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

Mon Oct 17 21:38:54 UTC 2005

On 10/17/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> AFD may have had a concensus when it was deleted, but editors (even
> the ones voting on AFD) are fallible and if like with the professor
> case, they are not fully aware of certain facts they can make bad
> decisions. Just because procedure was followed, it shouldn't be
> automatically assumed, the concensus was correct.
>
> If additional info comes to light on a subject, undeletion should be considered.
>

Look, it's quite simple really.  You look at an article that was 
deleted and if you immediately slap your forehead and go "what on
earth were they *on*" then it's a keeper.  If half the people on VFU
are slapping their forehead, then the undeletion policy says we
undelete.  It has nothing whatever to do with process, it's just  a
matter of deciding, as the undeletion policy puts it, whether
Wikipedia would be a better encyclopedia with or without the article.

What's happened instead is that some people on VFU have decided to go
to extreme lengths to avoid making this decision.  They've gotten
themselves into all kinds of contortions owing to a misplaced
reverence for the "consensus" embodied in the half dozen feckless
dreamers who voted to delete the article in the first place.

In short, they're scared of making decisions on content, so they've
tried to reconstitute VFU as some kind of half-assed appeals court,
almost completely process driven.  I've seen editors on VFU seriously
say stuff like "lovely article, I would have voted keep myself, but
the AfD process was valid so there are no grounds to delete."

Needless to say, such thinking is indicative of a need for a boot to
be applied to the coccyx of the thinker in short order.  What's the
point of an undeletion forum that won't undelete?