Wikipedia

Wikipedia talk:Speedy deletion

See also Wikipedia talk:Speedy deletions for discussions which took place in 2006-07 before it was redirected here.

RFC: Time to promote or repeal WP:X3?

[edit]
The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The result of the discussion is that there is a general consensus to mark X3 as obsolete. Among those with this preference there is a general consensus that the language of R3 will cover new pages being created with this issue, and any stragglers can be dealt with in the usual ways. Primefac (talk) 10:50, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It has been over a year since the temporary criterion WP:X3 was enacted. At present, it looks as though the backlog of titles which this criterion applies have now been deleted. (Further details in the following comment.) At this point, should we make this criterion "Obsolete", promote this criterion to a permanent criterion (would be "R5"), do nothing to the criterion at the present time, or take some other action? Steel1943 (talk) 19:05, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Additional information: At this point, most likely 99% of the titles on Wikipedia that do not have a space before a "(" do not contain a disambiguator. (Examples: Chemical names, purposeful parenthesis in the title, etc.) After personally resolving issues with titles found by a intitle:/\(India\)\(/" search (locating titles with "(India)(" in them) during the previous few months, as well WP:X3 deletions in response to titles tagged by Helpful Raccoon this month, in addition to all other editors who have tagged and/or deleted applicable redirects during the past year, it could be true that any titles that currently exist without a space before a "(" could be considered false positives (ineligible) for WP:X3 speedy deletion. Steel1943 (talk) 19:07, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Promote to permanent criterion R5. Given the extensiveness of the amount of discussions in the past, I believe it could be helpful to retain this criterion on a permanent basis. Steel1943 (talk) 19:07, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm confused. You state that almost all titles that could be deleted by this title have been deleted, which is an argument for marking it obsolete (c.f. WP:NEWCSD point 3) yet you want to make it permanent. Why? Thryduulf (talk) 20:18, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      It's the whole "if it could happen once, it could happen again" problem. Speedy deletions for this criterion will become reactive instead of proactive and will happen very seldom (basically, only when new titles are created), such as what eventually occurred shortly after WP:R4 was enacted. That, and comparing the other temporary criteria, new titles will not be created for WP:X1 anymore since the respective editor is indefinitely blocked, and WP:X2 eventually resulted in a solution that made the criterion essentially useless, including the consideration that the criterion only applied to titles that were created during a specific timeframe. The difference here is that titles eligible for WP:X3 could still be created in the future (unless somehow we manage to create a title creation blacklist entry properly, but I do not see that happening due to several possible false positives.) Steel1943 (talk) 20:23, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    For what it's worth, the concern that I have with merging this criterion into R3 is that R3 contains the requirement of the redirect being "recently created". There should be no "recently created" restriction for redirects that are currently eligible for X3. Steel1943 (talk) 21:44, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That is indeed a good point, and in my opinion, the most important question in this discussion. However, if we don't have large-scale cleanup to do, X3/R5 might fail criterion 3 ("frequent") as most cases would have likely been caught by R3. Beyond that, I am not familiar enough with the history of R3 to state if the reasons for including a "recently created" provision would also apply to X3 or not. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 21:51, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    R3's time limit limits the potential damage from misinterpration, as actually happened at e.g. Central Reorganization Committee, CPI(ML)Central Reorganization Committee, CPI(ML) (created in 2004!), Albatros B.I(Ph)Albatros B.I(Ph), and Public Offices (Candidacy and Taking Up Offices)(Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2021Public Offices (Candidacy and Taking Up Offices)(Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2021. —Cryptic 22:10, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, that's the oddness about all of this. I mean, I can provide an argument that basically states that "frequent" may not be a valid criteria to establish a speedy deletion criterion anymore. Best example I can probably provide is WP:R4: It was previously bundled in with WP:G6, but was separated after determining that giving it its own criterion since it specifically targets redirects was the best option. Quite frankly ... I'm almost certain that there has not been a page tagged for WP:R4 for quite a while ... I would be shocked if there was even a single page tag during the previous year. Steel1943 (talk) 00:00, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@BodhiHarp, Cryptic, and Chaotic Enby: Pinging participants of #Renaming X3 after realizing the potential redundancy of this discusion. (That, and I noticed that Chaotic Enby presented yet another option: Essentially merging the criterion with WP:R3.) Steel1943 (talk) 20:47, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • New ones are redundant to R3, and the (lack of) wording in X3 makes it error-prone. Recent relevant discussion on my talk page. The merge to R3 isn't a new option; it was discussed (at some length, IIRC) during X3's original enaction. I don't think R3 