This is an
essay on
Wikipedia categorization. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of
Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been
thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
This page in a nutshell: Don't remove all/most items from a category (before/after nominating it for discussion). This may violate WP:CFD policy, and hinder the community in assessing the category's purpose and whether/how its items are related. Improper ECOOPing is sanctionable as disruptive editing. |
Users – editors, admins, and bots – should not be emptying categories out of process (ECOOP). That is, remove all/most items from a category before nominating it, or after it has (by that user or another user) been nominated for discussion (deletion, merging, renaming, or splitting). Doing so may constitute a violation of WP:CFD policy, and make it harder for the community to assess the purpose the category may serve, or have served, or could possibly be re-purposed to serve, as well as whether/how its items are related to each other.
Improper emptying (depopulating) of categories shortly before or after nominating them (in order to enable their deletion per this provision) is known as emptying out of process. Cases where a category could get or has been deleted due to having been emptied out of process are known as out of process deletions. There is a rough general agreement that this should not be done, but it is not always clear what exactly constitutes "emptying out of process", and in which cases such conduct should be sanctioned (and how) or not.
Sometimes emptying categories out of process is a sincere mistake anyone can make, and a warning and explanation is enough. In some cases, however, editors knowingly inappropriately empty categories out of process without disclosing this, which is considered disruptive. Such inappropriate ECOOPing may be sanctioned per Wikipedia:Disruptive editing with temporary blocks lasting for several days, indefinite topicbans, and even indefinite blocks (see #Sanction precedents).
This section employs definitions and recommendations derived from current or former official policy, sanction precedents, case studies, and common practice or parlance in the mainspace or the projectspace (mostly at WP:CFD/ WP:CFDS). As a whole, this section does not currently enjoy community consensus, but most of its constituent elements do.
For the purposes of this essay, the following definitions apply:
How to prevent emptying a category which should perhaps be deleted:
The best tool for detecting whether a category has been emptied out of process is the script User:Nardog/CatChangesViewer. It allows users to view the last 50 items and subcategories which have been added to or removed from a particular category in the past month. It includes information about at which time, and by whom, these changes were made. To install it, simply create a user subpage called User:YOURUSERNAME/common.js (if you haven't already), and add the following text to it:
importScript('User:Nardog/CatChangesViewer.js'); // Backlink: [[User:Nardog/CatChangesViewer.js]]
To help admins check for, and if needed, reverse potential out-of-process deletions, there is also Wikipedia:Database reports/Possibly out-of-process deletions. This is an automatically generated overview of pages which might have been deleted out of process, including articles, drafts, templates, and categories. For the latter, this may include categories emptied out of process.
Wikipedia:Categories for discussion ( WP:CFD) is part of Wikipedia:Deletion policy. The following excerpts are particularly relevant for emptying categories out of process (emphasis not in original):
Empty categories can be deleted if they remain empty 7 days after tagging with {{ db-empty}}.
Check Category:Empty categories awaiting deletion for out of process deletions. In some cases, these will need to be nominated for discussion and the editor who emptied the category informed that they should follow the WP:CFD process.
if the category contains only an eponymous article, list, template or media file, provided that the category has not otherwise been emptied shortly before the nomination.
Nobody disputes that categories which are empty can be deleted after 7 days per WP:CFDS. But it is also clear that in certain situations, users are not allowed to remove items from a category in order to make it empty, and thus effect or enable such a deletion.
But these two provisions are vague about the circumstances and criteria, and other than "inform[ing] the editor who emptied the category" how "the WP:CFD process" is supposed to work, there appears to be no enforceable punishment for emptying out of process. It operates under the assumption that only poorly informed editors are capable of emptying out of process, and that no editor would deliberately do that in order to delete a category they don't like. This is a good general assumption in line with WP:AGF, but there have been enough cases of malicious emptying out of process that enforceable sanctions are necessary, and have been taken in various cases (see #Sanction precedents).
Is emptying, deleting and undeleting categories out of process "disruptive"? As several case studies (below) show, there have been several suggestions that
they may be committing
Wikipedia:Disruptive editing, and could be sanctioned as such.
WP:DISRUPTIVE does not discuss categories explicitly, and only mentions "disruptive deletions" once under
WP:DISRUPTSIGNS, which may or may not be relevant for ECOOP (second emphasis not in original):
A disruptive editor is an editor who exhibits tendencies such as (...) editing an article or group of articles in pursuit of a certain point for an extended time despite opposition from other editors. Tendentious editors not only add material; some engage in disruptive deletions as well, e.g. repeatedly removing reliable sources posted by other editors.
