Category talk:Candidates for Deletion

Time Limit

I've been thinking lately that maybe there should be a time limit on how long an article can remain incomplete (through a lack of rules, not of flavor text). I was thinking that if an article remains unplayable and unedited by the author for 30 days or more, at that point it becomes a candidate for deletion. The author is given a week to say that they intend to continue work on it. If they do say so, the article is no longer a candidate for deletion. If the week expires, another week is given in which it can be adopted (or reclaimed by the author). If nobody claims it at the end of this time, it is deleted. Thoughts? --Daniel Draco 14:12, 1 December 2008 (MST)

Agreed. I would even be a bit more aggressive with the expiry rules, but 1 month seems reasonable. I would prefer to see 14 days from creation, with the same procedure for the author to step in and adoption. It would really improve the wiki quality (and it would be nice to have some more rigid guidelines of when it is ok to delete and when it isn't). We have quite a few active admins now. --Aarnott 14:31, 1 December 2008 (MST)

Yeah, it would be a good initiative. 14 days seem reasonable, but we should keep in mind some project are longer to do than others. --Lord Dhazriel 19:21, 1 December 2008 (MST)

Yes, but that's what the chance to reclaim is for. --Daniel Draco 19:37, 1 December 2008 (MST)

I agree, but I think we should add "Category:Candidates for Adoption". --Sabre070 19:38, 1 December 2008 (MST)

Also that should be 14 days without edits. We should also be more vigilant with calling articles stubs. That way we can easily track candidates for deletion. --Aarnott 11:51, 3 December 2008 (MST)

14 days sounds good. --Daniel Draco 13:22, 3 December 2008 (MST)

I added some rules about time limits. It gives it a 14 day lifespan and a 7 day time where someone can adopt it. --Green Dragon 15:01, 3 December 2008 (MST)

I may seem harsh, but I think a 3 day time limit before putting the template on the page is enough. I almost never saw any adoption, except by admin of Dandwiki. I think 3 day should be the time limit for horrible article. When I see a page without even the author name on it it make me wonder why we wait 14 days. In the meanwhile the base classes page is overburdened by the numbers of stubs. I might seem radical but I only bring my opinion, I shall bow to the desire of the community if they think I ma too extreme. --Lord Dhazriel 23:34, 26 February 2009 (MST)

I honestly dislike posting pages for deletion. It makes me sad to see something that time and effort was put into get nixed. However, I have little remorse for articles that are outright stubs, containing little or no game information, and have been for a long time. I don't mind giving users longer time to work on the articles they make, since signing up for an account is a sort of commitment to the project itself. But people forget or lose interest and things go unfinished. Additionally, its possible to contact users with MoIs and discussion pages long after they have stopped working on articles. IPs lack a way for us to go "hey, finish this or we delete it". Anyways, enough rambling. I think its time for spring cleaning. Lord Dhazriel and I at least for now are on a Cleaning Crusade. Regardless of the timeframe for deletion, stuff has to be removed, there is a lot of unplayable material floating around. --Ganteka 00:06, 27 February 2009 (MST)

Actually I do not think a time limit before Template:Delete is added is needed. If the article is being improved upon the author should remove it right away. If the author just made a page with no intention of returning the 14 day time limit will come to an end and the page will be deleted. Plus adding non-complete pages is something I wish people would not even do (especially if it is something small like an equipment item, or feat. Classes I can see). I removed this requirement just so Lord Dhazriel and Ganteka are not waiting for a community decision before doing some "Spring Cleaning", and so then we can see how people react when we remove a base waiting time.

