[WikiEN-l] Deletions, lists, etc?

Wed Nov 29 22:24:40 UTC 2006

On 11/29/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/29/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I'm mildly sorry for taking the shortcut of asking the list about things I
> > could figure out by wading through the insanely complicated policy pages,
> > but here goes-- if you think a page that went through the AfD process was
> > wrongly deleted, what is the proper action?
> >
> > How wrong is it for an admin to undelete a page?
>
>
> It is a cardinal sin.  If a page is deleted as a result of *fD it MUST go
> through DRV - despite the fact that "Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy",
> undeletion can only be done if the correct forms are filled out in
> triplicate, lost, found again... (I can't remember the rest of how that
> goes, but you end up having your house bulldozed).
>
> In addition, DRV is the place where people comment, not on the merits of the
> deletion, but on whether the deletion was "in process" or "out of process".
> It doesn't matter if the article was about [[World War II]] and the
> discussion only involved three people would voted delete on the grounds of
> "never heard of it", DRV is supposed to comment on process, not merits of
> deletion (you'll be told "that's what *fD is for, and you should have
> commented when you had the chance).
<snip />

Wait...
I went and read our policy on undeletion ([[WP:UNDEL]]) , and it
definitely lists "If the article has been wrongly deleted (i.e. that
Wikipedia would be a better encyclopedia with the article restored). "
as a valid reason for undeletion (in fact, as the first reason). Given
that we 'know' that DRV is only for process auditing, I looked farther
down... behold! there is a section entitled "To request that a page
(or image) be restored", except that this section only tells you to
list the page on DRV... Catch -22 anyone?

Either we need to change WP:UNDEL to conform to current practice, or
we need to give quite a few people a cluebat beating.

Sincerely,
Silas Snider

-- 
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Silas Snider is a proud member of the Association of Wikipedians Who
Dislike Making Broad Judgements About the Worthiness of a General Category
of Article, and Who Are In Favor of the Deletion of Some Particularly Bad
Articles, but That Doesn't Mean They are Deletionist
(AWWDMBJAWGCAWAIFDSPBATDMTD) , and the Harmonious
Editing Club of Wikipedia.
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