Might we interpret emptying categories to enable their deletion as "repeatedly removing" a category from a "group of articles in pursuit of a certain point" (such as "this category is nonsensical" or "anachronistic"; see the "Roman Walls" and "[Years] [something] in Austria" cases below)? This does appear to be the case. Regardless of whether an editor empties a category to enable an (automatic or manual) WP:C1 or WP:C2F speedy deletion, or takes it to a normal WP:CFD, an emptied category makes it harder for the community to assess the purpose the category may serve, or may have served, or could possibly be re-purposed to serve. This is because admins at Speedy or regular editors participating in a CFD can no longer instantly see which items the category had before being emptied, and thus how the items might be related to each other, and whether the category name and scope make/made sense or not. Part of the problem is that the page history of categories does not show which items have been removed from it; only the page histories of individual items show which category it has been removed from.
In short, emptying categories shortly before or after nominating them for deletion, or in order to enable an automatic WP:C1 deletion, disrupts other Wikipedians' easy access to information about the category and its items, and evaluating the emptying editor's deletion rationale. They now need to turn to the emptying editor's user contributions list to see which items were removed from the category to re-construct what the category looked like before the emptying editor came along. Certain nominations themselves can be considered "disruptive", and therefore be closed procedurally or early ( WP:PCLOSE WP:EARLY). But note that the emptying editor can be someone else than whoever nominated the category for deletion, which is even harder to detect, let alone sanction.
Imagine the following scenario (which sometimes happens at CfD):
The primary responsibility of not emptying categories out of process is upon editors: they need to guard against doing it themselves, and to point out to others that it shouldn't be done. Deliberate ECOOPing by editors is sanctionable as disruptive editing ( WP:DISRUPTIVE). As of July 2023, there is a small number of #Sanction precedents taken against editors who have been found to be deliberately emptying categories out of process in order to effect out of process deletions, including temporary blocks ranging from 31 hours to 72 hours, indefinite topicbans, and even indefinite blocks. Additionally, several case studies show several admins and editors arguing that it can and sometimes should be sanctioned in certain situations.
Apart from editors,
§Ready for deletion also instructs admins (administrators) to check whether categories weren't emptied out of process so as to prevent themselves from performing out of process deletions, and "[to] inform the editor who emptied the category" how "the
WP:CFD process" is supposed to work. Admins could – mistakenly or deliberately – delete pages (including categories) out of process (a well-known phenomenon that is known about outside Wikipedia, so much so that it is briefly covered in Wikipedia's mainspace:
Deletion of articles on Wikipedia#Out-of-process deletions).
b:en:How Wikipedia Works/Chapter 7#Processes also briefly explains how this might happen (emphasis not in original):
Processes should generally be followed, unless very good reasons are given for not doing so; for example, administrators can delete pages out of process, but they risk inciting controversy if they do. On the other hand, processes have a tendency to get out of control, and rule-bound processes should not exist for their own sake.
Quoting
Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not (
WP:NOT), it adds: Follow the spirit, not the letter, of any rules, policies and guidelines if you feel they conflict.
Conversely, admins can also – mistakenly or deliberately – undelete pages out of process, with
Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Deletion review saying:
If a page was obviously deleted "out of process" (per this policy), then an administrator may choose to undelete it immediately. In such a case, the administrator who deleted the page should be informed. However, such undeletions without gaining consensus may be viewed as disruptive, so they should be undertaken with care.
So if admin A deletes a page out of process, admin B "may choose to undelete it immediately", and "should inform" admin A about it. However, if admin B undeletes a page out of process (namely, "without gaining consensus"), this might also constitute
disruptive editing (
WP:DISRUPTIVE), and be sanctionable as such. There is an apparent a tension between
This suggests that admins shouldn't immediately undelete a page out of process without gaining consensus first, even though they are allowed to, at the risk of that immediate-undeletion-without-gaining-consensus-first being viewed as "disruptive" (and thus sanctionable). This raises the question in which cases admin B needs to gain consensus first, and which cases they don't. The "How Wikipedia Works" Wikibook and WP:NOT suggest deliberate out-of-process deletions by admin B risk controversy, but are not disruptive if they "follow the spirit of the rules". Whether they actually did "follow the spirit of the rules" is probably to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, which has probably led to a kind of jurisprudence (a series of precedents deciding whether deliberate undeletions by admin B were "disruptive" or not).