And Ganteka, what did you have in mind? Something like a 7 day time frame until it can be adopted and then maybe 2 or 3 weeks until deletion? Or what were your thoughts? --Green Dragon 12:54, 4 March 2009 (MST)

Well I think 2 week before deleting an article (after the template was applied) is reasonable, if it not fixed by then the author simply do not care anymore. At worst we can restore it upon demand.--Lord Dhazriel 13:01, 4 March 2009 (MST)

Once an article is tagged for deletion, waiting 1 week before adoption works for me, with 2 weeks for deletion. Granted, all effort should be taken to contact the author as well. --Ganteka 13:30, 4 March 2009 (MST)

I agree as well. I guess we will now see how removing the preliminary two weeks of no edits before nominating the article for deletion turns out. --Green Dragon 16:00, 4 March 2009 (MST)

Just wondering, who's the one responsible for deleting articles? Just asking because there are a few that have had the deletion tag for more than two weeks with no discussion or anything similar on them. --Ghostwheel 04:44, 28 July 2009 (MDT)

←Reverted indentation to one colon

I think pretty much any admin can do it, but usually it is kind of a spring cleaning thing (from what I've seen). So for example, every month or so (sometimes less often), there are massive purges, but in between sometimes it's a bit of a quiet period. Admins, if I'm wrong, feel free to correct me. -- Jota 09:42, 28 July 2009 (MDT)

Yeah, any admin can delete pages. I've been handling it lately. I meant to do a couple-hour session of deleting pages to catch back up (and catch a batch of pages that were put up two weeks ago or so) last night but I didn't get to it. Hopefully, I will have time tonight during the "slow edit hours" so I don't clog the recent changes page up. --Ganteka 11:39, 28 July 2009 (MDT)

I delete old pages here and there, but usually as I run across pages with old delete templates (and no hope), not using this category as I probably should. --Aarnott 12:37, 28 July 2009 (MDT)

Could someone go in and delete all the optimized builds that have had the deletion template for at least 2 weeks? Alternatively, I'd be happy to do the work, but would need temp adminship for it :-3 --Ghostwheel 08:00, 4 August 2009 (MDT)

The mods give a little lienience to articles that have actual content in them. Besides, if I am not mistaken, your decision to put the delete template on a bunch of opts for only the reason of "not much optimization" is in conflict itself. --TheWarforgedArtificer 08:27, 4 August 2009 (MDT)

Just as the wiki makes an attempt to host things that are playable and usable, both for spelling/grammar and balance, I think the same should be done for builds. If someone comes onto the wiki, takes a look at a handful of builds and sees things that are barely playable, much less optimized, it's going to reflect badly on the wiki. The wiki is known for hosting stuff that is unbalanced, a view that will persist while things that are unbalanced are kept unbalanced. While builds aren't really unbalanced since they don't create new material, it's important for them to be helpful. If someone thinks that a specific build is optimized and shouldn't be marked for deletion, they should say so. Else, the build isn't optimized and should be deleted. The fact that the Optimized Builds page is the second-most-viewed webpage on the wiki makes it even more important that only viable builds be kept. --Ghostwheel 08:34, 4 August 2009 (MDT)

<code>User:TK-Squared/Shit_That_Needs_Deleting|Get to work]]. --TK-Squared 21:33, 7 August 2009 (MDT)

Replacing the Page

I've noticed that some people are replacing the contents of an article with the the candidate for deletion template, if we could refrain from that it would help the admins by allowing them to easily review the contents of the article. Trust me, as an admin with an incredibly limited amount of time on my hands right now (as evidenced by the very small number of contributions I have made in the last year, ack) I seriously appreciate having the candidates for deletion category and those of you who are adding the template in good faith are a great boon to the wiki community. --Calidore Chase 13:47, 3 December 2008 (MST)

I added a note about how the template should just be added to the top and how it should not replace the contents of the page. --Green Dragon 15:02, 3 December 2008 (MST)

Thanks. --Calidore Chase 19:27, 3 December 2008 (MST)

Bug

I recently put the deletion template on a bunch of stagnant base classes, and on the page they show up as being in this category...but this category doesn't have them in it. Any idea why? --Daniel Draco 17:38, 7 December 2008 (MST)

Sabre's above "see also" thing displayed what the problem was. I fixed the capitalization on the deletepage template, and now the error is fixed. --Daniel Draco 19:40, 10 December 2008 (MST)

