Wikipedia talk:Deletion review/Archive 3

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Postwar Surrealism

Although in some cases it has been, may have been, or has arguably been justified, there is a tendency to delete articles having to do with post-World War II or contemporary surrealism. This tendency should be looked at more closely in future. --Daniel C. Boyer 15:09, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Why 10 days?

I don't like the ten day period and the "ends this date" header at the top of each article. I'd rather we took a more flexible approach. Wnen there is clearly no consensus to undelete, we should remove entries earlier than ten days to keep the page short and relavent. When there is more argument we should leave the entry longer to see if agreement can be reached. I would rather people use thier judgement as to when to remove entries rather than have a rigid timeframe. Thoughts anyone? theresa knott 09:58, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Ten days is what is stipulated in Wikipedia:Undeletion policy. It's by no means a hard-and-fast limit, but it's the outside time limit for when there is an ongoing discussion. If there is a clear decision earlier, then it can be handled earlier. I think it's still a good idea to leave the request listed for the full ten days, though, even if it has already been dealt with. - UtherSRG 16:27, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The policy lists 10 days since people are likely to see this page less often than they see VfD, so the time was doubled to allow enough people to vote on the articles listed here. I think 10 days was more of a suggested minimum though, rather than an absolute rule. Angela . 21:50, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)

It probably doesn't need to be as long as 10 days now. That policy was written at a time when there were very few people aware of this page, so it needed 10 days before enough people voted. If there are enough voters to see where the consensus lies earlier than this, then the pages may as well be dealt with before the end of 10 days. Angela . 19:27, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

More Significant Sources?

If an article previously went through the deletion process and was deleted, in part on the basis that the subject was too obscure, and was not mentioned in sources of sufficiently wide distribution, and subsequently the subject was so dealt with, should it be listed on pages for undeletion? Example: Daniel C. Boyer was previously deleted, but he is now listed in the 2005 edition of Who's Who in America. --65.174.34.14 18:30, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yes. This is no guarantee that the article will be undeleted, but being listed in Who's Who is certainly reasonable grounds for initiating the Vfu process. - UtherSRG 18:48, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Note: he will now be listed in the 2006 "Who's Who in the World" as well as the 2006 edition of "Who's Who in America". --141.219.44.179 19:29, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Did either become notable at some point? Last I saw, it was just a scam to get people to buy an overly expersive book with their name in it. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 04:01, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

VfD format for VfU?

Is there any chance VfU will move to the nice template system we have on VfD? --Improv 14:42, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- Seems completely unnecessary. The VfU nominators aren't nearly as rabid as the deletionists. anthony 警告 14:36, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  - Perhaps because the vast majority of original deletions were actually valid, and therefore not worth challenging. Ambi 15:35, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    - Since that's an untrue statement, it can't possibly be the reason. anthony 警告 15:39, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
      - sigh Perhaps Ambi doesn't realise that we could quite legitimately list all schools, for example, on VfU, on the grounds that there is no consensus for their deletion, because in just about every case several editors ask for them to be kept, but we don't, because we are, as you suggest, not as rabid as the deletionists. It seems that if you do not push your POV hard, some take it that you do not hold it seriously. Dr Zen 03:04, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
      - It could also be because on the VfU the two-thirds consensus rule works against the radical inclusionists, instead of for them, the way it does on the VfD page. If a page has been deleted, it means that it couldn't even muster one-third of the votes to be kept. Given that in all but the crystal clear cases, there are always several almost automatic votes to keep, a deleted article has to have been pretty bad, or on a very unnotable subject, to have been deleted. In other words, notwithstanding your posturing, the reason you don't see a lot of articles being nominated for undeletion is that everybody realizes that the nominations would fail, unless there was some significant information that was not available to the original voters. --BM 00:01, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
        There is no two-thirds consensus rule, and certainly not on VfU. anthony 警告 04:02, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
        True. In fact, there is only an "Administrator's discretion" rule. Snowspinner 04:27, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)
        Must be a new rule. There was no such rule a few months ago. Of course, admins have the technical ability to do pretty much whatever they want, and admins generally are very hesitant to reverse actions of other admins, so there is kind of a de facto rule that admins can do whatever they want. anthony 警告 14:16, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
        Admins can't do whatever they want. However, they get the task of deciding whether a vote has consensus on VfD and VfU. You're right that there's not a 2/3 rule. For example, administrators can delete articles with less than 2/3 support for deletion when they believe votes were cast by sockpuppets, or, as in a recent case, by Neo-Nazis flooding Wikipedia to try to add POV to the project. Snowspinner 14:26, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)
        Admins can't do whatever they want. I think we both understand the truth of that statement. Admins can do whatever they want, but they might be reversed, or they might be deadminned, etc. However, they get the task of deciding whether a vote has consensus on VfD and VfU. According to whom? There's no rule saying that, in fact, the rules explicitly say that any user can decide that there is no consensus for deletion and clean up the VfD vote. For example, administrators can delete articles with less than 2/3 support for deletion when they believe votes were cast by sockpuppets, or, as in a recent case, by Neo-Nazis flooding Wikipedia to try to add POV to the project. They can delete any article for any reason at all. They should only be deleting articles for VfD reasons if there is rough consensus. anthony 警告 15:28, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
        