needs any change to incorporate this, either, though if that's a sticking point we can add a couple words to the effect of "including malformed disambiguators" to it. I haven't investigated whether the assertion that all the old ones have been dealt with is correct, though have no reason to doubt it. Do not promote, in any event. —Cryptic 21:07, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I feel it would help to mention it. AFAIK the consensus around R3 is that redirects normally only qualify as implausible where there are multiple typos in the title. Malformed disambiguators typically have only one typo. (Though, like many speedy criteria, the multiple-typos idea is hardly how it gets applied in practice.) J947 ‡ edits 23:31, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge (i.e. mark as obsolete and clarify R3) per my argument in the previous discussion. New cases already fall under R3, but the wording could make it more explicit. No need to make it a permanent criterion as it would essentially be redundant. I like Cryptic's suggestion for added wording. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 21:12, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to R3 (when clarified). The issue is more then likely to return but can be handled on a case by case basis by R3. The Banner talk 21:32, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Repeal. As someone who opposed this criterion's creation, I maintain that this was an unnecessary project because the redirects in question were harmless and should've been left alone rather than deleted. -- Tavix (talk) 03:02, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to G6 ({{db-error}}), or failing that, R3 with clarified wording (per The Banner). A missing space before parenthesis still a plausible mistake to make – so IMO it's debatable whether this would clash with the current language of R3 – but it is very much an error for which speedy deletion has been justified, as per numerous RfDs and the enactment of X3. Complex/Rational 16:44, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • When I first proposed creating an X-series of speedy deletion criteria, they were meant to be solutions to specific problems. X-criteria need to be constrained to an enumerable set of articles so that when that set has been worked through, the criterion can be retired. Therefore X3 can't continue in its current form and should be repealed.—S Marshall T/C 22:57, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Retire. Any new instances that are redundant to R3 can be deleted under that criterion, any that aren't shouldn't be speedily deleted. There is no need to make any changes to R3. Thryduulf (talk) 11:50, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Retire per Thryduulf. Very open to a revisit if you can show pages slipping through the cracks and gumming up RfD, but let's try the planned process first Tazerdadog (talk) 21:49, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I just deleted a redirect without a space, which had been tagged as R3. Given this, it's very possible the statistics on X3 use are inaccurate. Because I had seen this discussion earlier today, I deleted as X3 instead. This may be more common than realized. Significa liberdade (she/her) (talk) 01:00, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I made Quarry 98877 to look for instances of this, and (discarding seven article deletions) got 42 deletions, of which 26 were R3 and 16 were G6. I excluded many things from this query, like R2, {{db-move}}, G7, G8, and the A-series criteria, since I think X3 would be inapplicable, unreasonable, or moot in those cases. I also made a separate query for the RfDs (Quarry 98880) and got 50; since RfD deletion summaries don't usually include the rationale, a full analysis is beyond the scope of this comment. jlwoodwa (talk) 02:22, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I tagged that redirect, Unionville Meadows(Public School), as R3 because of this discussion. As far as I can tell, that was the only X3-eligible page created within the past 4 weeks. Helpful Raccoon (talk) 03:23, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It may not be that my estimation was inaccurate, given I was using a list of titles generated in the early-mid 2024, but rather that these titles are still being created. For example, Unionville Meadows(Public School), the redirect mentioned by Helpful Raccoon above: It was created about a week or two ago. Steel1943 (talk) 15:34, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to R3 It seems like the best way to enact this permanently, which it should be. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 22:27, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Repeal X3 per Thryduulf and to a lesser extent Tavix. If these redirects are recent enough, then they qualify for WP:R3 (which I imagine will be the majority of cases as they are being closely tracked by a small number of attentive editors). Otherwise, they should be treated the same as most other single-typo redirects (e.g. those with double opening parentheses in their qualifiers) and either individually brought to RfD or even ignored altogether. Redireditor (talk)aka Dsuke1998AEOS 01:26, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to R3 - I'll miss the X category, but this really needs to be enacted permanently. Z E T A3 02:16, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    My understanding is that the X category would remain after X3's repeal albeit with no current criteria. This allows us to spin up an X4 criterion if a need arises. Tazerdadog (talk) 21:21, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Repeal. No longer worthy of an extraordinary criterion. Also, X3 is somewhat redundant to R3.
Whether R3 needs clarifying (and whether it should be clarified include or exclude these redirects) could be discussed afterwards. ~2025-33069-57 (talk) 14:32, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Issue regarding the A-series criteria