Broken and/or Unbalanced

As I look through the many articles on the Wiki I've noticed a large number of entries (some in 4e, but many many in 3.X) that are either broken or unbalanced. Truely the Wiki should strive to host content that everyone can use, with little to no work on thier part. Too often on other sites when the subject of the Wiki comes up it gets bashed for hosting far too much material that is broken and/or unbalanced, and therefore worthless to most gamers. If the Wiki is to be a resource gamers can come to for new original material, then we must police the articles better and enforce the fact that broken and unbalanced articles will be deleted unless corrected within a reasonable time. If we don't take this step then the Wiki just becomes a place for people to warehouse any bad idea that happens to drop from their mind. And while that can be fine in itself it just dosen't do justice to the high quality useful information that is on here that many would love to use...if they can avoid finding article after article that just won't work in most campaigns without serious corrections. -- Sepsis 06:09, 5 March 2009 (MST)

I agree - D&D Wiki should strive to make all it's content usable, although I do not think deleting articles just because they are poorly balanced is the solution. If they are beyond fixing or added as a joke (something like +1000 Str, +1000 Dex) then yes, they should be nominated for deletion. However if they are just poorly balanced fix them! It's a wiki after all (just say your reason on the talk page). If you do not change it too much - leave the author as it is. If you change it drastically adopt the page. How do articles on other wiki's like wikipedia improve? People see something wrong and fix it. If something is wrong just fix it. Personally I do not think deleting all unbalanced articles in the right approach. I am talking about articles which are fully filled out, just the mechanics are off. --Green Dragon 05:30, 6 March 2009 (MST)

Saying "if they're poorly balanced, fix them" isn't really a good solution either. Balancing things is hard, and most unbalanced things are so bad they might as well be scrapped and started anew anyway. If unbalanced shit doesn't get changed, it should just get deleted. Most of the unbalanced things are never finished anyway. Surgo 16:45, 7 March 2009 (MST)

Well there is unbalanced and UNBALANCED. As long as the class is descent and playable it shouldn't be deleted. IMO a well flavoured underpowered class should still be hosted on the site, while other ridiculous things (like Green said) should be deleted. After all the concept of balance tend to be differ depending on who review the class.--Lord Dhazriel 16:52, 7 March 2009 (MST)

Nominating an article for deletion should to be done on a case-by-case basis. Since nominating a page for deletion is not final, if you think a certain item warrants deletion feel free to nominate it for deletion. Personally I would never nominate articles which just have the balance off (take the Mystic Warrior(current dif) for example). Although I can see your reasoning behind nominating Murearomalqiun(current dif) for deletion. They are very overpowered (gaining the epic tier ability to fly at first level) and other then that they are just a pile of statistics; absolutely no fluff is present. I would just go off the idea that ones judgement is best, and do it on a case-by-case basis. Also, as a side note, please add Template:Delete on the actual page and not on the talk page as it will alert the author better (especially if they are confused by talk pages). --Green Dragon 09:55, 8 March 2009 (MDT)

I added the template NeedsBalance for stuff that seems well-written English-wise but bad balance-wise. Surgo 00:04, 30 March 2009 (MDT)

Time Limit

I'm having som of my stubs getting marked after a couple days. It had a template, basic information and just needed to be filled out and was tagged pretty much the same day it was created as a candidate for deletion.. Not sure why this is happening, but please make sure you guys are checking creation dates before you tag candidates. Thanks for all your hard work!

Also if the author is still active on the Wiki it would be a good idea to post a notice on their talk page, or put it in the discussion, to make sure communication is being had over the article. This way if they forgot about it, or don't want it anymore someone else can pick it up or it can be deleted. -- Sleaker 11:00, 14 May 2009 (MDT)

We do them as they get created because otherwise they get forgotten about. Could you copy/paste the template into a text editor and wait until your page is complete to upload it, or create it in a sandbox (ie User:Sleaker/Sandbox) and then move it when it's done instead? MoI-ing the page creator isn't a bad idea, but if they're still actually working on it they should notice before two weeks are up. Surgo 09:20, 4 August 2009 (MDT)

Question

I know that the {{deletepage|reason}} is what is shown here. I've always used {{delete|date|reason}}. I also noted this seems to be what most use, and not long ago some of the old pages that used the deletepage had some really weird format/coding issues happening. I guess my question is - which is the "correct" way to go, or does it even matter?   Hooper   talk    contribs    email   06:28, 15 October 2009 (MDT)

{{deletepage| since it auto-adds the date in a standard format. The other should not be used. --Green Dragon 13:59, 15 October 2009 (MDT)

Ah, well. All apologies everyone, as I've been doing it wrong.   Hooper   talk    contribs    email   14:02, 15 October 2009 (MDT)

Deletion Schedule?

