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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the discussion was: delete. ‑Scottywong| [spout] || 17:42, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

User:Jakefrdrck/sandbox[edit]

User:Jakefrdrck/sandbox (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Unedited draft in userspace that has gone unedited for nearly 8 years. A review of the user's contributions shows he has not made an edit in as many years, which indicates this is abandoned. Doug Mehus (talk) 23:54, 26 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Question for @SmokeyJoe: Why, then, do I see so many MfDs for deletion, including user sandboxes, for articles as old as this and some only several years old? As I understand it, WP:UNDELETE applies so, should this user decide to return to Wikipedia—and it's a big if at this point—there would be the ability to undelete the article.--Doug Mehus (talk) 03:43, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
WP:REFUND applies, but why create that barrier. If it could freely be REFUNDed, then there is not a reason to delete it now from userspace. Big IF. Consider that you would be creating a self-fulfilling prophesy, if you wipe their stuff clean, when they return they are even less likely to pick up from where they left off.
Lots of old userpages get deleted, but for reasons listed under WP:UPNOT, which includes WP:NOT. Nothing in your nomination included a valid reason. Old abandoned userpages (not AfC) are managed without deletion (note policy WP:ATD), unless there’s is a good reason to delete. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:46, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that, @SmokeyJoe:. My nom didn't state any reasons or cite Wiki policies because, truthfully, I think this is my first MfD for deletion. I originally tagged the user's abandoned draft under CSD G13, but was it undone by another editor (not an admin) as apparently invalid. Does G13 not apply to sandboxes? So, that's why I didn't state a reason. I find that there was a lot less clarity in the Wiki policies and nomination procedures for MfD versus, say, AfD and CfD.--Doug Mehus (talk) 05:09, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
G13 applies to anything in Draftspace and userpages with AfC templates (applied by the user). Wikipedia is a wiki, which means that anyone can do stuff and anyone can undo stuff. Deletion is a break in that model, which is why it should not be used for routine cleanup. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:14, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks again, @SmokeyJoe:, for that clarification. Your idea of blanking the page is a possibility I hadn't considered, but my concern is it'll still be indexed by search engines. I also didn't know if I was allowed to edit pages in another user's userspace outside of their Talk page—I thought that was frowned upon, but maybe that was something else or I misunderstood? At any rate, so CSD G13 doesn't apply, but just wondering why WP:REFUND is so problematic. There is a notice that gets posted on the deleted page, I think, which links the user to the undelete process, which, I'm assuming is not too cumbersome (i.e., like nominating an article for deletion using the provided deletion script on the page).--Doug Mehus (talk) 05:20, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Userspace is not indexed. Blanked pages are definitely not indexed. See WP:NOINDEX. IF a page it is being indexed by a non compliant search engine, blanking will cause the search engine database to replace the old content with a blank page. Deletion causes the database to lock in the last seen version. Thus, blanking is better at removing stuff. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:26, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Abandoned for six years by editor who came only to create a draft on a member of their family, did their thing, left the COI draft, and went. If they come back, it is a deleted COI draft that can be restored. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:54, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
How do you know there is a COI. Even if there is a COI, COI is not a reason for deletion. If it can be restored, there must be nothing wrong with it. Why do you want to delete other peoples stuff? Have they lost the right to be Wikipedians due to an extended absence? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:48, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Robert McClenon: Yeah, that was my thinking; Wikipedia isn't a file storage service, and the editor can easily request undelete. Is there a time limit on undelete? At any rate, while I think the editor was operating entirely in good faith in creating this article on what seems to be his dad—some 7-8 years ago or so—I think Wikipedia still frowns upon on one writing autobiographical articles on themselves or close familial connections from doing the same. I suppose I could reach out to Jake at his accounting firm in Edmonton, to see if he's OK with the abandoned draft being deleted, but that seems a bit overkill.Doug Mehus (talk) 05:05, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
For project related material, storage of text is cheaper than thinking about. See WP:Performance. Also, deletion doesn’t free space, it actually consumes more space. If a deletion discussion is involved, that cost is massively higher than the storage cost of kilobytes.
WP:Autobiographies are frowned upon, but not necessarily deleted. If sourced and notable, definitely not deleted. If unsourced and promotional, immediately deleted per WP:CSD#G11. Some judgement is always required. For pages like this, there is no harm in leaving it alone, ostensibly for someone who might want to work with it. So how do you balances costs and benefits?
