If you want to request an article for deletion, please do not simply add the respective page to the Pages for deletion category. Instead, use {{Delete}} or {{Speedydelete}} for this purpose and state a reason for your request. That's why we have those templates in the first place. Their color instantly signals to anyone who reads the page "Duh, sumthin's wrong with dis paeg!", it also says what's allegedly wrong with it and there are links to the forum thread. In short, it makes life easier; for the users who want to keep or improve the page and the admins who are otherwise left in the dark about the requester's intention and have to figure it out themselves. --LegOtaku (talk • contr) 15:04, October 22, 2009 (UTC)
Thanks LegOtaku, I've been meaning to raise this point for a few months now, but keep getting distracted an go off doing other things- looking through the deletion category has been a bit of a nightmare lately not knowing why many pages are up for deletion. I was also thinking that maybe we should change the deletion process a bit. Here are a few ideas:
If article is up for deletion, change the template so a reason must be given (as LegOtaku said above), and if no reason is given, an alternate template is put up, saying that since no reason was given, this template may be removed
If the page is obvious vandalism, still use {{Speedydelete}}, where no reason necessarily needs to be given (since this template should only be used for vandal pages) and doesn't need an entry in the forum.
Just some ideas, any comments? NightblazeSaber 00:49, October 23, 2009 (UTC)
This makes sense. But, how about establishing some deletion guidelines? And what about the alternative template message? Should this be a neutral box that says "This article has been proposed for deletion, but no reason was given. You may remove this template if you see fit." ? --LegOtaku (talk • contr) 10:27, October 23, 2009 (UTC)
Guidelines sound good, but the only idea I have is in the cases that the articles are very short but relevant, I think it should be encouraged for the article to be built up a bit instead of putting them up for deletion- I've seen a lot of short pages lately that could be fixed up within in a minute or two. Also, I guess this would be ok for the alternate template, the ideal case would be that we could have a template where a reason somehow has to be in there for it to work, but I don't see any other way of this being done NightblazeSaber 12:21, October 23, 2009 (UTC)
