Guild Wars Wiki talk:Deletion policy/Archive 1

Comments

Generally looks great. Here's some concerns:

• want some sort of time limit on G3 (Example loophole: I create a central article, and nobody else makes significant edits for months, although it is prominently viewed. Then I speedy delete it.)
• Need to take page history into consideration when appropriate. (Example loophole: Some vandal edits a major article to fit G1/A1/R1 and I speedy delete instead of rolling it back)
• The subjectiveness in I1 and I2 worry me. Is there enough reason to speedy those?
• A1: I consider a lot of stub articles to have little content.
• Shouldn't this be tagged with {{draft policy}} instead? Should I start making edits directly?

--Rezyk 11:37, 13 February 2007 (PST)

In response,

• /support
• A policy regarding deleting should have the delete template standard, "Admins please check what links here and the page history before deleting." A new or inexperienced admin may not be used to checking before deleting.
• I1 - If an image is incorrectly named "Alem Unclean" and is saved and uploaded to the correct image name "Alem the Unclean", I see no reason not to delete the incorrect image. I2 - If an image cannot be viewed or is of such a poor quality that it cannot be distinguishable, I see no reason not to delete said image.
• I believe Stabber is referring to the saying "A red link is better than little or no content". Perhaps a more specific explanation of this one. Under Non-Criteria is "very short pages, i.e. stubs".
• I think this is a good start on a policy and only a few things need tweaking. A free-for-all editing doesn't seem to be needed here. — Gares 12:10, 13 February 2007 (PST)

For I1 and I2, I see reason to delete, but not strong reason to speedy delete. Maybe this is just me, but I prefer normal delete by default over speedy. Truth be told, if it were only my opinion that mattered, I'd start with only G1456 and U1 on speedy and wait until I could see a need in practice before moving the other things here from non-speedy delete. --Rezyk 12:55, 13 February 2007 (PST)

I1 and I2 would actually fall as a subsection of G4(housekeeping). Whether the unused image is deleted right then or deleted during housekeeping, they will still be speedy deleted. It would be best to try and delete them as they show up, so housekeeping will not be such a hassle when it is needed. — Gares 07:59, 14 February 2007 (PST)

Disagree with G4 and C1. For G4, just because somebody has planned housekeeping of some variety doesn't mean that housekeeping has been generally discussed by all parties concerned. I can see what it's trying to achieve, but I don't think it's good enough for a speedy delete - if it's planned housekeeping the plan can include putting up a normal delete notice for a week or so. As for C1, just because a category is empty now doesn't mean it will always be (the first example that springs to mind is a category for stuff that may no longer be valid due to changes by ANet - it'll be full after a skill balance but empty most the time after that). --NieA7 12:23, 13 February 2007 (PST)

• G4 - Housekeeping includes a variety of things, such as cleaning out Special:Unusedimages and Special:BrokenRedirects. However, this is not an issue now as most redirects lead to pages that will be created and unused images will be placed in articles that will be created. For an example, as of right now on GuildWiki there are 628 unused images. It would be futile to place deletion tags on all 628 images.
• C1 - I have no opinion either way with this one, speedy or tag placement. — Gares 12:48, 13 February 2007 (PST)

I agree with the examples you give for G4, I'm just concerned that it's a rather vague criteria as it stands at the moment. Is there a policy/guide/whatever that lists the kind of things you mention as ongoing tasks that need to be completed? If so a link to that would sort it out. --NieA7 13:22, 13 February 2007 (PST)

I agree as the questions asked so far seem to suggest that more detail is in order. The list from which those examples were taken is Special:Specialpages. There are some very helpful pages on there for all users. — Gares 14:01, 13 February 2007 (PST)

Some notes

• Note that this is the speedy deletion page. There will be another page that deals with slow deletion based on consensus building, similar to the *FD pages in Wikipedia such as AFD. Most people who commented on deletion in Project talk:Policy in the early days (which now, bizarrely, exists in Project talk:Policy/Signatures) seemed to think that admin discretion for deletion should be devolved to cover only narrow speedy criteria.
• For G4, note the keyword "non-controversial". Admins should use common sense and move anything possibly controversial to the deletion discussion page.
• For A1, stubs are not considered speediable. See the "non-criteria" at the bottom. A1 is to be used when the page gives no information whatsoever on the topic. For example, if the page on "Foo" consists of just the text "== Foo ==", or "Shouldn't we have an article on Foo?". Et cetera.
• Feel free to edit the page, of course. Nothing is sacred until ratified, and it's arguably not sacred even then. If one of the criteria is ambiguous, please, for heaven's sake, edit it to make it unambiguous. Speedy criteria should be absolutely, blindingly obvious.

S 16:06, 13 February 2007 (PST)

I've reworded A1 and the stub non-criteria to something less ambiguous to myself. --Rezyk 16:48, 13 February 2007 (PST)

G4: housekeeping

I think there is a bit of a problem with G4 as of this moment. I understood housekeeping as the act of removal of such things as misnamed pages that are moved to the proper name (killing an unlikely redirect), or removing disambiguation pages that point to just one article, or even marking a redirect page that needs to be removed in order to reverse the redirect.

Gares thinks that I1 and I2 should be folded into this, and I don't necessarily disagree, but I think images might need more specific criteria. Deletion of redundant images, for example, may not be as simple as trawling Special:Unusedimages, as both copies may be used. With normal articles, if we have a duplication then we don't summarily select one to delete; instead, there usually is some merge process with a redirection (to preserve attributions per GFDL). For I2, corrupted images will never show up in these special lists at all, not to mention that the way we detect a corrupted image is different from all other articles. A good faith effort might produce a corrupt image that should obviously be deleted, but a good faith effort will never produce a corrupted article that must be speedily deleted. S 13:49, 14 February 2007 (PST)

I agree it's a bit vague - perhaps we need a specific guide/policy/list of what housekeeping tasks are. That could act as a portal for people who want to help out as well as being an easy link from here. --NieA7 13:57, 14 February 2007 (PST)

I may have made myself unclear on some points. If there is no image and I2 is the best we can use at the moment, it would stand that it should not be deleted. For example, we still have some images that are subpar in use on GuildWiki. I did not mean to suggest that Images were to be merged into housekeeping, it was an example of how I saw housekeeping, i.e. cleaning out unused images. Your understanding of housekeeping is something we do everyday on GuildWiki, so I failed to see it as it is common practice to me.

From what I surmise, you suggest that for every incorrectly named image should not be deleted, but redirected to the correctly named image, of course to preserve attribution. Would that not contradict I1?

