UDWiki talk:Administration/Policy Discussion/Restrict multiple deletion attemps of same page

Discussion

I completly disagree with this policy. If I'm not mistaken,... it's precedent that repeated sysop bids (spamming of the sysop bid page, ie, many bids in a relatively short time) is vandalism. I think it would be fair to apply that precedent to other Admin pages. It should be enough to operate on there. -_∞ Poodle of Doom _∞ 04:48, 25 July 2010 (BST)

You edit conflicted me before I even introduced this, sheesh.

Sysop bids are not deletions requests. They completely different animals and to appy a rule made for sysop bids to deletions requests would imo be playing rather fast as loose with the rules. This is very a straightforward policy and I believe a necessary one. --WanYao 04:53, 25 July 2010 (BST)

I apologize for the conflict... I have a habit of not getting involved fast enough, and by the time I do get involved, the conversation is far beyound where my opinion would matter anyway. That said... I think you're wrong. Massive spamming of user talk pages is vandalism. Multiple promotion bids in a short time has been ruled vandalism in the past. The way I see it... there is a huge precedent on this sort of thing. If I keep creating an edit war,... spamming the deletion page with the same page for deletion, what's the difference between that and someones talk page? Or, if adding the same content to another administration page, over a relativly short time is vandalism, why not here? I think the only question is what constitues a short amount of time. -_∞ Poodle of Doom _∞ 05:04, 25 July 2010 (BST)

The policy is, I thought, quite clear and straightforward. The focus of the policy is to deal with incidents where the same page gets brought to deletions repeatedly. Anyone who's participated in the Deletion page has seen this happen time and time again. sometimes the same page comes back every few months! All this does is cause drama and waste everyone's time having to vote Keep again.

The vandalism clause which you're focusing on is peripheral. It's intended to add some "teeth" to the policy but isn't necessary. I personally think it should stay, but if the community disagrees, fair enough. --WanYao 05:09, 25 July 2010 (BST)

And I need to add... the policy is not about ban hammers. If that's all you're focusing on -- and so far you seem to be -- you're missing the point. The policy is intended to streamline an important admin page and to reduce unnecessary drama. And the "short time" which you confusingly refer to is clearly defined by the policy: it's 1 year between votes. Clear and unambiguous. --WanYao 05:12, 25 July 2010 (BST)

As I've stated above, the question is "What constitues to short of a time span?" One year is a hell of a long time. Truth be known,... some votes are to close to be fully decided one way or the other, and I think those pages have a right to be put up multiple times. As for the rest of the pages,... Are they being put up by different users each time? If so, perhaps the pages should be merged someplace instead of being deleted. If it is the same user,... well,... it should be vandalism for spamming. -_∞ Poodle of Doom _∞ 05:14, 25 July 2010 (BST)

le sigh... You're putting me in the position of coming across like an ass because you don't seem to be getting it. Yes, one year is a hell of long time -- and that's exactly the point! This policy is intended to stop people from putting the same page up for deletion over and over and over again. The policy assumes that if the community has voted Keep on a page, the community has voted Keep. And therefore we will respect the community's decision and that vote will stand for a full year. Doing it this way clears up all ambiguity about "relatively short times" etc. and, again, that's exactly the point. Sure, you could apply the spamming the admin page convention to this... but there are some hitches. For one, often the deletion requests are brought by different people, that makes vandal banning grey. And often the requests are just far enough apart that a vandal ban becomes highly controversial, again, grey. This policy is intended to make this whole process crystal clear and simple and drama-free. And... please go back and re-read what I just wrote about the vandal escalation clause and you obsessing on it, thanks. --WanYao 05:24, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Bannana Tactics was a close vote,... why should one have to wait a year on it? Why not 3 months? That's equally as fair isn't it? And I doubt that there is really any real drama as to the ambiguity of short time spans, which is what I'm ultimatly getting at. And if this is brought up by different people, then it technically isn't vandalism. that's clear as day. And again, I revert to my previous point: Perhaps it should be merged with something? And I understand what you said about vandal escalations,... it's just that I think it's unneeded for the aforementioned reasons. -_∞ Poodle of Doom _∞ 05:32, 25 July 2010 (BST)

The policy and its rationale is very straightforward. You can disagree with its necessity, that's perfectly legitimate. You've already done that. You can even disagree with the 1 year moratorium and ask for 3 months instead. But I picked a full year to make the policy actually mean something. At this point this "discussion" seems to be getting quite pointless and I'm wondering if you're just trying to stir up drama at this point... I'm tired, now, g'night. --WanYao 05:41, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Could I ask how a period of one year is any more meaningful than a period of three months? -_∞ Poodle of Doom _∞ 06:01, 25 July 2010 (BST)

