Wikibooks talk:Deletion policy/Archive2

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Contents

better Vfding system

Note: This section moved from Wikibooks talk:Votes for deletion. - Aya T C 22:00, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

I think now that Wikibooks is getting bigger we need a proper Vfd system like Wikipedia with subpages and all. As it is the archive is going to become unmanagable. Of course I know that means more work is required with Vfd bots and all, but the benefits would surely outweigh the difficulties. GarrettTalk 01:50, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

  • I'm not familiar with Wikipedia's process for this, but I'll check it out. In the meantime, I've made a few changes to the page that should hopefully speed things up while minimizing the length of the VfD page. The archive page is currently still as before, but I like the idea of having separate pages for each controversial page. This way it could serve as a complete history for why the page exists or not (i.e. roll up VfD and VfU into the same page). The downside is that it's gonna require a lot more maintenence to keep several pages where before there was only one. - Aya 19:10, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
  • True, but soon entire books will be put up for deletion and not just individual modules. We must have clear naming conventions before we can deal with splitting up VFD into a separate CFD, RFD, IFD, etc. KelvSYC 19:06, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Ah, hm, now that's a problem. Perhaps if you nominate the core of a Wikibook that counts as deletion for the rest of it as well, whereas if you nominate a page you only delete it and its subpages? Hm. GarrettTalk 22:56, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
      • That makes sense to me. When we delete just a module, we sometimes also delete the images too. I suppose the only exception to the "recursive delete" plan would be if multiple books link to, say, an image that actually is valid. MShonle 16:51, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Deprecation of voting

Note: This section moved from Wikibooks talk:Votes for deletion. - Aya T C 22:00, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Moved from User talk:Uncle G - Aya T C 16:19, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Any particular reason you felt the need to revert my attempt to tidy up this section?

Rather than rolling back your edit in an adversarial fashion, I shall instead justify my edit with a brief summary of the way in which VfD sections are normally formatted, to preserve the clarity of this somewhat contentious process. This will soon become part of Wikibooks:Deletion policy to prevent edit wars, and minimize the time it takes for admins to sort all this nonsense out (they don't get paid for this y'know), unless you have a better idea.

The first conceptual subsection should indicate the reason why the page is contentious enough to warrant a VfD, signed by the user who believes it to be the case. Discussions on this reasoning should be carried out in this subsection using the standard talk-page paradigm (i.e. signed, indentated paragraphs). Signing comments is important for context, and so that users don't have to trawl thru the edit history to work out who said what. This section is arguably most important, since, at any time, an admin may decide that the page obviously falls within the criteria for speedy deletion, and just delete it without continuing the vote. This is largely to prevent redundant voting on pages that just say "sdlsdkjfsldk" or similar nonsense.

The second conceptual subsection should be used for voting. This can go on in parallel with the discussion in the first subsection. Only registered Wikibooks users are eligable to vote. To clearly separate actual votes from mere discussion, these should be bullet-pointed. For clarity, the first word or word-phrase should represent that user's vote, and should be emboldened, so that when the voting process ends, an administrator can quickly count up the votes. If the emboldened vote is at the end of the paragraph, they make get overlooked. Usually this vote is one of either "Delete" or "Keep" optionally followed by a justification, but other alternatives have been allowed such as "Move" or "Transwiki" (interpreted as "Move/Transwiki and delete from original location), with a more appropriate location suggested. Each vote must be signed or it will not be counted. It is customary for other users to use the 'indented bullet' format to comment on another user's vote, or perhaps elaborate on their own. Again, these comments should be signed.

The third conceptual subsection is reserved for when a decision has been made by an admin. They will append a non-bullet-pointed paragraph to indicate the resolution of the process. This is usually something like "Deleted", "Kept", "Moved", possibly emboldened for clarity, optionally followed by a reasoning for their subsequent actions, and signed.

The rest of the process is already documented in Wikibooks:Deletion policy.

Comments? - Aya T C 22:48, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

  • You're question is the wrong question. The right question is why you felt the need to alter the words of other people's comments, and felt that what you were doing (which involved making grammatical nonsense of a sentence) was in fact "tidying up" at all. It wasn't "tidying up". It was altering comments to support a bad idea.

    The "way in which VFD sections are normally formatted" is simple mimicry of the way that Wikipedia does it, and on Wikipedia what you are proposing is widely seen to be exactly wrong and a terribly bad idea. (There are a couple of pages on Meta dealing with the wrongness of focussing simply on votes, too.) To repeat an oft-said mantra from Wikipedia VFD: It's not about the votes. Deletion discussions are discussions, to determine a consensus. The discussions are not "mere", as you term them. They are the most important parts. Emphasizing the votes at the expense of the rationales is exactly wrong. My votes go after my rationales for that very reason, and I encourage other editors to put the rationales first, and administrators to read the rationales. This is exactly the reverse of the direction that you are pushing for, which encourages administrators to not read the discussions at all and to simply count boldfaced words instead.

    If you want to deal with sockpuppets, then don't try to make Wikibooks into a democracy. Mimic Wikipedia some more, instead. On Wikipedia, administrators have the leeway to optionally discount votes. The Guide to VFD states outright that "administrators will discount any obviously bad faith contributions to the discussion when closing the discussion and making a decision. In contrast, a user who makes a well-argued case based upon the deletion policy and in a civil manner may well sway the discussion despite being anonymous." Uncle G 00:51:31, 2005-08-03 (UTC)

Okay. I just realised my post was somewhat self-contradictary...