It looks as though Stabber's mindset and my own seem to be on the same page, just not quite in sync in regards to the text. — Gares 14:19, 14 February 2007 (PST)

No, there is no need to preserve attribution if it is to be deleted. Only for merges do we need to preserve attributions per GFDL. Let me back up a bit and mention that these speedy criteria are intended to accompany another slower deletion process where consensus to delete must be built by participants. Think WP:AFD. The idea is to devolve admin power so that they get to judge when a speedy criterion is met, or when slow deletion consensus is in support, but they do not get to unilaterally judge whether an article belongs in the GWW. Therefore, what seems obvious in guildwiki needs to be spelled out here. S 14:32, 14 February 2007 (PST)

That I can understand regarding the images up for deletion. I have perused WP:AFD after you proposed a speedy deletion policy. This is not the place to dicuss that, however. Your suggestion regarding what I see as commonplace and should be spelled out here is noted. — Gares 14:55, 14 February 2007 (PST)

C1: empty categories

Niea removed this with the log "Deleted C1, no major supporters on talk page and no need to speedily delete, notice will do". This shows the following misconceptions:

• The {{delete}} tag is synonymous with speedy deletion. We cannot use the tag without a matching criterion.
• There needs to be a criterion for removal of empty categories. The current proposal is not sufficient, but "no major supporters" is no reason to remove it. (What is a "major supporter"?)

Anyway, I think we need to reboot the discussion of whether empty categories should be speediable in certain circumstances, and what those circumstances are. I think

• Categories that were misnamed should be speediable once the articles in it are moved out
• Cats that are obsoleted by moving articles out of it should be speediable.

We can pare these into separate criteria, or come up with a sensibly worded one that encompasses both. S 14:04, 14 February 2007 (PST)

I meant by "major supporters" that nobody has spoken up on the talk page for it. Somebody, somewhere, must support the idea otherwise it wouldn't be there, but after a couple of days nobody had spoken up for it.

If the delete tag is synonymous with speedy deletion then why do we need this policy at all, surely it'll all be covered by the delete policy by definition? As I understood it this policy was deigned to make sysop life easier by allowing them to delete pages without having to put the tag up first, hence "speedy". That means it's not synonymous at all - any page can have a delete tag added but only the subset listed here can be deleted without one.

The criterion for deleting empty categories is that they're empty, however there could be a number of reasons as to why they're empty. Just because a category is empty now doesn't mean it should be deleted, hence my dislike of the speedy criteria. there aren't going to be all that many categories full stop (not compared to article pages), and only a small percentage of them will ever need to be deleted - why bother to list an exception here when they can just be covered by a standard delete policy like everything else? to me it doesn't seem worth the effort of including them, that's all. --NieA7 14:15, 14 February 2007 (PST)

First, there was general agreement at the very beginning that we need two kinds of deletion: a speedy deletion for absolutely uncontroversial stuff (for which there will be strict criteria), and a general deletion discussion page where consensus has to support deletion. This is the first of the two. The second one hasn't been written yet, and neither has the deletion policy. We are doing this out of order, granted. The {{delete}} template is intended to bring speediable pages to an admin's notice. In actual use, someone will tag a page with {{delete}}, and some time later an admin will delete it if a criterion is met. However, the policy has to be worded so that the agent of deletion, the admin, is given this discretion to judge when a speedy criterion is met.

Second, as I said above, let us clarify the criteria instead of deleting them. Do you truly not see any reason to allow certain kinds of categories to be speedily deleted? Or do you think there are some cases where it makes sense? If you do, would you care to provide clearly stated criteria for judging when one might delete a category without any controversy? S 14:22, 14 February 2007 (PST)

Hmm, I'm getting confused. I'm fine with the two kinds of delete, but if a page is tagged with {{delete}} then it's up for speedy deletion? If so by what method is non-speedy deletion to be carried out? I can't recall another means of deleting stuff on GuildWiki, other than leaving a word on a admin's talk page, so is this something new?

I don't see why some kinds of empty category can't be speedily deleted, however I don't think that categories are going to require speedy deletion sufficiently often for it to warrant inclusion in this policy. I'm not sure how often categories come up for deletion but I can't think why after an initial few while we get things together it should happen very often at all - I would think it would be pretty rare. Thus I would prefer to leave it to the non-speedy delete: I don't think it will mean we end up with loads of useless pages, and it'll give time to discuss it if there's a need to (for example, empty categories that could get repopulated at a later date). --NieA7 14:31, 14 February 2007 (PST)

Slow deletion has not been proposed yet. Please have patience for a while longer. This is a response to your first paragraph, not your second. S 14:34, 14 February 2007 (PST)

In that case we shouldn't finally approve this until we know that normal deletion is proposed and accepted. You can't have an exception to something that doesn't exist. --NieA7 14:48, 14 February 2007 (PST)

Agreed. I will myself oppose ratification until all deletion policy documents are in place. S 14:54, 14 February 2007 (PST)

And I'll support you. Ain't it nice when folks get along all neighbourly like? :p --NieA7 15:11, 14 February 2007 (PST)

Disagree

I disagree with the notion that this is even warranted. Not this article as much as the "deletion by consensus" one. This wiki is much smaller than Wikipedia, the work in this wiki is less sensitive than the "Israel is land of God's Chosen People" issues that would surround an article on the "Israeli-Palestinian Conflict." I believe that overall, the deletion policy on GuildWiki worked wonderfully well. There was very little, if any, restored deletes. There were a few mistakes here and there, but overall, it was a lot more efficient than this hoopla.

A small and very common example is: A new user rushes in to create the Mallyx the Unyielding article as soon as the Domain of Anguish opens up to state that "not much is known about Mallyx at this time." Well, that's an article I would delete, immediately, without the author's request or approval. --Karlos 10:11, 21 February 2007 (PST)

My understanding is that the upcoming proposed system, taken as a whole (the yet-to-materialize-deletion-by-consensus together with the current state of speedy deletion), would also allow you to delete that Mallyx example immediately and without the author's approval. Specifically, I see it as a case of speedy-delete A1. --Rezyk 10:53, 21 February 2007 (PST)

But it is "relevant information" and even "correct information." My question is: Is there any reason to hold back the hands of admins in deletion? Has it been abused or problematic on GuildWiki? Wouldn't a more collaborative and (by design) slower system be unnecessary? The only problematic use of deletion before was the quick build deletion and I think the build section here (if allowed) would be different than there to begin with. I see the relatively easy to administer and direct power that admins had in GWiki as the main reason it thrived without much managerial complications. I am afraid some of you guys are more interested in mimicking Wikipedia or living up to an ideal than actually developing policies that suit this wiki. --Karlos 15:56, 21 February 2007 (EST)

