This is maybe not the best place for this discussion, and I'm not going to oppose Randy for doing the same things that most NPP'ers do, but I have a real problem with speedy deletion tags being applied only minutes, or even seconds, after an article's first edit--no matter who the author is, but especially when the author is a newbie. At the very least, I would like to see (and I nearly always do myself) a warning on the user's talk page explaining why I tagged their article, how to contest it, and guiding them to the appropriate policies. Some articles are clearly kids playing silly games but many times the author is making a good faith effort to add an article about which they are interested, but is unaware of the notability guidelines or the ability to work in a userspace sandbox.

Regarding the argument that there are too many pages on NPP, I can only repeat a statement made somewhere else (I forget by whom) that if there is no good way to track new pages for development before trying to delete them, that is a reason to improve the software, not a reason to bite newbies.

As I said, I won't oppose him for treating NPP the way every other patroler does, but I would much rather see editors, especially those who want to be admins, take the time to make the good faith effort to contact the authors of speedy candidates and offer at least some help and guidance. It might mean tagging fewer articles but it might also save some potentially good (or at least ok) articles and more importantly avoid driving away new editors in frustration. Thatcher131 (talk) 14:51, 22 August 2006 (UTC) reply

If someone creates an article about themselves, and is obviously not notable in anyway but are not aware that Wiki is an encyclopedia that doesn't have articles on every person in the world then db-bio tells them this:

It also links the newbie to helpful pages so they understand why the article isn't appropriate. I can't see tagging newbies pages for speedy delete without informing them on their talk page is biting them, your just setting the facts out straight for them.-- Andeh 15:00, 22 August 2006 (UTC) reply

"I can't see tagging newbies pages for speedy delete without informing them on their talk page is biting them, your just setting the facts out straight for them." That's something we'll have to agree to disagree about. Although I avoided this problem as a newbie myself, I imagine suddenly having a giant pink box show up saying your article is going to be deleted is pretty shocking and upsetting to some people. Depending on how new you are, you may not know about page histories, so the deletion seems like a bolt from the blue; dropped by some mysterious gatekeeper. A note on the talk page says, Hi, I'm a human being like you; I nominated your article for deletion; look at these rules and ask for help if you need it." The talk page will also get their attention if they haven't watchlisted the article or if they don't know about the watchlist. (I also use {{ PRODWarning}} and {{ AFDWarning}} for the same reason.) I don't expect to change the world with one RFA, but deleting without talking is something I feel very strongly about. Thatcher131 (talk) 15:14, 22 August 2006 (UTC) reply

For the "few seconds" things we should educate our new page patrollers better. Currently, the instructions at WP:RCP don't say how to not WP:BITE the newbies or how to hope that a {{ db-a1}} article is expanded very soon. We should improve the instructions, not yell at new page patrollers. Kusma (討論) 15:05, 22 August 2006 (UTC) reply

There is always a large number of articles that need to be speedied, most made in good-faith, but is not informing the newbie whom created it really biting them!? Am I newbie biting creating Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shield of Arrav and not telling the newbie?-- Andeh 15:11, 22 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Irongargoyle gave that author a {{ PRODWarning}} over Ouchiwawaa, which is arguably less encyclopedic than Shield of Arrav. I prefer that approach in most cases. It's obviously a matter of discretion and discrimination and I do not warn every time either. Thatcher131 (talk) 15:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Well, I think part of why I say that newpages patrollers can't be faulted for acting quickly is the assumption that they're also acting carefully and correctly, with a clear understanding of every policy they'd need to be familiar with, and will correct mistakes if pointed out to them. That's how I like to think I operate. We have an ongoing epidemic of newpages that don't get addressed and sit for months containing potential libel, copyvios and so on... I can't see attacking newpage patrollers for acting quickly as anything but highly counterproductive. We need as many correct actions taken as possible, even if they do occur quickly.

The software does need to be changed, but the suggestions of newpage patrollers are usually shot down by people who simply don't do newpages.

Really, I am not sure that you understand there are, and I'm not exagerating, 2-10 attack pages, biographies with no assertion of notability, joke pages, and utter nonsense created every single minute, and thousands of them every day. I'm not talking about debatable ones, I'm talking about articles where the content is "John Walters is an ass muncher" and "jahsduhasdjasdja". Are we really supposed to talk to all of those page creators before being able to delete? That's not a very good idea. -- W.marsh 15:18, 22 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Obviously discretion and judgement come into play. Partly it comes down to the differences between the nonsense/attack CSD categories and the notability/importance categories. You can speedy all the assmunchers you want as fast as you can without a peep from me. But when someone writes that Gulfside United Methodist Assembly was the first conference center established in the segregated south of the 1920s for black Methodists to meet, it deserves some time to develop and maybe even offer the author a hand, rather than an AfD after only 3 hours. Or Nenagh Éire Óg GAA, whose author seems to be trying to create articles on hurling clubs and is running into a lot of speedy deletions; he needs help more than he needs yet another speedy deletion. At the very least, I would like to authors of apparently good faith but non-qualifying articles (again, assmunchers exempted) to be notified at the same time the speedy tag is placed. It should make the process a little more human. Thatcher131 (talk) 15:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Ah, well as long as I can speedy delete the assmunchers :-) Anyway I think we're both bothered by the same thing (bad speedy deletion attempts), but my approach is for new page/RC patrollers to make better decisions and be more informed about policy before trying to speedy delete stuff, rather than trying to force a seemingly cumbersome requirement on all of us. Obviously if you're not sure about an ambiguous article, part of making the right decision can involve talking to the person who created... but to me, most newpages either already are good articles, can someday be good articles... or simply are hopeless. But I think we're getting way beyond the scope of the RfA at this point... so that's it for now I hope. -- W.marsh 15:44, 22 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Just to close this out, as I think we're on the same page generally: Since we are unlikely to affect a change in the behavior of hundreds of NPPers, we need admins who close CSDs to be especially familiar with the CSD policy and especially careful when deleting articles. I do not go as far as to expect or even ask that admins perform notability checks or notify editors (although it would be nice), merely that admins recognize when an article is not a proper speedy candidate and either remove the tag with comment or remove the tag and replace with a prod or Afd. I think Randy's willingness to acknowledge this and not get defensive speaks well of his likely future if he passes this RFA. Thatcher131 (talk) 16:55, 23 August 2006 (UTC) reply