Commons talk:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions

"Delete per nom"

I disagree that this is useless. If (for example) the nominator is a temporary account or relatively new user, it can be very useful to see that experienced users or (especially) admins agree with the rationale. Similarly, if there have been several arguments made on the "keep" side, it is useful to see that the nominator is not alone in their opinion. - Jmabel ! talk 21:36, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

More experienced users usually have more effect on the deletion outcome, so them supporting a less experienced user can reinforce the opinion. This is a good suggestion, added. Dabmasterars [EN/RU] (talk/uploads) 17:57, 21 May 2026 (UTC)
I reject your disagreement. Experience, although perhaps a measure of competency, should never be a deciding factor on a discussion based off of policy. Having a high edit count doesn't mean you're infallible, not even close. It just means you've done a lot of edits and are probably good at following policy. Scientifically, they call deferring to experience "bias".
Even it is decided against my opinion that a per nom vote is not utterly useless, an explanation for why it does or does not violate policy is still absolutely in order and a six letter statement that uses another argument as its garnish should do nothing to tip the scales. EnvironmentalDoor (talk) 19:34, 12 June 2026 (UTC)
  • Agree ('per nom') with JMabel.
See Commons:Deletion requests/File:Strange, isn't it? by Cartoonenxtdoor.png Tagging comments in a DR with COM:PERNOM now becomes one of those handy little duckspeak party slogans (like 'OVERCAT') that allows an opinion to be disregarded, but of course because it's policy it then permits of no counterargument against it. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:09, 16 June 2026 (UTC)
Arguments on ATA aren't supposed to disregard the argument entirely. In fact, COM:ATAATA is a section specifically explaining that. Plus, ATA is not supposed to be a policy, it's more of an essay, though some users disagree and think this is a guideline. Dabmasterars [EN/RU] (talk/uploads) 10:34, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

Nudity = sexual

Might be a bit of a borderline case because child protection is very important, but equating "nudity" with "sexual explicy / sexual undertone" is a bad argument. See for example Commons:Deletion requests/File:Playing Hmong children.jpg. Nakonana (talk) 10:55, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Although, re-reading the already existing nudity section, it's possible that the section already addresses this argument. Nakonana (talk) 11:04, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Poor example

Cristo Redentor ("Christ the Redeemer") in Rio will be out of copyright in the U.S. in less than a year. Also, there is no FoP for sculptures in the U.S., so the argument presented would currently be wrong even in the U.S.: the only reason a U.S. equivalent would likely already be out of copyright would be lack of a copyright notice. Anyway, we should probably use something more recent (1950s or so?) and make the bad argument be that it is out of copyright due to lack of notice. - Jmabel ! talk 14:00, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Ad hominem

Ad hominem arguments are not necessarily inappropriate in deletion discussions, and I think the current section about this gets it more wrong than not. Examples:

  • Consider the recent case of Commons:Deletion requests/File:BoygeniusKingstonEarly240823 (29 of 45) (53138924957) Cropped.jpg. The photographer had a long history of clearly legitimate work and this image was highly consistent with their body of work. Similarly, the nomimator's motivations were highly suspect. If a photo had a DMCA takedown on another site, and a photographer we didn't know much about said they were challenging it, we might temporarily delete as a precaution. In this case, the fact that we had far more reason to trust the photographer than the nominator is exactly what determined our leaving the DR open and giving this time to play out.
  • COM:PRP calls on us to determine whether or not there is significant doubt. What we know about the uploader/photographer, and whether or not they are available to explain themselves, is highly relevant. If we have someone with exactly one upload and little or no other wiki activity, and the only evidence that the work is theirs is that they uploaded as "own work," then there is much more reason to doubt the validity of a license than when an experienced user does the same. Similarly for an upload by someone with a terrible track record: if someone has uploaded 17 fictitious flags of communities in Ohio, there is significant doubt about any other such they upload, and it would call for explicit evidence we might not demand from someone had uploaded the same number of such flags that were clearly real and appropriately licensed.
  • The current section disparages pointing out that someone is now indef-blocked. Obviously, if they were blocked for being too argumentative, the only relevance would be that they are not available for a discussion, but if they are blocked for dishonesty of some sort, then it is a lot more relevant.

