Battlestar Wiki talk:Think Tank/Deletion Archives

"Vote"

Method 1

Support On further pondering implementation, it seems like creating an entire namespace (and all the little search clicky things that that adds), just leaving the discussion along and tagging it seems like a simpler solution. Also, it'd be an easy way to organize and allow subsequent discussions regarding deletion/undeletion, and navigation would be a lot easier. --Steelviper 10:02, 7 March 2007 (CST)

Support If the namespace thing doesn't work out on the HB, this would be the second option. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 12:57, 7 March 2007 (CST) I honestly believe this is the easiest method. We need to make less work for ourselves, not more, and adding another namespace would just add more work for ourselves. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 12:29, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Support This should be perfectly adequate. --April Arcus 11:52, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Support moved here... Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 12:05, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Support Thought #3 would be easier. This might do. --Serenity 12:57, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Support A little easier than Method 3, which is cleaner but more work. Too bad this makes most of my templates obsolete :( Ah well, I'll get started on new ones. Expect a working demo on the HB tomorrow. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 12:43, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Method 2

Oppose Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 11:11, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Oppose Adds the confusion of page moves and does not notably enhance organization over a category system. --April Arcus 11:52, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Method 3

Support --Catrope 11:15, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Comment Sorry, I was too lazy to type it out and wanted to copy/paste it, but must have hit "cut" instead. --Serenity 13:54, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Comment I propose we archive the deleted pages themselves as well. If you've been away for a while, there is no way to find out what was deleted. --Catrope 11:15, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Comment Actually, that's a pretty good idea. (Not that the pages are actually deleted from the database anyway, because they're still there, they just can't be accessed by anyone other than the admins. So it should be a simple matter of "undeleting" and moving.) -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 11:19, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Comment I know. But most people around here are not admins ;) BTW, we could have the namespaces "Deleted:" and "Deleted talk:", undelete everything we can and put it in there. --Catrope 14:11, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Oppose The reason I am opposed to this is because if we add a namespace to the system, it has to be the same for also de, fr, tr, etc. It might not be the same lanugage. So doing this just for english seems unneeded for it's own namespace. Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 15:15, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Comment Do you mean that even in DE, talk pages are in the Talk: namespace? 'Cause at Wikipedia.nl, they're in the Overleg: namespace, Wikipedia.fr has Discussion: (I think), etc. --Catrope 15:28, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Comment That's not what I said. Default namespaces are pre-programmed by the software. i.e. Quotes namespace is the same through out all the wikis. There is no change in lanauge. Yes... we could rename it to their lanaguage our speficy just this happen on the "EN" wiki, but using custom namesapces for something like this Mediawiki will not work. If I go http://de.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/User:Shane it formats correctly because the system known user is what ever it is "de". But from http://de.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Benutzer:Shane to http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Benutzer:Shane it will not work. So creating a newspace would create it even in de and it will always be "Delete" or whatever. Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 16:49, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Also... Wikipedia:Articles for deletion is already pretty well suitied and I think this is more "needed". Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 23:09, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Honestly, I utterly despise the AFD process. It is needlessly volatile and all I'm looking for is a means to archive deletion discussions. That's it. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 23:13, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Oppose "Good in theory, bad in practice." I know this is the idea I initially preferred, but is too complicated to be effective or useful. The point is to archive discussions of pages that have been deleted. The whole namespace thing is going overboard, and I'm sorry I've even suggested it. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 12:29, 9 March 2007 (CST)
Support --Serenity 11:41, 6 March 2007 (CST)
Support --Talos 13:52, 6 March 2007 (CST)
Oppose. I slept on this a bit, thinking at first it was complicated but could be useful, and then waking and realizing it really IS too complicated (and stands to accidentally pollute accepted articles). Like Starbuck, a deleted page is a dead page. K.I.S.S. --Spencerian 14:35, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Comment "(and stands to accidentally pollute accepted articles)" --> Could you explain that? --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 12:28, 9 March 2007 (CST)