[edit]

The A-series criteria such as A7 has been misapplied to drafts. Should we fix this or should we do nothing? - BᴏᴅʜıHᴀᴙᴩ (talk, contributions) 18:47, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@BodhiHarp: Can you provide some examples? Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 18:49, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think I saw it here, but it may have been suppressed. - BᴏᴅʜıHᴀᴙᴩ (talk, contributions) 18:51, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It was indeed suppressed, so this has nothing to do with speedy deletion. Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 18:55, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I thought it was tagged as A7 when it existed. - BᴏᴅʜıHᴀᴙᴩ (talk, contributions) 18:56, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It was tagged for both A1 and A7 by user:Aesurias. Thryduulf (talk) 21:46, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I thought I added the A1. - BᴏᴅʜıHᴀᴙᴩ (talk, contributions) 21:46, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't tag oversightable material for speedy deletion, even if you think it's "only borderline". That makes it much more visible. (Facially-nonapplicable criteria like A* on non-articles even more so.) If you can't actually delete it yourself, mail oversight directly and let them deal with it. —Cryptic 21:51, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What the admin probably did was delete the page under a CSD to attract less attention than say, "IAR", or even worse, "has private info." Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 03:45, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
An admin deleting it, especially with a non-attention-attracting log entry - and an A7 or A1 on a draft does stick out - is all well and good. Same situation as Wikipedia:Revision deletion#Hiding oversightable material prior to Oversight. Tagging the page puts it into the very-visible Category:Candidates for speedy deletion, sometimes for a long time, where it will be seen not just by admins (who may or may not act on it) but by, for example nonadmins looking for pages to untag, and projects that preferentially mirror pages likely to be imminently deleted. —Cryptic 04:00, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, of course. I assumed an admin deleted it before sending it to oversight, not an editor tagging it for speedy deletion. Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 04:10, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thryduulf said just above that it had been tagged, and BodhiHarp said he had tried to tag it too. —Cryptic 04:43, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It was tagged for A1 at 05:21, for A7 at 05:24 and detagged at 05:59. The email to oversight was received at 06:02 and it was oversighted at 10:17 (which is quite a long gap). Thryduulf (talk) 10:24, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think A10 has the most support for applying to drafts. There is no value in having a draft on an article which already exists, and these seem to be common and easily recognized. I recently encountered Draft:भास्कराचार्य, which is in Hindi and seems to be about a person who already has an article, Bhāskara II. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 05:01, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In many cases though the draft title should be redirected to the relevant mainspace article (after merging anything useful that isn't already there) rather than deleted, to discourage the creation of future redundant drafts. Thryduulf (talk) 05:07, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think we should redirect, not expand or change A10 to cover drafts. - BᴏᴅʜıHᴀᴙᴩ (talk, contributions, deleted contributions) 05:20, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not that "easily recognized", it seems - that draft was declined, rather amusingly, on notability grounds. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🧸 05:10, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How about we do this:
  • Not allowing to add a tag to the non-articles via Twinkle gadget
  • Adding an edit filter to warn users
  • Instead of letting the templates transclude, it will display an error message similar to R2:

