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

Wed Sep 14 20:42:59 UTC 2005

Geoff,

I realise that voters of Articles for Deletion need to sensitive to peoples 
opinions when voting. Having said this, I would object rather strongly if an 
admin closed a vote in Articles for Deletion on the grounds that a voter 
referred to the subject as not being notable.

After all, one of the reasons for Speedy Deletion is that an article has not 
established notability of the subject. As well, the main reason for keeping 
an article is the belief that a user might find information on the subject 
useful. In other words, the topic of the article is notable within a certain 
field of study.

As for cruft, I never use the word myself as one man's cruft is another 
man's interest. Having said this, I don't think an admin should close a vote 
on such a trivial ground and I would support it being relisted as soon as 
possible.

I think that we will always need an Articles of Deletion process and I think 
that this system works as well as any could. It should aim to encourage as 
much participation as possible so should be open to all users.

Regards

Keith
User Name: Capitalistroadster

On 9/15/05, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> 
> 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
> 
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