Wikivoyage talk:Votes for deletion/Archive 2018-2019

Past events
We have a whole category Category:Past events of articles on events that have occurred. As a travel guide, do we need to keep articles on past Olympic Games and world cups? These articles appropriately focus on things like how to get tickets, what is happening when, and transportation during the events. Seems of silly to me. Wikivoyage is not an encyclopedia. Wikipedia had much better articles on past events than we do. Ground Zero (talk) 22:11, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * For the moment I think that it is worth keeping these. They are useful for reference when creating an article for a new event, and there are not that many of any one type of event - e.g. 3 summer and 2 winter Olympics. I think that we might copy some text from Beijing 2008 to Beijing 2022. As the titles include the date, it is obvious to readers that it is about a past event. AlasdairW (talk) 22:26, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Sure, but they could be moved out of mainspace and put into safekeeping somewhere. Also, maybe it would be an idea to write an Event article template? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 22:57, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree with moving them out of mainspace at least. Until time travel is invented, these articles can't be used by a traveller. Gizza ( roam ) 23:26, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't object to moving them, but it seems unnecessary work. Although the articles can't be directly used by a traveller, in many cases the venues built for the event remain, and a traveller visiting them may be interested in what happened there. For example, somebody visiting the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London/East might be interested in reading about London 2012. AlasdairW (talk) 00:00, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I would agree with moving them. They are largely written in the future tense, not in the past tense. I don't think it is a good use of time to set about rewriting them for the sake of preserving history. The Olympic site should be covered in London/East with a link to the Wikipedia article, which tells a much better story about the Olympic Games, and which doesn't tell you how to get tickets. 5½ years after the games, the London 2012 article begins:
 * "The Games of the XXX Olympiad, the Summer Olympic Games of 2012, will based in London, with selected events held throughout the United Kingdom. The official 16 days of the games will be July 27 through August 12, though some events will begin to occur before the official opening ceremonies."
 * If we want our site to look out of date and irrelevant, we would keep these articles in plain view. I don't think we do. Ground Zero (talk) 00:16, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
 * The only change I would suggest would be to add "Archive" or "Archived" in the title of such articles. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:21, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
 * That would help if they otherwise turn up in the search box. I think a historical or some such at the top would be good for those actually visiting the article, making their status obvious. I think there is no problem keeping such clearly marked articles, and keeping history and examples on how to do things is valuable. Moving them out of main space is cumbersome and no real use. --LPfi (talk) 07:08, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
 * These articles have the CompletedEvent template which adds a box at the top of the article "This event has closed and is no longer open to the public.", and adds it to the category. I think that this does make the status fairly clear, but maybe it could be in bold or a bigger font. AlasdairW (talk) 16:41, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
 * We should handle these in the same manner as the rest of our joke articles. Joke articles/Time travel is in project space, Past events/London 2012 games could certainly join it there, as an archive. K7L (talk) 13:15, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I second that idea. ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 16:04, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I am ok with that. There are a few links to update, mainly between these events, or from the similar events which are yet to happen. AlasdairW (talk) 16:41, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

"Right at the very top, before everything else."
This text is on the VfD page and was probably written before page banners were designed to come "before everything else". Should we change this text on the VfD page slightly to make it clear that even if you put the VfD tag at the beginning of the source, the banner will still show above the VfD on the article that is going to be deleted? Also, I'd like to mention that there are two new VfD's that I've nominated that no one else has voted on yet, so if you want to vote on them, feel free to do so. Selfie City (talk) 23:23, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Archive?
Is there a limit to how long discussions can be? This page is so long that it seems wise to archive some of it, possibly 2006-2013. Selfie City (talk) 02:21, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Great idea. No-one will complain. Ground Zero (talk) 02:23, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I've done it. Selfie City (talk) 02:44, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
 * And expanded archive to three pages. Selfie City (talk) 03:00, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
 * And now four. Selfie City (talk) 14:31, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

