Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion

[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AArticles_for_deletion&diff=1285984436&oldid=1285439467 this] edit was reverted with the edit summary, in part {{tq|significant policy/instruction change}}. In fact, I assert that it is not, but rather existing best practice that we have expected editors to do for years now, and it would be counterproductive to not have this explanation, as doing work and then not mentioning it so that no one else knows what you've done is a waste of everybody's time.

{{bq|State what you have done if you do nominate the article for deletion. This allows other editors to understand what has been done, what sources have been found, what additional searches might be beneficial, and helps them avoid duplicating your work.}}

Can you improve on the wording? Please do. Am I off base? By all means, make that case too. As a point of data, I got two 'thanks' for the edit from editors with whom I don't usually interact, so I'm guessing there's going to be consensus to put something along these lines in WP:BEFORE. Jclemens (talk) 09:18, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

:Why can't I just say I did a BEFORE search? Hey man im josh (talk) 12:49, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

::It just saves time in the aggregate, because other editors can avoid duplicate searches. Cielquiparle (talk) 13:24, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

:::But a second opinion and set of eyes is actually helpful. It doesn't solve anything or save time, it encourages more blind trust. Hey man im josh (talk) 16:21, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

::::@Hey man im josh Exactly! If you say "BEFORE search in Google" (which is at least some info), another editor can decide whether to try to replicate with variations, or use other search engines (which often yield different results) and databases. It leads to faster and more efficient evaluation of results. Cielquiparle (talk) 05:00, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::And with many titles, you have to do a relatively complex search to isolate the topic, so if you explain your search ("I did a DuckDuckGo search for "Bob Smith" with any of these matching words: Psychologist, Gingerbread, Oompa-Loompa"), folks can either tell your search was rigorous or see a possibliity that you missed. Some basic description of the Before is certainly useful, and should be at least advised. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 05:54, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

::If a BEFORE has been done, how much more work is it to include what that entailed in the nomination? It's your internet history for the past 15 minutes or whatever. Again, I feel if you're triggering potentially a lot of research for other editors there should be some proof a nominator has attempted to do some legwork of their own first. If it's barrier to nominating an article for deletion having to type "GNews brings up passing mentions, GBooks only primary sources and nothing on GScholar" then a nominator doesn't care that much about an article being deleted. BoomboxTestarossa (talk) 15:02, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

:::@BoomboxTestarossa: It's a lot of work actually... I'm not going to track and reiterate the dozens of pages I may have looked at. Your short summary is exactly why I simply state that there was a BEFORE search done. Trust that I did one, did your own, and then make your own determination. Adding excess details only discourages nominations. Hey man im josh (talk) 16:22, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

::::How many AfDs really bring up dozens of pages that need an evaluation? That's a genuine question as I appreciate my frame of reference is shaped by the ones I've taken part in. To take the G. I. Joe ones; it's pretty easy to skim over the fan sites, the toy listings, social media, the databases without even opening the link to each (and if an editor can't do this, either they're not in an area of strength or they're not that invested in removing the article).

::::If after that you're still finding dozens of pages, surely there's a fair chance that either a) the article doesn't need deletion as it clearly has some notability, so might be suitable as a redirect or b) you need to put in the nomination why they're useless to avoid any voters duplicating the work you've already done.

::::Is discouraging nominations necessarily a bad thing? I would personally say we should at least make people think twice about taking a drastic step (again, muddied by far too many nominations actually being for redirect or merge, whether through GF missing the rules or BF gaming the system), and aware that their nomination is creating work for other volunteers. It's too easy to fire and forget with the current system, post a bunch of weak noms and leave everyone else to work it out while you merrily strut off. BoomboxTestarossa (talk) 08:27, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::In my experience for NCORP noms, there are almost always tens if not hundreds of press statements that need to be at least skimmed over. I don't typically consider it practical to list all of them in the nom. Alpha3031 (t • c) 07:36, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

::I think the third and fourth points are the key: we want to save duplication of effort, and let everyone know that, yes, this is a well-considered deletion proposal. We have plenty of evidence of people not articulating a BEFORE and not having done a BEFORE, as well as plenty of people stating they did a BEFORE search when it later becomes obvious they did not. The one thing I'm not familiar with, and this may just be due to scarcity, is someone not articulating they did a BEFORE search in a nomination when they, in fact, had done so. Jclemens (talk) 15:34, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

:::In my experience it's actually fairly common for a subset of nominators to do BEFORE searches but not explicitly mention it in their nominations. As for duplicate work, that's actually desirable because what I may perceive as not contributing may be properly argued as actually helping to establish notability. Not to mention we may get different results.