- BᴏᴅʜıHᴀᴙᴩ (talk, contributions) 18:29, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds good. That last option should be applied preemptively to all namespace-specific CSD's. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 20:07, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the templates generating a prominent error when used in the wrong namespace. Perhaps with a second, more specific sentence like, e.g. "Speedy deletion criterion A7 applies only to pages in the article namespace.". Thryduulf (talk) 21:03, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I should also note that on September 4, User:Oklopfer tried to tag Template:IPA nasal vowels for A11 speedy deletion. - BᴏᴅʜıHᴀᴙᴩ talk 22:16, 21 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For the edit filter, perhaps we could use this:
Your action has triggered an edit filter
Note: It looks like you are trying to tag a non-mainspace page for speedy deletion under the A-series criteria (articles). The A-series speedy deletion criteria apply to the mainspace, not anywhere else. If you hit publish changes again, your edit will be saved anyway, and the tag will be an error message. If you did not try to add an A-series speedy deletion criteria tag to a non-mainspace page, please report this error.
and also, misapplying R2 and others also categorizes it: Category:Pages with templates in the wrong namespace. - BᴏᴅʜıHᴀᴙᴩ talk 21:44, 28 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, of course. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 04:39, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Alter G15 to avoid tagging within minutes of creation?

[edit]

I have noticed that the descriptions of A1 and A3 include Do not tag under this criterion in the first few minutes after a new article is created. The reason for this is because the creator may still be working on the article to resolve the problem. I think G15 should have a similar caveat: 'Do not tag under this criterion in the first few minutes after a new page is created'. This is because I think it would be plausible to copy-paste the LLM text, click 'publish', then go back and do the human review, and the concern G15 addresses are fixable by the creator (by doing the review) and is not immediately harmful to the project. QwertyForest (talk) 19:02, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with this. While they would ideally solve any issues before publishing, Wikipedia benefits in whichever order they do it. Only if they don't fix the issues, after having an opportunity to do so, should we be speedily deleting their work. Thryduulf (talk) 19:39, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
+1 IMO the only criteria that should be applied immediately are G3, G10, and G12, following from the same rationale. And I also think it likely that comically bad AI slop won't be reviewed anyway, so there's no harm in waiting at least ~15 minutes to G15 it. Complex/Rational 20:30, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You've made some good points there. Maybe the 'don't pounce on new pages immediately' should be applied to all criterion except G3, G10 and G12. Apart from those three, there's no harm in waiting to see if the creator fixes itand, even if they don't, waiting a short while might make tagging a bit less bite-y. QwertyForest (talk) 21:19, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure about this now that WP:NEWLLM has passed. If the first revision was G15-able then the next will probably fail at AfD as an obvious violation of "don't use LLMs to write an article from scratch". lp0 on fire () 13:31, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Firstly we don't know that. Secondly, if subsequent revisions solve all the actual problems (or at least the significant majority of them) then it seems unlikely that it will be deleted at AfD. This is especially true if the problems are one of style rather than of verification. Thryduulf (talk) 11:31, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I can't disgree with that, but I think it's be worth waiting until it's a bit clearer how WP:NEWLLM is going to be applied. lp0 on fire () 14:10, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Allow creator to remove U6 tags?

[edit]

U6 is intended to be a fairly mechanical process, similar to G13 for deleting expired drafts. Since the creator is allowed to remove G13 tags, should U6 be the same? Anomie⚔ 17:55, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would think so; part of the definition is that it has not been edited in 6+ months, so if edits are made to the page (e.g. removing the tag) then it no longer meets U6. I will note the template does currently mention this. Primefac (talk) 17:35, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Per lack of objection, I went ahead and added this. Anomie⚔ 16:48, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Weird corner cases with U6

[edit]