Ideally, this category should always be blank, or at most, only have articles with tags younger than 2 weeks, or for which there is still ongoing debate. However, it seems to be filled with articles that are months to a year old — and that only makes the wiki messy. Is there some sort of deletion schedule for how often this category gets viewed by mods? JazzMan 06:01, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Let's say you were RfA'ed — would you look over this category and try to keep it within the time guidelines?

Also there is some good content here, so this cannot necessarily be blanketed deleted.

I will get to it, however I have not been deleting a lot of pages recently. --Green Dragon 17:23, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I definitely would, I'm a little OCD :)

I don't think it all needs deleted, but some of it I think there's no question about (Dragon Aspect (D20 Modern Advanced Class), for example, is completely blank and has been so since the author made it in 2008, to never return again). Some of them do have good content but are still unusable; I'm not sure what should happen in that case. Perhaps they should be downgraded to wikify tags or else moved into the creator's namespace. Then lastly, some have all the content they need, but someone put a delete tag instead of a wikify tag. I fixed up such a class a couple days ago. JazzMan 19:19, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Changing the tag to something else when possible is always best. Removing content is one of the sadest things we do.

I nominated you for adminship. See also Requests for Adminship/Jazzman831. If/when you become an admin I would ask that you not delete any d20 Modern things, or not those which I describe later. I moved some 3.5e and 4e content there and I think much of it was put up for deletion. Personally I think that it needs to be converted to d20 Modern because the idea works best with d20 Modern and not D&D. Although the rules do not work with d20 Modern they just need to be fixed. Maybe Template:Needsbalance instead? --Green Dragon 20:38, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that things shouldn't be converted between systems, because then someone who designed something to be used in their game will no longer be able to use it. If someone wants to have rogues with machine guns fighting against wizards in airplanes it might "sound" more d20 Modern, but it's more practical to use D&D. The best compromise is probably going to be to add flavor text to fit into the D&D stereotype. Maybe the rogue is using advanced gnomish weaponry with homemade alchemical bullets, and the wizard is is flying in a magical contraption or another gnomish invention. This way the "I want to use it in D&D" people are satisfied, because it uses D&D rules, and the "this sounds like Modern" people are satisfied because there's a "D&D" explanation for it.

As a practical matter, it's usually possible to convert between D&D 3.5 and d20 Modern (as long as it's not too integrated into D&D-only concepts), but without someone who knows 4e better, I'd say it's impossible to convert between 4e and d20 Modern; they are simply too different of games. Should my nomination be approved, however, I won't delete anything because it's the wrong genre, so that's not a concern as of this moment. I think what I've been doing is putting wikify tags and/or commenting on the talk page. JazzMan 02:12, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Idea for half-completed pages

I was thinking last night about all the unfinished things we have on this wiki. Someone worked hard on them, so it seems like a bad idea to just delete them, but on the other hand, half-finished articles don't do us any good. What if instead of adding a deletion tag to these types of articles we added an "adopt me" tag. It will say something like "this article appears to have been abandoned. Feel free to complete it as you see fit." I think it might be possible also to auto-convert the adopt me tag to a deletion tag after a period of say, one year. If nobody's adopted the page after this time it's probably not going to be adopted anyway, and it's probably time to delete it.

Obviously, the "adopt me" tag should only be added after it's clear that the original author is not going to work on it, but I'd guess that the vast majority of half-completed articles are created by people who do a huge flurry of articles then never come back to finish them.

Does this sound like something that could work? JazzMan 17:27, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

This is what I was thinking. (It'll need a different image, but with media not working I haven't picked one yet). This tag would be appropriate on pages that still have a lot of useful information, like, say this. The Archetype class is a cool idea, and it's fleshed out enough that if someone wanted to expand it they could. However at the time, there's not enough information to be useful to someone who wants to use it in their campaign. This would make the page a perfected candidate for the "abandoned" tag. What do you think?