:::Do I tell you the exact strings I searched, the key words, what I put in quotes, etc.? That's the problem with this type of explicitly requirement. One's interpretation of a thorough search may differ from another's.

:::If this were a requirement, getting people to participate in NPP and nominating articles at AFD would become even more difficult. Hey man im josh (talk) 16:20, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

::::I think you're thinking the proposed statement expects more than it really would. {{tq|"GNews brings up passing mentions, GBooks only primary sources and nothing on GScholar"}} seems like plenty. How would you reword the proposed guidance to adequately address your concerns? Jclemens (talk) 22:08, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::I like the addition, I looked at a tiny sample of nominations yesterday and was surprised at the lack of effort in nomination statements. The proposed wording could be improved by changing

:::::*"State what you have done if you do nominate the article...", to

:::::*"State what investigation you have done if you do nominate the article..."

:::::There seem to be competing views here:

:::::#If I know what I'm doing it is too arduous to write down some notes. This leads to the behaviour that it is fine to get the "vibe" of notability, nominate an article for deletion with little effort or buy-in, let others sort it out and move on to the next one. This relies on others and the closer being diligent.

:::::#Everyone should write down what they did to get to AfD. I am not sure if this makes the others and closer less diligent.

:::::I see it like edit summaries. They slow me down, but it makes everyone else's life easier. I know the policies/guidelines so it is not much trouble to justify an edit. It is much harder to get an edit to stick if I make a guess at the change and write some gibberish in the summary box. Admittedly the vibe has a high strike rate at AfD, but we can expect some effort.

:::::I am not the most familiar with the severity of the amount of articles needing a deletion discussion, but if consensus is that Wikipedia will grind to a halt due to this I will reconsider. If the gears really start to grind, we can remove the expectation for an AfD nomination statement st all. Others will sort it out. Commander Keane (talk) 07:54, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::They slow me down, but it makes everyone else's life easier.

::::::This to me should be a guiding principle. I do not get that speed in nominating articles for deletion is something the system should be aiming for, and the BUNDLE procedure is there for the rare cases when it is. If someone is doing low-effort articles of low notability - say, every track on their band's album - that now gets caught at the article creation stage. And there's the PROD for any that really shouldn't be there, have sat on the encyclopaedia for 20 years undiscovered and aren't even worth a discussion. As such it's hard to see situations where being able to rapidly nominate 50+ articles is actually warranted. BoomboxTestarossa (talk) 08:32, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::I love the suggestion. So, the proposal would now be:{{bq|State what investigation you have done if you do nominate the article for deletion. This allows other editors to understand what has been done, what sources have been found, what additional searches might be beneficial, and helps them avoid duplicating your work.}} Not going to make another BOLD change with this, because there's still plenty of conversation going on, but I would consider this my revised proposal unless someone seriously objects to this clarification. Jclemens (talk) 00:15, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

::(responding here, but addressing various bits of the thread) The time spent on a nom is very likely going to be outweighed ----potentially massively-- by the total time spent by other editors/admins, including ones who notice the AFD but don't end up responding, so providing an appropriate level of detail in the nomination statement is polite. Ideally, a nom should head off as many reasonable counter-arguments as possible before they are made. Bl[a/i]nd restatement of a detail-free BEFORE like "I've done a websearch, a news search and a book search; fails GNG" is nice and all, but not particularly useful except where it's immediately clear to basically everyone how much removal is needed anyway (though ideally most such pages would be cleared by other processes without needing AFD).

::The more a naive reader could perceive the article to have some level of notability/noteworthiness (and many nominated articles have some marginal level), or where SNG-related or international considerations come into play, or where interlinkages means that a good ATD really needs to be considered, the more useful a complex/in-depth nomination statement is, part of which is explaining what's been done and considered. Particularly useful as part of the summarisation (I like the term) of investigation can be highlighting and countering specific material/example(s) found as part of BEFORE that would (or could be seen by some to) contribute towards SIGCOV. So, for instance, {{tq|"Only non-independent material and churnalism found (eg: [https://example.com/craparticle1] is taken from [https://example.com/pressrelease1]; [https://example.com/respectablearticle1], [https://example.com/respectablearticle2], etc, are interview derived"}} ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 07:04, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

