On 02/05/06, Sam Pointon <free.condiments(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Some people use 'cruft' (me, for example) in
the original sense - it's
the word for that dust and fluff you pull out from under furniture. It
is, outside of Wikipedia, most commonly applied to badly written and
messy programming. Back in Wiki context, the term (when used in this
sense, at least) makes no assertion of notability, but rather suggests
that the article is in need of a major rewrite and/or cleanup.
You probably wouldn't use the term to describe a bunch of articles
recently written by an enthusiastic young contributor to Wikipedia,
who simply needs to be guided towards areas of Wikipedia more in need
of his energy, then.
It's really hard to avoid causing offense when you're nominating an
article for deletion, or even supporting a nomination. Pity that some
people don't even try :/
Steve