Stephen Bain wrote:
The waiting periods were indeed introduced for images to allow for human review. But none were introduced for articles, templates, portals etc. The reason was that those pages could be reviewed after they were deleted, whereas images couldn't. But since June, images can also be undeleted. There is no other factor that makes images special. Either waiting periods should be introduced for all types speedy deletion, or they should be removed for images.
While I would generally support any increases in waiting periods for deletion (I once seriously proposed extending the duration of AfD to 30 days), there's also a third option; leave waiting periods the way they are right now. It seems to work reasonably well.