I have to agree with Karlos. On guildwiki, the deletion policy was pretty much "slap a delete tag on and if it does not get contested on the talk page an admin deletes it. If it gets contested, discuss till consensus." That seemed to work fine. I'd even understand comming up with some criteria that state when admins should not have to give time for people to contest, but having 3 deletion policies with several paragraphs each seems to be overkill. --Xeeron 16:16, 21 February 2007 (EST)

In my opinion we, that is everyone here, should not be attempting to mimic anyone but rather creating a unique, fitting wiki. Which isn't to say there aren't good ideas elsewhere. That being said, I agree that having 3 deletion policies is overkill, I think that it'd be better to roll them into one more complete policy. I think there are, or will be if you prefer, circumstances where article would qualify for rapid deletion and this should be addressed with the circumstances defined (many of which are covered in this existing policy) in said "complete" deletion policy. Lojiin 16:25, 21 February 2007 (EST)

I believe A1 was intended to cover things like the Mallyx example. If it doesn't, the blame falls on my poor wording choice (I changed it from a more open wording earlier). --Rezyk 17:45, 22 February 2007 (EST)

I do agree with the stuff in this policy, but I would like to see it merged with the other deletion policies. In response to Karlos: I think there is a reason to set some guidelines for the admins. We can't know what future admins will be like and how they will think/act. What worked in GWiki might not work here, depending on what kind of admin selection procedures we will have etc. -- (gem / talk) 23:42, 21 February 2007 (EST)

Agree with most points here: It's better for all deletion policy to start as a single article. Since we're still in draft mode and there's no other recent activity, I'll put in the work to drive it in that direction (if I'm stepping on any toes with that, please say so). I also favor being less restrictive than GuildWiki's deletion policies -- we don't need to limit speedy deletions to just vandalism/spam, and the things currently listed in this article are a great first step toward that "complete" policy. --Rezyk 17:45, 22 February 2007 (EST)

I'll echo the concern (it's one of my main ones) that some users are developing policy and practices too directly from other wikis rather than what is appropriate. Wikipedia is imperfect. GuildWiki is imperfect. And even if they weren't flawed, they're not the same as this wiki, so what works on them won't necessarily work as well here. None of their policies should be taken as "default" -- they need to be properly proposed and criticized and ratified/rejected based on their own merits, and not just because they performed well elsewhere. --Rezyk 17:45, 22 February 2007 (EST)

Discussion

I think it's about time to awake the sleeping dragon again. This is one of the most important policies, imo, and it has stagnated. Most seem to think that multiple versions of a deletion policy is overkill, so I think that is good enough to get rid of this speedy delete, concensus delete, etc. idea. Regarding Gem's comment on future admins in regards to this policy, if someone is appointed as an admin, they already are very familiar with policy, have shown a sense of level-headedness, and would not be appointed should people feel they will not abide by these policies and do well by them. Very few mistakes have been made regarding deletions, but admins are not robots, they are people. As to Rezyk's statement regarding wikipedia and gwiki's deletion policies being flawed, nothing is perfect, though I disagree slightly and I will state it below. The policy here will be flawed as well, no matter how much thought is put into it. That is why there are admins and policies, as a checks and balance. Admins judge the unexpected and gray areas that are out of range of a policy and a policy itself handles the black and white areas for which admins must follow.

In my opinion, whatever works is what we should go with. I lean more towards a system similar to gwiki, not because that is what I am used to, but I have yet to see any problems, besides the possible "quick-draw" that deleted articles even when discussions were still on-going. I think we need to get this fixed, finalized, and made into policy. I will work on a draft of my own this weekend. — Gares 11:19, 28 February 2007 (EST)

Just to add my comments ... I support having a speedy deletion section, but all deletion procedures should be consolidated into this single article. For what isn't addressed by the speedy deletion section, I support using a policy similar to GuildeWikis, although I would like to see some requirement for a minimum amount of time after being tagged before it can be deleted to allow for comments. The GuildWiki policy has a recommended time period, but it's not always used. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 12:04, 28 February 2007 (EST)

I added a 3 day minimum, since that's a number I've seen come up a few times before. --Rezyk 21:07, 1 March 2007 (EST)

I don't want to have admins judging outside policy. That's a role best served by users and consensus or, when necessary, an arbitration committee. --Rezyk 21:07, 1 March 2007 (EST)

The majority of the admins found here were appointed elsewhere due to users' trusting them and their actions to do what is best for the community. The majority of the admins also know not to delete an article if there is a discussion regarding it's deletion is still occurring. Admins cannot ignore users' requests to keep an article, as that will be an abuse of power. I will stress again that admins are not robots and as Rezyk has said, policies are flawed. Doing what is best for the community, working within the policies written, and working outside the "flaws" or gray areas when needed is what the majority of the admins found here were entrusted to do and that duty carries over to this wiki as well. Rarely have I seen users post on admins' talk pages stating, "Why did you delete this?". Why is that, even in those times where a deletion doesn't exactly fit under policy, because those admins that were appointed by a community were and are still trusted.

In this case, if you do not feel that admins should do what is best for the community in uncertain times, is that this policy should be generalized and less exact criteria. A specific policy will have more gray areas than a policy that is more generalized. An admin will have to think more with a more generalized policy, but admins are supposed to think and are, for the most part, level headed, so I don't see very many complications coming from a more generalized policy. It does not take away from users' requests for keeping an article, it does not allow for abuse of power as there are always people watching, and it allows deletions to go smoothly and in a timely fashion. Also, in the rare case that a deletion is contested after the fact, it can be restored and allowed further discussion unless it is an image. As with anything, the deletion of an article is not set in stone. — Gares 23:11, 1 March 2007 (EST)

As I said before, this works fine with me. I don't see a need for further complication. To Gem: If an admin starts abusing his power and deletig articles you can bet ANet will remove his butt before he does any serious damage. This is not Gravewit The AFK's wiki anymore. --Karlos 23:23, 1 March 2007 (EST)

Sorry for being nitpicky, but this "The majority of the admins also know not to delete an article if there is a discussion regarding it's deletion is still occurring." really needs to be all admins. Any admin who doesnt know not to delete such an article should not be admin at all. --Xeeron 03:12, 2 March 2007 (EST)

Gares, I agree with some things, and disagree with some things. I know we'll probably debate at length about this when it comes to resolving Guild Wars Wiki:Adminship or blocking policy, but I really just don't understand why it's an issue with the work done on deletion policy so far. Personally, I like GuildWiki's CFD and DID policies. From my point of view, the draft policy here currently mirrors them, although if anything being more lenient toward admins ("3 days" wait instead of a "few days"; 15 additional cases that are explicitly speedy deletable!). How is this so far off course from what everyone wants? Who has pushed for a system that is less lenient to admins?

