Dungeons and Dragons Wiki talk:Deletion Policy

Deletion Policy
We should have one. Things to consider are:


 * Placing a delete template
 * Conditions for an article being considered "not improved"
 * Timeline for delete
 * Canned messages to the author during said timeline.

Here are my thoughts.

Placing a delete template

Delete templates should be placed on articles that haven't met the Content Requirements. If they are extremely unbalanced (and no user steps in other than the author to oppose that sentiment) or extremely poorly written (not everyone is the best writer, but some level of clarity is really required), that would be a good candidate for the template. Articles that need a lot of improvement, but still seem workable (or, at least, the author seems willing to work to improve it) should have the winter cleaning template applied. Generally, it means mostly the same thing, but it is a lot less offensive to people that are really putting in a solid effort to get their content to meet our standards.

We already have a policy elsewhere that we can repeat here for incomplete articles: "After this week period, it will be deleted without further warning or consideration. It is the owner's responsibility to either finish their article, remove the offending fluff sections, or move the incomplete article into a sandbox and remove the inappropriate categories". On a related note, I'd like to change the policy regarding that to give at least some form of warning before it is deleted. Just a post on the user's page 1 day before the deletion should be sufficient. That will email them (if their settings are configured to default at least) and they can come back and sandbox it. I think that any article that is incomplete and about to be deleted should require sandboxing until it is done.

Conditions for an article being considered "not improved"

This one is tricky, as you can see here: Magical Cosplayer. It is my personal opinion (and you should step in to disagree with me on the talk page of that article if you do disagree) that the author of that article isn't really doing much to improve its quality. Although the author is actively working on the page, the actual content isn't really being improved and suggestions for improvement are virtually being ignored. That is the case I would consider an article not being improved and the deletion schedule shouldn't be slowed or reset. That is, in a case like this one, deletion should continue to proceed.

Articles that are getting active improvement should have Winter Cleaning on them anyways and should have the deletion schedule reset every time a constructive edit is applied.

Timeline for delete

This is a tricky subject and in the end, the numbers really have to be guessed at. I have a bit more aggressive inclinations for deletion timelines, simply because when I was strongly active doing admin stuff on the [www.dandwiki.com paleowiki], deletion activities took so long that people generally forgot about them and an admin would have to do a lot of work checking history and all sorts of things because they are not familiar with the page anymore and can't be sure if it should be deleted.

Long story short, here's my suggestion:


 * Day 1: Post deletion notice, post notice on user's talk page
 * Day 6: Post warning on user's talk page that the page is about to be deleted
 * Day 7: Delete page

Note that we can undelete in the case of users on vacation. Winter cleaning would follow the same schedule, but can be rolled back to day 1 every time a constructive edit happens.

Canned messages to the author during said timeline

I'm not usually good with these things, but here's a shot. These would be on the author's talk page

Day 1:

USER_NAME, the following article you wrote has been marked for deletion: ARTICLE_NAME. Please visit the page within the next 5 days and make a comment on the the talk page if you want to discuss fixing issues with the article. -- Dungeon and Dragons Wiki Administration

Day 6:

USER_NAME, the article, ARTICLE_NAME, will be deleted tomorrow. If you would like to salvage the article, we suggest sandboxing it in your user space. If you were unable to see these messages because you have been away for an extended period, please message an administrator and we may be able to recover your article. -- Dungeon and Dragons Wiki Administration

Phew. That was long-winded. Let me know your thoughts. --Aarnott 17:55, 14 December 2011 (UTC)


