Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/AfD at scale/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Timeline for workshopping RfC on article deletion at scale

@Xeno and I have been discussing whether starting workshopping of the next RfC is helpful once input at WP:ACAS has significantly slowed. We see pros and cons, but we don't expect to be able to see all of them ourselves, nor to think of every possible consequence. So if there are opinions, let's have them.

One pro I see is getting to the end of this in our lifetimes. There's a good chance we're going to run into ArbCom elections and various time-and-energy consuming holidays. If we can actually get everything accomplished before that, we don't have to worry about whether we should instead delay something (probably the deletion-at-scale RfC) until maybe January. Valereee (talk) 17:57, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

• I'd encourage you to proceed. I agree that it's important to get it done and feel the concern that we might lose momentum.—S Marshall T/C 22:25, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
• I'd be surprised now if anything positive of significance comes out of the article creation at scale RfC; it would be a pity to delay the next one because of it. Espresso Addict (talk) 02:25, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

  Yep. I think the community is showing us pretty clearly that they don't want bad mass creation fixed. But giving that a chance was the point of the RfC, so if that's what ends up happening, it's still productive. No one will be able to argue that we didn't give the community a chance to fix this major underlying problem. We asked if the community could find a solution to bad mass creation, and the answer may simply be "no". Valereee (talk) 14:59, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

  "I think the community is showing us pretty clearly that they don't want..." Another word for this phenomenon is "consensus." Gnomingstuff (talk) 02:51, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

  Sorry, what's the difference you're perceiving? Valereee (talk) 20:48, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

  If you are going to defer to consensus, then you have to actually defer to consensus. If the community does not see a problem with article creation at scale, then the opinion that it is "bad mass creation" is anti-consensus. You can, of course, take the position that the consensus is wrong -- but then you cannot also criticize others for disagreeing with consensus in other areas. Gnomingstuff (talk) 06:39, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

  I think the community (well, the portion that happens to be participating in the discussion) isn't able to agree if certain modes of article creation are undesirable, which is not the same as saying it doesn't want to fix "bad mass creation", for some meaning of the word bad. I concur though that the present state might be that no solution can be agreed upon. isaacl (talk) 23:39, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Viability of modified deletion processes for batches

I made the general outline of a discussion on this subject at WT:AfD some time ago (Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/Archive_76#Viability_of_a_modified_nomination_procedure_for_large_batches_of_articles); at that point, this arbitration case was still open, and it was recommended by Worm That Turned that I hold off on such a proposal until this RfC was opened. Now that it seems like an appropriate time, I will reproduce what I said there here.

Having witnessed the regularly occurring arguments at ANI over large amounts of low-quality articles, it seems like large batch nominations (dozens or even hundreds of articles) are a subject of some interest. Having looked through the archives of this talk page, it doesn't seem like there have been any recent proposals along this vein (the last discussion along this vein I could find here was in 2009). Anyway, here's the shit of it, as of now:

It seems to me like batch AfD nominations tend to cause a lot of headache -- we don't really have a good process for dealing with dozens (or hundreds) of articles in a single go. Basically, we only have two ways to do this.

1. The first method is to make nominations one at a time, which causes a lot of redundant effort from participants, who must make a large number of identical arguments across many pages (as well as monitor all the discussions individually, which is difficult even if you use your own AfD stats page to get a current list).
2. The second method is to make one nomination which includes many articles. This practice of "batch nomination" was created as an alternative to the first method, but it still leaves much to be desired. For example:

• It's hard to !vote on a batch AfD. People who don't have the same opinion about every article in the batch end up having to make awkward !votes ("Keep 1 through 5, Redirect 6, and Delete the rest). This is doubly a pain in the ass for closers -- if ten people comment on a ten-page AfD, that could be as many as a hundred !votes to read through when closing. Of course, it won't be that many, but it's considerably more than a single AfD with ten !votes would have.
• It's hard to discuss things in a batch AfD. There are several conversations happening simultaneously on the same page. "What people have to say about Article #3" is dispersed throughout a gigantic discussion where people are talking about many other articles. It's often unclear whether comments are about one of the articles, several of the articles, or all of the articles.
• Most importantly, they only have seven days (and a relist, if someone decides to relist, but that's still only another seven days). This makes no sense to me, and feels like an oversight rather than a deliberate decison. If we agree that it takes seven days to discuss one article, why the hell would it also take seven days to discuss a dozen articles?

Because of this, I think it may be worth contemplating some kind of supplemental guideline (or even a new process) for batch nominations. I don't know exactly what a solution would look like -- it might just be a couple lines in Wikipedia:Deletion policy saying "batches of more than five articles run for thirty days instead of seven" and a page that links to all currently-running batch deletions. But, who knows: maybe an entire "BfD" process could exist where a nomination page has separate sections for each article (as well as one section for overall discussion).

jp×g 09:57, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

One challenge of our current process is that even batch nominations are expected to be evaluated article-by-article to ensure that no notable topics are being deleted. This may work marginally well for small batches, but it bogs down AfD when dealing with indiscriminate mass-creations. The analogy I like to use is that if someone had written List of people from New York City by copying the entire New York City phone directory, we wouldn't go through the list one-by-one evaluating each name to make sure they're not notable. We would WP:TNT the whole thing and start over with sources that actually do demonstrate notability. Likewise we should have a process to mass-delete very large batches of articles that meet certain criteria and allow folks to re-create any that are proven to be notable. It would make sense to hold this type of mass-nomination at a community venue such as Village Pump with, say, a 30-day time limit. –dlthewave ☎ 12:15, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

This is all covered by WP:BUNDLE, no? Yes, bundled deletions can be complex if there are differences between articles, but for mass-created articles this often isn't such an issue because they've been written with the same sources and the same template, so if that's problematic then it's a problem for all the bundled articles (EDIT: dlthewave's example above is a good one for this). The one thing I'd say is mass-creation should be a stand-alone justification for bundling.

But articles having significant differences between them should still be a good reason to unbundle.