They both stop one person from spamming the same page every two weeks, but that's not the point. If a page is deemed keep-worthy, then there should be no question about whether or not it should be kept. The page, as it stood at the time of the first deletion attempt, is good enough. The only reason we should bother even considering deleting it is after the community has had time to edit it. And since requiring a page to be edited first is asking for exploitation (change one letter and call it a revamp), time is the only way to fairly measure how much a page has changed from the version that has been agreed to be keep-worthy. And on any wiki, a page doesn't change very fast (16.48 edits per page so far). In three months, there's usually little to no change to a page. To try to delete it would be like asking someone their name every day, to make sure it doesn't change without you knowing it. A year is (barely) enough time for a page to actually change a bit, so a deletion attempt might actually have different results. --VVV ^RPGMBCWS 07:38, 25 July 2010 (BST)

The makeup of the community can change quite a lot over a year, and the outcome of narrow votes can be quite different. Yes, a page that is unanimously kept in July 2009 will likely be unanimously kept now, but what about pages that are on a knife-edge? There's nothing really wrong with starting another vote a few months later on pages that are narrowly kept, especially since A/D does not require the same level of involvement as A/PM.

Again, I just don't see the problem that this policy is trying to fix. Many areas of this wiki are broken, but A/D is not one of them, and I honestly haven't heard anyone complain about spamming of deletions except HM, you and Wan. If anyone seriously spams deletions, it definitely warrants escalation, perhaps even a new policy, but I simply haven't seen anyone do that to the point of annoyance. Linkthewindow  Talk  08:05, 25 July 2010 (BST)

I agree with Link. It does seem out of place, and I'm not entirely aware of the issue it attempts to address. And Triple U,... if someones putting up the same page every two weeks, or even if it moves just out of range of previous precedent, say,.... once a month, I still think that's a bad faith edit coming from the same person,.... aside from those votes that are close, like I mentioned previously, and Link mentioned. There comes a point when you have to differentiate between that "Oops I didn't realize..." moment, and one of malice that says "I just want this page gone...." -_∞ Poodle of Doom _∞ 16:58, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Quick Question

WanYao said:

hell yeah. and if you need to get you policy jollies for the week, why not make a policy against putting the same pages up for deletion over and over again? that'd actually be useful --WanYao 04:25, 25 July 2010 (BST) .

Why is it that you seem to make fun of it one minute, and write the policy the next? -_∞ Poodle of Doom _∞ 05:27, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Are you dense? Or just trying to feel important? Yes, I cracked a joke. Then I decided to actually write the policy. Because I meant what I said when I agreed with honestmistake.

Anyway, you wanna drop the pointless ad hominems, stop trying to create drama and discuss the policy? Are you capable of that??? Or are you trying to create problems? --WanYao 05:31, 25 July 2010 (BST)

I wouldn't say I'm the dense one here. To be honest, I just don't understand why you think that this written policy is so much better than the precedent that seems to work on the same thing. Do you honestly and truly believe this is necessary? -_∞ Poodle of Doom _∞ 05:38, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Get off the internet. Take a walk, the excercise will do you good. Do you think I'd propose a policy which I didn't think was a good idea? I think you are just trying to cause trouble now. --WanYao 05:42, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Honestly, I do not understand why you would rather take the time to write a policy, take it to a discussion, revise it, make sure there's no additional responses after that point, take it to a vote to make sure that all the same people approve of the same thing you just worked out in a discussion; and in the mean time, be in limbo about what you should be doing about the repeated addition of the same page to the deletion pages,... when you can just count on the system (that isn't really broken) to work as it always has with the same precedent you've always had. It seems to be such a labor intense thing for so little, especially when it would appear that the policy has remained unspoken, and unneeded. And all this is coming from someone who's made a joke of the policy he's just proposed. But I digress,... Call me a doubting Thomas if you will,... but I'd be willing to give you the benifit of the doubt in this matter,... I have one simple request. Could you pick three events where this would of made any real, and noticeable difference, and point out exactly how? -_∞ Poodle of Doom _∞ 06:00, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Meh

1. This is redundant. Genuine spamming has always been dealt with via A/VB (eg), all this will do is add another (unneeded) layer of bureaucracy. To be blunt, if someone's spamming any of the admin pages, the correct course of action is to take them to A/VB.
2. A year is far too long. Many active members on the wiki now have been here for under a year, and older wiki users can't be expected to keep tabs on pages that have been up for deletion.
3. This is unneeded. I haven't seen an example of spamming A/D that warrants vandal banning in my time. I can't comment on Slaves of the Mistress, but the current case was two months after the first case (hardly "spamming") and my initial goal was to clear up uncertainty regarding the page's status (as it was not certain if it should be kept or deleted, given that it was not certain if Wan had voted keep or abstained from voting.)

