Matt Brown said:
I am much in favor of your suggestion that nominations at VfD that do
not reference a reason listed in the deletion policy should be removed
forthwith.
Doesn't seem too unreasonable. However I conceive of deletion policy as
being more than just the words in the policy document. In practise there
are occasions when there is consensus to delete but nobody can agree what
item of deletion policy applies. This isn't a mistake--people can
genuinely hold different opinions on whether a given item qualifies. I
see VfD, in this conception, as a kind of ad hoc court system. A beauty
contest, if you like. It's not ideal, but items that don't easily fit into
the written deletion policy are generally harder to get consensus to
delete, so it does work reasonably well most of the time.
I think the flexibility is good.