User:CommonsDelinker tagged for speedy deletion
User:CommonsDelinker has been tagged for speedy deletion since May 2018. Nuthin speedy happening. The given reason is: "show global user page". Does anyone understand what is supposed to happen? Or should we ask User:Billinghurst, who tagged it? Nurg (talk) 09:49, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Once the page is deleted, the software will automatically display the content at meta:User:CommonsDelinker instead. This feature is useful because it makes it much easier for the user to maintain user pages across a bunch of different wikis (see mw:Help:Extension:GlobalUserPage for more information if you're curious). Deleting the user page as requested should resolve the situation. (Don't delete the user talk page, though!) —Granger (talk · contribs) 14:47, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I deleted the page. CommonsDelinker is a useful bot that operates centrally throughout all Wikimedia projects, so its info page ("user page") should definitely come from Meta. --Alexander (talk) 17:54, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Recommending brevity in VFD voting
I think this idea of TT's is a good one. Shorter vfd discussions would be easier to follow, and therefore I think we should recommend brevity somewhere on the vfd page. Short comments are much better than long ones, especially in the case of a vfd. People don't always have time to read a five-paragraph essay about "why this travel topic should be deleted". I don't think we should force upon people a character limit or anything like that, though. --Comment by Selfie City  (talk about my contributions ) 23:06, 21 October 2018 (UTC) I think the recommendation not to let vandals take up too much of our time may or may not have merit, but it should be seen separate from advocating censorship of length for any kind of policy or vfd discussion. Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:36, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yep - Usr:GZ, 21 Oct 2018
 * I'm inclined to oppose, because I see no reason why discussions have to be briefer here than on any other talk page. Can you give a reason why brevity is particularly relevant here? Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:43, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, to be honest, my recommended brevity was specifically for dealing with pages created by vandals. I don't think that these discussion in general need to be shortened. Your argument for brevity could be applied to pretty much any discussion page on here. If people don't have the time to participate, they shouldn't feel obliged to do so. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:16, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, there are some contributions who, as the Americans would say, filibuster some discussions, which excludes those who aren't willing to spend the time wading through long, convoluted arguments. (I'm not referring to any of the people above.) This is not specific to VFD, though. Ground Zero (talk) 19:39, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
 * No need to bring Nicaragua's worst "President" into this... Hobbitschuster (talk) 19:44, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Just wanted to clarify, in case anyone misunderstood, that I was referring to the "project page" as the above menunlink says rather than this talk page. --Comment by Selfie City  (talk about my contributions ) 00:27, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Unlisted VfD
Back in February, Thessaloniki (region) was tagged for VfD by User:DocWoKav but it's not listed here. One oppose was noted in the talk page. The VfD tag is still in the article a month later. Can we get it out of the limbo? OhanaUnitedTalk page 02:24, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Just remove the tag. We don't delete real places, and especially not elements of a regional breakdown hierarchy. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 02:39, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Done. OhanaUnitedTalk page 03:08, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's the right decision. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 14:14, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Nomination to turn "don't delete real places" standard into policy
This just came up again at VFD, and it seems to me that we could save quite a lot of time if we added to policy that real places cannot be deleted, only redirected or merged. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 22:46, 14 March 2019 (UTC)


 * That is policy. We make an exception for page creation vandalism, but otherwise, it's been policy since long before I was first editing here as an IP user, I think, and that takes it back to 2006 or earlier. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:27, 14 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Is there a policy page that includes it, though? --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 01:22, 15 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I don't know. I didn't see anything conclusive at wiaa or How to redirect a page. But I think it's most relevant in the introduction to the vfd page, because this relates not to creating redirects from scratch but turning articles that don't meet wiaa into redirects instead of nominating them at vfd. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:40, 15 March 2019 (UTC)


 * It's just that, I think we should make it very clear if we're going to hold to this viewpoint strongly. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 13:49, 15 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I have to agree. It's surprising this policy has never been clearly written down. It should be in the introduction to vfd. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:10, 15 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Whaaaat, isn't this written out anywhere? Policies should always be written down at a place people can logically expect to find them, otherwise they can't be called policies.  ϒψιλον  (talk ) 21:25, 15 March 2019 (UTC)


 * This discussion seems to have died out. I'm going to start one at Wikivoyage talk:Votes for deletion and link this thread. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:05, 31 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Please continue this discussion at Wikivoyage talk:Votes for deletion. Both the policy itself and the phrasing of the text to be added are at issue. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:12, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Add "Don't delete real places" policy to the intro to Vfd
There was no disagreement with this idea at Travellers' pub. I think that since this policy is really only relevant to Vfd, it should be in the introduction.