  1. The first conceptual subsection...This section is arguably most important...
  2. The second conceptual subsection...separate actual votes from mere discussion...

...but this is a result of iterative editing while I actually re-think my position on the fly. Pretend I didn't use the word 'mere'. To clarify, I strongly believe the discussion part to be more important than the voting, so perhaps we're in agreement after all. Hopefully discussions will serve to create better policy which could ultimately deprecate the whole voting concept. I'd already alluded to this in Wikibooks:Staff lounge, and I already made changes to Wikibooks:Deletion policy to make it clearer when things can be deleted without a vote. I'm thinking of starting a new VfD for the page Wikibooks:Votes for deletion itself. Perhaps it should be renamed Wikibooks:Requests for policy clarification. Do we really need voting at all? - Aya T C 01:20, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

In fact I just looked up w:Wikipedia:Sock puppet, a concept which had occurred to me already. I just didn't realise there was a common word-phrase for it. This would tend to imply that voting is fundamentally flawed with the current MediaWiki software, so perhaps it should be deprecated completely. - Aya T C 01:40, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep - Short version: VfD useful even if votes not considered in a 50% + 1 context (which they should not be). Long version: In the collectives that I have worked in, there is often a call for a straw poll, which is done before extensive discussion on a particular matter. This is the quick way to determine consensus, and the VfD could be seen in this light. On the other hand, a collective meeting is synchronous and wikibooks is (very) asynchronous and discussion occurs anyway. I do believe that if there is a clear consensus via votes to delete/keep, that should be sufficient. If there is a split, examining the discussion is required. A major problem of consensus decision-making is that it tends to favor the status quo, and in a place like wiki(books|pedia|etc) where there is tons of unregulated input, this can get messy since the status quo is whatever random shit somebody made into a module. Given that, I believe that the admins should have some amount of discretion in deletions even when there is not a clear consensus (as in wikipedia, by examining the quality of viewpoints in the discussion). Kellen 17:42, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep- I think this provides a very useful purpose, and is a "gut check" to see if a book really should be removed or kept. Notable successes include How To Build A Pykrete Bong and Making an Island, where they were overwhelmingly confirmed as being a part of Wikibooks. 21 Century Math was a good example of something that got deleted that really never should have been here either. The long and short of it is that perhaps a discussion about the distinction between the {{delete}} tag and the {{VfD}} tag could be discussed, and a stronger policy distinction should take place. Perhaps the delete tag should be used more often? Other tags could also be implemented that would take care of some issues, or perhaps into seperate discussion, such as a particular module with a copyright violation (no need for a VfD... just delete the page history of the violating content), NPOV criticism (put into a list of books that need to be revised... or simply deleted but after nobody is willing to do the revision), and Wikipedia fork violation (where the discussion should take place within the Wikibook discussion page itself before thrown onto the VfD page). A larger variety of content objection tags might help clean up some of the mess. --Rob Horning 21:08, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
    • Wikibooks actually has a {{cleanup}} tag already. It is possibly underused because it isn't documented anywhere, and because it gives no opportunity for an editor to be specific. I'll be bold and document it for you. Imitating the Wikinews cleanup tag, instead of the Wikipedia one, is also a good idea. That way, you won't need a "larger variety of tags". I'll be bold and do that for you, too. Uncle G 22:07:06, 2005-08-03 (UTC)
  • Several points:
    • Less should be read into the discussions that have very recently sprung up on Wikipedia than you are reading. The discussions are in fact old ones, that have been discussed and re-discussed many times. They are simply being recycled on fresh discussion pages by Wikipedia editors who have patently not read w:Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion and its (copious) archives. They have resulted from a Wikipedia editor actually deleting Wikipedia's deletion discussion area (a disruptive act for which xe has subsequently been roundly condemned), taking another Wikipedia editor's hyperbolic talk page comments involving disrupting Wikipedia to make a point at face value and actually enacting them (which I don't believe was that latter editor's intention).
    • To state something that is stated in Wikipedia VFD discussions (mainly when people come to it nominating things to be merged): Don't nominate something for deletion that you don't in fact want deleted. You don't actually want Wikibooks:Votes for deletion deleted, so you shouldn't really have nominated it. The correct place for a discussion of altering the way that this page works is its talk page, not here, and gradual discussion has indeed been happening there since July. Don't follow the bad example of the aforementioned disruptive Wikipedia editor.
    • This shouldn't be about being different to Wikipedia. All of the WikiMedia projects have deletion discussion areas. They have various names, but they are all similar in concept. This is because the concept is the same across all of the projects. Deletion is performed by administrators following, as best they can, official policy and consensus. That doesn't change.
  • I strongly suggest not having this discussion here, speedily closing this nomination where no deletion is actually desired, and instead simply continuing the discussions that have been ongoing on Wikibooks talk:Votes for deletion. Uncle G 22:07:06, 2005-08-03 (UTC)
    • Personally, I'd be happy if the page did get deleted, since it is not lending itself to creating policy to prevent the same few arguments cropping up again and again. The reason I said it would more likely be moved is that it was my suspicion that other users would not want it deleted, so I have moved this section here. Problem is now, this page will most likely be ignored for the next 50 years. - Aya T C 23:32, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Keep: The proposal for an alternative is a non-proposal. It is nonsense to talk about changing the existing system when: (1) no real alternative has been discussed yet, or even presented; and (2) the faults with the existing system aren't clear or spelled out. Comments like "Do not add anything more to that section" are not helpful: a discussion of a specific replacement needs to be carried out. I propose a new page gets created to talk about the alternative. After that discussion is had, then we should vote to do the replace or not. MShonle 23:34, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Not quite. The obvious point is that since only admins can perform deletions, then admins merely need to execute deletion policy as decided by the community. Thus to get something deleted, the community should modify Wikibooks:Deletion policy to cover some sort of generalized case which includes the thing they want deleted. Why is the community so petrified to change policy?
e.g. Instead of nominating, Neo, just add a new bullet-pointed criterion to Wikibooks:Deletion policy#Speedy deletions such as:
  • Books about constructed languages
After all, you're not actually objecting specifically to just Neo, but any book with a similar scope. The current VfD page itself can just live in Wikibooks talk:Deletion policy, which is conceptually what WB:VFD is discussing after all.
Aya T C 23:44, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
I think the existing policy and system we have works well. I'll agree that it has its flaws, but I'm not going to pretend that there is a flawless system that we can use instead. With your suggestion this is what would likely happen: (1) someone wants a specific book deleted; (2) they infer a general rule that would include that book, but none of the books they want to keep; (3) the discussion on that new, general rule would turn into a debate effectively about keeping that one specific book or not. In order words, I don't think we'd ever think exactly about general rules; and it wouldn't be that different than what we're doing already. It's nice to have congress, but what they do needs to be checked by the supreme court. We can't just legislate deletion policies and leave it up to only admins to execute it.
Perhaps what you'd like to see instead is more activity on the speedy deletion side? I.e., deletion of material that an admin can objectively determine does not fit the speedy criteria? Whatever the case, there is high value in having discussions about specific books: generally the truth comes out and minds change. MShonle
Okay. Perhaps it's apathy, not fear. So perhaps I should take on the task of widening the criteria for speedies. I'll have a look through all past VfDs, summarize the reasoning behind each decision, and add it into policy. I just find VfDs extremely predictable, and thus a waste of time. I just wish someone else would help out to write these policies. Really, we want less of them, not more, and they need to be clear and simple, else they'll be ignored. I thought my recent changes to Wikibooks:Deletion policy were much clearer. Thinking about it, isn't WB:WIN conceptually similar to Wikibooks:Deletion policy. Maybe I should merge them? - Aya T C 00:02, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
Done. See Wikibooks talk:Deletion policy#Policy merge. It also occurs to me that the most important policy docs should be those which cover the functions which only admins can perform (i.e. deletion, blocking, user renaming and page protecting). - Aya T C 01:03, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Policy merge