Unfortunately, it is unclear whether, apart from undeletions, admins are also liable for disruptive editing if the admin deletes a page out of process, nor whether this also applies to deleting inappropriately emptied category pages specifically. But it stands to reason that similar rules apply here, as one case study of an admin moving/deleting categories out of process shows, which at least one editor identified as " disruptive" (see below).
There is general – but largely unwritten – agreement that a user cannot just go around emptying categories that they dislike just so that these categories can be tagged for deletion. But what exactly constitutes "emptying out of process" has not yet been formally written down anywhere ( as of July 2023). The July–November 2020 talk thread Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion/Archive 19#Where does it actually say you should not just empty a category you don't like? failed to come up with specific criteria under which scenarios and circumstances this would or would not be allowed (see #Proposals). Therefore, it is unclear what users may or may not do, and appropriate sanctions to be taken for whenever they have done something they were not allowed to do. By default, the current #Official CFD policy and #Sanction precedents, with possible inspiration from #Former official CFD & CFD How-to policy and #Case studies (in that order), should be followed in practice until new policy or guideline provisions are written and accepted by the community. In addition, the #Overview and #Interpretation in this essay may help editors and admins navigate various scenarios until then.
Jurisprudence: cases which have set precedents for sanctioning ECOOPing editors. These precedents are not meant to rehash old discussions or cast all contributions of sanctioned editors or admins in a bad light just because they have been sanctioned once or multiple times for ECOOPing.
Blocks in 2011, 2011, 2013
|
---|
Epilogue:
|
Indefinite topicban in May 2018
|
---|
Takeaway:
|
These policy provisions used to apply to WP:CFD#HOWTO, but are not longer in force, and can no longer be enforced. This section is not meant to rehash old discussions or cast the actions of certain editors or admins in a bad light merely for having apparently done something wrong in 2004–2007.
July–September 2004
|
---|
Some early admins and editors on English Wikipedia tried to establish a new WP:CFD policy in July–August 2004. (There was a parallel process by which categories could be deleted, called "votes for deletion (VFD)", which was later merged with the CFD process and no longer exists on its own). At the time, there were very few categories in general, and the primary concern was to not get items (mostly articles) orphaned. It was therefore common practice to move items from inappropriate category A to appropriate category B before deleting inappropriate category A, to prevent items from being orphaned. (Sometimes, emptying a category was also called "orphaning" or "depopulating"). In other words, categories had to be emptied before an admin was allowed to delete them. The question was whether it was appropriate for editors or admins to empty those categories before nominating (listing) them for deletion, or not until consensus was reached to delete them.
|
September 2004 – July 2006
|
---|
Epilogue: |
7 October 2005 – 9 August 2007
|
---|
|
Technical note
|
---|
From 20 November 2009 to 4 December 2013 the policy page Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion transcluded the criteria for deletion of categories from a discussion page instead of having them directly coded in the policy page. To see the history of that section of the speedy deletion policy during that period, see the editing history of Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy/Criteria. |
These case studies are just examples. They are not meant to rehash old discussions or cast the actions of certain editors or admins in a bad light merely for having apparently violated the rule of not emptying or deleting categories out of process. None of the people involved in these case studies were sanctioned for ECOOPing.
April 2006
|
---|
Takeaway:
|
February 2016
|
---|
Takeaway:
|
July 2017
|
---|
Takeaway:
|
October 2017
|
---|
Roman Walls & Limes. An editor asked another editor in 2017: Hi, you seem to be systematically emptying categories of the articles. You seem to have a preference for Category:Roman defensive walls in Britain. Why is this? What's your problem with categorising walls / limes by Roman province?