First of all, does anyone disagree with this longstanding but not clearly written-out policy? If so, why, and what would you propose instead?

Second, what wording is best? I'll propose a draft, and I very much welcome for anyone to tweak it:

''Wikivoyage policy is not to delete articles or redirects about real places, unless they were clearly added as page creation vandalism. In any other situation, if the real place in question doesn't meet the tests at What is an article?, it should be merged with the most appropriate existing article, if warranted, and turned into a redirect.''

Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:11, 31 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I agree with the above. But I think we might as well just say, "Don't nominate for deletion articles or redirects about real places, unless..." But I think your draft is fine. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 01:52, 31 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I thought of something to add: These guidelines are for populated communities, islands and the like. For policies on articles about attractions, see What is an article?. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:00, 31 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Sorry, where would you add that? vfd? --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 02:30, 31 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Yes. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:50, 31 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I agree with the policy as it's currently applied, though I guess there's a question of how fine-grained a "populated community" or "island" can be. I used to live near an uninhabited river island, which was a nice place for a walk, but isn't mentioned in the relevant city article. If someone created an article about that little island, I think deletion rather than redirection would be appropriate. The same might be said for small neighborhoods in lesser-known cities, or obscure administrative divisions that only bureaucrats are familiar with. —Granger (talk · contribs) 14:58, 31 March 2019 (UTC)


 * In response to OK.  For a large yet uninhabited island, or some other uninhabited island that was well-known for some reason, I don't think deletion would make sense. But for a tiny islet (like a little rock sticking out the ocean) with no fame, sure, deletion would be appropriate. Exceptions are cases like ATOW1996 which is small yet very significant. --Comment by  Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 18:43, 31 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Granger, would you like to rephrase my draft language to make it a bit less definitive? That said, I agree with SelfieCity. Normally, the kinds of terms you mention would indeed be redirected, because why not? Someone might possibly look for those terms, and as is constantly stated, redirects are cheap. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:00, 31 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I looked through the archives to see what real places have been deleted in the past couple of years, and here's what I found:
 * USA South, USA Appalachian Region, Middletown,pa, and Russia. - deleted because the title was phrased or formatted in a nonstandard way
 * Hiller, Delhi/North Delhi, Tempelhof-Schöneberg, and North Sea Coast (Germany) - deleted for being too obscure a place or too useless as a redirect
 * Were any of these eight deletions appropriate? If so, would they still happen under the proposed policy? None of these places are as obscure as the small river island near my old house.
 * I do support the idea of the policy, I just want to make sure it doesn't have unintended consequences. Unfortunately I can't come up with another suggested phrasing. —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:59, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I believe many of the ones you mention were nominated as redirects, not articles, which is an important distinction. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 00:02, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure why it's an important distinction, but in any case it doesn't affect my point. The proposed wording says "articles or redirects about real places". If we think all of the pages I listed should have been kept, then the proposal might be fine. If not, it needs some tweaking. —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:26, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Maybe we could add something like "as long as the title is a plausible search term". That would take care of most of the cases I mentioned. —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:34, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

