Wikipedia talk:Proposal to expand WP:CSD/Proposal VII (Article forks)

The talk page Wikipedia talk:Proposal to expand WP:CSD was split into individual talk pages for each proposal, to limit the size of the talk page and facilitate individual discussions on each proposal. The history and attributions for the comments made before the split can be seen by following the history link on the /General talk page.

Proposals VI and VII

This discussion started this thread:

I'll add it to the proposal, along with another of my own. I believe that forks of existing articles should be speedy delete candidates (when a redirect is not appropriate.) Sentiment on Wikipedia has been strongly against article forking, and I don't expect this to change, so there's no need to decide such cases individually on VfD. Isomorphic 09:58, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

New proposals added. I would appreciate it if others corrected, expanded, and improved my wording on both of them, especially on Proposal VI. Isomorphic 10:17, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I trust this has nothing to do with Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse (censored) being relisted on VfD five days after surviving by a two-to-one margin? </sarcasm> —Korath (Talk) 10:40, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Save your sarcasm and please assume good faith. It does have to do with the relisting, but not in the way you think. Yes, I created that proposal because I noticed the current VfD. However, I haven't followed that article at all and had no idea that it had survived a previous VfD, and I find that fact surprising. My impression from past discussions was that Wikipedians were very much against having forked versions of articles for any reason. If that's not true, then forks are apparently not speedy deletion candidates, and I will remove the proposal. I personally think that forks are a horrible precedent, but if there's disagreement then they are obviously not speedy deletion candidates. Isomorphic 10:51, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Actually I've now changed my mind. Having looked further into the recent discussions, it appears that there is not approval for forks as such. The Abu Ghraib version isn't a separate article, but a fancy use of transclusion. Hence, a true fork should still be a speedy candidate, IMO. Isomorphic 11:05, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I apologize for jumping to conclusions—I saw that your vote preceded the listing on VfD and somehow managed not to think of Recent Changes. Good faith was already in short supply, since it was Jooler who listed it on the 17th as well. As to the proposal itself, I don't think it's necessary—speedy's supposed to be for entirely noncontroversial cases, and forks by their nature are controversial. Besides, VfD is hardly overrun with them. —Korath (Talk) 11:19, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

No hard feelings. I realize how unlikely it looked from your end, and your response was understandable. Isomorphic 07:57, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Are forks really so common that they need to be candidates for speedy? The example you discuss here is the first I've ever heard of, and something controversial has to be going on for a fork to be created in the first place. Speedy will run smoother if it sticks to articles that aren't at the center of controversy. --Ben Brockert < 04:46, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)

Hmmm. Having pondered this, I tend to agree with you. However, now that the text is in the proposal, we might as well leave it up for discussion. Isomorphic 07:57, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It turns out there's a fork on VfD right now! Check out Jesus: the Jewish POV. Unless we're going to drastically alter Wikipedia practice, this article will be deleted, and it might as well have been speedied because I doubt there will be any controversy over it. Isomorphic 09:34, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/CheeseDreams/Evidence. ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 12:49, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• If it's a fork, or an alternative article, it shouldn't be speedily deleted - sufficient time should be allowed for editors to merge the two articles together. We have the perfectly {{merge}} tag for this - perhaps set a time limit instead for articles to be merged? Enochlau 03:15, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That's a general problem with duplication and mergers. I recently merged Photography and Photographers of the American Civil War with Photography and photographers of the American Civil War. It was a nightmare: both articles had been in existence for a while and had undergone independent editing, with the result that a lot of duplicate material was present from the fork (or, presumably, failure to move the article), but neither version was clearly better than the other. If we allow duplicates or near-duplicates to coexist, merging will get more and more difficult over time. In this case I'd prefer speedy deletion of a newly forked article over simply adding a note to merge later. --MarkSweep 01:06, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Exception for user namespace

Does this policy need an explicit exception that would allow taking an existing article from article space and creating a fork in the user namespace? Or is this covered under the general principles governing deletion of user-space pages? At the very least it should be pointed out that forking, done right, is not discouraged (or is it?). --MarkSweep 01:06, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think the policy should clarify this. Forking an article to a user page is reasonable; it's only when users can't distinguish the original article that forks become disruptive. ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 02:40, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)