The conversation ended there, no measures were taken. Nevertheless, a 2021 CfR/M Renamed Category:Roman defensive walls in Britain to Category:Walls in Roman Britain with unanimous approval, as a follow-up to a previously reached consensus. Takeaway:
|
July 2018
|
---|
Please use the CFD process. I noticed that you have emptied Category:1892 establishments in Austria and presumably others today, without discussion. As you are an experienced editor you are fully aware that emptying categories out-of-process is not a light matter, and could result in sanctions being taken against you. You made a few nominations of multiple categories earlier this year, the last of which (including the category linked above, which you have just emptied) failed to achieve consensus, and this lack of consensus was explicitly because you had chosen not to comply with previous advice to make a comprehensive nomination for what remained. Please desist from emptying categories without discussion. As for the ones that you have emptied, either repopulate them for discussion, or at least have the diligence to redirect them like the ones that were merged following consensus at earlier CFDs. Takeaway:
Epilogue:
|
January 2021
|
---|
(...) some editor is depopulating director categories on Wikipedia. Starting with the "A"s (first name) yesterday, 5-10 director categories are being emptied out a day. You can see the daily list on Wikipedia:Database reports/Empty categories. At WP:CFD, this is called "emptying out of process" because the correct way to delete categories en masse like this is to post a proposal at CFD and argue for deletion. And it's difficult for editors, like me, who are unfamiliar with film to know what films are being removed from these categories or to know whether this editing is following a decision made by this members of this WikiProject to eliminate these categories for lesser known directors. (...) categories deleted simply for being emptied can be restored whenever they are needed. What we try to avoid though is for individual editors to set about doing mass changes that then have to be undone later.
Takeaway:
|
April 2021
|
---|
Takeaway:
|
July 2021
|
---|
Takeaway:
|
December 2021
|
---|
Please do not empty categories "out of process". This is considered disruptive editing. If you believe a category should be renamed, merged or deleted, make a proposal at Categories for Discussion. All of the information you need is on that page about how to go about doing this. Category renames need to be discussed so please nominate categories, do not empty them. Thank you. An admin identified ECOOPing as Wikipedia:Disruptive editing. What is unclear, however, is whether the editor in question actually did anything wrong. Looking at their contributions, they seemed to be knowing what they were doing, removing categories of diseases where they didn't apply, and only really emptying Category:Pig diseases, which the same admin then deleted ( WP:C1), undeleted ("mistaken deletion") and deleted again ( WP:C1). Takeaway:
|
October 2022
|
---|
Long story short: a new user emptied the categories of an old administrative structure that had been abolished 2 years earlier in the country in question. an experienced user checked that it was correct. Later, the same newbie created a new category structure with initially mostly empty categories to reflect the country's new administrative structure, instead of populating each new category one by one. Both were sincere procedural mistakes by the inexperieced new user, who admitted it and apologised for it, but when checked, the intention and effect of their edits was okay or corrected, so no sanctions were necessary. Takeaway:
Epilogue:
|
April 2023
|
---|
In this context, "moving" means renaming a category and deleting the old URL to it so that it becomes a redlink. In this case the categories were not emptied, but the old category names (URLs) were deleted out of process, which makes it relevant for studying admins who deleted categories out of process.
I am [opposed to the "female" to "women" moves]. Please stop and take them to WP:CFD. Changing "female" to "woman" in the case of fiction is inaccurate. Gerber Baby and Daisy Duck are just 2 of many examples of problems with this[.] Miscategorizing is disruptive. Admin 1 admitted their mistake immediately, after which editor 2 responded: You're very welcome : ) To be clear, I honestly don't care if living adult people are categorized as female or women, I'm merely asking you to revert the fiction edits. and thanked admin 1 after they did so. More important was the reaction to admin 1 undiscussed category moves by other admins. Admin 2 reverted all undiscussed moves and
speedy-closed editor 1's CfR:
Admin 2 spent much of the rest of the day reverting admin 1's undiscussed moves. Meanwhile, JJMC89 bot III was tasked to revert hundreds of admin 1's undiscussed "female" to "women" moves from 11:20, 20 April 2023 to 18:53, 20 April 2023. Takeaway:
|
mid-July 2023
|
---|
Takeaway:
|
late July 2023
|
---|
|
Proposals for better guidelines on ECOOPing. These are not official policy.
