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Should a reason be required when removing a PROD tag?

The result of the discussion was no reason required, and no change in current policy. Ego White Tray (talk) 04:19, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm wondering, is there any valid reason to not require the user removing a prod tag on a page to add a reason (in the edit summary, or otherwise)? Not requiring one seems like it's just an easy way for somebody to keep their article on Wikipedia for another week. I'm sure it's been done before, but I'm proposing that we require some sort of reason, even if it's as simple as "I'll work on it tomorrow", to have a PROD tag removed. Anyone else have opinions? Frood! Ohai What did I break now? 01:30, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

  • Comment - Although WP:PRODs can be removed "for any reason", it says, "You are encouraged, but not required, to" state the reason. If I recall correctly, this is intended to keep this end of the process lightweight and non-onerous. Also, I thought only policies could require things? --Lexein (talk) 02:49, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
Technically, WP:IAR trumps them. Mythpage88 (talk) 02:54, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
  • I don't see the point in requiring a reason if any reason will suffice. It would end up being a gotcha situation for those not well versed in prod policy; if an editor knew the policy well enough to provide a generic 'I disagree with the nomination' edit summary, they defeat the prod, but if they don't, the prod can be restored and the article deleted. That seems like a very gamey outcome. Its also shifting the burden to the objector. A prod is saying this is a straight forward deletion case, it should be deleted and we expect no one will think it necessary to discuss the matter. The remover is saying, 'hay, I want to discuss this first'. The default across Wikipedia is always to be have a discussion on a matter if someone requests one, and current prod practice reflects that. Monty845 05:01, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
  • The point of proposed deletions is to delete an article uncontroversially, where nobody in good faith wants the article kept. Because of that, the reason for the PROD tag removal doesn't matter, and therefore we should never require a justification for removal. To be honest, the only reason that people are encouraged to explain the reason for removal is to prevent the article from going to AfD; if you can give a good justification for keeping the article (say you can argue why it's notable) then it's less likely that the article will go to a deletion discussion. -- Atama頭 04:39, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
  • I would agree with the comments above, no reason to change the current policy. It seems like it would just be an added layer of bureaucracy if we required an reason despite the fact that any reason is acceptable. If an article meets speedy deletion criteria then that's one thing, but if not then there's no reason it shouldn't go through the normal AfD process. —JmaJeremy✆✎ 02:29, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure I agree with: 'I disagree with the nomination' edit summary, they defeat the prod, but if they don't, the prod can be restored and the article deleted' . This is the text on the project page:

    If anyone, including the article creator, removes a {{proposed deletion}} tag from an article, do not replace it, even if the tag was apparently removed in bad faith. This excludes removals that are clearly not an objection to deletion, such as page blanking or obvious vandalism, and tags removed by banned users may be restored. If you still believe that the article needs to be deleted, or that the article should be deleted but with discussion, list it on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. (bolding is mine).

    Perhaps I've been misreading it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:06, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Hi Kudpung, I believe that Monty845 is describing a hypothetical situation that might occur if we change the policy to require a reason for proposed deletion tag removal, not a situation that could happen now under our existing policy. -- Atama頭 15:50, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
  • As has been said, PROD exists for articles that can be uncontroversially deleted; if someone objects, even without a reason, then it is not uncontroversial. There is no harm in allowing them to stay on Wikipedia a little longer to allow a deletion discussion; if they are PRODed, then are are ineligible for CSD so not an immediate problem. ItsZippy (talk • contributions) 21:09, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I guess that makes sense now - thanks for elaborating on that. I'll go ahead and close it, seems pretty clear that this best not changing. Frood! Ohai What did I break now? 23:34, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Problem with an expired PROD

Per this diff, Phil Bridger contested a PROD after it had expired, and made no improvements to the article to back up the NBOOK assertion he made in the edit summary to contest the PROD. From looking at the guidelines, there is nothing that says deleting PRODded articles is the judgment call of the administrator outside of following the steps in said process, and also nothing that says one can just invent a reason to rm a prod without editing to support it. MSJapan (talk) 19:13, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

A PROD is for uncontroversial deletion - a de-prod means that the PROD is controversial. Moreover, there is nothing at WP:DEPROD which requires the de-prodding editor to do anything, other than to remove the {{proposed deletion/dated}}. There is nothing at WP:PROD#Procedure for administrators requiring admins to delete all PRODded articles the instant that the seven-day period expires, merely to ensure that it has expired before they delete. Hence, if no admin has yet deleted the article, it is still eligible for de-prod. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:52, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
Not only that, but any PROD'ed article ever deleted is eligible for prompt and uncontested un-deletion via the deleting admin or WP:REFUND. I occasionally WP:IAR and decline to restore an article to mainspace if it has e.g., BLP problems, but that's pretty rare. Jclemens (talk) 20:04, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
I would add that the claim that I made no improvements to the article is a lie. At the same time as removing the WP:PROD tag I added three references to sources that substantiate notability, and added the sourced statement this book was one of the 14 books of the year selected by The New York Times. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:26, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
Wow, I hadn't even noticed that. You're right... MSJapan, you really owe Phil Bridger an apology for that untruth. Jclemens (talk) 16:46, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
Concur. Diff confirms sources added; valid (now w/urls). Assuming good faith, MSJapan, with 12K edits, erred above (I say all diffs should state the size delta, so it's harder to miss such additions). Phil Bridger (with 27k edits): edit summary "contest deletion tagging by guesswork" is at best presumptive and provocative. I too, want PRODing editors to please make an effort before tagging. --Lexein (talk) 17:32, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
I actually did not see the changes Phil made, but I did see his edit summary; perhaps a different summary may have avoided part of the problem. Considering I had to remove some copyvio after Phil contested the deletion, I assumed no changes had been made, and what was there was what was already there. Therefore, I will indeed apologize to Phil for the oversight. MSJapan (talk) 00:28, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Approach to opposing a Prod

I can see from the Archive that the admissability of Prod removal by the article creator has been discussed before, and that others share my frustration when it is removed without comment, leading to an AfD which gathers no Keep statements and then deletion. However when I try to turn my frustration around and see the other person's viewpoint, I can see how the current norm may be experienced:

  • NewEditor creates an article;
  • A Prod gets put on it, and NewEditor is advised that the way to oppose the deletion is to delete the Prod tag; So s/he does (often without Edit Summary comment);
  • Next thing, there's an AfD on the article; so NewEditor repeats the previously-advised action and deletes the AfD tag;
  • At that point, NewEditor walks into a barrage of reverts and escalating uw-afd messages.
  • Even though each AfD message advises the proper way to participate in AfD, in my experence surprisingly few do.

I'm wondering: does the inconsistency in invited behaviour between Prod and AfD contribute to this overall dissonance? Could the processes be made more consistent?

Rather than the approach to opposing a Prod being to erase the notice, what about following the CSD approach and instead triggering a Talk page comment? The Prod notice then stays in place until its expiry, and if someone chooses to follow into AfD, the earlier objection rationale is visible from the Talk page link in the AfD header.

By taking this approach, the 3 deletion processes would have in common that (a) the notices should not be deleted and (b) the norm is to place an argument against deletion (even if it is a one word "object"). AllyD (talk) 21:29, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

The problem sounds entirely plausible, but I'm not sure the solution proposed is compatible with the "easy come, easy go" nature of PRODs. In fact, I suspect we'd have to have a huge reeducation of administrators if it were to be changed like you propose, to avoid wholesale deletion of PRODs under discussion. Jclemens (talk) 22:24, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
I don't think re-education should be necessary. Administrators are already instructed to check the talk page, and if they see a debate about whether to keep it, they generally shouldn't delete. Ego White Tray (talk) 23:28, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
... and what evidence do you have that this actually happens? I haven't done PRODs in a while, but plenty of administrators have treated them in the past as "If PROD still present on page and time is elapsed, then delete". Jclemens (talk) 03:56, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Missed prods

Is there any policy for a situation like this[1]? A prod was up for over a month without it being deleted....William 02:24, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