If content is available on the wiki, it spreads to others. We had a similar debate with the separate continuity concept; if we allow canon and noncanon stuff to mingle, management is harder. Why do we want to keep stuff that we put in the trash? Isn't gone gone? I can understand the talk pages, but not the original article (and admins can restore any article accidentally deleted). --Spencerian 14:37, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Oppose To be perfectly honest this all seems a bit confusing to me. and if its confusing to me then it probably is for many other people also. --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 08:57, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Oppose A new namespace would entail the confusion of page moves involved in option 2, and have other problems besides. I don't see the benefits as sufficient to outweigh the consequences of namespace bloat. --April Arcus 11:52, 9 March 2007 (CST)

• Comment I don't really see another namespace as a problem. What you call "the confusion of page moves" is only experienced by a handful of admins. The old Talk page stays as a redirect, so people will have no problem to find it. The benefit of having a separate namespace is that it doesn't 'pollute' the Main and Talk: namespaces (except for the redirects), and it makes it possible to search in deleted discussions only, and the possibility to temporarily restore an article without having to put it in the Main namespace (i.e. it stays hidden from most searches, as it should be). --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 12:07, 9 March 2007 (CST)
  • Comment How many users search outside of the main namespace? And how many would know, intuitively, to check in the "delete" namespace for a delete discussion if they encounter a page that doesn't exist? A lot of the wiki-stuff is bewildering enough to average users already, but adding more layers of complexity might confuse even "old hands". I'll grant that the average user wouldn't even be aware of the complexity, but what I'm talking about is the person who's (apparently) trying to get a deleted page restored. --Steelviper 12:19, 9 March 2007 (CST)
    • Comment Maybe not only tag the Talk: page, but also the late page itself? Or would that conflict with the undelete mechanism? (i.e. deleting a page and recreating it) It has the advantage that a user will find a deletd page faster, but the drawback is that it kind of 'pollutes' the main namespace. I'll work up a deleted-tag for the article itself tomorrow, so say what you think of it. (NOTE: More experienced Wiki users may also notice that while the page is gone, the discussion link is yellow, meaning the Talk: page is still there.) --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 12:28, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Oppose Method 1 is a little easier than this one. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 12:43, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Comments

So how would this be implemented? Instead of deleting an article, it would simply be "moved" to a different namespace (leaving a redirect in the old spot)? A lot of times deletions are made to actually get rid of an article, and redirecting would mean the article would still appear to be a valid link (and in fact, would still take you to the deleted article), effectively not deleting it. Or would it be moved, and then delete the redirect? At which point... how would people find it? Unless they understand the "Delete" namespace, it seems like it'd be difficult to know that an article had a deletion discussion that would exist, and how to find it. Maybe I'm missing something obvious. --Steelviper 15:36, 6 March 2007 (CST)

My thought on this is very simple: we just archive the deletion discussions. Then, if someone brought up the issue, we could always recover the page in question. This is honestly my preference, given the reasons and issues you brought up. Having said that, I'll reiterate that my only concern is to archive the discussions, not the material that is discussed. (By the way, the people voting for Method 3 are voting only to archive the discussion itself on a namespace, not the actual article.) -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 18:19, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Gotcha. That's pretty straightforward. I'll go support. We may want to come up with a template for the discussion page that says, "This article (Foo) has been previously deleted. For a discussion of why it was deleted see: Delete Discussion Archives:Foo". I just got confused by the discussion, apparently. --Steelviper 07:47, 7 March 2007 (CST)

Do you mean {{deletetalk}}? BTW, if we're keeping these discussions, we should archive the articles themselves as well IMO. The discussion would make little sense if you can't see the page it applies to. --Catrope 09:31, 7 March 2007 (CST)

The articles are preserved, just not visible to the public. If you don't REALLY delete the article when you delete it, but actually preserve it, then there'd be no way to really delete anything. Presumably usable content would get relocated to other articles prior to deletion, so anything that remains in a deleted article really ought to stay "dead" unless there are serious changes in circumstances. --Steelviper 09:49, 7 March 2007 (CST)

