[WikiEN-l] Admins who abuse their powers

Mon Feb 14 01:49:09 UTC 2005

steven l. rubenstein (rubenste at ohiou.edu) [050214 09:41]:

> Mikkalai is now making the argument that a specific article was deleted, 
> but that a new article could be written in the same name-space.  The 
> opportunity for abuse is clear.
> If the only problem with an article is its contents, then there is no need 
> to delete it -- editors can delete the contents that is inappropriate or 
> bad, and put in good contents.
> It logically follows that if people believe an article must be deleted, it 
> is because they -- or many of them -- consider the article unsalvageable; 
> no amount of editing content can save it.

In practice, you'll see a lot of deletion votes that say "there could be a
good article about this but this isn't it and can't be made into it." So
in practice, an article may well be deleted and new text with the same name
created there.

> It seems pretty obvious to me that Mikkelai's claim that the name-space was 
> not deleted, so he can write a new article in it, is just an attempt to 
> circumvent the vote for deletion.  Not only does this demonstrate bad 
> faith; it sets a bad precedent.  Anyone who was invested in any deleted 
> article can just bring it back and write some more.  And others would once 
> again go through the lengthy process of a vote for deletion.

Not necessarily. See above.

- d.