July 2020 (WP:CAT)
|
---|
If a category exists, any articles clearly meeting the definition in the category name should not be removed from it, other than for diffusion to a subcategory, or because they are repeated in a sub-category (per WP:OCAT). If a category is considered inappropriate as a whole, it should not be emptied, but a deletion discussion started at WP:CFD. Disagreements over the scope of categories, or whether particular articles fit the category, should be resolved on talk pages of the articles or category, or if necessary by a Cfd discussion. This informal proposal achieved no consensus, with about the same number of supporters and opponents. After a while, the discussion just ended without conclusion. Earlier proposals in the same thread were mostly earlier versions of this draft proposal that never made it. |
July 2023 (WP:SMALLCAT)
|
---|
|
This is an
essay on
Wikipedia categorization. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of
Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been
thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
This page in a nutshell: Don't remove all/most items from a category (before/after nominating it for discussion). This may violate WP:CFD policy, and hinder the community in assessing the category's purpose and whether/how its items are related. Improper ECOOPing is sanctionable as disruptive editing. |
Users – editors, admins, and bots – should not be emptying categories out of process (ECOOP). That is, remove all/most items from a category before nominating it, or after it has (by that user or another user) been nominated for discussion (deletion, merging, renaming, or splitting). Doing so may constitute a violation of WP:CFD policy, and make it harder for the community to assess the purpose the category may serve, or have served, or could possibly be re-purposed to serve, as well as whether/how its items are related to each other.
Improper emptying (depopulating) of categories shortly before or after nominating them (in order to enable their deletion per this provision) is known as emptying out of process. Cases where a category could get or has been deleted due to having been emptied out of process are known as out of process deletions. There is a rough general agreement that this should not be done, but it is not always clear what exactly constitutes "emptying out of process", and in which cases such conduct should be sanctioned (and how) or not.
Sometimes emptying categories out of process is a sincere mistake anyone can make, and a warning and explanation is enough. In some cases, however, editors knowingly inappropriately empty categories out of process without disclosing this, which is considered disruptive. Such inappropriate ECOOPing may be sanctioned per Wikipedia:Disruptive editing with temporary blocks lasting for several days, indefinite topicbans, and even indefinite blocks (see #Sanction precedents).
This section employs definitions and recommendations derived from current or former official policy, sanction precedents, case studies, and common practice or parlance in the mainspace or the projectspace (mostly at WP:CFD/ WP:CFDS). As a whole, this section does not currently enjoy community consensus, but most of its constituent elements do.
For the purposes of this essay, the following definitions apply:
How to prevent emptying a category which should perhaps be deleted:
The best tool for detecting whether a category has been emptied out of process is the script User:Nardog/CatChangesViewer. It allows users to view the last 50 items and subcategories which have been added to or removed from a particular category in the past month. It includes information about at which time, and by whom, these changes were made. To install it, simply create a user subpage called User:YOURUSERNAME/common.js (if you haven't already), and add the following text to it:
importScript('User:Nardog/CatChangesViewer.js'); // Backlink: [[User:Nardog/CatChangesViewer.js]]
To help admins check for, and if needed, reverse potential out-of-process deletions, there is also Wikipedia:Database reports/Possibly out-of-process deletions. This is an automatically generated overview of pages which might have been deleted out of process, including articles, drafts, templates, and categories. For the latter, this may include categories emptied out of process.
Wikipedia:Categories for discussion ( WP:CFD) is part of Wikipedia:Deletion policy. The following excerpts are particularly relevant for emptying categories out of process (emphasis not in original):
Empty categories can be deleted if they remain empty 7 days after tagging with {{ db-empty}}.
Check Category:Empty categories awaiting deletion for out of process deletions. In some cases, these will need to be nominated for discussion and the editor who emptied the category informed that they should follow the WP:CFD process.
if the category contains only an eponymous article, list, template or media file, provided that the category has not otherwise been emptied shortly before the nomination.
Nobody disputes that categories which are empty can be deleted after 7 days per WP:CFDS. But it is also clear that in certain situations, users are not allowed to remove items from a category in order to make it empty, and thus effect or enable such a deletion.
But these two provisions are vague about the circumstances and criteria, and other than "inform[ing] the editor who emptied the category" how "the WP:CFD process" is supposed to work, there appears to be no enforceable punishment for emptying out of process. It operates under the assumption that only poorly informed editors are capable of emptying out of process, and that no editor would deliberately do that in order to delete a category they don't like. This is a good general assumption in line with WP:AGF, but there have been enough cases of malicious emptying out of process that enforceable sanctions are necessary, and have been taken in various cases (see #Sanction precedents).
Is emptying, deleting and undeleting categories out of process "disruptive"? As several case studies (below) show, there have been several suggestions that
they may be committing
Wikipedia:Disruptive editing, and could be sanctioned as such.
WP:DISRUPTIVE does not discuss categories explicitly, and only mentions "disruptive deletions" once under
WP:DISRUPTSIGNS, which may or may not be relevant for ECOOP (second emphasis not in original):
A disruptive editor is an editor who exhibits tendencies such as (...) editing an article or group of articles in pursuit of a certain point for an extended time despite opposition from other editors. Tendentious editors not only add material; some engage in disruptive deletions as well, e.g. repeatedly removing reliable sources posted by other editors.
