Wiktionary talk:Previously deleted entries

Since this duplicates WT:LOP so well, I wonder how this will all turn out.

Hey, waitasec. Why isn't the archive a sub-page of the page it is archiving?

--Connel MacKenzie 03:40, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Answer to my own question: because this is merely an index to the real archives. --Connel MacKenzie 03:44, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Note to self: My plan is to move this to Appendix:Failed entries and redirect Appendix:rfdfailed there as well. The combined listing will be sub-pages of WT:PT, and will not contain the RFD discussion text, instead, only links to the discussion page removal (by using the "&oldid=" trick.) The combined result will be auto-generated from XML full-history dumps, to get the revisionID of WT:RFV or WT:RFD correct. The WT:GP messages on this topic have been archived somewhere. I've added this note so I can find this particular page more easily. --Connel MacKenzie 21:11, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Essentially, why does it need a MediaWiki prefix? It's not a template that makes up other pages like MediaWiki:Edittools, so surely something like Wiktionary is better than MediaWiki. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:06, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

RFD/O

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Others.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

---

Wiktionary:Previously deleted entries

...and its A-Z subpages. These haven't been updated for years, and don't really hold any useful information: they are just links to past discussions, which could now be found on deleted entries' talk pages. Should we consider deleting these? Equinox ◑ 13:41, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Delete Wiktionary:Previously deleted entries, Wiktionary:Previously deleted entries/A and the other subpages. Note, however, that many of the discussions linked from there are not found on talk pages; e.g. macrocosmus has empty Talk:macrocosmus; curiously enough, macrocosmus is at Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Archives/2007/03 anyway. If this gets deleted, remove a link to it from {{rfv-failed}}. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:10, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I see no harm in keeping it until everything from it is moved to talk pages. Though of course it should be eventually deleted. Renard Migrant (talk) 11:37, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

@Renard Migrant The harm is in increasing the entropy of the web site for very little benefit. For instance, {{rfv-failed}} currently links the reader to Wiktionary:Previously deleted entries as if this page were of any import. Having very old discussions on talk pages is inessential since they can be found in RFV and RFD page histories by looking by the date of deletion. In case of doubt, a deleted page can be restored and sent to RFD anew. Originally, I hesitated to support, but I now see immediate deletion as the best course of action. I do not think it worthwhile to wait until someone spends their resources (time, attention) to ensure that all discussions linked from Wiktionary:Previously deleted entries are copied to talk pages. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:36, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

This seems a lot like deleting the record of judicial decisions. In a common-law country such decisions certainly reflect efforts to interpret and apply laws and principles to situations not contemplated when the principles and laws are articulated and passed. Our decision-making is similar. Erasing convenient history seems to me to be a mistake, making investigation of our decision-making limited to those who can manipulate the edit history in XML dumps. I am aware of no such efforts. As it is, there is no effort to record speedy deletions and no ready means of accessing whatever record the wiki software retains.

More desirable would be a more systematic record of ALL deleted terms, at least via the RfD process, and a link to the current location of the discussion. Even better would be to make sure that there was a copy of the discussion in the talk page corresponding to the entry or definition deleted.

Accordingly, Keep until a more effective means of accessing such decisions and their rationale is implemented. DCDuring TALK 15:08, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand much of what you are saying. A systematic list of all terms deleted via RFD and archived using the method currently in place (placing dicussions on talk pages) can be found by looking at Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:rfd-failed (2536 pages per AWB) and Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:rfd-passed (1892 pages per AWB); ditto for RFV. This gives you an extensive history of discussions of past deletions. They are searchable using Goggle; Wiktionary:Previously deleted entries/A does not give you the text of the discussion, so it does not help searchability. As for terms deleted and not so archived, one only has to take the year and the month of the deletion, and then search in history, using the online wiki functions, no dump processing. Moreover, multiple of these links in Wiktionary:Previously deleted entries/A are broken anyway; e.g. for "adipoli" or Ábraham (never deleted). --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:51, 27 September 2014 (UTC) I have striken my comment that is worthless. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:14, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

At best the coverage of 'what links here' pages covers only a period for which the templates have been applied. It is likely to fall short of complete coverage even during that period due to imperfect implementation. It would not be a surprise to me if someone decided to replace these templates or change or dispense with the archiving process, further fragmenting our readily accessible historical record. I'd favor someone mining these pages to more appropriately archive the discussions of the included deleted items before the pages are deleted. If someone can do so more effectively by instead mining the XML edit history, they should do so.

I suppose it is possible, even likely, that we won't ever have the resources to actually be systematic about much of anything, let alone making sense of our actual practice in deciding to keep or delete entries and definitions. Making some of the history less available doesn't really matter if such history isn't going to be looked at. I have some hope that we will have the resources to do so and would like to preserve anything that might help. DCDuring TALK 17:05, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Keep (roughly per DCDuring). Many of the discussions linked to from the nominated pages are only in old revisions of pages (the links on the nominated pages are to oldids). There is no other way to access those.​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:50, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

• RFDO kept: no consensus for deletion. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:53, 3 April 2016 (UTC)