EDIT: also agree with dlthewave that doing WP:BEFORE on every single article in a large mass-created set of articles made using the same sources and template is disproportionate. WP:BEFORE should be proportionate to the work done to create the original article. However, I think AFD is also a perfectly appropriate venue for this kind of discussion and don't see the need really to take it elsewhere - once you explain the issue most people will understand why it needs to be done - see, for example, this bundled deletion of 216 articles. FOARP (talk) 12:21, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

"...if that's problematic then it's a problem for all the bundled articles" Not exactly, since sources often cover a mix of notable and non-notable topics, and there's currently no deletion process that allows "indiscriminate mass creation" as a criteria. GNIS would be a classic example since it marks both notable communities and random railroad sidings, subdivisions, ranches etc as "populated places" and the nominator is expected to assess each entry individually when bundling even if no suitable sources are included. The bundling of Iranian census tracts has been successful for straightforward farms, pumps, factories, etc but eventually we're going to be left with a short list of miscellaneous place names that's going to be very time consuming to sort through if individual BEFORE is required. –dlthewave ☎ 12:54, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

It depends on whether you're going to suggest we have to undertake a fully detailed BEFORE or whether we should simply be checking the sources already in the article super quickly. So, for example, I wouldn't be unhappy bundling Heman Luwang, Akoijam Tenyson Singh, Kumar Aditya, Govind Sharma, Rajesh Singh (cricketer, born 1976), Abhay Joshi etc... - all Indian cricketers who have played less than 5 professional matches for not very prominent teams. I've checked the refs on each of them and there's nothing obvious that raises a flag for me. They took less than 5 minutes to check (along with another 30-odd articles). All are Lugnuts' creations from January 2019 and I could easily add another 10 articles to that list. But then I'd come across Lalit Yadav (Delhi cricketer) (Lugnuts, early February 2019). Doesn't look much more promising does it? Sources look a bit run of the mill, databases, scorecards and lists, don't they? Now click the source in the infobox and scroll down - obviously notable. Not even close.

I've not had to do a detailed BEFORE - I've literally clicked the CricInfo link in the infobox for each of these articles (and another 115-ish - on average less than 30 seconds per article, including clerking time.

We can do that. We're good enough to at least check - and working with wikiprojects we can come up with a way of shortcutting as well. (btw, of the 120 articles, I reckon I'd send about 95 to a set of bundle lists - and that's being really harsh - some of them would probably survive AfD if I'm honest; but I'd not be happy to send 25 or so - those are either obviously notable, have already been developed or deserve a second look. Blue Square Thing (talk) 16:52, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

@Dlthewave:, @FOARP:: What I mean to say here is that WP:BUNDLEs are a pain, and most of the time, we end up having to do them individually, because the entire AfD process is set up for a single article. I know that all three of us have been at the same AfDs often, and the situation generally looks like twenty individual noms in a row named "Oaks Hollow, Missouri" and "Stevens Hollow, Missouri" and "Huxley Hollow, Missouri" and "Adams Hollow, Missouri" -- and for the most part we are all saying the same stuff at all of them. Now, maybe I fire up my TWL accounts and I find some really great coverage for Huxley Hollow -- it shouldn't be some big huge ordeal (for me or for you or for the closer) if I say "I agree that all of these are crap but we should keep Huxley Hollow". Yet it is, in practice, and I think this is largely because bundles are a poorly-implemented system. This is why I say a good step towards making them more logical might be to establish longer listing times for batches, and make a delsort category for them. This wouldn't break or seriously damage the existing system -- they could still go through AfD just like everything else -- but it would allow for people to save effort and time in what's otherwise an extremely tedious process. If there are 500 garbo articles that are all basically the same thing, there should be a realistic non-nuts way to nominate them all at once. jp×g 14:26, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

jp - One things that's a problem with bundling is the need to template every page. Using AWB makes this quicker but it's not exactly and easy tool to use. FOARP (talk) 15:24, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

A longer listing time for batches is a good idea - and the length of that period should probably vary by the size of the batch. The problem comes when 25 of the 500 articles turn out to be about obviously notable people or where there are obvious ATD which apply to the sort of article we're taking about (e.g. schools to the location). The biggest inherent problem with batches that I've come across in the areas I tend to have an interest in is simply that nominators don't actually consider those possibilities. That's going to be an even bigger problem when people start to consider the sorts of articles we're all thinking about here. Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:19, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Regarding half-way views when bundling: perhaps there could be a "mark a few as possibly notable" approach. Editors would simply plop their signature next to the couple articles they think should be kept, subjected to an appropriate ATD, or at least further discussed. Then, unless they are clearly marking those articles disruptively, those articles would be kept when closing the bundled deletion. In other words, a single editor can mark an article as possibly or likely notable. But those kept articles could then be raised at a separate, smaller AfD. And if an editor thinks too many articles in the bundle shouldn't be deleted, they should simply !vote for a (procedural) keep.

The main problem I foresee would be the appropriate ATDs that Blue Square Thing raises, since for some topics it might be best to redirect a bunch of the articles rather than deleting them. One option is to simply establish, for certain classes of problematic articles, broad criteria where an ATD is presumed over deletion. So, Iranian villages, probably nowhere; cricket stubs, probably to some team or list of contemporaneous cricketers. The thing is that the closer should not be forced to redirect it themselves. Not sure how that would work. Ovinus (talk) 19:25, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

One way might be to discuss a batch at a wiki project with whoever might be interested and come to an agreement to do the AtD thing there rather than take it to AfD. That might help stop AfD getting overwhelmed with discussions. There are people who will cry "local consensus" here. If they want progress on this, they need to stop doing that - it's really not helping. Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:19, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Except in really obvious cases, it's always going to be a good idea to run large bundles past a few other editors (ideally including subject matter experts) before nominating them. The goal of such a discussion would be solely to determine whether it's a good bundle or not, including removing pages/groups of pages that are obviously notable or should be considered separately (including splitting the bundle into multiple smaller ones). There would be no need to tag the articles or talk pages (although no prejudice against the latter) and should be lightweight explicitly without prejudice (either way) to any actual deletion discussions and should not be seen as form of canvassing.

I would also strongly suggest that whenever a bundle is nominated the nomination statement include a mention of why this set of pages was bundled together. Thryduulf (talk) 19:16, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Workshopping

Several people have indicated an interest in workshopping proposed questions. I'm not going to try to do this myself, but I definitely think it's a good idea for participants who want to propose a question to first workshop it here. So please feel free to open a section and get feedback. Valereee (talk) 19:42, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Should we still go ahead with this?

Conversation here has dropped off quite a bit and I really don't get the impression that anything has come out of the discussion so far that's going to pass. Just me? FOARP (talk) 10:47, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Wasn't this the RfC that was actually mandated by the Arbitration Committee? Espresso Addict (talk) 10:52, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, AfD at scale was the RfC requested by ArbCom. Valereee (talk) 11:07, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

An RFC has already been held and we can all see what the result of it has been. If we go ahead with a further discussion that at this point seems unlikely to produce any meaningful result over what has already been seen, are we really fulfilling ArbCom's intent? FOARP (talk) 11:25, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

@FOARP, I'm a little puzzled as to what you think the alternative is? Valereee (talk) 12:10, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Valereee - Simply not opening this RFC unless there is a good reason to believe that the issues that hindered the previous RFC are resolved? There seems to be little appetite for it on this page. FOARP (talk) 12:20, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

@FOARP, and you think we can resolve those issues how? I'm sorry, I just have no idea what you're going for, here. Are you trying to make some point? If so, I wish you'd just come right out and say it clearly. Valereee (talk) 13:00, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

My point is that this RFC already shows signs of being headed in exactly the same direction as the previous RFC (i.e., nothing meaningful passes). That being the case, why open it? FOARP (talk) 13:03, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