That said, I could see some use for this if it was over much shorter periods of time. Now, it's simply unneeded red tape. Linkthewindow  Talk  07:37, 25 July 2010 (BST)

I looked into the Sisters,.... and the what links here page.... I didn't seem a single incoming link from deletions, or speedy deletions,.... why did he even bring it up? -_∞ Poodle of Doom _∞ 17:04, 25 July 2010 (BST)

I noticed the same, but I didn't want to bring it up in case I was simply wrong. But yeah, there was only one incoming link from deletions (from 2007) when I searched for the Sisters in the UDWiki: namespace. Linkthewindow  Talk  21:56, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Another Gem by Poodle sorry pod

1. Pages change on UDWiki and even though it's the same page that was kept within the 1 year limit, it might be deletion worthy the second time. At the moment the policy makes no effort to take this into account.
2. It's already vandalism if deletion requests are misused.
3. I know you're a garbage speller but could you at least make the effort to spell the policy page name correctly next time.

--

 

 

 

 

07:47, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Wow! Wanyao wrote this? Damn, I assumed it was Poodle who made this up, wtf is wrong with me? Apologies Poodle.

Having said that, I haven't actually read anything above this header, just throwing my opinions here. --

 

 

 

 

07:51, 25 July 2010 (BST)

I was staring at confusion at your header, too. Linkthewindow  Talk  07:52, 25 July 2010 (BST)

I have no idea what the hell I was thinking, I think it was because I checked this discussion page and saw Poodle's signature at the top and all over the place :/ --

 

 

 

 

07:55, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Having said all that, ironically, Poodle is mostly right about one of the reasons this policy, in this state, is counter-productive. At the moment abusing the deletion system is already vandalism, so now we are modifying a system that can punish the abusers on a case-by-case basis, into something that just makes a blanket of deletions restrictions regardless of:

1. whether the page has changed at all over the space of a year if it even might be in a delete-worthy state, or
2. whether the deletion request was made by someone that didn't know the page had already been put up. What if some poor noob comes and tries to put a stubbish page up for deletion? Poodle's fucking done it 3 times in the last few months for pages he thought were deletion worthy (and in a technical sense are) but are kept on the wiki for other reasons, he could be banned by now for trying to help out. It also means:
   • (hesitant to say this after Wan's comment about me on another page) but meatpuppetry could mean I could make J3D is stoopid and the only content is "Jed lived an hour and a half away from me", but when it's put up for A/SD, I'll Keep it, move it to deletions, and meatpuppet it into a Keep result which means it's invincible from the Wiki's maintenance for a year, because no one can put it up again for that amount of time. "You could put it up to Speedy Deletions again as a crit 1!" you say, but what if I were to just Keep it again, so it couldn't be deleted via A/SD and had to be moved to A/D for voting? It's hilarious because no one could move it from A/SD to A/D cause anyone who MOVES it to A/D will get escalated. And do you think my actions are vandalism? Well just get the Ops to warn me about it and prohibit me from doing it, though from the mentality of this policy, there needs to be some sort of policy in place that allows them to do that, rather than fix the proper abuse on a case by case basis.

The more I think about it, the more instances of amazing idiotic abuse this will spell for so many little things. And the worse thing is that ATM the policy clearly spells out that it wants to be this strict about the rule. You send it to A/D, if it's been sent before, you're escalated. That simple. This actually reminds me of UDWiki:Administration/Policy Discussion/Explicit vandalism listing, which tried to make vandalism types less transparent and more codified, but actually restricts the blanket and qualitative definition of what is good and bad faith and could be used to either justify biased rulings or oblige sysops to make rulings they don't agree with.

