Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion
| This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Articles for deletion page. |
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Q1: I don't like this page's name. I want to rename it to Articles for discussion or something else.
A1: Please see Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Rename AFD. Note that all of the "for discussion" pages handle not only deletion, but also proposed mergers, proposed moves, and other similar processes. AFD is "for deletion" because the volume of discussion has made it necessary to sub-divide the work by the type of change. Q2: You mean I'm not supposed to use AFD to propose a merger or a page move?
A2: Correct. Please use Wikipedia:Proposed mergers or Wikipedia:Requested moves for those kinds of proposals. Q3: How many articles get nominated at AfD?
A3: Per the Oracle of Deletion, there were about 470,000 AfDs between 2005 (when the process was first created) and 2022. This comes out to about 26,000 per year (2,176 per month / 72 per day). In 2022, there were 20,008 AfDs (1,667 per month / 55 per day). Q4: How many articles get deleted?
A4: Between 2005 and 2020, around 60% of AfDs were closed as "delete" or "speedy delete". This is about 270,000. More detailed statistics (including year-by-year graphs) can be found at Wikipedia:Oracle/All and Wikipedia:Wikipedia records#Deletion. Q5: Is the timeline strict, with exactly 168 hours and zero minutes allowed? Should I remove late comments?
A5: No. We're trying to get the right outcome, not follow some ceremonial process. If the discussion hasn't been closed, it's okay for people to continue discussing it. Q6: How many people participate in AFD?
A6: As of October 2023, of the 13.9 million registered editors who have ever made 1+ edit anywhere, about 162,000 of them (1 in 85 editors) have also made 1+ edit to an AFD page. Most of the participants are experienced editors, but newcomers and unregistered editors also participate. Most individual AFD pages get comments from just a few editors, but the numbers add up over time. |
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About deleted articles
There are three processes under which mainspace articles are deleted: 1) speedy deletion; 2) proposed deletion (prod) and 3) Articles for deletion (AfD). For more information, see WP:Why was my page deleted? To find out why the particular article you posted was deleted, go to the deletion log and type into the search field marked "title," the exact name of the article, mindful of the original capitalization, spelling and spacing. The deletion log entry will show when the article was deleted, by which administrator, and typically contain a deletion summary listing the reason for deletion. If you wish to contest this deletion, please contact the administrator first on their talk page and, depending on the circumstances, politely explain why you think the article should be restored, or why a copy should be provided to you so you can address the reason for deletion before reposting the article. If this is not fruitful, you have the option of listing the article at WP:Deletion review, but it will probably only be restored if the deletion was clearly improper. List discussions WP:Articles for deletion WP:Categories for discussion WP:Copyright problems WP:Deletion review WP:Miscellany for deletion WP:Redirects for discussion WP:Stub types for deletion WP:Templates for discussion WP:WikiProject Deletion sorting WT:Articles for deletion WT:Categories for discussion WT:Copyright problems WT:Deletion review WT:Miscellany for deletion WT:Redirects for discussion WT:Stub types for deletion WT:Templates for discussion WT:WikiProject Deletion sorting |
Making sure I understand this right
[edit]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.
The article states that:
If a redirection is controversial, however, AfD may be an appropriate venue for discussing the change in addition to the article's talk page.
Does this mean that an AFD can be started by someone with the intent of redirecting instead of deleting? Plasticwonder (talk) 04:06, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
- Yep. Alpha3031 (t • c) 10:18, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
- Don't post things at multiple places. There's no reason to have two separate discusssions on this at VPP and here. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:07, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
Request
[edit]I am the subject of this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Blade. I don't think it meets the notability criteria for an article on Wikipedia. The article is semi-protected. I'd like to request that an editor nominate it for deletion please? BladeTerry (talk) 01:04, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
Closes before 7 days
[edit]I have started a discussion at the Administators notice board about AfDs that are closing before 7 days/168 hours that watchers of this page may be interested in. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:09, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
Tool XFDcloser
[edit]Is there a way or tool to check how many closures an editor has performed, particularly when the XfD closure has resulted in a 'keep' ? Jeraxmoira🐉 (talk) 05:18, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
- https://sowhy.toolforge.org/afdcloses.php? Extraordinary Writ (talk) 05:27, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, thank you. Jeraxmoira🐉 (talk) 05:32, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
Requiring Google Scholar for BEFORE
[edit]BEFORE (D)(1) currently states The minimum search expected is a normal Google search, a Google Books search, a Google News search, and a Google News archive search; Google Scholar is suggested for academic subjects.