So we can tell ArbCom, "Nope, the community is unable to solve this. We tried our best, but we are unable to come to any consensus about any of the solutions posed by anyone." If we don't even open it, how can we say we have done our due diligence to try to solve the problems caused at AfD by the issues surrounding deletions at scale? Valereee (talk) 13:07, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

OK, but let's have a more clearly put together RFC with way fewer option than last time out, otherwise the same thing is going to happen again. I'm not pretending this is easy but I really think the previous RFC failed because it came out of the gate too early and not prepared. I understand why the discussion was split but in retrospect it seems to have been the wrong move since it's left questions being bounced into this RFC and people disputing whether some issues shouldn't be excluded entirely. I'm not blaming anyone specifically for this - it's just the way things came out. FOARP (talk) 14:26, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I think the split was a net pos, myself. I think we probably are going to find we need another intermediate RfC on defining mass creation. This is a huge problem. It's not going to be easily solved, and I think it could take a long time and multiple discussions. Valereee (talk) 01:44, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

I'll just say that requested ≠ mandated. Nobody has to do this. – Joe (talk) 15:00, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps start by focussing on things that **can** be agreed. We know where people stand on this - some people want to delete shed loads of stuff, others want to keep everything. OK, so where can we meet to agree some stuff? We know bundling causes problems, so can we agree that there are any ways that we can handle that? Is it possible to agree that there are ever any times that it's acceptable to bundle, say 250 articles? (yes, in my view - so long as the list has been curated carefully) How long should we give people to check those over (2 weeks, rather than 1, perhaps), what do we do if there's an obvious problem with the creation and more than 5% are notable (stop the process and start again, being more careful with curation perhaps?), can we place a hard upper limit on this stuff - or do we need to? Even if we can't get agreement on bigger stuff, can we agree on some of the smaller stuff?

If the proposals can be things people can agree on, I think there's a chance. If it's just going to be extreme ends of the spectrum, maybe it does end the same way. Blue Square Thing (talk) 15:59, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Your comment makes me think we might be able to agree on two things:

Large bundles are not required to be 100% accurate; editors objecting to specific elements need to be objecting to at least 5% of them for their !vote to be considered by the closer. As a consequence of this, large bundles should not be deleted but sent to draft space, so that editors who object to a few examples within the group can easily restore the content. BilledMammal (talk) 16:49, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

@BilledMammal: I'll bullet this to make it easier, perhaps, to follow...

• The 5% thing is workable - that would throw out the entire bundle at that point and, perhaps, after multiple attempts like that deny the curator the opportunity to bundle that many? Not automatically, but as an option.
• We do need to curate lists carefully - I know there's a lot of articles people want to delete, but in >99% of cases there's no real rush - and what we agree here needs to last and apply to as wide a range of articles and situations as possible
• Indvidual items should still be removable - I think we need to work at the level of "there's nothing here that's even vaguely obvious and all these items are really similar". The odd one might then sneak through, but those can be removed on their own basis and without in depth argument - even a reasonable hint that they might have decent sources should mean we go to AfD individually or in a small bundle
• We really do need to think about the time element - if there are shed loads, it'll overwhelm and won't work
• Draft == deletion for me - unless they're in an individuals user space; I'd much rather promote a range AtD, working with wikiprojects, as part of the way forward - you know I prefer redirection for the sorts of articles I'm interested in; I know that works well for schools as well, for example. Don't mandate draft, but give it as an option

There is hope here, but we need to consider what will work most of the time. Blue Square Thing (talk) 07:59, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

• There's also the possibility of a new speedy criterion, or a new type of prod. I'd be more comfortable with deletions at scale with limited oversight if we could find a way of getting proper consideration from the appropriate wikiprojects in advance. Mass move to draft is certainly worth discussion. Espresso Addict (talk) 17:04, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I am just waiting for the RfC to start in which I would like to suggest the deletion of all one two-line stubs that haven't been edited in the last x years per WP:TNT in order to encourage the creation of new and expanded articles.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 22:22, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Ah, yes and sorry if I do not read all the comments of the talk page, there of course exists the possibility that this has been suggested before in the long discussion, but I didn't find such a suggestion by now.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 22:24, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't think it has, but I would suggest we open a section on the talk page to propose and workshop RfC questions before the RfC is opened. I think it would help avoid some of the issues with the creation RfC. BilledMammal (talk) 02:05, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

@BilledMammal, we workshopped the questions for the first RfC for a couple of weeks and tried to distill them. We still ended up with 20+ questions. I am of the opinion that the workshopping didn't contribute much to the process. We still ended up with revised questions being added, and several contributors referenced questions that weren't included.

Re: the start of the next RfC. Current thinking for Xeno and me is that we're going to need an RfC on defining mass creation, and with ArbCom elections starting in a month, we maybe should hold the RfC on mass deletions until after the end of year holidays. We know that's not ideal. Valereee (talk) 02:32, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

That's fair enough, although I think the option to workshop questions would still be useful.

We know that's not ideal. I don't believe there is any urgency here; after the end of year holidays sounds reasonable to me. BilledMammal (talk) 02:40, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

@BilledMammal, oh, definitely anyone should go ahead and workshop questions here! I'd suggest opening a new section for each proposed question to be workshopped. I'm just not going to try to do that work myself, as I spent just ridiculous amounts of time trying to distill questions which then were simply overwhelmed by those opposing for being too much plus those opposing for being too little.

And @Paradise Chronicle, yes, if you have a proposed solution, it's always a good idea to get the reactions of others before finalizing it. What BST is saying is extremely likely, IMO. Valereee (talk) 14:47, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, I received and understand your concern. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 20:43, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

I believe it would be helpful to have a discussion on the specific problems/pain points that editors want to alleviate, such as new page patrol workload, minimum stub content (such as minimum sourcing requirements), ways to encourage stubs to be developed further, and so forth. From this, we can better understand how to define mass article creation in a way that will help address the agreed-upon issues. isaacl (talk) 04:32, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

At which point the discussion is in danger of getting overwhelming. I don't have a solution to this, but if we take things in small steps and focus on what we can agree on, we've a much better chance of actually agreeing on something. I do agree that there's no rush fwiw - better to get things right(ish). Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:05, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

I feel the first small step should be agreeing on what specific issues are being addressed, as I think a lack of established consensus on this aspect is why it's been hard to agree on what are problematic modes of creation. Figuring out what to do with complex problems is challenging with English Wikipedia's decision-making traditions, as it requires focus and engagement from a sufficiently broad spectrum of editors over an extended period of time. (Most organizations would delegate to a subcommittee and then ratify the results.) Out of a desire to minimize time spent, many discussions end up being very solution-focused. This has its advantages, but does make it harder to discuss problems with many different factors and editors who weigh them differently, as the weighting doesn't get discussed directly. isaacl (talk) 15:27, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