I've been quietly following the implementation of criteria U6 and U7 and am very glad that (a) they only involve subpages and (b) old pages in the former category are being tagged slowly the way they are. The absolutely overwhelming majority of them in the U6 bot categories should be deleted but I found a few that shouldn't (see my relevant contribs). The most interesting by far were the pages now at User:Home Row Keysplurge/Old talk 0x0000 and User:Home Row Keysplurge/Old talk 0x0001. They were talk page archives from 2004 in userspace (which wasn't an unheard-of location for them back then) numbered in hexadecimal (which was clearly a personal touch). They were left behind after a username change in July 2005, because pages weren't automatically moved in this situation until December 2006. My #1 law of Wikipedia: there'll be weird corner cases everywhere. I'll be monitoring the U6 categories just in case (mostly checking for unusual page titles) and encourage others to do the same. I was reminded of the implementation of the bot by this bureaucrats' noticeboard thread; I should have followed the BRFA more closely. Graham87 (talk) 07:11, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The bot should be checking if the subpage was actually created by the user in question; else stuff like everything under User:UBX will be deleted, for example. Something like this is already happening with ;~enwiki (Special:PrefixIndex/User:;~enwiki.) Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 07:18, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
UBX is on the bot's ignore list. As for the ;~enwiki cases, I noticed those too but didn't have any strong feelings on them. Graham87 (talk) 07:22, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah thinking about it, maybe they should be on the ignore list too, for similar reasons to the page I requested there earlier. Graham87 (talk) 07:33, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@ChildrenWillListen: I've ended up removing their speedy deletion tags, because Extraordinary Writ added an entry in the ignore list for User:Beecat, a similar situation. Extraordinary Writ, could you add the ";~enwiki" one as well? Graham87 (talk) 05:59, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, done. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 06:03, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Anomie: Is there a reason the bot doesn't check the page creator? It doesn't sound like it's too difficult to implement. Also, what if someone abandons a page in their userspace and another, more experienced user started to work on it? Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 07:27, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I was thinking that, but it feels a bit gameable to me to have a loophole like that. Or maybe pages where the creator is different from the user page title can be under a different category? Graham87 (talk) 07:33, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Graham87: If someone tries to game the system like that to keep their unencyclopedic sandboxes forever, they can be blocked per WP:SOCK and/or WP:NOTHERE. Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 07:36, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Because no one ever suggested that U6 (or the bot-tagging for U6) should only apply to pages created by the user owning the userspace. I'll run some queries to see just how many pages in the backlog would be affected by this. I note detecting "creator" is surprisingly tricky to do accurately 100% of the time (see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#c-Anomie-20251130023400-Ktrimi991-20251130020100 for example), but simple methods can be "good enough" most of the time. Detecting "some more experienced user started to work on it" would be a lot harder, as having a bot differentiate "work on it" from "drive-by tagging, linter cleanup, etc" would be difficult. Ideally, if someone wants to work on such a page, they'd move it to draftspace or something instead of leaving it as a subpage of a disappeared user. Anomie⚔ 15:45, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think this would be a very good exclusion. Having made a list (1253 pages total) and spot-checking a few entries, we seem to have quite a few cases where an instructor or someone created sandboxes for Education Program students, cases where an instructor had their students create pages in the instructor's userspace, some cases of WP:REFUND that apparently never went anywhere (and were somehow done without the owning user actually posting at WP:REFUND?), cases where someone moved a draft article from a userpage to a subpage, and so on. Anomie⚔ 16:24, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Anomie: Thanks for checking this out. I agree there's no real reason to preserve these drafts, and there are plenty of unencyclopedic content lurking in there (example). Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 17:51, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for helping monitor these! The week delay before the pages actually become eligible for deletion is specifically intended so humans have time to look for anything that should be kept, whether things like these old archives, promising drafts, or anything else. Anomie⚔ 15:45, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No worries. I've written more ramblings at User talk:CSD U6 Bot/Ignore list#Making this page template-protected, etc.? Graham87 (talk) 07:01, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

6 months criteria

[edit]

i deleted User:Qazphynux/sandbox in error before I noticed the 6 months criterion. The content was clearly inappropriate so I blanked it. I think the 6 months is not helpful with nonsense like this. Doug Weller talk 19:10, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why is it harmful though? Unless you can clearly articulate some actual (not just theoretical) harm that leaving that in userspace for 6 months is causing then speedy deletion is obviously inappropriate. Thryduulf (talk) 22:02, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal for A11

[edit]
Withdrawn. - BᴏᴅʜıHᴀᴙᴩ (talk, contributions) 17:54, 7 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Shouldn't A11 be a general criterion? There is no direct speedy deletion criterion for invented stuff in the draft space. We have A11, but that's mainspace articles only, and we have G3, but that's hoaxes, not inventions that are indicated to be invented.

