pages created in error is certainly a good candidate for unbundling, but that needs to be a comprehensive G criterion (something like "Pages unambiguously created in error, at the wrong title or in the wrong namespace. This includes redirects created when moving such pages to their correct location if the redirect is not otherwise useful" along with some wording about leaving the redirect a while if the page was there a long time and letting creators and other interested parties know the new location if that isn't obvious) - analogous to how redirects created when cleaning up page move vandalism are speedy deletable under G3 not a separate R criterion. Thryduulf (talk) 11:42, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

  I would support a new criterion along the lines you suggested, but I don't see that as precluding the option of expanding R2 in the meantime to include a subset of these cases. After all, if a new G criterion is established, it would be simple enough to restore R2's original language. If you remain unconvinced, then thank you anyway for explaining your reasoning. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 19:25, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

  That's true, but we're back to the basic issue that these redirects are so rare that there is no need to do the work of expanding then contracting R2. Thryduulf (talk) 21:48, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose per Thryduulf. This is a very rare encounter, and there are a few legitimate cases (userfications of books and userboxes being two big ones) where these redirects could and should be retained. Any other cases can easily be taken care of through RfD. Nathan2055^{talk - contribs} 02:28, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

  Userboxes I understand, due to transclusions, but... why should userfied Book: redirects be retained? -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 03:37, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

  @Nathan2055: Friendly ping. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 02:51, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

  @Black Falcon: Sorry for the delay, finals hit and I forgot about this discussion. I'm actually unsure of the policy in regards to redirects from the Book namespace since I don't work in that area, it's possible that I'm wrong. But AFAIK we've generally retained redirects to userspace from other namespaces (with the exception of mainspace) as long as it's not actively disruptive (in which case it probably should be deleted completely) to help people be able to find content after userfication. I actually can't find any official policy covering userfication of content outside of mainspace, however, since it's a case that comes up so rarely. Because of this, I think it would probably be better to handle these at XfD on a case by case basis rather than making a blanket CSD for it. Nathan2055^{talk - contribs} 05:36, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

  @Nathan2055: Thanks for following up on this (and I hope finals went well for you). I may batch nominate some of these (e.g. Book: to User: redirects) at RfD to see what people think. I struggle with a case-by-case approach as I do not see any fundamental differences from one case to another—i.e. either we want these redirects or we do not. However, at a minimum this discussion suggests a CSD is premature until a consensus forms at RfD that these are in fact undesirable in all cases. Thanks again, -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 17:11, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

• Any redirects from articlespace to userspace (which as noted here is rare) are flagged up by this report and shortly after deleted (by me), under R2, which I have never interpreted as not including userspace--Jac16888 ^Talk 21:04, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

  @Jac16888: That is a correct application of R2, but the main thrust of this proposal is to extend that to userspace from namespaces such as "Book:, Category:, File:, Portal:, and Template:" not just from the main namespace. Thryduulf (talk) 21:46, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

  Ah I see, I misunderstood the gist of the proposal, but yes it does seem to be a very rare situation. Also worth pointing out that there are many userspace based catergories and templates--Jac16888 ^Talk 21:55, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

  Templates, yes, but categories functionally cannot be in userspace (or any other namespace). Where I see this issue mostly, and what prompted my suggestion, is redirects from Book: to User: namespace that result from books being userfied without the suppression of a redirect. I admit it is not a very common issue (my guess would be 100–200 pages), so I suppose G6 will suffice. Thanks,-- Black Falcon ^(talk) 17:28, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Workshopping: Integrate draftification into the deletion policy. - MrX 🖋 12:39, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

I have attempted to implement this closure. Feel free to adjust the wording as needed. Tazerdadog (talk) 17:14, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

IMO it should be called "unnecessary disambiguation pages" rather than "narrow disambiguation pages". Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:40, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 18:10, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

We've had a banner month here at WT:CSD, with two new criteria (G14, R4) and one expanded (G13). It turns out that there are a lot of pages that potentially need updating whenever this occurs, not all of which are quick, easy, or obvious. Having gone through some of them twice and just discovering others, I thought it would be helpful if we had a list of things to do for future reference. I've started that at Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Creating a new criterion and would welcome any improvements or additions. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 17:52, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Good idea and good job! I think the last (non-exceptional) criterion created before these were years ago explaining the lack of a written-down process for new criterion. Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:39, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I think the last ones were G13 and A11 in in 2013 and U5 in 2014. Maybe a tad different since these new ones were each previously existing but part of G6, but that just means less work this go-round. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 18:52, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Atlantic306 recently inserted companies explicit into the policy, which I reverted. My revert rationale, for the onlookers, is that companies are a kind of organization, and so calling them out explicitly in the policy is unnecessary creepiness without a particularly good rationale. I was subsequently reverted by Atlantic, and he left a comment on my talk page. Copy-pasted here:

Hi, the A7 template lists companies seperate from organisations, and there are also different wiki projects for companies (mainly for profit) and organisations (mainly not for profit) so there is a distinction, regards Atlantic306 (talk) 19:33, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

1. The template follows from the policy, not the other way around. If the template is inconsistent, an edit to make it consistent is the correct path here, not an edit to the policy.
2. Different WikiProjects is an irrelevant question here, as their structure does not change how policy is applied. Even if it is relevant, company vice organization is not correctly distinguished by whether they are for-profit or not. (Perhaps NPO versus company might be.)