@Paradise Chronicle: to me that's an example that hasn't got a chance of passing - it's far too blunt an instrument and the creation at scale RfC suggests to me very strongly that those simply aren't going to pass. Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:05, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

I also guess it is sort of difficult. But we are discussing "at scale" not article by article. Happy to have received your feedback, probably need to develop a bit more. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 10:02, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

@Espresso Addict: certainly I think wikiprojects *have* to be heavily involved and a full consideration of different AtD need to be considered (as above, I have draft and much prefer redirection in the area I work in...). One of the problems with the Sports RfC is that it didn't have the obvious support of many people actually working in the area of sports and the results came as something of a surprise to an awful lot of people. Sure, if a wiki project simply refuses to cooperate then break out big sticks, but in my experience many will and getting people onside will make any mass deletion process a lot easier Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:05, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

The thing I've found most chilling in some of the recent discussions is the idea that we (whoever "we" is, in this context) should attempt to circumvent the relevant wikiprojects because they are "involved". I can see that something's gone wrong with the area of sports bios, and in the past I know there have been problems with (off the top of my head) fictional characters, porn actors and beauty pageant contestents, but generally wikiprojects attract experts who possess offline sources and the willingness to work on unpromising-looking articles. Espresso Addict (talk) 13:40, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree that the views of editors interested in a topic shouldn't be arbitrarily discarded. I understand why some think they might have an overly inclusive view of what is important to include in Wikipedia, but they're also the ones best positioned to distinguish between insignificant and significant topics within their area of interest. Many industries have trade publications, for example, where a lot of publicity-inspired items are published. Subject-matter expertise is needed to identify actual notable coverage versus product announcement-type coverage. isaacl (talk) 15:41, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

It also is a major factor in why things get so adversarial -- what else can be expected when people are viewed, by default, as the adversary? There are undertones of it here -- a WikiProject might "refuse to cooperate" because they do not believe, based on their subject-matter knowledge, that mass deletion of articles in their coverage zone is warranted. Framing this as them being automatically wrong, and the resulting deletions as punishment ("break out big sticks"), is one of many immensely frustrating things here. Gnomingstuff (talk) 06:58, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

@Gnomingstuff: My apologies for that; it's not intended to be quite read that way, but I've got experience of working within a wiki project where historically a number of people have been unwilling to compromise on a "bright line criteria" whereby "all X are, absolutely have to be, automatically notable and we absolutely must have an article on all of them". Seriously. Getting any form of compromise took years of nudging and I'm fairly certain that there are still people who think it's a really, really bad idea to move away from their absolutionist perspective. That's the experience I'm coming from; I'd hope that all projects are able to see some form of sensible solution, in the same way that I'd hope that those who advocate to delete tens of thousands of articles could also see that some form of non-abolitionist solution is more workable. I'm more than happy to discuss specifics if it helps, here or elsewhere. Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:27, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

@Joe Roe, it doesn't have to be mandated for me to think it's worth trying to solve. For me, a request is enough. I think it's worth it to try to solve this or at minimum prove we can't. I'm not actually sure why anyone would not want to try to solve a major problem that many people are dealing with. This is a problem that is causing major dysfunction in one of our most basic processes. My feeling is that of course we should try to help our colleagues, but it's completely fine if you don't want to contribute to that effort. Valereee (talk) 01:39, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

If there's a problem, sure. – Joe (talk) 06:42, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Lots of people seem to think there's a problem. Valereee (talk) 11:00, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

YES we should still go ahead with this. Levivich (talk) 14:46, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Levicich - let's proceed. No reason to change the process half-way through. (though surely the other AFC should close first) Nfitz (talk) 02:52, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Also, have we even begun workshopping this? I've been watching the top of WP:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/Article creation at scale and WP:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/AfD at scale where it notes the timeline for the workshopping is still TBA. 02:56, 5 November 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nfitz (talk • contribs)

Nfitz, yes, we're workshopping now. Anyone with a suggested question should start a section to workshop. Valereee (talk) 13:41, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Someone should change the headers then User:Valereee - they still indicate it's not started yet. Nfitz (talk) 17:27, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

It was changed this morning, I think? LMK if you still aren't seeing it. Valereee (talk) 21:44, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Assessment of consensus for multi-part questions

The closers have requested for multipart questions on future RfCs in this series that we provide instructions for determining consensus.

My initial preference would be something like this:

IRV counting flowchart

1. Assign ordinal rankings of n-1 (most preferred) to n-n (least preferred of n rankings), with unrated responses also assigned a 0.
2. Eliminate the less-favored responses iteratively using something like the flowchart to the other left.

Does anyone have a better solution? Pinging Vanamonde93, with whom I've had similar discussions. Valereee (talk) 12:02, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Your "flowchart to the left" is on the right. Just saying. Scolaire (talk) 12:57, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

hahahaha Valereee (talk) 13:07, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

• My preference is for IRV. It was used successfully here. --Scolaire (talk) 13:04, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

  Fancy! I like it. I'd have to have someone set that up for me lol... Valereee (talk) 13:10, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

  @Valereee: There's a calculator tool at https://petertheone.github.io/IRV/. --Scolaire (talk) 14:55, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

  Wow, that is so cool! That seems like the way to go. Valereee (talk) 15:17, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

• My preference would be to not ask multi-part questions. I don't think they're effective at generating consensus. Blue Square Thing (talk) 14:18, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
• I have a strong preference for the instant runoff algorithm; it does not depend on arbitrary numerical values. It's also been used successfully in real-world scenarios, including by the WMF. I agree multi-part questions are confusing, but sometimes they're unavoidable, especially when the question we're looking at doesn't have a clean binary outcome. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:05, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
• Instant runoff makes sense now that I've seen an explanation. There was a lot of confusion/objection to the requirement that editors list all options in order of preference; it will probably go more smoothly if the reasoning and counting method is explained up front. –dlthewave ☎ 16:46, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
• Instant runoff is good for votes where one of the options must be selected. Voters are able to specify their relative preferences for options they do support, and for options they don't. For cases where it should be possible to reject all options, I suggest combining it with approval voting: in addition to ranking the options, voters specify all the choices they support, and the choices that have consensus support are identified based on this. The ranking of preferences is then used to select the chosen option out of those with consensus support. (Personally I prefer something like ranked pairs be used, but instant runoff will probably work well enough.) isaacl (talk) 17:26, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
• IRV def the way to go. Levivich (talk) 22:18, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Database discussion

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/Article creation at scale/Archive 4#Database discussion

RfC format

Reading for the first time WP:ACAS (I'd not realised it had ever got from the planning stage to the discussion stage - which seems to have not lasted very long compared to the lead up to it!), I think we may be putting the cart before the horse here.