        Yes I am well aware that the notion that "consensus means 2/3" is not cast in stone. However, an admin who suddenly decided that a VfD consensus was a simple majority plus himself, would be in hot water pretty fast, as he would be if he had different ideas than customary about which votes to count. As for VfU versus VfD. On VfD, a consensus is required to delete. On VfU, a consensus is required to undelete: the burden is shifted. An admin who decided to undelete an article without a consensus to undelete it would also be in hot water pretty fast, as he would be if he decided that consensus on VfU was a simple majority, unlike on VfD. --BM 16:47, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
        Actually, the VfU consensus is usually a simple majority with at least three votes to undelete. Of course, that's only enough to send it back to VfD, not to permaundelete. Snowspinner 17:47, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)
        On VfU, there is no consensus requirement. An article which was improperly deleted can be immediately restored. An article deleted properly can be restored with a majority consent. To call a majority a consensus is just repugnant. -anthony
        Not nearly as repugnant as your continual claims that the rules aren't being followed when they are. Wikipedia:Undeletion policy might be instructive next time you decide to complain about nothing. Snowspinner 20:56, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)
        Which rules have I claimed aren't being followed?
        
        Also, pages get undeleted on a regular basis without first going through VfU. Only if they were recreating VfD'd pages would anyone really care. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 18:03, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

Explain that VfU is not a VfD re-run?

Should there be a clearer explanation along these lines:

Use VfU is to review possible errors or mistakes in the deletion process." For example, use VfU for

articles that received an administrative "speedy delete" that you think do not meet the criteria and deserve a full VfD discussion;
completed VfD discussions where you do not understand how the administrator determined "rough consensus."

Do not try to use VfU to discuss the merits of the case. You cannot re-run a VfD just because you have fresh points to make that you failed to make during the five-day run of the VfD, or just because you are dissatisfied with the way people voted.

(I know, it probably won't do any good...) Dpbsmith (talk) 17:30, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good. I know I have been sorely disappointed when an admin made the wrong (procedural) decision and the VfU process has failed to rectify it because voters here do exactly as you point out in your last sentence (and vote "delete, non-notable"). It is particularly annoying because VfU needs a consensus for undeletion to occur, thus making a more deletionist environment than VfD! Pcb21| Pete 19:22, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

- Other reasons to use VfU - "Borderline recreations"... for cases where inclusionists think a recreation is substantially different from one VfD'd but there are deletionists speedily deleting the recreation because they don't think it is substantially different.

- Where a VfD vote, even it achieves rough consensus, substantially runs against the grain of deletion policy and/or precedence, suggesting that those who happened to look at a particular vfd listing were more deletionist than average. Pcb21| Pete 19:40, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  - Well, that last one, I'll disagree with, of course. VfD is VfD. Just because you disagree with the reasons why somebody voted to delete something, doesn't mean you can run here and complain that somehow your vote counts more than somebody else's. Rick K 22:39, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

I think the only basis for reviewing fact-finding is the "clear error" standard that an American appellate court would use, which is heavily deferential. For instance, a VfD to delete George W. Bush as nonnotable (or without explanation) would be senseless. Only the most obvious errors, in other words. Otherwise, the only discussion of the facts and rationale of the VfD should be to determine its scope—is a new article deleted as a recreation actually covered by the decision? Is its content significantly different from that which was deleted, or void of the problems that the first one was deleted for? Postdlf 18:21, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Removing listings

How long are things supposed to stay on the VfU page? We have listings that are seven weeks old on there right now. I'm strongly considering removing a lot of them. Rick K 18:48, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

Proposed revision to undeletion policy on exceptions

I have proposed a revision restricting the exceptions clause of undeletion policy. Please see Wikipedia talk:Undeletion policy#Proposed revision to "Exceptions" clause to comment and vote. Thanks, Banyan Tree 14:51, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What on earth is the rationale for re-VfDing after VfUing says undelete?