We may want to either:

  • Replace it with a general criterion G16
  • Or merge to G3

Also, this is similar to how G12 was formerly A8. - BᴏᴅʜıHᴀᴙᴩ (talk, contributions, deleted contributions) 05:19, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How often does this get nominated at MfD? Is it always deleted? Obviously we can't just extend A11 to be a G criterion without modification as there is an allowance for a limited amount of invented stuff in userspace and project space (see for example many of the Wikipedia:Department of fun subpages). Merging with G3 would be a terrible idea because that's for bad-faith creations and a significant proportion of A11 stuff is people contributing in good faith but simply not understanding what Wikipedia is for. Thryduulf (talk) 14:03, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please explain how the 4 criteria noted at the top of the talk page and the edit notice are met. In particular, what research into frequency have you done? -- Whpq (talk) 14:34, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, U7c does apply WP:NOTMADEUP to userspace, but only under a limited set of circumstances. I'm not sure it would be desirable to apply it any more broadly than that in userspace. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 08:03, 7 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No. Inventions and discoveries can be perfectly good drafts, and the editor adding the content having a WP:COI is a reason to have it drafted in userspace or draftspace, and is not a reason to delete it from userspace or draftspace. SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:54, 7 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
See this. - BᴏᴅʜıHᴀᴙᴩ (talk, contributions) 17:25, 7 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And? We have one example of something that can be deleted using an existing speedy deletion criterion, suggesting that WP:NEWCSD point 4 isn't met. Thryduulf (talk) 17:48, 7 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

X3 category

[edit]

I notice we still have Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as redirects with no space before a parenthetical disambiguation. Redirect to R3? - BᴏᴅʜıHᴀᴙᴩ (talk, contributions) 21:05, 8 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say take it to CfD. Pages should generally not be being added to speedy deletion categories directly, and anyone still nominating pages under X3 they need to stop and either nominate them under an actually extant criteria (if it meets the requirements) or at RfD. Thryduulf (talk) 00:11, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Should you be bold when tagging pages?

[edit]

I find a lot of drafts that are very clearly written with spammy language, but I feel fall just short of being blatant spam. See this as an example. Would it be best to avoid tagging these pages, or to tag them? ~2025-31416-56 (talk) 16:01, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@~2025-31416-56 Should you be bold? Yes. The deleting admin should review the page for CSD eligibility, so in theory you can't get a page deleted incorrectly simply by tagging it. Do you need to tag that page? Meh. It's probably eligible for G11, or at least close enough that many admins would delete it. But tagging pages in draftspace is generally not a great use of time, since they will eventually be deleted by G13 anyways. In my view it's only helpful to tag drafts or userspace pages if they are actively harmful (see User:CoconutOctopus/How fast to speedy delete) or being repeatedly disruptively submitted to AfC. Toadspike [Talk] 09:32, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Does T5 apply to Modules?

[edit]

Does WP:T5 also apply to unused Module subpages? I thought it did, but tried to tag one and got an error from {{db-t5}} that it should only be used in the Template namespace. Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 02:44, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It does, but there is an error in the template code - see Template talk:Db-meta#db-t5. Thryduulf (talk) 04:17, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is it appropriate to amend the first statement of WP:T5 to say This applies to unused subpages of templates and modules, such as... (emphasis added for clarity here)? Does this require an RFC or broader consensus or can I BOLDLY make this change? Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 04:20, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think better would be a note at the start of the templates section that all the criteria apply to both templates and modules unless specified otherwise. This means we don't have to repeat notes if we get more T criteria. This sort of change doesn't require an RfC but it is best practice to mention it on the talk page (as you've done) and allow people chance to object/comment if they wish before making the change. Thryduulf (talk) 04:28, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good. I'll give it a day then be bold. Can always be reverted. I'm not changing policy here (if I was I would feel I needed broader consensus) just trying to clarify what seems to be established policy already. Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 04:29, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

