Template talk:Old AfD

General comments

Thanks to all the people who drafted this template. I do have a few request/suggestions.

1. The word "survived" is appropriate for some but too strong for many of the VfD discussions as they are actually closed.
   1. First, some of the nominations are not made in good faith. (See for example Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Jesus.) To say "survived" implies that the survival of the article was ever in question.
   2. Second, some nominations end in some variation of "merge and redirect". To say that the article "survived" when all the content was merged away is a real stretch but that decision must still be mentioned on the original article's Talk page.
   3. Third, a VfD decision can end in "no concensus". A "no concensus" decision defaults to "keep" but can only have very limited precedent if the article is ever renominated. The word "survived" implies a stronger precedent than is appropriate.

   I would prefer the simple words "This article was nominated for deletion. The archive ..."

2. I know that all the templates in this series use the colored box format. I think this one should follow a different standard - one with a ==header== but no box. For one thing, a VfD nomination that results in "keep" should be no big thing. Highlighting it in peach (or any other color) creates a stronger impression than it often deserves. For another, the colored templates are generally used to highlight things about the article that every current reader should know. The fact that an older version of the article survived a VfD vote is rarely relevant. It should be part of the article's record but is not obligatory for every current reader to know.
3. Could/should we add four tildes to the end of the template so it automatically fills in the signature of the person tagging the article?

   This unfortunately doesn't work. You can add tildes to the template within <nowiki> tags so they don't get expanded by the person adding the template, but they'll then remain bare tildes when the template is added to the talk page. If just {{oldvfd}} is used, they'll remain that way; if it's subst'ed, then they'll stay that way when the closer adds the template, and change into the signature of the next person to edit the page. —Korath (Talk) 15:54, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

   Rossami (talk) 15:32, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

I also have some concerns:

1. This absolutely needs to take an argument for where the vfd is. The other now-standard templates don't, since they generally only show up on fairly stable articles; however, articles are frequently moved soon after (or during!) vfds, and it isn't uncommon for them to be moved quite some time afterward. Also, if an article survives more than one vfd, we need to be able to point at the different discussions.
2. It's a nearly universal practice to include the time the vfd ran (at least to the nearest month) so as to disambiguate from a possible future vfd.
3. As Rossami alludes to above but doesn't quite spell out, many closers note the outcome of the vfd in the talk page notice, since they don't always result in a simple keep: it would be misleading in the extreme to leave the current oldvfd template on the talk page of a redirect resulting from a merge, since someone could then immediately unmerge the page (I've seen this happen several times). The difference from the status quo is that the old oldvfd notice said that consensus was to merge; this one could be used as an argument to keep them separate against folks unthorough enough to not check the vfd themselves.

   —Korath (Talk) 15:54, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

I think it may be best to retain this template in its current form but have another one that is more versatile. I don't want to add to peoples workload by insisting that the extra information is added, but I agree that it may be required for many cases. I'll create {{oldvfdfull}} as an example (see below).

As for how much it stands out, I can understand the concerns expressed but think that the VFD history of an article is rather important to highlight. Yes, there are bad faith nominations, but then there are with FAC too – perhaps we should look at the problem if it seems to happen too often. violet/riga (t) 16:17, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Full companion

{{oldvfdfull}} has also been created.

The above template was generated by the following code: {{oldvfdfull|result=merge into [[another article]]|votepage=original name}}

violet/riga (t) 16:23, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

I like this extension. I also prefer to leave the date of nomination, which is nice to be able to see without going to seek out the old discussion. I've taken the liberty of creating {{oldvfdfull2}} to include it, so that {{oldvfdfull2|date=1 April 1867|result=merge into [[another article]]|votepage=original name}} turns into

{{oldvfdfull2|date=1 April 1867|result=merge into [[another article]]|votepage=original name}} (Is creation of such variants of templates discouraged? I don't wander into the template namespace much.) Mindspillage (spill yours?) 03:43, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Seeing as oldvfdfull isn't in mass use just yet perhaps you could just add the date (which I think is a good idea) to that? violet/riga (t) 10:35, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Done. Date now takes month and day, with 2005 as part of the template, since that will only need to be altered once a year... Mindspillage (spill yours?) 19:28, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

I've changed it to require the year too - when we change it to 2006 next year it will change all this years ones as well. violet/riga (t) 20:03, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

I've performed some maintenence on these templates, and added usage where appropriate. is {{oldvfdfull2}} going to be used? If not, it should be {{tfd}}. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 01:53, 2005 August 31 (UTC)

