Wikipedia talk:Speedy keep#Low-effort mass nominations

I've [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Speedy_keep&diff=prev&oldid=1053008989 rephrased SK1] in a way that makes the structure hopefully clearer, although at the cost of some additional words, and also solves two additional issues: userfy is explicitly recognised as a delete-like outcome for which, like redirect, SK1 does not apply, and the negative presumption in the characterisation on a nom being reversed is toned down, per Wikipedia talk:Speedy keep/Archive 4#AfDs withdrawn because the article was improved. In terms of words it's a fairly large change, but because the only change to the applicability of SK1 (the explicit recognition of userfy) I think will be uncontroversial I was BOLD and changed it directly. — Charles Stewart (talk) 11:11, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

:{{replyto|Chalst}} I've just made a minor change to your rewrite - I replaced "AfD" with "deletion discussion" because speedy keep is used in more than just AfD. 192.76.8.73 (talk) 12:41, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

::Thank you. I, belatedly, agree with your change. — Charles Stewart (talk) 10:18, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

I wrote a short piece about my friend Lara Patangan who is a new author. A published author. My name is Erin Avera as I declared in my registration even though my user name is Runwritenow15. I think. Anyway. I have many emails including one recently telling me the piece has been deleted.

There are links upon links. A sandbox. A long queue. So many layers. Clearly Wikipedia doesn’t need my piece or my money. I know controls are needed. But this is ridiculous. I’m a working mother. I’ve no time for such nonsense. I’ll let the publishing company and the author know that for lots of weird Java script and http or whatever reasons, we can’t be on Wikipedia. Lesson learned. 2601:343:8000:2640:C548:1C13:917C:5484 (talk) 04:08, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

In a discussion with others including {{U|Star_Mississippi}} and {{U|OwenX}} about a recent spate of low-effort nominations, a suggestion was made that we add a speedy keep criterion for "low-effort mass nominations". As a reminder, a speedy keep criterion isn't generally evaluated in isolation by a single administrator like a speedy deletion criterion is, but is a quick, canned way to indicate that the AfD nomination isn't meritorious enough to be taken seriously. I'm going to call it SK Criterion 7 for now. We want it to be simple, objective, and such that most nominations that meet its criteria should be so tagged. So, here's my first proposal:

• {{tq|A low-effort mass nomination identified by one editor initiating five or more deletion discussions during a day without any of them articulating any pre-nomination research consistent with WP:BEFORE}}

That is, if any editor wants to do high-quality nominations ("here's what I found in a search, and here's why I think it doesn't have potential...") that editor can nominate an unlimited number of articles for deletion in one day. Likwewise, if an editor doesn't want to do the work of WP:BEFORE, which remains optional but encouraged, that editor is de facto limited to five nominations per day.

What does everyone think? Jclemens (talk) 22:33, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

:Sounds good to me. Owen× ☎ 02:11, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

::I whole-heartedly support this. (Except for the passage "editor can nominate an unlimited number of articles for deletion in one day". This should not be allowed due to the burden being too high for those who want to participate in the various discussiosn.) Geschichte (talk) 05:16, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

:::I'd favor walking before running, and there is currently no hard limit on ANY AfD nominations, good or bad. I see your point, but a really good AfD nomination is perhaps 10-15 minutes of work for an experienced nominator. If someone is going to do a bunch of those that actually show effort and fairly present the evidence of notability, then there becomes a point of diminishing returns... Jclemens (talk) 00:30, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Don't put those problematic words in any official policy, and other policies may place limits on deletion nominations. And users putting in the effort of BEFORE are unlikely to make a huge number of nominations in one day. Animal lover |666| 08:28, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

{{block indent|em=1.6|1=Notified: WP:Village pump (policy). HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 03:19, 15 April 2025 (UTC)}}

:If this is going to be a thing, it should be at CENT because anything seen as making BEFORE less (or more) "optional" than it currently is would be a massive firestorm when people claim they were not properly notified. I don't think the speedy keeps should apply retroactively (using the initial proposal, I would say the first four should be left alone); doing otherwise strikes me as unfair. I might also change the wording; my initial parsing gave the impression that {{tqq|identified by one editor}} meant that one editor's identification of a low-effort mass nomination would be the arbiter of whether this qualifies. But that might be a HouseBlaster-only issue. And as a representative of CFD editors, how does this interact with other XFDs? BEFORE doesn't really apply in the same ways... maybe just call it "without due diligence". Best, HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 03:19, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

:::I am OK taking this to CENT before attempting to implement it. I very much want to wordsmith things here. For example, "identified" in my original wording refers to the definition of low-effort mass nominations (LEMNs). Whether they are identified by one or more editors, the identification doesn't really matter, per how the original wording is conceived. Rather >5 with no BEFORE triggers "don't bother reviewing, just close them".

:::I primarily work at AfD, with an occasional foray into PROD, to the point that we can legitimately say that I don't work at CfD, FfD, RfD, etc. So my question on those is 1) is it a problem like we occasionally see at AfD? and 2) If so, what should we do about it? Jclemens (talk) 04:50, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

::::I can only speak to CFD, but it is such a rare problem that I think "go and talk to the editor in question" suffices. (I can think of a single editor who maybe crossed the line in the past year.) I oppose rules which make actions retroactive violations (c.f. ex post facto). HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 23:11, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

::Generally sympathetic. Some minor tweaks suggested for clarity and tighter scope: {{tq|five or more separate deletion discussions intiated by a single editor within a 24 hour period, all of which lack indications of pre-nomination research consistent with WP:BEFORE}}. I think to some extent "lack indications" is better than "articulating" since this covers problems with simple assertions - eg "Fails GNG" by itself could be considered consistent with "articulating", whereas if a simple search easily identifies at least one RS, this would indicate inconsistency with BEFORE since the nominating statement should say "Fails GNG, multiple RS unavailable". Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 03:58, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

:::I agree that we're talking about separate discussions, not separate articles. One multi-AfD is... one multi-AfD and should count as one for these purposes. I also agree that there's a potential issue where we don't want people arguing against a well-reasoned deletion rationale because one of the more obscure clauses of BEFORE seems only partially met. I want to have confidence that the nominating editor has done a BEFORE and described what they did and what they found such that if I try and re-do it and get a significantly different outcome, that becomes evidence of improvable performance, and repeated or egregious evidence of a disconnect between stated BEFORE vs. someone else's BEFORE findings becomes a conduct issue. Jclemens (talk) 04:50, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