It feels to me as if something like Wikipedia's AFD was suggested somewhere, and I'm supposed to be defending it. Did somebody else post a deletion proposal that I missed? My best guess is that I inadvertently appeared to be defending something else when I referred to "deletion-by-consensus" earlier. If that's the case, my apologies to everyone for not being clearer. --Rezyk 05:08, 2 March 2007 (EST)

Derivative templates?

Pages needing to be speedily deleted can be tagged with {{delete}} or one of its derivative templates to bring them to an admin's attention.

What are the derivative templates? Are we going to have multiple delete templates? -- ab.er.rant 23:42, 1 March 2007 (EST)

In principle, you can have derivative templates, like one for deleting Templates or Policy pages and so forth... --Karlos 01:45, 2 March 2007 (EST)

I've taken that part out for simplicity and since it's possible we won't be using any. If and when we do figure on using some, it shouldn't be a big deal to put back in. --Rezyk 05:30, 2 March 2007 (EST)

rumors?

Do we want a speedy delete criteria for articles whose sole content is rumor spreading? An example is the aptly named article: Rumors. Do we really want a three day evaluation period for these types of articles? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 14:16, 5 March 2007 (EST)

Of course I say no because I deleted the article, but I can't figure a classification for these types of articles. Possibly just any unsubstantiated claims that cannot be verified can be quick deleted. — Gares 14:50, 5 March 2007 (EST)

I also looked in Guild Wars Wiki:Article retention, Guild Wars Wiki:Policy, Guild Wars Wiki:Official content, and even Guild Wars Wiki:Content over presentation - but didn't see anything addressing verifiablity of submitted content. If we don't spell it out, I suspect we'll be hearing quite a bit of the argument that the wiki should hold all content that's Guild Wars related, substantiated or not - and as we're the official wiki, maybe even false claims of ArenaNet censorship when such content is removed from articles. I would prefer having something in writing to head those off, I'm just not sure the best place. To me, Guild Wars Wiki:Deletion policy is a potential candidate - but I'm also not certain the best phrasing in this case to prevent blatant rumor mongoring, but to still not be read to be a roadblock to new content. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 14:59, 5 March 2007 (EST)

Yeah, I used the "that cannot be verified", in hopes that it would not become a roadblock. I agree that something of this nature should be added to the deletion policy under the articles heading, in my opinion. — Gares 15:45, 5 March 2007 (EST)

These issues (rumor removing, verifiability) have to be dealt with outside deletion policy as well, in the case of small article edits that add rumors, etc. If we were to decide on some sort of "rumors are inappropriate for articles" policy in Guild Wars Wiki:Official content or Guild Wars Wiki:Article retention, could we consider (or reword) speedy-delete-criteria A1 to already cover the issue here? --Rezyk 16:01, 5 March 2007 (EST)

I think so - incorporate some guideline on verifiability in either policy you indicated, or even create a new Guild Wars Wiki:Reliable Sources article (could be partially based on WP:RS). Once incorporated elsewhere, I think A1 could apply, or be tweaked to apply.

The remaining tricky part will be defining rumors. Is the Wikipedia definition adequate, or will the nature of PC games and the gaming industry require major changes to their definitions? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:14, 5 March 2007 (EST)

Surely it's pretty easy to define a rumour in relation to a game - a rumour is anything relating to the game which is not currently present within it, nor has been publicly discussed (prove it - give a link) by a member of staff from the game's developer/publisher. --NieA7 05:29, 6 March 2007 (EST)

I don't think it's that clear-cut. In an ideal world, only that type of content would be permitted. But, prior to any new release, a primary source of future content information is magazine articles where ArenaNet has given a preview of the product. So, how do you define a valid third party source? It would need to be written in such a way as to permit some of that content, while still allowing a filter on content such as this which has been at least partially discredited here. Do we permit anything that claims to be based on an ArenaNet/NCsoft announcement, until it's disclaimed by them? Or do we require at least two third party sources (which prevents documenting something if a magazine gets an exclusive, which has happenned on some elements of past campaigns). The official source content is easy to define, it's the secondary sources that claim legitimacy that become the problem in any clear definition. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 11:06, 6 March 2007 (EST)

I think the safest way to deal with rumours is to report facts. It is a fact that the inquirer has said that the next campaign will be called "Eye of the North", but it is not a fact that it will be called "Eye of the North". We could safely say "The Inquirer has said X, Y and Z, but a recent post from Gaile brings several points into question."

I can understand those people who would rather just say nothing, but this is my opinion! LordBiro 11:15, 6 March 2007 (EST)

My inclination is to say nothing but I imagine that's a lost cause like so many others (I still don't get the use lower case thing, but I guess that's just me). If we're going to say anything then a combination of my and Biro's approaches seems best - we report "official" stuff (which is to say interviews, printed magazines etc etc) with the caveat that just because it's been reported there doesn't mean it'll definitely happen and remain that way for ever and always. --NieA7 06:17, 7 March 2007 (EST)

I second LordBiro's opinion. I think it would be interesting to report unconfirmed information from a third party that has at least some credibility, adding the caveat that it's not known if it's the truth. I'm not sure if that kind of information would fit in the main page about that subject, or in a different one (using the current Inquirer example, I don't know if that information should be in the "Chapter 4" page or in a different one such as "Rumors about Chapter 4" - the first could be misleading, the second would be kinda redundant...) Erasculio 06:36, 7 March 2007 (EST)

Regarding the "rumor mill", every bit of information must have a source attached to it. It is fairly obvious what is a reputable source or not by doing research on the author(s). I am in agreement with Biro regarding quoting sources and adding notes on whether they are partially true, have been talked about from an official ANet rep. We have been praised for having the most up-to-date information regarding Guild Wars and to dismiss potential sources' information because they are suspect. To me, this only deals with information regarding new campaigns, new updates that attract the attention of sources from outside the Guild Wars community, etc.

