[WikiEN-l] Re: Pure Wiki Deletion

Thu Oct 27 07:51:24 UTC 2005

> You ever seen a long running edit conflic where neither side with
> compramise? I have. they generaly end in one side or the other
> implodeing. You know who wins such conflicts? Not the side that was
> right or even the side with more people on. No it is the side which
> has the greater wiki warfare skills. The ones who know how to play the
> politics and their oponents emotions. The ones who have no problem
> with fighting a battle for months at a time. The ones who know how to
> play the intensity of the conflict so as to maxism stress on thier
> oponent.

That is a completely made up scenario. Edit wars last because the
status quo remain unchanged. When page blankings become the new
deletion system, it becomes easier to resolve the standstill.

Most articles nominated for deletion are about something that the
nominator didn't think was "notable." But the nominator is usually not
an expert on the subject and usually has added anything to the
article. The article is also usually very small. Since most people
think it is a complete waste of time (I'm guessing here) to edit an
article that will be deleted, they will refrain from it. The only
reason to edit the article is if you think that your edits will make
it so that the article will not be deleted. But it is much more
effective to ARGUE on the AFD page why you think that the article
should be kept. It is also more convenient to write something like
"Keep. This person has been on the cover of a magazine see [bla bla]"
than to write the same thing in a Wikipedia article.

That's why sane editors avoid AFD - it turns productive work into
pointless arguing. Not so with page blanking as deletion. Why? Mostly
because those who would vote Keep can instead add their arguments as
facts to the article without threat of it being completely erased. A
Keep vote becomes productive work.

As a side note, I think with page blanking as deletion, many more
articles would be deleted from Wikipedia. But that is not such a big
deal since mistakes can be rectified. Someone who votes delete only
has to look at the article in its current version and decide for him
or herself whether he or she thinks it merits for inclusion in
Wikipedia or not. Someone who votes keep has to go through the page
history and decide that any revision, despite that someone has voted
delete on it, should not be excluded from Wikipedia.

--
mvh Björn