It's there in the policy. But what's the motivation for it? Pcb21| Pete 08:48, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Consider it like a remand or a new trial—it's a do-over because something undermined what happened the first time. Postdlf 18:10, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Because VfU is a vote on procedure, not on content. A vote to undelete is not, repeat not a vote to keep the article, it's a vote to repair a mistake in procedure. I frequently vote "undelete" on articles that I personally think should be deleted, but that I think deserve a proper VfD discussion on the merits.

The most typical and IMHO most proper use of VfU is to repair an improper speedy, VfU is saying "this should have been a VfD nomination instead." Sysops don't normally delete articles without good reason, but the criteria for speedy deletion are very restrictive and there's a tendency to stretch them. Here, VfU is saying "this should have been a VfD nomination, not a speedy."

Another point is that VfD itself is already a very conservative process that gives every opportunity for articles to be kept. Knowing that a VfU is automatically send back to VfD does three good things. It make the VfU process easier. It makes the ultimate outcome depend on the large number of users who participate in VfD rather than the small number who participate in VfU. And it help keep VfU nominators honest and prevents ways of gaming the system. Knowing that the article will be sent back to VfD makes it difficult to use VfU simply as a parliamentary maneuver for resisting a VfD. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:38, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

I can see the advantages of vfding an undeleted speedy. I still don't think the case for a second vfding is strong. You phrase things in terms of a parliament or judiciary. Analogies to a legal system are only so useful when our goal to create as much quality free content as possible. Pcb21| Pete 21:39, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

You hit the nail on the head. Our goal is to create as much quality free content as possible—not merely as much content as possible. If an article is of good quality, then it will survive the VfD, and no harm is done. Actually, VfD often serves as an informal but highly effective cleanup process because it draws focused community attention. The extra time on VfD often results in improvement to articles that would otherwise be sorely neglected. See for example Albert Carnesale: immediately before and after the VfD process. Before the VfD, the article had languished for ten months without appreciable improvement. --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 03:08, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

I call it "speedy cleanup", and sometimes it works very well. Three articles that I've put up to VFD have ended up much better for it. I'm still considering creating a speedy cleanup procedure, so that articles that are totally crap but are on notable subjects could have a short improvement period before getting nominated for the round file. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 03:42, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

VfU only requires a majority to be overturned, whereas VfD requires a consensus. If the majority approves the VfU, and a consensus majority approves the VfD, the second VfD trumps the VfU. Rick K 23:37, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

This needs to be made very clear; I've seen more than one VfD in which voters have voted to keep on the grounds that the article was successfully VfUed, so it must be OK. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:07, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Are these archived?

Are these VfU discussions archived anywhere, except the history? Just wondering... Kappa 08:03, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Just the history, AFAIK. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:42, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Sort of, used to, maybe. It was a pain to do and was not done reliably, so I think it is better to have people check a reliable record in the history rather than an unreliable record on another page. See Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion/undeleted and Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion/deleted, which are as officially deprecated as they can be. Also note that I always edit sections when delisting an item, so that it would take little time searching through the page history of VfU to find the last revision that included a discussion. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 23:54, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

Altar Q

Altar Q has been sitting around on VFU since May 21 with 5 to undelete and 4 to keep deleted. Isn't a simple majority enough to undelete it now? Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:11, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes :) I mentioned in the questions on my RFA that I tend to clean up VFU but I couldn't clean up this one. Now that I can, I have. It's on VFD now. R adiant _>|< 12:13, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

Kantar

For purposes of review, please make available the content of the deleted entry... Kantar
oo-- dWs dsaklad@zurich.csail.mit.edu 17:29, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Is this page becoming pointless?

