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Welcome. Please note that this page is NOT for requesting undeletion of a page. It is for discussion of the Requests for Undeletion page. Please request undeletion of a page on the main UND page.

Statistics on success rate?

Do we have any sort of statistics on the proportion of drafts restored pursuant to this process that then go on to be approved to be moved to main space, or for articles already in main space and prodded or soft deleted go on to be uncontroversially maintained articles? I would expect that a draft that gets deleted for which someone bothers to request a refund would thereafter have a higher percentage chance of being improved and moved, but I don't know if we have any data to substantiate this. BD2412 T 20:24, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

From my experience, most refunds are because the creator gets an email notification saying the draft has been deleted. The requests come on the same day of deletion, usually within a few minutes, or hours after deletion, indicating the creator is acting on the notification, and nothing else. This most of the time (90% maybe) does not translate into the editor or any one else, trying to work or improve the draft. Editors who request refund of long deleted drafts are the ones interested in working on them, and I have seen few (less than 5% maybe) getting immediately converted to articles (without waiting for AfC approval). Jay 💬 07:06, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Recently I placed the refunded pages on my watchlist, and many are worked on, and a big proportion are then submitted. Some are speedy deleted for advertising, or get AFD'd once becoming articles. Pinging the requesters gets more action. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:06, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Some statistics for my 52 undeletes in October: 2 were deleted; 21 drafts with no edit; 11 drafts edited; 5 drafts submitted and declined; 5 drafts became articles; 7 non-drafts survived without deletion nomination; 1 kept after deletion debate. So that is more than half "success" and over 10% resulting in more articles. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:43, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose that 10% by itself justifies the small amount of work needed to restore a draft. BD2412 T 22:48, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Response symbols

Currently we have a green tick or a red cross, and perhaps a question mark. But should we have an intermediate symbol, for where no action is required such as when a page was moved; or redirected, or where a page exists and is not yet deleted, but just tagged. A red cross is too sever, as the requestor can still access the page, and a tick is not right either as nothing was restored. Perhaps a blue dash is appropriate. What do you think? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:05, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, why not. But I also like to see green as Resolved / Attended / Answered, rather than Restored. Jay 💬 09:31, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Can't find section"

Anyone else having trouble with the script? When I accept a request, it does everything else fine, but doesn't respond to the requestor, it throws an error with "can't find section" (or something to that effect), so I have to ping them a reply manually. It's been doing that for a few days now. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 10:59, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Same. BD2412 T 15:11, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Refunding an A7/A9'd article is not allowed?

This page says Do not request that pages or media deleted under speedy deletion criteria F7, F9, F11, U5, A7, A9, A11, G3, G4, G10, G11 or G12 be undeleted here. However, I see at Wikipedia:Deletion review that refunding articles that have been deleted under A7 or A9 is allowed (undeleting a very old article where substantial new sources have subsequently arisen). Obviously common sense prevails here and I'd imagine most admins would refund an A7/A9'd article if the requesting editor provided sources, it just seems odd to have A7 and A9 listed as reasons to not refund if in most good faith cases they shouldn't be an obstacle.

To be clear, there's no specific article I'd like to refund; I just noticed this. Gracen (they/them) 21:46, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Anything deleted under any of those CSD criteria would have been in mainspace, and we're clearly not going to restore any of those to mainspace. Admins may of course restore those articles to userspace or Draft by request, but this isn't the venue to do this. Black Kite (talk) 22:13, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, that makes sense. Thanks! Gracen (they/them) 22:21, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This RFU should not have been considered. Under a related title, the page was not-soft deleted at AfD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/DXKS-FM (CDO). Sammi Brie (she/her · t · c) 04:28, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Pinging BD2412. Jay 💬 10:20, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No objection to re-deletion. We can't see everything. BD2412 T 16:14, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I just deleted it. Jay 💬 07:46, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Refunding to draft space

I've had my refunds of uncontroversially deleted articles placed in draft space a couple times now. Maybe admins are trying to be helpful but this is not the stated procedure for these types of deletion. If I wanted the article in draft space or my user space, I would ask for that. If we are doing this to less experienced editors they my not be able to figure out how to get it back into mainspace so it's not a refund at all. ~Kvng (talk) 03:44, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't this a good thing for less experienced editors? No comment on the procedure though, just trying to find out what is best. Jay 💬 07:52, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Are you asking whether it is a better experience for less experienced editors or are you asking whether it is better for Wikipedia or the Wikipedia community to send inexperienced editors through draft space and AfC? The answer to the former is clearly no. They've figured out how to do something in mainspace and now we're asking them to figure out a second article creation path. The answer to the latter depends on how much of a deletionist you are but I think it is hard to argue that throwing arguably unnecessary obstacles in front of inexperienced editors is best. ~Kvng (talk) 14:00, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes to both. Less experienced editors are free to edit in mainspace, however creating fresh articles and keeping them in mainspace requires a good understanding of policies and guidelines. Sending a newbie article to AfD or straight to CSD is going to be a bitter experience for the author. Jay 💬 14:17, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't fully agree but those are good points. There is a longstanding debate about whether we should be trying to try to protect inexperienced editors from themselves. I don't think we'll be able to resolve that here. ~Kvng (talk) 14:25, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What I do is, if the requestor is new, I explain the problem that the article has (when I know for sure it is going to AfD), and make an offer to draftify. This hasn't worked always though, because another admin comes along, overrides my "offer" and directly restores the PROD/Soft deleted article to mainspace (or draftspace) without waiting for the requestor to respond. Jay 💬 14:46, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for trying. Some inexperienced editors struggle to participate in these discussions. If there is no response, the right thing to do is perform the policy-directed action which is to restore uncontroversially deleted articles to mainspace. ~Kvng (talk) 16:02, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]