G8 and user subpages

[edit]

Looking at the history of the "User subpages" versus "User subpages when the user has not created a user page":

Personally, my reading of the whole situation is that the 2011 discussion was specifically about exempting user subpages from the "Subpages with no parent page" clause of G8, and was not intended to exempt them from any other G8 clause. But the wording added in 2011 was unclear, and it remained unclear even after the attempted clarification in 2019. The 2022 and 2025 changes both seem to have (mis)interpreted it as applying to all of G8. If we really want to clarify it, I think we should remove the clause from the "This criterion excludes any page that is useful to Wikipedia" list entirely, and instead change "Subpages with no parent page" to "Subpages with no parent page, excepting user subpages" or something along those lines. Courtesy pings: @Extraordinary Writ, HouseBlaster, Amorymeltzer, and Snowolf. Anomie⚔ 00:53, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I guess the version I restored is ambiguous as well. I support your suggestion, which I agree is clearly what everyone has meant ever since 2011. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 01:05, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Almost all of the clauses in that exception list are really only exceptions to one part of G8. User talk pages really means top-level user talk pages, when deleting for not having a corresponding top-level user page. Talk page archives are also only for when deleting for not having a corresponding subject subpage, as it awkwardly tries to explain (by including an exception to this exception, and a further exception to that exception). Redirects broken by page moves obviously is only an exception for broken redirects - and again, there's an awkward exception to the exception. "Pages that should be moved instead" really only arises for talk pages of non-existent mainspace pages, and usually they get deleted instead of moved anyway. The only one that even sort of applies to the entire criterion is misplaced deletion discussions, and how often are those still an issue?
Pppery was right. The different G8 subcriteria really have nothing to do with each other except the one-line description in Twinkle, and the "examples... are not limited to" bit is dead letter - you never see, say, a company article get deleted at afd, then the articles for its officers and the events it runs deleted as G8s. (Or else both discussions at WP:Deletion review/Log/2025 December 4 would have turned out very differently.) This merge was supposed to make things simpler, and it's had the opposite effect. We've already reversed it for T5 and C4, née T4 and C3, and we're better off for it; let's finish the job and re-split the rest. —Cryptic 02:21, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well said. (Except for the fact that old T4 isn't the same as new T5 and is still merged into G8 - old T4 seems to have been for subpages of nonexistent templates, whereas new T5 is for subpages of existing templates which the parent template doesn't use). * Pppery * it has begun... 02:25, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The other exceptions at least actually do fall under "any page that is useful to Wikipedia", and while not all of them apply to all of the G8 criteria they probably do apply to all that apply. I also note that C4 was more split out of G6 than G8; the discussion there related to G8 was more about some people not wanting to apply "Categories populated by deleted or retargeted templates" when a template still existed but no longer populated the category and wanting C4 to cover that perceived gap. T5 seems to have been a similar situation, in the discussion creating that I see almost no mention of G8 despite the potential overlap. Anomie⚔ 03:12, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion on adding a quick delete to CSD template for admins

[edit]

Please join the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Twinkle#speedy:_add_admin-only_"Delete"_and_"Decline"_buttons_for_quick_parsing, on whether to add a delete and decline button to the CSD templates for admins that talks directly to Twinkle. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 08:55, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Does G4 qualify on redirects if former target page moved to current target?

[edit]

At Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 December 10#National Award, I noticed that the current target of National Award, the target being National Film Awards, is the new name of the target article after a page move from National Film Award; the former name of the target article, National Film Award, was where the redirect National Award targeted prior to being deleted in 2014 via Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 May 4#National Award.

