On 11/15/06, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
When I just read about admins getting scolded for deleting an image that was long past its "due date", I thought about the nature of the templates and the message they convey.
Currently, they say something like "this image needs more source info" etc., and give the date the template was added. If nothing changes, the image *may* be deleted after, what, a month? This would be the equivalent of "best before" - in reality, it might last a lot longer than that.
What if the attitude of the templates were changed? "This image lacks this and that. It will be deleted on XXXX-YY-ZZ unless this information is provided." My tool [2] can be used to find images that have reached their final use-by date, and could be deleted with good reason.
Theoretically, one could write a bot which could do the deletions, so no admins get scolded. The idea of a deletion-bot with admin rights (a virtual equivalent of [2];-) might sound scary, but setting it for "no edits for a month since addition of the template", combined with the image resurrection capability, should calm this.
Magnus
[1] http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/bad_old_ones.php [2] http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/samsung_develops_machine_gun_sentry_robo... _______________________________________________ Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
Actually, the template said "the image WILL be deleted" ... http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:PD-Soviet&oldid=...