Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy/Deletions, where to build pages and evolution of conventions

From the Village pump - to be refactored

Deletions, where to build pages and evolution of conventions.

It has been to some extent, a practice of some builders of the Wikipedia that articles should appear magically, out of thin air, as works which are somewhat complete. See stubs for the comment that "A stub on Wikipedia is a very short article, generally of one paragraph or less. Most Wikipedians hate stubs, which is undeserved". This practice is harmful in part for the following reasons:

• It discourages keeping the history of the development of the page with the page. If you use twenty sources to produce a page but the whole page appears at once, how can anyone hope to trace your conversion of those sources from copyright violations to a non-infringing page? If you do it with the page, either the main page or the talk page, it is easy to see and or later find your work and that makes life much easier if something proves to require substantiating ten years from now. This is a legal risk. There will be accusations that content of the Wikipedia is not original. Eliminating that risk is far easier if the page creation history is kept with the page.
• The material in some cases can't go in the main article. In the case prompting this post it was a possible copyright violation if placed in the main article (intended for publication) but not in talk (working document, not intended for publication). It was necessary to document it as source material.
• It discourages people working together to create pages. Where can ten people go to create a page cooperatively? They can do it in user pages but doesn't doing it in sections of the talk page (or a notes page, which doesn't currently exist) where everyone working on the page can easily see what is happening and contribute to the works in progress of the others better than spreading it around lots of talk pages?
• For examples, see the pages and talk pages for OCILLA and DMCA to observe how several people have been cooperatively developign pages and keeping their working documents in places where others can readily find them. For legal discussions of the copyright issues, see User_talk:Alex756, User_talk:JamesDay.

Prompted by the delete mentioned in User_talk:JamesDay, which seems to have deleted something which was of use - though for reasons the people doing the deleting probably weren't aware of. Hence this post. Please consider changing a page to a valid stub or listing it for deletion if you don't trust that someone who says they have created a page for a purpose will complete the stated purpose and produce a viable page within seven days. Otherwise you're getting in the way of building articles, not helping by cleaning up permanently blank things.

I don't much like building in talk but it's the best cooperative building place short of the main article... unless someone has a better idea for a location than the user pages of multiple contributors, which will also keep the page evolution with the page which is being built? JamesDay 03:05, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

In case anyone's wondering, the page in question is Presidential trivia, and until I deleted it, it contained only "This is a stub. The activity is currently in talk." I moved the talk page to User:JamesDay/Presidential trivia. -- Tim Starling 03:19, Sep 17, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the note Tim. You handled the delete itself well... but I'm not sure that you knew that there were legal and cultural reasons for choosing to do it the way I did. Hence the discussion here to make others aware of them.JamesDay 03:56, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

FWIW, "This is a stub. The activity is currently in talk." is not what I at least would consider to be a stub at all. A stub actually contains some useful information, just not very much: "Joe Bob is a Frisian artist." or "Fizubia is an island nation in the Pacific ocean." are minimal stubs. Even if it's not much, please put something in the article -- and be bold in updating pages! --Brion 06:04, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

This is certainly my view also. Please put at least some minimal content in the subject page. Additionally, whilst I'm not familiar with the specific case here, in general I think it's OK to have articles take shape (provided they are left in some kind of semi-fit state) on the subject page itself, rather than building the page elsewhere and then dumping it as a completed work on the subject page. --Robert Merkel 06:48, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I support allowing people to create their stubs from scratch. I'd suggest a simple modificiation of deletion policy to add "don't delete pages (or list them on VfD) that are younger than an hour, except for vandalism". Martin 08:34, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

It wasn't younger than an hour, it was 8 hours old when I deleted it. It was created at 23:27, 15 Sept, and deleted at 07:43, 16 Sept. -- Tim Starling 08:45, Sep 17, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for info. So, in my proposed deletion policy modification, your deletion would be fine. But I have seen articles listed for deletion, or deleted, in less than an hour, and it's rarely had a positive outcome.

Btw, James, if you create an article in your user space, you can then move it to the article space, which will keep the page history, solving your copyright issue. Martin 08:57, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thanks - can you point me to what I'm still missing: how to do it? For my case, I'd have done it that way, most likely, because there wasn't an attemt to work cooperatively on that article. Can that move the article and talk related to it, so that there's no record suggesting that the possible copyright infringemets were ever on a page intended for publication? If so, that's good for one person and leaves mainly the issues of cooperative work, convenience of places to work and scaling to multiple people ignorant of others working on the same thing questions.JamesDay 22:13, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Sure: wikipedia:move. Martin 23:02, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thanks. Once this is over I'll build the specific example and move it to replace the deleted copy. Meanwhile I've voted the deleted page for deletion over at VfD to close that issue. On with the general point discussion...JamesDay 09:03, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)

