As said a couple of threads ago, I tried a rewrite of the "What is this page for?" section of the DRV instructions, replacing that entire section with two numbered lists so that the main instructions more concise and hopefully can be followed with more certainty:

Thoughts? -- MuZemike 22:29, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

"Under no circumstances will revisions that are copyright violations, libelous or contain otherwise prohibited content be restored" is hyperbolic, and sometimes the copyright, libel, or other aspect of prhibition is challenged directly. There can be circumstances. Suggest:

Copyright violating, libelous or otherwise prohibited content will not be restored.

Shortening of the header sections is a good idea. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 02:16, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

How about:
Under no circumstances will copyright-violating, libelous, or otherwise prohibited content be restored. -- MuZemike 07:23, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

error in the closer's interpretation covers, and should cover, many things. Correct WP deletion process requires the deletions to be in accord with WP policies and guidelines, and to take account of the arguments submitted and the consensus, and to use good judgment. Therefore any closure that fails to do so is a mistake in following WP Deletion process. A error in evaluating the evidence, the guidelines, the policy or the consensus are all cases of improper process, for the correct procedure for all admin actions is that admins must act reasonably. Therefore any closing that is asserted to not be in accord with correct judgment, or with the facts of the matter, can and should be reviewed at Deletion Review.

In addition, Deletion Review in practice routinely considers new evidence after something has been deleted, as well as errors of interpretation. About half the cases of successful deletion review are of this sort. For deletions where the page has been protected against re-creation, this is the only method. DGG ( talk ) 04:20, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Not sure what is being asked for here, but maybe "interpretation" could be shortened to "judgment"? My purpose is to simplify the page so that users can better understand what to do. -- MuZemike 07:23, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

• "#6 to use the deleted content on other pages" should go to requests for undeletion. Alternative uses, whether for a different article or userfication, is not a request to review a deletion decision. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 05:24, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

For #6, the beginning is pertaining to content that could be merged to another page. If something can be merged to said other page, we would need to undelete and merge there, following CC-BY-SA attribution, of course. -- MuZemike 07:23, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

My point is that this shouldn't go to DRV, but to requests for undeletion, or more likely, a request for userfication so that the editor can review the deleted content against his memory or guess of it. It should not go to DRV unless a request for undeletion/userfication is refused and the editor wants that reviewed. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 00:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

• "#1 ... to review a speedy deletion". I think that nearly every reasonable contest of most speedy deletions should be undeleted and listed procedurally at XfD. I think the exception list would be CSDs G9, G10, G11, & F9. CSD challeges not infrequently come up, and in the vast majority of cases, the decision to speedily delete was not terribly faulty, but subseqeuntly it turned out that someone wants a discussion. That discussion becomes a deletion discussion, not a deletion review discussion. I think that we need a guideline that says that nominations to review these speedies should be speedily sent to XfD. (Probably, the discussion should have first occured on the deleting admins talk page, I don't think it is helpful to send nominations back to usertalk pages.) -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 00:42, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

  CSD (and PROD for that matter) are only in place for non-controversial deletions. I agree with SJ that a contested CSD deletion should be listed, rather than pushing through the deletion, and thus forcing a trip to DRV. (Anyone who speedily deletes a non-blp page, and answers concerns merely with "DRV is that way", should be trouted at least) There are very few pages on Wikipedia which can't wait a few extra days of discussion before being deleted. - jc37 01:00, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

  While I would be inclined to agree, my focus right now is on simplifying and improving the present procedures at DRV and not trying to suggest changes to the deletion process. -- MuZemike 19:43, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Here is an updated version. Upon SmokeyJoe's suggestion, I moved the part for requests that previously deleted content down to the "not" list, pointing to WP:REFUND, as well as removing the "under no circumstances" in the bold at the end. I also removed the first item in the first list, as it is redundant to the two below it.

Any other comments or addditional suggestions are welcome. -- MuZemike 19:43, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

• Mostly good. I don't understand "should not" #1 "because of a disagreement with the deletion discussion's outcome that does not involve the closer's judgment". Could you please give some examples? -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 15:22, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Unless there is a better way to word it, any "I don't like the outcome" request. -- MuZemike 03:59, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps: "to merely disagree. Deletion review nominations must state reasons and a desired outcome." -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 04:33, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

In an ongoing DRV ( Wikipedia:Deletion review#Category:Islamophobia) DGG, makes some assertions which appear to hinge partly on the same perception of the DRV process as in his post above. However, I don't see the present "charter" neither nominally nor ostensibly covering DGG's understanding of how the DRV instrument should be perceived and applied. Furthermore I don't see any comments so far to the above post which would either support or unveil the positions of others vis-à-vis these views. I am troubled by them from the position of having met them in the ongoing DRV which I have linked to above. My concern is exacerbated by another veteran, S Marshall, interjecting his supportive "explanation" for why DRVs should be conducted and judged from a purview significantly exceeding what is currently presented in the "What is this page for?" section, i.e. what we could term the scope of the DRV process. S Marshall's "explanation" deeply troubles me as long as this pragmatism does not appear to be based on any written statutes, as he writes:

On the one hand, there's a convention that DRV is not AfD round 2. But on the other hand, that convention is sometimes suspended (tacitly or explicitly) because in order to perform its function properly, DRV needs to be more than just a venue to oversee procedure.