Do not contact the subject to ask that. That would imply he has some WP:OWNership rights. He doesn’t. Also, we don’t want the subject to contribute to it.
If in your personal judgement as a Wikipedian, you think the draft material is worthless, blank it with {{Inactive userpage blanked}}. That is the wiki way. Deletion is overkill and requires the involvement of multiple others. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:22, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the further explanations, @SmokeyJoe:. This reminds me more of the deletionist/inclusionist debate. Would it be safe to say you would prefer we not delete any userspace drafts (certainly not to the extent we're currently doing)? I noted just today or yesterday another editor nominated some two dozen (or more) userspace drafts for deletion, and the discussion from another editor/admin seemed almost routine, like, "are all those over 6 months old?" Doug Mehus (talk) 05:32, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I regard deleting someone else’s userspace pages as akin to throwing out papers on someone else’s work desk. It is not to be done lightly, but if the material is not ok then I am quick to agree to delete. I personally am largely responsible for WP:CSD#U5, I am not averse to deleting things should should not have been created. The other editor may have been referring the WP:AfC pages in userspace. That is a different story. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:45, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@SmokeyJoe: Do you mean you participated, to an extent, in the consensus discussion that brought about CSD # U5? Here is the diff. Just speaking hypothetically, independently and impartially, in terms of adherence to Wiki policies, do you think the editor was correct to remove the CSD tag on this page?Doug Mehus (talk) 05:56, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I do not see the potential for an acceptable article--it would be deleted as promotional and non-notable , and the obvious COI wouldn't help. DGG ( talk ) 07:55, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Not seeing a good reason to delete. It's a sandbox. If it's too promotional, it qualifies for CSD. If not, nobody will ever see this other than those looking for userpages to delete. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:23, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom. Long-gone editors evince no more interest in what is kept in their user space than long gone employees evince with respect to their (former) work desks. The page can always be undeleted in the rare circumstance that the creator returns and remembers that it even existed. bd2412 T 23:38, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @BD2412: Trying to understand the reasoning here. Is this an IAR delete? How does this reconcile with WP:STALE (or any other policy)? "Stick around or we'll delete your stuff" isn't written down anywhere that I've seen, and what guidelines we do have about inactive users' drafts explicitly says age alone isn't reason to delete. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 23:58, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I get that, but as "if a user signs up for an account and starts a sourced draft but doesn't log in thereafter, go ahead and get rid of it after some arbitrary amount of time" isn't part of -- and indeed runs contrary to -- the relevant guidelines, that's why I asked if it was an IAR !vote. FWIW if it wasn't created in good faith (either undisclosed paid editing or if it's promotional, then it qualifies for CSD and I would not object to that. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 00:11, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Good point, @BD2412:. In this case, the editor didn't even stick around for the day. It appears as though performed a quick draft and left after his first hour—to borrow your desk analogy, the "real world" equivalent of a newly hired employee deciding they've made the wrong choice and resigning before lunch time. Speaking of which, is there a time limit on undeletions—that is, could an article, in theory, be undeleted/restored 10, 20, or even 50 years later, or does Wikimedia Foundation have some sort of data purge policy of which you're aware? Doug Mehus (talk) 00:56, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
?!? Just no. I don't know about you, but I am not getting paid to edit Wikipedia, nor do I have any obligation to Wikipedia to stick around for a set amount of time. We are all volunteers here. We explicitly tell people that they can come to Wikipedia, add something, and then be done. We don't tell anyone -- and it's completely against our policies -- that if they don't stick around for a set amount of time, we'll delete whatever they did. I find this line of thinking deeply troubling. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 01:04, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Rhododendrites: I love the consensus decision making of Wikipedia; it's what makes Wikipedia great, but, at the same time, I also acknowledge that I don't own my edits (nor do any other editor or administrator). Wikipedia provides nominal attribution, to the extent editors use their real name in their username, via edit history; however, I don't let that influence whether to keep, merge, or redirect an article. As long as draftspace and userspace articles can be undeleted, and main namespace articles that are deleted can be undeleted and sent to the draftspace or userspace, in a process that isn't overly cumbersome, I see no problem with this. Similarly, I'm mindful that decisions related to the Wikipedia database(s) and I.T. architecture may be above the consensus decision making hallmark of Wikipedia and be a Wikimedia I.T. decision. I noted Wikimedia also has an "office-related decisions"—whether it be speedy deletions of content or blocking of users. I'm not sure what those office-related decisions typically are, but some decision making that is above that of the consensus decision making of Wikipedia editors and administrators seems entirely reasonable to me.