• Strong oppose: until there is a similar speedy-deletion category for low-effort article creations, this simply sets up a situation where mass-created articles can stay on the encyclopaedia forever. Additionally, WP:BEFORE is not, and never has been, mandatory. EDIT: I'll also add that this offends against WP:TNT - sometimes its better to delete articles and start over even if theoretically sourcing can be found. EDIT2: I've also got to say that WP:BEFORE recommends a lot more than just researching sources, yet the support voters appear to be focusing only on Section D (i.e., the part of WP:BEFORE about searching sources). Requiring evidence of {{tq|"pre-nomination research consistent with WP:BEFORE"}} would mean having to give evidence of having done the checks in Section B and the consideration of alternatives to deletion in Section C - that's quite an onerous requirement. FOARP (talk) 08:32, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
• :However WP:BEFORE should be mandatory, and this will be a useful incremental step in making it so. Thryduulf (talk) 08:41, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::Only when it is mandatory for article creation, and any article (regardless of creation date) which was created in violation of it can be speedy-deleted. FOARP (talk) 08:55, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::If you want to make standards apply retroactively to article creation then they must also apply retroactively to article deletion. I'm sure you'd be horrified at the thought of mass undeletion because BEFORE wasn't followed in the nomination. Thryduulf (talk) 09:38, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::This is already the case. You can already re-create articles for which you have found sourcing (or indeed, re-create them with no sourcing). You already have this thing. FOARP (talk) 10:11, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::It is not already the case that the deleted versions of articles can be restored automatically just because the deletion nominator did not do a BEFORE regardless of any other considerations, including the state of the article or any consensus in the deletion discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 10:34, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::Why would that be a horrifying thought? If a large number of articles had been mistakenly deleted because of a lack of BEFORE I would 100% support immediate mass undeletion and I'm sure almost everyone else would too. Maybe I don't understand the point you are trying to make. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:31, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::Disagree. WP:BEFORE and WP:NEXIST move the burden of proof from the person claiming notability to the person demanding that the claim be supported. A massive portion of deletion issues would be solved if we expected notability to be demonstrated in the article, and if the response to AfD was to add the sources to the article. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 19:35, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::But that burden is satisfied by simply being unable to locate sources which support notability, at the end of the day you can't prove a negative so the burden will always finally rest with those arguing for notability. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:36, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• :I agree in principle that new articles created directly in mainspace should follow all our P&Gs, including notability. I don't agree that we need to tie the two changes together or make one wait for or contingent upon the other. Jclemens (talk) 00:09, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• :@FOARP The way I read it, this restriction would not ban bundled nominations; a bundled nom would count as one nom. If someone is mass-creating stubs, you can still nominate them all as one AfD. Toadspike [Talk] 18:23, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::Unfortunately most efforts to handle mass-created articles via AFD fail due to allegations of WP:TRAINWRECK, so this is not correct in my experience. FOARP (talk) 22:57, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::The recent spates of mass-noms were even more of a trainwreck because they weren't bundled – five different closers closed 52 GI Joe nominations as variations on "procedural keep" because there obviously wasn't enough time to discuss each article, so editors instead copy/pasted "procedural keep" !votes fifty times. A proper bundled nom, after getting a precedent by having one or two deleted in individual AfDs, would have had a much better shot at getting anything deleted at all. Toadspike [Talk] 10:06, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• :I don't think you're addressing the problem with your response - this isn't a gotcha for preventing deletion of mass created articles, it's to ensure people are using AfD in good faith. SportingFlyer T·C 19:55, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::Personally I see groundless accusations of bad faith pretty regularly at AFD, the idea that people nominating articles for deletion "just want to delete the whole encyclopaedia" or have a personal animus against the person who (mass-)created the articles is bafflingly common, as is the idea that WP:BEFORE requires investigating offline archives and/or paid-access archives that cannot possibly have been looked at by the article-creator. FOARP (talk) 10:36, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
• Support. The whole retroactive application thing is a red herring. What are we afraid of, exactly? That some good-faith low effort mass nomination will get caught in an ex post facto trap enforced by a mindless Lua/Javascript bot? If we happen to have a cluster of low effort mass nomination AfDs ongoing when this proposed SK criterion #7 goes live, an experienced admin will judge it on merits, rather than enforce it blindly. {{pb}} The proposed new criterion, perhaps with {{u|Goldsztajn}}'s amended wording, is already an improvement on what we have today. Wikipolicy has always been a Stone Soup effort. The initial version of a policy is rarely what we end up with. Once we see how this works in practice, and need to refine it, we come back here and do that, as we always do. And if we need a new policy to handle low-effort mass article creation, as {{u|FOARP}} suggests, we do that as well; the two are not interlinked. Although at this point, our policy for handling speedy deletions is much more mature than that for handling speedy keeps. Owen× ☎ 12:08, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
• :I think "retroactive" is about how the proposal applies to nominations made before the threshold was met, not nominations made before the proposal went live. jlwoodwa (talk) 06:57, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::I agree that's the only sensible way to interpret that clause. Jclemens (talk) 09:19, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::HouseBlaster {{diff2|1285976438|specifically mentions}} "ex post facto", a legal principle that refers to enforcing a rule on an action taken before the rule was in force. When someone makes four low-effort nominations in one day, knowing that the fifth one would trigger SK#7, there's nothing "unfair" in speedy closing all nominations under this rule once they post the fifth one. Even one low-effort nomination can be disruptive. The fact that we chose to draw the line in the sand at five does not mean the first four of them must enjoy a free ride. Owen× ☎ 11:15, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::To be clear, my allusion to ex post facto was a c.f., not a "this supports what I am trying to say". I am concerned about nomination 5 meaning that nominations 1, 2, 3 and 4 are disallowed, which is the opposite stance you are taking. Best, HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 22:14, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• Support This is a necessary solution to a recurring problem at AfD which extends beyond any one individual editor. Regardless of whether there should or should not be comparable measures implemented for article creation, without this rule, the status quo is AfD being overwhelmed with nominations that do not have adequate WP:BEFORE searches. When AfD is overwhelmed like that, genuinely unmeritorious articles that do not pass our guidelines are less likely to reach a consensus decision (and vice versa) because they get hidden in a sea of noms. Introducing this guideline will strengthen AfD by adding another tool in the box to reduce the volume of nominations only to the most meritorious. Flip^andFlopped ㋡ 16:24, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
• :Support, for the reasons everyone have stated, and I certainly look forward to the usual suspects spewing theie usual insults toward users who they bullied off the website. Gnomingstuff (talk) 18:27, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose The problem I see with this is that it's one editor saying that in their opinion the BEFORE hasn't been done. It's unlikely to make discussions more civil, in part proven by this very discusion. Editors who make mass disruptive nominations should be dealt with as disruptive editors, for which there is already a guideline. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:36, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
• :BEFORE has a very specific set of expectations. Saying "I don't think you did a good BEFORE" should itself be immediately challenged as "Ok, which step was not done or done badly, and how do we fix that?" That's a discussion I have all the time: "Nom: I did a BEFORE and found nothing. Me: Here are three Google Scholar articles..." and to be perfectly clear that's not what this is aimed at. This is for nominations that don't even make a credible claim of effort at BEFORE, in the process of disruptively high number of separate deletion nominations per day--my initial proposal is five, and I've not seen anyone really advocate for a higher or lower threshold. An imperfect BEFORE or a stated-but-not-done BEFORE is a different problem than not even saying one was done, and should be handled through education.
• :However, your point about civility is well taken, as my efforts to educate people without or with terrible BEFORE efforts have not been as well received as I would like. It could be just me, but I think there's some element of trying to educate being incompatible with trying to "win" a binary outcome. (Which, I love that more ATDs are being considered and taken, reducing the win/lose dynamic... but that's a different aspect of deletion process) Jclemens (talk) 00:16, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::The problem is that this will be likely used to try and win, just by a different side. Maybe a better solution would be to rate limit accounts until they are EC. After that point editors should know what they are doing, and if the don't incompetence is again disruptive. What I fear is that this will just be used against any and all mass nominations, the whole inclusionist/deletionist already creates more heat than is useful and this is going to pour fuel onto it. Deletion discussions are one of the most toxic parts of Wikipedia. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:24, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::Accounts that have not reached EC are not the issue when it comes to high-volume mass nominations. In fact, it is the opposite: the nominator is typically an experienced editor who is capable of using a tool like Twinkle to mass nominate, say, dozens of articles in a short time frame. In that instance, policy requiring a more specific and curtailed WP:BEFORE rationale in the nomination seems logical. If the nominator fails to do so, it gives editors at AfD responding to an influx of dozens of noms the ability to say, "Procedural oppose per SK Criterion 7". It discourages hasty mass nominations, but if a mass nominator truly does explain each and every nom with clear evidence of an additional BEFORE search, then the point is moot. Flip^andFlopped ㋡ 03:26, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::Precisely the goal: Reward/encourage GOOD nominations for deletion... and discourage hasty others. Jclemens (talk) 03:40, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::{{tq|"GOOD"}} Nominations perform a WP:BEFORE proportionate to the research done to create the original article. In some cases - particularly articles mass-created from a database - this will be minimal. WP:BEFORE is not and never should be mandatory. FOARP (talk) 07:21, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::No, the standard of BEFORE is not and should never be based on the nominator's opinion of how much research was or was not done in creating the article (which is in any case not reliably knowable from the content of the article). Treating database sources differently was, iirc, explicitly rejected by community consensus.
• ::::::Unless your goal is deleting as many articles as possible rather than improving the encyclopaedia, there is no justification for not doing a BEFORE search. Thryduulf (talk) 09:07, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::::{{tq|"which is in any case not reliably knowable from the content of the article"}} - Yes, an editor creating 866 articles in one day in alphabetical order all referencing the same sourcing, it is indeed a total mystery as to what research was done before hand. I guess we will just never truly know... FOARP (talk) 09:52, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::::I said it is "not reliably knowable" not that it is not knowable in every single case, but even for the case you mention we cannot know whether the creator spent 5 minutes, 5 hours or 5 days looking for and at that source, nor how long they spent looking for and at other sources which they didn't explicitly include in the article text. I really shouldn't have to say it (but experience tells me that I actually do), but even if that editor did spend little time doing research before creating that set of articles, this is not a reliable indicator of how much time other editors spent creating other articles. Thryduulf (talk) 10:04, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::::::{{tq|"we cannot know whether the creator spent 5 minutes, 5 hours or 5 days looking for and at that source"}} - "Since the guy didn't tell me he wasn't the wallet inspector, then we should always keep our minds open to the possibility that they might actually have been the wallet inspector and therefore I should just keep waiting for them to return with my wallet to tell me that everything was in order."
