[WikiEN-l] Deletion policy needed

Mon Oct 27 20:43:33 UTC 2003

Eclecticology (Ray Saintonge) wrote in part:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>Once we move the article to a more convenient name,
>>then the long name is harmless and it's ''OK'' to leave it alone.
>>OTOH, if it exists for a month, then it will get archived,
>>so there is a reason, assuming that you didn't catch it immediately,
>>why it's ''good'' to leave it alone.

>I don't think we really have a big difference here.  All that would be
>left to delete after a month is a redirecting article with a long title
>that is too long to be something that would be used in a search.

It's not the search that matters; if the title is long and awful,
then it's unlikely to ever be typed in again by anybody.
Except ... that if it's been sitting around for a month,
then it might be saved by somebody (not only Google).
So we should keep it ... since it's cheap in the memory:

>I know the argument that redirect articles take up minimal space in the DB.

>Ultimately deleting the orphaned redirecting remnant was really the least
>important element in my proposal.

And that's why we don't really have a big difference here:
you'll be relatively willing to give that bit up. ^_^

-- Toby