That occurred in 2009... Anyway, the answer is to AFD the article. Prod is for uncontested deletions and it was a contested deletion, even if contested tardily. MBisanz talk 02:32, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
The way I see it, the expiry date of a PROD is not a deadline by which any WP:DEPROD must occur; it is the earliest moment that an admin may legally delete the article under WP:PROD (an earlier deletion may be permitted if one of the WP:CSD criteria is satisfied). There is no obligation that every article which has borne an uncontested PROD be deleted the instant that the seven day period expires. So long as an article bears a {{proposed deletion/dated}}, that tag may be removed by anyone at any time, and if done it then counts as legally WP:CONTESTED.
In other words: the PROD may be contested at any time up to the moment that the admin hits Delete page, even if that be over a month after expiry. A contested PROD which doesn't satisfy any WP:CSD criteria may only be deleted through WP:AFD, as MBisanz notes. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:01, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Proposal: time limit for a subsequent PROD

I've just had a PROD opposed on the basis that a previous PROD was opposed nigh on four years ago (since "If anybody objects to the deletion... the proposal is aborted and may not be re-proposed") I suggest we should put a time limit in that caveat. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:49, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

At WP:PROD#Nominating there is a related item: Before nomination: ... Confirm that the article is eligible for proposed deletion by checking that it: has not previously been proposed for deletion. --Redrose64 (talk) 00:00, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
Naaah.... keep the PROD rules simple, send it to AfD if it's ever been PRODded before. Jclemens (talk) 00:03, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
Just had a PROD removed because it failed PROD in 2007. Six years seems to be more than pushing it. Some guy (talk) 08:01, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
It probably is "pushing it", but a few AfDs are probably a smaller cost than the fuss of another if-and-or-but in the PROD process, I've been surprised just how fussy the March 18, 2010 deadline is for a related process. --j⚛e deckertalk 20:18, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Nomination guidelines

Couple of questions re this guideline:

A. Where is the reminder to editors putting PROD tags on articles to check for sources?
B. Where is the reminder not to nominate a non-Anglophone subject article if you can't check sources in the relevant language?
I expect these reminders are there, I just don't know where to look. Cheers. In ictu oculi (talk) 15:50, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
But is it? I have seen several prods recently where an editor who can't speak Spanish/Russian, whatever prods an obviously notable article with sources in the es.wp or ru.wp interwiki article. How are they supposed to know this isn't what prod tags are for if they aren't told. Can I ask, where is the training area for new users of prod tags? In ictu oculi (talk) 01:36, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
How about adding guidance that for foreign-language subjects, place a translation requested tag instead? Ego White Tray (talk) 01:50, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
That would be an improvement and solve where e.g. a fr.wp etc article exists. But given that some local wps are fairly inactive it wouldn't help say for hr.wp, there would still need to be an instruction "if you can't read Croatian don't PROD Croatia articles, tag the Talk for WP Croatia and move on." This is particularly problematic for inflected languages like Russian/Latin/Greek/Finnish etc where searching in the nominative will only get Google Books hits in the nominative. I just made this proposal. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:45, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
If the page is entirely in a foreign language, and it exists on the relevant foreign-language Wikipedia, WP:CSD#A2 applies so give it a {{db-foreign}}; if not, give it a {{Not English}} and send it to Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English. It certainly won't hurt to also add a WikiProject banner for the appropriate foreign country to the talk page; even better, one for the appropriate foreign language, should one exist - see Category:WikiProject Languages --Redrose64 (talk) 12:52, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
  • While I do agree with the idea of doing all possible checking prior to a nomination, I have strong reservations about placing higher obligations on those for foreign language articles. Any number of articles for "DJ Blah" or whatever are dumped on the English language Wikipedia by eager self-publicists. The article for DJ Blah based in Birmingham (Alabama or England) is clearly non-notable due to lack of sources and gets put up for deletion; similar for DJ Blah based in Bremen; but what then for DJ Blah based in Białystok? Does the risk that there may be some sources referring to DJ Blahiego make the editor pull back from proposing deletion? Which gives the uneven outcome that non-English self-publicists thrive better than English-language ones. AllyD (talk) 18:36, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
AllyD, what do you mean "higher obligations"? We require all articles about e.g. AfD for British chemists to check British sources, why is it a higher obligation to check French sources for French chemists? Because the AfDer can't read French. Well if he/she can't read French, how is he/she competent to decide whether a French chemist has notability in French sources. The moment we allowed French sources into the notability equation we opened the door to checking notability existing outside of the English language. As far as the Polish genitive Does the risk that there may be some sources referring to DJ Blahiego make the editor pull back from proposing deletion? the answer is YES. Admittedly it's a bad example because DJs are a notorious category non-notables anyway. Are even 5% of anglophone DJs who have en.wp articles encyclopaedic? no, the accumulation of such tat is just part of the neccessary evil of wp's nature. But lets take some real examples from recent inflected language AfDs. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:40, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
So are we doing anything here? What about Cem Hakko? In ictu oculi (talk) 08:17, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
? In ictu oculi (talk) 09:47, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
  • The instructions need to be changed to instruct nominators to perform the same due diligence required by WP:BEFORE. The nominator of an article I deproddded recently told me that WP:BEFORE doesn't apply to WP:PROD, and that he had no obligation to search for sources. This should be clarified. Pburka (talk) 13:10, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
I believe that there is consensus here that WP:BEFORE (e.g. searching for sources) applies to WP:PROD, although there is not consensus about how to deal with foreign language articles specifically. I plan to clarify WP:PROD regarding searching for sources unless someone objects. Pburka (talk) 16:06, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

PROD and BLPPROD

There's currently a thread at the Helpdesk regarding the legitimacy of adding a BLPPROD tag to a page that has already had a PROD tag removed. I'm pretty sure I'm correct when I say that, as a separate process with its own specific criteria for removal, BLPPROD is not subject to the requirements layed out at WP:DEPROD, but the policy as it's currently worded isn't at all clear on this. I propose adding a sentence to WP:DEPROD to indicate that BLPPRODs can still be applied (assuming that the criteria for their application apply) even if an article has been previously proposed for deletion via WP:PROD. Yunshui 雲‍水 10:35, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

(Incidentally, this may have been discussed before - the reverse (that it's okay to add a PROD tag if a BLPPROD has been legitimately removed) certainly has - if so, just point me to the archived discussion and I'll shut my trap.) Yunshui 雲‍水 10:36, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
I support this in any case. They're fundamentally different processes, and I don't think that an objection-without-a-source is enough to prevent a BLPROD. --j⚛e deckertalk 19:25, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Expiration category maintenance

At present, Category:Expired proposed deletions sometimes falls out of date, due to some caching misfeatures in how categorization by templates that test on things like passing time fail to update those categories as time passes. This problem is addressed for the BLPPROD process by User:Joe's Null Bot, which has been successfully been keeping the maint. categories up to date with a daily poke for a year or more. I had not realized that there was a parallel problem with the generic PROD (the templates and categories are coded much differently), nor I had I realized that editors thought my Null Bot already handled existing PRODs, until I stumbled across a discussion today on the topic in the archives.

Because of this bug, PRODs can be left not listed as expired for arbitrary periods of time. Some editors solve this by hand-kicking the articles, but a simple copy and tweak of the existing Null Bot code would handle that with zero fuss and no muss.

So, I'll need consensus before starting: Shall I submit a BRFA asking to extend Joe's Null Bot task 1 to handle the Expired Proposed Deletions? --j⚛e deckertalk 19:34, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good to me! GiantSnowman 20:27, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Before proposed deletion...

As discussed above, the steps described in WP:BEFORE apply to WP:PROD articles, too. However the guidelines are not very explicit about that. I propose the following change to the "Before nomination" section:

Replace this:

  1. Be sure you have a valid reason for deletion. Consider alternatives to deletion like merging or redirecting.

with this:

  1. Follow the steps in WP:BEFORE. Be sure you have a valid reason for deletion and consider alternatives to deletion like improving, merging, or redirecting.

My only hesitation is that WP:BEFORE asks editors to confirm that the article isn't eligible for WP:PROD, which obviously doesn't apply here, but I think it's better to link to WP:BEFORE than to duplicate its content here.