Has there been the evolution of a practice, not founded on any focused consensus-building discussion, but instead having simply evolved organically? If so, shouldn't such a practice either be curbed in or codified retroactively?

S Marshall continues to present some assertions that intrigue me, which I also find troublesome, and to which I would request others comment:

• A lot of DRVs are about difficult and marginal cases, or where there's been some perceived need to disregard procedure, or where an editor suggests that procedure should have been disregarded.
• And in a few extreme cases, there have been occasions when a DRV has overturned a XfD on the basis that the XfD was simply wrong.

S Marshall even goes as far as defending DGG's lack of even addressing any procedural mistakes made by the closer of the CfD in question (Mike Selinker). Then in a follow-up DGG claims closer did make procedural mistakes, however, based on DGG's normative understanding of how the DRV process should be, and perhaps even descriptive if things really are as S Marshall have described.

I find the facts that I have uncovered and detailed here untenable and would like to see a discussion and some lacking consistency and order brought back into these matters. __ meco ( talk) 09:07, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

I think everything is fine. A review is not a review if it is constrained to a formulaic evaluation of procedure. The flip side of this is that a resulting action is justified only if the review produces a consensus. That means that DGG's and S Marshall's perhaps unexpected statement will only carry if others then agree. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 13:11, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

I maintain that things are exactly as I have described.

One of the clearest examples that I participated in was Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2009 March 24#Category:Second wranglers and Category:Senior wranglers: the deletion review found that the CfD was glaringly wrong on a point of fact, and simply overturned it (from "delete" to "keep"). Another example was Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2008 March 26#Rachel Aldana, at which the deletion review found that the AfD was glaringly wrong on a point of policy (in this case BLP1E), and simply overturned it (from "keep" to "delete").

I can cite numerous other examples if it would help you. I aver that it has always been true that users have wide latitude to say whatever they like at DRV, and that DRV is justified in taking any action at all that improves the encyclopaedia. DRV is most definitely not restricted to overseeing the deletion process.— S Marshall T/ C 00:08, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I have not challenged your claim that this has been a practice, although how widespread it has been remains unclear. You present here two examples that are 3 and four years old, respectively. I would like, however, to challenge your last claim that, "DRV is most definitely not restricted to overseeing the deletion process". In particular, I wonder about your placing the word process in italics which in this context would seem equal to applying scare quotes. This again would suggest that my initiative should be seen as some rigid, rules-thumping attempt at forcing onto the DRV process a narrowly legalistic practice inherently incapable of dealing with real-life situations. I have on occasions myself presented ignore all rules as my principal argument at an XfD, but to extol this principle to the extent that we should not have a real framework for these discussions that can be enforced, seems to me not as being pragmatism or groundedness, but rather an expression of some users' proclivity for a working environment that suits their particular type of personality best. I don't see the current situation as being in the best interest towards maintaining the XfD and related instruments (including DRV) predictable and commanding confidence among participants. __ meco ( talk) 08:43, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I particularly selected the Senior Wranglers DRV as an example because it contains what I think are important exchanges on the principle of "DRV is not XfD round 2". Would you like me to provide more recent examples? I'm concerned that I may be somehow missing the point here.

I italicised process because I think that DRV is the place to oversee deletion issues or decisions of any kind, not just process-related problems. To paraphrase what DGG says in Senior Wranglers, if not here, then where? (The other usual places are AN/I and User talk:Jimbo Wales, neither of which I think is a better venue.)— S Marshall T/ C 15:38, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Isn't it rather obvious that the present forum, where the current discussion is taking place, is the correct and appropriate venue for discussing DRV process-related problems? I find it hard to understand why you would simply discount this very obvious venue when you echo the question "if not here, then where?" ("here" in that quotation referring to a DRV case discussion). And what about Wikipedia talk:Deletion process? I mean, it's not like we lack dedicated and specific forums for discussing our practices and presenting proposals for change without contaminating the DRVs and XfDs themselves with such meta-discourse! Obviously, touching upon and identifying systemic and procedural principled issues could take place in any ongoing XfD/DRV, but then that discussion should be taken to these forums that are not for the continuous discussion and deciding on pages that are nominated for deletion. __ meco ( talk) 16:53, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Can I please draw a distinction between the deletion process and the deletion review process? This is where we talk about the deletion review process. The deletion process, in general, is supervised and scrutinised at DRV and not anywhere else.— S Marshall T/ C 17:18, 18 August 2012 (UTC)