The company references have been removed since, possibly by accident given the rationale of that revert. Regardless, I'll not revert again under my belief that it's a bad-sad-bad idea to be reverting on PAG pages. --Izno (talk) 22:03, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

• Hi, in my view the template is justified in making it clear that companies and organisations are both included. The term organisation is distinct in many countries as being not for profit concerns so not including companies. I believe it is best to be absolutely clear that companies are included in A7, and the fact that companies and organisations have seperate WikiProjects is evidence that Wikipedia defines them as seperate categories, so in conclusion it is better to be pedantic than misleading, thanks Atlantic306 (talk) 22:17, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
  • I agree with Atlantic306's interpretation, and this is IIRC how we've generally handled things at AfC in the past. "Organization" means a non-profit, "company" means a for-profit. Nathan2055^{talk - contribs} 23:17, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
    • I disagree with that interpretation but seeing as a significant number of people might make such a distinction, explicitly mentioning companies is not a really CREEPy addition. Possibly the wording can be tweaked a bit, e.g. real person, individual animal, commercial or non-commercial organization, web content, or organized event? Regards SoWhy 09:49, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
      • "Commercial organization" and "non-commercial organization" is a bit unusual vocabulary. Would anyone mind if we changed "commercial or non-commercial organization" to either "business or other organization" or "company or other organization"? --Bsherr (talk) 02:31, 26 December 2018 (UTC)
• I think this clarifies things a bit; and consider that our notability guideline is called "organizations and companies"; I don't see how it is creep since the actual meaning/scope of A7 is not extended. Galobtter (pingó mió) 11:00, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

  If the text doesn't cause creep of some sort, it isn't necessary to the intent. See also answer below. --Izno (talk) 18:07, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

• From the Oxford English Dictionary definition of 'organisation' - An organized group of people with a particular purpose, such as a business or government department. (my emphasis).

'Company' = A commercial business.

Including companies would be redundant, so I agree with Izno's rationale. Adam9007 (talk) 23:43, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

• I agree with Galobtter - the definitions should match our notability guidelines, as it's not necessarily redundant. SportingFlyer talk 23:49, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

  In which case we should rename the notability guideline. Its current title suggests that companies are not organisations, even though they are. Adam9007 (talk) 23:59, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

  That our notability guideline on the point has both in its name is irrelevant to this page since this page isn't about notability. --Izno (talk) 18:07, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

  I wouldn't think it's irrelevant. Consistency is desirable, even between different pages, and particularly in the project namespace. --Bsherr (talk) 19:54, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

  • But it is another example of the differenct use of the terms in common usage despite the Oxford definition. To avoid confusion IMO it would be best to adopt SoWhy's proposed minor rewording, regards Atlantic306 (talk) 17:54, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

  I also agree with Galobtter. I would suggest using exactly the same wording, "organizations and companies". I know companies are organizations by definition, but it is so rare to call businesses by that term instead of a term like company more specific to their commercial nature, that I think many people would be confused. --Bsherr (talk) 19:54, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

• I prefer the following wording: "No indication of importance (people, animals, companies or organizations, web content, events)". I would be okay with "and" instead of "or".--Bbb23 (talk) 20:00, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Bbb23--this makes it clear, and is not a change from present policy or practice. DGG ( talk ) 06:22, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

I do not understand matter you discussed. If it is not to be selected please delete with out further question.

I wrote thing what is practically happen after post liberation war of Bangladesh.