Pburka (talk) 00:19, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I would rather not. PROD is an intentionally lightweight, low-bureaucracy process, intentionally designed to make things easier for editors trying to maintain quality on Wikipedia. If the reviewing admin has any qualms, he can always reject the prod (as can anybody else) and send it to AfD if desired. Adding bureaucracy would not be helpful in this respect, nor would it really clarify things. RayTalk 00:30, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
PROD must only be used if no opposition is to be expected. How can an editor determine that no opposition is to be expected if she or he hasn't even performed a perfunctory search for sources? You seem to be suggesting that the reviewing admin is the one who should perform that search, but that would make WP:PROD more heavyweight than WP:AfD for the admins, which surely isn't the intention. Pburka (talk) 00:46, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
There's a difference between WP:BEFORE, which includes a long list of things to do, up to and including going through all the notability criteria, and the process for PROD. Personally, I think perfunctory google searches, plus an instinct for the "feel" of a page, is sufficient grounds for PRODding an article. I find it most useful when dealing with articles little changed from their new-ish state that are not appropriate for Wikipedia, and I suspect it is most used in that context. Asking new page patrollers and editors doing basic cleanup to be familiar with WP:NFOOTY, WP:SOLDIER, WP:PROF, WP:MUSICBIO, etc, etc., is too much. RayTalk 14:46, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
Oppose- Prod is supposed to be easy-come-easy-go. Loading it up with more layers of bureaucracy and hoop-jumping kinda defeats the purpose. Reyk YO! 01:02, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose If the nomination process for PROD is to become the same as that for AfD, then its relative convenience evaporates. A substantial number of PROD notices are removed without reason during the 7 days and then have to be renominated through AfD. I cannot see why it would be rational for a nominator to bother with a PROD; better to do the WP:BEFORE and then take it straight to AfD, which will result in a final decision on the article: one-stop processing, no mess, but just an expanded workload at AfD. AllyD (talk) 19:52, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment. I must admit I thought this would be a noncontroversial proposal. It seems that I have a different understanding of PROD than some other editors. I only use PROD when I've followed the steps in WP:BEFORE and I've convinced myself that deletion will be noncontroversial. Do other editors agree that PROD is only to be used for noncontroversial deletions? If so, how should an editor determine that a deletion will be noncontroversial without researching the topic and understanding the various notability criteria? Pburka (talk) 22:18, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose - as stated above, PROD is meant to be as simple as possible. GiantSnowman 10:49, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Partial support There are a number of times when Prod should be used. One of them is the sort of things that would be speedy but for specific considerations, for example: (1) creative works and products that show no indication of significance but do not fit under A7 because we've excluded them since we have found that accurate judgements can not be made by one or two people. (2) essays, again because this is too subjective for a single admin to decide (3) definitions, because judging their expandability is also too subjective for 1 or 2 people. (4) many similar things, some listed in WP:CSD as non-criteria. For all of these, it is enough to check that they are in fact very likely to be non-notoable or non-rescuable. Another, very different actually, is the sort of thing which will fall only because it is likely that nobody will show up at prod who cares to defend it, regardless of the problem. This is often done for inadequate articles by long-departed editors about trivial subjects, but which might be mergable or rescuable. Doing this is improper, without following all of WP:BEFORE--it puts too great a burden on the Prod patrollers and the deleting admin. (especially because some admins will delete anything that has been there the 7 days without further investigation of their own--which I think wrong, but not all admins admins agree) At worst, this can be a device for removing articles that might pass AfD if attention were paid to them by the much larger number of people who look there. Even worse, this can be a device for removing articles that might be sufficiently defended at AfD, but only by one person, who is known not to be around at the moment. DGG ( talk ) 01:04, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Depends, more or less per DGG. If WP:NOT or other issues are going to result in the article being deleted, and that's pretty obviously true, BEFORE is needless bureaucracy. There are some almost-A7 cases where this is true as well, e.g., "Joe's Art Thing is a software application that I wrote last week in my basement that is really cool." is not a valid A7, but I really don't need a Google search to know it's not notable. In practice, most PRODs come down to cases where the presence or lack of GNG-notability is not immediately obvious--check yourself, poke through Category:All articles proposed for deletion. --j⚛e deckertalk 02:27, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
    • Good suggestion. When I checked, the very first article in that category was Chariot (Australia) and the prod reason was "Unreferenced article that fails to credibly assert notability of the subject". A quick GNews search reveals that Chariot is not some mom-and-pop local ISP. It's a large publicly traded company which has been the subject of extensive news coverage (and litigation): [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. To me, this was an improper nomination. If the nominator had followed the steps in WP:BEFORE he or she would have recognized, at the very least, that this would not be a non-controversial deletion. Pburka (talk) 03:10, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I agree with the others: PROD is supposed to be as lightweight as possible, and while the proposed changes and additions have merit on their policy interpretation, I think PROD, of all processes, has the most to lose from WP:CREEP. Jclemens (talk) 04:44, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Article creators and prods

I have noticed that occasionally there is a problem with the authors of articles removing prods without reason. One example where this has happened is on creativity and survival, where a prod was not only removed once, but twice without fixing anything. Thus, I propose that only uninvolved editors should be allowed to remove PRODs from pages, like the system with CSDs. --Jakob (Scream about the things I've broken) 16:21, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

You'd need to propose a RFC on this as it is such a major change; and to be honest I don't think it would pass. PRODs are supposed to be easy to remove - anyone can remove it, for any (or no) reason. Also in the example you cite, why was the PROD re-added after it had already been removed? GiantSnowman 16:26, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
Any editor can remove any PROD at any time for any reason. You may be thinking of speedy deletion criteria, where creators are prohibited from doing so, but there is intentionally no prohibition on PRODs. And, as Giant Snowman notes, PRODs cannot be added once removed. If you disagree, take it to AfD. Jclemens (talk) 16:30, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
The reasoning behind this is that any edit about which there is any disagreement should be discussed, per best practice explained at WP:BRD. WP:PROD is simply the application of this principle to deletion. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:57, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
Anybody may remove a PROD, and is under no obligation to explain their actions. In fact, the only action that is actually required by WP:DEPROD is to remove the {{proposed deletion}} --Redrose64 (talk) 18:16, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
Once a PROD is removed it is improper to add a second PROD. The nominating editor was in violation of policy, and the author was correct to remove it. Pburka (talk) 03:09, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
There are a few cases where a revert of a removal may be appropriate, such as a banned editor editing in violation of a ban, or where the de-prodding editor agrees, but the vast majority of the time, that is right, a prod should almost never be re-added. Monty845 03:46, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Expired prod problems

I just had two prods on my watchlist go contested ten and eleven days after the fact. There should be no excuse for a prod being contested FOUR DAYS past its sell-by date. Any way to make sure things like this don't happen again? Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 12:46, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Why would we want to stop that happening again? A PROD can be contested years after it is placed. Phil Bridger (talk) 14:07, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
Please see my comments on similar matters at Wikipedia talk:Proposed deletion/Archive 13#Problem with an expired PROD (19:52, 30 August 2012) and Wikipedia talk:Proposed deletion/Archive 13#Missed prods (13:01, 1 February 2013). --Redrose64 (talk) 13:08, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
  1. This issue merits attention, but IMHO it will have to be addressed in the context of a) fewer editors b) editors "checking in" less (especially seasonally) c) editors not being notified on their Talk pages of PRODs, d) articles "abandoned" by their authors. I would argue against any sort of deletionist hardline, without recourse, and without accomodation for the changing editor/involvement on Wikipedia.
  2. IMHO PROD challenge time should be much longer, perhaps a month.
  3. User:TenPoundHammer - your argument might have more weight if you linked the articles in question. Then others could watchlist them too.
  4. I've long advocated for automated process to notify an article's author and last involved editors of a PROD. Nowadays, this could take place in the "Your notifications" redbox counter, rather than spamming Talk pages. --Lexein (talk) 19:16, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dan Roberts (singer). This one had a prod on it for eleven days before it was contested. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 19:19, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
Agree with Lexein above. PRODs are a very, very problematic path to deletion. Almost all PRODded articles are obscure stubs, and basically only PROD patrollers have any chance of stumbling upon them. PROD "tacit consent" approach therefore is at serious risk of deleting meaningful articles out of policy and/or consensus, simply because nobody cared enough for that one critical week. Our constant decrease in active editors only makes the problem worse. A small random sample of the fate of contested PRODs at AFD I collected quickly a few years ago shows that more than 1 in 5 contested PRODs can be kept at AfD. This may not look like much, but it is a lot for what is supposedly a process for uncontroversial deletions. It is also similar to the rate of survival of articles at AfD in general around the same period (cfr. Wikipedia:Improving_AFD_debates/Stats). I strongly support the suggestion of increasing the PROD challenge time to 1 month, and I think the PROD mechanism should be reconsidered, perhaps after gathering more and more recent data. --cyclopiaspeak! 19:30, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Hello; i was the "other user" who de-proded 10lbhammer's prods. i was not informed that the user had started a discussion here, but since they have, i will copy & slightly expand upon my comment re: prod timing, from the afds.
excerpted -- "perhaps it went stale, because it was unsupported by the reviewing admins? please note that the passage of time on a prod does not create a "right" to deletion. it means only that no admin has chosen to fulfil your request."
prod is a SUGGESTION, & one that any user is free to oppose. additionally, any user can request an AUTOMATIC UNDELETION of any prod-ed article.
so, with all due respect, complaining that "it's not fair" when a requested prod is not done immediately upon the expiration of the designated MINIMUM time, is rather silly. at the very least, it shows a misunderstanding of what prod is for.
Lx 121 (talk) 07:30, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
Do you think auto-notification of author and last few editors (as notifications, not Talk page notices) makes sense? --Lexein (talk) 09:49, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
assuming we keep prod as policy (& i'm not rly sure if we need a "3rd option"), then most definitely YES, {{support}}, approve, thumbs up, barnstar, wiki-love it, etc. should have been part of the policy all along.
if you (or anyone else) start(s) an rfc about it, pls let me know?
Lx 121 (talk) 15:28, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
Of course people should be notified, and is a violation of basic fairness to proceed without notifying obviously interested people. I've asked for 7 years now for it to be required, but the requirement is best implemented technically, not by having people do another step manually. . TAs a first step, the option to disable prod notification in twinkle should be removed,which will solve a good part of it, as anyone doing this sort of work really ought to be using twinkle , which removes the possibility of all sorts of errors and omissions. For the ones not using twinkle, a bot will probably be needed. DGG ( talk ) 18:08, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
I agree, there is no valid reason not to notify creators. Ideally major contributors, if any, should also be notified. DES (talk) 15:38, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs from before March 2010