:While I think explaining your BEFORE is probably a good idea, I don't think I can support requiring editors to do more than state that they have done one, which seems like busywork. It often makes little material difference: One can perform the best BEFORE search of all time and still miss things (example AfD), because you don't have access to sources, don't speak a language, or whatever, and that's okay. Toadspike [Talk] 23:53, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

::Ok. How would you change the wording to say 1) you are expected to say if you did one, and 2) you are encouraged to be as detailed as needed to help other editors. That is, assuming you agree that that's a fair summary of your position. What say you, {{U|Toadspike}}? Jclemens (talk) 00:17, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

:::That is indeed basically what I meant. I think the best place for this is adding a sentence onto point D.3. of BEFORE like: "It is a good idea to explain the searches you performed in your nomination statement." Considering BEFORE opens with "please be sure to", "a good idea" isn't that much weaker. Toadspike [Talk] 00:32, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

::::I agree that I'd be a lot more amenable to this kind of guidance as "advice for a more successful (whether that means keeping or not) AfD" than as a requirement. AfD already has participation concerns; as such, adding additional requirements feels to me like a step in the wrong direction. Alternately, perhaps "Summarize what investigation..." rather than "State what investigation...", which at least suggests it doesn't need to be all that detailed. DonIago (talk) 01:35, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::AfD right now is very "flat"--there's no consideration to the age of a page, previous merge history, or incoming links. I see poorly done AfDs as a threat to Wikipedia coverage because I tend to gravitate towards older pages that are being nominated because they're poorly maintained, not new pages which are nominated because they're junk.

:::::As far as "State" vs "Summarize"? I have no objection to that change, nor would I see anyone else doing so. Feel free to make it so I'm not the only one fiddling with the wording here. Jclemens (talk) 01:46, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::As a concern about poorly done AfDs, couldn't that be construed as an argument against just taking the research another editor claims to have engaged in at face value? If I say I checked Google (without providing specifics), and as a result other people don't check Google because they're taking me at my word, then that would seem to weaken the level of research. It's entirely possible that one editor's review of Google (as an example), won't match another editor's review or interpretation of the same results. Just a thought. I guess my point is, what's the ultimate goal of having someone do this? To have them somehow "prove themselves"? To avoid redundant research (which maybe shouldn't be considered redundant anyway)?

::::::It could also be argued that, per WP:AGF, the best course is simply to assume that AfD initiators are doing a BEFORE to the best of their ability, and that if they didn't find something pertinent, the best course (if one is capable of communicating it well) is to consider such a failure a teachable moment and an opportunity to make the editor a better AfD participant in the future. Don't cast aspersons, just say, "Hey, I checked Google myself and I found X, which seems relevant." There's no reason why AfD has to be a confrontational process unless editors are making it so, especially if we consider that there are editors who may be happy to participate in an AfD until it becomes confrontational. If someone starts a well-intentioned bad AfD, isn't it better to gently guide them to understand why their AfD was bad (if they're open to hearing it) versus just shutting them down?

::::::I can make that edit, sure, though I'd like to see how this conversation evolves first; no point in making it if it's just going to be mooted based on subsequent feedback. DonIago (talk) 02:03, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::So, editors who say how they've done a BEFORE and what they've found allow other editors to spot check them and assess their accuracy. The very act of articulating a BEFORE search can tip off whether one has been done or not--and yes, unfortunately, I have run across plenty of "BEFORE turned up nothing" only to find that the most basic of searches turned up adequate sourcing.

:::::::If an editor makes egregiously false statements about what they did, then that's grounds for sanction. If an editor makes incorrect statements because they did a poor search, then I agree, that's grounds for education. However, very, very rarely is such education taken well. The two possibilities are that I am somehow incapable of being nice to clueless newbies (Hmm...) or that there are one or more LTA accounts socking to get away with poor deletion nominations because of whatever motivates them.

:::::::In no circumstances do I see a reason for a nominator to do a BEFORE and not proudly note it. Why would that even be a thing? I mean, sure, we can AGF that people had a good reason for not using edit summaries, but the fact is that is the communication that facilitates smooth processes. Jclemens (talk) 07:10, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::Have to agree. Again, I appreciate different editors have different processes, but if I were to genuinely feel a page needed to be deleted I would not see taking a couple of minutes to summarise my BEFORE findings as a barrier, and editors that would perhaps are not in an area where their energies would be best used. If you're actually asking for deletion of a page that may have sat there for a decade or so, have numerous incoming links and be the work of multiple good faith efforts, it feels to me like you should have to show some sign of making an effort. Too often articles are nominated based on only the state of the article or a hunch; nudging people in the direction of good BEFORE might stop a lot of the uses of AfD as cleanup.