Look. I know how you feel about Banana tactics being sent to A/D again, and that's one of the grey areas this policy is trying to stamp down on, and while I think Banana tactics should be deleted I respect your opinion otherwise and understand why you think it's unfair that it can just be put up again. But the first time it was put up, BT only was kept from a tie before from barely any voters, I understand why Link wanted to give it another go when more people were around to vote, and as it happens his opinion will be overturned (which you obviously think is justice, and was achieved easily without this policy). This policy, however, would not only yield that same result in a much less just way, it would escalate Link (put him up for A/VB right now and have us warn him, then come back here and tell us that's the result you think should have happened over BT per this policies' reasoning), and would also make worse problems we'd have to deal with. Use the pin to kill the fly, not the bazooka plz --

 

 

 

 

08:25, 25 July 2010 (BST)

You just created a wall of text over a ghost, DDR. The policy deals with exactly the situation you're going on about... Here's the skinny: the policy states that if a user knowingly sends a page to deletions within the moratoruim period then he's escalated. This would mean it'd have to be proven he knew what he was doing, i.e. prove bad faith. I envisioned a situation where a user was involved in the previous voting, for example. This clause, which you either didn't read or failed to understand, specifically makes it so a newbie would not get escalated. In all cases except for obvious bad faith, the policy is that the request would simply be archived by a sysop, end of story.

Your critique about page changes, on the other hand, is valid. I'd thought about that but then quicky forgot it as I writing the policy draft... When i have a few more mins I may add that in. --WanYao 15:54, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Also, this isn't "about" Banana Tactics, as you seem to be implying. That vote triggered my memory, sure, and reminded me of the numerous other times this has been done before, the most obvious one being SotM... but there are others, pages which we have to vote to Keep over and over again... This policy is intended to deal with situation which is frustrating, drama-mongering and a waste of administrative time and energy. And it's intent is to do this with the least amount of hassle... put a 1 year moratorium on deletion requests for previously Keep-approved pages.

I have also explained that the vandal escalation clause is optional. Did you fail to read that, too? And this is policy discussion -- which means my policy is a draft -- which means it can be changed -- which means, "Hey, man, you see problems with it as written? Got ideas to improve it? Let's change it!" But perhaps you prefer to create theatre rather than discuss policy? --WanYao 16:03, 25 July 2010 (BST)

You know you really need to quit when DDR agrees with me... But that said,... I'd love to present this to you again. Please, find three examples where this would have made a difference on A/D, or A/SD, or both, and tell me how. -_∞ Poodle of Doom _∞ 17:11, 25 July 2010 (BST)

I don't know why you're reacting in that way to what I said- that is exactly why I said "the policy, in this state". I never condemned the entire thing from the getgo at all. And I still believe that what you've said, while painting it as a more reasonable policy which allows us to see things on a more case-by-case basis, still is something we have the power and responsibility to punish anyway, your policy is going after abusers of the system- we try our best to stop that already. --

 

 

 

 

22:13, 25 July 2010 (BST)

A quick summation of my thoughts

I had something typed up, but between wikilag, going away for a few minutes, and edit conflicts, I lost it. However, to summarize my thoughts on the matter as succinctly as possible: no. —Aichon— 09:25, 25 July 2010 (BST)

One year?

I think a year is way too long. How about three months? --Dawkins ^{[T][P!][W!][♞]} is currently: having his arm torn off by a zombie. 09:42, 25 July 2010 (BST)

As the other people on this page, three months is too long, and there shouldn't be any restriction. The issue sought to be dealt with by this policy can be remedied with common sense, and the fact that this policy is trying to protect a spam page (I assume this is for Banana Tactics) is patantly ridiculous.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 13:17, 25 July 2010 (BST)

After reading some of the other arguments on this page, I have to agree that this is on the whole a bad idea. --Dawkins ^{[T][P!][W!][♞]} is currently: having his arm torn off by a zombie. 13:29, 25 July 2010 (BST)

It's your opinion that Banana Tactis is a spam page. The community seems to disagree with you, Yonnua. But as I've said, this is not about "protecting Banana Tactics". It's about dealing with something which I've seen occur many times, and of which Banana Tactics happens to be one single example. I gave SotM as another example -- and there are numerous others.

So... again... If you're disagree with the policy, disagree with the policy -- not with straw men. --WanYao 16:13, 25 July 2010 (BST)

The community disagrees with me? It was originally kept because of a tie where most of the keepers openly admitted it was a joke. It's now being kept because of red rum mysteriously appearing to puppet the vote protect their page. And if you'd like to claim this has nothing to do with banana tactics, then you're fighting a mountain of evidence. You made it because of discussion on the deletion vote, you suggested it on the deletion vote, and you cite it as a major example on the policy page. Once again, common sense is the key part of this. If it's bad faith, it'll be counted as vandalism. If it's obviously good faith, like Link's deletion request on Banana Tactics, it won't be. We don't need an overbearing policy to enforce it. That's just a needless tool for wikilawyers.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 16:44, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Take this example: I create a page, have somebody put it up for deletion. As there's nothign wrong with it, it's kept. I then turn it in to an off topic hate page, and it's immune from protection for a year. See the issue here?--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 16:45, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Wiki idocy makes this unworkable

