[WikiEN-l] Why changing the deletion process is a bad idea

Tue Sep 13 17:37:36 UTC 2005

>From: Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com>
>
>AFD is swarming with professional deletionists, and many deleted
>articles were deleted with input mainly from editors whose main
>contribution to Wikipedia is to vote to delete things.  I question
>whether this group of individuals fairly represents the Wikipedia
>community, and therefore whether AFD actually arrives at community
>consensus, except in obvious cases, and therefore call for admins to
>exercise their judgment in evaluting AFDs for whether they reflect
>true consensus, and also for admins to feel free to boldly undelete
>articles that were clearly deleted in a manner which harms the
>encyclopedia.

What is a "professional deletionist"? Is is a paid position? Does it require 
annual certification?

>I know that it has become popular to grill admin candidates on their
>criteria for "consensus" at AFD, and candidates who fail to meet the
>standard that the deletionists have established as "reasonable" get
>dogpiled with oppose votes.  Frankly, I'm worried about this emergent
>mob mentality, which I think is encouraged by having a caste of
>professional deletionists, which is itself a consequence of having a
>centralized deletion mechanism.

This "deletionist cabal" view of the way both RFA and AFD work does not 
correspond to any sort of reality that I am aware of.

Jay.