Archive:The Big Speedydelete

The Big Speedydelete is in operation as of February 17, 2007! You can help! Please read this entire page if you wish to participate.

Why the Big Speedydelete?

When we did the big delete in January, we were left with bunches of articles that were from Wikipedia, tagged for example with Category:Philosophy Workgroup (Top), but otherwise completely untouched. There are also articles that someone made a tiny spelling correction to back in November, and which have never been touched since. There are articles marked "CZ Live" by someone who just happened to think he'd work on it--two months ago--and then never did, and otherwise is just a copy of a Wikipedia article. These articles are diluting the database, so they should be deleted--especially since we can always upload the latest Wikipedia version. There is other "cruft," e.g., from vandals, that is cluttering the article database. This also needs to be deleted.

The result will be a more honest representation of what we've done. Also, if we do a good job with this deletion, we can then remove "CZ Live" tags from our active articles, because all articles that are in our database will be CZ Live!

Don't bother trying to clean up articles as you go through them (unless you really, really want to). We'll probably do a Big Cleanup next.

Overview

Basically, we'll have anyone--authors or editors--signing up to tag articles with the {{speedydelete}} template. They'll be able to sign up for individual letters of the alphabet. For example, if I sign up for the "X" articles, I am committing to tagging the articles that begin with "X".

When tagging work is finished, constables will look at just the articles tagged with the template, briefly confirm that the article is deletable, and delete it.

If any article is inadvertantly and incorrectly deleted, it can be restored. Simply ask a constable to restore it; you can write to constables@citizendium.org.

Sign up sheet

Authors and editors can sign up as "markers" to mark articles as deletable, while constables can sign up as "deleters" to actually do the deletion. If a constable wants to mark and delete at the same time, he/she should sign up in both categories (for a given letter). Your putting your name after a letter means that you take responsibility for all the articles that begin with that letter.
To sign up, simply click here and place ~~~ in the appropriate place. You then take responsibility for that whole letter! If you need help, let somebody know--use the talk page.
A Marker: Larry Sanger Done? Constable/deleter: Larry Sanger Done? B Marker: Done? Constable/deleter: Done? C Marker: James F. Perry Done? Constable/deleter: Done? D Marker: Done? Constable/deleter: Done? E Marker: Stephen Ewen Done? Yes. Constable/deleter: Matt Innis (Talk) Done? Yes! F Marker:--Versuri Done? Yes Constable/deleter: Done? G Marker: Done? Constable/deleter: Done? H Marker: Done? Constable/deleter: Done? I Marker: Done? Constable/deleter: Done? J Marker: Done? Constable/deleter: Done? K Marker: Larry Sanger Done? Yes! Constable/deleter: Larry Sanger Done? Yes! L Marker: Done? Constable/deleter: Done? M Marker: Simen Rustad Done? Constable/deleter: Done?	N Marker: Done? Constable/deleter: Done? O Marker: Done? Constable/deleter: Done? P Marker: Done? Constable/deleter: Done? Q Marker: Todd Trimble Done? Yes Constable/deleter: Matt Innis (Talk) Done? Yes R Marker: Done? Constable/deleter: Done? S Marker: Simon Yee Done? Yes Constable/deleter: Sarah Tuttle Done? T Marker: David Ellis Done? Yes Constable/deleter: David Tribe Done? U Marker: Paul James Cowie Done? Yes Constable/deleter: Done? V Marker: --Versuri Done? Yes Constable/deleter: Sarah Tuttle Done? Yes W Marker: Paul James Cowie Done? Yes Constable/deleter: Sarah Tuttle Done? Yes X Marker: Larry Sanger Done? Yes! Constable/deleter: Matt Innis (Talk) Done? Yes! Y Marker: --Versuri Done? Yes Constable/deleter: Matt Innis (Talk) Done? Yes! Z Marker: Alexander Wiebel Done? Yes! Constable/deleter: Matt Innis (Talk) Done? Yes!

All other articles, if any
Marker: Larry Sanger
Done? Yes!
Constable/deleter: Larry Sanger
Done? Yes!

Instructions for markers

To find the articles, in your letter of the alphabet, simply go to Special:Allpages, and type in the letter of the alphabet you've volunteer to handle.

To mark an article for deletion, simply place {{speedydelete|Big Speedydelete|~~~~}} at the top line of the article (before anything else on the page). "Big Speedydelete" means that you're marking it for the general reasons we're giving for the Big Speedydelete (see just below). The ~~~~ code signs your name and date. It's as simple as that.

For a shortcut, use {{bsd|~~~~}}.

When you're done with a given letter, be sure to write "Yes" after "Done?" in the table above.

But which articles to mark?