• :::::::::Meanwhile that article-set was just one day of article-production, and the same editor (who I am not calling out here as they have changed their ways) did [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?target=Ser%20Amantio%20di%20Nicolao&namespace=0&tagfilter=&newOnly=1&start=2011-01-17&end=2011-01-17&limit=1000&title=Special%3AContributions pretty much the same thing the day before]. C'mon, you know that nothing was done in the way of research for these articles beyond "this is a name on a list", probably GNS which is an unreliable source for whether a place is populated or not but was commonly used alongside GNIS in all these GEOLAND mass-creations.
• :::::::::Hours? Even working a 40 hour week before creating these articles would give bare minutes per article, and they clearly didn't do that. FOARP (talk) 10:39, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::::::It is nobody's business how much effort a nominator actually spent. "Low-effort nomination" in this context means "one that can be improved or disproved by a competent editor with minimal effort, to the point where the original may be seen as lacking substance". We are judging the result of the effort, not its amount. Owen× ☎ 11:59, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::::::@FOARP the point is that regardless of how much time one article creator did or did not spend creating an article, the amount of effort is cannot be reliably determined from just the amount of words in the article. It's exactly the same as why we treat The Daily Mail as an unreliable source even though sometimes it gets things right - we cannot rely on it to get things right. Also, even if there was a reliable way to determine the amount of effort put in to creating an article, that is completely independent of the minimum effort required from someone wanting to delete that article. That minimum effort should include looking for sources in the place they are most likely to exist. Thryduulf (talk) 12:06, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::::::::Asking editors to spend hours researching articles that were created in seconds simply to prove the negative (i.e., that they don't exist as described in the article, because no effort at all was spent checking that they did exist) is a fool's errand, and a recipe for making it impossible to address problematic mass-creation. But I've said this already. Good luck on taking this discussion to VPP and CENT for a wider audience. FOARP (talk) 12:33, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::I'm not going to read through all the replies, I'll just restate - if an experienced editor is behave in a disruptive manner take them to ANI. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:06, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• Not only should we be discouraging low-effort nominations (it is clear there are select editors who do not complete BEFORE), but we should also stop allowing editors with low AfD success rates to continue nominating. If an editor keeps nominating articles for deletion that are ultimately kept, stop letting them continue to nominate over and over! It is such a waste of editor time. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:40, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose for a few reasons. (1) Criteria 1 ({{tq|Absence of a deletion rationale.}}) and 3 ({{tq|The nomination is completely erroneous. No accurate deletion rationale has been provided.}}) already deal with individual nominations that are entirely substandard, so if either of those apply they should be used instead and if neither does the mere number of nominations does not seem to me a good enough reason to broaden the scope for immediate disqualification of the nominations. (2) I am generally opposed to making WP:BEFORE more mandatory without first making it either more difficult to create deficient articles or easier to delete them, on the grounds that the effort involved with identifying and deleting content that ought to be deleted dwarfs the effort involved with producing it (Brandolini's law); bad content creation is both a more serious drain on the community's resources and more detrimental to the overall quality of the encyclopedia than bad nominations for deletion, and trying to solve the latter problem first is likely to exacerbate the former substantially. (3) I expect this proposal would lead to a more adversarial atmosphere at AfD; we already have a problem with comments focusing on the person rather than the content when the editor(s) responsible either for the article or the deletion discussion are perceived to not have put sufficient effort into it, and this would likely be seen by some as a kind of endorsement of that attitude. TompaDompa (talk) 18:31, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• :Closers are very hesitant to use these speedy keep rationales in cases like the three we've seen in the last few months. No single nomination is bad; only the extreme speed of nominations gives away that insufficient effort was put in. Lacking BEFORE is also not the main issue; it's the overwhelming of editors that leads to low-quality AfD discussion. On Brandolini: We remove harmful content on sight, by editing. These mass-noms have not aimed to remove harmful content, they've aimed to remove non-notable cruft, which is not nearly as serious. Toadspike [Talk] 18:40, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::Outright harmful content (in the sense of libel and whatnot) wasn't what I had in mind. The general principle that it takes significantly more effort to identify and deal with non-notable cruft and other kinds of content that should be deleted (hoaxes, original research, WP:NOT violations, and so on) than it does to create it applies regardless, and while it is indeed not nearly as serious it is still a serious drain on the community's limited resources and detrimental to the overall quality of the encyclopedia. I would think that the {{tq|overwhelming of editors}} by bad content is a rather more pronounced problem at present than the overwhelming of editors by bad AfD nominations. TompaDompa (talk) 19:07, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• :{{ec}} I might add that there are actually circumstances where a couple dozen WP:BEFORE-less WP:AfDs in short order can be appropriate. I would point to the 40 "Line of succession to the former throne of X" articles that were deleted back in 2020 (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40), where the reason for deleting the articles was not something that WP:BEFORE would be helpful for (in short: the articles were essentially historical "what if" exercises). They were not all nominated at once (rather, in batches), but there's no reason they couldn't have been. In such a situation, this proposal (or at least a straightforward reading of "without any of them articulating any pre-nomination research consistent with WP:BEFORE") would be counterproductive. TompaDompa (talk) 18:44, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• Support, with the caveat that a bundled nomination counts as one nomination. I realize that this wouldn't apply to well-reasoned nominations anyways, but I don't want people trying to shoot down all bundled noms as violations of this rule.
• :AfD is already capable of handling disruptive mass nominations and the case-by-case approach has worked okay. However, this rule might be reassuring to the community at large and prevent the huge community uproar after each incident. It would also save time for closers and participants, which at AfD, as elsewhere, is our most precious resource. Also, fun fact, WP:MASSNOM points to an essay that's been around since 2014!! Toadspike [Talk] 18:32, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• :Update: I also support closing as "procedural keep" instead of "speedy keep" or otherwise specifying "no prejudice against speedy renomination". Our goal isn't to prevent AfDs, it is to limit low-quality AfDs that don't stand a chance in resulting in productive discussion. Toadspike [Talk] 10:12, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose: Just because a nomination doesn't explicitly state how they performed WP:BEFORE doesn't mean the nomination is invalid. I often say I did before searches, which I do, but I don't go into great depth about the various things I found that don't contribute or what explicit things I did not find. Aside from that, your opinion of a thorough BEFORE search may be different than mine. This would do more to dissuade nominators altogether as opposed to dissuade bad mass nominations. Hey man im josh (talk)
• :The fact we didn't state that BEFORE results should be shared in the AfD nomination statement appears to be a bug. Rather, something we just assumed, apparently. I've [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AArticles_for_deletion&diff=1285984436&oldid=1285439467 BOLDly] added instructions to that effect. Since this is already pretty common practice, we'll see if it 'sticks' as is, or whether there is some disagreement. Jclemens (talk) 00:19, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• :And that change has rightfully been reverted. It's not a bug, and I'm opposed to that inclusion as well. That simply discourages nominations that may have been thorough by making it an expectation that folks must thoroughly document what they did. That would lead to more bureaucracy of "You don't mention in your nom what you did as a before search, what'd you do?" in the comments instead of people actually discussing the nomination itself. Hey man im josh (talk) 16:24, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::If you do a BEFORE search there are exactly zero downsides to documenting and/or summarising that search in your nomination. If have done a BEFORE search, don't mention anything about it, and someone asks you about it then you should reply with the answer to that question. It only becomes any sort of problem when you haven't done any sort of BEFORE, and that's a problem of your own making and the consequences of your decision are entirely on you. Thryduulf (talk) 19:21, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::There are times when a WP:BEFORE search adds nothing. This can happen when the WP:Reason for deletion is unrelated to WP:Notability, and I have provided a list of 40 examples (of the same kind as each other) above. In those cases, a search for sources is a waste of time, our editors' most precious resource. There are other times when the effort involved in a WP:BEFORE search is disproportionate (a kind of variation on Brandolini's law, basically). TompaDompa (talk) 20:01, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• Strong support, this could even be called as a shortcut "G.I. Joe" nom'ing. In the spirit of the recent spate of G.I. Joe nominations that numbered over 50+ and were all procedurally kept. Iljhgtn (talk) 19:24, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose per FOARP. Give us more ways to address low quality mass-creation before restricting our already limited ability to combat it. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 19:32, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose. I appreciate the sentiment, but this proposal will only lead to more issues going forward. I've nominated articles in the past for deletion, even in isolation, that have had a BEFORE rationale questioned on wildly insufficient grounds, such as missing a single source during searching, or having a disagreement over what sources should be used for establishing notability. As an example of one of these cases, at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gallifrey, I had my BEFORE questioned because of a disagreement over whether plot summary counted as a piece of SIGCOV; this is inherently not an issue with the BEFORE of a nomination, but rather a matter to be settled through editorial discussion. Regardless, the issue stands that the BEFORE was brought into question for an issue that was not entirely related to the actual extent of the BEFORE, which I articulated in depth in my nomination. If a BEFORE can be called into question under any grounds, then what would happen if I happened to nominate multiple articles in the same topic area at the same time? Would I suddenly have to have all of those nominations be re-evaluated because of an editorial disagreement? I've seen this be even more prevalent in cases where BEFOREs were performed but not done with as much specificity, such as cases where those who have done BEFOREs make blanket statements for simplicity that get rebuked on similarly weak grounds ("I searched Google News hits and found little in the way of SIGCOV", "Google Books had no hits," etc).
• :Obviously any admin worth their salt will not see these discussions and go "Hm, yes, this is a low quality nomination". My problem is not with that, but the fact editors could potentially use this system to potentially game the system and delay or derail discussion. I've seen many AfDs dry up simply because they look unapproachable to a casual reviewer due to overly detailed and technical discussions. If a discussion has to go through a process of re-verifying a BEFORE, which can be potentially scrutinous depending on how vigorous an editor is about questioning it, I worry it could not only have the effect of wasting editor time on whether or not speedy keep applies, but also could be used to disengage other editors from wanting to engage in the discussion, as the amount of time needed to evaluate what's already been said on the topic of the BEFORE, as well as any other aspects of discussion, may be too daunting or time consuming for them to be able to participate, thus losing discussion participants. This is not even mentioning editors who may want an article kept on non-editorial grounds, who may use increasingly thorough and ultimately arbitrary methods of questioning a BEFORE to exacerbate the above issues to derail discussion.
• :Sure, you can also just say "Make more detailed BEFORE noms", but a large amount of the time, and especially in areas where I participate, the noms are typically sufficiently detailed for the particular subject. Missing sources in a BEFORE summary are often chocked up to unpredictable editor differences in how useful a source is, or an occasional missed source, more than it is that a nom's BEFORE summary is incorrect or inaccurate. For instance, when I nominated Vislor Turlough for deletion a second time, I missed a source that was genuinely useful SIGCOV, and had it pointed out to me that a source I dismissed did meet the SIGCOV bar. My nomination for this discussion was very thoroughly detailed, but there were still methods of arguing I was incorrect. However, with this rule in place, if I nominated multiple articles at once, I could very easily have this be used against me and result in one of or all of my AfD nominations either being closed or derailed due to having to clarify speedy close accusations.