Might we interpret emptying categories to enable their deletion as "repeatedly removing" a category from a "group of articles in pursuit of a certain point" (such as "this category is nonsensical" or "anachronistic"; see the "Roman Walls" and "[Years] [something] in Austria" cases below)? This does appear to be the case. Regardless of whether an editor empties a category to enable an (automatic or manual) WP:C1 or WP:C2F speedy deletion, or takes it to a normal WP:CFD, an emptied category makes it harder for the community to assess the purpose the category may serve, or may have served, or could possibly be re-purposed to serve. This is because admins at Speedy or regular editors participating in a CFD can no longer instantly see which items the category had before being emptied, and thus how the items might be related to each other, and whether the category name and scope make/made sense or not. Part of the problem is that the page history of categories does not show which items have been removed from it; only the page histories of individual items show which category it has been removed from.
In short, emptying categories shortly before or after nominating them for deletion, or in order to enable an automatic WP:C1 deletion, disrupts other Wikipedians' easy access to information about the category and its items, and evaluating the emptying editor's deletion rationale. They now need to turn to the emptying editor's user contributions list to see which items were removed from the category to re-construct what the category looked like before the emptying editor came along. Certain nominations themselves can be considered "disruptive", and therefore be closed procedurally or early ( WP:PCLOSE WP:EARLY). But note that the emptying editor can be someone else than whoever nominated the category for deletion, which is even harder to detect, let alone sanction.
Imagine the following scenario (which sometimes happens at CfD):
The primary responsibility of not emptying categories out of process is upon editors: they need to guard against doing it themselves, and to point out to others that it shouldn't be done. Deliberate ECOOPing by editors is sanctionable as disruptive editing ( WP:DISRUPTIVE). As of July 2023, there is a small number of #Sanction precedents taken against editors who have been found to be deliberately emptying categories out of process in order to effect out of process deletions, including temporary blocks ranging from 31 hours to 72 hours, indefinite topicbans, and even indefinite blocks. Additionally, several case studies show several admins and editors arguing that it can and sometimes should be sanctioned in certain situations.
Apart from editors,
§Ready for deletion also instructs admins (administrators) to check whether categories weren't emptied out of process so as to prevent themselves from performing out of process deletions, and "[to] inform the editor who emptied the category" how "the
WP:CFD process" is supposed to work. Admins could – mistakenly or deliberately – delete pages (including categories) out of process (a well-known phenomenon that is known about outside Wikipedia, so much so that it is briefly covered in Wikipedia's mainspace:
Deletion of articles on Wikipedia#Out-of-process deletions).
b:en:How Wikipedia Works/Chapter 7#Processes also briefly explains how this might happen (emphasis not in original):
Processes should generally be followed, unless very good reasons are given for not doing so; for example, administrators can delete pages out of process, but they risk inciting controversy if they do. On the other hand, processes have a tendency to get out of control, and rule-bound processes should not exist for their own sake.
Quoting
Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not (
WP:NOT), it adds: Follow the spirit, not the letter, of any rules, policies and guidelines if you feel they conflict.
Conversely, admins can also – mistakenly or deliberately – undelete pages out of process, with
Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Deletion review saying:
If a page was obviously deleted "out of process" (per this policy), then an administrator may choose to undelete it immediately. In such a case, the administrator who deleted the page should be informed. However, such undeletions without gaining consensus may be viewed as disruptive, so they should be undertaken with care.
So if admin A deletes a page out of process, admin B "may choose to undelete it immediately", and "should inform" admin A about it. However, if admin B undeletes a page out of process (namely, "without gaining consensus"), this might also constitute
disruptive editing (
WP:DISRUPTIVE), and be sanctionable as such. There is an apparent a tension between
This suggests that admins shouldn't immediately undelete a page out of process without gaining consensus first, even though they are allowed to, at the risk of that immediate-undeletion-without-gaining-consensus-first being viewed as "disruptive" (and thus sanctionable). This raises the question in which cases admin B needs to gain consensus first, and which cases they don't. The "How Wikipedia Works" Wikibook and WP:NOT suggest deliberate out-of-process deletions by admin B risk controversy, but are not disruptive if they "follow the spirit of the rules". Whether they actually did "follow the spirit of the rules" is probably to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, which has probably led to a kind of jurisprudence (a series of precedents deciding whether deliberate undeletions by admin B were "disruptive" or not).