- Jmabel ! talk 14:39, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

I just took a major pass at this section, and I'm aware that I definitely changed the meaning of it. Please feel free to edit (and even, in part, to revert) but the main thrust of what I am saying is in the following paragraph:

…in contrast to a Wikipedia article, most files on Commons are inherently the work of a single individual. Also, copyright issues play a far larger role on Commons than they do for most of our sister projects. For copyright, in particular, it may matter enormously who someone is. In most circumstances, if you upload a photo you took, and you offer a particular free license, that suffices to grant that license. If someone else does the same thing with that same photo, the license is not valid, because they did not own the copyright. As a result, some issues about who took certain actions, and even about their character, may be legitimate arguments in deletion discussions. When that arises, minimize any personal aspersions, and be overt about the relevance to the deletion discussion.

Essay vs. guideline

I see from that HyperAnd wants this to be considered just an essay, not a guideline. It certainly should not be a policy but I think it could be a guideline, which is often little more than an essay with broad consensus endorsement. - Jmabel ! talk 14:51, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

Eh, the English Wikipedia page it was imported from still considers it an essay. Maybe enwiki has more strict standards. I found en:Wikipedia talk:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions/Archive 5#Proposal - Guideline? which discusses this, but unfortunately it's over a decade old. Is there a more recent enwiki discussion on why their ATA page isn't guideline? HyperAnd [talk] 20:24, 2 June 2026 (UTC)
@HyperAnd: Presumably simply because they haven't adopted it as one. Pretty much anyone can write an essay, and unless there is a broad consensus that it is actively bad, it will remain on the site. Adoption of a guideline requires a positive consensus. - Jmabel ! talk 20:44, 2 June 2026 (UTC)
Maybe they rejected it due to concerns over wikilawyering, but that isn't as prevalent here. One possibility for why is that some policies/guidelines here are based on real-world copyright laws, which obviously can't be "taken to its spirit". I'll revert and see if this ever gets enough merit to be a guideline. HyperAnd [talk] 21:39, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

Irrevocable licenses

Creative Commons licenses are strictly irrevocable. Once the owner has stated that the file is available under a Creative Commons license, the license's terms will be valid until the file's copyright expires, even if the statement was retracted. If the license was verified to be valid (either via an archive of the license release statement or a license review from Commons admins) the file sould be kept.

Still, I think we do not apply this quite that way. For example, I don't believe we allow someone to bring over a file from Flickr simply because someone offered a free license in the past. We certainly won't delete it from Commons because it was uploaded under a free license and they later changed the license, but we don't normally allow an upload based on "they offered this license elsewhere in the past and are no longer offering it." - Jmabel ! talk 14:13, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

Removal of blurred example images

@Belbury removed certain example images (Diff) from this article. The image in the "COM:IDONTLIKEIT" section is kind of understandable since it can be replaced by similar example images that have been erroneously nominated three or more times (have not found other ones, though), but the image in the "COM:EXTERNAL" section illustrates the point well enough and isn't even that NSFW to begin with (no nudity or sexual imagery). What do y'all think? Should the images be there or be square (and why)?

Pinging prolific page editors @Jmabel, @Tvpuppy and @JaydenChao. Dabmasterars [EN/RU] (talk/uploads) 19:56, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

@Dabmasterars I tried to find better example images for both sections, but I realised these images are expected to be controversial (but in-scope) images.
Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 17:10, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

Local uploads

Special:Diff/1233995670: I'm not sure what this has to do either with arguments to avoid in deletion discussions or even, really, with Commons, since it is about local uploads to Wikipedias. - Jmabel ! talk 22:57, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

@Jmabel It's about what people can do if they can't upload it to Commons, similarly to how COM:ITSFAIRUSE instructs it too. Dabmasterars [EN/RU] (talk/uploads) 23:00, 19 June 2026 (UTC)
But is it on-topic here? - Jmabel ! talk 23:55, 19 June 2026 (UTC)
It should be. It instructs the user on what to do if the image cannot be hosted on Commons, providing a relevant alternative for using the images on Wikimedia projects. Dabmasterars [EN/RU] (talk/uploads) 00:54, 20 June 2026 (UTC)
Seems to me pretty removed from "arguments to avoid," but if others want to leave it there, I won't unilaterally fight this. - Jmabel ! talk 03:22, 20 June 2026 (UTC)