• :There's also the fact that these mass AfD nominations are exceedingly rare. I've only seen, maybe three? In the past year or two, and one of those was caused by me when I was inexperienced with nomination limits. Very few newer users are familiar with deletion systems, and very few experienced ones are going to mass nominate so many articles. A few exceptions does not make a standard. I will concede I only am primarily active in a few areas, so this might be more prevalent elsewhere, and if that is the case I may be more open to this, but to my knowledge this is an exceedingly rare and not so pressing issue.
• :I will also concur that nominating five or more AfDs in the same topic area, while not exceedingly common, does happen frequently enough to where it isn't like encountering a Yeti. I've had many times where I've nominated multiple Doctor Who characters or Comic Book characters for deletion in bulk because a thorough analysis of the group told me they were all non-notable and needed discussion. Implementing this rule, per my above rationale, will only cause more issues with a more common type of nomination style than it will with the nomination style it's actually attempting to target, which is exceedingly rare and as a result an inherently minor issue.
• :Given the impacts it could have if used in bad faith by editors with bigger agendas, the potential for it to derail discussions, and the fact it's as a whole just an unnecessary and unneeded proposal for a rather minor issue, I feel this kind of proposal is just not needed as it stands. I appreciate the sentiment and thought put into the nomination, and if this issue becomes more frequent I feel this would be worth reconsidering, but on the whole I just simply do not feel it should be implemented.
• :(As an aside, any user I mentioned in the above discussions I linked are not under any accusations from myself. They were all acting in good faith, which I felt only exacerbated my point. Even in good faith this kind of policy could derail discussion, which is inherently a problem.) Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 01:14, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::How many times do you initiate more than 5 separate deletion discussions (a multi-page nomination counts as one) without documentation of a BEFORE? This is intentionally worded to exclude normal disagreements over whether a BEFORE search was adequate: Unless there's >5 in one day, this isn't relevant. Most of the time I engage in an AfD, I find something that the nom should have found, but that doesn't mean that the BEFORE was so obviously absent that this proposed SK criterion would apply. Jclemens (talk) 02:03, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::1) Where the grounds for deletion are not WP:N or WP:V, but instead WP:NOT, why should a WP:BEFORE be done? 2) when the article is simply one of a mass-created set of hundreds or thousands of articles all based on the same unreliable source and/or negligent editing, it is impossible to perform a detailed WP:BEFORE on every single one of them: sampling them is sufficient, 3) this offends against WP:TNT - sometimes it's better simply to delete and recreate.
• :::And if you question that we ever do this (or ever should do this) we did this when we mass-deleted thousands of Carlossuarez46's fake "village" articles that literally said they were about unpopulated places. We also did this when we mass-deleted C46's "company town" articles that were just places of business. Is it theoretically possible that some articles with the same name as real, actual existing Iranian villages were deleted in this process, that a detailed WP:BEFORE lasting hours for each of the many thousands of articles in these sets might have found? I'm sure some would say "yes", and if this speedy keep rationale were introduced these deletions, that have only improved the encyclopaedia and reduced the impact of harmful incorrect information on the internet as a whole (not least of which was Persian Wiki having to deal with the tens of thousands of articles about non-existent places continually being trans-wikied on to their encyclopaedia), would have been blocked. Negligent mass creation sometimes needs a WP:TNT approach. FOARP (talk) 10:19, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::{{tpq| when the article is simply one of a mass-created set of hundreds or thousands of articles all based on the same unreliable source and/or negligent editing}} for hundreds of thousands get consensus that this is the case and that they should be deleted without further review at an RfC or similar. For tens, do batch AfDs that explicitly include the results of a BEFORE search done on a sample.
• ::::What the Persian Wikipedia wants or does not want is a matter for the Persian Wikipedia, not us. Thryduulf (talk) 10:24, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::{{tq|"What the Persian Wikipedia wants or does not want is a matter for the Persian Wikipedia, not us"}} - It certainly should matter if mass-created articles about fake locations which we host here cause harm elsewhere. We are repeatedly told of the importance of improving coverage in disadvantaged parts of the world: is your argument that we should not care about carry tens of thousands of articles about "villages" that don't exist, but which end up getting transposed on to maps of these areas, to the point where Google Maps [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Afzalabad,+Iran/@29.1378962,59.7532671,25544m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m12!1m5!3m4!2zMjjCsDM3JzAxLjAiTiA2McKwNTAnMDUuMCJF!8m2!3d28.6169444!4d61.8347222!3m5!1s0x3ee41e7c85691041:0x536d158f95195d85!8m2!3d29.116667!4d59.8!16s%2Fm%2F0_qfkws?hl=en&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDQxNC4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D shows many "villages" in open and empty desert] in Central Asia and the Middle East in large part because of mass-created EN Wikipedia articles that took 0.0 seconds of thought or effort to create? Surely if we're caring about "representation", that should start with listening to what people from those parts of the world say they want rather than what we choose to impose on them?
• :::::I note you are effectively confirming that AFDs such as the "company town" one (which was in the hundreds, not tens) can no longer be held as a single discussion at AFD if this motion passes. FOARP (talk) 10:57, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::@FOARP Hm... I see your point. In truly extraneous circumstances like that I would not be opposed to such a proposal. Even if a BEFORE was done, it's just not feasible for editors to review that many articles in the allotted period of time. My argument is more focused on how it may used in cases where there's a reasonable number of nominations but still extraneous, but I have to admit I completely overlooked a case like this where there's just way too many at once. Though rare, I do agree having a rationale for a situation like that is valuable based on what you've said.
• ::::@Jclemens I believe I may have misinterpreted the wording of your proposal. I'd support so long as it's clarified a bit more clearly that this is an inherently an issue where no BEFORE is present or there are simply just too many articles at once to be feasible. My issue is if this could be used against editors who have researched several articles but chose to nominate at the same time; so long as this is addressed clearly in the proposal, I'm willing to Support, especially per FOARP's rationale of the truly extraneous cases that do have a documented impact on wiki affairs. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 14:30, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::{{tpq|My issue is if this could be used against editors who have researched several articles but chose to nominate at the same time}} As long as those editors make it clear in their nominations that they have done a BEFORE (e.g. by giving a summary of it) then this proposal will not impact them. Thryduulf (talk) 14:40, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• Support. Wikipedia is, quoting WP:PURPOSE, supposed to contain {{tqq|the sum of all human knowledge}}. Now, at some point, a line does have to be drawn - but there are many editors who make...let's say questionable judgement over where, exactly, that line should be, and making mass nominations of the sort this is intended to combat is a community time sink, and can - and often does - result in salvagable articles (and, I suspect, salvaged articles, i.e. those whose content was already acceptable by policy) being tossed in the bin, either because of editors not being able to contest it, willing to contest it, or enough editors presuming a suitable BEFORE was peformed over the course of a full week's AfD. Allowing SK for cases where it's clear a - as mentioned - 'low-effort mass nomination' has been made can only improve the encyclopedia, and help sustain its mission. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 01:40, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• Support but close them as "Procedural Keep" so they can renominate some of them. Some of the mass nominations I see (those "[X] in [Y] Television' articles) are textbook examples of hasty generalization. Warm Regards, Miminity (Talk?) (me contribs) 01:59, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• :Sure. No procedural keep triggers WP:RENOM's expected time delays to the best of my knowledge, and there's no intent to create that here, else one could game the system to (self-censored per WP:BEANS) Jclemens (talk) 22:01, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose as lack of notability is not the only reason an article can be deleted on Wikipedia. Traumnovelle (talk) 07:28, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• :@Traumnovelle WP:BEFORE says "Search for additional sources, if the main concern is notability". If the main concern is not notability, no search for sources is required. Toadspike [Talk] 10:16, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::The proposal does not say that. It says {{tq|"without any of them articulating any pre-nomination research consistent with WP:BEFORE"}}, but WP:BEFORE recommends (but does not mandate) a whole range of potential checks that you could carry out outside section D, including checking inter-wiki links, merge targets and so-forth. Documenting that all these have been done would be onerous in the extreme. FOARP (talk) 22:37, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::The proposal says "any", not "every", precisel for that reason. Jclemens (talk) 22:45, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::So you're saying that saying that you had carried out WP:BEFORE B.4 ({{tq|"Read the article's talk page for previous nominations and/or that your objections haven't already been dealt with."}}) would be sufficient? Because I don't think in reality that's how this will be applied. FOARP (talk) 21:59, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
• Strong oppose per FOARP. There would need to be a level playing-field permitting mass creations to be similarly deleted. And this occurrence does not seem to be sufficiently common to necessitate a blanket policy. Stifle (talk) 08:03, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• :So, aside from the WP:WAX argument, do you have another rationale for opposing this? As I've said above, I have no issue with things created directly inside mainspace being expected to meet all P&G's from day one that they are live... but this isn't that problem and a fix to this issue shouldn't be contingent on that unrelated fix. Jclemens (talk) 15:37, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::I think the obvious counterpoint to that is that the issues are not unrelated. WP:AfD activity is downstream of article creation, after all. In terms of throughput, AfD is much more rate-limited than article creation is. If one is wary of detrimental article creation outpacing deletion, it would then be logical to oppose suggestions that would slow down the latter until and unless the former is slowed down by at least the corresponding amount. A reduction in detrimental article creation would also have the downstream effect of freeing up AfD resources by reducing the number of articles created that go to AfD. TompaDompa (talk) 16:06, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::(posting the same thing twice to two different editors on purpose) The proposal does not rate limit demonstrably well-thought out nominations. It only limits those with no articulated BEFORE. Do you favor unlimited, poorly documented deletion nominations? Jclemens (talk) 21:59, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::A straightforward reading of the proposal ({{tq|without any of them articulating any pre-nomination research consistent with WP:BEFORE}}) would indicate that it does indeed {{tq|rate limit demonstrably well-thought out nominations}} in cases where those nominations do not include a WP:BEFORE check. [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Speedy_keep&diff=prev&oldid=1286108379 As I stated above], there are situations where such a pre-nomination step is not relevant—typically cases where WP:Notability is not the WP:Reason for deletion. Do you favour rate-limiting demonstrably well-thought out nominations where a WP:BEFORE check is not relevant? TompaDompa (talk) 22:23, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::Ok, {{U|TompaDompa}}I accept that 1) Most of the problematic mass AfDs do center around an asserted lack of notability, that should be evaluated in a BEFORE search before a nomination, and 2) I am absolutely looking for this proposal to appropriately address edge cases.