I've merged WB:WIN into the speedy criteria of this document. I left out the 'original research' part, since it seems too vague, so these will go to VfD. Can the community please review this document before it becomes enforced policy. - Aya T C 01:01, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Update: I'm not entirely happy (nor was Angela) with my extremely terse summaries of WB:WIN that I placed into WB:DP, so WB:WIN has been temporarily reverted. Instead I shall merge WB:WIN in a more verbose fashion into a new exclusions section of Wikibooks:About, and re-word WB:DP to indicate that the exclusions listed in Wikibooks:About will become speedy deletion candidates instead. I worry that a terse definition will be too easily open to interpretation, and thus will cause arguments.
I shall also add in an exclusion for the case of fictional Wikibooks including educational fiction for children. These are not compatible with the goals of this project, nor the separately funded Wikijunior project, which was originally intented to be a children's edition of Wikipedia, although I am happy for Wikibooks to host the Wikijunior project. See m:Wikijunior and the minutes of the board meeting linked therein for further details. The net result will be that the current vote in WB:VFD for Ardvark the Aardvark will be discontinued, and will be speedily deleted as per policy (although I will allow time for material of this nature to be transwikied to another server). This is a shame, but as a host for textbooks, I don't think anyone can argue that this was ever intended to include fiction of any kind.
In addition, Wikibooks:About will have a new inclusions section, and as discussed in Wikibooks talk:Votes for undeletion, I shall explicitly include biographies, regardless of whether they are considered Wikipedia forks or not. Over time, they will no doubt diverge from the content in Wikipedia, and this will hopefully prevent further arguments on overly long biographies on Wikipedia. The net result will be that the current vote in Wikibooks:Votes for undeletion for Biography of Nikola Tesla will be discontinued, and will be allowed to be (speedily) undeleted as per policy.
My goal is that Wikibooks:About should not be considered a mutable policy document, but rather a document listing the fundamental goals of the project, which should never really be changed, but rather clarified over time. The inclusions section will be interpreted as an implicit speedy keep, and the exclusions will be interpreted as a speedy delete. Hopefully this should mean far fewer cases will need to crop up in WB:VFD, and we can spend less time discussing politics, and more time writing good content for the Wikibooks project. I hope this solution will be more favorable for all concerned, although you should feel free to comment on these proposed changes, and reconsider your voting positions.
Thankyou. - Aya T C 14:04, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Support

  1. Looks fine. Some of WIN needs to be on the "start a new book" page just so people don't start those, whereas the deletion policy version of it they'll only read after being marked for Vfd/speedy. GarrettTalk 01:44, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
  2. I guess I ought to vote too, as long as voting is considered the 'right thing' to do. - Aya T C 03:01, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
  3. Ditto User:Garrett. There appears to be some opposition to out right deleting the WB:WIN page, but including the content here as well is a good idea. This should be the "official policy" and WB:WIN merely explanitory material (with the policy statement at the top reflecting that concept). --Rob Horning 11:32, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Angela was quite right. This is exactly the wrong thing to do. Consistency with all other WikiMedia projects wins. Wikibooks:What Wikibooks is not is, and has been since 2003, the policy page that states what does not belong on the project and that is a policy that, in Angela's words, "was developed by a lot of people". (The fact that it wasn't marked as an official policy only reflects the fact that explicitly marking all such things as official policies is a relatively recent development.) All of the other project pages have a "{{PROJECTNAME}}:What {{PROJECTNAME}} is not" official policy page. (What Wikinews is not, What Wiktionary is not, and so forth.) Wikibooks:About, just like the "{{PROJECTNAME}}:About" pages on all other projects, is an introductory page (notice that it is linked to from the foot of every page) introducing newcomers to the project. It is Wikibooks:What Wikibooks is not that is and should continue to be the official policy, not Wikibooks:About, which should be reverted to the simple friendly introduction and pointers to the rest of Wikibooks that it once was. Uncle G 16:57:05, 2005-08-10 (UTC)

