[WikiEN-l] Re: Why is this a problem

Mon Oct 17 02:52:14 UTC 2005

> Unless the rules for VfU and AfD are asymmetrical, than VfU becomes a
> pointless waste of time.

It's not a waste of time to undelete an article which shouldn't have been
deleted in the first place.

Discussion of the merit and content of the article should not be
> mechanically excluded from VfU. But it should be limited to cases
> where it can convincingly be shown _something has changed_ between
> AfD and VfU that would lead one to believe that the people taking
> part in AfD would probably have voted otherwise had they had known.

Why should those taking part in the initial AFD get the final say on things?
That is exactly what's so horrible about VFD - if you don't incessantly
monitor the page to ensure that no mistakes are made, it's assumed that you
automatically cast a vote to delete.

That gives way too much power to a tiny tiny fraction of interested
Wikipedians.

Articles that are _genuinely_ and _substantially_ rewritten just
> before close of AfD (e.g "delete, delete, delete, delete, delete,
> delete, delete, delete, comment: rewritten, keep, keep") would be one
> example.

Seems like an example of something which shouldn't have been deleted in the
first place.

Or "Har Gobind Korhana is so kewl! I love his lecutres" followed by a
> string of delete, non-notable prof", closed for deletion, someone
> points out that it's a misspelling of Har Gobind Khorana who won a
> Nobel prize.

You're saying the article said "Har Gobind Korhana is so kewl! I love his
lecutres"? What in the world is the point of undeleting that?

Whatever the rules and practices are, VfU should be _different_ from
> AfD and involve _different_ considerations. It should not just be
> mechanical re-run of AfD to see whether the percentage of people who
> think Jenny MacNabb is notable will turn out to be different.

It inherently is *different*, but the consideration should be exactly the
same: should the article be in Wikipedia, or not? I find it disturbing that
anyone should think otherwise, as that would imply that we should have a
process in place which either keeps articles which shouldn't be in the
encyclopedia, or which deletes articles which should be in it.

I agree it shouldn't be a mechanical re-run, and the percentage of people
who think something is irrelevant. Rather, if a VFU discussion shows that
there isn't actually a consensus to exclude an article from Wikipedia, then
that article should be undeleted.

VFU is really more of a reopening of the discussion than a re-run of the
vote. Someone should have a good reason to want to reopen the discussion,
but we shouldn't limit the participants to those who initially participated.

For those who are worried about having to vote all over again, there is a
reasonable solution. Carry the delete votes from the initial VFD over to the
VFU. People could still change them, and more recent votes would be more
heavily weighted if there were significant changes, but this would greatly
reduce the incentive to nominate an article for undeletion without some sort
of new argument.