As always, any potential rumor recorded regrading in-game content should be deleted, unless there is proof. I remember a case where someone posted that The Afflicted Kam dropped a green weapon called Kam's Refuge. No evidence to prove the fact and it was deleted. Though solo farming research was done by myself during the Canthan green drop weekend, I could not verify it and no one else offered any such evidence, thus the misinformation, or rumor if you will, was deleted quickly to keep the integrity of GuildWiki's information base. — Gares 08:13, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

Update: I added a A2 to included articles rewritten regarding rumors. Feel free to change the wording around or change it to be more in touch with the concensus here, if it is not so. — Gares 08:34, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

I thought consensus was more towards having A1 cover this, and to draw the line between allowed/disallowed rumor content in other policy. (So it seems like I should...remove A2?) --Rezyk 15:48, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

Sure. Go for it. As long as the idea is somewhere on the page and we can finally get this ratified. It's about time for this proposal to become policy. — Gares 16:35, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

Finalizing

With the conclusion of the rumor discussion in regards to just this policy, is it safe to say that this proposal can be officially called policy? I think it is about time to get some of these proposals either made official or rejected so we have a strong backing when the time comes for the ANet announcement to be made. I believe with added wording regarding rumors, that this proposal is ready. — Gares 08:13, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

I support the policy in it's current form and I support making it a policy. -- (gem / talk) 16:38, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

I still want to add a section on undeletion, and have a concern about delete tag removal. I'll try to rush through them quickly. --Rezyk 16:58, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

What concern do you have about the delete tag removal? If there is a dispute regarding the potential for deletion and consensus agrees it should not be deleted, the tag can be removed. Unless you want admins to remove delete tags based on their judgement if they know an article should definitely not be deleted, which I know is not your concern, then I don't see any issue. — Gares 17:10, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

Basically, I'm worried that it can be too hard to remove a deletion tag as long as you're supposed to wait for consensus in that direction. Example: Consider the recent removal of a delete tag from Template:User PD. Now, I have no absolutely no qualms about this removal nor its reasoning (I'd have done the same and consider it uncontroversial), but it would be at least questionable according to the letter of this draft, wouldn't it? Or on the opposite side of the spectrum: What if we have a controversial article and can't seem to get anywhere near a consensus either way (50/50 split). Should the deletion tag stay on forever, even when the discussion stagnates?

I don't advocate simply removing that condition, though -- there's good reasoning behind it and it guards against some inappropriate tag removals. I just wonder if there's a good way to relax the condition to better handle the above cases. The best (IMO) alternative I've come up with (but haven't refined or thought out thoroughly yet, and don't necessarily support =) is: The deletion tag should stay up while the deletion is being discussed. --Rezyk 18:26, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

You know that it is near impossible to word something of this nature. You are now going down the road to making judgement calls, for which you have shown your unsupportiveness on various occasions. As I have said before, not everything is black and white and can be conveyed into a policy. It's been a month now and this proposal should have been finished and ratified long before now.

I will re-add my section regarding rumors into A1, as it was my understanding that you would change the wording if you wished and move it to A1, not delete the section and have nothing about rumors. If there is enough support vs. non-support in the next week, I see no reason not to move it to policy. — Gares 19:16, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

• Regardless of whether things are worded perfectly or black and white, it can be worth trying to improve things anyways. Voicing my concern and suggestion was the right thing to do. Please let me know if you feel I have been roadblocking progress on this draft at all over the past month, or if I have not been putting in enough effort in moving things forward.
• My general stance is much more complicated than "avoid judgment calls". Also, I believe my suggestion would reduce the number of controversial judgment calls overall (but maybe we'll just have to disagree on that).
• I don't share the sentiment that this needs to be finalized quickly soon, but I can understand it and am trying to be accomodating. So here's what I'll do: I'll hold off on the undeletion section and leave it for a policy change proposal. I'll make one edit to the draft (affecting this issue and the rumor issue), attempting to address my concerns. If this edit is reverted by anyone and you want to put the result up as a policy proposal, I'll still give it my general support. One thing I want, though, is for the {{draft policy}} tag to be changed to {{proposed policy}} and notification to be posted on Guild Wars Wiki:Policy for at least 24 hours before accepting this as official policy, just to give fairer notice to those who aren't closely monitoring this discussion.

--Rezyk 22:54, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

Unfortunately, a month since this proposal was introduced and it is still not finalized is hardly moving quickly. This is the second time I have had to re-awaken the discussion here to get it moving in the right direction.

I believe I have found your conflicting interest regarding the deletion tag removal. Somewhere along the line, the wording of General Deletion regarding tag removal was changed to consensus and no other way, in the policy, to remove it. From what I have read, there was concern regarding concensus and deletion, but not about concensus and tag removal, yet that is how it ended up. Then the template's wording, which has the answer to your dilemma of other ways to remove a tag, was changed due to the re-wording of the proposal. I will expand more on this in the morning. — Gares 00:04, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

Good morning! I have added multiple ways to remove a delete tag other than just a concensus. This should satisfy Reyzk's concerns. I will follow Rezyk's suggestions regarding changing templates in a few days in case there is some other concerns regarding multiple outs for tag removal. — Gares 10:04, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

I don't like the "If a page should obviously not be deleted, or you intend to fix it, please remove the notice." part. The word 'obviously' will be interpreted in different manners by users as it allows personal opinnion on the deletion tag. There should be a clear rule instead. Also, 'intend to fix' might cause the removal of the deletion tag after which the user forgets the whole page. -- (gem / talk) 13:34, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

Same opinion here. The front portion is more than enough: If you disagree with the deletion of this page, please explain why on the discussion page. If you want more, then add a link to this policy so that users can see how to resolve a delete proposal. -- ab.er.rant 22:23, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

I removed the rest and left If you disagree with the deletion of this page, please explain why on the discussion page., feel free to change it to something that you believe would be better in addition to just commenting about it. I'm not in the best of health (kidney problems, yay), so I don't have the fire or am thinking clear enough to discuss this any further. For now I give up on trying to make this a policy. Cheers. — Gares 07:40, 16 March 2007 (EDT)

Ok, changed from Draft to Proposed policy. This has been sitting around way too long and should be finalized (as Gares stated before he got fed up). Rezyk, if you want an Undeletion policy, either add it now or wait and add it later. Personally I don't know that we need one. My thoughts on the matter are, if something gets deleted and a day later, someone makes a really good point, that wasn't brought up before hand, an admin can be notified and it can be undeleted. --Rainith 23:36, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

I already said I'd wait and try adding it later as a policy change proposal. --Rezyk 23:46, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

Rainith is correct that all the talk and no action was making me a bit sick. There are, at the least, two proposals I feel are absolutely necessary to ebcome policy for a successfully runned wiki. This and another, one to which I will get to later when I am feeling better. I halted my part in this for now as typing a calm and rational opinion is hard when a person has kidney stones. Anyone who has had them before knows, when there is pain, it will make you snappy and when you use the pain killers, they will make you go loopy. I've had them enough to know and I definitely did not want to insult anyone during my already irritated state by the lack of action. I still feel that this should have been made into a policy a long time ago and will push, regardless of the statements, yet inactivity of others.