I'm bringing this up to determine if National Award should qualify for WP:G4 since the page it targeted when it was deleted in 2014 is a {{R from move}} to the target the redirect was recreated to target years later. At the present time, the description of WP:G4 makes no reference of such cases. Steel1943 (talk) 23:14, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Criterion U2

[edit]

I don’t mean to stuff beans up peoples’ noses here but shouldn’t the U2 criterion include exclusions for Example, Example1, etc.? As far as I can tell, right now you could technically argue for their removal per U2. FloblinTheGoblin (talk) 23:03, 23 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Both example and example1 exist. * Pppery * it has begun... 23:04, 23 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I know, what I’m saying is it should specifically state that the U2 criterion for speedy deletion excludes those users, so that some dummy doesn’t come in and try to propose they be deleted per U2. FloblinTheGoblin (talk) 23:05, 23 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I see how that was confusing. FloblinTheGoblin (talk) 23:06, 23 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Criterion U2 is for subpages of user accounts that do not exist, e.g. User:Thryduulf 6402 would be in scope as no such user has been registered. User:Example and User:Example1 have been registered so the user accounts exist, meaning that U2 already does not apply.
However pages like User:Example/Lipsum are technically eligible for U6. Is it worth explicitly excluding subpages of accounts explicitly created as non-editing role accounts or examples for discussion from that criterion? I can see arguments both ways and don't immediately know which side I favour. Thryduulf (talk) 00:19, 24 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh yeah, I guess I took the word “exist” too literally, but you are right that U6 could apply. I’m also not sure. On one hand, it hasn’t been a problem, but who knows what some wikilawyer vandal could do. FloblinTheGoblin (talk) 00:59, 24 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wikilawyer vandals can try whatever they like. Admins are the ones who press the buttons. -- asilvering (talk) 04:58, 24 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Undeletion is also a thing; if someone finds an example subpages and if they tag it with U6 and if an admin actually deletes it... we'll just restore it (if someone notices). I'm all for carving out exceptions, but not when they're a) incredibly rare and b) easy to deal with. Primefac (talk) 13:57, 27 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Thryduulf: FWIW, that page is on User:CSD U6 Bot/Ignore list. I think it'd be fine to create a {{U6-exempt}}, as exists for a few other criteria, that just says "This page meets CSD U6 but should not be deleted because an editor other than the page's creator has identified it as beneficial to the encyclopedia." -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 00:19, 28 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Expand G3 or G15 for pure slop?

[edit]

I'm not sure how we'd define it, but some "articles" are pure slop in a way that verges on vandalism, and I think it might be worthwhile to make them speedily deletable. Recent examples: Catholic Church and independence of the Republic of Indonesia and 1930s romantic comedy films. I'd suggest something like "pages in the patently created by an LLM that make no attempt to imitate a Wikipedia article" but worded better. What do people think? lp0 on fire () 00:30, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is regular AFD inadequate to get rid of slop like that? -- LWG talk (VOPOV) 00:50, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It just feels to me like a waste of editors' time to bring something like that to AfD. lp0 on fire () 10:17, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Any speedy deletion criterion must be objective. "It's pure slop" appears to be mostly subjective. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 23:13, 27 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think "pages in the patently created by an LLM that make no attempt to imitate a Wikipedia article" is closer to objectivity, but I'm aware the wording needs significant workshopping before it could be a CSD. lp0 on fire () 23:15, 27 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Empty draft submissions

[edit]

After User:Rbone gaming 2020/sandbox, should there be a new CSD for empty draft submissions?

In any case, I think patent nonsense and empty drafts could be added as an explicit U7 criterion. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 07:01, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Another example: User:MermaidxxPeace/sandbox. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 07:17, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And another one: User:GS Murungi/sandbox. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 08:01, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do these need to be speedily deleted? If they really bother you and the editor has mainspace contributions (not eligible for U7), you could draftify and wait for G13. If the editor repeatedly resubmits a blank draft, that is disruptive and I think G3 (vandalism) would apply. But they seem quite harmless, so I'm not sure a new CSD is needed. Toadspike [Talk] 12:14, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]