::::::::AfD has low participation because it's overly packed with jargon and because a lot of editors involved with the original articles are often long-inactive. It's a niche area, and if it was more highly participated in you'd probably lose a lot of content-providing editors because some voters act in an incredibly dismissive manner of Good Faith work. Having to state good BEFORE isn't going to change that, but may reduce fatigue among voters already there; I probably would have left those G.I. Joe ones alone after my previous negative AfD experience had I not been trying to put off reading yet another repetitive Mary Cadogan book.

::::::::AfD should be slightly intimidating and complex; it should be a last resort for an article that has no business to be a redirect, for content that can't be merged elsewhere. It's what you use when you can't find sources, when there's no useful data in the article, when there's literally no notability, when all article tagging has been exhausted, when interaction with other editors has failed to bring up any way to bring it into shape.

::::::::People nominating stuff should be involved and care as strongly as someone does in creating an article in the first place, not just dropping a template and leaving it for someone else to sort out, and duck questions about your nomination. Bundle, Speedy Delete, Prod, Merge templates, the high-quality policing of newly created articles and plain ol' actually doing some editing deal with spam and a large amount of cruft. Too often AfD is used as a blunt tool to get rid of content people don't like and can't be bothered to fix on their own.

::::::::I will though say that a lot of these concerns would be less of a problem if the processes already in place were enforced a little more strictly. Any nomination that suggests a merger or redirect should be thrown out instantly, for example, but they're not. I am not familiar enough with how closing admins deal with things from their end, but too often I've seen some variation on "well this shouldn't be at AfD but we'll let it run anyway". BoomboxTestarossa (talk) 11:20, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::I don't doubt that there are probably bad-faith actors out there who will claim to have done a BEFORE...or, perhaps more optimistically, good-faith actors who don't fully understand what a proper BEFORE entails. I guess my question is whether an editor articulating what they actually did as part of their BEFORE is more likely to lead to other editors verifying their research to any degree, or whether it's more likely to lead to them taking the editor at their word.

::::::::I've been around long enough to know that there are plenty of editors out there for whom even the most gently worded notice will be taken as a personal affront, but I don't think that's reason to stop trying; I'd like to think the editors who are receptive to advice as to how they can become better editors make up for the ones who aren't.

::::::::Well, your use of the phrase "clueless newbies" isn't encouraging. :p

::::::::I noted my philosophical reservations about it; I don't have a strong opinion either way beyond that I really dislike the idea of an AfD being invalidated solely on the grounds of the initiator not saying what they did as part of a BEFORE, which is why I think it's better as a suggestion than a requirement.

::::::::I don't think I have much else to say here. I can come up with philosophical arguments either way, but I'm just one editor and one who doesn't spend and doesn't plan to spend a lot of time at AfD. As I said in the above paragraph, I'm just not keen on enabling summary dismissals of AfDs because editors didn't check boxes along the way, especially when there's nothing stopping other editors from asking the initiators what they might have done as part of a BEFORE...ideally in a non-combative manner. DonIago (talk) 20:42, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::BEFORE searching, is not, and never should be, mandatory, and by extension recording of it need not be mandatory either. The reasons why are simple - it is not always relevant, and everyone has different standards for what constitutes a valid search with potentially no end to the sources that could potentially be looked at. FOARP (talk) 09:11, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Please finish the nomination for deletion, using the reasoning provided at Talk:2026 Nebraska gubernatorial election. 2600:387:15:5111:0:0:0:9 (talk) 23:47, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

:Can someone please finish the nomination? It’s been sitting for 15 hours and no one created an AFD yet. 72.159.224.21 (talk) 14:21, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

::I created it for you. --Here2rewrite (talk) 16:35, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this page qualifies for AfD, but based on what I’ve seen, I don’t think it should remain on the platform. Anyway, I’ve left a message on its Talk page, so if someone could verify my request, I’d really appreciate it. Please note that there’s no COI involved here—I’m simply trying to learn how to start an AfD myself, but I don’t want to mess anything up. I’m hoping someone else can handle it. Thank you. Aona1212 (talk) 14:36, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

:{{done}} Toadspike [Talk] 21:31, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

::By the way, @Aona1212, I suggest that you install Twinkle, which makes the nomination process a lot easier. Toadspike [Talk] 21:32, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Cool! Thank you for sharing and for helping with the deletion of this page. Aona1212 (talk) 13:38, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Hello,

I’d like to request a closure for the AfD discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bangladesh Mosque Mission. The discussion has been open for over 7 days and has received several comments, with it leaning toward keep. Since I participated in the discussion, I’m not eligible to close it myself per WP:NAC.

