[WikiEN-l] Article deletion

Tue Sep 13 02:58:26 UTC 2005

G'day David,

> JAY JG (jayjg at hotmail.com) [050911 18:41]:
>> From: Phroziac <phroziac at gmail.com>
> 
>>> No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought
>>>  renaming it would fix the problems.
> 
>> I can't imagine why anyone would imagine it needs to die,
> 
> Well, I've been trying to explain ... we have two forks so far caused
>  directly by the way the current deletion mechanism works socially.
> How many more would be enough?

Depends on the fork, I guess.  A fork to give fandom something 
non-encyclopaedic to write about is a Good Thing; a fork because 
ignorant people on VfD were being ignorant (ahem) is a Bad Thing.  What 
sort of fork are we talking about, for certs?  Would anybody shed tears 
if /Star Wars/ fans decided that they were going to setup a wiki of 
their own to discuss non-canon but doubtless "notable" characters?

VfD *is* toxic.  It's toxic because those on VfD are getting jaded by 
seeing more and more ridiculous articles crop up, and have become more 
and more nasty about them, and forgetting that the entries were created 
in good faith (usually those that aren't are CSD) by a contributor who 
actually cares about whatever it is.  There's the "delete" side: jaded, 
nasty, jeering.  Then we get to "keep": argumentative, whiny, refusing 
to read or understand the delete guidelines.

I'm sure it won't be this simple, but:
- People nominating for VfD should be forced to explain why the article
   must be deleted, else the VfD subpage itself should be speedied and a
   note posted on the nominator's talkpage.
- There should be a notice on every VfD page and subpage explaining
   that:
-- a nomination is not a reflection on the contributor
-- "unencyclopaedic" doesn't mean "unimportant"
-- all discussion must be kept civil

Should help a little, surely?

<snip />

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

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