 * This looks less like a proposal of a deletion policy (which we have, albeit one mixed in with the content requirements), and more like a proposal that the deletion policy be split out of content requirements (which I'm fine with), sped up (which I'm ambivalent on), and require user notices (which I'm fine with). What I'm not as fine with is that part where incomplete articles get sandboxed instead of deleted by default. It requires page editing to hide/remove categories in addition to the move, should probably also include editing of the user's page so the link isn't lost (excepting search), and generally doesn't seem to be worth the extra effort in a system where notices are already given out and undeleting is available. It could be an "at the admin's discretion" option, as there are some regulars who I would do it for as a matter of courtesy, but setting it to the default seems unnecessary and unproductive. - Tarkisflux Talk 23:21, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Additional Delete Reasons
Had an idea--what if something is so bad it gets like 5 dislikes rating; can we have a policy that it be deleted expeditiously or forced to sandbox or something? :-D --Ghostwheel 01:15, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I support deletion. - MisterSinister 01:21, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Let's change that from 5 dislikes to a net -5 rating. Aside from that, I feel like deleting an article like that is reasonable.  --Undead_Knave 03:06, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * When you say expeditiously what do you mean? The 7 day countdown, or deleted right away? -- Eiji-kun 03:29, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Net -4 rating, with a 7 day delay like the other stuff we're proposing, would be sufficient I think. But deletion I'm actually not down with. It's low enough that I don't want it in the main nav, but I'm not willing to purge it like I am incomplete things. We let people keep all kinds of broken nonsense in their user space, I don't see a reason to do otherwise with this. Which I get is weird since I don't want to default to moving incomplete stuff, but this is more a matter of group taste and less a matter of unplayable incompleteness taking up space. And I'm less willing to delete over group preference. - Tarkisflux Talk 03:36, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I'd say 3 days for expeditiously, or else people just forget about em (I've seen many incomplete articles going over 7 days just because it's such a long time on teh Intarwebz). --Ghostwheel 03:49, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I see no reason to make this any faster than some of the more egregious violations. I'm in favor of a time limit that is somewhat long in internet time, but if there's a desire to shorten that it should be done for all policy based moves / deletions. - Tarkisflux Talk  04:33, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I'd have no problem with 3 days in general. Keeps things moving, things can always be sandboxed and then put up again, etc. And 3 days is still a very long time on the Internet. Just doesn't feel like a millennium. --Ghostwheel 04:44, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I'd have issue. 3 days is a 3 day weekend for me, when I am often not online.  I can't speak for others, but considering that I count myself as internet-heavy, I imagine more casual people would see 3 days as a very short time.  1 week is much less excusable though.  Most try to at least check mail or do other activities at least 1/week.  It may be a pain to remember for us, but I think it behooves us to try and remember and wait out of respect for others.


 * On that note, there's code to recognize 4+ liked articles already, given the favored article thing. Is there code to recognize -4 articles?  That way we can go to a page, the Wall of Shame if you will, and clear out ones that are overdue. -- Eiji-kun 05:09, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * There's not code for that, but it's easy to do. Then we would just check the category and move things that had been in that category for whatever length of time we decide on. - Tarkisflux Talk 05:33, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * How about compromise, 5 days? --Ghostwheel 06:31, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Compromise? Bah. It looks like 3 votes for 7 days (assuming Aarnott doesn't want to shorten from his proposal), 1 vote for 3 days, and a bunch of unstated positions. We'll see what comes of things in the next few days. - Tarkisflux Talk 09:24, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I vote for 3 days. - MisterSinister 09:31, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Its too easy to mess up and easy to create unneeded hostility. Since this is deleting, not sandboxing, 7 days is my vote. -- Eiji-kun 09:53, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I'd actually be in favor of auto-sandboxing rather than deleting if it gets too many dislikes. No problem with that IMO. --Ghostwheel 10:21, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * My vote, in this regard, is actually auto-sandboxing for articles with a net of -4 ratings. Odds are the user still thinks the article is good and may be upset it is deleted. This is different than incomplete articles, which I think should have the whole 1 week period. --Aarnott 16:15, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * That's my rationale too--and that's also the reason I'd be down for a shorter time period (automatically sandboxing, to 3 days--w/e). --Ghostwheel 17:14, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually, if it is sandboxing, I'm good with it happening immediately as long as a message is left on the user's page where to find it. Stuff in a sandbox can still be edited and when it is ready to be published again, they can freely do so. --Aarnott 18:12, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * If it's deletion, a minimum of a week. If it's move to user-space (which I think it should be), then it should be 3 days. --Havvy 05:51, 18 December 2011 (UTC)