PS: I tried to get the tag to automatically convert to a delete tag after a period of 1 year, in order to make upkeep easier to handle, but it wasn't working right. I think it's still possible, but it won't be elegant.JazzMan 19:11, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

First, holy-poop Jazzman! Nice job. I would vote you an admin again in a heartbeat. This is far above my expectations. Second, I don't like the word Authors and Abandoned. Especially on this wiki. I do however like the words, Stub and Adoption. I would love to see an Adoption Tag. Yes! I would hate to see a Abandoned Tag. No! However, I do not support the idea of an Authors Box. --Jay Freedman 06:12, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Ha ha, thanks!

I forgot that I actually updated the template a little bit. This is the most recent iteration, which uses the word "adopted". I agree that we shouldn't use "authors", and I tried to stay away from that. I used the word abandoned, because, frankly, that's what seems to happen to a lot of pages. I'm not picky, however, so if you can think of something better I'm all for it. JazzMan 20:16, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Fine by me. I like the one year time-length too. I'm glad you included this date. I'm curious though? How long should the template stay up after the page has been adopted? Does it remain at the top of the page? --Jay Freedman 06:41, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

That's a good question. In a perfect world, someone will adopt it, spend a little time fixing it up, then remove the tag. In reality I can see people adopting the page and then not doing anything to fix it up. In that case I guess the tag will stay up there until someone notices the adopter hasn't been doing their job. JazzMan 14:05, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Sweet. With that in mind I give you a big thumbs up. I hope to see this implemented. Woot woot! --Jay Freedman 20:27, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Wiki pages should be the best they can be. Each and everyone who sees something wrong should fix it if it does not work for them, and those who (for a sense) "live" on the page normally provide oversight (on the talk, undo — with an attached reason, and so). This subversive sense of authorship, as seen on many other wiki's (for example Wikipedia), creates an excellent page and each user gets credit for what he or she does.

Why, then, should we create a false sense of "ownership" on a page? Does it help? Or does it make it so those who "see[] something wrong [][and] fix it if it does not work for them" do not end up contributing? This is where the problem with this resides. I image this is why other wiki's (for example Wikipedia) do not create this on their pages.

Please give your input into this matter as this seems to be a large source of confusion, debate, and other things.

Since I find what I wrote to be the case we could, for example, add something to Template:Stub along the lines of "Editing is not restrictive, please jump in and have a go. If you make a mistake we can always switch it back and discuss it with you."

Thoughts? --Green Dragon 17:42, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Having just gone through something on the order of 500 pages with the deletion tag on them, I think I now have a pretty good idea of what problems we are facing. The pages I see fall into several categories:

1. Fully completed pages. These pages no longer need an "owner", because there's nothing left to be done. They could be permanently locked without adversely affecting anything. (Note that I don't think these pages should be locked, it's just that they are at such a high state of completion that there is no editing left to do on them).
2. 90% complete pages. Picking an example page at random, see this page. The class is finished, but it has formatting issues. Since it takes no knowledge of the class to fix up, there is no need for ownership.
3. 50% complete pages. This, for example. These types of pages have enough that an enterprising user could take what's there and build upon it, but there's not enough there to be usable in tonight's D&D game. With the Archetype Class linked above, there's already an example archetype class. Someone who likes the concept of those classes can easily take the example archetype and expand as they see fit.
   Most of the articles in this category are created by what I like to call "drive by editors". These are people who, if they even bother to create an account, only stay around for a couple of days then sort of... never come back. These pages are primary candidates for my adoption tag: one person needs to take some sort of ownership or nothing will ever get done. On the other hand, if nobody does take ownership, we really should just get rid of the thing.
4. 5% complete pages. These are candidates for the delete tag: they don't have enough information to be playable, and don't have enough information for someone else to come along and finish the creator's original ideas. Even higher percentages of this kind of page is created by drive by editors, and there's no hope for them without any sense of ownership. (For some reason, this category has seems to have the highest number of "please don't delete this page I'll get to it in a week" messages from users who then don't come back until the next time you place the page up for deletion.) Unlike the 50% complete pages, however, someone who takes ownership of this page also shares the creative burden; it's not much different than creating the page from scratch.