A few times I've PRODded an unreferenced BLP, using regular BLP rather than WP:BLPPROD because they were created before the March 2010 cutoff point. I had one such PROD contested a little while back with the assertion that this wasn't a valid reason for deletion. But this appears to meet point 9 of WP:DEL-REASON. WP:BLP itself gives us wide latitude to remove unsourced statements about living people, and by extension that would seem to apply to entire articles if there are no sources present. This is the spirit of BLPPROD, at any rate. I assumed older articles were exempted from BLPPROD simply as a matter of grandfathering. Am I wrong? --BDD (talk) 23:34, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

If they are exampt due to grandfathering, then they shouldn't be. All BLPs should be eligible for BLPPROD in my opinion. Is any BLP which hasn't been referenced in (at least) three-and-a-half years ever likely to be? PS you also might want to post a link to this discussion at WT:BLPN. GiantSnowman 08:20, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
Proposals to modify the BLP PROD process to include pages created prior to March 2010 have failed, so the policy does not cover such cases and editors should not act as if it did. There is indeed reason to believe that such articles can be sourced. Although these pages may have been unreferenced for three years, there aren't any unsourced BLPs which have been tagged as unsourced BLPs for more than a few months. A drive to reference unsourced BLPs succeeded in reducing the backlog from over 50,000 to none in less than two years, so the idea that it is impossible to source the 1,300 articles currently tagged (many of which are in fact sourced) is not credible. Nothing in our BLP policy allows the deletion of all unsourced material concerning living people. Incidentally this discussion would be better off at WT:BLPPROD. Hut 8.5 09:29, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
This is just the way prods work. If someone disputes your prod, the article is no longer eligible for deletion via prod, as the deletion would no longer be uncontroversial. While you should have an appropriate reason to dispute a prod, the process doesn't provide a check for that, and it is not intended for there to be a way to dispute it. Absent someone being intentionally disruptive, say by indiscriminately removing all prods, there is nothing to be done but send it to AfD if you think it needs deleting. Monty845 14:41, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
Monty845 - PRODs are different to BLPPRODs, and we are discussing the latter. GiantSnowman 14:52, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
No, actually. BDD said they were using regular PRODs, and this isn't the proper forum for discussing BLPPRODs. Hut 8.5 16:06, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
The question asked by the OP relates to BLPPRODs - "I assumed older articles were exempted from BLPPROD simply as a matter of grandfathering. Am I wrong?" GiantSnowman 16:12, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
The complaint is that the OP was using regular PROD on old unsourced BLPs and the PRODs were removed by someone else for a reason the OP disagrees with. As Monty845 pointed out, the process is explicitly designed to allow this. If people want to discuss the BLP PROD process, or propose removing the age restriction, then this isn't the proper forum. Hut 8.5 16:28, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I've left notifications at WT:BLPN and WT:BLPPROD as suggested. Perhaps I need a history lesson. I assume BLPPROD came into effect in March 2010, and that a decision was made to grandfather existing unreferenced BLPs, so please let me know if that's not correct. --BDD (talk) 16:30, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I was the person who removed that prod you are talking about. In that case, the article Hiroko Yamashita (actress) was prodded with a regular (non-BLPPROD) prod with a reason of "Unreferenced BLP older than March 2010". When the BLPPROD process was started, there was a decision that only BLP articles written after March 2010 could be deleted just because they were unreferenced. It seems clear to me that the decision was not that all unreferenced BLPs would be deleted, with the newer ones using BLPPROD and the older ones using regular prod. There was a clear decision that older unreferenced BLPs would not be deleted solely for being unreferenced. If an article violates the policy on biographies of living persons, that is a valid reason for deletion (if it can't be fixed through editing), but you made no claim in the prod reason that the article violated that policy. That policy states that contentious material or material likely to be challenged requires sources. None of the information in the article seemed contentious or controversial. If you gave any indication in the prod rationale that you thought the material was contentious or that you were challenging its factual acurracy, that would have been a valid reason for a prod. However, you did not give any such indication, and instead only provided a reason for deletion that had been clearly established as not a valid reason for deletion (in the discussion that created the BLPPROD process). Also, since you ask about the history of BLPPROD, all the older unreferenced BLPs that were tagged at the time were either sourced, or nominated for deletion if they were non-notable or couldn't be sourced (see Wikipedia:Unreferenced BLP Rescue). They weren't deleted at the time because there were people who were planning to try to source them, and it was decided to allow that effort to go forward. All the BLPs that were tagged as being unsourced were dealt with, and any unsourced BLP from before March 2010 that you see now must have not been tagged as unreferenced at the time. While in theory the BLPPROD policy could now be changed to allow it to be used on older BLPs (since the organized effort to source them has concluded), I would expect that such articles come up infrequently enough that it wouldn't be hard to look for sources for them when they do come up. Obviously, if you do check for sources and don't find any, that is certainly a valid reason to prod an article. Calathan (talk) 17:22, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Deprecate PROD, close unchallenged AfDs as delete without prejudice

I have made a proposal to deprecate PROD in favor of closing unchallenged AfDs as if they were successful PRODs. If you have an opinion on the matter, please chime in there. --erachima talk 17:38, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

"Old prod removed"

If a de-PROD'ed article is AfD'd and survives, should the "old prod removed" template be removed from the talk page once the "AfD result" is placed? I'm asking because it looks both redundant and unclear to see:

Yes, it does look redundant. If an article has been through PROD and AfD, the latter is more important, so you could safely remove the PROD notification. It would be fine either way. --BDD (talk) 17:58, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Deleting your own PROD

Is it an acceptable for an admin to delete an article he or she has PRODded? It would seem to violate WP:INVOLVED, but if no objections have been raised after the one week and the article is just sitting around waiting for some admin to do the deed, why not the one who had the idea to begin with? Since WP:REFUND would still apply, I don't really see how this could be gamed or otherwise abused (besides something obvious, like the same admin protects the article to prevent contesting). --BDD (talk) 23:37, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Never done it myself, but INVOLVED applies when someone else disagrees with the action. If no one else has objected in a week, then the topic is presumably not under contention. I don't see it as a big deal. If I'd ever done it, I'd be falling all over myself to be the one who undeleted it if requested. Jclemens (talk) 04:47, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
I've done it once or twice before - accidentally, after missing my name in the page history. Realised my mistake as soon as I saw it as a redlink on my watchlist, and restored it fearing INVOLVED. GiantSnowman 08:26, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
No need to codify it probably, it isn't really an urgent problem, but I would never do this (on purpose, accidents and mistakes always happen). My personal guidelines are Speedy = 1 person enough, ProD = 2 persons enough, AfD = more input wanted. Fram (talk) 08:38, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