Many pages get put up for deletion by over zealous users in their first few weeks of creation, especially those created as placeholders. In most cases the answer is "Give it a few weeks." This policy would remove that option. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 10:09, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Indeed. This policy would probably encourage people to vote delete (first time around) on stubish, but new, group pages, rather than a keep to give them a few weeks to flesh it out. Also, the policy would need to exclude recreated/undeleted pages. Frankly, I don't see multiple deletion requests as a problem. Either the pages being put up deserve to be deleted sooner or later, or they get kept multiple times, and the people putting them up get the message. Wiki members seem to have a nose for sniffing out griefing type deletion requests, and it brings out many more keep voters to ensure they don't get up -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 10:41 25 July 2010 (BST)

^ --

 

 

 

 

12:19, 25 July 2010 (BST)

^--Maverick ^{Talk - OBR 404} 13:48, 25 July 2010 (BST)

What part of this don't you understand?

"If it can be demonstrated that a user has put a page up for a deletion in the knowledge that it falls under the 1 year moratorium, that user will receive a vandal escalation."

"in the knowledge that it falls under the 1 year moratorium" ... for fuck sake ... the policy PROTECTS newbies. A newbie couldn't have knowledge of a deletion request made 7 months ago now could he? Only obvious bad faith deletion requests would be escalated. All others falling within the moratorium would be quietly archived, simple.

On the other hand, boxy has provided some valid points which actually deal with the REAL policy and what its impact might be... when irl permits i'll come back and try to address tthem properly --WanYao 16:08, 25 July 2010 (BST)

"A 1 year moratorium be placed on deletions requests which have passed a Keep vote. In other words, once the community has voted to Keep a particular page, that page cannot be put up for deletion again for a full year."

The issue isn't that newbies might be taken to vandalism. The issue is newbie created pages should be given time to develop. They can't all be all singing and dancing straight away, so if one was submitted for deletion, the creation time frame would give it a keep. However 3 months later if the page hasn't been edited again and exists as a half finished group box I don't want to have to leave a useless page around for a year because Ive given a newb editor the benefit of the doubt by not deleting their half finished page. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 16:39, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Coincidently

Banana Tactics has been voted on twice for deletion. Slaves of the mistress only once. Unless you count the whole "Nipples debate" as serious discussion. You want to modify the guidelines. Here you go. A sysop may close a deletion case with a pre-emptive Keep result if a link is provided to a prior deletion request for the page within the last year. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 16:50, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Eh. I'd simply amend it to say the following: "If a page is put up for deletion in the same or very similar condition as it was when previous put up for deletion in the past 12 months, the deletion request may be refused and cycled early should the prior vote have resulted in a keep verdict". The "very similar" condition clause is only there to avoid people adding or removing tiny amounts, linking or un-linking, spelling mistakes, etc, then it being put up again. Actual content changes or two full sentences or more will result in the page being considered suffidiciently different. 18:35, 25 July 2010 (BST)

But that's still exploitable. All I have to do is add a few (ugly) sentences. I've made the page worse, made it eligible for deletion, and never actually broken the rules. --VVV ^RPGMBCWS 19:41, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Yeah, but that's transparent enough that people will probably just vote keep on it. 19:42, 25 July 2010 (BST)

At that, someone like me could come back to a mainspace page, notice that you made the page worse, revert your edits, or rewrite them, and still be editing in good faith. -_∞ Poodle of Doom _∞ 19:53, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Uber important comment

This policy has a spelling error in it's title. Thought you might like to know. -- Cheese 23:23, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Your comment has a spelling error in its first sentence. Thought you might like to know. 23:23, 25 July 2010 (BST)

That's a grammatical error, Dammit!--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 23:25, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Your comment is just wrong completely. Thought you might like to know. =p -- Cheese 23:26, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Ohhhhh if you want to be possessive it's just i-t-s, but if you want it to be a contraction then it's i-t-apostrophe-s! ...Scallawag. Also, Yon, it's an overlap in both, as it's an error in the spelling of a word, though the error is a result of grammatical rules. Pure grammatical errors include the use of incorrect word order or misplacement of unattached punctuation. 23:30, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Or shoving a random word in the middle of a sentence. :P --Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 23:35, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Archivial

There's been no active discussion here for a few weeks. Unless someone wants to revive it, I'll archive it in a few days. Linkthewindow  Talk  14:10, 9 August 2010 (BST)