• :::::Having said that, I'm not sure what a BEFORE-less, non-notabilty nom would do to trigger the assertion that it's poorly researched. #2 after notability is alleged NOT violations. So... "non-encyclopedic cross categorization" absolutely would benefit from a BEFORE. Consider Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of James Bond villains where a good BEFORE should have caught that the concept is itself notable (full disclosure: I did file an SPI against that nominator for AfD behavior, which was adjudicated as not ripe). Some others, like NOT#PLOT almost always lead to rewrites or ATDs. Others like NOT#STATS have no benefit from a BEFORE search; the page either meets guidelines or it does not, and there's no assertion by either side that more research will settle things. Jclemens (talk) 00:09, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::It is not my experience that nominations unrelated to notability really need to do anything to trigger that kind of response; it's not entirely uncommon for the response to such nominations to be along the lines of "keep – clearly notable" regardless.{{pb}} I also don't think speedy closures of nominations that lead to rewrites or WP:Alternatives to deletion are desirable. Article improvement is one function AfD serves in practice, and there are many cases where fruitful discussion has happened at AfD with that as the outcome. Regrettably, such discussion tends not to happen outside of AfD, and tends not to continue after AfD. Closing discussions early would then be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. TompaDompa (talk) 11:33, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose. Mass AfDs for articles with similar problems can be an appropriate response to the mass creation of such articles. Sandstein 19:10, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• :(posting the same thing twice to two different editors on purpose) The proposal does not rate limit demonstrably well-thought out nominations. It only limits those with no articulated BEFORE. Do you favor unlimited, poorly documented deletion nominations? Jclemens (talk) 21:59, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::The problem I see is that "demonstrably well-thought out nominations" will mean very different things to different people. We have some editors who insist that a BEFORE be conducted for BLPs in native language sources during the time the subject was most active, even when mass article creators such as Lugnuts did no such thing when they created such articles. As such, I have to oppose this proposal as it is currently constructed, Let'srun (talk) 12:52, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• I think that a limit of five is on the low side. I'd also prefer to limit this to similar subjects. A bunch of Olympics athletes from the same small, non-English-speaking country at once is difficult to process, whereas one athlete, one car, one book, one company, etc., spreads the work out. I suppose that speedy keep is an optional thing anyway, so maybe it doesn't matter much. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:00, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• :Five AfDs is not many, but five AfDs "without any of them articulating any pre-nomination research consistent with WP:BEFORE" is five too many. Toadspike [Talk] 10:15, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::Not if the DELREASON is not related to verifiability/notability or is a TNT nomination. FOARP (talk) 12:21, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::@FOARP WP:BEFORE says "Search for additional sources, if the main concern is notability". If the main concern is not notability, no search for sources is required. I think this entirely addresses your rationale for opposing this change. Toadspike [Talk] 19:01, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::WP:BEFORE has four sections, three of which recommend some kind of research. You've just quoted part of Section D, but it doesn't apply to Section B and C, both of which also recommend research (one is checking article history, the other is checking ATDs). For some reason the supporters of this proposal are focusing on Section D when WP:BEFORE, when you read it, is a lot longer than just Section D. FOARP (talk) 08:51, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::You're right, and I think the clear implication is that section D is the section that is 1) often (most often? unsure) not done, and 2) would clearly have had an impact on the nomination if it had, in fact, been done. The rest are important, of course, but this discourse is absolutely focusing on a perceived gap. Jclemens (talk) 16:04, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose. I already see way too many unfounded accusations of "no evidence of WP:BEFORE" and erroneous "snow keep" !votes at AfD. I strongly believe this encourages that problem much more than it will prevent the problem of mass-nominations, which I do agree are a problem. What I think would be much better is if we simply had admins procedurally no-consensus close the really obviously absurd cases, which don't come up that often. I'd have closed all those GI Joe ones myself if I'd noticed them on day 1, but I usually only look at the AfDs that are at 7 days already, by which point it was too late to do anything useful about them. This is a problem that doesn't need new policy to solve. It just needs an admin to notice the problem before it becomes a really big problem. -- asilvering (talk) 18:40, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• :Please ping on reply, I'm not watching this discussion. -- asilvering (talk) 18:41, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• :{{ping|Asilvering}} {{tqq|I'd have closed all those GI Joe ones myself if I'd noticed them on day 1}} - closed them as what? Under what section of our existing Deletion Policy? I ended up closing most of those G.I. Joe AfDs on day 8 as "procedural close", and even that I felt was pushing the limits of our existing policy. To close it on day 1, it generally needs to fall under either CSD or SK. If this is already common practice or understood to be the right thing to do, then by all means, let's document it. Owen× ☎ 19:48, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::@OwenX, I'd have gone with just a no-prejudice "no consensus" close and advised the nominator to bundle them or otherwise deal with the "giant bulk nomination without obvious deletion rationale" problem. There's nothing in our deletion policy that prevents admins from stepping in to prevent disruption when they see it. -- asilvering (talk) 20:07, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::{{ping|Asilvering}} very few AfDs have a consensus on day 1. Closing an AfD on day 1 as "no consensus" has no basis in policy. If there is a procedural reason to close such disruptive AfDs, that means there is a procedure listed somewhere that allows us to do so. Where is this procedure? It sounds to me like you want to exercise the proposed SK#7 criterion without actually having it codified into policy. "IAR speedy" closes are usually overturned at DRV, and rightly so. Owen× ☎ 20:32, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::@OwenX, what I'm saying is, nominating a gajillion articles with identically useless deletion rationales is obvious disruptive editing, and we're already perfectly well empowered to stop disruptive editing. We don't need a new policy to do that, especially not one that, in my view, is extremely vulnerable to scope creep. -- asilvering (talk) 20:46, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::{{re|OwenX}} I want to emphasize Asilvering's point here, because your support seems to hinge on this point, and I strongly believe you are mistaken. Admins are not empowered to close early on the merits except when speedy close criteria apply. But we are empowered very broadly to deal with disruptive editing, and this includes closing disruptive nominations. A quick skim of my closures yielded these 1, 2, there are probably others. I, too, tend to work from the back of the queue at AfD, and consequently don't often notice the discussions needing procedural closure. I do wonder if some means of flagging admin attention to those discussions would be useful. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:01, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::I understand your point, {{u|Vanamonde93}}, as I do Asilvering's. Letting each admin decide, based on a rather loose definition of "disruption", what is or isn't a disruptive nomination is how we get abuse of admin rights. We've had admins who blocked editors for questioning their actions, under the catch-all "disruptive" label. {{pb}} Of the two examples you gave, the first ran for the full seven days, and the second was a laughingly obvious sock parade. You closed both correctly, but neither was the kind of situation we're discussing here. If we already see low-effort, mass nominations as disruptive, then by all means, let's codify that understanding in our policy, and reduce the opportunity for tool abuse. Every CSD we've added to the policy was met with the same resistance from admins: "We already delete those now!". Yes, we do, which is why we need policy to describe it. Documenting common practice has always been our way to create new policy. We want to make sure not only that these disruptive low-effort mass nominations are dealt with, but that they're handled in a consistent way regardless of which admin happens to stumble across them. I believe that is what {{u|Jclemens}} is trying to do here. It's certainly what I am trying to do. Owen× ☎ 20:26, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::{{re|OwenX}} There is a cost to creating any policy, and a particular cost to crafting policy that creates procedural barriers to consensus building. In some situations, it is still a good idea - for instance, it is plain that a prohibition on frivolous nominations is a good thing. This proposal, in my view, imposes costs (in the form of procedural objections to valid nominations) with minimal benefit (speedy closure of invalid nominations) because nominations that are genuinely invalid per the spirit of the proposed criterion are already eligible for speedy closure. You are of course free to disagree as to the cost-benefit ratio of codifying the proposal, but I do think you are underestimating our current power to handle the genuine problem at the heart of this, whether via existing speedy closure procedure (I cannot find examples off the top of my head but I am quite certain that we routinely close overlarge bundled nominations, for instance), or via behavioral sanction. Best, Vanamonde93 (talk) 22:43, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose unless someone can name a way to establish that BEFORE hasn't been followed which doesn't make a mockery of AGF. Doing a bad or incomplete job at BEFORE isn't the same as not doing BEFORE and unless someone admits it what would we be going off of? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:38, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• :Oppose per HEB; this sort of situation is too subjective for a blanket rule like this. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 07:22, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• Support. I don't understand the opposition here. If someone mass nominates a ridiculous number of articles with zero effort, why should we be required to have them all run full-course and waste a tremendous amount of editor time? BeanieFan11 (talk) 22:13, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• :And how do you intend to establish that they exerted zero effort while respecting AGF? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:19, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• :: If someone were to nominate 50 Olympic gold medalists for deletion in 25 minutes, all with only the explanation "not notable", and SIGCOV was easily found for 10 out of the first 10 checked, would it really be worthwhile to have to check the other 40 and have all the discussions run full course? BeanieFan11 (talk) 22:33, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::: You still seem to be making a value judgement, what is easy for you might not be easy for others. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:41, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::: Should the hypothetical 50 Olympic gold medalist AFDs be required to run full course? BeanieFan11 (talk) 22:43, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::: That isn't the question, the question is how do you establish that they exerted zero effort while respecting AGF. Someone can exert a great deal of effort and still be completely wrong (perhaps they misunderstood or did not know the existence of a relevant SNG for example, maybe they didn't have access to the right historical newspaper database) on 10/10. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:47, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::: To quote you, "AGF is not a suicide pact". If its abundantly clear that no BEFORE was done, then we can say that no BEFORE was done. The question is whether we should be allowed to close AFDs as SK if its obvious no BEFORE was done – should the 50 Olympic medalists be required to run full course under AGF? BeanieFan11 (talk) 22:58, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::::Making this personal is not appropriate, everyone has a history with everyone else but dredging it up like that borders on WP:NPA. On the actual content there you're going in circles... In that case how would you establish that it was abundantly clear/obvious that no BEFORE was done instead of bad, cursory, or incomplete BEFORE? Don't they look the same? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:04, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::::: Sorry. Well, I'd say that if its a "bad, cursory, or incomplete BEFORE", so bad that the nominator is "completely wrong ... on 10/10", and its mass nominations, then those should be closed as well – would you agree? The point is that poor-quality, mass nominations should not be required to run full course. BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:15, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::::: My understanding of how things are supposed to work is in that scenario the nominator would withdraw the nominations. I would support sanctions against an editor who refused to do so after 10/10 without a really good reason. "If you change your mind about the nomination, you can withdraw it. This might be because the discussion has produced new information about the topic, or because you realise the nomination was a mistake." WP:WDAFD Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:20, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::::::: In my experience, perhaps 10% of nominations that should never have gone forward will be withdrawn. When withdrawn, it's most usually on the nominator's own initiative. Almost never when I've pointed out that a nomination is so bad it's reflecting poorly on the nominator has that advice been taken; overt hostility is unfortunately the normative result. Jclemens (talk) 00:11, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::::::: To me that sounds like a behavioral issue at the end of the day... Meaning that this change would be a positive one but would be the equivilent of putting on bandaid after bandaid when someone is cutting you... I see above that your attempts to resolve these issues on behvioral grounds has yielded unsatisfactory results, I'm sorry thats happened but I think the solution here really is to address the small number of people doing the cutting instead of requiring a large number of people running around slapping bandaids on cuts. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:17, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::::::::: Fair enough. So... is there an outside-the-box or alternative way of addressing this where it's clear that people can make as many good nominations as they want, but the low-effort ones are discouraged, and mass amounts of low effort ones are party fouls? Regardless of how this is accomplished, I don't think anyone is arguing that we technically rate limit AfDs, but your suggestion that we make expectations clear before later slamming mass nominations as disruptive is well taken. How should we do that? Jclemens (talk) 00:32, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::::::::: What if we explicitly added the expectation to WP:WDAFD? Even just changing "can" to "should" would do the trick. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:45, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::::::::::Ok, but I'm not sure I follow. Lots of people don't change their minds in the face of contrary evidence. In many cases, that's driven not by the sources found, but the current state of the article is not a WP:SURMOUNTABLE problem. That's a valid philosophical difference, even though I believe it is unsupported by our core policies and contrary to the purposes of Wikipedia.