Shouldn't we be ironing out the scope, definitions, and format before getting into questions? Or perhaps having questions in different phases. At ACAS they seem to have failed to clearly define "at scale" or "mass creation" before spending a lot of energy on how to address. As far as I can see, the scope of the creations discussion comes simply down to the creation of articles by Bots. So what are we discussing here - the deletion of articles created by bots? The deletion of articles using bots?

Does the scope include specific issues and behaviours at AFD. Or even the failure of AFD itself, which is grossly underattended, and the results often depend which way the wind is blowing. Are we looking for, or at root causes? Why is AFD failing? Why is it underattended? How do we fix that? Do we need more clearlines, and firmer enforcement to end a lot of AFD debates? Do we need less? How do we evaluate all this through the lens of our 5 pillars - and some AFDs have failed ALL five pillars.

Sorry if this is stepping backwards - my understanding is that the workshopping only began today - and surely this is the first step. Nfitz (talk) 23:38, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

• Nfitz is right to point out that we need the scope, definitions and format. We've failed to reach consensus on what "article creation at scale" is, so I expect it to be hard to reach consensus on what "article deletion at scale" is. The one should be counterpart to the other. But the context and history give us clear parameters.
  Lugnuts created 93,000 and odd articles, and the community can't review them. As I see it, the two main considerations are:
  1) The community expects a full WP:BEFORE on each article. Well, even if you define a full WP:BEFORE as an online-only search, it still takes about ten minutes to do thoroughly. So if we allocate an editor to work full time, by which I mean 40 hours a week for 50 weeks of the year, it's going to take them just under eight years even to do the WP:BEFORE.
  2) AfDs soak up a bloody lot longer than 10 minutes of editor time. If someone does start nominating an article for deletion every ten minutes like this, the editors active in the relevant Wikiprojects will cry uncle, and who can blame them? Our system is buckling under the impact.
  As I see it, we need to generate a set of simplified rules and procedures that let us work through these backlogs in a reasonable and proportionate amount of editor time. We need rules of thumb that enable us to evaluate each article as quickly as Lugnuts could make them. This definitely means the rules of thumb will be quick and dirty. There will be collateral damage. But the alternative is to allow undersourced unreviewed articles in the mainspace, and it's policy that we can't do that with BLPs (as so many of Lugnuts' creations were).
  This principle of proportionality is the key. When articles have been mass-created in this way we should be able to review and where appropriate, remove, them with equal or less input of time and effort than it took Lugnuts to create them. If we don't come up with a workable way of doing this, we're unable to comply with the policies we enacted in 2004-5 whose purpose was to manage real harm being done to living people.—S Marshall T/C 00:18, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

I would suggest that one way to deal with the number of articles is to remove the need for a "full" before search and to limit it to checking the main references already in the article. There are plenty of cases where this would throw up an article where there are clearly sources available and which should be kept and expanded at some point - for example Lalit Yadav (Delhi cricketer) (hit the link in the infobox, scroll down - obviously in depth coverage exists). From working through a few hundred, this seems to take <30 seconds with this sort of article. Blue Square Thing (talk) 07:49, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, that's an immensely helpful suggestion. I agree that when dealing with mass deletions we should streamline WP:BEFORE in this way.—S Marshall T/C 09:00, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm concerned about waiving BEFORE without prior discussion. There are several retired/permanently blocked editors that (mass) created articles under a SNG long before WP:NSPORTS2022 which are only sourced to a database entry. When I skim their contributions, I can see that many of these articles are likely about non-notable sportspersons, but certainly not all of them. If BEFORE is waived, every single article they created can be nominated for deletion at once - which will completely overwhelm our AfD processes. We ought to find a process which gives interested editors time to evaluate those creations before hundreds (or thousands) of articles are pushed in AfD en masse (and isn't this the very concern that prompted this portion of the RfC?). Jogurney (talk) 23:12, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

@Jogurney: See #Proposal 3. It is intended to give interested editors time to review and improve these creations without overloading any process. BilledMammal (talk) 23:18, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for the ping. I agree that something along the lines of Proposal 3 is a far superior approach to dealing with these types of creations than waiving BEFORE and using AfD. Jogurney (talk) 23:27, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

What I would like (jc37)

There are lots of reasons why I would like to see the following, "open process", "better access", "removing walled-gardens", etc etc etc. but really, I think most everyone here should be at least somewhat well-versed enough in Wikipedia culture, policy and process that I would like to hope that I don't need to type out a bunch of shortcuts : )

What I would like is to de-centalize AfD.

So AfD discussions are no longer sub-pages of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion.

Instead, deletion discussions would occur on the talk page of the article under discussion.

Along with this, deleting the talk page of a deleted page would no longer be speedy criteria, but instead the talk page would remain - no more of this "I didn't know it was deleted when I re-created the page" excuses. Because the talk page will stil be there to view when thinking about (re-)creating an article. And would also be there to see the failures of the previous article so to maybe avoid the misteps of the past. thereby helping make Wikipedia better.

The goal of AfD should be the goal of Wikipedia: Building an encyclopedia.

Another benefit would be that - if in the discussion, issues with the article are discussed, going to work on the article is just a click away. And collaboration can happen right there on the talk page. (Noting that there are people who seem to think that they are "not allowed in Wikipedia space".)

This will not break anything. Bot-related templates would merely need to be tweaked. After all, if RfC bots can see talk pages, there's no reason AfD bots could not as well. Just tweak and place the typical AfD template on a talk page instead of the AfD sub-page.

This is a very very simple change. But I believe it would change the perception of an AfD discussion. It should, by its very nature of location, bring the people who have the page on their watchlists, to the discussion, to hopefully improve the article in question. And if not, well, we'll know that too.

So this one - largely cosmetic - change, would, in my opinion, help resolve a lot of the issues that several on this page would seem to want resolved.

Anyway, I've typed enough. What do you all think? - jc37 20:30, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

It's an interesting idea, but one that I think is outside the scope of this RfC as it is about AfD as a whole not just AfD at scale. Also, I believe that in the very early days the article talk page was the venue for deletion discussions, but the early history is all over the place and unclear. Thryduulf (talk) 20:54, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree talk pages are a better location for those discussions. Even under the present system, deleting them alongside the article per G8 sometimes comes with clear negatives. Sometimes an AfD is simply a brief formality that follows up on the substantial discussion that took place on the talk page beforehand. With PRODs, the talk page is the only place where any discussion took place. In both cases, the G8 deletion erases a substantial part of the record for why the page was deleted in the first place. Still, keeping the talk pages won't be without drawbacks (e.g. what do you do when an article about an unrelated topic with the same name gets created?). – Uanfala (talk) 00:09, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Rename with a disambiguation, like any other time we need to disambiguate. Though in this case, it would require an admin to move the deleted pages. Not much of a hurdle for that scenario, though. - jc37 11:28, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

I have a number of queries about the idea here:

• would there be any central listing and/or topic listing of deletion discussions?
• if not, how are people supposed to be able to find out about a discussion without having a watchlist of many thousands of potentially interesting articles?
• how would retaining a talk page help the issue of re-creating pages when editors choose slightly different names? For example, Jack Jones (footballer) or Jack Jones (association footballer)?
• the current system will pop up a warning message about an article previously existing won't it? But that gets ignored already? I'm not sure a talk page will help as such
• there's going to be a lot of talk pages accessible that have the potential for vandalism. There's no efficiency saving to deleting them, I appreciate that, but someone's going to have to monitor them, whereas if they're deleted, there's no need to do so - and we'd absolutely have to have a record of every deletion discussion available to review wouldn't we?