Also, to pre-discuss an Undeletion policy or addendum to this policy, you may well take into account that the 3.8 million registered users and countless anons on that site may very well need these types of policies as well as others you have brought over. It seems there were issues regarding this type of "following" before. With a smaller userbase, if an article gets deleted and someone cared enough about it, they would know. While I loathe to use another respected user's talk page as an example, see the number of posts made to Skuld's talk page with users' asking numerous times why an article was deleted.

And lastly, instead of the contemplation of a seemingly unneeded addition, we have a problem and that is to make this, what we have now, a policy. Work the existing problem, else there will be use for posting a undeletion proposal, as there won't even be a deletion policy. If all users' want to do is disagree with this and that and make no changes or offer anything useful in any matter, then those users' are holding this wiki back and should step aside and allow it to grow. — Gares 07:40, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

No one seems to oppose what allready is in the proposal, so we can surely make this a policy in a couple days. -- (gem / talk) 16:04, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

I support everything in the proposal. I have a problem with the absence of any formal procedure for removing the delete tag, but I agree with Rezyk, we can amend the policy later. -- Gordon Ecker 20:20, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

That is just... so wrong, in so many ways. In any case, it looks like this is on track toward becoming policy. --Rezyk 20:25, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

Last call

I give this proposal my general support (as I said I would), although with various concerns that have already been voiced. As far as I can tell from above discussion, Gares, Gem, and Rainith (edit conflicts: also Gordon Ecker) are also supporting this as policy. Anyone else have comments? --Rezyk 20:25, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

If no one has anything against it, let's make this a policy on the 22nd, a day before the wiki goes public. -- (gem / talk) 21:26, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

No problems as it stands but is it worth mentioning talk pages? One of the speedy criteria (for example) is the recreation of a page "that was deleted by an explicit community consensus (that has not been overturned)". It'd be hard to find that consensus if the talk page was gone too. --NieA7 07:49, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

R3 - Blatantly Misleading Redirects

This came to mind while reading Tanaric's most recent proposal above, as I was reviewing the other criteria - I would also propose that we add a third redirect speedy deletion reason, for redirects which point to articles which obviously do not relate to the redirect title (i.e. redirecting "Player versus environment" to Team Arena or the like). (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 00:22, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. -- Gordon Ecker 02:02, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I support this. —Tanaric 03:19, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Support. -- (gem / talk) 05:06, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. --Xeeron 09:44, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Support - MSorglos (talk|contrib) 10:11, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Seems like common sense tbh, if you saw Player versus environment redirecting to team arena, wouldn't you change it? Redirecting to a proper article or tagging for deletion, either one stops the improper redirect immediately. -Auron My Talk 10:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Meh... I guess it makes sense to add it to the list, then. My bad. -Auron My Talk 10:38, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

A list of these can be found here. --Santax (talk · contribs) 10:49, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

We are talking about a different thing Santax. This isn't about double reidrects, this is about redirects that point to an article that has nothing to do with the name of the redirecting name. -- (gem / talk) 13:48, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I've added this to the policy article, and also noted that they should be fixed rather than deleted if possible. —Tanaric 00:12, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Stupid redirects?

Do stupid redirects fall under this rule too? For example all those Me_skills redirects that User:Lightblade has been making. I've tagged for deletion, just wondering if they would fall under a speedy delete or not. DBZVelena | (Talk page) 03:42, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but doesn't this just fall under "Vandalism"? — Rapta (talk|contribs) 03:45, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so, I think the guy is really trying to be helpfull, not deliberatly trying to mess things up. DBZVelena | (Talk page) 03:48, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Why is that a stupid redirect? - BeX 04:17, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

@DBZVelena, are you referring to these: W skills, Me skills, N skills, etc.? If you are, then I'm as stumped as Bex. How exactly are they stupid? I find them quite useful. -- ab.er.rant 08:04, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

The Mo skills, W skills, etc redirects were discussed somewhere previously, I can't locate it now. As far as I'm concerned, they are permitted per the site retention policy and the redirect guidelines. These types of redirect are VERY beneficial for users of the "search" box (takes less system resource to pull up a redirect and process it rather than generating search results, and use very little disk space to store), and they certainly do not fall under this clause as they are NOT misleading, they go exactly where you would expect them to go. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 14:47, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Note: I've further spelled out the reasoning for keeping these redirects at Talk:W skills. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 15:10, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Although I replied there, I'll mention it here - while in general I agree with your reasoning, Barek, in this case I'd say "W skills" and the like is too ambiguous - do we mean skills that start with W, or Warrior skills? (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 20:41, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anybody would actually use them. Since unless you know this wiki like the back of your hand, most people would simple use the full proffesion name. That is why i thought of them as stupid and thus tagged them. (it was also 5 am local time) :P DBZVelena | (Talk page) 17:48, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I use them - and presumably User:Lightblade uses them - and on GuildWiki I know that Skuld mentioned using them. I don't know how many others use them, those are just three names off the top of my head. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 21:33, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

@DBZVelena: Yes, new users will probably try to do a search for "warrior skills", which might bring them to List of warrior skills. But as they learn about the wiki and realise that we use "w" as a shorthand for warriors, wouldn't it also be useful to provide some "w" navigation for them? -- ab.er.rant 01:00, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

R4 proposal - Interwiki redirects

I would like to propose speedy deletion of all interwiki redirects other than the Self: links used in the game integration system. This is due to a security concern, rather than anything else - for example, see User:MisterPepe/LinksMain. If I set up my sandbox to redirect back to that page, there would be an infinite loop. While the mediawiki software does filter out multiple redirects (after a certain point, it's either one or two redirects, it stops redirecting), using these interwiki versions (the self: links), that filter is ignored completely. This system could be used to execute a denial of service attack on the wiki itself. The current wiki setup (with limited external wikilinking) does limit the potential for cross-site scripting attacks, but this is still a decently sized vulnerability. If someone takes advantage of this, I don't want us to have to wait for deletion consensus (though I'm pretty sure a ban would soon follow for the user who set it up =P) MisterPepe talk 18:19, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

And anybody reading this now knows how to do this very thing. DBZVelena | (Talk page) 18:31, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