"Second" a prod

I like the idea of the "seconding" of a PROD but I'm concerned about its use. In Parlaimentary procedure (at least as I have been taught) a "second" to a motion does not necessarily mean that the member who seconds agrees with the motion, it merely means that the individual supports discussing the motion. In that context, a "second" would then mean the discussion should take place in AFD. It might be better to change the term to "support" or another similar term that doesn't imply taking the issue to discussion.--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:00, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

We could change it to "endorse", to match the both the true name of {{prod2}} and its text. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:46, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
"Endorse" works for me. But I think that changing it after a short discussion like this of two editors is not quite enough. I'd like to get more feedback. It's not really "changing the policy" just the wording... or maybe it is changing the policy!--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:12, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
I made an entry at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 111#"Second" vs "Endorse" a prod. Further discussion should probably continue there.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:16, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Clarifying edit

I just made this edit to clarify 1) that admins don't magically review Prods after exactly 7 days, they may wait a while until an admins comes by; and 2) that an admin reviews and decides whether to delete an expired PROD or not, and admin is not automatically bound to delete. I think that these changes accurately reflect current practice as well as the original understanding of this process. However, if anyone things I am mistaken, please discuss the matter, after reverting if you feel the need. DES (talk) 02:06, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

I think that sums it up about right - it covers most my comments at #Expired prod problems above, and the pages that I linked to. The only thing that I consider might be usefully added is to show that just as there is no time limit for admin action, there is also no time limit to a WP:DEPROD - that may still be done even after seven days. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:31, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to change duration of WP:BLPPROD from 10 to 7 days

If you would like to comment, please see: Wikipedia:Proposed deletion of biographies of living people/RfC: Change duration from 10 to 7 days. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:02, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

RfC announcement

Please see the RfC at Wikipedia talk:The answer to life, the universe, and everything/Archive 2#RfC: Is this an information page or is it an essay? --Guy Macon (talk) 01:14, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

A little restraint please

I bow to no one in my frustration with spam and self promotional articles, as also the unsourced non-notable $#^! that people try to pass off as an encyclopedic article. But seriously folks, give new articles a break. I am not talking about an article that's at the back end of the NPP queue. I am talking about the article that was created an hour ago! I just took a little tour of the PROD log for Feb 1 and at least a quarter of the PRODs that had been put up were on article that were less than 24 hrs old at the time. People need to take a deep breath before proposing the wiki equivalent of capital punishment for an article that only just appeared.

If there is obvious CSD material, that's one thing. Tag away. But otherwise tag bombing and PRODing an article in it's first 24 hrs of life is frankly rude. And it's almost certain to discourage newbie editors. If a new born article has really major problems that might lead to a PROD or an AfD nom, why not drop a line to the creator and give them a heads up before launching a delete proposal? And remember that if a PROD gets yanked (and I took a couple down that looked grossly premature) you can't put another one up if the article still sucks a month into it's existence. You are stuck with the Casino AfD.

Honestly, if I were wiki dictator for a day I think I would impose a ban on PRODs for any article that wasn't at least 72 hrs old. -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:27, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

"why not drop a line to the creator" - given that most PRODs don't even result in a notice on the editor's talk page, when there are automated tools for such, I think we can assume it is too much for a manually edited "heads up post". Which is the whole problem, IMHO, PROD is simply too easy, and the tools make it easier still. Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:24, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Out of control?

I periodically peruse the PROD list to see what's going on. Currently there are about 300 articles listed. I didn't even make it 1/2 way through the "1" and "2" list and I already had 7 declines and only 2 supports. In only one case was the decline even marginal. In another case the PROD was on a duplicate article, which the PRODder didn't appear to bother checking in Google. In another, the PRODder simply PRODded because it used to be speedy, and apparently didn't bother to look whether or not it met the criterion for either. As I have not done this for months, it implies perhaps hundreds of articles were deleted because of bad PRODs like these.

PROD, as the editor above notes, is being used for "this is a bad article" or even "this is a new article" - not "incontestable deletion". This has always been the case, and shows no sign of getting better. People are clearly using PROD as an AfD process, apparently to save themselves time and effort. I am aware that there is a man-in-the-loop admin that has to do the physical deletion, but every bad PROD they have to look at decreases the time they have to actually examine the PROD - if they do that at all (I'm not sure).

As the abuse is both widespread and not improving, I suggest we start a process of more narrowly defining when PROD can be used. BLP, COPYVIO and obvious promotion seem like good candidates. Beyond that I think one might argue that PROD should be declined on sight.

Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:48, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

No. You said, "People are clearly using PROD as an AfD process, apparently to save themselves time and effort." That is the entire reason that PROD exists. You stated that PROD is for "incontestable deletion", that untrue. Any deletion can be contested except for those that fall under CSD criteria. PROD is for articles that are uncontested, in other words, where nobody has yet expressed an objection to deletion. Once someone does express an objection, it's ineligible for PROD. What you're identifying as abuse is actually correct procedure.
People should be using WP:BEFORE if they're going to propose an article for deletion, but it's not a requirement. Administrators should definitely check that the editor's proposed deletion criteria is correct, with at least a cursory check. What I've always done is a quick check for coverage to see if it's notable. I also look at the article talk page, and the user talk pages of the author and any significant contributor, to see if there has ever been an assertion that the article should be kept or an argument about inclusion.
There has been a backlog of PRODs lately, I was trying to help clean that up before other issues diverted my attention (like the SPI backlog that was getting complaints in various areas, now taken care of). It's not due to an inflated volume so much as the fact that fewer admins are taking care of it. Looking at the number of PRODs per day, the highest count I see is 29 which actually is lower than I remember it being in the past when I used to be a PROD patroller (before I was an admin). What is unusual is the fact that there are PRODs that have expired for days but aren't deleted yet, it used to be taken for granted that all of the PRODs that were due to expire on a particular day would be taken care of by the end of the day. Now that SPI is under control, I'm going to try to help catch up on PRODs. -- Atama頭 17:04, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
"That is the entire reason that PROD exists"
PROD exists so people can be lazy and avoid the processes we already put in place?
But, as an empiricist, I'd like to look at the numbers. Of the last 100 articles that expired PROD and could be deleted, how many of those did the deleting admin de-prod? I suspect there is an easy way to test this, but I'm not sure how.
Maury Markowitz (talk) 18:05, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
"PROD exists so people can be lazy and avoid the processes we already put in place?" - That's a cynical way to put it, but not inaccurate either. But I don't consider the incentive for PROD to be laziness as much as it is efficiency. If deletion of an article is uncontroversial, you can either go through the lengthy AfD process just to get 3-4 "delete" arguments, then an administrator deletes. Or, just do a quick PROD and have the same result.
Most proposed deletions are done for a good reason. I'm clearing out PRODs from the 25th of February at the moment, and some of these are pretty obvious (though I still do a quick check). Others I took a lot of time to think about. One I "rescued" because I found some real potential in it, from some reputable sources, and I'll probably try to address some of the issues at the article if I have free time, until then it's on my watchlist. (I've fixed up a number of articles by running across them in PROD patrolling.) But I will say that de-prodding an article is unusual, because again, most articles proposed for deletion who last the full 7 days in my experience are legitimate (I'm sure more than 90%, which has to be better than CSD and AfD rates). -- Atama頭 18:39, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
I mostly concur with Atama's view. Not that long ago I wrote a sharply worded criticism of what I believe is a problem with the way PROD is being used by some editors. But PROD IS an important tool. And to be frank it's one of the tools that is helping to keep the system from breaking down. Right now AfD is on life support. There aren't enough editors participating and AfD-articles routinely are being relisted two and even three times because of this. More than a few that should be deleted are escaping because of this problem. PROD is the first line of defense against obviously really bad articles. It also is useful in that it gives the creator of a new (by which I mean maybe a month or so old) article the opportunity to fix potentially fatal problems without having to deal with AfD. And of course a lot of obviously SPAM articles are created by SPAs who never bother to log in after they have thrown up their little advertisement. PROD is a good way of dealing with them. When I put a PROD on an article in my NPP queue I am hoping to avoid the Casino AfD if at all possible, but also hoping to give other editors that chance to fix an article in case I missed something (it does happen) with a minimum of fuss. If we were to take away PROD, based on my observations of how AfD is working lately, I think the system for getting rid of bad articles would come pretty close to collapse. My own approach to PROD is that I almost always use it before going anywhere else. If you spell out in very clear language what the problem is and make sure you include the appropriate links to WP:N and WP:RS etc it lets the creating editor know where he/she has fallen short and what needs to be done to bring it up to snuff. If a PROD is yanked without evident improvement and or some reasonable explanation ("Hey idiot did you notice the five NY Times articles on the first page of a Google search?"), then and only then do I send it to AfD. At which point I cross my fingers, hop on one foot, and say a Hail Mary in the hopes that there are actually some editors wandering around the forum who will take a look at my nom. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:09, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
Maury Markowitz, I noticed that you endorsed a proposed deletion for an article that had already been proposed for deletion, and the deletion was contested by the author. The person proposing deletion even stated as much in the deletion rationale of the article, "Previous PROD's seem to have been deleted by WP:SPA without resolving the issue." I'm wondering if some of your concerns are due to a misunderstanding of how the PROD process works. Aside from what is written on the WP:PROD policy page, you might also consider looking at WP:WPPDP. There is some good advice on that WikiProject page about handling proposed deletions. -- Atama頭 22:08, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Do you have metrics on the number of PROD declines that occur during the admin closing phase, or not? If not, please tell me how to collect them, and I will do so. Maury Markowitz (talk) 12:38, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