• ::::::::::::::How would you change or what would you add to WP:WDAFD? Jclemens (talk) 04:52, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::::::::::::In the context described above failure to change their mind would be clear evidence that WP:COMPETENCE and WP:IDHT need to be invoked and a separate behavioral discussion started... They would basically be signing a topic ban from AfD if not more. Making a mistake is not generally sanctionable, but refusing to change your mind is generally sanctionable. We are actually required to change our minds when shown that we are wrong, especially where clear cut P+G is concerned. In terms of the concrete change "If you change your mind about the nomination, you can withdraw it." to "If you change your mind about the nomination, you should withdraw it." It doesn't really matter what their philosophy is... P+G are all encompassing even if the policy invoked is IAR. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:52, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::::::::::::Ok, BOLDly did this small rephrase at [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AArticles_for_deletion&diff=1286409449&oldid=1286029599 WDAFD]. We'll see if that draws any opposition. In my experience, though, it's far too common for people to NOT change from their original position even when given sufficient evidence. For example, the nominator and first !voter never did on the List of James Bond villains AfD. Jclemens (talk) 19:10, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::::::::::::::Given that the AfD you just linked went stale only two days after being opened with no additional comments at all from the OP and was not a part of a mass nomination (I see only two other noms from that editor, both of which ended in a consensus to merge) I think in that instance its your expectations which are unreasonable. This also makes me question basically everything you've said, your example is a nominator who was 2/3 right not 3/3 wrong but because they were wrong about the one you cared about you're throwing broad aspersions against them? How does that work? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:02, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::::::::::::::I never said that was part of a mass nomination; I said it was an example of a nominator failing to withdraw an obviously defective nomination. If you want to see more of the backstory, feel free to review my contributions to that editor's talk page. Jclemens (talk) 05:44, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::::::::::Concur with {{noping|Jclemens}} - I think this method is actually a better than treating this as a behavioural issue - it allows an editor to AGF and correct a problem without seeking a sanction. It seems to me there is a consensus that this is an issue of occassional concern, but there are clearly editors at AfD who are regular, have full trust of other editors and will remain free to continue posting more than five nominations a day. In my experience, I've come across very, very few WP:CSK that satisfy either c.1 (not the exceptions) or c.3 - and I've opined before that the bar is (well, should be) pretty high to satisfy those criteria. I don't see this propsoal as any less; showing someone has done no BEFORE whatsoever will be a fairly high bar to demonstrate, and participants or a nominator will be able counter a speedy keep proposal of this type quite easily if it has been done in good faith. Essentially, this simply allows a disuptive action which may have been done unintentially or without effective understanding to return to the status quo. One way to allay concerns could be that a 12 hour time frame is placed on a CSK of this nature - ie if a speedy keep for this type is proposed, at least 12 hours must elapse before a SK closure is undertaken. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 01:07, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::::::::::In my experience, it's quite rare for any declaration of 'speedy keep' to actually result in an early closure of an AfD. Is there someone who is able to run those numbers for, say, the past year? Jclemens (talk) 19:10, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• :Surely six is not a ridiculous number ꧁Zanahary꧂ 07:21, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::Six good nominations is fine. Six poor nominations is too many. The fundamental goal is to reduce the number of bad nominations while allowing good nominations to continue unhindered. Jclemens (talk) 08:36, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose. As above, we need a lot more "BEFORE" for creations (as in, "Before you create an article, have in hand the necessary source material to demonstrate that the subject is notable, and cite them within the article"), rather than yet more of it for handling cases where article creators fail to do that. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 10:56, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• :Regardless of whether or not we need to deal with low-effort creations, and if so in what way, we still need a way to deal with low-effort nominations of articles that have been created. Low-effort deletion nominations are not restricted to articles that were mass created, dealing with one does not require first dealing with the other (regardless of which comes first). Thryduulf (talk) 11:53, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::{{tq|dealing with one does not require first dealing with the other}} assumes that one is not downstream of the other, even in the sense of resource allocation. As I said above, {{tq|In terms of throughput, AfD is much more rate-limited than article creation is. If one is wary of detrimental article creation outpacing deletion, it would then be logical to oppose suggestions that would slow down the latter until and unless the former is slowed down by at least the corresponding amount. A reduction in detrimental article creation would also have the downstream effect of freeing up AfD resources by reducing the number of articles created that go to AfD.}} TompaDompa (talk) 12:02, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::While deletion obviously cannot happen without creation happening first, that is the only way that they are dependent. Low-effort deletion nominations are not exclusive to low-effort creations, and low-effort creations are rightly not exclusively dealt with by deletion (let alone low-effort deletion nominations). If you think that low-effort creation needs to be slowed down then get consensus for something that will achieve that aim - opposing efforts to deal with low-effort deletion nominations will make no difference to that problem (if it actually is one) at all. Thryduulf (talk) 12:19, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::As I understand it, the reason low-effort deletion nominations are viewed as a problem here is that they are (supposedly) a drain on community resources at AfD. I think it is a reasonable position to take (1) that low-effort creations are a much bigger drain, and (2) that curbing low-effort deletion nominations is likely to have unintended consequences exacerbating the problem inasmuch as it may lead to a slower rate of deletion of articles that ought to be deleted, a more hostile environment at AfD discouraging participation, and/or other effects. TompaDompa (talk) 12:33, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::Whether or not low-effort creations are a drain on the community, opposing this will not have any impact on it. Low-effort deletion nominations that remove (intentionally or otherwise) articles about notable subjects from the encyclopaedia are actively harmful to our readers - especially as they decrease editors ability to improve content by demanding others do the work nominators should be doing. Nobody is saying that articles that should be deleted shouldn't be deleted, we just need to make sure that nominators are actually making sure that only those articles are being nominated.
• :::::Civility at AfD is a behavioural issue that is independent of this proposal, opposing this will not make things better but might make it worse by green-lighting the inappropriate AfD nominations that spark such incivility. Thryduulf (talk) 13:08, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::I suppose this comes down to whether you think we have more of a problem with presence of bad content or lack of good content, articles being deleted when they shouldn't be or articles not being deleted when they should be, and incivility by or towards AfD nominators. If one thinks the presence of bad content, articles not being deleted when they should be, and incivility towards AfD nominators are the bigger problems at the moment, then it makes sense to oppose this proposal on those grounds. One might, for instance, expect that this proposal would embolden editors to hurl abuse at nominators when the nominations are perceived to be deficient. Likewise, one might argue that WP:BEFORE decreases editors ability to improve content by demanding others do the work article creators should be doing. TompaDompa (talk) 13:24, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::I think TompaDompa has hit it pretty well here. Above, Thryduulf, you refer to the work the AfD nominator should have done in finding sources, but that's not going back far enough—that is work the article creator should have done. Basically, "BEFORE" lets people create a hundred "articles" with a few factoids sourced only to a database, while expecting anyone who wants to nominate any of those for deletion to do what they should have done to begin with—look for better sourcing than that. Now, people can still have the workflow that "I'll create these hundred skeleton pages from the database and look for more sources later", with a simple expedient, that being to create the hundred out of the database as drafts, not mainspace articles, and then move them over if and when substantial sourcing actually gets found and added. But basically, we should not be expecting such efforts of AfD nominators if we do not expect it of those creating articles in the first place. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 23:47, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• Support I think this has been an issue lately. Exact numbers can be debated, but I agree that posts that simply state "not notable" or something similar are inadequate for mass nominations. This policy doesn't prevent editors from nominating numerous articles since they can still be bundled. I'm not understanding the opposition based on creation guidelines. If we want to improve those start a discussion on that separate but similar issue.Anonrfjwhuikdzz (talk) 11:32, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose per TompaDompa and Seraphimblade. The playing field is already tilted in favor of keeping unencyclopedic, garbage content. I would rather institute a hard requirement of all page creations to include evidence of notability. (t · c) buidhe 19:14, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• :Notability isn't now, nor has it ever been, a policy.
• :To the above, the problem is that low-effort creation is often good. We improve when people identify junk and improve it. Look at the [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yellow_Star_(novel)&oldid=285523204 first] and current versions of Yellow Star (novel), my favorite GA. In contrast, low-effort nomination is sometimes OK, but each low-effort nomination is a potential near miss or incorrect deletion if the system is too overwhelmed for people to properly evaluate them. So, yes, the field is and should be tilted in favor of keeping garbage content, because garbage content, overlooking the pejorative, is what should eventually become good content. Jclemens (talk) 20:28, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::That line of reasoning discounts the possibility of such content being a net negative in its unimproved state. It could be so directly by being bad in itself and/or indirectly by inspiring the creation of additional similar content. TompaDompa (talk) 20:36, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::It doesn't discount it, so much as accept it as part of the social contract. Wikipedia is for people who are OK cleaning up other people's messes, because we're writing for fun or altruism (or surreptitiously for profit, but I digress) and the bar is intentionally set low to draw people in. Jclemens (talk) 21:15, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::{{ec}} If the content is a net-negative in its unimproved state then either improve it or, if you cannot do so, then a quality AfD nomination should easily result in a consensus that the page should be deleted. There is no justification for deletion without effort. Thryduulf (talk) 21:18, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::Wikipedia is more than 20 years old. There is a massive backlog of content that needs either improvement or deletion, and we are not equipped to handle that—AfD does not have nearly enough capacity for throughput, and editor time is stretched too thin. This is an untenable situation, the only two real options being doing something drastic to address the problem and accepting that Wikipedia will indefinitely be, on the whole, pretty bad. TompaDompa (talk) 21:26, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::If it helps, I agree with your assessment of the problem. I just don't think that we can delete our way out of the current structural challenges, and certainly not by going so fast we risk deleting things that should have been kept and improved, regardless of whether or not there is anyone around to actually do the improving. Jclemens (talk) 21:29, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::Common ground always helps. Do you have any thoughts about alternative ways to approach the problem? Or do you view the current state of affairs as the least bad option?