For me, this just seems to have too many issues right now unless there are answers that clear up the sorts of problems I'm highlighting here. I would also agree that it needs a much wider discussion - I'm not sure that this would be helpful at all for mass deletions - in fact, it would seem to slow the process down if anything. Blue Square Thing (talk) 09:00, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Central listing and all the other bot-related things that currently happen, still would happen.

For example, look at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment#Creating_an_RfC. You just place the template at the top of the RfC, and the bot does the rest.

Check out Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Maths, science, and technology for example - it's an overview page listing links to the various RfCs, and it's populated by bot.

Compare to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/Today - which transcludes today's AfDs.

And as for vandalism, every page has a "potential" for vandalism. That's true now, regardless of where a discusion is located.

So again, it's merely a matter of having the AfD's happen on an article talk page. The same way that RfCs can, that merge discussions can, that move discussions can, etc. - jc37 11:28, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Indeed multiple articles discussed at once would cause potential issues about where to have the deletion discussion, even two or three (which I don't think anyone is arguing is mass deletion). Thryduulf (talk) 11:17, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

No different than a group nom of multiple merges or multiple moves, which also happen on a talk page. You pick one talk page, and point the rest there. - jc37 11:28, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

• We can do both. Through the magic of transclusion, AfDs can happen on subpages of article talk pages but still be listed and archived in a central place. If you want to know what that could look like, we already do something very similar at WP:GA. Of course, this also means Wikiprojects get kept informed of AfDs within their purview so they can consider each nomination carefully in the light of policies and guidelines.—S Marshall T/C 15:10, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

  No need to be on a separate subpage to achieve those things - RfCs are on talk pages and do this all the time : )

  But otherwise, yes, there are lots of ways in which automated notifications could also be added if that is wanted. But for now, I'm merely suggesting this one change. We can of course look at other cool improvements once this has consensus. - jc37 11:28, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Straw poll on which proposals to include in the RFC

We've now got 16 proposals on the board. Shall we take a completely non-binding straw poll on which to carry forward to the main RFC to at least get the number of proposals down to something manageable (5-8)? If no-one votes for a proposal then consider not bringing it forward to the RFC? No voting for your own proposals? Free to reintroduce proposals during the RFC if it looks like nothing is going to pass or even if you just feel like it?

• My votes are: Proposals nos. 1, 2, 12, 13, 15, and 8. FOARP (talk) 12:44, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Free to reintroduce proposals during the RFC if it looks like nothing is going to pass or even if you just feel like it? - Won't that make it possible that the straw poll will become as bloated with proposals as this discussion? - Donald Albury 14:50, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Just a procedural note, but because this came out of an ArbCom case Xeno and Valereee have discretion in this rea. I'm all for giving them feedback on what should be included. Ultimately they decide what goes forward and whether other items can be added during the RfC. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:06, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

As few as possible. Preferably no more than three (I mean, preferably one, but...). Probably ones that have a chance of passing. Blue Square Thing (talk) 16:40, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

• My votes are: None of the above. The more we try to create strict rules, the harder it will be to enforce. Discussions aren't perfect, but Wikipedia is a work in progress.--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:53, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

I would also like to see discussion on a proposal that allows us to address mass creations in large groups; I believe the only proposal that currently does that is #3. BilledMammal (talk) 21:54, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

There are also questions 7 and 7A from the last RfC, which do not seem to have been acknowledged yet. Question 10 is equivalent to proposal 5. Avilich (talk) 22:53, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

I've just gone through all the proposals quickly and categorised them based on my subjective opinion about how likely they are to pass if they went to an RfC today (ignoring all considerations about the number of proposals and interaction between proposals):

• Would not stand a chance of passing: 1
• Would not pass, but the idea could be the basis of a proposal that might: 14
• Unlikely to pass, but there is a chance it might: 4, 5, 12
• Unlikely to pass as is, but might after a lot more workshopping: 13, 15
• Could go either way: 6, 11, 16 (this has had basically no discussion)
• Reasonable chance of passing, but a bit more workshopping would make it more likely: 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10
• Likely to pass: 4.1 (but as written this is dependent on proposal 4).

So in summary, I don't think we're ready to go to an RFC yet. Thryduulf (talk) 14:11, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Housekeeping

@Xeno and I are thinking this RfC is unlikely to run before the new year, and may need to have yet another pre-RfC (on defining mass creation, which has been discussed at idea lab).

Regarding the length of this discussion, if anyone feels there are sections which can be archived, please feel free to close them to indicate to MJL that a section can be archived. I'm reluctant to insert myself into that, as there may be people involved in these discussions who would like to keep a particular section open. If someone closes a discussion you feel should be remain open, feel free to revert. Such a reversion should be considered an indication of non-consensus to close/archive that section. Valereee (talk) 14:42, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Deletionists paradise? Or am I dreaming?

Is this all about Lugnuts' pages or something else? If Lugnuts, he's poisoned the well pretty good. But, since I've just become aware of this entire process, through the NFL Wikiproject of all things wanting to get rid of perfectly good articles (and is this what that thing about destroying hundreds of Moon and Martian crater articles is all about?), and just scrolled through this page, and that's all I can say. Are we really talking about how to easily delete thousands or tens of thousands of pages or am I, hopefully, understanding my quick scroll entirely wrong? Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:08, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

You have not misunderstood - that's exactly what they're discussing here. I'm sure someone will be along presently to point out to you exactly why this is a Very Good Thing that no right-thinking person could possibly object to. Ingratis (talk) 07:27, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

There are some editors here who want to be able to mass-delete thousands of articles without even doing a basic BEFORE, there are some editors here who are trying to ensure that any process for mass deletions includes a large number of safeguards to ensure that as few mistakes get made as is possible. Thryduulf (talk) 11:13, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Jesus Flubbin Christ (1858-1918). I had objected to the proposed deletion of the lunar and Martian craters and the like, but didn't know that was based on this kind of thing. Also seeing that thousands of pages about baseball players and people from other sports are either leaving us one by one, hundred by hundred, or being proposed to be deleted, and not understanding why. The crater pages, for example, are usually well done even at the stub level, with basic information and usually a good image or two, and to my untrained eye there is nothing broken about them. They and others are cited by the proper authorities in their field (baseball, for example, a player will usually have a reference to a baseball almanac or official listing of some kind). Not to be too long winded, but why doesn't someone in some kind of authority just say enough is enough and end this, one of those super admins who would dare to ignore all rules and tell everyone no. Lugnuts pages, that's another topic, which I supposed is discussed here as well, but mixing Lugnuts starters with anything else seems an end-around putting undue pressure on other regular long-existing articles. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:56, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

