User:Schminnte/Notes on CSD

On the English Wikipedia, the criteria for speedy deletion (commonly shortened to CSD) specify when a page may be deleted by an administrator without a prior deletion discussion. As these deletions bypass Wikipedia's usual system of deletion discussions, the criteria are naturally very strict. The following tables are a collection of notes collected from my time researching CSD and tagging pages, with the hope that they will serve others some use.

List of criteria[edit]

General[edit]

There are currently fourteen general CSD, which are indicated by a capital G. These criteria apply to all namespaces unless otherwise stated:

Criterion	Name	Current tags	In use?	First mention	Notes
G1	Patent nonsense	{{Db-g1}}, {{Db-Nonsense}}	Y	26 July 2003^{[note 1]}	G1 refers to patent nonsense, which means completely unintelligible text (e.g. funny car go broom fhdfhdjfhdj). This is very strict: if you can understand a page's content, it should not be tagged under G1. Does not apply to user namespace.^{[note 2]}
G2	Test page	{{Db-g2}}, {{Db-test}}	Y	26 July 2003	G2 is used to delete test edits. If a page appears to have been created to test Wikipedia's editing functions, then it can be deleted under this criterion. It can be used on subpages of the sandbox, but not the sandbox itself, userpages, or unused working templates.^{[note 2]}
G3	Pure vandalism and blatant hoaxes	{{Db-g3}}, {{Db-vandalism}}, {{Db-hoax}}	Y	26 July 2003^{[note 3]}	G3 applies when a page is unambiguous vandalism or, by extension, an obvious hoax. It also applies to redirects created by page move vandalism. It does not apply to pages that may be hoaxes but are no obvious, or articles about hoaxes.^{[note 2]}
G4	Recreation of a page that was deleted per a deletion discussion	{{Db-g4}}, {{Db-repost}}	Y	26 July 2003	G4 applies to pages that are a repost of content deleted via Articles for Deletion (AfD). The content does not need to be identical, but must be "sufficiently identical" to the original. It doesn't apply to plausible drafts in the draft or user namespace. By the nature of deleted content, it can be difficult for non-admins to assess whether a page is covered by G4. If in the article namespace, a second AfD discussion can be preferable for uncertain cases.
G5	Creations by banned or blocked users	{{Db-g5}}, {{Db-banned}}	Y	26 July 2003	G5 applies to pages created that violate an editor's block or ban, provided that they have not been edited substantially by other editors. It is an extension of the banning policy, which states that anyone is free to revert any edits made in violation of a ban or block, without giving any further reason and without regard to the three-revert rule. It is most commonly found in regards to pages created by sockpuppet accounts but also applies to pages created in violation of an editor's topic ban. When tagging for G5, make sure that the page was created after an editor's block/ban. Opinions on the validity of G5 vary, and tagging of useful pages should be subject to editor discretion.
G6	Technical deletions	{{Db-g6}}, {{Db-copypaste}}, {{Db-move}}, {{Db-moved}}, {{Db-afc-move}}, {{Db-xfd}}, {{Db-error}}	Y	31 August 2003 ^{[note 4]}	G6 is a wide criterion with multiple uses, which all relate to uncontroversial maintenance. It can be used to deleted empty old maintenance categories, redirects that hold up a page move, pages obviously created by accident (including pages that are in the wrong namespace), and templates orphaned by Templates for discussion. G6 is not an opportunity to ignore the rules: although it is the widest criterion in scope, it is reserved for technical deletions and should not be used as a catch-all.
G7	Author requests deletion	{{Db-g7}}, {{Db-author}}, {{Db-blanked}}, {{Db-self}}	Y	17 January 2005^{[note 5]}	G7 is used when an article's only major contributor requests deletion in good faith. For this purpose, blanking a page (other than a userpage, talk page or category) is seen as requesting deletion. The tagger for G7 does not have to be the major contributor provided that evidence of their wish for deletion exists.
G8	Pages dependent on a non-existent or deleted page	{{Db-g8}}, {{Db-imagepage}}, {{Db-redirnone}}, {{Db-subpage}}, {{Db-talk}}, {{Db-templatecat}}	Y	9 April 2004^{[note 6]}^{[note 7]}
G9	Office actions	N/A	Y	6 July 2006^{[note 8]}	G9 is reserved for office actions by Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) staff accounts. These deletions must not be reverted without permission from the WMF. There is no tag for this criterion as anyone other than a staff member should not be using G9.
G10	Pages that disparage, threaten, intimidate, or harass their subject or some other entity, and serve no other purpose	{{Db-g10}}, {{Db-attack}}, {{Db-attackorg}}, {{Db-personal attack}}, {{Db-negublp}}	Y	1 October 2006
G11	Unambiguous advertising or promotion	{{Db-g11}}, {{Db-promo}}, {{Db-spam}}, {{Db-spamuser}}	Y	1 October 2006
G12	Unambiguous copyright infringement	{{Db-g12}}, {{Db-copyvio}}	Y	13 October 2006
G13	Abandoned drafts and Articles for creation submissions	{{Db-g13}}, {{Db-afc}}, {{Db-blankdraft}}	Y	6 April 2013
G14	Unnecessary disambiguation pages	{{Db-g14}}, {{Db-disambig}}	Y	20 December 2018

Article[edit]

There are currently seven article CSD, which are indicated by a capital A. These criteria only apply to pages in the article namespace:

Criterion	Name	Current tags	In use	First mention	Notes
A1	No context		Y
A2	Foreign-language articles that exist on another Wikimedia project		Y
A3	No content		Y
A4	Attempts to correspond with the person or group named by its title	N/A	N
A5	Transwikied articles	N/A	N
A6	Attack articles	N/A	N
A7	No indication of importance (people, animals, organizations, web content, events)		Y
A8	Blatant copyright infringement articles	N/A	N	1 October 2005	Deprecated after a generalised version was created as G12.
A9	No indication of importance (musical recordings)		Y
A10	Recently created article that duplicates an existing topic		Y
A11	Obviously invented		Y

Category[edit]

There are currently two category CSD, which are indicated by a capital C. These criteria only apply to pages in the category namespace:

Criterion	Name	Current tags	In use
C1	Unpopulated categories		Y
C2	Speedy renaming and merging		Y
C3	Categories solely populated from a template	N/A	N

File[edit]

There are currently ten file CSD, which are indicated by a capital F. These criteria only apply to pages in the file namespace:

Criterion	Name	Current tags	In use
F1	Redundant		Y
F2	Corrupt, missing or empty file		Y
F3	Improper license		Y
F4	Lack of licensing information		Y
F5	Orphaned non-free use files		Y
F6	Missing non-free use rationale		Y
F7	Invalid fair-use claim		Y
F8	Files available as identical copies on Wikimedia Commons		Y
F9	Unambiguous copyright infringement		Y
F10	Useless non-media files	N/A	N
F11	No evidence of permission		Y

Portal[edit]

There are currently no portal CSD, which are indicated by a capital P. These criteria apply to portal in any namespace:

Criterion	Name	Current tags	In use	First mention	Notes
P1	Any portal that would be subject to speedy deletion as an article	N/A	N
P2	Underpopulated portal	N/A	N

Redirect[edit]

There are currently three redirect CSD, which are indicated by a capital R. These criteria apply to redirects in any namespace:

Criterion	Name	Current tags	In use
R1	Redirects to non-existent pages	N/A	N
R2	Cross-namespace redirects		Y
R3	Recently created, implausible typos		Y
R4	File namespace redirects with names that match Wikimedia Commons pages		Y

Template[edit]

There are currently no template CSD, which are indicated by a capital T. These criteria only apply to pages in the template namespace:

Criterion	Name	Current tags	In use
T1	Divisive and inflammatory templates	N/A	N
T2	Misrepresentation of policy	N/A	N
T3	Duplication and hardcoded instances	N/A	N
T4	Subpages of non-existent pages	N/A	N

User[edit]

There are currently three user CSD, which are indicated by a capital U. These criteria only apply to pages in the user namespace:

Criterion	Name	Current tags	In use
U1	User request		Y
U2	Nonexistent user		Y
U3	Non-free galleries	N/A	N
U4	Old IP address talk pages that meet specific criteria	N/A	N
U5	A non-contributor's misuse of Wikipedia as a web host		Y

Temporary[edit]

Temporary CSD are special criteria enacted for a limited time period for large scale cleanup. There are currently no temporary CSD, which are indicated by a capital X.

Criterion	Name	Current tags	In use	First mention
X1	Redirects created by Neelix	N/A	N	25 November 2015	Was created as an extension of G6 following the discovery of many unnecessary redirects created by Neelix, including numerous "puerile" redirects related to human breasts. The criterion stated that any redirect created by Neelix could be deleted at an administrator's discretion if they believed nominating the redirect for a deletion discussion would lead to a snow close. It was given the designation X1 following the creation of temporary CSD criteria. After checking the 70,000+ redirects (see subpages and page history), the criterion was repealed once cleanup was deemed complete.
X2	Pages created by the content translation tool	N/A	N	Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT#Suggestion Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive291#X2_Nuke_time	Created in response to a large number (>3,600) of substandard machine-translated articles made using the content translation tool. Like X1, X2 originally allowed administrators to delete articles created by the content translation tool that they believed would lead to a snow close at a deletion discussion.

Notes[edit]

^ The concept of deleting patent nonsense dates back further to at least 21 January 2001, but it was only codified as an exception in the deletion policy on the given date.
^ ^a ^b ^c In New Page Patrol terminology these are called serious content problems. You do not need to wait for an hour when tagging for these criteria during New Page Patrol.
^ The earliest surviving edit to Wikipedia's deletion policy (5 November 2001) stated that vandalism was a reason to permanently delete a page from the UseModWiki software, but the criterion was only codified as an exception to the deletion policy on the given date.
^ Only for deleting a redirect to make way for a non-controversial page move or temporarily deleting a page in order to merge page histories after a cut and paste move.
^ Originally listed as an article criterion, changed to a general criterion on 17 February 2005.
^ The edit summary adding this criterion indicated that such deletions were already de facto.
^ G8 was removed from the CSD policy page for twenty two days during a talk page discussion.
^ The office actions page predates this and was created on 6 February 2006.

Resources[edit]

Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal

[G1date-1] The concept of deleting patent nonsense dates back further to at least 21 January 2001, but it was only codified as an exception in the deletion policy on the given date.

[A-2] In New Page Patrol terminology these are called serious content problems. You do not need to wait for an hour when tagging for these criteria during New Page Patrol.

[G3date-3] The earliest surviving edit to Wikipedia's deletion policy (5 November 2001) stated that vandalism was a reason to permanently delete a page from the UseModWiki software, but the criterion was only codified as an exception to the deletion policy on the given date.

[G6date-4] Only for deleting a redirect to make way for a non-controversial page move or temporarily deleting a page in order to merge page histories after a cut and paste move.

[G7date-5] Originally listed as an article criterion, changed to a general criterion on 17 February 2005.

[G8date-6] The edit summary adding this criterion indicated that such deletions were already de facto.

[G8_discussion-7] G8 was removed from the CSD policy page for twenty two days during a talk page discussion.

[G9date-8] The office actions page predates this and was created on 6 February 2006.

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