No idea, I don't have any more access to that kind of thing than you do. Maybe someone at WP:VP/T might have an idea how to gather that sort of information. -- Atama頭 16:28, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Proposal needing input

User:AnomieBOT III will currently convert attempted interwiki redirects into soft redirects. It has been proposed that the bot also apply {{prod}} to such redirects in article space, as WP:Soft redirect discourages these. Please comment at WP:VPR#Proposal to automatically ProD redirects to other language versions of wikipedia, instead of turhing them into soft redirects. Thanks. Anomie⚔ 13:13, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Questions and comments from a new editor

I started editing about three weeks ago, and stumbled into the Deletion issue when checking the Links on the page I was editing to see what info was there - to help decide how much detail to go into on the page I was editing - a cell biology page. Numerous times I have been dismayed by the lack of quality in the linked articles, and wondered if there wasn't a WP site where someone could leave a head's up that there was a page that needed to be looked at. The response I got at the wiki -help-chat room was: either I should "fix" the article myself or learn all the rules for deletion, flagging the article, justify the flag etc. and follow through the deletion process myself.

I flagged one article, was told I had used the wrong procedure, the wrong template, and got a response from someone on the talk page that the article was "not so bad". And it was unflagged. Now I don't know all the criteria for justifying deleting an article, and I don't want to learn them. I just want to go back to editing. I'm happy to point out a page that I think needs to be looked at, but I'm not signing up for being asked to defend myself if I make such a suggestion ,and take it on as a project. WP makes it very tempting to ignore this problem rather than address it.

So - does anybody know of a page titled "Pages for quality review by Administrator"? Just cite the page without explanation? If not, that's what is needed.

IiKkEe (talk) 19:05, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Hi IiKkEe and welcome to Wikipedia! Sorry you seem to have gotten a bit of a run around. It can take a while to get the hang of the basic rules on all of the subjects. But don't sweat it. A lot of leeway is given to new editors. I just added a new Welcome template to your talk page with a bunch of links that you may find useful. If you think an article needs to be looked at, you can handle it several different ways. First you can just tag it for improvement. WP:TWINKLE is an excellent tool that helps with preloaded templates for the most common tags used on Wikipedia including things like 'needs better sources' or 'needs copy editing' etc. Another option is to alert a more experienced editor and ask for their help. This doesn't seem to have worked too well in your case but hopefully that won't be the normal response. And yes, you can tag an article for deletion. I strongly discourage new editors from doing too much of that until you have gotten a grasp of at least the basics of our policies. A lot of new editors jump in and start tagging articles for deletion because they think the article sucks, and sometimes it does, but that's not actually in our guidelines as a reason to kill an article. I speak from personal experience on this subject. The first few weeks I tried my hand at New Page Patrol I tagged a million articles for deletion that I was sure were excrement or SPAM. And let's just say that a lot of other editors were kept busy cleaning up my silly mistakes. If you need any help with a specific issue or question feel free to drop me a line on my talk page linked in my signature. Or you can just post below this, as this page is on my watch-list. Best regards... -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:44, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
In most cases, if you feel that there are problems with a specific article, the article's talk page is the place to discuss it; for example, the article Ghrelin has the linked discussion page Talk:Ghrelin. You may find that the top of the talk page bears one or more WikiProject banners; in this case, I see the banners for {{WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology}} and {{WikiProject Pharmacology}}. Each WikiProject has a talk page, often linked from the banner (but not always). For these two, I see:
Of these, the second has a direct link to the WikiProject's discussion page (it's "join the discussion"); the first does not, but it does have two links to the main page for the WikiProject - click either one, and you should find the "Talk" tab at the top. You can leave a note on these talk pages, directing them to the discussion on the article's own talk page. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:47, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Redrose64 and Ad Orientum, for your quick responses. Would you like to run a little experiment with me? You don't need a science background to do this. Go to the nesfatin page , read the page , the talk page and the history of edits page (edits are all mine). Then come back to this page and tell me what deficiencies you see, and what action you recommend. I'll join in and tell you mine. Then we will decide on a plan of action. Deal?

IiKkEe (talk) 20:09, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

IiKkEe A quick glance at the article suggests some problems. It might be a bit essayish and or have some POV issues. It is definitely written in language that a layman would have great trouble understanding. I would likely tag it as being in need of a look by an expert and then drop a line on one or more of the relevant wiki projects. But tags for all of those are available on WP:TWINKLE. Beyond that I can't comment on the actual substance of the article as it is well outside of my field of expertise. -Ad Orientem (talk) 20:22, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
Actually I think I will tag this article unless there are some objections... -Ad Orientem (talk) 20:24, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I have posted a couple of tags and I dropped a note on the talk page of Wikipedia:WikiProject Biology. I also noticed that Redrose64 added some project templates to the talk page. All of this should draw some attention. -Ad Orientem (talk) 21:13, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I wrote a nice long response to the above , the computer said is was an editing conflict, and erased it. Here's a shorter version. The 3 images are copyright violations. The article violates numerous WP style an content policies for scientific pages. Here's another one: Dynamic energy budget Pseudo-science. Zero references.

Thank you Ad Orientum! for taking over and taking action!

The only downside is I will send more to you if I see more. Are you two Administrators?


Regards -

IiKkEe (talk) 21:49, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Redrose64 is, and I am an administrator too (I haven't commented yet because you've already received good answers but I'm watching this page). Ad Orientem isn't an admin but I wouldn't give his suggestions any less weight because of it. The only real difference is that Redrose64 and I can carry out deletions, but we still have to follow deletion policy when we do so. -- Atama頭 22:50, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
When you get an edit conflict (as I just did), you don't lose your text. You are presented with what seems to be an editing box containing the whole page; but below that, and probably off screen, will be a second editing box, still containing your edit. In that lower edit box, mark your text, and copy it to the clipboard. Then back out to the page that you were on before you began to edit, re-edit the section, and paste in your text.
If the images in Nesfatin-1 are copyright violations, that is not grounds to delete the article, although it may be grounds to delete the images. The images are File:Nesfatin-1 glucose-dependent insulin release.jpg, File:Nesfatin Sequence.gif and File:Insulin Signal Transduction Pathways.jpg - all of these are marked {{Non-free web screenshot}}, but they also have a fair-use rationale. If you think that the FUR is incomplete or insufficient, the place to bring that up is Wikipedia:Non-free content review. If the article violates Wikipedia style guidelines, fix it.
Regarding Dynamic energy budget: that has two references, but it could do with more: you may add a {{refimprove}} at the top. Being a pseudoscience is also not grounds for deletion: we have an extensive collection of articles concerning homeopathy, and indeed, a category devoted to pseudoscience. So long as the article satisfies the core policies of verifiability, neutrality, and no original research, it will almost certainly survive any deletion proposal.
The reasons and methods for deletion are given at WP:DELETE.
It's easy to find out if a user is an admin: either (i) go to their contributions page - here's mine - go to the bottom, and click the link "User rights"; or (ii) see if they're listed at Special:ListUsers/sysop. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:58, 6 May 2014 (UTC)


I took a look at Dynamic energy budget and added ref improve and inconsistent citation style tags. Based on IiKkEe's concern that it might be controversial, I also added a tag indicating that not all points of view may be adequately represented. -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:57, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Ad Orientem - coming back one more time just to say you are wonderful. "ref improve" is a tad understated: WP guidelines say science articles should be "heavily cited" No citations falls a bit short...