{{pb}}As for me, I think we could delete our way out it, but only if we (1) combine it with reducing the de novo creation of bad content (at least temporarily) by increasing the threshold to do so substantially, and (2) accept a certain level of collateral damage. I know that some think that basically any level of collateral damage is unacceptable, but I don't. As an example (not particularly carefully thought out, mind you) of a drastic action that could move us in the right direction, we could move anything with an orange maintenance banner dating back at least 15 years at the top to draftspace, with a special provision that it will not get deleted for five years of inactivity (rather than the usual WP:G13 six months). That's not a suggestion (not least because I haven't taken the time to think about the drawbacks or unintended consequences of implementing it), just to be clear. TompaDompa (talk) 21:47, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::::As far as my suggestions? I'd go with semi or ECP level needed to create a new article first. Must register is such a low bar, given how much of everything else requires registration. I mean, there's some libertarian free-as-in-speech folks who will oppose that to the bitter end... but they're wrong. As far as deletions go? I really like merge/redirect as a default outcome for allegedly NN content. That is, if I say "This Magnum, P.I. episode is NN!" the default should be to redirect to the season, with both outright deletion and keeping requiring showing evidence to overcome that default action. I prefer AfD becoming a "discussion" rather than "deletion" venue, because I think a lot of content should be kept... but hidden under redirects until someone wants to come along and clean it up. Jclemens (talk) 21:54, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::::I could get behind most or all of that. TompaDompa (talk) 22:03, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::::Isn't that already the case? Since the WP:ACTRIAL in 2017, article creation has been restricted to autoconfirmed editors. jlwoodwa (talk) 22:06, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::::::Is it? I think that was one of my less active periods, and I haven't tried to create a new article in forever. Oh, well, then if autoconfirmed access is required but isn't cutting it, I support ECP level for new article creation. Jclemens (talk) 22:14, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• :I personally think we should toss WP:NEXIST out entirely; it make sense in 2005 when sourcing was a luxury, but there is no excuse in 2025 not to confirm notability when creating the article. But if we're not ready for that yet as a community, I'd be willing to compromise and say that all current page creations going forward should be held to the same standard as AfC. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 01:58, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::NEXIST applies to existing articles... you know, then ones that were created up to 20 years ago? Changing the social contract under which text was donated is, on the whole, not a good thing. Jclemens (talk) 02:31, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::I don't think it is unreasonable to hold articles from 2005 to 2025 standards if they haven't matured since. I don't see it as any more of a change of the social contract than holding an adult to stricter standards than when they were a child. TompaDompa (talk) 13:42, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::I do. Or more specifically, I do not believe it appropriate to hide or delete articles that were valid at time of creation. I suspect we fundamentally differ on this, but my solution is to incentivize maintenance and improvement editing, and never delete articles on the basis of perceived quality or guideline compliance. Changing the MOS for television show season titles is, on the whole, pretty useless compared to upleveling the episodes of random TV shows to the level of GoT or The Simpsons' coverage. Jclemens (talk) 00:08, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::I mean, the understanding has always been that once you add something to Wikipedia, it can be edited further by others—even to the point of unrecognizability—or be deleted altogether at the discretion of the community. That includes the community deciding that entire categories of articles are no longer considered valid, so I don't think deleting articles that were valid at the time of creation is a problem—that happening has always been a possibility. I would prefer improvement to deletion, but realistically speaking we already have more content than we can satisfactorily maintain to an acceptable standard. One approach would be to move inadequate but theoretically fixable articles to draftspace as "not ready for mainspace" (and perhaps "[...] and never has been") and then hold them to modern standards before they could be moved back to mainspace. TompaDompa (talk) 05:25, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::Of course... and yet, watching something you started blossom into a GA or FA through the benevolence of strangers is a much more rewarding/reinforcing feeling than watching a bunch of other random strangers call it cruftycruft and argue it should be deleted. I do believe deletionism is a serious contributor to our declining editor retention: it only inspires those who enjoy "winning" at deletion, while at the same time demoralizing our potential future contributors. Go look back at any great editor's first few contributions. Unless they're a clean start, they probably suck--I know mine did.
• ::::::Right now, draftspace is just a really long PROD. Most things that are relegated there are automagically deleted G13. Unless anyone knows to look there, they're out of sight and out of mind. I started a brand new article on a new film straight in mainspace a couple of years back even though there was a draft because it didn't even occur to me to check for one there. Thus, I prefer redirection, which leaves thing hidden but accessible, to drafting, which hides things until their near-inevitable deletion. Jclemens (talk) 05:40, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::I think it still makes a ton of sense for topics where the lions share of sigcov is more likely to be found in a language other than english. At the risk of cutting of my own nose I will submit my own article creation Dogmid Sosorbaram as an example, the only coverage in english is about him winning a prominent international lifetime achievement award... But I think we can safely assume that oodles and boobles of sigcov exist in Mongolian... But I neither speak Mongolian or have a working knowledge of their media landscape. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:25, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
• Lukewarm support conditional on the obvious carveouts for Lugnuts, Carlossuarez46 and any others who, according to community consensus, have abused the autopatrolled flag to bypass NPP. If you've spent 10-15 minutes on a reasonable search for sources before you start an article, then a full WP:BEFORE is a perfectly reasonable ask that I'm happy to work within. If you've started three articles a minute from some online database, then a full WP:BEFORE is entirely unreasonable and bureaucratic. The carveout for these editors does need to be written specifically into the new rule and not implied from it.—S Marshall T/C 01:14, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
• Weak Support - Many of the oppose !votes seem to see this as affecting, in some way, good faith nominations by experienced users or arguing that we shouldn't improve one part of the project because we haven't already fixed another part. The first doesn't appear to be the point of this proposal and the second just seems like a bad argument in general (anyone can resume working towards a proposal for that separate subject). This is intended to catch a particular type of low-effort, disruptive mass nomination. Mass nominations in general are relatively uncommon, and even if an experienced user wanted to do so in bad faith, without regard for the deletion policy, anyone with a modicum of wikisavvy would have no trouble writing a deletion which got around this CSK. As with any CSK, it only applied in extraordinary circumstances. Perhaps it would help put some folks' minds at ease if {{u|Jclemens}} offered some examples of the kinds of nominations he's talking about. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 12:53, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
• :@Rhododendrites I think you mean CSK rather than CSD? Thryduulf (talk) 15:35, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::True. Fixed. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:49, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
• : {{reply to|Rhododendrites}}
  "If {{u|Jclemens}} offered some examples of the kinds of nominations he's talking about."
  – You can find some examples here:
  • Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1176#User:Bgsu98 mass-nominating articles for deletion and violating WP:BEFORE.
  (Yes, I do understand that my behaviour there was not up to high standards. But I am not experienced in this kind of debates.) --Moscow Connection (talk) 17:10, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
• : There's more here:
  • Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Bgsu98 mass-redirecting articles about major figure skating competitions.
  (Not AfDs, but similar. And I got into trouble again. Fgs, don't reopen the thread or anything. It's already over and forgotten. I wanted to attract attention to what was happening and thought there existed a quick solution, but apparently, no one cares and those articles aren't worth saving.) --Moscow Connection (talk) 17:10, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
• Strong support. Wikipedia was supposed to be a collaborative project where people write articles together. Now, there are people who think there are some kind of "forest cleaners". They want to delete as many articles as possible with as little effort as possible. They don't care to do a WP:BEFORE search and to write a proper deletion rationale. And moreover, they try to overall discourage any attempts to actually improve the articles that they have decided have to be deleted, appearing at their own AfDs just to quickly reject sources other people find. There should be a rule against this kind of behaviour, along the lines of "If you don't care to try and improve the article, then we, too, aren't obliged to do that" or "Since you haven't put any effort in writing a proper rationale, we aren't obliged to discuss your proposal and can dismiss it outright." --Moscow Connection (talk) 16:00, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose per FOARP. Anyone is still welcome to call for a keep if there is justification to keep the article. Nominators should bundle AFD articles where appropriate and respect !voters time in having to review multiple articles, but this proposal is unnecessary and seems to give priority to lazy editors who write very short and poorly sourced articles. It's not everyone else's job to write articles or do the BEFORE for you; it's crazy what the community burden is to have multiple people participate in an AFD compared to the negligible research some people have put into mass-creating uninformative or non-notable articles. Reywas92^Talk 16:20, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• Strong oppose, and I'm baffled as to why this is gaining traction. 1) This is unnecessary. The extant speedy keep criteria 1 & 3 cover nominations that lack a deletion rationale. 2) Mass deletion nominations are often (not always, but often) a response to mass creations that were not individually determined to be notable. I oppose any blanket restriction on mass nominations until, for instance, the LUGSTUBS are dealt with, and there are other situations where mass nominations are quite justified. 3) Where the mass nominations are not justified, or are an overreach, they are usually part of a behavioral issue that requires a direct response, and specifically, a user making mass nominations not founded in PAGs should be sanctioned for it. Tweaking speedy keep criteria to allow procedural closure is a waste of electrons. 4) WP:BEFORE is usually implicit. I always search for sources before nominating an article, but I rarely say as much in as many words. This would be rule creep of the worst kind, allowing procedural stonewalling of valid nominations without materially impacting our ability to handle invalid nominations. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:28, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• :1) It's perceived to be necessary in good faith by some of your peers. In fact "not notable" as the sole substantive content of a deletion statement does not meet criterion 1 at all, and the entire notability issue needs to be researched and presented for criterion 3 to make sense to other participants, and, even so, AfDs being prematurely closed on the basis of a correctly argued SK rationale is not a common occurrence in my experience.
• :2) I'm not seeing this, either. I see people decide to nominate a bunch of different articles within a greater topic area with difrering notability footprints. I agree better characterization and data could help us here.
• :3) Absolutely agreed. Unfortunately, my experience is that people who haven't dealt extensively with the behavioral issues are often willing to give disruptive editors the benefit of the doubt, for example, excusing the lack of BEFORE because an article on a fictional topic lacks appropriate sourcing and has too much PLOT--this is by far the most common time I see a missing BEFORE, whether singleton or mass nominations.
• :4) I can't pick up where an implicit BEFORE left off. You're a known, trustworthy nominator, of course, so I would assume the basics and start on the more esoteric things like Google Scholar... but again, problematic nominations tend to come from people who don't know the system well. This is a sort of perverse outcome, where the people who least need to document a BEFORE search are the most likely to have done so.
• :I look forward to your further insights here. Jclemens (talk) 17:07, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