It seems like the validness or otherwise of a vfd vote is reduced to a dumb counting of the original votes and if delete gets more than about 60%, saying "valid vfd". This page is pointless if we are not permitted to check whether the original voters got it right. Pcb21| Pete 8 July 2005 13:39 (UTC)

No because it works to pick out pages that have been incorrectly deleted, including speedies. Unfortunately that means vanity from the super-vain get listed here as they try to prove their notability. That is usually met with the response you mention which stops them coming back. Dunc|☺ 8 July 2005 13:45 (UTC)

I agree. "Valid VfD" appears to be a simple kneejerk reaction and, in the case of Digg at least, it would seem to be wrong. This page is pointless if a substantial number of voters will not give adequate consideration to the article they are voting on (the same goes for VfD). The policy that successful undeletions will be listed on VfD is of particular concern: the process provides double jeopardy and is inherently biased toward deletion. ‣ᓛᖁ

ᑐ 14:52, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Undelete and list on VfD

I thought I'd mention this before I forget again. Wikipedia:Undeletion policy explicitly states that articles that are undeleted as a result of VfU should immediately be listed on VfD, yet I've seen a few articles get undeleted, but not listed. I've listed one or two of them in the past, but I wonder if we should emphasise the fact that articles that get undeleted must also be listed in VfD? Something like a nice "Note to admins: When undeleting an article, be sure to also list it on VfD" notice on the top of the VfU page? --Death phoenix 21:36, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Let's change the policy. It is often useful to relist on VfD, but sometimes that would just be pointless bureaucracy. Pcb21| Pete 10:04, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Since it's official policy, a change would require a vote, but hey, I'm all for it. Of course, if it passes, I'll have to remind myself to put Undelete and VfD for those articles that I think would require it. --Death phoenix 13:26, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I've made the change. There is no official policy that changes to "official policy" require a vote. The undeletion policy itself became "offical" (in the sense that a category and/or template was added to the page!) because it was long standing with only minor changes. Wikipedia hasn't got where it is today without the ethos of "be bold" - as you initially noted, people tend to ignore "official policy" went it is unduly cumbersome. Pcb21| Pete 21:02, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I've changed the mention of "after about a week" on VfD to "after the usual 5 days" since that is VfD policy, after all. Things may not often be deleted on the dot of 5 days, but we'd only get procedural complaints if a VfD'd–VfU'd–VfD'd article was deleted after 5 days rather than 7. -Splash 00:36, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Good change. Thanks. Pcb21| Pete 08:43, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

The solution to this, I think, is to explicitly forbid double jeopardy. If an article survives VfU, it should not have the potential to be deleted some time in the future. ‣ᓛᖁ

ᑐ 15:02, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

It's not double jeopardy. To continue the legal analogy, it's equivalent to declaring a mistrial. The previous VfD is invalidated, and a new "trial" is held. AиDя01D TALK EMAIL 15:10, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

Mistrials are declared during the original legal proceedings. VfU occurs long after VfD has completed; the appropriate analogy is the appellate court. ‣ᓛᖁ

ᑐ 15:15, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Off-the-wall analogies aside, any user may come along and nominate any article for deletion at any time. It is not possible, or desirable, to immunize some articles against this process, which is the literal interpretation of what Eequor says. I think you probably just mean that it shouldn't go back to VfD as part of the VfU process, but I don't see it does much harm. -Splash 16:04, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

There's already significant social pressure against repeated renominations for deletion; we don't need a formal policy. If an article is nominated for deletion more than once in a short period, there is usually substantial criticism from VfD regulars. People vote against deletion on principle. Since it's already de facto policy, there's no reason to codify it—since we'll probably discover later that there ought to have been exceptions in the rule. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:44, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Any strict limit is gamable. R adiant _>|< 11:24, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

All the legal analogies are misplaced. The judicial system refuses to reopen a dispute that's been settled, except under unusual circumstances, because it consumes resources and because parties should be able to rely on a result reached. Those considerations don't apply on Wikipedia. Previous decisions, on deletion or on anything else, are always subject to reconsideration, with the social pressure mentioned by TenOfAllTrades as the bulwark against abuse. JamesMLane 13:38, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Formal suffrage?