Neutral

Comment

First of all, I should point out that the beginnings of this merge were at Wikibooks talk:Policies and guidelines#Proposal for major policy overhaul. It might be worth reading that to get an idea of the background. Aya T C 20:56, 10 August 2005 (UTC)


Replies to Uncle G's concerns. I've broken this up, since you cover a lot of different points:-


  • Angela was quite right. This is exactly the wrong thing to do. Consistency with all other WikiMedia projects wins. Uncle G 16:57:05, 2005-08-10 (UTC)
    • I think perhaps you should stick with saying what you think, and not trying to attribute your opinions to another user. The only thing Angela ever said, you have already referred to in your next sentence. Aya T C 20:56, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
      • I didn't attribute anything to Angela. I said, in so many words, that she was quite right. Uncle G 13:55:13, 2005-08-20 (UTC)
  • Wikibooks:What Wikibooks is not is, and has been since 2003, the policy page that states what does not belong on the project and that is a policy that, in Angela's words, "was developed by a lot of people". (The fact that it wasn't marked as an official policy only reflects the fact that explicitly marking all such things as official policies is a relatively recent development.) Uncle G 16:57:05, 2005-08-10 (UTC)
    • This is all true, but not really relevant. Looking at the history of the page, it started off as a very simple document containing the heading "Wikibooks is not", and the two lines "a place to copy text from the copyrighted sources" and "a place for fiction texts". Over time, it has mutated into containing such subjective nonsense as "educational or instructional", which has caused far too many meaningless debates on WB:VFD, particulary Wikibooks:Votes for deletion#Ardvark the Aardvark. Had it never been changed since this first revision, this argument would never have happened, and thus users would not have had to waste their time on it. I just didn't feel comfortable with reverting the page, especially after Angela's revert. I don't want to get involved in edit wars, so if someone reverts my changes, I generally rethink my actions. Aya T C 20:56, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
      • The document evolved. All policies did, on all projects.

        What I described is very relevant. Wikibooks:What Wikibooks is not is the official policy. You removed the entire text of the official policy and you were reverted. You'll find that if you do that to any of the official policy pages on any of the other projects, the same thing will happen. ☺ The way to change official policy in the face of that is not to unilaterally declare that Wikibooks:What Wikibooks is not is no longer the official policy and then write a completely new policy elsewhere.

        "educational and instructional" is not nonsense at all, by the way. Uncle G 13:55:13, 2005-08-20 (UTC)

  • All of the other project pages have a "{{PROJECTNAME}}:What {{PROJECTNAME}} is not" official policy page. (What Wikinews is not, What Wiktionary is not, and so forth.) Uncle G 16:57:05, 2005-08-10 (UTC)
    • Not true. Not all other Wikimedia projects have a "what <project> is not" page, although the few you mention do, most likely because they were all originally forked from Wikipedia, with little modification. Interestingly Wikinews also has a "what <project> is" page. It just made sense to amalgamate the two concepts into a single page to make it easier to ensure that they do not contradict one another. The whole Wikibooks project was based on the rather flaky premise of "open-content textbooks". The Compact OED defines a "textbook" as "a book used as a standard work for the study of a subject", but I wouldn't imagine that anybody would consider a Wikibook to be a standard work in any subject. I felt, therefore, that this needed some more clarification, otherwise any user could argue that none of the content constituted a "textbook", and would thus be grounds for deletion. I happened to choose Wikibooks:About, since it's a highly 'visible' page. If you click the first link (Wikibooks) on the Main Page, you're there, whereas the page WB:WIN is at least two or three clicks away. This system is optimized for new users, not long-standing veterans of the project such as yourself, since you already know this. Aya T C 20:56, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
      • The original friendly Wikibooks:About page was optimized for new users. It didn't throw them directly into the specific details of one single specific area of the project, the article exclusion policies. It instead presented a simple list of pointers to the various areas of interest. One of those pointers was to the list of official policies, where Wikibooks:What Wikibooks is not was listed. That's how it should be. It's an "about" page, as the name says. Uncle G 13:55:13, 2005-08-20 (UTC)
  • Wikibooks:About, just like the "{{PROJECTNAME}}:About" pages on all other projects, is an introductory page (notice that it is linked to from the foot of every page) introducing newcomers to the project. Uncle G 16:57:05, 2005-08-10 (UTC)
    • Agreed, which is why it's so important that this page adequately defines the project for the benefit of new users. Aya T C 20:56, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
      • No. I'll say it again: Wikibooks:About is an introductory page. It's an introduction to the project and a pointer to more details. It should not be a policy page for one specific official policy (out of many). Uncle G 13:55:13, 2005-08-20 (UTC)
  • It is Wikibooks:What Wikibooks is not that is and should continue to be the official policy, not Wikibooks:About, which should be reverted to the simple friendly introduction and pointers to the rest of Wikibooks that it once was. Uncle G 16:57:05, 2005-08-10 (UTC) Uncle G 16:57:05, 2005-08-10 (UTC)
    • I don't see what is unfriendly about the new version. I have removed many of the "will be grounds for speedy deletion" from WB:WIN after the merge. Perhaps you could better define the word 'friendly' in the context of that sentence, if you intend to use it as an argument for reverting these changes. Aya T C 20:56, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Length of time between last comment/vote to action on VfD

Again I'm getting into an ugly argument on the VfD page in regards to the Harry Potter stuff. This time it is in relationship to how long something must be on the VfD page before action is taken by an admin.

