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

Thu Sep 15 03:04:16 UTC 2005

On Thu, 15 Sep 2005, Keith Old wrote:

> 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.

While I agree with your point, from my participation in AfD I've come to
see that far too often "non-notable" is used in a vague sense, without
any definition of what the submitter thinks the criteria for notability
is. It's one thing, for example, to say that a web-based community is
non-notable because it has a small number of members: then the article
can be defended against deletion based on the membership size, or perhaps
another point can be introduced to prove notability. (Say, in regards to
my example, it is revealed that this web-based community has its origins
in the first BBS in Latvia.) It's another to just say "Non-notable
website" with no further explanation. Even if a subject _is_ non-notable,
the contributor would benefit from learning why that is the case.
>
> 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.

Unfortunately, "cruft" does get used (or abused) a lot on AfD, both alone
& compounded with other words. (One combination that I still scratch my
follically-challenged head over is "stalkercruft". I still have no idea
what that might be, or how I would recognize "stalkercruft".)

My intent with this proposal is to force people to be less lazy in their
nominations. I for one always treat every nomination I make as a case
where I have to prove my case; & at the same time, try to remember that
the discussion is about the article, not me or the contributor. It would
be nice if more people did this. (Although the temptation to poke fun
at an article I admit sometimes is too powerful to resist.)
>
> 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.
>
Agreed. I did not intend to say anything to the contrary.

Geoff

P.S. I'd say more, but I'm about to leave for a 4-day trip away from
home & Wikipedia. I leave the discussion to everyone else's capable hands.