--Doug Mehus (talk) 01:11, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The consensus-building processes, when it comes to deletion, concerns how to apply our deletion policy. It's not about who owns or doesn't own what, but how community-written procedures should apply to various cases. Here, multiple people are advocating for deleting something without having a reason to do so that's based in policy. That's allowed as per IAR, but there needs to be a compelling reason for ditching what the community has determined to be the reasons for deletion. That's a key aspect of our deletion policy: there needs to be a reason to delete as opposed to blanking, as opposed to keeping as is, etc., not just an absence of a reason to keep. Especially when we're dealing with something like a sandbox, which is supposed to be a test page for people to do whatever with, and which nobody will ever see other than the creator and people looking for userspace maintenance edits to do (they are not indexed, so don't come up in search results, etc.). There are specific sorts of things a sandbox should not be used for. Drafting an article, no matter the quality of that article, is one of the things it most definitely is for. CSD covers the egregious content. Blanking covers a lot more. Only when something is problematic even if blanked should it be coming to MfD. (Again, I don't see any point in blanking in most cases because all you're doing is telling a user that you don't want their content, without affecting anyone else, but it's permitted per WP:STALE). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 01:25, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Rhododendrites: All true, but I think in this case, what @BD2412: may have been referring to, if not for WP:IAR as you asked about, was a logical exception. I don't know of any Wikipedia policy or essay off hand (perhaps you might), but one that essentially says, Wikipedia consensus determinations can't possibly determine all possible cases so a certain amount of common sense on the part of prudent administrators (they do not want to be seen as overtly going against policy) and editors in their deliberations should be permitted, without necessarily having to cite a specific policy. Then, if considered warranted, it may be prudent for an editor or an administrator to move a proposal (Village Pump, perhaps?) that would propose to further define how to handle a specific circumstance(s) in a given policy which had not been previously envisioned. I recall seeing @RoySmith: and another editor/administrator mention something about using common sense sometimes following a closed deletion review. It may or may not have been a deletion review I'd initiated, but the context of their conversation had to do with whether a nominator can withdraw a deletion review, I think. (Roy, I tagged you here in case you have any insight into the philosophical and insightful conversation Rhododendrites and I are having. Doug Mehus (talk) 01:48, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Meh. I'm having a hard time figuring out why anybody cares about some long-abandoned userspace draft. In fact, I'm having a hard time figuring out how anybody even knew it was here. Until it was nominated for deletion yesterday, it wasn't even linked to anywhere. Doug Mehus, what led you here? -- RoySmith (talk) 03:01, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@RoySmith: Good question...I'm surprised you are the first person to ask me that. I had completed the merge of Intuit Canada to Intuit and was updating the wikilinks to the now redirect page to piped links to the section of Intuit and it brought me to this page, though I didn't update this page because I questioned the need seeing that it appeared long-abandoned by an editor who created the account, composed a few sentences, then left.Doug Mehus (talk) 04:04, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Mostly because I don't want to endorse the idea of policing userpages. If it was actively doing some harm (copyvio, BLP, socking), then it's worth deleting, but this isn't doing any harm, so we should ignore it. I've got uncompleted drafts in my userspace that I haven't touched in 12 years; should those be deleted as well? -- RoySmith (talk) 15:05, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@RoySmith: No, your 12 year old drafts should not be deleted because they're in your own userspace (that is, not in the Draft namespace) and you're an active (indeed, a very active) editing administrator. Per @BD2412:'s comment above, age of unedited draft alone is insufficient to rationalize deletion. If, however, you posted a Permanently retired notice on your userpage and user talkpage after blanking and/or archiving them, your drafts were stumbled upon 7-10 years from now or they were caught up in a report after a similar timescape, then there might be merit to deleting them as there is clear intention that you do not intend to return by the "permanently retired" verbiage on your userpage and your editing history which confirms that you've not since returned. Hope that clarifies. Doug Mehus (talk) 16:13, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@RoySmith: As an aside, and a question, was this discussion a case of TL;dr? Only reason I ask is because I've essentially summarized, and expanded on, the comments of BD2412 (and Robert McClenon) above, who both made compelling arguments for deletion. --Doug Mehus (talk) 16:20, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.


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