Admitedly we have been short-handed with admins in the past. This has caused some discussions to go on and on and on and on (and on) without apparent resolution. This has been of particular note on the request for adminship page, but this also shows up on the VfD page.

Typical Wikipedia resolution is about 1 week from the end of disucssion. This also seems to be the amount of time that Wikipedia allows for discussion in the Village Pump discussions, so I'm also using that as a guide here.

Wikibookians tend to take their time on things. The Staff Lounge has sections that typically last about a month or sometimes even more before being archived (it has been picking up lately). As I pointed out, the process of trying to write a book is such that a hurried process for voting just isn't compatable with the style of a typical editor here. I do think that a minimum of seven days should pass from the last vote or comment to when action should be done with a VfD (contrary to the actions of the Tesla book that I'm still sore about because of this point). Perhaps even more time should elapse.

I am also arguing that just because Wikipedia does it one way doesn't mean it has to be done here the same way, nor should it. --Rob Horning 12:13, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

  • The way I interpret VFD is that once an item is listed, the community has 7 days to discuss the implications of this action, expressing their opinions as either 'votes', or in some other fashion. An admin may not act upon the results until these 7 days have expired, since it may transpire that during this time, a single user may come up with a water-tight reasoning as to exactly what action should be taken. Futhermore, users should not be expected to check the VFD page more frequently than once a week. As soon as the week has expired, action may be taken immediately by an administrator. The 'votes' are not counted as a mere keep vs. delete, but rather, the reasoning will be weighed up by admins, and used to adjust policy to include or exclude material of this nature in future cases. This will allow us to bypass the problems caused by sockpuppets and other non-contributors. I will try to clarify this in the future.

    In the specific case of the Harry Potter vote, current policy is somewhat vague about material of this kind, else I would've thrown out the vote already. I shall tighten up this definition very shortly. Remember that the key word is textbook, and I could see a book of this nature as a valid textbook for an English Literature course. It also seems to have devolved into a discussion about what to name the book, which is arguably outside the scope of VFD, and renaming the book during a VFD ought to be frowned upon. The name of the book is relatively unimportant. What is important is the scope that the book intends to cover, since this will determine its content in the future, and whether or not that content constitutes a textbook or not. Further clarifying a book's scope in the book's 'main page' during a VFD is perhaps a better way of dealing with this. I also get the impression that another matter of objection in this case is forking or relocating of Wikipedia content. This will also be more clearly defined in the future, but may take more time, since it may be very difficult to do in a clear-cut way.

    The "Staff lounge" is a completely separate issue and discussion should be redirected to Wikibooks talk:Staff lounge. The general reason that stuff is not promptly archived is that no-one can be bothered to do it. In fact, this general apathy to sort stuff out is most likely the cause of 90% of the problems that occur on Wikibooks. I'm still chewing over ideas on ways to make this easier. See also the relevant section in my Critique of Wikibooks. - Aya T C 14:54, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

    • Myself, I welcome the length of time HP was discussed. Having gained a bit of understanding of 'books policy now, it seems that under the stated policy this book was a distinct candidate for a speedy delete. It remains the case that it must continue to repeat the information contained on 'pedia, and 'pedia will not be deleting their version. The official criterion on content allowed on either wiki do not seem to be so different, just their interpretation. So it was an issue of whether 'books would forebear to axe something until it was knocked into an acceptable format. The issue of duplication/forking and macropediality remains to me unresolved. So a longer delay in the decision seems justified. I remain agrieved at the nuttiness of essentially splitting one project over two wiki sites, which is what is happening. Sandpiper 08:33, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
      • This whole forking issue is still unresolved, although I'm trying to sort it out. See: User talk:Aya#Muggles guide to Harry Potter for a more complete reply. - Aya T C 17:01, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
      • False on several counts: It was not a candidate for speedy deletion. No speedy deletion criterion covered it then, nor should speedy deletion criteria cover such things. Wikipedia has removed its full plot summaries that were transwikied here, replacing them with soft redirects. (You know this. You've commented upon it over on Wikipedia.) In fact, they were transwikied after they were deleted from Wikipedia. (The sequence of events at Wikipedia was somewhat ... unusual.)

        Objecting to splitting one project over two WikiMedia projects is what is actually "nutty" here. Not to mention that such a split is little different to splitting one project over multiple articles, we have these multiple projects and the interwiki linking mechanism exactly so that we can make use of the strengths of each project to support the others and build an interwiki web that forms a whole. The source archive provides the raw source texts of books/poems/songs for the annotated texts and for the encyclopaedia articles. The dictionary provides lexical support for the encylopaedia, the newspaper, and the textbooks. The encyclopaedia provides background articles for the newspaper. The newspaper provides a primary source historical record, and comprehensive indirect sourcing, for the encyclopaedia. And so forth. Eloquence made a good point in the Wikipedia VFU discussion about "multiple levels" and "zooming in on any level of detail" that the reader desires. I recommend reading it. Uncle G 16:38:41, 2005-08-10 (UTC)

Delay policy from when a Wikibook is created to VfD

Note: This section moved from Wikibooks talk:Votes for deletion. - Aya T C 22:00, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

User:Withinfocus brought up a very valid point that I think has been completely overlooked so far in the past. In particular, with the Harry Potter discussion, the discussion over the VfD status for the Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter was started by a malcontent trying to stir up trouble in the first place. In this case User:Kappa has only two edits: Placing the '''{{VfD}}''' tag on the Harry Potter plots page and then the subsequent creation of the section for this Wikibook's VfD discussion.