Open concerns

I remain concerned that this template is not ready for use. Specifically:

1. The template dynamically pulls the page name in order to create the link to the VfD discussion page. This will break under several conditions, causing the VfD discussion to become lost. Here are just a few of those conditions.
   • When the article is moved to a different name
   • When the talk page is archived
   • When the article is nominated a second time
   • When the VfD discussion page has a typo in the title so it didn't exactly match the page name
   • When the VfD discussion page was a consolidated entry (like Kanji articles)
2. The use of the colored box draws greater attention to the VfD discussion than is necessary or appropriate. Old VfD discussions that result in a "keep" decision are no big thing. They are important at the time and should be preserved but it is not important that every future reader/editor look for or read the discussion. This is different from the other colored boxes that are in use. If an article is tagged for clean-up, every editor should read that. If the neutrality or fact-base of the article has been challenged, every current reader should see that. But those boxes come off when the problem is resolved. The oldvfd box will be preserved forever. I believe it will be a distraction to the reader.
3. This template does not provide an indicator for the date of the discussion (though some of the variations above do).
4. The template does not easily allow the discussion-closer to sign the edit.

I reluctantly believe that we should deprecate the use of this template. Rossami (talk) 14:03, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Addressing your concerns in (hopefully the same) order:

1. The dynamic "name-pulling" makes it easier for the most common circumstance: should circumstances change this can be adjusted. The notice should not be archived with the rest of the talk page, and whether the notice should be moved or remain attached to the original name is an interesting topic for discussion (in my usual catmatic way I reckon both). Your remaining conditions can likely be addressed using the alternative template {{oldvfdfull}} as described above.
2. The colored box is there because it is important to know that an article has been through the VFD cycle should it be re-nominated. It should not be open to a vandal/POV-pusher to say "oh, I didn't realise", it should be blatantly obvious.
3. I think you are correct in that the date should be recorded. Should this be the date on which the nomination was made or that on which the discussion was closed.
4. I do not believe that it is necessary for the closer to sign the edit: this information is recorded in the page history and on the VFD page itself. In fact I think it is better without to avoid any suggestion of "bragging" (because you know that someone will suggest that...).

Let the argumentreasoned discussion continue...--Phil | Talk 14:55, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

Further:

1. Agree with Phil's comments.
2. The development history of an article, and the fact that there have been concerns about its existence, are indeed important. Further, it fits in the with talk page template standardisation.
3. Forcing the VFD admin to add the date is m:Instruction creep and should not be done. As said, there is the alternative "full" option.
4. Agree with Phil

violet/riga (t) 15:40, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I appreciate the response and understand both your arguments but you have not convinced me on points 1, 2 or 3. When you consider pagemoves, situation 1 occurs very frequently. Pages that are in poor enough shape to have been considered for deletion are highly likely to be aggressively edited and moved to a different title following the discussion. They also tend to include a high proportion of controversial articles with long talk pages which must eventually be archived. The point is that when you link to the deletion discussion dynamically, you are not remaining attached to the original name. The deletion discussion always remains at the original name but now your link points to nothing. The only workaround would be to require every editor to screen the Talk page (and maybe archives) for deletion notices and manually update them after the pagemove. I just don't think that's realistic. Editors worry about getting the article in the right place. The Talk page is just along for the ride.

As for the colored box, it sounds like we must agree to disagree. I understand the value that you are describing but I can count on one hand the number of re-nominations where the nominator said he/she "didn't know". I think that in aggregate, it does more harm than good. Rossami (talk) 23:06, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Oldvfd

Template:Oldvfd has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Oldvfd. Thank you. —Phil | Talk 19:03, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Modification

Can this be modified so we can direct it to the AFD discussion after a page move? Right now if the page is moved the discussion link will be killed unless you know to make a redirect at the page it now it points to.--BirgitteSB 17:52, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree, this would be very helpful. At the moment, there are pages that have this template but where the link to the AfD discussion does not work as the page has been moved - see, for example, User talk:Alansohn/Cruftcruft, which was moved from Wikipedia:Cruftcruft after the MfD. Does anyone know how to fix this? Terraxos 16:40, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

You can fix it my subst:ing the template and then after saving edit the link by hand to point to the correct location. But we should have a simpler solution with parameters.--BirgitteSB 17:18, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Use {{Oldafdfull}}. –Pomte 16:57, 10 January 2008 (UTC)