It took me slightly less than five minutes to figure this out. It might take other people longer, but it's still pretty easy to find. It's a clumsy, inefficient way of doing this sort of thing, but it's still something to be worried about. If I were do do it, I'd take it a couple steps further - TBH, I could probably bring down the entire wiki for days if I were to set something up using this. It's not a very big deal if it's only one user doing it, though - I'm not overly worried about the average "l33t h4x0r d00d" trying this, as it'd be a relatively small drain on server resources. The problem is if someone who actually knows what they're doing tried to break the wiki; unless taken care of fairly quickly, it'd be a really, really big problem. I could elaborate on how I'd do it, but I think I'll leave the actual "real" exploit less public, no? (I'd be happy to discuss it with any sysops/bcrats via email, however - it's a pretty big hole). MisterPepe talk 18:45, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd be happy to discuss this with you over email. Perhaps we could do that, while also cc'ing to Gaile (and any other interested sysops/bcrats)? --Rezyk 19:40, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Rezyk, could you forward the info to all sysops? Thanks in advance. -- (gem / talk) 21:13, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Email sent to Rezyk and cc'ed to community@arena.net. MisterPepe talk 21:16, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Received and forwarded. --Rezyk 21:36, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

This was one of the worries I had about relying on $wgDisableHardRedirects=false. But when I researched it, I got the impression that all browsers would halt after a chain of 5-6 302 redirects at the most, so one could not really orchestrate an accidental DOS attack by others. Time to check on this more thoroughly, I guess. --Rezyk 19:14, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

You're right, at least to a point - I just spent some time testing it out. More notes in my email. MisterPepe talk 21:16, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

We appreciate this info and the research you've done on it, and hope to be able to have some comments back very soon. Thanks, guys! --Gaile 22:34, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Tbh, in such a case, deletion should be obvious, we need not put it into the policy to give people ideas (and would not editing the link in the page stop the DoS attack as well?). --Xeeron 23:33, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Security through obscurity is not an option. Better to make the risk public so that everybody can keep an informed eye out, not just the sysops. —Tanaric 01:20, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

After further examination (and a very nice response from Rezyk), the security concerns, if any, appear to be minor. Still, I'd support deletion of all interwiki redirects in any namespace besides Game link: on the basis of them being completely and utterly unnecessary. We really have no reason to redirect articles to Wikipedia, and, if we did, I'd rather we used a soft redirect (it's a link to the article, rather than a redirect - people often don't like to suddenly be at a different site). Once again, props to Rezyk for most excellent use of research =P MisterPepe talk 07:38, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. -- (gem / talk) 09:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Support. Actually, let's automatically disable hard 302 redirects for everything other than "self". (Should be easy to configure this for each hostname, although not for each namespace) --Rezyk 22:31, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Continued at Guild Wars Wiki talk:Requests for technical administration#302 redirects. --Rezyk 23:05, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

R5 proposal - move remnants with no links pointing towards them

I'm not saying that all move remnants should be deleted, however I think the option to speedily delete a move remnant should be available. This may already be covered by G4, but I think that it should be explicitly stated in either G4 or added to the redirect criteria. -- Gordon Ecker 06:37, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of these redirects should only be ok if there are no main name space links to them. (talk page links don't count) -- (gem / talk) 08:05, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I dont understand your proposal. What kinds of remnants do you mean? --Xeeron 10:55, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

By 'remnants' I mean the redirects from the old names to the new names, which are automatically created when articles are moved. -- Gordon Ecker 00:23, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

If it's created due to a move and if there are no links to it from either the Main article space or from the same space as the one being deleted (excluding talk pages), then it can be deleted. But, if it's manually re-created by someone as a redirect for convenience (usually for use from the "Search" box, see Help:Redirect), and it doesn't violate other policies or guidelines, then it should be permitted to remain. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 14:46, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. -- (gem / talk) 16:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

What Barek said. --Xeeron 10:00, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I feel more strongly than Barek (I'm not sure if Barek was arguing for or against R5). I am opposed to deleting redirects on the grounds that they are "remnants". They cause no harm and may be beneficial in ways that we are unaware of. For example, if Brother Mhenlo is moved to Mhenlo and all internal links are updated then we might think that deleting Brother Mhenlo is acceptable. However if an external site links to Brother Mhenlo then their link would be broken.

There are various examples, but the searching example has been used before so I presume everyone is aware of it. I strongly disagree with more redirect deletion rules, redirects do no harm if unused, and increase performance if they are used. The only reason they should ever be deleted is if they are misleading and we have rules for that already. LordBiro 12:04, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

The way I see it, speedy deletion outside of the speedy deletion criteria (or any other deletion contrary to policy) is an abuse of administrative power, and the deletion of move remnants, which are trivially easy for any user to re-create, doesn't really seem abusive. -- 06:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Changes to the deletion template

I just noticed that I've been breaking this policy when deleting images. After someone adds a deletion tag I should wait 3 days before deleting unless it falls under one of the speedy deletion rules, and "unused image" isn't a speedy deletion rule. Most of my recent deletions are still valid (wrong naming or reuploaded), but there are also many cases where I've broken the policy. To help with this problem I came up with the following improvement to the deletion template:

The template should use a similiar system as the {{guild cleanup}} tag. For the first three days it adds the article/image to a sub category of the deletion category, something like Category:Under discussion for deletion (a better name required). After 3 days has passed it moves the page to Category:Candidates for deletion. At that point an admin can view the talk page and delete the image if the deletion is uncontested. If a correct timestamp isn't placed with the deletion tag, the page should be placed in another subcategory, something like Category:Improperly tagged for deletion.

What do you guys think? -- (gem / talk) 13:27, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me :) Ale_Jrb (talk) 13:37, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

To me too. As I know Ale, he will change Guildwatch templates very fast, so miss-tagging won't be occur much. Full support to this proposal. - MSorglos (talk|contrib) 13:39, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I can see the merits of having separate categories. However I recommend that we keep Category:Candidates for deletion for those articles that are candidates for deletion, but add another category called Category:Articles pending deletion for those articles that are 3 days old. LordBiro 13:55, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Hehe, bad Gem, though most of the unused images are probably long forgotten about etc. I can see the merits of following the policy we already have. I'll wait for the new template before tagging any more purely unused images. --Lemming64 14:27, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Don't stop. There is still the 3 day time to wait, so tagging them now gives me permission to delete them in 3 days.