I was wondering why VFU has a formal suffrage policy of 25 edits, where any other voting page (e.g. *FD, RFA, etc) has an informal suffrage policy that allows anyone to vote, but allows for some votes to be discounted (per common sense) if they have a lack of edit history. The specific rule for VFU sounds rather like instruction creep, and it also means that we must allow anyone to vote here if they follow the specifics of the rule, even if common sense would indicate otherwise (e.g. 25 major edits to a single article related to the VFU matter, or 25 major edits most of which were reverted, etc). If we're going to rely on common sense anyway, we could probably do without this strict line. R adiant _>|< 08:22, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

(Since I've doubly posted this, please respond on Wikipedia talk:Undeletion policy)
Now changed to informal suffrage, for compliance with the rest of the 'pedia. R adiant _>|< 11:23, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Non-sysops who wish to see the content of a deleted article

It says this page is for 2. "Non-sysops who wish to see the content of a deleted article. They may wish to use that content elsewhere, for example. Alternatively, they may suspect that an article has been wrongly deleted, but are unable to tell without seeing what exactly was deleted."

How is this accomplished? I can find no instruction. The XML export mentioned in the next paragraph didn't work for me; maybe I'm doing it wrong.GangofOne 08:41, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

The page needs to be undeleted first, then can be exported, before being deleted again. Cheers, smoddy 09:21, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

But by a sysop, right?GangofOne 18:15, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes. smoddy 18:16, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Consensus

What is the minimum for a VfU to pass? Is it consensus to undelete, a lack of consensus to delete, a majority? It is not made at all clear. Cheers, [[smoddy]] 21:43, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

official policy is here - Tεx τ urε 21:52, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Short version:

"If ten days elapse and the proposed undeletion lacks 3 supporters and a majority, then the page remains deleted (to avoid rapid re-deletion since deletion requires a two-thirds majority)."

VfU notice in VfD

Well, a long discussion is underway at Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion/Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - Full Plot Summary about how users that voted to keep an article did not know that it was up for undeletion and therefore the "Keep deleted" judgement at VfU is flawed. In order to stop this from happening further, I've created {{vfu}}, which is meant to be used in conjunction with {{TempUndelete}}. It's just an effort to keep these kinds of claims from happening again. Do you people think it should be included in the VfU instructions? --Titoxd 01:56, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Some mention of the highly procedural nature of VfU might be in order. Voters there are, or should be, interested only in the validity of the deletion process, not the content. The similarity of this template to the VfD one (presumably intentional) risks turning VfU into a VfD in reverse. -Splash 02:14, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree that VfU should not become a reverse VfD, and maybe the template needs to be reworded differently. Modify the template as you see fit. The only reason I modeled the {{vfu}} template after the {{vfd}} template was because I liked the design of the VfD notice. --Titoxd 02:20, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

You're absolutely right, Splash. Voters should be "interested only in the validity of the deletion process, not the content." VfU shouldn't be turned into "VfD in reverse." And yet, that's precisely what you (and others) did last month. —Lifeisunfair 11:43, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I love this idea, Titoxd. --Arcadian 02:36, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I made some changes. Though I've suddenly realised that I don't fully understand the purpose here. Why does the keep-voter's non-notification lead to a flaw in a vote to "keep deleted"? -Splash

Zen master's rationale is that if the keep-voters had been informed, the outcome would have been different (namely, the keep voters would have reached an undelete consensus), and the article would have been kept. But he also argues that the vote should never had been in VfU in the first place, so the VfU vote is not valid. I've been trying to say the opposite, and you can see the back-and-forth arguing that ensued. --Titoxd 03:07, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

This is an exceptional case, so I don't see the need to set an official policy on the base of it. VFU doesn't need the additional requirement of a template - and besides, putting a template on the page is unlikely to inform many people (except in a special case such as this one). Contacting the involved parties on their talk pages would be far more effective.

The entire discussion has boiled down to a matter of semantics (Zen says the VFU was invalid because the VFD result should not have been to delete...) The article isn't lost - it is put in a sisterproject. R adiant _>|< 08:04, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

Request for undeletion: Phank

The entry for Phank was not submitted by Phank, but rather by a fan. The votes for deletion listed Vanity as a primary reason for deletion, but Phank members had nothing to do with the entry. Additional mention was made of Phank being a non-notable MMO Guild. However, Phank has had a web update read weekly by thousands of fans for almost four years. The guild has been mentioned in Tim O'Reilly's weblog http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/3123 as a good example of an online community and has been referenced on Slashdot.