I don't have any problem with adding language to all of our tags to make it clear that anyone is allowed to edit pages; in fact, I think this could break us of some of the detrimental effects of "ownership". However, I don't think adding this language is enough by itself, because we still have to have editors who are willing to take on the amount of work it takes for pages to be brought up to snuff. JazzMan 19:07, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

"Since it takes no knowledge of the class to fix up, there is no need for ownership." This is not true. For example Category:Needs Balance.

First I would like to ask you — what is the different from Template:Stub? That states that an article needs to be improved/expanded upon in a way without necessarily dictating that "this article needs an author". I do agree, however, that we could change the wording drastically to make sure one knows that many stub pages will not get improved upon without help from users (since it many times implies no one is working on it).

For example we could add something to Template:Stub like "Generally this template implies that no one is actively working on this. As editing is not restrictive, please jump in and have a go. If you make a mistake we can always switch it back and discuss it with you."

I don't know — do you notice how they do not correlate? Why they should have seperate functions? --Green Dragon 19:25, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, except that I'm defining the 90% complete pages as "those pages that have only formatting issues and take no knowledge of the class to fix". If it has a needsbalance then it falls under the 50% complete category, or possibly 10%, if the balance is so off that the page needs to be rewritten.

I guess if you reword the stub template as proposed, it serves the same almost purpose as the adoption template, though "stub" implies short pages, and "adoption" implies abandoned pages. The stub page, as worded, would apply to the 50% completed pages mentioned above, but the word "stub" sounds like it should only be added to the 10% pages. The reason I originally proposed the adoption tag in addition to the stub tag is because many stubs simply can't be fixed without someone offering to do all the work themselves. The fact is, even though we don't like that little "author=" parameter, certain types of pages need one person to take control (aka "take ownership") for anything to get done. The stub template doesn't make that clear.

In addition, If we change the language of the stub tag as proposed and use it exclusively, then we need to add a date parameter to it, and convert stubs to deletion candidates after a certain amount of time. Half-completed pages sitting stagnant for long periods of time turn away potential new users to the site, and make it harder to navigate. JazzMan 19:48, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

From a users standpoint, when I see certain tags I get certain ideas right off: Balance: either way strong, or way weak (usually the former); Stub: Essentially a "needs fluff" tag. There are only a few words on the page; Wikify: Honestly, no idea. Often "add links", sometimes it's "missing an element of similar pages"; and Delete: One of the other main 3, so bad that the regular tag won't help enough. As for abandoned, I think unless it falls into one of the other three categories I make a mental note "complete as written, whether or not it's what I want". Is there some Meta-page that defines what they all really mean, and what a average user can do to help? A link to such page on every "needs work" template would probably be the most helpful. --Badger 20:08, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

You are right, I would like to apologize. I did not think that you meant deviations in the templates completion % with regard to how you see it.

And what you are saying has merit. What if we made something like a "Stagnant with the subset of Generally Incomplete." template? Do you think this would cover the page types you are talking about? --Green Dragon 20:32, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

No need to apologize :)

Yeah, that's pretty much the same as the template I'm talking about, it just doesn't use the same terminology. If you'll notice, the language I proposed was "...there are major issues with the page, and it has not been seriously edited for quite some time", which I believe is what you mean by "stagnant with the subset of generally incomplete".

Badger also has a good point: there's not really a page that lists what each of the templates mean, and what the proper uses are. Meta Pages links to the categories of pages, but it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to explain when to use those templates, and when to upgrade/downgrade them to another template, and keep it all in once place. JazzMan 21:28, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

←Reverted indentation to one colon

The category pages of the templates provide a description as to what it is (I do agree it could make sense to expand upon them). And when something does not belong to a category anymore (seen by way of the categories use — seen through the applicable wording on that category) it gets removed (by way of the template being removed from the article's page, thereby removing the category).

And, where did you post that wording? I cannot seem to find it... However, what are thoughts on implementing such a template? What should it be called?