This is kind of a bunch of nonsense. There is a clear line between what is a stub, what is vandalism, etc. Clearly no stub should just contain a line that says this is a stub. It can have nothing in the body except langalinks for all I care. <rant> But to suggest--as Chadloder did on my talk, that seeding an article with a sentence or a paragraph is somehow a crime to be punished is a complete load of crap. The problem again is related to the m:academic standards kick -- a variant, actually -- the m:anal perfectionism trip, which is essentially a call for increased quality of articles from people who themselves cant write such articles. We do what we can-- a stub if its interesting can become an article quickly-- others will remain stubs for a hundred and twenty seven years, simply because noone has been interested enough to finish it. Remember children -- the problem with stubs isnt that they exist-- its that the gripey people who happen to look at them dont know what to add to them, or are too lazy to research it.戴&#30505sv 08:50, Sep 17, 2003 (UTC) </rant>

Troll. -- Tim Starling 09:09, Sep 17, 2003 (UTC)

I agree with Martin's proposed policy change. I started trying to do this a while ago. Only problem is that now I have over 100 bookmarks of articles I was going to come back to a few hours later and never did. Good policy nonetheless. Angela 16:45, Sep 17, 2003 (UTC)

No it isn't a good policy, for precisely that reason - most deleted pages are deleted shortly after their creation; it's impractical for me to have to bookmark it and come back to it later. Let me deal with it now, rather than wasting my time. For sincere attempts to do something useful, send the author a note explaining things, if you like. (some examples at User:Evercat/text) --Evercat 17:24, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

And also, I'll add that this new policy would probably mean that the time of maybe 5 or so people was wasted, since they're all going to check back in an hour, the first to do so will delete it, and the others will be irritated. This policy is ill-conceived and wrong. :-) Evercat 18:02, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Are Wikipedia:Blankpages and Wikipedia:Short articles broken? Don't they cover this area well already? I understand that the tools exist and some are more convenient, but aren't you elevating the convenience of one checking tool over the purpose of building something? The tools seem to exist to check periodically, so why the urgency with the deletions?JamesDay 22:13, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Please don't delete when you can make a useful stub instead. Be bold in updating pages does not mean "be bold in deleting pages"! :) --Brion 18:49, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I agree it's inpractical to keep sub-stub articles longer then now - once they slip out of Recent Changes or New Pages they will be lost, and then only found again by accident. How about a new candidate: Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America contains just Started in 1997 . . .. The comment given when starting the article was will begin later. Why not start an article when it has enough meat for at least a stub? andy 21:29, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I really don't see how deletion of the trivia non-article can possibly be controversial, and have re-deleted it. Was I wrong to do so? Evercat 00:47, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)

No. You did right, and please keep on doing it. We depend on people like you to help keep this encyclopedia, if not on the rails, at least somewhere within sight of the track, Evercat. I agree entirely with your comments above. Tannin 01:51, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thanks. :-) Evercat 02:04, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Regarding forgetting to come back to articles: the way I found this 8 hour old article was by looking through Special:Newpages. 50 entries on Special:Newpages takes you back about 2-4 hours. I often look back over the last 200 or so new articles. Personally I find weeding is much more productive in that area -- there's still plenty of wikification, stub warnings, VFD listings, etc. to do, but you don't have to put up with the constant edit conflicts you get when you edit in the top ~30 entries of RC. -- Tim Starling 01:53, Sep 18, 2003 (UTC)

Hmm, that's a good point. I'd forgotten about that page. :-) Evercat 02:04, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Is it fair to write that the primary reason for wanting to delete in hours rather than weeks is the technical issue of how to find the pages if the creator doesn't have good intent? Any other reasons or is this just that technical one causing people to assume ill intent because of the overhead of waiting to find out if it was? Given the technical issues, I don't see a lot of point in one hour rather than ten minutes - one hour won't gain much for a deliberate work in progress.

Any comments on changing the delete guidance to include this as a possible course of action:

'If an article is short or empty, consider forming an opinion on whether the creator is intending to expand the work within a few days or a week. If yes, consider making the insufficient article a stub and possibly listing in VfD. If there is an explicit statement that the creator has deliberately created it as a work in progress, that strongly suggests interrupted or cooperative work, so good intent and a stub without VfD is preferred.'

What changes, if any, to Wikipedia:Blankpages and Wikipedia:Short articles would be needed to make this a non-issue and assume goodwill in all cases? JamesDay 09:03, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia/Wiktionary & the Anti-deletionism movement

Okay, I'm still confused: What exactly is the relationship between, and the policy regarding linking between the Wikipedia and the Wiktionary. I saw several red links edited into Wiktionary links, at which point...I became confused. My basic question is which is preferable, if there is a definition on Wiktionary, but no article on Wikipedia, should we leave a red link or link to Wiktionary (and perhaps add to the requested list)? Thanks in advance for any help/clarification/sympathetic nods, Paige 21:17, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Sounds like the deletionists have gained the temporary upper hand. Not to worry: plans for an inclusionist intifada are already underway...