Anyway, it got reported, and I didn't have to learn how to do it. Win-win. No need to respond to this. I'm "signing out"...

IiKkEe (talk) 00:32, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm back with another page to flag. It's Bleeding time. Deficits: amateurish style, wrong information, not sufficiently sourced, one section telling a joke from TV episode. Can you turn those into WP appropriate flags?

I'm not actively looking for these: I am editing 4 sites from top to bottom, checking all links - that where I'm running into them.

Regards -

IiKkEe (talk) 19:07, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

This is not the venue for discussing problems with articles; it is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Wikipedia:Proposed deletion. I suggest that you put specific concerns on the talk page of the individual article, and general concerns at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine, which would also be a fair place to post notifications of discussions on article talk pages. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:16, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

IiKkEe, I agree with Redrose64's comments above. If there are issues that you can fix by quick edits, we encourage editors to do that rather than tagging articles. See SOFIXIT. I am not competent to express opinions about what is or is not accurate on some of these articles, so I would be uncomfortable attaching tags. But if you believe there are serious factual errors you can put a {{disputed}} tag at the top of the article. Also {{refimprove}} will alert editors that additional sources are needed. Have you activated WP:TWINKLE on your account? If not, you should go to the Preferences tab at the top of your Wikipedia page and then click on Gadgets. Scroll down a bit until you see Twinkle and then check that box and save. It makes tagging enormously easier. You will get a drop down menu that allows you to do all kinds of things with just a couple of clicks, and you don't need to memorize tag code. If you do decide to tag an article for potentially inaccurate content or some other serious issue, you should almost always post an explanation of the problem on the talk page, especially if you are not going to fix it right away. As for the attempt at humor, it is under a section entitled "in popular culture" which is where people can reference instances where the article subject appeared in some form of popular culture like a book, movie or TV episode. As long as it's properly sourced and not completely over the top we usually give a pass on such things. Feel free to post your other concerns on the talk page of the article. If you need specific help with any of this drop me a line on my talk page so we don't clutter up this forum with an off topic discussion. Best regards... -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:39, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

See my response on your talk page.

IiKkEe (talk) 22:48, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

AFD Zombies

An interesting case has come up at this AFD. The article was deleted at AFD way back in 2005, promptly recreated, and has lasted this long until someone tried to PROD the page. User:MrScorch6200 then removed the PROD on the grounds that an article with the same title had previously been at AFD, and thus this article was ineligible for proposed deletion.

While I acknowledge that this action was correct given the current working of the guideline, I cannot help but feel this is not a sensible outcome given that the article was not the same one that was previously deleted (it just happened to share the same title), the first AFD was a unanimous delete decision, and a significant period of time had passed since the discussion. In any case the article has been deleted again via a pretty clear consensus for an AFD.

Is there any support for the idea of making a minor amendment to the policy to explicitly permit proposing an article for deletion where there was a previous AFD, but only where the most recent AFD resulted in a unanimous "Delete" verdict? I don't imagine it would come up too often, and many such cases can probably be dispatched more efficiently through CSD G4, but it does seem to be a bit of a loophole in the policy as it's currently written. Lankiveil (speak to me) 13:10, 10 September 2014 (UTC).

  • Were the two articles about the same Club Xanadu, or two different establishments with the same name? Either way, I don't think this comes up often enough to warrant a rule to handle it. I can see why it might be annoying though if you want to prod an article about Joseph K. Bloggs, the lead guitarist of a crap garage band in New Zealand, but can't because the self-posted CV of Joseph K. Bloggs, a Canadian marketing executive, was already deleted at a previous AfD. Reyk YO! 13:34, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
  • The articles were about the same Club Xanadu (both claimed to be located in the same place and said that a certain song was first performed there). If the article deleted at AfD had been on a different subject then I think it would be sensible to PROD it and ignore the rule if necessary. It might also be reasonable to allow PRODing of articles which have been deleted at AfD where nobody thought the article should be kept, since in that situation nobody can argue the deletion might be controversial or contested. But I don't know how frequently that situation comes up. Hut 8.5 17:23, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
I don't think prod should be allowed on articles that were deleted at past AFDs, even if the past discussion was unanimous. It would needlessly complicate the policy for a situation that rarely comes up. Also, if the article doesn't qualify for deletion by G4, then there is a good chance it warrants another discussion anyway. However, several times I've seen prods on articles that happened to share the same title with an entirely different subject that was deleted at AFD. I think those are fine, since the subject hasn't ever been discussed at AFD. Calathan (talk) 17:40, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
This is what I said at that AfD: "Comment: WP:PRODNOM does not differ betweeen a keep or delete AfD, it just says, "has not been and is not being discussed at AfD," (my emphasis). Since this article was already discussed at AfD as evidenced by the link above, I removed the PROD. Going from an AfD to PROD is like a step backwards. Regards," (--Signed) MrScorch6200 (talk | ctrb) 19:47, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Bob Shannon for AFD reverted

Hello. I suggested Bob Shannon for speedy deletion, and it was reverted by User:GB fan. I then added the AFD tag, and it was reverted again. How would you like me to propose this for deletion? I think we need to have a discussion about this article--he seems non-notable to me, but happy to see what the others think.Zigzig20s (talk) 15:47, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

You initially added a speedy deletion tag. The closest speedy deletion criterion to what you used is WP:A7. All it takes to decline a WP:A7 is a claim to significance and there is a claim to significance in the article. I declined it and referred you to WP:AFD in my edit summary. You then added a proposed deletion tag. I declined it again as I believe this should be discussed and left an edit summary saying you should follow the directions at WP:AFD. The only deletion process where there is a discussion is at articles for deletion. THe specific place where the directions on how to nominate an article for deletion using the AFD process is at WP:AFDHOWTO. It is a three step process. GB fan 15:55, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
This looks like a lot of work. Can anyone else please do it? Otherwise I won't have time right now, maybe in a week. I am working on several far more important articles. Btw, it shouldn't be so complicated to suggest a discussion for deletion.Zigzig20s (talk) 16:13, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
If you put your nomination rationale on the article's talk page, I will create the AFD for you. My recommendation will be to keep the article as I believe a highschool coach that has won two national championships and is a USA Today High School Football Coach of the Year is notable. GB fan 16:18, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
My rationale is that he may not be notable, as he is only a high school coach. (Most high schools aren't even sufficiently notable to have an article.) The page doesn't seem to show that he is notable.03:52, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
I suggest you review WP:GNG. Notability is based on significant coverage in reliable sources. Any deletion rationale must address that. Pburka (talk) 11:51, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
Right now there is one book and one video (I thought we didn't use videos as references?) and two suspicious links. I don't see why we can't have a discussion and figure out what the consensus is. Again, he might be notable, but I think we should talk about it. And figure out which football coaches are notable. I thought only college coaches for competitive teams would be.Zigzig20s (talk) 19:16, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
Btw, I think what would be potentially interesting--and encyclopedic--would be to know which techniques he is using to train his players, or which games they have won, etc. But I'm still not convinced that a high school coach would be notable. Up for discussion.Zigzig20s (talk) 20:15, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
We definitely can have a discussion, the proper place to have a discussion about whether this article should be deleted is at WP:AFD, not here. The directions on how to nominate an article are at WP:AFDHOWTO. GB fan 20:22, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
Can you please do it, as you said earlier, "I will create the AFD for you."?Zigzig20s (talk) 20:29, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
Please don't quote me out of context, I said, "If you put your nomination rationale on the article's talk page, I will create the AFD for you." You did not put your nomination rationale on the article's talk page, I didn't nominate it. I would expect someone that has been here since 2006, with over 60,000 edits could put together a policy compliant rationale for deletion of a page. A rationale of "he may not be notable, as he is only a high school coach." is not based on any policy. If you want to nominate the article for deletion, it is up to you to figure out how to do it. GB fan 23:00, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
If you feel that it should be discussed, then it was inappropriate to attempt to delete the page via speedy deletion or PROD, as those processes are for uncontroversial deletions. User:GB fan is right: you need to take it to AfD and make a policy-based argument for deletion. Pburka (talk) 23:23, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
OK, it's on the talkpage now. My rationale is, "minor high school coach," thus not notable. During the AFD process, there is a discussion, with keep and delete votes. I think this is what we should have. Btw, someone else had already expressed the same concern on the talkpage in 2012. Thank you.Zigzig20s (talk) 23:40, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
And at this point, figure out how to do it. GB fan 23:46, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
Wow. Can an administrator please do that for me? This is why I started a discussion here. I simply do not have time to figure it out right now. During the AFD process, there will be a discussion.Zigzig20s (talk) 23:56, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
You don't need an admin. You just need to be logged in. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:19, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
I meant somebody who knows how to do the bloody long three-step process. Actually, since I called attention to that page, which looked like an unreferenced half-stub, it has been greatly improved, and I even added an infobox and improved the layout with subsections. I think we should all rejoice that I threatened to get it deleted. See my comment there. But I am still very, very surprised to see that high school football coached (and even players) have their own pages. Is there an official Wikipedia policy about this? Does this mean this can apply to other sports like polo?Zigzig20s (talk) 00:22, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Any person can be notable if there is enough reliable sources that discuss them. There was enough before I worked on it. The guideline is WP:BASIC. GB fan 00:38, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