In short, I consider the actions of this person to be tantamount to social vandalism and something that should be discouraged in the future. If somebody does this in the future, the VfD discussion should simply be removed altogether (perhaped archived, but I think that is too kind) and the VfD tag removed from the Wikibook as well. I'm not trying to set a specific number of edits that are necessary, but I do believe that a nomination for VfD status should come from a registered user who has at least some experience and time here on Wikibooks, specifically to avoid this situation in the future.

I also suggest that perhaps in the future we give a certain amount of time to a Wikibook from immunity from a VfD simply to give the authors a chance to try and put some content in or even reorganize the Wikibook. Give these authors a good faith 1 month to get up to basic standards (including blatant violations like a copyright violation or forking from another project or even within Wikibooks). Content in more established Wikibooks is free to be removed, but if you have a problem with the organization of the new Wikibook it should be done within that Wikibook, preferably on the talk pages of that Wikibook first. If you are going nowhere with the organization, then it should be moved to a VfD discussion.

Blatant vandalism of course will never be tolerated and should be punished as usual. A good faith effort to produce a new Wikibook, particularly by new users, should be given extra lattitude.

The Vote for Discussion page is a very powerful tool, and can be abused if not done properly. In retrospect, this whole discussion about the Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter should never have happened in the first place, at least on the VfD pages. It is also a lousy way to encourage new users to try and contribute to Wikibooks. --Rob Horning 13:31, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree that there should be one month of immunity towards a VFD. The Muggles' Guide has been around less than a week and has already received heated debate over its structuring. There hasn't been enough time to even receive commentary on its specific structural attributes. A user came here to VFD it and left. That is unfair to persons like me who had actual intentions to do work before VFD was blasted on it. I have significant reluctance to work on the book since I now see it as having a chance at deletion. Book-writing motivation could be greatly increased if books could have a time of "stewing" where comments can be received before a VFD (i.e. please share your thoughts on structure at the Guide's main talk page). -Matt 14:05, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
This sounds like a good plan. I should note that a new user (one with even zero edits on a registered account) can always post a request for a more experienced user to put it up to VfD. Or, to encode it another way, requests for VfD from zero-edit users need to be seconded by a user with more useful edits first. There have been times that I simply removed a VfD tag because it was done by a vandal. I mean, think about that as a form of vandalism: you just put a VfD tag on there, and suddenly everyone is wasting time trying to defend it.
We should also have standards for what counts as a VfD. If someone "doesn't like" the book then that would not be good enough. If someone can't even provide a cogent reason for why the book should be up for deletion that that would not be good enough either. We should keep in mind precedent, too: For example, there were good reasons to delete Getting a Girl, and I think any policy should secure the Cookbook as a valid wikibook. MShonle 16:47, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
This is mainly to "codify" for admins what should happen, and to give a heads-up about a possible vandal attack avenue that I wouldn't have anticipated. If an admin wants to, they could take a discussion section and "freeze it" by throwing it into a template and then placing protection on the template, with a note that this discussion is "frozen" until the required time has elapsed. Or even outright removal if necessary. The idea that a VfD should be seconded is an outstanding idea. I think any user names that have "red letters" (no user page) should also be suspect, but that can't always be depended on either. I have seen some Ass Pus attackers put in a user page (although for what reason, I don't know other than to piss off somebody trying to clean up their c****). Excuse me, I just dealt with one last night, and it seems to be more regular all of the time. --Rob Horning 17:16, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
Have we move-protected all the important pages now? I remember the page move attacks (e.g. renaming Staff lounge to Staff Toilet or something) were the most tedious to repair. On the VfD vandalism: someone put up the Vegan Cookbook for deletion, which I quickly removed... they kept trying to put it back up saying "it really *is* up for deletion!" but did not provide any valid reason for even deleting it. MShonle 17:52, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

speaking as someone with about 4 edits to my credit here (though maybe 500 on 'pedia now),I shall put in my penneth. Pedia seem very eager to delete things at the drop of a hat. I expect they do have a valid problem with the numbers of articles to be processed, but I presume that is a lot less of a problem here. Presumably people must set up books just for the hell of it, and might realise that it is even more fun if they get a months grace. But even so, my instinct there and here is to give people a chance to do something before instantly zapping it. Requiring seconder(s) for a delete vote sounds good.Sandpiper 20:05, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

I've updated WB:DP to state that only pages which have existed on the DB for more than one week may be added to VFD. If this should not work out, then we can increase the time to one month. Note this does not affect speedy deletions. - Aya T C 21:46, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

I advocate a full month at least, if only because new users in particular are often just trying to get used to how Wikis even operate. I know that my first month here my head was spinning, and the page I was writing quickly got a {{stub}} tag thrown onto the top by a well-intentioned but misinformed individual. Had I thrown over some copyrighted material as part of the article by mistake, I would have been thouroughally confused and even offended. A user's talk page in that case would be useful and there are other approaches that can be used instead of forcing a VfD discussion. One week on a VfD discussion may be an appropriate limit to keep discussion moving along to the next topic, but when you are talking about how long it is going to take a new user to try and become familiar with how a wiki even works in the first place might be too short of a period of time. One week certainly is much too soon. --Rob Horning 00:49, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

In the spirit of being friendly to newbies, perhaps this policy could suggest that the person who initially lists the VFD shouldn't put the "will be deleted" template on the page -- it must be seconded by another.