[Unindent] I agree with the proposed change in wording. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:27, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I am not sure about places that are possible search terms but have too little relevance to be mentioned in the article where they belong. If we do not mention it, few readers would be any wiser ending up in an article they did not search for. Are we obliged to mention a place (such as a small island) just because somebody created a stub article? --LPfi (talk) 19:35, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
 * If the island isn't even worth mentioning and isn't named on the article's map, maybe it would be an exception to this guideline. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:34, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
 * That has always bothered me, as well. We say "redirect" but if the redirected place is NOT given any mention in the article then regardless of how "cheap" it is, it's useless and the "cost" is wasting the traveler's time, moreso than deleting it and having no article would be. This can be especially frustrating when redirects are created for neighboring cities/towns/villages yet are not stated to be covered by the article. You have no idea if the redirect is a mistake, if it was just done for attribution, or if content about the place should be put there. Our redirect rules can be at odds with actual usability and the purpose of redirects from the traveler's perspective. I think some articles could be deleted without prejudice when they don't have content and we are skeptical that they could hold their own (or know that they can't).ChubbyWimbus (talk) 15:06, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I think that if there is a redirect, then the redirected place should be mentioned in the target article. The only exception should be spelling mistakes e.g. Freemantle redirecting to Perth/Fremantle. Generally I prefer to add a mention to the introduction: "This travel guide also covers the nearby villages of somewhere and elsewhere." I would be ok with deleting articles that have no travel information. If the creator can't be bothered to add a single listing or a sentence about how to get to a place, then deleting the article after a few months would be fine. This does not mean deleting the village where there is a listing for the pub or the church, or a suggestion of a walk along the riverbank. AlasdairW (talk) 21:34, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Do any of you have suggestions for a different phrasing of these guidelines? Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:42, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I would change "Wikivoyage policy is not to delete articles or redirects about real places..." to "Wikivoyage policy is not to delete articles (that have some travel information) or redirects about real places (cities, towns, villages or islands) ...". We could still get a confusing redirect if a village hotel is merged into a nearby city and the hotel then closes, but this won't happen too often. AlasdairW (talk) 22:44, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't think that wording would satisfy ChubbyWimbus. ChubbyWimbus, do you have a suggested phrasing? I realize we don't need unanimous support for proposals, but I think he has a very good point. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:03, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
 * This is definitely too wordy, but maybe there are parts that we can work with: Concerning redirects (as seems to be agreed upon), in the instance that a redirect is deemed appropriate for a city/town to a nearby location, the article to which it is directed must mention that the article also covers that city/town. These should be used sparingly and preferably by users who have been there and/or have strong familiarity with the area. Otherwise, leaving the article(s) alone is preferred. Concerning possible exceptions to "we don't delete real places": There may be rare times when deletion is preferred. If there are no known listings and nothing meaningful to say about the location, deletion may be preferable for usability purposes under the traveler comes first rule. Redirects appear in our search engine and it can be frustrating for a user to see what they want in the search engine only to be lead to another article that they must read before realizing there is no information. In such cases, the article will be deleted without prejudice, meaning that the article could be recreated in the future if places of interest are actually found. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 11:17, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, ChubbyWimbus. I agree with the point you're making here: If there are no known listings and nothing meaningful to say about the location, deletion may be preferable for usability purposes under the traveller comes first rule. Redirects appear in our search engine and it can be frustrating for a user to see what they want in the search engine only to be lead to another article that they must read before realizing there is no information. I'd welcome for anyone to work on revised language for the whole "We don't delete articles or redirects about real places, unless..." message. If no-one gets to it before I have the time, I'll work more on it and start a new sub-section to discuss the new form of words. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:56, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I think the merge and redirect part of the issue should be addressed on How to merge two pages. I would suggest adding the following to the Redirect section there:
 * Consider the reader who follows the redirect. The reader wants to find out about Smallville, but finds that he is looking at a page about Largeville. In the introduction add a statement like "This travel guide also covers the nearby town of Smallville.". Then make sure that the address and directions of any listings that you have merged in are clear that the listing is in Smallville.
 * This would be in addition to the "Wikivoyage policy is not to delete articles (that have some travel information)..." words that I suggested above should be added to this page. AlasdairW (talk) 20:36, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Babel module
Can someone with a knowledge of Lua and writing modules please take a look at Module:Babel. Can the references to the template babel be removed and all the deletes being proposed at Votes for deletion be done without cause problems with it use? --Traveler100 (talk) 10:46, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

VFD policy
About a year ago, when we changed our VFD policy, we said that after six months we'd discuss the policy. Now, it's been nearly a year. Do we still feel like holding a discussion on whether or not we should keep the new policy? Or do we feel good about it now? Personally, I think it has served us well and we should keep it. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 21:31, 19 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Feel free to bring it up in Wikivoyage talk:Votes for deletion. I'm fine with continuing the way we're going, but it should be reopened for discussion. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:18, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

