Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote
When did you last go to [[CAT:CSD]]? Even a 1% error rate will amount to tens of articles every day, and I don't think 1% is an unacceptably high error rate (or rather, shooting for less is probably unfeasible, given the rate of pay).
No one is arguing for an error-free system. The first question is, and clear from this thread, do we all agree on what is an "error"? You know, operation was successful, patient died.
We have deleted over 5,000 articles in the last 24 hours. That included an article on a "six foot tall single-celled organism, 'nuff said" and "your single source for all things mountain bike".
Fine. Neither sounds like a major Pakistani politician to me.
Are you sure you are not being perhaps a little nostalgic here? The simple fact is, very large numbers of worthless articles are created and deleted daily, and slowing down the removal of those will likely have an exponential impact.
Well, then, there is a "shoot on sight" policy de facto, and so there is a problem.
When the CAT:CSD backlog is below 500, there is a realistic chance of assessing each article in more detail. But it rarely is, at least not in peak hours.
I always look for the biographies first. A fair few of them are obvious autobiographies, the username is very often a dead giveaway. To userfy, remove the redirect, untag and leave a {{nn-userfy}} explanation takes just short of two minutes, including the time to verify the username and user's other contribs (generally none, of course). I don't mind doing that, but it would be better if the RC patrollers did it instead. I'm sure there are admins who don't bother, and that's a concern for me per [[WP:BITE]], but even so, the problem of vapid self-promotion is one that must be acknowledged.
Is vapid self-promotion more of a problem than biting the self-promoters? Or does it depend on whether they are promoting themselves, their websites or their companies? I honestly don't know.
This would be another issue. We have a guideline in WP:COI saying that the site doesn't want this, advises against the whole business. OK, of the three I mentioned, one is possibly under this heading. (The one deleted under A1, quite wrongly.)
Charles
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