Delete Vulture
Delete VultureA DeleteVulture is not in the habit of marking pages for deletion. Rather, the DeleteVulture circles over RecentChanges, spotting pages which look as if they are likely to be deleted. When the "(deleted)" marker appears, the DeleteVulture swoops down to second the PageDeletion.
One of the DeletionConventions is to wait about 24 hours before seconding a PageDeletion. Waiting is necessary for a couple reasons:
Like a vulture in nature, the DeleteVulture is not evil, though his/her presence can make RecentChangesJunkies feel uneasy. The DeleteVulture is not a WikiGremlin but a zealous VolunteerHousekeeper with a taste for dead pages.
I'm not reading this! I'm hiding my eyes! You can't make me stop swooping!
The following compressed discussion concerns differences of RecentChanges and newRecentChanges with respect to deletes:
Two-phase delete is a vestigial feature. In the old days, PageHistory didn't exist, and two-phase delete was the only way (aside from offline backups) to recover page content after deletion. That is no longer the case, of course. If RecentChangesJunkies are concerned about pages disappearing without their review, they are free to use NewRecentChanges with the ?del=1 option.
I find NewRecentChanges very good, just reversed a delete of WelcomeVisitors because the size of change looks suspicious, but I also agree that it lacks the UserName that yield information regarding confidence levels. Also using PageHistory to restore is cumbersome and if the delete on the last day of the month is not discovered quickly, the history would be gone.
Some WikiGnomes make a point of checking and fixing BackLinks. That's a lot easier to do with a semi-deleted page before it disappears into the PageHistory. Plus, the BackLink indexer is updated only once every 24 hours. It's satisfying to finish a page deletion after the indexer has done its job. So a two-phase delete is still a useful feature. It means, "Sometime in the next 24 hours or so you should make sure the BackLinks are fixed."
I don't see how that complicates fixing backlinks. Using NewRecentChanges?del=1, click the most recent diff link, then click the page title twice. The same search is performed as would be if the page still existed. But in most cases of page deletions, I would recommend fixing the backlinks first - or, depending on the circumstance, leaving the links in place for future AccidentalLinking use.
NewRecentChanges doesn't tell who edited the page most recently. Knowing that gives me a clue how much further work might need to be done.
Spam is easier fought with NewRecentChanges because of the ability to see patterns, as you acknowledged. But in the case of vandalism, it is also helpful. You can see a pattern of alternating "+" and "-", to indicate a revert war, or alternating "new" and "delete" to indicate a delete war. That information is lost on QuickChanges and RecentChanges. Further, the last-edit UserName has no guarantee of accuracy - vandals can easily forge it. It is not a reliable tool for fighting vandalism.
RecentChanges and NewRecentChanges have different features. I find NewRecentChanges less useful for what I like to do.
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(last edited February 27, 2006)
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