One of the most significant problems with this sort of discussion is that people don't hear about it or they get too long and unwieldy so that it becomes difficult to read through everything. The Mass Creation RfC ended up with, what, 17 (16??) proposals, a number of which weren't straightforward to interpret. At that point, it's just too much. Unfortunately the workshopping process didn't seem to work in that case. I fear it might not hear either. Blue Square Thing (talk) 12:17, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

• Randy Kryn - It would be great if Lugnuts was the only example. Unfortunately he is not. Instead we have Carlossuarez46, Dr. Blofeld, and a number of others, their mass-creations simply remain around because they simply cannot be cleaned up under out present processes. The WP:NASTRO fails you mention are just another example - the decision on them was taken in 2012 yet they are still being cleaned up.

It was decided, long ago and according to very-well trafficked consensuses, that Wikipedia was not a database. This is the basis of all of this - Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not a hobby-site. FOARP (talk) 12:12, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

What hobby? An article on a lunar crater is about a thing, an off-world geographical site. An article about a ballplayer who played one professional game when they were 22 still covers its encyclopedic niche. All of those type of pages should be universally protected from deletion. The Lugnuts and other creations are a different topic, but this page seems to have mixed up the concerns and solutions with regular long-term pages which don't have specific editor-centric problems. Thanks for the reply, please understand that it's kind of a shock to the Wikipedian system to come across this discussion. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:31, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't get it either. Lunar craters are among the things I expect to find when I look in a general-purpose encyclopedia. For example, when I open volume 12 of my trusty print Britannica, I find an article on Tycho (pp. 82–83). Wikipedia having more articles about craters than Britannica isn't being "indiscriminate", it's being comprehensive. People say that we're not a "database", but the policy only mentions databases of song lyrics, and mostly argues for excluding them on copyright grounds. It looks like a couple bad experiences with articles sourced to untrustworthy databases has tarnished the reputation of any source to which that label can be applied. (I suppose any website with MySQL on the backend is disqualified now, too...) XOR'easter (talk) 15:08, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Apparently we don't bother with "comprehensive" any longer - deletionist-Nuspeak has replaced it with ""completionist fantasy". Ingratis (talk) 18:52, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

I see you've been hoarding this diff for a year now, to use in a discussion like is, but the fuller 'nuspeak' contained within is actually a well-articulated, policy-based vote to delete in an ordinary AfD. Avilich (talk) 21:33, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Avilich - You'd think that they would have chosen an AFD that actually closed as Keep for this, rather than one that closed as no-consensus, and which is retrospect should have been DELREV'd. It remains the fact that having a list of baronetcies awarded to people who merely happened to have the same surname, without any sourcing that discusses them as a discrete list (instead only lists in alphabetical order alongside other names), is just silly, and a relic of when people tried to use this site for hobby-content. FOARP (talk) 12:11, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Agreed, and I should point out that steering clear of "completionist fantasies" has always been a serious concern of encyclopedia editors. Avilich (talk) 00:10, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Apparently to be "comprehensive" the same content cannot exist within articles on related topics, it must be discretized into separate standalones. Facepalm JoelleJay (talk) 17:24, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Merging is possible, but that would require something other than an AfD and also require doing some work (e.g. to identify a merge target) and the arguments on this page make it repeatedly and vociferously clear that requiring those who think a standalone article doesn't belong on Wikipedia to do any sort of work in advance of/instead of a nomination is completely unacceptable. Thryduulf (talk) 21:22, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Thryduulf - Eh? Merging is a very standard outcome for AFD - probably the most common one after delete/keep/redirect. I have !voted for merges at AFD on numerous occasions. FOARP (talk) 10:40, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

FOARP, about 3.3% last year, per User:JPxG/Oracle/All. I'm sure it's much more common in some areas than in others. Dr. Duh 🩺 (talk) 11:38, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

The problem I'm finding with !merge voting at AfD is that it's too easy to kick the can down the road when you don't need to deal with the actual consequences of that vote (either in terms of implementation, or the broader ramifications in the structure of information across WP). I agree that the involvement of subject matter experts is especially important, if it looks like we're heading for a mass merge. Cielquiparle (talk) 11:45, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

The AfD linked in the comment I responded to was on a list that was already contained within another article and so wouldn't have needed merging. JoelleJay (talk) 18:03, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

• Sports biographies (created by Lugnuts and many others) are just one specific example of an area where tens of thousands of articles have been created according to a very inclusive SNG, but that SNG has since changed and the vast majority of the articles that were created no longer meet any notability guideline. These are also not "perfectly good articles", they are pseudo-articles – essentially database entries (which is unsurprising since they were simply copied from a database as the only source). _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 12:21, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

  An article about a crater on the Moon for example, if it doesn't have editor-specific problems, is an article about a geographical site, which by itself meets notability standards. What is a pseudo-article? Like the undead or something less/more scary? Randy Kryn (talk) 12:31, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

  A database entry converted into a sentence (or two) is not a genuine article; more so when they do not, or no longer, meet any notability guideline. The identity of the creator(s) of such quasi-articles is of no relevance when discussing the set, although problem sets are often created (or dominated by) by a single editor. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 13:20, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

  See also, WP:PSEUDO. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 09:40, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

  A brief description of a sentence or two, on a notable subject is indeed "a genuine article", there is nothing false about it. In size, it may be classified as a stub, but it is still a legitimate and (at least so far) an accepted article. Loopy30 (talk) 16:31, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

  You are missing the point. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 16:57, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

  Not if it doesn't meet GNG. Avilich (talk) 21:34, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

  There's no presumed notability for geographic features, so a crater on the moon would need to meet GNG. –dlthewave ☎ 13:39, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

  Wikipedia:Notability (geographic features)#Geographic regions, areas and places (i.e., GEOLand) states that,

  • "Populated, legally recognized places are typically presumed to be notable,...",
  • "Populated places without legal recognition are considered on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the GNG."
  • "Named natural features are often notable, provided information beyond statistics and coordinates is known to exist. This includes mountains, lakes, streams, islands, etc. The number of known sources should be considered to ensure there is enough verifiable content for an encyclopedic article."