Unfortunately, it is unclear whether, apart from undeletions, admins are also liable for disruptive editing if the admin deletes a page out of process, nor whether this also applies to deleting inappropriately emptied category pages specifically. But it stands to reason that similar rules apply here, as one case study of an admin moving/deleting categories out of process shows, which at least one editor identified as " disruptive" (see below).
There is general – but largely unwritten – agreement that a user cannot just go around emptying categories that they dislike just so that these categories can be tagged for deletion. But what exactly constitutes "emptying out of process" has not yet been formally written down anywhere ( as of July 2023). The July–November 2020 talk thread Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion/Archive 19#Where does it actually say you should not just empty a category you don't like? failed to come up with specific criteria under which scenarios and circumstances this would or would not be allowed (see #Proposals). Therefore, it is unclear what users may or may not do, and appropriate sanctions to be taken for whenever they have done something they were not allowed to do. By default, the current #Official CFD policy and #Sanction precedents, with possible inspiration from #Former official CFD & CFD How-to policy and #Case studies (in that order), should be followed in practice until new policy or guideline provisions are written and accepted by the community. In addition, the #Overview and #Interpretation in this essay may help editors and admins navigate various scenarios until then.
Jurisprudence: cases which have set precedents for sanctioning ECOOPing editors. These precedents are not meant to rehash old discussions or cast all contributions of sanctioned editors or admins in a bad light just because they have been sanctioned once or multiple times for ECOOPing.
Blocks in 2011, 2011, 2013
|
---|
Epilogue:
|
Indefinite topicban in May 2018
|
---|
Takeaway:
|
These policy provisions used to apply to WP:CFD#HOWTO, but are not longer in force, and can no longer be enforced. This section is not meant to rehash old discussions or cast the actions of certain editors or admins in a bad light merely for having apparently done something wrong in 2004–2007.
July–September 2004
|
---|
Some early admins and editors on English Wikipedia tried to establish a new WP:CFD policy in July–August 2004. (There was a parallel process by which categories could be deleted, called "votes for deletion (VFD)", which was later merged with the CFD process and no longer exists on its own). At the time, there were very few categories in general, and the primary concern was to not get items (mostly articles) orphaned. It was therefore common practice to move items from inappropriate category A to appropriate category B before deleting inappropriate category A, to prevent items from being orphaned. (Sometimes, emptying a category was also called "orphaning" or "depopulating"). In other words, categories had to be emptied before an admin was allowed to delete them. The question was whether it was appropriate for editors or admins to empty those categories before nominating (listing) them for deletion, or not until consensus was reached to delete them.
|
September 2004 – July 2006
|
---|
Epilogue: |
7 October 2005 – 9 August 2007
|
---|
|
Technical note
|
---|
From 20 November 2009 to 4 December 2013 the policy page Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion transcluded the criteria for deletion of categories from a discussion page instead of having them directly coded in the policy page. To see the history of that section of the speedy deletion policy during that period, see the editing history of Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy/Criteria. |
These case studies are just examples. They are not meant to rehash old discussions or cast the actions of certain editors or admins in a bad light merely for having apparently violated the rule of not emptying or deleting categories out of process. None of the people involved in these case studies were sanctioned for ECOOPing.
April 2006
|
---|
Takeaway:
|
February 2016
|
---|
Takeaway:
|
July 2017
|
---|
Takeaway:
|
October 2017
|
---|
Roman Walls & Limes. An editor asked another editor in 2017: Hi, you seem to be systematically emptying categories of the articles. You seem to have a preference for Category:Roman defensive walls in Britain. Why is this? What's your problem with categorising walls / limes by Roman province?