Personally I think we should — if it's use gets superseded and/or disregarded then we can always remove it. --Green Dragon 22:02, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

With so many templates (stub, wikify, needsbalance, and delete, at a minimum), it just seems easier to have one central location that says "if the page is X, then use Y". As it stands now, if a user goes to an article and knows there's something wrong with it, there's no easy way for them to know what template to use. Once they've been around the site a while and understand how templates work they can go to Meta Pages, then click on each of the categories and decide which one to use, but that just seems labor intensive. We don't have nearly as many tags as Wikipedia, but I was envisioning something like this page, a table of what tags are available and when to use them.

This is what I'm talking about when I refer to wording. I think we agree on the first version but want to avoid the second version, because it puts a username on the article. I'm tentatively calling it either "adoptme" or "abandoned", but I don't know if either of those are appropriate. Then again, I also can't think of anything better... JazzMan 22:43, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

If you want to make a page with all the templates' uses present please feel free. We can find a place for it, maybe in the help section. Of course the category is the place which defines the use.

The wording makes sense. Although I am also not sure about "abandoned". We need to come up with a name which describes the template more. After all it is that it is not being edited and is not playable. Abandoned is not being edited, but can be playable. --Green Dragon 01:19, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

I'll see if I can't work something up. As for "abandoned", you'll see that Jay and I were working on that at the top of the discussion, and I don't think either of us could come up with anything good. Notplayable? Helpme? Needswork? Everything I come up with just doesn't sound good enough. I'll try and think about it some more. JazzMan 04:37, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I've got the directory page started here. The formatting is wonky, but I can't figure it out right now. I'll look at it again in the morning and see if I can't figure out why it looks like it does. I've sorted in rough order of severity, from lowest to highest; can you think of any tags I missed? JazzMan 05:39, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

That looks like a nice start.

What about calling the template "Desolate"?

E.g.

This page is desolate of playable content and/or (an) editor(s). Reason: <!- Reason. ->

You can help D&D Wiki by improving the use of this page. If you do not understand D&D Wiki's desolate page removal standards please leave comments on this page's talk page before making any edits.

Of course, then, what are the standards (what deviates it from the other templates in particular?) etc. --Green Dragon 06:37, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Desolate sounds a little too limiting. I imagine a desolate page as not much more than the preload, and that kind of page should just have the deletion tag added. I figure this template should be the same "level" as stub, only the stub deals with fluff issues and this tag deals with mechanical issues. The wording I used on the table was "Use this template for articles which are no longer being edited, but are not usable in their current condition." JazzMan 16:10, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Well this cannot just be a combiniation of the other templates, since then we would just all of them.

Template:Needsbalance is used for mechanical issues.

Not being edited in a while is not a reason for a template. --Green Dragon 17:52, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

It's not a combination of other tags, and needsbalance doesn't make sense for every page with mechanical issues. There are an entire subset of articles on this wiki which do not have a proper tag that covers their deficiencies. I've tried to explain several times in this discussion exactly where I think this template fits; it doesn't go on every page that's not being edited, and I've never said or implied that. It goes on pages that people have given up on, pages that have potential, but their original creators have disappeared or given up. Pages that could be salvageable, but we have no category to signify them as such, so they are lumped in with the other deletion candidates. I've already used the example of Archetype Class (3.5e Other). It currently has a delete tag on it, but I don't think there's a need to delete it just yet, because there's actually valuable information. It's nowhere near finished, but there's nothing stopping another editor from finishing it other than commitment. Other candidates for this tag: Dreamblade (3.5e Class), Ethereal Warrior (3.5e Class), Fan Blade Pit Trap (3.5e Equipment), Guardian, Variant (3.5e Class), Jedi Sentinel (D20 Modern Base Class). The unfortunate thing is, I know we don't like to delete things that other people have worked hard on, but if nobody actually takes the step of adopting these pages, they really should be deleted outright. No amount of wikifying will fix these pages up, they actually need one person to take control and get the job done.

Take another look at this, which started this discussion. You don't like the word "abandoned" (even though that's what has happened to these pages) and you don't like the idea of adoption (even though that's what these pages need), but that template covers the ideas I'm trying to discuss. There are ways to get around "abandoned" and "adopted", but I think the idea of the template is sound.

