[WikiEN-l] Why are images deleted in such a hurry?

[Matt Jacobs]

I recently saw the last image in an article I watch was tagged as
having no fair use rationale.  I decided to check it out, and saw this
on the image tag: "Administrators: check the image talk page for
comments before deleting the image."

I don't know a lot about the whole fair use policy, and I don't really
care to.  Image policy in general is absurdly convoluted at times
(mostly due to copyright laws, I imagine).  I simply put a message on
the talk page, mentioning why I thought fair use might apply, so that
the administrator could take a look
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_talk:ChagallGuevara.jpg).  If I
was right, I figured it would be worth going back to try and find the
right template and sort it out, but I didn't want to waste the time if
the image was just going to be deleted anyway.

Instead, the admin who deleted it never bothered checking the talk
page at all.  It was one of hundreds of images deleted in minutes
using Twinkle.  There's no possible way he even checked if the talk
page existed at that deletion rate.  Functionally, it might as well
have been a bot doing the deleting.

Now, I really don't particularly care about images, for the most part.
 What does bother me is that one thing was said, but something
completely different was done.  This is a very unfriendly way to do
things.  If we're going to automate the entire process of tagging and
deleting images, it needs to be clear, along with a way for people to
ask for review by other editors, much like PRODding an article.