I created another template {{undelete}}. Enjoy and criticize :P --Catrope 10:43, 7 March 2007 (CST)

Hangarbay

I created a "Deletions" namespace for testing. Catrope, you can test the templates over there also. Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 10:25, 7 March 2007 (CST)

Thanks, will do. Could you create a Deletions talk: mainspace there as well? --Catrope 11:18, 7 March 2007 (CST)

Yes. Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 11:43, 7 March 2007 (CST)

Alright, I've been playing around on the Hangarbay and produced a working example: (all links link to the Hangarbay)

• An admin decides to delete Starbuck's Raider
• Its talk page is moved to Deletions talk:Starbuck's Raider. It is tagged with the Deleted Discussion template, which automatically puts it into the Deleted Discussions category. A redirect from the Talk: page to the Deletions talk: page is automatically created when moving.
• END OF LINE. Or at least in most cases. The following steps occur only in the not very common case that someone wants to review the deleted article because he's had no chance to read it (or something else). The last step only occurs when someone thinks they can polish the article to meet BSWiki's standards (an even rarer case).
• Someone wants to review the original article because he's had no chance to read it and therefore can't make sense out of the discussion. He creates Deletions:Starbuck's Raider and tags it with the Undelete template, which automatically puts it into the Requests for undeletion category
• An admin sees this, undeletes the article and moves it to Deletions:Starbuck's Raider, removing the request-for-undelete tag and tagging it with the Tempundelete template, which automatically puts it into the Temporarily undeleted pages category. This page is subsequently locked to prevent editing. The redirect in the main namespace that was created by the move is deleted immediately. The temporary page should be kept around for about a week (or when the one who requested undeletion is statisfied), then be deleted again.
• Someone wants to improve the article to meet BSWiki's quality standards. He creates Deletions:Starbuck's Raider/Improvement, copyedits the original article into it and starts improving it. The subpage is tagged with the Improvedundelete template, which automatically puts it into the Improvements to temporarily undeleted pages category. (NOTE: This is put in a subpage to preserve the original undeleted version.)
• Hopefully, the improved version is good enough to be moved back to the main namespace. All of the pages created above will be deleted in that case.

Used templates:

• Deleted discussion to tag the "Deletions talk:" page with.
• Undelete to request temporary undeletion
• Tempundelete to tag temporarily undeleted pages with
• Improvedundelete to tag improved versions with

Used categories:

• Deleted discussions
• Requests for undeletion
• Temporarily undeleted pages
• Improvements to temporarily undeleted pages

Criticism is welcome! --Catrope 13:58, 7 March 2007 (CST)

That looks extremely complicated :o --Serenity 14:05, 7 March 2007 (CST)

If you take a closer look, you'll see half of the trajectory is only needed when a page's deletion is appealed to. For obvious deletions (like Starbuck's Raider), the trajectory ends after the third bullet point. --Catrope 14:20, 7 March 2007 (CST)

Yeah, I noticed that. Let's just hope that noone appeals to it ;) The first three steps look alright --Serenity 14:29, 7 March 2007 (CST)

Well stuff gets really complicated once someone decides he can polish the article to meet BSWiki's standards, but that will happen very sparingly. Appeals that require reviewing will not be very common, either. But if they occur, it's good to have a policy in place. --Catrope 14:32, 7 March 2007 (CST)

This all seems very complicated even for me. Keeping it in one spot either Battlestar Wiki snamespace or the talk page itself, is crazy. If we had to restore the page and then delete all the "namespaces" pages, that would just create more backlog. (i.e. the reason why wikipedia doesn't it on an approved namespace as as subpage.) Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 17:59, 7 March 2007 (CST)

Can you please explain yourself more? I can't make much sense out of your comment. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 12:17, 9 March 2007 (CST)