The other important component that I included on my proposed tag, and which has not been discussed yet, is how long we wait until these pages get deleted. One of the things that I know turns new users off is all the half-finished junk that's lying around the wiki. If you notice my editing patterns, you'll notice that I myself joined, made a couple edits, then didn't come back for months. The d20 Modern side of things was a huge mess (I'm slowly but surely working to fix that), and whenever I looked for new equipment or classes to add to my game all I found was unusable material plastered with cleanup tags. (It's even worse on the d20M side of things than the D&D side of things, since there's so much material designed for D&D that's been thrown over to the other side with no effort at making it actually work in the system, but that's another issue entirely). We need to set up some sort of system where we set a time limit for half-completed pages. Pages with simple wording issues can stay, I'd say, but anything that isn't usable in tonight's game needs to have a ticking timer set on it.

Does that hopefully make it a little clearer as to the point I'm trying to get across? JazzMan 18:35, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

What is the ultimate result? Could it be seen as a group of pages with a longer deletion time period because an idea is present? But then the contributors are irrelevant?

And, with the wording and if what I said above is true, then "abandoned" (or "untended"?) could make sense. --Green Dragon 20:04, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

If you want to think of it that way, then yes, it's treating pages differently because they are almost usable. As it is now, these pages are lumped in with deletion candidates, and should in theory be deleted within two weeks, or with the cleanup candidates and aren't ever deleted. There needs to be a middle ground. I'm not really sure what you mean by "the contributors are irrelevant". JazzMan 22:36, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Well it's just that I don't see the whole adoption thing fitting into here.

I say go for it — abandoned seems okay to me. If you can think of something else go for it of course. Also, make sure you detail the category page appropriately and fully. --Green Dragon 01:51, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

For now I called it {{abandoned}}. The category is Category:Abandoned. As you can see, I removed any language of adoption. JazzMan 18:47, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Looks good. I'm a deletion'ist, but a category like this has been needed for a long time. Good to see it finalized. Nice work people. --Jay Freedman 03:41, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Rule of thumb

I've been using this rule of thumb (for articles on races at least). If an article:

1. Requires its defining mechanical features rewriting from scratch
2. and is devoid of rudimentary fluff
3. and the original contributor has abandoned the page (i.e. the person most likely to be able to fix 1 and 2)

Then it is a candidate for a deletion proposal.

Rationale:

• If it is mechanically sound, but lacks descriptive text, then interested contributors can fill that out.
• If it is mechanically broken, but has some nice fluff, that's an incentive for repairing it.
• But if it is broken and has no description - that is, it may as well be rewritten from scratch - then there's no incentive to work on the article and its going to languish here forever.

Do you agree? Maybe I'm stating the obvious but I want to make sure. Marasmusine 02:53, 27 March 2012 (MDT)

That is exactly my rationale. There is no reason to leave a page around in case someone else wanted to make a class/etc that just so happens to have the same name. If there is so little information that they have to start from scratch, then they might as well just start from all the way scratch. JazzMan 10:11, 27 March 2012 (MDT)

Instead of "and the original contributor has abandoned the page (i.e. the person most likely to be able to fix 1 and 2)" I would say "and the main contributor(s) has/ve abandoned the page (i.e. the person most likely to be able to fix 1 and 2)". --Green Dragon 11:12, 27 March 2012 (MDT)

Agree with Marasmusine. Good thinking. GD is right too. The word 'author' should be avoided at all costs. Nice work. --Jay Freedman 03:16, 16 April 2012 (MDT)

I mentioned the above since we may want to give users loose guidelines for page deletion (like with the images). Do you think people just seem to know the above, or would it be good to state it? --Green Dragon (talk) 16:59, 27 August 2012 (MDT)

The deletion template links to Template:Delete/why. What is it that you think still needs to be stated? JazzMan 14:59, 28 August 2012 (MDT)

I'm discussing the addition of the above list onto this page– like the images. --Green Dragon (talk) 16:47, 28 August 2012 (MDT)

I added this (in a condensed form) onto Template:Delete/why. --Green Dragon (talk) 07:46, 29 August 2013 (MDT)