Generally, mark articles deletable by constables acting on their own recognizance. See that page for the canonical list of types of deletable articles. This means, generally speaking, that we'll be tagging and/or deleting these articles:

• Wikipedia-sourced articles that nobody ever really worked on
• blanked pages
• really, really short articles
• pages that are really obviously worthless (e.g., vandalism)
• copyright violations

But see "Important Notes" below!

How can you tell whether an article fits one of these categories?

• Wikipedia-sourced articles that nobody ever really worked on: you'll probably be able to tell, just by looking, whether a page comes from Wikipedia and hasn't been worked on much. If it's longish, not marked "CZ Live," and particularly if it has Wikipedia-style templates and categories, then it probably comes from Wikipedia and hasn't been worked on much. But you must check the page history! There's no substitute for doing that. Compare the first and the most recent entries in the history, if necessary. If there have been only one or two edits, which were very minor (e.g., adding or deleting categories), tag it for deletion. That goes for articles marked "CZ Live" that have had no edits in the past week and only a few trivial edits, period. People can re-upload the articles from WP if they want to work on them.
• blanked pages: check the page history just in case the page was somehow inadvertantly blanked; mark it for deletion if someone blanked it because they wanted to start over on a Wikipedia article that hasn't been changed significantly
• really, really short articles: it consists of two sentences or less, or 50 words or less, which have been left on the wiki for more than two hours. Exception: see Note 4 above.
• pages that are really obviously worthless (e.g., vandalism): this is a "know it when you see it" kind of thing; the page's worthlessness must be something of the sort you can't imagine other good-faith, competent contributors disagreeing about (so, Ori, this isn't a blank check :-) )
• copyright violations: don't bother checking for this now

Important Notes (Please Read!)

• All articles that are not marked for speedy deletion should be articles that we would mark "CZ Live"...if we weren't going to get rid of that tag, that is! In other words, after The Big Speedydelete, we'll be left with just live articles, whether they are marked "CZ Live" or not. There are some exceptions; see below.

• This is not an opportunity for you to exercise your editorial judgment. These deletions are just the ones that are easy for us to delete. Articles the deletion of which would require editorial approval are not candidates for speedy deletion.

• Don't delete the many snake articles and their redirection pages.

• Don't delete recently created CZ placeholder articles (usually just a title), created to "de-orphan" an article.

• Don't delete articles sourced from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica; we haven't decided what to do with these yet.

Don't bother adding "CZ Live" to active articles

One sign that an article can be deleted is that it is not marked "CZ Live." We'll be deleting the vast majority of articles not so marked. But some of them we'll keep. If you discover an article that people have worked on a significant amount, don't bother marking it "[[Category:CZ Live]]". We will be automatically removing all "CZ Live" tags once we're satisfied that all articles in the database really are "CZ Live."

Should we delete any "CZ Live"-marked articles?

In short, we should delete even "CZ Live"-marked articles if they meet one of the above criteria. E.g., a Wikipedia article that someone marked "CZ Live" a few months ago, which has not been changed since. Or 30-word stubs marked "CZ Live" that have been there for a few weeks: if a person really wants to write an article on a subject, it's no big deal to write the 30 words again. We don't mind relatively short articles ("stubs") to begin with, but we have to draw the line somewhere!

Deletion instructions for constables

To find the articles you've signed up to delete, simply go to Category:Speedy Deletion Requests.

Don't bother deleting a set of articles until the marker has marked "Yes" after "Done?" above.

To delete an article, press the "delete" tab. If you are deleting articles that were marked for speedy deletion, do not bother supplying a reason beyond what is automatically supplied by the software (it will say something like "speedydelete...").

If, however, you have taken responsibility for both marking and deleting articles, you need not tag them before deleting them--unless you just want to work that way, and delete them all one after another later. If you decide to delete them as you go through the list, then write "Big Speedydelete" in the reason field. (Later, after we're done, this won't be a sufficient reason!)

When deleting articles that were marked for speedy deletion by someone else, please look at the article first to get an idea of why it was deleted. Moreover, do an "audit" of every fifth or tenth article, to make sure that they are indeed marked correctly. Indeed, audit the first ten or twenty articles that you do, just to persuade yourself that the person who did the tagging did it correctly. When in doubt, always refer to CZ:Article Deletion Policy; if still in doubt, write the constable list.

NOTE: if you're looking at an "on wheels"-type page, make sure there isn't anything interesting in the page history before you delete it. It's possible that no one ever moved it back to its proper page! If so, move it immediately. Then delete the "on wheels" (or whatever) page the vandal created.

When you're done with a letter, be sure to write your own "Yes" after "Done?" in the table above.