[Wikipedia-l] Deletion

Tue Sep 24 08:00:32 UTC 2002

Jeronimo wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>I believe that this proposal would be very helpful to all of us.
>>The Cunctator will be able to rest easy knowing that
>>no information has been lost when Andre deletes a page,
>>and Andre will be able to delete truly useless pages

>André is deleting truly useless pages, so is Mav and so am I.

I haven't been keeping up with the deletion log myself,
but from the example presented here (by both sides), I agree.
I just want André et al to be able to do these deletions
without upsetting people (which results in these arguments).

FWIW, I do not agree with The Cunctator that,
should this soft deletion proposal be implemented,
a single restoration decides the question once and for all.
We still need to discuss policy for soft deletion
(along the lines of naming conventions etc),
and in that discussion I support deleting mere definitions
(much more what doesn't even amount to a real definition).

>If I have to explain every single move and
>deletion and addition I make here and have it approved by all
>Wikipedians, we might as well stop the entire project.

That's why I'm putting forward this proposal.
Right now, The Cunctator is coming to the list,
and he and Fredbauder are forcing you to defend yourself.
With my proposal, you'll give your reason for deletion
for the recent changes (as you do now for the deletion log)
and any objection to that properly goes on the deleted page's talk page.
And I really don't think that you'll get objections most of the time.
People should be embarrassed to revive a useless page without improving it,
and if they do improve it, then you'll be happy with it undeleted.

After all, The Cunctator's party argues that the existence of stubs,
even the pitiful microstubs, leads to the improvement of articles.
Let them show this by improving articles when they revive them.
If they do this, then they will have been proved right,
but the effect will be good and nobody will have any cause to complain.
If they don't do this, then they will have been proved wrong,
and those of us that are ambivalent will join your party and crush Cunc.

-- Toby