I was trying to follow the order and repeating the steps in my head on how I do programing. I got through the steps after about 5 mintues of figuring out what I would have to do just to make it work. If it takes me 5 mintues to request and undelete, as a normal person, I have no idea what a person with zero wiki know-how would do. I just didn't see it as a logical steps to be taken. On wikipedia, they do retore the page, but not on a new namespace. However, they do log all the deletions on the Wikipedia namespace as Method 2 supports. Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 12:27, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Did you happen to read the message boxes that appear over these pages? They briefly explain what the next possible step is. If that description isn't clear or elaborate enough, I'll improve it. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 12:35, 9 March 2007 (CST)

I'm scratching my head now... Ack. It does seem overly complicated, but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, since it makes people think about whether or not to do it it before actually doing it. A few improvements, however: instead of tagging Talk:Starbuck's Raider, create it as a redirect to Deletions talk:Starbuck's Raider. No need to actually tag it, since all the tag does is refer to the "deletions talk" archive. Second thing is to actually lock the deleted article upon recreation, so that it is not accidentally edited. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 18:24, 7 March 2007 (CST)

The documentation for hb:Template:Tempundelete states admins should lock those articles. The message "Please do not edit this article" is there because admins are also humans who forget things sometimes. The redirect is also a good idea. It eliminates a template and an entire bullet point, as a redirect is automatically created upon moving a page. I have removed it from the procedure above and fixed it in my live example on the HB. And to all the people who think it's sooo complicated: it's a slow process. Discussing the deletion of a page, requesting undeletion, etc. all takes time. Also, all of the templates provide instructions about the next step that you can take (i.e. hb:Template:Deleted discussion tells a visitor how they can request undeletion, etc.) I encourage people reading this to actually browse through the live example (every single link in my bullet list points to a real HB page) and read the documentation on the templates, in order to get a good idea of how this would work in practice. Lastly, a question for the admins: when undeleting a page, can you specify a new name for it, or does it get restored to its old place after which you have to move it manually? In the latter case, the guideline above should mention deleting the resulting redirect in the main namespace. --Catrope 08:54, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Undeleted pages are automatically restored to their original namespace. From there they'll have to be moved manually. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 11:22, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Alright, added it to the bullet list. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 11:29, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Clarified some stuff here and there, see also the diff of this edit. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 12:14, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Example

I think this discussion has been an excellent example of consensus at work, and the difference between consensus and democracy. If this were strictly a vote, option 3 would have already been accepted and implemented, but as the discussion progressed and the ideas were fleshed out and explored more fully, the consensus shifted. And it may yet shift again (to another listed option, or maybe something entirely different.)--Steelviper 12:51, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Aye, we should keep it around as a textbook example :P All the shifting makes it a little confusing, I even understand my first system better ^^ --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 13:19, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Hangarbay reloaded

I put up a live demo at hb:Talk:Starbuck's Raider. You can follow the trajectory by reading the infoboxes and following the links. I'll put up an example of a deleted template tomorrow, showing how the templates have to be used when deleting something outside the main namespace. It'll all look the same, though. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 17:27, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Newest gadget: the undelete link in hb:Template:Undelete now points straight to the right undelete page (i.e. Special:Undelete/PAGENAME). Saves a lazy admin some trouble :) --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 17:09, 11 March 2007 (CDT)

As it seems method #1 has won the vote, do people also agree with my particular implementation of it? Please vote here.

Support I wrote it :) --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 15:17, 17 March 2007 (CDT)

Is anyone gonna vote here or what? --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 09:34, 24 March 2007 (CDT)

Please, please, PLEASE vote (*begs*) --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 08:17, 19 April 2007 (CDT)

Sounds fine. The consensus seems pretty clear. Make it so. --Steelviper 08:25, 19 April 2007 (CDT)

Oppose I see no problem with keeping talk pages of deleted pages in certain curcumstances (not always) but I don't like the idea of tagging actual main pages which have been deleted. that just adds clutter. Deleted pages are deleted for a reason. This whole talk pages is just confusing I have no idea which thing we are voting on, its all stupidly complicated. --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 08:53, 19 April 2007 (CDT)

I'm writing a policy proposal right now, which should clarify stuff. I can say here already that it does not intent to pollute the main namespace with empty tagged articles, it only intends to tag the talk pages. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 09:11, 19 April 2007 (CDT)

