Wikipedia talk:Proposed draftspace deletion

This is based on the consensus formed after Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_128#RfC:_Proposed_draftspace_deletion. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:27, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Discussion on this proposal is occurring at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Wikipedia:Proposed_draftspace_deletion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SmokeyJoe (talk • contribs) 08:12, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Concern requirement

Diego Moya On what basis are you requiring a separate concern criteria to be proposed? That wasn't a requirement in the prior RFC. Besides, the concern criteria would be basically the same as G13: it's a draft that doesn't seem plausible that hasn't been edited in six (well seven) months. These aren't articles. What more is needed? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 16:04, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Well, it is a requirement now if you want my support for this version of the policy proposal. A rough consensus at an RfC does not shape the exact procedure to put in place, in special when there are so many concerns listed at its closure.

G13 is a criterion that was created in the context of the AfC, it never made sense to apply it as is to draft articles that originated by different processes and it wouldn't make sense to apply it unmodified to a new context. Precisely because drafts are not articles in mainspace, content policies have less strength there; there are less reasons to remove content in them. You'll have to get consensus for the details of the procedure you wish to establish as policy, and the concerns that the admin acknowledged in the RfC closure are still relevant for coordinating such details. Diego (talk) 17:14, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Actually, I see your point now. I didn't think of it that way. I'll revert and add that in. I forget that I do a lot of the same thing for AFC drafts with AFC comments and this makes the same sense. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:11, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Amazingly enough

I suggest that rather than allow "six months = stale" as an article of faith, that we simply follow past policy - that any draft which violates core policies regarding NPOV, BLP, and the like not need to be "stale" and that articles in draftspace which are not asserted in any way to violate Wikipedia policies governing article not be constrained by any arbitrary "sell-by" date. Thus leaving this new system to be only applicable to draft articles which meet the current criteria for MfD in the first place. Collect (talk) 22:53, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Except that past policy, based on the hundreds of deletions at MFD for drafts that have not been edited for some unsettled time period and do not seem to be of "good quality" (or whatever vague term people want to use), is for deletion. It's not like this is the first time anyone has ever suggested a poor draft be deleted. Like prod in mainspace, I'm trying to see if there's a way we can evaluate and have this done via a more simple review than a full MFD discussion. These MFD discussions are basically "hey this doesn't seem like anything and it hasn't been edited in a while, does anything think it's worth keeping?" so why go through the whole formality of an MFD page, the MFD log and the MFD close when it's fairly benign. AFC at least has a category and a simple process for extending it. The other proposals are some massive sorting scheme that seems to tag drafts without any acknowledgement that some drafts are in fact hopeless and being hopeless after a year is not going to get better if we wait another two years and pile up hundreds of hopeless drafts together. The age is merely a factor but that clearly didn't come off well. - Ricky81682 (talk) 15:47, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Look, I'm not an idiot. A page like Draft:Ramona Barnes that hasn't been edited in over two years would obviously be subject to this proposal and would also be subject to MFD but in both cases, it's obviously a person who's notable. The issue is the clear-cut cases and trying to find a process that's more efficient than merely taking up MFD and having people oppose because they want things there indefinitely no matter what. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 15:55, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Basic logical fault

This will never work, because if a near-complete and obviously salvageable draft has gone stale, it's usually because the editor responsible for it has become inactive. Since no one else is likely to be watching the page, any "draft-prod" will go unchallenged. Ergo, this is just license to kill drafts at will as long as they're just barely older than some arbitrary deletionist deadline. WP is not going to run out of disk space. Drafts should be kept for other editors' development (even if takes 10 years), or removed as junk, on the basis of whether they're salvageable or not.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:21, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: The same arguments could also apply to G13. G13 doesn't even require human interaction until the deletion occurs, it's literally an automated system that lists a page for deletion if there's no editing for at least six months. This is the same as opposing prod overall because no one is yet watching a non-existent set of proposed pages for deletion. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 18:43, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

I see a major difference. AfC is used primarily by noobs, and the quality is often severely poor. AfC is a process by which we try to coach people into a) demonstrating that a topic is actually encyclopedic, and b) writing about it encyclopedically. The average AfC candidate fails the first test, and the AfC user does not make it through the learning curve of the second. The result is that the vast majority of AfC submissions that are abandoned (probably the majority of AfC submissions, total) are crap, and should be deleted. Draft space is used by everyone, though, and often contains proper topics with properly sourced material in development. These should not be deleted. Only the total crap ones, the unsalvageable stuff that is on par with abandoned AfC material no one has touched in 6 months, should be deleted. And, no, it is not the same as opposing prod generally; many prods are challenged, leading either to improvements or to AfD if there's no improvements, because they pages often are being watched by active editors, both because people were working on them who often have not left yet, or just by virtue of being in mainspace. At any rate, the nature of this "kill it all with fire if it's not perfect yet" deletionism is why I keep my drafts in my userspace. When I'm done with one, the result looks much like William A. Spinks, which emerged in near-GA quality, and is now a GA (after I bothered to take it to GAN, which I forgot about for years) with very little additional work. When I've felt rushed to mainspace something, the result is more like Folgerphone, which no one else has tried to improve in years. The days of WP being populated by a million casual editors randomly improving obscure stubs is long over; proper article development takes focused work.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:08, 20 July 2016 (UTC)