The conversation ended there, no measures were taken. Nevertheless, a 2021 CfR/M Renamed Category:Roman defensive walls in Britain to Category:Walls in Roman Britain with unanimous approval, as a follow-up to a previously reached consensus. Takeaway:
|
July 2018
|
---|
Please use the CFD process. I noticed that you have emptied Category:1892 establishments in Austria and presumably others today, without discussion. As you are an experienced editor you are fully aware that emptying categories out-of-process is not a light matter, and could result in sanctions being taken against you. You made a few nominations of multiple categories earlier this year, the last of which (including the category linked above, which you have just emptied) failed to achieve consensus, and this lack of consensus was explicitly because you had chosen not to comply with previous advice to make a comprehensive nomination for what remained. Please desist from emptying categories without discussion. As for the ones that you have emptied, either repopulate them for discussion, or at least have the diligence to redirect them like the ones that were merged following consensus at earlier CFDs. Takeaway:
Epilogue:
|
January 2021
|
---|
(...) some editor is depopulating director categories on Wikipedia. Starting with the "A"s (first name) yesterday, 5-10 director categories are being emptied out a day. You can see the daily list on Wikipedia:Database reports/Empty categories. At WP:CFD, this is called "emptying out of process" because the correct way to delete categories en masse like this is to post a proposal at CFD and argue for deletion. And it's difficult for editors, like me, who are unfamiliar with film to know what films are being removed from these categories or to know whether this editing is following a decision made by this members of this WikiProject to eliminate these categories for lesser known directors. (...) categories deleted simply for being emptied can be restored whenever they are needed. What we try to avoid though is for individual editors to set about doing mass changes that then have to be undone later.
Takeaway:
|
April 2021
|
---|
Takeaway:
|
July 2021
|
---|
Takeaway:
|
December 2021
|
---|
Please do not empty categories "out of process". This is considered disruptive editing. If you believe a category should be renamed, merged or deleted, make a proposal at Categories for Discussion. All of the information you need is on that page about how to go about doing this. Category renames need to be discussed so please nominate categories, do not empty them. Thank you. An admin identified ECOOPing as Wikipedia:Disruptive editing. What is unclear, however, is whether the editor in question actually did anything wrong. Looking at their contributions, they seemed to be knowing what they were doing, removing categories of diseases where they didn't apply, and only really emptying Category:Pig diseases, which the same admin then deleted ( WP:C1), undeleted ("mistaken deletion") and deleted again ( WP:C1). Takeaway:
|
October 2022
|
---|
Long story short: a new user emptied the categories of an old administrative structure that had been abolished 2 years earlier in the country in question. an experienced user checked that it was correct. Later, the same newbie created a new category structure with initially mostly empty categories to reflect the country's new administrative structure, instead of populating each new category one by one. Both were sincere procedural mistakes by the inexperieced new user, who admitted it and apologised for it, but when checked, the intention and effect of their edits was okay or corrected, so no sanctions were necessary. Takeaway:
Epilogue:
|
April 2023
|
---|
In this context, "moving" means renaming a category and deleting the old URL to it so that it becomes a redlink. In this case the categories were not emptied, but the old category names (URLs) were deleted out of process, which makes it relevant for studying admins who deleted categories out of process.
I am [opposed to the "female" to "women" moves]. Please stop and take them to WP:CFD. Changing "female" to "woman" in the case of fiction is inaccurate. Gerber Baby and Daisy Duck are just 2 of many examples of problems with this[.] Miscategorizing is disruptive. Admin 1 admitted their mistake immediately, after which editor 2 responded: You're very welcome : ) To be clear, I honestly don't care if living adult people are categorized as female or women, I'm merely asking you to revert the fiction edits. and thanked admin 1 after they did so. More important was the reaction to admin 1 undiscussed category moves by other admins. Admin 2 reverted all undiscussed moves and
speedy-closed editor 1's CfR:
Admin 2 spent much of the rest of the day reverting admin 1's undiscussed moves. Meanwhile, JJMC89 bot III was tasked to revert hundreds of admin 1's undiscussed "female" to "women" moves from 11:20, 20 April 2023 to 18:53, 20 April 2023. Takeaway:
|
mid-July 2023
|
---|
Takeaway:
|
late July 2023
|
---|
|
Proposals for better guidelines on ECOOPing. These are not official policy.
July 2020 (WP:CAT)
|
---|
If a category exists, any articles clearly meeting the definition in the category name should not be removed from it, other than for diffusion to a subcategory, or because they are repeated in a sub-category (per WP:OCAT). If a category is considered inappropriate as a whole, it should not be emptied, but a deletion discussion started at WP:CFD. Disagreements over the scope of categories, or whether particular articles fit the category, should be resolved on talk pages of the articles or category, or if necessary by a Cfd discussion. This informal proposal achieved no consensus, with about the same number of supporters and opponents. After a while, the discussion just ended without conclusion. Earlier proposals in the same thread were mostly earlier versions of this draft proposal that never made it. |
July 2023 (WP:SMALLCAT)
|
---|
|