That is not entirely the point. Please see WP:VAIN - an article can still be vanity if posted by a fan. R adiant _>|< 07:02, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Name change (again)

It has been proposed at Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion#Name_change_.28again.29 that this be renamed to Wikipedia:Deletion review or some such, to parallel the renaming of Wikipedia:Votes for deletion to Wikipedia:Pages for deletion in order to remove the word "votes" from the title and to be more consistent with our other "X for deletion" titles. Please discuss this proposal on that talk page. Uncle G 16:23:01, 2005-08-26 (UTC)

Articles for deletion actually, but yeah. :-) (PfD collides with IfD, TfD, and CfD, which also delete pages) Kim Bruning 01:08, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Undeletion would be better; avoids it being confused with Wikipedia:Deletion reform. This should be the place to come for precedural errors on IfD, TfD, CfD anyway. Septentrionalis 20:41, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Deletion redirects to Wikipedia:Deletion policy. Wikipedia:Undeletion shouldn't be a vote or discussion page, it should follow suit and redirect to the relevant policy page. -Sean Curtin 01:14, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

Comments from main page

Leave it undeleted pending the second VfD discussion. Tony was entirely correct to reweight or even ignore the votes made prior to the rewrite. Long precedent establishes that as a responsibility of the closing admin. I have great respect for Radiant but the attempt to overturn a closed decision was out-of-process. A disputed "keep" decision should be re-visited by renominating the article for a new VfD. Decisions closed by an admin stay closed. Rossami (talk) 21:01, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
- I don't recall where that particular piece of policy is? Almost anything done by one admin can be undone by another: admins have no 'final say' on most things. -Splash 23:09, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
  - The correct question is "where is this form of reversal allowed". By long tradition and precedent, deletion discussion threads are closed and stay closed. They can be challenged, discussed and if appropriate overturned. But just to make the mechanics work, we have always required that the "appeal" discussions take place as a separate discussion. We use VfU for a contested "delete" decision and re-nomination for a contested "keep" decision. We have never allowed the decisions to be arbitrarily "re-decided" by the next admin who happens to come along. Rossami (talk) 13:11, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
    - Since you asked... where is that allowed? What policy says that we only use "VfU for a contested "delete" decision and re-nomination for a contested "keep" decision"? That may be the implication you get out of it but it is no more codified than "where is this form of reversal allowed". If a rogue admin keeps a VfD that has 10 unambiguous delete votes and no keep and no change in the article, why would another admin be wrong in deleting? Nothing in policy says that only one admin can decide a VfD. You're making that up on the spot. It isn't in policy. - Tεxτurε 14:24, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
      - Recent debates on the matter give me the impression that codifying this wouldn't hurt. Since renominations on VFD are generally frowned upon, and any dispute of a VFD closure is generally a matter of procedure, I think that VFU be used for the discussion if a VFD closure turns out to be controversial (and yes, I realize that may be a misnamed process if a closure of 'keep' is disputed, but we have several misnamed processes already, such as VFD itself). This would be better than delete/undelete warring, or undoing an admin's work without discussing it, or reiterating an earlier VFD debate. R adiant _>|< 14:40, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
- <- (undenting)-> I like the concept. Doesn't "Votes for Undeletion" seem like an odd place? Not that I'd like to add yet another battleground, but perhaps someplace like Wikipedia:Decision Review. Who would vote for decision reversals? Admins only? Registered Users only? Registered Users of 500+ edits only? I think this would be important to avoid gaming the system. What would the basis be for a decision? Process only? (Incorrect vote count, user edit requirements, sock puppets, OBE) Who can nominate? Admins only? Registered users 500+? etc? Could a decision be reversed just because they don't want it gone? (Kind of a second VfD or VfU? - I'd like to see the proceedures avoid that.) - Tεxτurε 16:28, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
  - Good concept, but I don't think that giving users powers based on how many edits they have is wrong. I think that all users should have the power to question administrators' decisions. -- Alex Nisnevich (talk) 16:39, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
    - "Powers"? Not really what I was trying to convey. Wikipedia gets deluged with sock puppets and the only way to tell is to look at the edit history and discover that they just arrived and edited only on VfD or VfU. Right now that decision is ambiguous. - Tεx τ urε 17:39, 25 August 2005 (UTC)