[WikiEN-l] Re: Dartmouth follies

Thu Aug 26 03:42:10 UTC 2004

Andrew Lih wrote:

>I guess this could be cast as a finer grain interpretation of
>inclusionism and deletionism.
>
>Absolute inclusionist - any and everything should be in Wikipedia
>Optimistic inclusionist - maybe not good now, but it may be, keep and
>check back later
>Pessimistic deletionist - may be good sometime, but delete it now, and
>keep only when good
>Absolute deletionist - it's not "encyclopediac", get rid of it
>
Hey, you left out eventualism, which will ultimately triumph over both 
inclusionism and deletionism (eventually, of course).

Absolute eventualist - Ignore VfD at all costs, because it just breeds 
hostility and flame wars, and trust that in the end, the community will 
keep/delete articles appropriately, even if they don't make the right 
call the first time around (or sometimes even the second and third time)
Optimistic eventualist - Occasionally try and intervene by commenting on 
VfD or attempting to salvage articles, to try and speed up the process 
of reaching the right outcome eventually
Pessimistic eventualist - Believes that Wikipedia is eventually going to 
fail anyway, so doesn't bother to participate in any of it

--Michael Snow