::{{ping|Vanamonde93}} - {{tq|"I'm baffled as to why this is gaining traction."}} - it's explicable by the non-neutral framing of the question here. I mean, who can possibly object to preventing {{tq|"low effort"}} nominations? But reality what they are talking about are any nominations that don't include an explicit explanation of the WP:BEFORE work that was done - i.e., making WP:BEFORE mandatory. FOARP (talk) 10:41, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

• Support I don't think any of the opposes are actually opposing this. This is a way of preventing specific disruption. It's not a loophole to keep the LUGSTUBS, or to prevent any editor from doing a mass nomination, but a way of allowing us from preventing disruption before it happens and protecting valid articles from spurious or incomplete nominations. I will admit it may need a little more wording. SportingFlyer T·C 19:59, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• :I fully agree. I see a lot slippery-slope arguments about situations that are explicitly not included in this proposed rule; hoping a closer can weigh those accordingly. The real problem, as described by OwenX above [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Speedy_keep#c-OwenX-20250422202600-Vanamonde93-20250422170100], is that mass nominations consisting solely of "not notable" don't fall under any speedy keep criterium, despite being widely seen as disruptive. Toadspike [Talk] 09:05, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::I would note that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kobolediator does not {{tq|articulat[e] any pre-nomination research consistent with WP:BEFORE}}, but was closed early as delete per WP:SNOW. Had there been an additional four such nominations by that editor within 24 hours, this proposal would make them all eligible for a speedy keep closure. That's a situation that is explicitly included in this proposed rule. TompaDompa (talk) 15:14, 23 April 2025 (UTC)