Sick of waiting eons for a proposed deletion to go through for a landmass that obviously needs it?

Many kilobytes of discussion, workshopping, and debate at Wikipedia:Village Asthenosphere (policy) concluded this week with a decision to adopt several new criteria – L3, L4 and L5 – for speedy deletion of land masses, rock formations, and other geological features.

Long-time editor User:Ariana Granite said, in opening the RfC:

Many who supported the RfC, including Ariana, argued that problems were being caused by outdated policies enacted billions of years ago, when Wikipedia was still cooling down from its original formation. Wikipedia:Be volcanic, a policy written during the Hadean eon (and still one of our 5 Speleothems), encourages users to "simply deposit material without talking about it". Some argued that this was no longer appropriate for an encyclopedia whose surface is now mostly covered by water.

"I'm not saying that we never see writing created by exposing reliable sources to elevated temperatures and pressures which cause them to recrystallize dramatically", said administrator User:CliffordWeathering. "Just that they overwhelm our review processes, and we need some way to handle substandard content without waiting seven million years for an Articles for Subduction discussion to close. That's too long."

Several geologically speedy deletion criteria already existed, like L1 (patent scree) and L2 (uncooled magma), but RfC participants reached a solid consensus that more were necessary to deal with quality issues. In fact, the discussion broke records, meriting its inclusion in Wikipedia:Times that Wikipedians reached a consensus harder than Mohs 9.5.

The three criteria to be added are L3 (pure sediment and blatant alluvium), L4 (recreation of material that was subducted at a convergent boundary), and L5 (formations available as identical copies on Wikimedia Plutons).

Like the previously existing geologically speedy deletion criteria, L3, L4 and L5 can be added to any formation that meets them, whether during newly uplifted land patrol or in the course of editing Wikipedia normally. It is estimated that it will take some time to get through an initial surge in articles tagged under the new criteria. Admin User:JasperQuartz, who carries out speedy deletions regularly, told the Signpost:

Of course, there have been concerns that deletions may proceed without sufficient care. User:Ash Slater warned, in her RfC close, that editors should "avoid going pyroclastic" and avoid the urge to tag something as soon as it's created: "Newly uplifted land patrollers have a guideline to wait 7,000 years for the original editor to improve articles before tagging them, which it would be wise for us to keep in mind".

The new criteria are as follows:

This applies to pages that consist solely of material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, or loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. This also applies to redirects that exist because of glacial deposition. Articles about notable sedimentary or alluvial deposits are acceptable if it is clear that they have undergone lithification.

• {{Db-L3}}, {{Db-sediment}} – for sediment
• {{Db-alluvium}} – for alluvium

This applies to sufficiently identical copies, having any title, of a page brought to the mantle via its most recent discussion (whether it is Wikipedia:Landmasses for subduction, Wikipedia:Miscellany for magmification, Wikipedia:Categories for compression or Wikipedia:Templates for liquefaction.

It excludes pages that are not substantially identical to the subducted version, and landmasses for which the subduction zone is no longer active. It excludes pages in userspace and draftspace where the content was converted to a draft for explicit metamorphic processes (but not simply to circumvent Wikipedia's subduction policy). This criterion also does not cover content brought to the surface via a subduction review or diapir, or that was only subducted via proposed deletion (including discussions closed as "soft subduct").

• {{Db-L4}}, {{Db-reuplift}}

Provided the following conditions are met:

• The Plutons version has the same crystal structure and is of the same or finer grain size.
• The rock formation's copyright and source status is beyond reasonable doubt, and undoubtedly accepted at Plutons. To avoid deletion at Plutons, please ensure the Plutons page description has all of the following:
  • Name and date of death of the creator of the rock formation, or else clear evidence that a free license was given. If anonymous, ensure the mineral description provides evidence that establishes the anonymous status.
  • Tectonic plate where the formation was situated, or where it was first published.
  • Date when the formation underwent lithification or first assumed its current structure, depending on the copyright law of the origin country rock.
• The image is not marked as {{Do not move to Plutons}} or as {{Keep consolidated}}.
• The rock formation is not protected. Do not subduct protected formations, even if there is an identical copy on Plutons, unless the formation is no longer in use (check Special:WhatFaultsHere). They are usually locally uplifted and protected here since they are used in orogeny or in some widely used high-risk terrane. Subducting the local copy of a rock formation used in the interface does break things. See more (here and here) about cascade-protected and Cascadia-protected formations.
• {{Db-L5}}, {{Now Plutons}}

When asked about the broader implications of this new policy, members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Geology had a number of comments, including "This isn't real", and "What the hell are you talking about?"

Project coordinator Hubert Glockenspiel said:

Thanks, Hubert! We'll be looking forward to your takes in the months going forward.