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 |
An RfC to adopt a subject-specific notability guideline regarding the notability of species has been opened at Wikipedia talk:Notability (species)#Proposal to adopt this guideline. C F A 💬 22:27, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
Malformed AfD
[edit]Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zoe Gardner (migration expert) has been created by a very new editor and hasn't got the necessary infrastructure - I think a bot might pick it up and mend it but wonder if an AfD regular here could fix it? Is there a standard place/way to report these? PamD 08:58, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- Or, if there is a standard way to mend a malformed AfD or a way to report it, could this perhaps be added to the AfD page? It has info about how to open, contribute to, and close an AfD, but not about how to mend a malformed one. Thanks. PamD 09:24, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- @PamD fixed. Please refer to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion#How to nominate a single page for deletion for future reference. TarnishedPathtalk 10:29, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- @TarnishedPath Yes, I could see those instructions, but was anxious for it not to appear that I was the editor proposing deletion and wasn't sure how to avoid that. Thanks. PamD 11:07, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- @PamD, I got around not appearing to be the nominator by not putting in details in the text field or signing the template. I.e., {{subst:afd2 | pg=Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zoe Gardner (migration expert) | cat= | text=}}. TarnishedPathtalk 11:18, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks, I'll make a note of that in my "Useful stuff" bit of my sandbox! PamD 11:34, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- @PamD, I got around not appearing to be the nominator by not putting in details in the text field or signing the template. I.e., {{subst:afd2 | pg=Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zoe Gardner (migration expert) | cat= | text=}}. TarnishedPathtalk 11:18, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- @TarnishedPath Yes, I could see those instructions, but was anxious for it not to appear that I was the editor proposing deletion and wasn't sure how to avoid that. Thanks. PamD 11:07, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- @PamD fixed. Please refer to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion#How to nominate a single page for deletion for future reference. TarnishedPathtalk 10:29, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
Questioning AfD
[edit]Hi, I made an AfD located here for a series of articles that I am replacing with a new article, which is currently in draft space located here. I also announced my intentions over a week ago on a very visible talk page and received no opposition, and no opposition in the AfD, rather I was told this wasn't even controversial enough to take to AfD. I also now feel that redirecting the old pages would be preferred in order to preserve page histories, rather than deleting. Should I just withdraw my AfD and take this to the technical section of Wikipedia:Requested moves so I can move from draft space to main space? (I'm hitting technical issues trying to do this myself.) Would this be seen as trying to get around the community, or is it just the obvious uncontroversial thing to do here? Any assistance would be appreciated. StewdioMACK (talk) 05:16, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
- @StewdioMACK: I moved the draft to mainspace for you, but I suggest waiting the 7 days so the discussion can be properly closed as "redirect". C F A 💬 15:25, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks for the assistance! As suggested, I'll wait before linking from other pages and fully redirecting the old pages. StewdioMACK (talk) 15:45, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
Single-paragraph, seven-sentence, four-reference stub discussing a non-notable, long-since-defunct, and completely forgotten children's lifestyle brand. 100.7.34.111 (talk) 13:46, 31 August 2024 (UTC)
AFD request: Hiromu Kori
[edit]Hiromu Kori - I tried to nominate this myself but found the process too confusing. He only made appearances in the J3 League and was released in 2018 for breaching the club's code of conduct and hasn't played since. He has a few sources on his Japanese Wikipedia page but he's probably not notable enough - I want to see what everyone else thinks. RossEvans19 (talk) 13:36, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
Done Dan • ✉ 23:15, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
Negativity of AFD process
[edit]The first step for responding to a bad page is to try improving it, but it is also one of the most effective ways I've found to completely burn oneself out on Wikipedia, such that I've had to take a hard line of just refusing to improve any article that is up for AFD.
Consider: improving Wikipedia articles is already such a marginally rewarding / unrewarding task that the vast majority of people who could, don't. For the most part, only those of us who are wired a little strange to begin with even bother trying.* And even those mostly don't stick around for long.
Suppose an article has a 50% chance of survival if improved -- that cuts that already-tiny marginal reward of editing in half, and not many folks are going to keep going for long. Add in the fact that negative feedback has a much stronger impact than positive feedback, and the rewards of this kind of work are actually negative. Add in the fact that the actual odds of an article surviving AFD are much lower than 50%, and you have a situation that would make most humans profoundly miserable within a week.
This would be bad enough if the harms of AFD were limited to nominated articles, but -- circling back to TFA -- its harms extend much more broadly. In particular, I suspect the highly subjective and unpredictable way the notability guidelines are enforced in practice on AFD plays a major role in the outcome documented here. It would be very interesting to know if a survey of just AFD-nominated articles would show similarly biased outcomes (I suspect it would, in fact if I had to guess I suspect the effect of gender on AFD outcomes might be stronger). But even if that's not the case, even if AFD itself were firmly dedicated to gender parity -- given how deeply demoralizing the AFD process is, even a small increase in the likelihood of an article being nominated for AFD if it is about a woman would likely have a sufficiently discouraging effect over time to account for the results documented here.
And all of this harm is done (by the gleeful bullies who congregate in AFD where their behavior is socially rewarded and protected from consequences by a culture of weaponized civility) in service of a goal that is, as you note, of very limited value to the project. A hundred bad articles are less damaging than the loss of one good one.
AndrewHart500 (talk) 01:52, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
- You seem to have had a hard time defending an article or two, Andrew - and you're clearly a wee bit more bitter about things as a consequence. I have personally seen articles challenged at AfD through to improvement and survival on many, many occasions. The clear, bright line of three good sources is really what most people are looking for and that basic notability guideline is reasonably clear-cut and, per consensus, fair. My own WP:HEY moment was provided by Winston Churchill's pets, a rotten little stub with absolutely nothing going for it, little sourcing, no chance of ever being notable (who cares about his pestilent pets?) which I nominated for AfD only to see transformed by a growing number of ardent defenders into an absolute titan of an article, currently supported by 29 excellent sources. In short, they're not out to get you, nobody is being a bully (nobody I have seen, in any case) and maybe a short Wiki-break, a little consideration of the policy and process and a cupful of benign intent might help smooth things out a little. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 06:57, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
- Yep. It might be worth considering why AfD is the only place that kind of improvement generally happens (I think everyone on the spectrum of 'should X have an article' would far prefer that cleanup happening outside the scope of AfD and those articles that are ultimately keeps not ending up nominated at all) but if one is getting burned out on parts of the project, taking a step back is a prudent one. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 11:14, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
- Poor enforcement of WP:BEFORE is sometimes an issue with some. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 11:32, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
- Yep. It might be worth considering why AfD is the only place that kind of improvement generally happens (I think everyone on the spectrum of 'should X have an article' would far prefer that cleanup happening outside the scope of AfD and those articles that are ultimately keeps not ending up nominated at all) but if one is getting burned out on parts of the project, taking a step back is a prudent one. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 11:14, 7 September 2024 (UTC)