[WikiEN-l] Article deletion

Sun Sep 11 20:04:18 UTC 2005

G'day MGM,

> Renaming fixed the who democratic vote mentality peoplel get when 
> seeing "Votes for deletion" and think there's a need for a majority 
> instead of a concensus.
> 
> Seperating in topics, only makes listing something for deletion a
> bigger pain.

That's a *good* thing.

I'm probably fairly deletionist (though I've changed my vote a couple 
times after being proved wrong).  If I have to jump through hoops to 
justify why a page should be deleted, so what?  I shouldn't be listing 
it if I don't think it's important that it gets removed.

Pros:
- fewer frivolous nominations
- nominator must be prepared to justify herself, because who would go to
   all that effort of selecting a category etc. without having a bloody
   good reason to delete?
- higher chance of knowledgeable people voting on the issue[0]
- smaller pages, so fewer articles get lost in the mess
- an admin can dedicate herself to a particular category, so there's
   less of a backlog

Cons:
- imagine Star Wars tragics camping themselves in the "Star Wars-cruft"
   category and harassing anyone who tries to suggest that the man
   mentioned in passing in somebody's fanfic based on some novel about
   Luke Skywalker's children with no other connection to the movies is
   *obviously* notable.  It'll happen.
- if there's no admins who care about $category, very few discussions
   will be closed.  Categories that don't cover WP's inherent biases will
   be as ignored as the majority of articles like that.

[0] Though frankly, if a voter (or whatever we're calling them now) is
     willing to do a minimum of research (read the article, check Google,
     check policies like WP:MUSIC), they shouldn't *need* to be
     knowledgeable about the subject.  If an article doesn't establish
     notability enough on its own, and Google/policies don't back it up,
     why shouldn't I argue for deletion?  Because I don't like Pokémon,
     or whatever "cruft" has come up lately?

-- 
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

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