(personally I dislike wiktionary links - do you see Britannica referring people to page 34 of the OED?) Martin 00:20, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I've just realised that the above could be completely misinterpreted. I don't like sand linking to wiktionary:sandstorm, because I think terms of jargon, etc, should be explained in the article itself. However, I do like sand linking to wiktionary:sand, and vica versa. Martin 14:11, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

To Martin:I join you any effort to thwart the deletionist agenda. It would appear that Brion is also inline with this philosophy: "Please don't delete when you can make a useful stub instead." -戴&#30505sv 00:43, Sep 20, 2003 (UTC) (ps. what does this have to do with Wiktionary links?)

Perhaps the relationship to Wiktionary links is that one way to get a page deleted with less controversy that the VfD route is to send it to Things to be moved to Wiktionary. --Angela, who's trying to be less of a deletionist.

Yes, and then people on Wiktionary list it as something to be moved to Wikipedia... and so on. Down with deletion! -- Jake 00:55, 2003 Sep 20 (UTC)

Thank you Angela and Jake-- Are there enough of us to put an end to the m:deletionism nonsense?

I only said I'm less of a deletionist, not an anti-deletionist. The deletionists still have my support at the moment, but I'm slowly coming round to the [[m:inclusionism idea. Angela

I think that there should be a good deal of overlap in personnel and material of both Wiktionary and Wikipedia, so I don't think that it is a serious concern that there will be an article that nobody will want. Presumably the people who want an article on Wiktionary would then follow it, and then provide support there even if no "native Wiktionarians" wanted it.

The main problem is that the style of writing for a dictionary entry and an encyclopedia are drastically different, which is why they are different projects in the first place. So even if an article is not quite on topic for an encyclopedia, it might not make a good dictionary entry either. In that case, I would suggest keeping the encyclopedia article, and putting a refactored version on Wiktionary, and linking to one or the other depending on your reasons for referring them to the article/entry.

For instance, if you are using it as more of an footnote/endnote, to be read only if the reader doesn't know what you're talking about, then link to the Wiktionary article. However, if you think the article should be a destination in itself, then link to the Wikipedia article. --Nelson 01:16, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I think it's a bad thing that there is no tighter integration between languages and projects. The software should show what projects have pages with the same title. Think about seeing encyclopedia | dictionary at the top of the page instead of all the language links we see currently. This would make it clear for the user that

1. yes, we have an article in Wiktionary but
2. no, we don't have one in Wikipedia (yet)

or vice versa. For example: the article on concrete is a combination of an encyclopedic article on the building material and a dictionary entry for the opposite of abstract. Aggregating the latter information into Wiktionary and pointing out to the user it is available provides more flexibility for the future. Ap 01:12, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hear hear! I agree with Ap, I think that having links between Wikiprojects at the top of every page would be really cool. As I said, I think articles on the same topic for different purposes would be really useful, and this allows to preserve slightly off-topic material rather than simply deleting it. Integration in this case would be a really great thing. --Nelson 01:22, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Note that Wikipedia/Wiktionary integration also provides a place to put the interlanguage links we have today. These links currently make up a rudimentary multilingual dictionary. When these links are moved to Wiktionary, they can be properly annotated. -- Ap

I'm not quite sure what you're advocating, but the interlanguage links fulfill an entirely different purpose from a multilingual dictionary. They're there to encourage participation in the project(s), to make it easier to "cross-pollinate" the set of articles in each language by making it easier for polyglot contributors to move between them, and to ignite interest in visitors who might not have expected to find material in their own language. They will certainly not be removed from the Wikipedia interface.

WikiWikiWeb:SisterSites-style linking between projects within the same language would be useful too, of course, but a huge portion of Wikipedia articles will never appear in a dictionary. --Brion 05:12, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

The interlinguage links with annotations would be pointing between dictionary entries, creating a multilingual dictionary. The dictionary entries would also contain a link for each distinct meaning to the most appropriate page in the Wikipedia for more in depth information. I believe all articles can have a dictionary entry if only to show the different ways of writing it in a different language. I actually believe there would be many more dictionary articles without a direct Wikipedia equivalent but these should point instead to a more general article on that topic. This way, Wiktionary also becomes a quick guide into Wikipedia. -- Ap 12:02, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

List of countries by area? John Conway? Ness County, Kansas? Sperry Corporation? --Brion 18:24, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Ok, I can see that the interlanguage links encourage coorporation. Encouraging collaboration between Wikimedia projects is good. Adding interproject links will encourage collaboration even further because they allow contributors to describe different aspects of a concept (encyclopedic, pictures, meanings, quotations) depending of course on what aspects can be described. In that light I noticed that a lot of interlangugage links can be copied into Wiktionary. To get the greatest possible synergy, I strongly advocate merging databases for the various languages as well as the various Wikimedia projects. Ap 15:15, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)