Shafiqur Mazumdar (talk) 17:48, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

@Shafiqur Mazumdar: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion. Please post your comment at the talk page of the administrator who deleted the page. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:46, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

(Copied from Wikipedia talk:Templates for discussion#Duplication by a module as requested there. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:43, 8 January 2019 (UTC))

{{Db-t3}} provides for speedy deletion of a template that duplicates the function of another template. However, increasingly, templates are rendered redundant by the creation of Lua modules (usually the very top level template isn't redundant – it invokes the module – but its 'support' templates are, because they are coded in the module). I've tweaked {{Db-t3/sandbox}} to allow |module=; you can see it in action at Template:Add new taxon. The sandbox version can be made live if there is consensus. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:10, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

This seems in-line with the spirit of the criterion. Redundant templates should be speedy deleteable. Tazerdadog (talk) 19:27, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Ok, well as there's one supporter and no opposition, and I think this is just a technical response to the emergence of Lua, I will make the sandbox version live. It can always be reverted if objectors appear. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:24, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Templates that are unused and have been created more than 3 - 6 months ago should be able to be deleted by speedy deletion criteria, or moved back to user space. In my opinion it's a waste of time at WP:TfD to have to propose, then wait for multiple wikipedians to contribute to discussion about a template that's not actually used.

This proposal could be tweaked slightly - eg caveats being if there is an obvious use case or if it's an intended article to move back to user space - but I think the principle still holds. Thoughts? (I will ping TfD). --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:12, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

I have not given this proposal any deep thought yet, but my off-the-cuff reaction is that we'd need to be careful about templates that are designed to be substituted - it could be difficult to determine how often those are used. Tazerdadog (talk) 03:17, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

This should be like something like WP:C1 IMO; if a template has been tagged for more than 7 days and remains unused, it may be deleted; unless there's an indication the template is meant to be substed. Perhaps also the template cannot be deleted if it is less than 3 months old. Galobtter (pingó mió) 09:07, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Question: How often (= requirement #3 for new SD criteria) are such templates really nominated for deletion? Looking at WP:TFD now, there seem to be but a few templates nominated that are truly unused, so why can't TFD handle them? Regards SoWhy 10:51, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

SoWhy, that varies - sometimes people nominate twenty in a day, sometimes there aren't any (see Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2018 September 2 or Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2018 November 7 for examples of a bunch nominated in a day). I'd definitely say there are enough for a CSD criteria; would probably reduce nominations at Tfd by 30+%. Galobtter (pingó mió) 11:06, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Alas, this has been proposed, many, many, many, many times. The iterations sometimes vary, such as just for user namespace templates, or just for those "not encyclopedic", with varying waiting periods or age requirements. Just some of these discussions are: /Archive 72#Proposed tweak to T3, /Archive 10#Orphaned templates, /Archive 67#New criterion - T4, aka Template PROD, /Archive 44#New CSD - T4 Unused userbox that is more than 30 days old, /Archive 42#T4: Unused template, /Archive_52#Deprecated_templates, /Archive 22#Speedy deletion of unused templates?, /Archive 59#Gauging opinion on a possible new criterion for templates. There have also been several proposals at WT:PROD for this (reportedly four in 2007 alone). There seem to be three reasons this has never been adopted. Firstly, as pointed out by Tazerdadog, templates that are intended to be substituted have no transclusions by design, and a summary process like CSD is not efficient to distinguish those not transcluded by design from those by circumstance. Secondly, CSD is generally for urgent deletions and, although TfD is busy, it is not backlogged enough (with deserved thanks to Galobtter (above), Primefac and others) to warrant the use of a summary process like this, particularly since an unused template is not an urgent cause for deletion. Thirdly, that a template is unused is not, in any guideline, a dispositive reason to delete it; rather, it is just a relevant consideration; therefore, it would be egregious to make it a dispositive reason to speedily delete it before there is consensus on whether this should be decisive for a deletion discussion. --Bsherr (talk) 18:28, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

• I would be against any such criteria for speedy deletion; unused does not mean unusable. It is a subjective label and therefor inherently controversial. For example: I have never published an edit using {{pronoun}} but I have used it hundreds of times, without publishing, to determine the correct pronoun to use in various discussions. It's why I can say that Bsherr is spot on with his comment and that I agree with everything he said therein.--John Cline (talk) 13:13, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• What Bsherr said. Many unused templates may have interesting history or potential, and deletion might not be the most useful thing to do with them. Sure, navboxes that haven't been used for years can usually be deleted. But not all unused templates, and not speedily. —Kusma (t·c) 19:33, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. If there was an "arguments to avoid at TFD" page, "unused" would be on it. Kamafa Delgato _(Lojbanist)^{Styrofoam is not made from kittens.} 20:37, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes, there is, and "unused" does indeed feature there: User:Uanfala/Arguments to watch out for in TfD discussions. – Uanfala (talk) 12:01, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
    • @Uanfala: Lojbanist was banned from editing and his account globally locked in December. — CoolSkittle (talk) 15:23, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - some templates may be appropriate to keep around to allow historical versions of pages to view properly, others are subst:-only and not necessarily marked as such. To prevent these templates from being deleted, we need to bring unused templates to TFD, not silently delete them. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:40, 26 December 2018 (UTC)