Forum:Massive deletion - discussion

This is a discussion on the ongoing mass deletion preparation and eventual execution, as approved here.

Preparation guidelines
Starting today and ending on Thursday, May 28, 2009, any user who is interested will use the Special:Random feature (also shown as the “Random page” button) to look for articles that fail the Manual of Style and encyclopedic standards. So how do we determine if an article gets deleted? Basically, it needs to fail a significant amount of MOS standards. If an article just has a few spelling errors here and there, then it wouldn’t be deleted. That’s just absurd. I’m talking things like, well, this. No offense to the author, but it’s filled with POV errors, grammar errors, spelling errors and every error you can possibly think of. It comes down to spelling, grammar, POV, structure, formatting, etc. Basically, take storyline out of the mix, and what you have left is whether or not something fits encyclopedic standards and the standards of the Manual of Style and other relevant policies.

Depending on what the issue(s) is/are, the users will tag the article with the MassDelete template. HOWEVER, other tags would need to be added as well. Tags would be things such as:


 * CleanUp
 * Fanonify
 * NPOV
 * Intro
 * Onlyinfobox
 * Tense

I’m sure there are more that I’m forgetting, since those are just off the top of my head, but I trust that you get the idea. Anyway, once MassDelete and one or more of those tags is put onto an article (this is to tell the author what's wrong with it), it’s subject to deletion. If someone objects to the tagging of the article, they can contact the person who tagged it and they can work it out together. They can call in a neutral administrator to help them decide whether it remains tagged or if it becomes untagged.


 * CAVEAT: If you come across an article that clearly seems to have had a lot of effort put into it but still has issues with spelling, grammar and the like, I strongly suggest that you help to clean some of that up. Please use common sense and proper discretion - this mass deletion is for epic failures, not things that have a few issues here and there.

After this one month process is over, we would put out a general wiki-wide announcement saying that authors of all tagged articles have TWO MONTHS to correct the issues in their articles. I'll post a reminder about the process for that once we get there. - Brandon Rhea (talk) (contribs) 21:04, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Discussion
Please use this space for any discussion regarding the ongoing tagging of articles for the massive deletion. - Brandon Rhea (talk) (contribs) 21:05, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Quick question: Do two sentence stubs fall into the MASS DELETION category. I personally think they should. Please let me know.- JEDIMASTERAUST [[Image:Jedimasteraustsigpic.jpg|25px]] ( Boardroom ) ( Community Service ) 22:13, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

As I said in the previous thread, no. There is nothing wrong with stub articles. Even Wikipedia has them. - Brandon Rhea (talk) (contribs) 22:29, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Gotcha-- JEDIMASTERAUST [[Image:Jedimasteraustsigpic.jpg|25px]] ( Boardroom ) ( Community Service ) 23:09, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

If for example, one of our articles gets tagged, if we fix it up, can we remove the tag, or does the original placer of the tag have to?-- Nightmare 975 08:10, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Curious... While I try to concentrate most of my tagging on articles with cleanup tags and the like, I've seen a couple of articles get tagged for being so facepalmingly stupid that reading it caused brain damage. Do article in which the storyline is brain-damaging fall into the Mass Delete category? If not... I may have a couple of articles to revert...  Trak Nar  Ramble on 08:22, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Are they a joke? Place the template instead.-- Nightmare 975 08:28, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I made it very clear in my proposal that we can't tag articles on the basis of storyline because the quality of the storyline is subjective. - Brandon Rhea (talk) (contribs) 12:08, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Guess I got a tad carried away then. Time to revert Darth Sylar and peruse the hidden category of articles that need to be cleaned up/fanonified for things to tag...  Trak Nar  Ramble on 04:19, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

If you want my advice, tag anything that's in the POV/cleanup/fanonify/tense categories. Anything that's in there is likely to have been there for a long time, so the authors clearly have no intention of cleaning them up and/or they need a good kick in the butt from the mass delete tag to do it. - Brandon Rhea (talk) (contribs) 13:34, 30 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I say delete nothing because I will improve on my pages and transform them into better pages that there will be no more of that annoying Mass Delete template.(Babylon 8 (Talk) 23:02, 30 April 2009 (UTC))

