User:Balloonman/CSD A7 survey


The CSD criteria have been written to tightly define what does and does not qualify for speedy deletion. This is done to ensure that only those articles where clear consensus for deletion exists will be speedily deleted. The criteria are strict because careless or hasty speedy deleter's can do just as much, if not more damage to the project than vandals. Poor quality CSD'ers can chase off quality editors by inappropriately deleting their articles. This can be frustrating to a newbie editor and can tarnish Wikipedia's image. Per the policy, Where reasonable doubt exists, discussion using another method under the deletion policy should occur instead.

WP:CSD

An article about a real person, organization (band, club, company, etc.), or web content that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. This is distinct from questions of verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability. A7 applies only to articles about web content or articles on people and organizations themselves, not articles on their books, albums, software and so on. Other article types, including school articles, are not eligible for deletion by this criterion. If controversial, as with schools, list the article at articles for deletion instead.

When looking at CSD A7, I try to remember this: Articles about people or groups can be fairly personal. If an article is written in a manner that attempts to be NPOV or asserts any sort of notability, regardless of how weak, I prefer to send the article for PROD/AFD. This gives the author the chance to save the article. Even if the article doesn't meet current expectations for WP:BIO, I prefer giving the author a chance to demonstrate notability. Keeping an article of this type for 5 days will not hurt the encyclopedia, and if the author can assert notability, we might end up better off in the end. Furthermore, I think A7 is the place where newbies are bitten the most. They start an article on a subject they believe to be notable, save it, and before getting a chance to make another edit, the article is speedily deleted.

The problem with A7, is that it allows CSD'ers and Admins to delete A7 articles before the author has a chance to develop them. Most of the criteria for CSD deals with obvious cases where CSD is clearly appropriate and producing a viable article is unlikely--- vandalism, nonsense, gibberish, attack pages, no content, no context, etc---A7 allows for the deletion of an article as it is developing. Many people do not know to write articles in their user space, and thus will save articles in the mainspace---which is then tagged for deletion.

During my review of 20 articles, I found 2 (10%) that I felt should have been PRODDED as compared to speedied and 1 (5%) that was incorrectly deleted per A7 (but could have been deleted under 2 other criteria.)