  Donald Albury 18:41, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

  A moon crater is, by definition, not a "geographical site", and it is appropriately excluded by GEONAMES. Lunar features must meet GNG, otherwise we're just hosting a worse version of whichever NASA directory the information came from. JoelleJay (talk) 20:01, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

  See, my impression was that sports biographies are a problem because they are BLPs and craters on the Moon aren't. Nobody will sue or get hurt if a Moon crater article is inaccurate, but someone might on a biography. Thus 10,000 unmaintained Moon crater articles aren't necessarily a big problem, but 10,000 unmaintained biographies are. And consequently, you'll are more likely to see mass deletion nominations for the biographies than the Moon craters. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 13:42, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

  Not all of the sports biographies are BLPs fwiw. I've no idea what the proportion is, but if we're talking about an Olympian from the early 20 Century we're not looking at a BLP. Perhaps we need to distinguish between those articles which are and aren't when we're bundling anything. Blue Square Thing (talk) 12:07, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

  Not all of the sports biographies created by Lugnuts lack current notability though. That's the point - it's how we figure out what's worth keeping, what's worth deleting and what's worth doing something else to. That's the difficult bit. Blue Square Thing (talk) 12:07, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, this place has become a deletionists paradise (a.k.a. a wreck) since that wrongly-closed massive sports rfc earlier this year (at least in my area). It seems all one needs to do to get rid of an article is say "Delete - Fails GNG" whether it does or not. And to try to get an article kept, you have to spend lots of your time doing in-depth searches for SIGCOV (and adding them to the article, since apparently someone can't be notable unless sigcov is on their page) and if you find it, the deletionists can still win by saying "not sigcov" and the admin will side with them. Only if the coverage you find is accepted by the deletionists, which is very difficult to do, then the article may be kept (but only if you add the coverage to the article!) BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:44, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

  Can you give some examples for this type of behaviour? Lurking shadow (talk) 20:58, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

  @BeanieFan11 and Lurking shadow: Yes, but as they are open I suspect that outright linking to them here would be frowned upon. That being said there are traces of that behavior here, here, here, and here. --Rschen7754 01:53, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

  Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/M1 (Durban) was basically a textbook repetition of what BeanieFan11 described above. Thankfully it did not succeed this time, but it just might next time. --Rschen7754 02:21, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

• No, look, "deletionists" largely don't exist. If you come across someone who claims to be deletionist, engage your irony detectors. The only reason anyone would volunteer here is to write an encyclopaedia. Decent, comprehensive, well-sourced articles that belong in an encyclopaedia are never deleted at AfD.

Nobody wants to eliminate WP:BEFORE. We just want to make it possible to carry out large-scale cleanup of poorly-sourced biographies of living people. In order to facilitate this we want to make the WP:BEFORE search proportionate to the amount of effort the original creator put in. Lugnuts made 93,000 articles and we want to be able to put them through community review with a process that doesn't involve completely swamping AfD for the next decade. Is that unreasonable?

The way to foil these "deletionists" who you say exist is to suggest ways to work through poorly-sourced biographies of living people that don't meet current community standards and, in Lugnuts' case, probably never met community standards even when first created.—S Marshall T/C 21:11, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

• Oh, and in practice, lunar craters are probably best dealt with by group articles called something like Near-side lunar craters of the northern hemisphere, etc.—S Marshall T/C 21:17, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

  Nobody wants to eliminate WP:BEFORE, other than the people above (e.g. Aquillon) who have explicitly argued that there is no conceivable circumstances in which anyone nominating something for deletion should ever have to do any sort of searching (or indeed other checks) prior to nominating something for deletion. I don't know how that can be interpreted as anything other than getting rid of BEFORE. Thryduulf (talk) 21:40, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

  Aquillon's saying BEFORE should be advisory rather than compulsory. I don't agree with him about that. In fact, in 2009 I proposed that WP:BEFORE should be upgraded to a guideline -- a proposal which didn't succeed, but Ikip awarded me a barnstar for suggesting it. But Aquillon's not arguing that WP:BEFORE should be deprecated. I understand his suggestion to mean that there should be times when editors can use their discretion not to apply WP:BEFORE. I presume he's thinking about AfDs that involve borderline/arguable attack articles, obfuscated copyright violations, etc.—S Marshall T/C 22:39, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

  Also the impossibility of knowing whether WP:BEFORE has been done, and if so, done to the “correct” standard (whatever that is). FOARP (talk) 06:59, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, if you think that about 10% of articles would be better off merged, you're called a "deletionist". 🙄 Levivich (talk) 07:30, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Levivich - It remains funny to me that during my time on this here Wikipedia I've been accused both of being a member of the Article Rescue Squadron and of being a deletionist. I think my AFD stats speak for themselves. Ultimately a "deletionist" is just someone who wants to delete something you want kept. FOARP (talk) 10:41, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

These AfD stats show that you !vote "delete" almost three times as often as you do "keep". Not surprising then that people may consider you deletionist :) – Uanfala (talk) 13:53, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

The right baseline, for me, to determine if someone favors deletion or keep isn't comparing the total percentage of keep/delete. It's comparing how much things get deleted or kept at AfD. I believe by this measure FOARP comes out as neutral or slightly leaning towards keep. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:31, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Which is very roughly the average for AFDs, so if I am a deletionist, then so is the average community member. Oddly until I became involved in the clean-up of Carlossuarez46 and Lugnuts’ articles I was running roughly 50:50 keep:delete. I still occasionally go looking for articles that are keep-worthy at AFD - if I see one that’s already got a well-reasoned delete !vote or two I normally don’t bother piling on with an additional delete !vote, but if I see a saveable article then I’ll try to jump in with some sources if possible. FOARP (talk) 16:36, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

I feel the need to quote something from the decision that led to this RfC: Individual editors may have some inclination to vote delete more, or keep more, in Articles for Deletion discussions and these editors are sometimes labeled as "inclusionists" and "deletionists". Such labels can lead to editors taking sides and otherwise engaging in battleground behavior. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:33, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

• Article deletion discussions that close as "no consensus" are effectively keeps by default. Given that, I do not see how Wikipedia could reasonably called a "deletionists paradise" Wikipedia should strive for better content than 1-line stubs about craters or athletes. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:09, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

• The section head does not refer to Wikipedia as a "deletionists paradise" but about this discussion and the new-speak term "Deletion at scale". It grew into a "thing" with the sports articles decision, and then some talking of expanding that decision to craters, and soon much that was once notable as a group is notable no more. Unless the New York Times or another large publication writes an article about a 1910 baseball player they don't gain enough notability to last in an online endlessly large encyclopedia. They are then further lost to history than they were last year. How is that sharing the world's knowledge with everyone rather than trimming the world's knowledge to those things that we say are important? Each and every Moon, Venusian, and Martian crater fits the definition of a "geographical" site (I know, they aren't on Earth, but they are known locations and features) and have been acknowledged as important as a group on Wikipedia until now. In the new definition, starting with the now easily deleted sports figures, it has become much easier to label and lump individual pages together as 'deletion at scale'. That's what is meant by deletionists paradise. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:40, 10 December 2022 (UTC)