Requesting an uninvolved admin or experienced editor to close.

Thanks! BangladeshiEditorInSylhet (talk) 08:27, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

:@BangladeshiEditorInSylhet - the discussion was relisted a few hours before you left this message; further discussion from others is needed. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 09:44, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Hello! I was originally looking for a list of all political entities combined, but such a list does not exist, but then I was recommended the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_and_geographic_subdivisions_by_total_area lists. I have never in my life seen such messy and low activity articles on Wikipedia before. It seems like over half the entire entries have no reliable sources and there's so many articles as well! Is it really necessary with so many?

There seems to be no consistency in which regions/nations/unions etc. are added, we have everything from historical nations to modern nations to historical unions and modern unions and region. We have Bharat in South Asia, who you know... NEVER EXISTED. We have the Moon(not a planet, I know) but what about Mars and the other bodies in the galaxy? what about the rest of the universe? Where's the cut-off? What is the point of these articles? can anyone just add anything they want? imaginary nations and concepts and whatever they want? I'm of course joking about adding random entries, but it surely seems like that has been the go-to move ever since.

I know my personal opinion have no meaning, it means nothing, I know. I just can't stop myself from laughing when i saw these lists and the lack of sources and random entries, I thought I was on a fandom Wikipedia or something, and not the actual Wikipedia. I am also unsure what my goal is here, but shouldn't something at least be done with these messes of articles? they are so random and rarely edited and looks like nobody is keeping an eye out for what's added? MindfulGalaxy (talk) 03:10, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:"political and geographic subdivisions" is so inherently meaningless it could mean "everything", so I doubt those lists have much value. "all political entities combined" is likely similarly nebulous, although we have focused lists like List of first-level administrative divisions by area. CMD (talk) 04:00, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

::Hello! thanks for your quick reply! I agree that it seems kinda pointless and it seems like most people don't even know those lists exist? I am not big into Wikipedia, but other articles seems to be patrolled by admins and knowledgeable editors, but not these ones? I just want to know what the consensus is, can we add anything we want to without sources like half the articles have?

Edit: Just checked the list you provided, it seems very relevant and much more important and consistent than the lists i mentioned here, thank you for the list! MindfulGalaxy (talk) 04:08, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:: Sounds like a cleanup task. So WP:NOTCLEANUP. Hyperbolick (talk) 04:19, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Thank you for your reply! I clicked and I am embarrassed to say that I have no idea what I'm looking at. Sorry to take up your time but can you briefly explain it to me? MindfulGalaxy (talk) 04:28, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:::: Rule that if it can be fixed, fixing is the solution, not deletion. Unsourced can be fixed with adding sources. Seeming problematic entries can be discussed. If consensus forms they can be removed. All fixable. Makes this the wrong page to raise these kinds of things. Hyperbolick (talk) 08:29, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::Ah I get it now. I probably shouldn't have bothered you guys in here then.. I apologize.

:::::I have seen some articles having some banners/boxes above them that says that the respective article is missing sources, is incomplete or should be merged, shouldn't that be added to all of those maybe? MindfulGalaxy (talk) 01:08, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::: Seems they all already have the "incomplete" tag. Will ask about the others. Hyperbolick (talk) 03:10, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::: Thanks for the note. I have clarified the lede for these pages to note that "references for the information provided in this table may generally be found in the individual articles on each of the bodies listed therein". BD2412 T 17:31, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Would someone mind nominating {{la|Terrorist tactics, techniques, and procedures}} on my behalf with the following rationale:

WP:CFORK of Tactics of terrorism. Collection of this as a distinct topic seems to be due to a single author, C. Flaherty, which not so coincidentally is rather similar to the username of this article's creator and primary contributor.

Thanks for your assistance, 35.139.154.158 (talk) 15:00, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:{{done}}. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Terrorist tactics, techniques, and procedures. Thryduulf (talk) 21:15, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

MicroSIP is an unreferenced spam article. It has recently started being edited to link to malware. Please see the talk page for my rational. 107.115.5.36 (talk) 23:02, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

:This article cleanly survived AfD last year (see Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/MicroSIP.) Is there any reason to believe the outcome will be different this time? --Nat Gertler (talk) 23:41, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

:{{done}} - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:53, 19 May 2025 (UTC)