We will review your articles, Babylon, after the tagging period and improvement period is over and underway, respectively, but not before. As I told you on your talk page, just be patient and don't be so worried about your articles. - Brandon Rhea <font color="#1A2BBB">(talk) <font color="#1A2BBB">(contribs) 03:22, 1 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry but I have to worry about articles with a mass delete template because mass delete might means termination to the pages.(Babylon 8 (Talk) 16:49, 1 May 2009 (UTC))

Yeah.... potentially three months from now. - <font color="#1A2BBB">Brandon Rhea <font color="#1A2BBB">(talk) <font color="#1A2BBB">(contribs) 16:52, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Hey how come we have a mass deletion page and template in the first place? You only built it here to delete pages that still needs some improvements.(Babylon 8 (Talk) 19:57, 1 May 2009 (UTC))
 * The reason can be found here. Drewton  [[Image:Era-old.png|20px]] ( Drewton's Holocron ) 20:01, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

No, Babylon, we created it to delete garbage. There are thousands and thousands of articles on this wiki that qualify as "garbage". If you want to go somewhere that will let you write articles that utterly fail in encyclopedic standards, go somewhere else. I'm sorry, but that's the only option now. These are our policies and we are going to enforce them. - <font color="#1A2BBB">Brandon Rhea <font color="#1A2BBB">(talk) <font color="#1A2BBB">(contribs) 20:11, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

My articles are not garbage they just need improvements.(Babylon 8 (Talk) 20:12, 1 May 2009 (UTC))


 * Well they're garbage until you improve them. - <font color="#1A2BBB">Brandon Rhea <font color="#1A2BBB">(talk) <font color="#1A2BBB">(contribs) 20:14, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I thought this is a fanon wiki that accepts everything that is star wars fanon including darth grievous and undead?(Babylon 8 (Talk) 21:18, 2 May 2009 (UTC))


 * Those are perfectly acceptable, but the article doesn't fit the Manual of Style. Therefore, it must be deleted. Sorry to sound rude, but have you even bothered to read the Layout Guide and Manual of Style? If you don't want your articles deleted, then I suggest you read them. --JediCommando (Talk) 21:22, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Seriously dude, JediCommando has it right. Stop complaining, go read, and let the improvement commence. Otherwise, in three months, our Death Star will blow your Alderaan into oblivion. –<font color="#c00">Victor  [[Image:Redstarbird.svg|15px|link=Category:Articles by Victor Dorantes]] ( talk page ) 05:51, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Okay first of all the manuel of style guide is there for a pointless reason because I can't understand what it says. Second I know that adding things to pages will change Garbage pages into better pages and third I did not graduate college. Therefore I am not a good writter and you might as well delete those pages and so I can recreate them as stub pages. Also whos paying the admins?(Babylon 8 (Talk) 08:40, 3 May 2009 (UTC)) Per Wayne entirely. From what Wayne's told me, I don't believe he went to college, and he's one of the best writers we have here. Perfect example. Secondly, no one pays us. This wiki is entirely voluntary, as Wayne says also. Thirdly, you can complain about what we're doing but it's still going to happen, so you might want to get to work fixing your articles and use this page solely to ask for help or any real questions you have. :) -- <font color="#000001">(talk) <font color="#000001">(contributions) 16:22, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Why don't you spend time cleaning up your articles instead of complaining? Plenty of people didn't graduate college, or even attend, so that argument about you not graduating is seriously weak.  One only needs to apply ones self.  Seriously, take a look at one of the many other articles that are present here to learn how one should be properly formatted.  It's not overly difficult.  And nobody is paying us, we do it out of the kindness of our hearts. :) --  CurrentBigThing  ( Speak ) 10:33, 3 May 2009 (UTC)


 * And also, adding more crap won't change anything. All you're going to do is add more stuff that fails our policies because you have no idea what you're doing. The MOS is not there for a pointless reason. It's very simple to understand if you read it and decide to apply yourself. I'm going to say "per the others" and tell you to stop whining, suck it up and go fix your articles. If you're not going to do that, *points over there >* then there's the door. - <font color="#1A2BBB">Brandon Rhea <font color="#1A2BBB">(talk) <font color="#1A2BBB">(contribs) 17:22, 3 May 2009 (UTC)