I agree that it should be at least a week after a book is listed for deletion (perhaps a week after the motion was seconded) before it gets deleted. (If it needs to be deleted sooner than that, use speedydelete, not VFD). --DavidCary 08:28, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Role of VfD and new Wikibooks

Since I'm stirring up the pot a little bit, I might as well link in a dicussion I've started. See: Wikibooks talk:Votes for deletion#Delay policy from when a Wikibook is created to VfD

Keep the discussion on the VfD:Talk page for now. If it gets resolved, some changes to this page may have to be done as well. --Rob Horning 13:48, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

German Wikibooks pages

I've come across a few Wikibooks modules that date back to when Wikibooks was an all-language wiki. Many of these pages have the following template: Template:De or something similar. (see also Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:De) This proposal is going to affect almost 400 Wikibook modules, so this is not something to be taken lightly to quickly delete. They appear to be here from before transwiki protocols were established as well, as this wouldn't be current policy on any other Wikimedia server that I know of right now. I'm asking what the fate of these should be. I would suggest that we delete these wikibook modules, but we could perhaps move the history page over to German Wikibooks (simply copy & paste to there... or even follow standard transwiki policy that is in place now.)

An interesting page to look at is Wikibooks:Portal, which is a source of some vandalism attacks. If somebody here speaks fluent German (mine is rather poor, but I could try if I had to) perhaps we could ask the German Wikibooks community what they think of these pages as well and where they should go. --Rob Horning 00:03, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

I can understand perhaps why Aya decided to move this discussion to here instead of the VfD pages, although it is not going to get the "headliner notice" that perhaps this issue does deserve. Regardless....

I don't understand why German gets the big distinction as none of the other "language" pages get this kind of treatment. Virtually nobody here on Wikibooks even looks at these pages except for vandals and new users who get lost, and they are not on any bookshelf so you can't find them even if you wanted to. The move from this wiki to a totally seperate German-language wikibooks domain happened long enough ago that the arguments for keeping this content here are quite weak.

The main argument in support for keeping this content is to keep track of the user edit history, which unfortunately MediaWiki software doesn't do a good job of transfering when doing a transwiki at the moment (perhaps a future bug fix???) m:Transwiki#Page history does cover this so far as a "policy" is concerned, however. I wish I had the notes from when the "breakup" of Wikibooks occured from all languages being here to when they went off to seperate domains and editor groups. I'm having a very hard time trying to find the notes of that occurance at all.

I did find in the "wayback machine" a discussion on the Staff Lounge about this topic. (There is nothing like trying to go through all 1500 versions of the Staff Lounge) From the tone of this posting, it appears as though these Wikibook modules should never have been here in the first place. I can't find anything at all in the Staff Lounge about moving other language content into other domains. Or anywhere else on Wikibooks for that matter other than on the above template. --Rob Horning 14:05, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand why German gets the big distinction as none of the other "language" pages get this kind of treatment.
Isn't it obvious? Someone wrote some words suggesting that 'German gets a big distinction', and you believed it. Don't believe anything you read.... ever... including anything I write. :) - Aya T C 16:29, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
So, do we delete the whole lot or get German Wikibooks involved? --Rob Horning 19:11, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
Well really we should make sure they've all been transwikied first. Someone could have applied that template without checking if it really existed on the other end first. GarrettTalk 02:10, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
My German is sufficient that I think I can find the content over there and navigate the links to verify that it has been copied over. Should I replace the tags with {{delete|has been transwikied to de.wikibooks}} when I complete the verification? Copy the relevant history page as well? --Rob Horning 10:30, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
Copy the history to the talk page, and mark the page on this site as a speedy. That should suffice. - Aya T C 15:54, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

horribly misspelled pages

I think it should be OK to instantly delete some redirects as they are spotted, but the currently proposed deletion policy sort of discourages that at the very least. I'm thinking of these:

  • CookbookLCaesar Salad (typo;, "L" and ":" are next to each other on a QWERTY keyboard)
  • Coookbook:Rosemary (Cooooooking for Goooooogle?)
  • Cookbook: (note the ":" with nothing after it)

AlbertCahalan 06:41, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. The part which I've mostly written up to and including the section entitled "Meaningful content" seems okay. The rest probably needs some editing, since it's been copied directly from Wikipedia, where the rules are slightly different. My own views on the other things are:
  • Redirects are generally a 'bad thing (tm)' on Wikibooks.
  • Red links into main namespace pages are a 'bad thing' (e.g. Add some [[spinach]]...)
  • Red links into correctly named subpages are a 'good thing' (e.g. Add some [[Cookbook:Spinach|spinach]]...)
I'd say don't worry too much about deleting pages, but in general, keep images unless they're offensive, since you can't undelete them at a later date.
Aya T C 13:11, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Archiving the votes for deletion

The wiki software tells me that Wikibooks:Votes for deletion/Archive is far too large. I decided to archive stuff at Wikibooks:Votes for deletion/Archive 2 instead. --Kernigh 18:14, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

