I've simplified my earlier proposal of soft deletion and reduced its applicability to the AfD process. In a nutshell, under this policy, any non-admin would be permitted to pseudo-delete certain articles in a reversible fashion, leaving the history intact and viewable:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Soft_deletion
This would make AfD more scalable, and might reduce the tensions when articles get deleted for notability reasons (because all that is required is for the affected party to produce sufficient sources in order to restore the article).
If this is adopted, I would suggest to not not allow "speedy soft deletion", as I suspect that could lead to massive overuse and conflict.
On 5/3/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
I've simplified my earlier proposal of soft deletion and reduced its applicability to the AfD process. In a nutshell, under this policy, any non-admin would be permitted to pseudo-delete certain articles in a reversible fashion, leaving the history intact and viewable:
To expand on the idea, "soft deleted" articles could go to a "deleted" namespace which would be made uncrawlable by search engines. The only way to get to a soft deleted article would be to know its name, follow a link from an xfd discussion or specify the "deleted" namespace in an internal search. The "deleted" namespace would also be good for articles temporarily restored for DRV discussions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Soft_deletion#When_not_to_soft_delete
You forgot copyright violations.
C.W.
On 5/3/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
I've simplified my earlier proposal of soft deletion and reduced its applicability to the AfD process. In a nutshell, under this policy, any non-admin would be permitted to pseudo-delete certain articles in a reversible fashion, leaving the history intact and viewable:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Soft_deletion
This would make AfD more scalable, and might reduce the tensions when articles get deleted for notability reasons (because all that is required is for the affected party to produce sufficient sources in order to restore the article).
If this is adopted, I would suggest to not not allow "speedy soft deletion", as I suspect that could lead to massive overuse and conflict. -- Peace & Love, Erik
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When not to soft-delete: "Biographies of living people" is something I don't agree with. Unless the article is defamatory (which is an obvious problem case), these are the articles that would primarily benefit from soft-deletion. A lot of people forget to provide evidence a person is notable and quite often adding one or two sentences with a source can solve this. I would include "bio articles that are clearly notable based on a Google search, but don't show it in the article." as candidates for soft-deletion if they don't survive with a keep result. Unless a bio can be proven to be self-promotional or not notable at all, there's no advantage in not using this system.
By the way, I don't consider AFD binary, there's already more than 2 possible results (aka merging, redirect, etc). But the lack of those appearing on AFD, shows there's too many people thinking black and white. Instead of people blanket voting delete, I would love them to address why for example the merge another user suggested isn't appropriate.
Mgm
On 5/4/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
By the way, I don't consider AFD binary, there's already more than 2 possible results (aka merging, redirect, etc). But the lack of those appearing on AFD, shows there's too many people thinking black and white. Instead of people blanket voting delete, I would love them to address why for example the merge another user suggested isn't appropriate.
Or worse, I've seen people write AFD nominations which clearly say "this should be merged", and it gets deleted anyway due to the drive-by vote count.
-C.W.
Experience at speedy and AfD shows that not all users can be relied on to follow any criterion on deletion. Therefore, it is reasonable to require confirmation by an experienced user, as is the current practice. Anyone who doubts this, should examine the history of such pages as [[Brownstone, Brown Girl]] or [[A Walk in the Woods]] or [[740 Park Avenue]]. One befuddled but honest user just yesterday made a joint AfD nomination of all the professors who are holders of distinguished chairs at the University of Florida--and only the distinguished professors. (One can equally point to pockets of total spam unleashed as well.) The proper administration of a Purgatory requires a Saint. DGG
On 5/4/07, Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/4/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
By the way, I don't consider AFD binary, there's already more than 2 possible results (aka merging, redirect, etc). But the lack of those appearing on AFD, shows there's too many people thinking black and white. Instead of people blanket voting delete, I would love them to address why for example the merge another user suggested isn't appropriate.
Or worse, I've seen people write AFD nominations which clearly say "this should be merged", and it gets deleted anyway due to the drive-by vote count.
-C.W.
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G'day Charlotte,
On 5/4/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
By the way, I don't consider AFD binary, there's already more than 2 possible results (aka merging, redirect, etc). But the lack of those appearing on AFD, shows there's too many people thinking black and white. Instead of people blanket voting delete, I would love them to address why for example the merge another user suggested isn't appropriate.
Or worse, I've seen people write AFD nominations which clearly say "this should be merged", and it gets deleted anyway due to the drive-by vote count.
That strikes me as bad closing by the admin concerned.
Then again, after so long away I imagine my own approach to AfD when I was an admin has since become unfashionable.
Cheers,
On 5/4/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
When not to soft-delete: "Biographies of living people" is something I don't agree with. Unless the article is defamatory (which is an obvious problem case), these are the articles that would primarily benefit from soft-deletion. A lot of people forget to provide evidence a person is notable and quite often adding one or two sentences with a source can solve this. I would include "bio articles that are clearly notable based on a Google search, but don't show it in the article." as candidates for soft-deletion if they don't survive with a keep result. Unless a bio can be proven to be self-promotional or not notable at all, there's no advantage in not using this system.
This will dovetail nicely with the stable versions enhancement that we hear is just around the corner. The soft delete would of course be marked stable, and an experienced editor would need to review the progress before it goes "live" again.
I dont like the idea of a soft delete redirecting to the deletion discussion, as it is oft full of more libel than the article would have been. Lots of juicy words for spiders to latch onto and give in sound bite format on search results ("the cause of 'so and so' ... prompts thoughts of hidden agendas, impure motives and dirty dealings" instead of an flowery bio [http://tinyurl.com/yogv7d]). If all Afd's links were nofollow, then there wouldn't be a problem.
-- John