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

Wed Sep 14 19:51:52 UTC 2005

On Wed, 14 Sep 2005, JAY JG wrote:

> >From: Snowspinner <Snowspinner at gmail.com>
> >
> >On Sep 14, 2005, at 12:09 PM, Phroziac wrote:
> >
> >>On 9/14/05, Snowspinner <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>>I would rather have an encyclopedia that has a truly staggering
> >>>amount of information but that some people dismiss because it has
> >>>some silly articles than a well-respected but heavily incomplete
> >>>encyclopedia. If I wanted that, I'd just go to Britannica.
> >>>
> >>Isn't that exactly why we exist?
> >>
> >
> >I always thought so.
>
> We exist to create a great encyclopedia.  I don't see how an encyclopedia
> filled with, as you put it, "silly articles", can ever be considered
> "great".
>
I agree with Jay here (& I hope that doesn't surprise him too much ;).

Consider Wikipedia is a form of publication: currently we have the
lowest threshold I can imagine for acceptance of any publication. All
you have to do is submit an article that contains information that is
somehow useful. (Please ignore any need to define "useful" for the
moment.)

By establishing a threshold, we end up rejecting material -- for
good or bad reasons -- which will inevitably result in hurt feelings.
(That is why in the publishing world rejection slips are so impersonal.)
Hurt feelings -- & the fact a certain percentage of submissions are
simply dreadful, unusable or submitted as a joke -- result in the
"toxic atmosphere" of the deletion process.

And we can't rely on only a "Speedy Delete" process: there will always
be cases that fall into the grey area, if for no other reason than the
need for a second opinion. And, as Tony Sideway pointed out above, some
items are incorrectly placed into CSD -- for whatever reason.

The only solution to this is to COMPLETELY ABOLISH this threshold:
either we have one or we don't have one. However, if we have no
threshold, then we have to deal with unuseful articles full of gibberish,
unfixable POV rants, hoaxes, & biographical entries that contain nothing
more than a date of birth, details of education, & details of personality.
Perhaps because we can somehow hide them in Wikipedia, we can argue that
they aren't a problem -- but left unchecked, these unuseful articles
will accumulate & grow into a problem.

Although I believe we need a threshold for Wikipedia, we also should
acknowledge that in most cases an article was submitted with the best
of intentions: since we are knifing someone's baby, there is no need
to express glee while doing so. It appears to me that there is a
consensus that the words "cruft" & "notable" should not be used in AfD:
would anyone object if I edit the opening page & explain that use of
either of these words will result with the nomination being immediately
closed as a Speedy Keep?

Geoff