New VFD policy
We have now been using the new VFD policy for about a year. Do we want to keep the new policy or switch back to the old one? --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 01:54, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep the new policy -- it has not caused any problems as far as I can tell. It's fair enough re-opening this, but we don't want to re-hash the same arguments that led to the policy change in the first place. Any discussion should focus on whether the new policy is working or not with references to VfD discussions that have taken place since the change Ground Zero (talk) 04:26, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree fully. Things have been running smoothly, so I see no reason to change the policy. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:19, 20 June 2019 (UTC)


 * To be clear, my vote is keep the new policy. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 16:18, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Agree easily convinced by Ground Zero --Inas (talk) 04:32, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Length of VFD discussions
What I'm going to bring up is not related to should we go back to the old policy or not, but it's still about the VFD policy, so I'll bring it up here. This is the current VFD policy:


 * If, after 14 days of discussion, the consensus is to delete, an administrator may delete it.
 * If, after 14 days of discussion, the consensus is to redirect or merge, any Wikivoyager may do it. If you make a redirect, please check for any resulting broken redirects or double redirects.
 * If, after 14 days of discussion, the consensus is to keep, any Wikivoyager may remove any VFD notices from that page, and archive the deletion discussion.
 * If there is no consensus after 14 days, allow a further 7 days for discussion.
 * If, after the additional 7 days, there is no consensus, the page should be kept – any Wikivoyager may remove any VFD notices from that page, and archive the deletion discussion.
 * If, after the additional 7 days, there is a consensus, implement it in line with the first three points above.

Well, that's just the same as this:


 * If, after 21 days of discussion, the consensus is to delete, an administrator may delete it.
 * If, after 21 days of discussion, the consensus is to redirect or merge, any Wikivoyager may do it. If you make a redirect, please check for any resulting broken redirects or double redirects.
 * If, after 21 days of discussion, the consensus is to keep, any Wikivoyager may remove any VFD notices from that page, and archive the deletion discussion.
 * If there is no consensus after 21 days, the page should be kept – any Wikivoyager may remove any VFD notices from that page, and archive the deletion discussion.

And this is shorter and less confusing. Why don't we change the policy to this? The SmileKat40! (*Meow* chat with me! | What did I do?) 08:51, 27 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Most issues can be resolved in 14 days and there is no need to drag them out for 21 days. Nurg (talk) 09:25, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, no offense, but it's not the same. Often, VFD discussions are only 14 days in length, not 21. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 13:54, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
 * What Nurg and SelfieCity said. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:06, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, I'll just logically prove that those are the same. The requirements for deleting is a consensus after 14 days, or if there's no consensus after 14 days, a consensus after 7 more days. The result of my 21-day policy covers a consensus after 14 days, as a consensus after 14 days is still a consensus after 21 days. It also covers a consensus over 21 days, so the result is the same. I won't do the other ones because it's basically the same thing. It's just like playing rock-paper-scissors indefinitely until someone wins, if you think it through. The SmileKat40! (*Meow* chat with me! | What did I do?) 11:17, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Only that the length of the discussion does matter. On one hand, there may be somebody weighting in after the 14 days, on the other, having stalled discussions at the page makes the procedure less effective. The latter is not only about having a slower pace of the decisions themselves, but making it more difficult to get an overview of the page. --LPfi (talk) 12:23, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Then why don't we change it into whenever there is a consensus, the page should be deleted/kept/redirected/merged as stated by the consensus and the page should be kept if 21 days has passed? The SmileKat40! (*Meow* chat with me! | What did I do?) 12:40, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Because people should have a reasonable time to react. There may be an initial consensus, changed when somebody dropping in once a week makes a good argument. 14 days is deemed to be enough for anybody regularly checking, while a week more could allow somebody dropping in by chance. This is not science, of course, but regulars get a feeling for what periods tend to work smoothly. --LPfi (talk) 12:53, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, LPfi is right here. We have this principle in vfd to give everyone enough time without things dragging out too long. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 15:18, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Well then, let's keep the current policy. The SmileKat40! (*Meow* chat with me! | What did I do?) 03:40, 29 June 2019 (UTC)