I fail to see why you are not thanking me. Interesting to see teenagers who throw around balls can have a page here btw...especially when most high schools are not deemed notable enough to have a page.Zigzig20s (talk) 02:21, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
WP:GNG covers most notability criteria. Guidelines more relevant to sport are at WP:NSPORT, within which we find WP:NGRIDIRON (mainly for players) and WP:NCOLLATH (includes coaches). --Redrose64 (talk) 08:34, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Redirect?

I've redirected some articles, instead of deleting them as proposed. Is this proper, or am I being too bold? It's currently not an option under Wikipedia:Proposed_deletion#Deletion, but should be so. Bearian (talk) 22:41, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

@Bearian: PRODs are not binding, even if expired. Any editor (admins are editors too) may WP:DEPROD - there is no time limit. Admins are not obliged to delete any expired PRODs if they feel that there is anything worth keeping. If you feel that the title is worth keeping, but that the content exists elsewhere, a redirect is in order. It falls under "If you decide not to delete the article".
You can look at it thus: somebody has PRODded the article (it doesn't matter whether it was more or less than seven days ago), and you see the article, but don't agree with the PROD, so you remove it per WP:DEPROD. Then you consider its content again, spot that it largely or wholly duplicates part of another page, so you carry out an undiscussed (or bold, if you like) merge - this is permitted, see WP:MERGE#Proposing a merger. All this without your admin hat on. --Redrose64 (talk) 00:03, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
I agree with User:Redrose64. Any user can DEPROD, and any user can redirect. Technically, DEPRODding the article in order to redirect it might make it ineligible for PROD in the future, but I don't think that's a significant problem. Pburka (talk) 00:08, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for your feedback, Redrose64 and Pburka. Bearian (talk) 17:27, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Article page-Talk page

When I made a PROD on Spike (video gaming), I put it on the Talk page rather than the actual article page. This manual doesn't seem too clear on that: should I/someone add "(not the Talk page)" or something along those lines to this article, so people won't make the same mistake again? ~Maplestrip (chat) 08:52, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

@Maplestrip: It already does. At WP:PRODNOM it says "Add the {{subst:Proposed deletion|concern=reason for proposed deletion}} tag to the top of the main article page ..." --Redrose64 (talk) 12:28, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
Ah, I completely read over that twice. Well, the second time that probably happened because I only read the lead section. Anyway, I was confused; if no one else ever has trouble with this, it's probably nothing to worry about. ~Maplestrip (chat) 12:37, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Old AFDs - do they *permanently* make an article ineligible for prod?

I recently had a prod rejected on the grounds that the article had been an AFD with a keep decision. This is in accordance with current guidelines, so I do not object to that decision. However, the previous AFD occurred in 2007, and the article itself had several issue notices (lack of notability, reliance on primary sources) that were several years old. I did some due diligence and in my opinion believed the subject of the article was not notable. Indeed, in my prod message, I noted the previous AFD and stated why I believed it did not disqualify the article from a proposed deletion.

I am curious whether there has been any discussion on this point. My belief is that there are plenty of articles that were kept according to old policy, and that are under current policy appropriate candidates for prod—or rather, they would be except they were AFD at some point in the distant past.

I consider prod a valuable wikipedia process, as there is a large difference in work between a prod and an AFD, and therefore I think prods are a useful cleanup process for editors with limited time. In my opinion it's insensible to remove an otherwise appropriate prod in deference to a very old AFD discussion that might have occurred under totally different policies. In the article I proposed be deleted, another editor removed the prod but redirected the page. Clearly, we were both in agreement that the page itself did not deserve to be a standalone article.

I don't want to sound like I oppose this policy entirely. Certainly it makes sense, as a guideline, to reject a prod on the basis of a recent AFD, and I appreciate the spirit of the rule. I don't want to seem as if I support frivolous deletions, and I don't believe old discussions become less valid just because they're old. Rather, I trust editors to review an AFD and use their judgment to decide if it's still relevant. Thanks in advance, very interested to hear if this has been discussed before. Geethree (talk) 16:54, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Well the logic here is that PROD is only supposed to be a simple, straightforward alternative to AfD for uncontroversial deletions. If something has previously been kept at AfD then its deletion isn't uncontroversial, and it isn't particularly onerous to ask that someone take something to AfD instead of PROD. If we did want to disqualify old AfDs there would be a number of questions, such as how old an AfD would have to be to qualify, and how people determine that an AfD is no longer relevant. This would detract from PROD being a simple and straightforward process. Hut 8.5 17:56, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
To specifically answer your question in the header, Yes, an old AFD that ends in keep or no consensus makes an article permanently ineligible for Prod. Like Hut 8.5 said, it is obviously controversial if it wasn't deleted at AFD. What you prodded is controversial since the redirect has now been reversed. -- GB fan 18:15, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
I think that it is good that an old AFD prevents prods even many years later, and that it shouldn't be changed. While placing a prod tag requires less work than starting an AFD, some things warrant putting in more work. If anyone ever objected to deleting an article, then there are probably reasonable arguments to be made to keep the article, and it is worth having a discussion on whether the article should be kept (even if the current article isn't in a high quality state). Having an AFD also allows for a more final decision, as anyone can just recreate an article deleted by prod or have it automatically restored on request. Also, in this specific case, the article you seem to be talking about is Basilisk (fantasy role play). There have been numerous AFDs for articles on Dungeons & Dragons monsters since the one for that article, and in several cases articles have often been kept despite weak sourcing. Because there is a president of keeping similar articles even with poorer sourcing than that article has, and because the subject of D&D monsters seems to have resulted in a lot of disagreement, I think in this specific case the article would deserve an AFD even if it hadn't already had one. Calathan (talk) 19:15, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
First: Any challenge (with or without a stated reason) is enough to remove a WP:PROD, so in any real case where this question comes up, it is already immediately moot, since removing a prod, for having a previous AfD, is at least as valid as having no apparent reason at all. As far as whether a prod should be added in the first place: It seems to me that an AfD not resulting in deletion, followed much later by at least one user who thinks deletion is so obvious that it should be prodded, still means there's enough of an opinion gap, that it makes the article's deletion controversial (in the general sense), because it means that either (1) we are judging an article as different than it was earlier judged, which may mean we're now applying different criteria, but may also mean the article has degraded through bad editing (either of which, in my opinion, is enough to make it controversial); or (2) a subject's apparent notability itself seemed to change after the AfD, but since notability is not temporary, the only logical conclusion is that either AfD participants misjudged it in the past or the prodder misjudged it now (which is enough to make it controversial). There are a couple of other good reasons for putting it through AfD: (1) If the deletion is due to criteria changes, it will establish more consensus examples of how the newer criteria applies. (2) It will establish that the subject's latest disposition is deletion, which will strengthen your options if it happens again: A later prod might be less controversial because of it; you can use WP:CSD#G4 for obvious reposts; and other re-creations will meet speedy deletion criteria more clearly when there is no longer a AfD Keep hanging over the subject, e.g. G11, A7, A9, A11, U5. --Closeapple (talk) 08:28, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
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