 * It looks like opinion is coming down on "delete in 7, move in 3". I can live with that. I'll wait to write the policy for a few more days, in case there are any last minute objections. - Tarkisflux Talk 06:03, 18 December 2011 (UTC)


 * If it gets -4? -5? rating total, it is sandboxed within 3 days of achieving that rating if the rating does not go higher (positively) before that time. Something like that? We don't need to delete for dislikes. --Ghostwheel 06:20, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I thought we were on "net -4 rating, move in 3 days" and "current reasons for deleting stuff are unchanged, but happens after 7 days", with both actions getting notices via boilerplate templates. - Tarkisflux Talk 06:38, 18 December 2011 (UTC)


 * That is the way I'm reading it. --Havvy 08:09, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Semantic Gear
On a related note, we could really make things easier for admins by harnessing the power of semantic media wiki. It has a Date type and it allows mathematical operators (like less than) for its searches. Take a look at the following test:

It was generated using a date property. We can have these lists on some page and admins can just check the list and do whatever things are required to be done. The date property would be added to the delete template. --Aarnott 16:44, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I'll look into setting the date automagically with a template for delete, incomplete, and downrated purposes. I don't know how well it would work with WC though, since that counter is supposed to reset periodically. - Tarkisflux Talk 20:07, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Could do it automagically with a couple of nested templates, where the first one substituted the second with some extra date function substitutions on it. Then only the nested template call with the automagically generated date would show on the page, and that allows for easy updating of the date parameter if it becomes relevant. Else we need to just get people to date tag it with and extra parameter like |notice_date= . Not sure which is easier from a user standpoint. - Tarkisflux Talk 23:14, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Former would probably be harder to set up and easier for the end user. Latter would be more work every time something needed to be moved or w/e, but safer from bugs that aren't human error. --Ghostwheel 23:24, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I was wrong. Can't do it without starting with a subst on the page, (like reason ) and that's annoying. So manual dating is probably what we get to do. - Tarkisflux Talk 23:56, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Incomplete Homebrew
With the addition of a fancy bot to automagically delete things, I think we need to revisit the incomplete policy. The bot can't tell when the template was applied, so a 7 day from application deadline isn't really workable with it. The project policy focuses on days since last edit instead, and the bot can find those really easily. So I propose we change to a policy of: It would mean that some incomplete articles could hang on a lot longer than they previously could, but since the deletion would be handled by bot they'd actually be removed when the time ran out instead of sitting until an admin got around to them. Which is probably a net decrease in incomplete article live time, despite the potentially longer complete window. - Tarkisflux Talk 18:30, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Warn after 1 day of no activity
 * Delete after 3 days of no activity


 * I'm on board with this idea. Incomplete should really only be defined for articles not being actively worked on anyways. --Aarnott 19:00, 21 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm good with anything that decreases our maintenance time. Wondering if we can program it to identify pages with a certain amount of negative ratings, although I suppose that's not as concrete of a deletion policy. - TG Cid 20:26, 21 February 2012 (UTC)


 * That sort of thing is totally possible. Anything that has a semantic property that I can work with can be covered by some sort of bot. --Aarnott 20:39, 21 February 2012 (UTC)


 * So, it's been over a week. I'm going to start running the bot tonight. If there are any objections, now is the time :). --Aarnott 16:27, 1 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Wiki was down for 48 hours, and difficult to access for a few days before that. I'd like to extend the discussion period by at least 3 days to account for that. - Tarkisflux Talk 16:30, 1 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm thinking I will have the maiden voyage of the python bot begin tomorrow night. I'm going to make minor edits on all of the outdated pages, just so that they don't get deleted without a warning. So, tomorrow, all of the outdated pages should give a warning message to the authors if my bot is working properly. --Aarnott 21:36, 4 March 2012 (UTC)