LordBiro: Agreed with the naming. -- (gem / talk) 20:59, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Technical difficulty: Even if you throw in variables/logic, actual categorization won't change without some manual edit to the page. My suggestion: Wait and see what we can do with DPL. --Rezyk 20:43, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, ok. What's DPL? -- (gem / talk) 20:59, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Whoops, sorry. I mean DynamicPageList. --Rezyk 21:49, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah yeah. -- (gem / talk) 22:11, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that's correct Rezyk; categorisation can change without a manual edit. Guild:Show_Your_Skillz_Pls has not been edited since 30th May and it is properly categorising. I still support this change to the deletion template. LordBiro 17:58, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

The article will show the wanted categorization, but not the category. That guild does not currently appear in Category:Candidates for deletion (but it should upon a null edit or such). Even purging the category does not catch it. --Rezyk 18:30, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it helps, but I found a wikibot script over on meta with the ability to "touch" a page - edit it, make no changes, and save the page. It doesn't appear on the RC list, and it refreshes any templates. With a little tweaking, I can probably get it to work on the guild namespace.

Obviously, it's not a permanent solution, but it'd work while we're waiting for ANet to install DPL goodness ;) MisterPepe talk 06:54, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Script modified and tested. No changes show up, even with bot view enabled. Much goodness. Might I suggest a daily run of this bot script until we can make a template that auto-categorizes (and updates =P)? MisterPepe talk 07:13, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Full test run completed by "touching" all of the guild pages marked for cleanup. There's 80+ articles waiting to be deleted now. If there's a category set up, I can update the templates on all the pages inside.

On a related note, I need to find a better word for this than "touch." It's a little too... Jacko. MisterPepe talk 08:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

That's the standard term for what you're doing, actually. There's a UNIX program called 'touch' that updates the timestamps of a file but makes not actual changes. —Tanaric 08:27, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

On the first run all del tags need to have the time stamp added to them, so you'll have to run a regular bot instead of the toucher. I'll make the necessary categories and template changes now. -- (gem / talk) 14:55, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, we now have Category:Candidates for deletion for those images with less than 3 days from placing the template, Category:Improperly tagged for deletion for those without a correct time stamp and Category:Articles pending deletion for those that have had the template for 3 days. I didn't implement this to the template as we are getting DPL soon (pending installation atm). Currently all pages are put in Category:Candidates for deletion and anything with a correct timestamp that is 3 days old will also be in Category:Articles pending deletion. -- (gem / talk) 15:27, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I was getting ready to start the bot run (regex ftw), and I figured I'd test the template before I did so. I'm glad I did - I got an error "Expression error: Unrecognised punctuation character "["" whenever I tried to add the |~~~~ into the template call. I'd fix it, but I have no idea how =\ I'm not very good with templates.... MisterPepe talk 22:52, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

It probably just needs Template:+3days to be created. --Rezyk 23:03, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh. MisterPepe talk 23:04, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Created and implemented. Although TBH, don't really need a template for it. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 23:31, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Woops lol. :D Serves me right for doing stuff when almost out of time. -- (gem / talk) 07:25, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Lol, just noticed that G4 lets me to speedy delete unused images if I read it correctly. -- (gem / talk) 11:07, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree - between the combination of I1 and G4, I think the majority of the images you're looking at can be deleted pretty quickly. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:23, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I have a question regarding speedy deletion: When I tag articles with speedy deletion it normally will be added to Category:Candidates for deletion. But it will rest there 3 days until it's moved to Category:Candidates for deletion Category:Articles pending deletion so admins probably will not notice the speedy tag. What about changing the third parameter so that you can enter "speedy" instead of a date so it will be instantly moved to Category:Candidates for deletion Category:Articles pending deletion? poke | talk 17:57, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

You mean that 'speedy' automatically puts is to Category:Articles pending deletion. ;P But yeah, I agree with that. -- (gem / talk) 18:28, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

o.O I used the same category for three different things xD - Ok, I will add that feature soon :) poke | talk 17:08, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

G8: Articles in a non-English language

I propose that a new speedy deletion criteria be added:

• G8: non-English article. Articles in the Guild or Guild talk namespaces are excluded from this criterion.

—Tanaric 00:09, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Support. However, I would suggest an additional note for this speedy delete, highly encouraging notification of the posting user as it's quite possible the content would normally be acceptable on the wiki except for its language of posting. Agree with Rezyk's suggestion below. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 00:19, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Support. MisterPepe talk 00:20, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I balk at speedying these -- it seems like a recipe for confusion for non-native-english posters who will naturally have a harder time understanding the reason given (which often looks like "{{delete|ugh}}") or tracking down this delete policy. I'd rather add this to Guild Wars Wiki:Article retention as something we don't retain, and use the general deletion process for now. (and yes, the delete tag could still be confusing to them, but it's a bit better) --Rezyk 00:34, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deletion sounds like we're anti-other languages. I'd rather it be a clarification somewhere stating that we use American English for our articles, and articles in other languages are restricted to special circumstances only (like guild pages and the all the localisation/translation pages). -- ab.er.rant 00:45, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I am okay with either solution; I'll give this some time to see what other editors think. —Tanaric 05:19, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Firstly the use of the word "American" in the above sentence made my blood boil, but I will pretend I didn't see it for now :P

If other language wikis existed I would wholeheartedly support this policy amendment, as it is I think there are some situations where multiple language articles are acceptable, at least temporarily. LordBiro 17:37, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

We could always put a speedy deletion for articles consisting fully of some other language than english, leaving the possibility of a translation in another language or something in articles if needed. -- (gem / talk) 19:57, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Biro: Mind giving some examples?

This is the sort of case where an official charter from ANet would be awfully helpful.

—Tanaric 03:18, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps, instead of making this a speedy, amending the non-speedy section of the policy with a strong note that a delete tag with a reason of "Non-English" would require an extremely opposite consensus to reverse (thus giving something to reference in deletion discussion)? And then stick with the regular 3-day tag? (My original recommendation on this proposal still stands, however, I wouldn't be opposed to exploring other directions that might possibly change that.) Edit:Noticed that this is essentially what Rezyk was proposing. Updating recommendation. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 20:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

"Extremely opposite consensus"? I've been known to abuse the definition of consensus in my day, but I think that tops it. :) In any case I'm not opposed to writing this up for our non-speedy rules. I intend to revisit the matter when (if) other language wikis are introduced. —Tanaric 19:13, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

(Reset indent) This 'policy change' is still listed as " Currently proposed policy changes" at GWW:POLICY. Is that correct? --  (CoRrRan / talk) 22:38, 15 July 2007 (UTC)