Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Leave useless drafts alone
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- The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result of the discussion was: Withdrawn. I have evidently made a mistake given the proportion of responses criticising this proposal. The reason I nominated this essay for deletion is plainly because I didn't like it, I thought there would be material to support my argument but it seems that was not the case. Looking back, I think it was silly that I cited WP:NMFD as if it were a policy when I forgot to verify whether it is or is not. I thought there would be more material regarding drafts in policies and guidelines but there isn't as much as I had hoped for. (non-admin closure) Qwerty123M (talk) 05:04, 4 May 2026 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Leave useless drafts alone
This essay goes against the spirit of WP:NMFD (an official policy, which this essay is not). I thought essays were meant to provide sound policy advice but this page ends up not doing that when read in conjunction with WP:NMFD. This essay means that editors may cast votes against an MfD discussion when that draft is a blatant violation of the rules such as those contained in WP:NOT. If this essay must be kept then we should merge it with the official draft policy at WP:DRAFT so this text is much easier to find and has more weight. This essay does not fully assume that editors are acting in good faith when they nominate a draft article for deletion. Qwerty123M (talk) 00:04, 3 May 2026 (UTC)
- Comment: Wikipedia:Drafts is not a policy or guideline, @Qwerty123M. Some of its paragraphs have the consensus of RFCs behind them, but the page itself is just an explanatory essay. Chess enjoyer (talk) 00:16, 3 May 2026 (UTC)
- Oh, of course. 🫀 Crash // Organhaver ( it / he | talk to me, maybe? ) 00:21, 3 May 2026 (UTC)
- Keep, and kind of a ridiculous nomination in my opinion. WP:NMFD just states that "
A draft will be deleted at MfD if there is a consensus that it meets one of the reasons for deletion under the deletion policy and that it is unlikely to ever be a viable article
". WP:LUDA does not disagree with this. - The point of LUDA is that drafts should be left alone since the nominations usually doesn't fit deletion criteria, with the invalid nomination rationale being that the draft "will never become an article".
- I suggest you read WP:LUDA. Genuinely. LUDA says, clearly, in the first section, that "
Sometimes drafts are nominated for deletion at MfD because someone feels that the draft will never become a viable article. Please do not do so, no matter how uncontroversial that conclusion appears to be
". That directly agrees with WP:NMFD! - Drafts should not be nominated unless they fit one of the deletion criteria and they are unlikely to become an article, not just one of those.
- If you issue is with a certain users' !vote, that is not any issue with the essay itself. 🫀 Crash // Organhaver ( it / he | talk to me, maybe? ) 00:21, 3 May 2026 (UTC)
- Question - Does the nominator expect that we will have approximately 10 drafts nominated for deletion each day, or does the nominator have some other idea for how to minimize the number of drafts nominated for deletion? Robert McClenon (talk) 04:41, 3 May 2026 (UTC)
- Comment - I wrote this essay precisely because I know that the nominations of drafts for deletion are made in good faith. It is addressed to users who are acting in what I think is mistaken good faith. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:41, 3 May 2026 (UTC)
- Keep. The ideas in this essay are within the overton window. It is a reasonable essay that advocates for a reasonable practice. I don't think it is controversial enough to userfy or delete. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:50, 3 May 2026 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.