(links omitted) Given our relatively robust access to academic sourcing through the Wikipedia Library, and the number of recent AfDs I've seen that have completely missed obvious Google Scholar sources on fictional literature (e.g., Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Spacing Guild (2nd nomination), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of James Bond villains), I'd like to make Google Scholar expected, rather than "suggested for academic subjects". We have a lot of pop culture media and literature that are being addressed as "academic subjects" and I believe the current wording doesn't well serve the encyclopedia.
- 1) Is there a good reason to not add Google Scholar to the expected list for general topics?
- 1a) Could we wordsmith it so that obviously non-academic topics such as BLPs are excluded?
- 2) Is going from 4 to 5 expected searches too much effort? If so, would it be appropriate to swap out one of the other four?
I believe the encyclopedia suffers when things that are clearly notable are nominated for deletion, and I'd like to make sure our efforts here are the best balance of making the nominator do appropriate work to find and evaluate the most obvious sources before creating work for the community and administrators. Jclemens (talk) 00:11, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'd support that. I think common-sense exceptions already apply (you don't need to check Google Books for a breaking-news story), but if that's a concern we could just stick an "in general" on the front. To compensate (or either way, honestly), we should get rid of the Google News Archive search, which has never worked properly and isn't really supported anymore. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 00:20, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I would oppose this, but only because access to the Wikipedia Library is contingent on time (one has to be active for six months if I am remembering correctly), and one has to apply for access (which may not have been done by all participants at AFD). There are enough access barriers in place that I don’t think this can be required.4meter4 (talk) 00:25, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- One need not have access to the Wikipedia Library to use Google Scholar; it's just a great tool to get access if you want to see "does this scholarly article really cover this topic in depth?" for those who don't have access to a University library's online collections. So to clarify, the Google Scholar search would be expected, Wikipedia Library use would be recommended as it already is per (D)(2). Jclemens (talk) 00:39, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- Oh, and to clarify: BEFORE is only about the nominator's pre-deletion expected work. Nothing about BEFORE creates any obligation on anyone other than an AfD nominator. Jclemens (talk) 00:46, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I would oppose this, but only because access to the Wikipedia Library is contingent on time (one has to be active for six months if I am remembering correctly), and one has to apply for access (which may not have been done by all participants at AFD). There are enough access barriers in place that I don’t think this can be required.4meter4 (talk) 00:25, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I have no issue deprecating or outright deleting the Google News Archive search. It's not linked on {{find sources}} and I haven't used it in so long I wasn't even aware it didn't work. Jclemens (talk) 00:42, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- The two examples you put forth call into question the necessity of doing so. For the Spacing Guild example, the first example appears to be a single paragraph, not the sort of in-depth coverage we expect; the Guild is not mentioned in either the abstract of the article or the first page of the article shown on the store page. The second doesn't look deeper. Meanwhile, in both deletion discussions you cite, there look to be enough non-Google Scholar-ly sources to render a Keep. WP:BEFORE is already a burden; before we increase its weight, I'd want to see not just that Scholar can point to sources on such topics, but that it can point to sources on such topics that would not have had enough sources through other means already required by BEFORE. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 01:10, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- There are more examples; I picked two. Whether you agree that those are sufficient to demonstrate GNG being met by themselves misses the point--it is the nominator's job to find such obvious issues and either make a compelling case for non-retention (merging, etc.) despite the presence of that coverage or to abandon the idea of a nomination. As far as scholar vs. other choices, I'd actually argue that Scholar is probably more useful than a "vanilla" Google search, in that if we can identify multiple truly relevant hits in Google Scholar, the value of those hits is sufficiently higher than a random plain Google search hit that it is more efficient to evaluate Scholar sources first, rather than basic Google hits. Jclemens (talk) 02:31, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- No, I don't think it misses the point if this added effort is just going to identify as keepable things that would be identified as keepable anyway. WP:CREEP is a problem here, and is my concern with this proposal. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 02:37, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- There are more examples; I picked two. Whether you agree that those are sufficient to demonstrate GNG being met by themselves misses the point--it is the nominator's job to find such obvious issues and either make a compelling case for non-retention (merging, etc.) despite the presence of that coverage or to abandon the idea of a nomination. As far as scholar vs. other choices, I'd actually argue that Scholar is probably more useful than a "vanilla" Google search, in that if we can identify multiple truly relevant hits in Google Scholar, the value of those hits is sufficiently higher than a random plain Google search hit that it is more efficient to evaluate Scholar sources first, rather than basic Google hits. Jclemens (talk) 02:31, 13 January 2025 (UTC)