[WikiEN-l] GNAA Deleted!

Tue Nov 28 21:26:59 UTC 2006

On Tue, 28 Nov 2006, Jeff Raymond wrote:
> This is when we start looking incredibly dumb as an organization when we
> delete articles about subjects that obviously exist, are obviously well
> know, and are actually verifiable, but because we can't bring ourselves to
> trust a source that isn't available in dead tree form somewhere, we won't
> have the article.  Doesn't make a lot of sense.

This sounds like a classic example of stretching the wrong rule because the
right rule doesn't exist.  It happens a lot in the real legal system, and
usually causes more problems than it solves because once you've stretched a
rule to cover the case, that becomes a precedent to interpret the rule in
that manner forever.  (See: Commerce Clause.)

WP:RS is already broken, especially when it comes to not allowing web and
other self-published sources for non-academic subjects.  If you want to delete
the GNAA article, I suggest either using Ignore All Rules to delete it, or
coming up with a new rule.  I suggest a rule something like "A Wikipedia
article may be deleted if merely creating and publicizing a neutral article
advances the goal of the article's subject."  (Of course a full version of
the rule would have to be worded more carefully so you don't delete articles
about Wikipedia itself.)