• Oppose. As Mercifull noted, and I noted earlier, the dead must stay dead. I do see the point for knowing the results from a deleted discussions, but not the wherewithal of keeping deleted articles or discussions. The reason an article is deleted is because it goes against policies and/or guidelines. And since the policies and guideline articles themselves are in place to keep every admin and veteran contributor from having to repeat ourselves about "No, that's not right" or "You should do it this way," there's no reason to have around the extra notes about the why of deleting something. If an interesting revelation comes from a deleted discussion, it should be incorporated in the policy or guideline that deleted it in the first place. Sorry, Catrope, I know you worked hard on this, but I recommend against ZOMBIE PAGES. -- Spencerian 09:38, 19 April 2007 (CDT) ^{(Talk - Contrib Skillz - Edit Skillz)}

Re-thinking the process

Judging by the voting on Battlestar Wiki talk:Deletion discussions, it seems clear that there is some consensus on rethinking how to go about doing this. Let's discuss it here. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 18:13, 22 April 2007 (CDT)

As Spencerian said on the DD page, we could force admins to post a notice on the creator's talk page after deleting an article; hell, we could even make a template for that, à la {{minor-0}}. Such a proposal should IMO also ban the "deleting per talk page" summary, as that makes absolutely no sense when the talk page is deleted mere seconds later. Let's make a list of options first, shall we? Currently we have BW:DD in its current form, and the admin-leaves-note thing. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 03:48, 23 April 2007 (CDT)

Formal Vote

Per the preliminary vote above, we are voting on whether or not to implement Method 1, as explained on the proposal page. Should you oppose Method 1, or the entire policy in general, vote {{oppose}}.

• Date Started: Sunday, June 10, 2007 at 12:00 (UTC)
• Date Ending: Sunday, June 17, 2007 at 12:00 (UTC)

Instructions: Use {{Support}}, {{Oppose}}, {{Abstain}}, and {{Neutral}}, supported by a reason and appropriately signed using the four tildes (~~~~).

Other users are encouraged to vote as well, simply use {{vote}} to add your vote. Refer to Template:Vote for complete instructions.

1. Joe Beaudoin Jr. - Support Easier to tag, categorize and leave well enough alone. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New} 21:52, 10 June 2007 (CDT)
2. CalculatinAvatar - Abstain. Automatic leave of absence due to inactivity.
3. Day - Abstain. Automatic leave of absence due to inactivity.
4. FrankieG - Abstain. Automatic leave of absence due to inactivity.
5. JubalHarshaw -
6. Mercifull -
7. April Arcus -
8. Serenity - Support Method 1 looks very simple and thus feasible. --Serenity 03:57, 11 June 2007 (CDT)
9. Shane - Support, Neutral and Oppose - While Method 1 is better than the choice, in this form I accept, but not really. However I also think the talk page should be deleted as well, but I accept Method 1 for now. Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 13:55, 11 June 2007 (CDT)
10. Spencerian - Neutral Well... It's still a zombie, and I've played too many games of Neverwinter Nights to know not to keep the zombies alive, or dead, or something. Anyway, method 1 irks me less than the others. --Spencerian 20:10, 11 June 2007 (CDT)
11. Steelviper - Support Talk is cheap. That is to say, talk pages are generally not going to consume a lot of resources to keep around. They also provide a record of the debate as to why the page was deleted in the first place (for those who can't view deleted edits), potentially saving a reshash of the deletion discussion if someone new comes along (or if we forget in our old age). If space becomes an issue, we might reexamine this issue and blast older deletion discussions, or even all deletion discussions (they'll be easy enough to find with the cat), but in the meantime I think this may be the most straightforward solution. --Steelviper 18:30, 11 June 2007 (CDT)
12. Talos -
13. Catrope - Support Templates are under way. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 03:38, 11 June 2007 (CDT)

    Comment I've recycled Template:Deletion discussion from my failed proposal (slightly modified, of course), and created Category:Pages with deletion discussions. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 04:51, 11 June 2007 (CDT)