New Speedy Criteria Proposal

I would like to propose that any double redirect that does not have anything link to it be a candidate for speedy deletion. There is really no point on having them around, and fixing them doesn't do much good either. And they just seem kind of pointless to list on regular VfD. Thoughts? --LV (Dark Mark) 17:47, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

There is a bunch of stuff in the orphaned pages as well that needs to be speedy delete candidates. Deleting double redirects, especially if they have nothing linking to them, I think is generally appropriate, or changing the redirect so it is no longer a double redirect, which requires a manual update (that stinks, but it has to happen sometimes). Please in general follow the policies on Wikibooks:Redirect, which I'm adding to the policy pages. --Rob Horning 18:35, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Well of course manually fixing the double redirects might be the best option, but as nothing links to it, and would be unlikely to be searched for, I still think they should be speedied. You can already list them at VfD, this would just expedite the process, and clear up a bunch of junk in the process. --LV (Dark Mark) 18:42, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
The problem with assuming that nothing links to a redirect is that you don't know what links to it. The redirect may be linked by a hard http link on some other web page, or it may be a link on another Wikimedia project. The search option of "What links here" won't show that. On the other hand, cluttering up Wikibooks with a bunch of meaningless redirects is also not important. If there is an edit conflict where you try to create a page and you find a redirect instead, there should be a formal policy to ignore the redirect and simply add the content you want to put in there instead. I don't know how often this is an issue, but I think it would be more common on Wikibooks. Basically, use your best judgement. Redirects are not content anyway, and don't deserve a VfD. If you don't think it belongs, delete it. If you don't have admin authority, go ahead and simply add the {{delete|<reason>}} tag and it will likely be deleted as well. --Rob Horning 06:42, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be policy?

Umm... why is this a proposed policy and not an enforced policy? Can we take some sort of poll on seeing if this can be enforced? --LV (Dark Mark) 17:12, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

OK, I will try to make this into a vote... If you do not like this vote, then vote No. --Kernigh 03:29, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
To be more specific, by "be an enforced policy", I meant replacing {{proposed}} with {{enforced}}. --Kernigh 16:31, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Poll

Should Wikibooks:Deletion policy (this version) be an enforced policy?


Yes

  1. Kernigh 03:29, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
    • With some wiggle room for change... --LV (Dark Mark) 15:16, 16 November 2005 (UTC) I don't really know if the page explains enough. I'll think about it and re-vote later. --LV (Dark Mark) 20:56, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
  2. We need to have something on the books, so when we need to make a tricky decision, we can point back to it. We can change little errors later. --Whiteknight (talk) (current) 21:46, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  3. Gentgeen 08:44, 3 May 2006 (UTC) - If it needs to be changed later, we can ammend it. A body of enforcable policies is long overdue.

No

Impending Doom Template

On a whim, I made a single template to announce that a textbook is undoubtably going to be deleted.

Warning This book will be deleted very soon. Please begin a discussion of whether and where to move it. See Wikibooks:What is Wikibooks for enforced policy.


{{Impending Doom}}

This way we don't need to write out the whole {{Message|This wikibooks will... each time we want to can a policy violation. --Whiteknight TCE 17:51, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

The thing I like the most about this template is that I can use the "What links here" to find all of the modules that have this template. Good tounge-in-cheek humor as well. Thanks. --Rob Horning 18:16, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
Why not just add a category to the template that automagically puts tagged articles into one place? -LV (Dark Mark) 18:27, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I thought about adding a category for it, but i figure articals with this will also be tagged with a speedy delete, or VfD notice already. Of course, people don't exactly need my permission to add a category to this (i may even want to change the wording to make it more ambiguous). --Whiteknight TCE 23:33, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I added a link to WB:WIW to the template. See Template talk:Impending Doom. --Kernigh 06:44, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I added some descriptive text to the template module page, and I included a Category:Candidates for speedy deletion. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 22:37, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Copyvios

Keeping in line with other Wikimedia projects, I have added a section in the Speedy Deletion Candidates about copyright violations. I know this is a big step, and perhaps I was too bold, but I feel this is needed. Any objections? --LV (Dark Mark) 19:02, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

The existing policy on Wikibooks is to keep the content, even if it has been identified as a copyright violation, for one week from when the notice was added. I don't see any reason to change that policy, even if it may not be exactly what is found on other Wikimedia projects. The point here is that we want to mentor people to become Wikibooks contributors, so I would argue that we need to keep the grace period especially for new contributors. After the week passed, it could be deleted without comment or VfD vote, essentially a speedy delete anyway. 48 hours is generally too soon for many Wikibooks contributors to respond, at least from my experience. Unless a compelling legal reason to delete within 48 hours, especially from English-speaking countries like the UK, USA, Australia, etc. can be offered, I don't see a compelling reason to make this drastic of a change. --Rob Horning 20:38, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Okay, that's fine. I suppose there is no genuine compelling legal reason to speedy them, since most jurisdictions allow for some reasonable amount of time to allow the potential infringer (Wikibooks in this instance) the right to investigate the copyvio claim. I will go ahead and change it back (if you aren't doing that as I type this). Sorry about that. This page could use some refactoring by the way. I'll look into it. --LV (Dark Mark) 20:52, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Speedy Delete vs. Delete

I would like to see some section in here about the precise difference between a speedy delete and a VfD. Aside from the fact that a speedy isnt voted on, we don't have much in the way guiding how speedys are handled. For instance, how long must an adminstrator wait between lableing a page as a speedy delete, and actually deleting it? --Whiteknight (talk) (current) 21:44, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks_talk:Deletion_policy/Archive2"