[Wikipedia-l] Deletion

Wed Sep 25 15:59:24 UTC 2002

> >But we ARE justifying and we ARE not just prepared to make a record, the
> >record is actually being made. Have you ever even looked at
> >[[Wikipedia:Deletion log]]? You'll find EVERY deletion of the past three
> >weeks there, with the justification given.
> 
> Since it is such a rich resource for good articles perhaps it might extend
> back beyond 3 weeks and include an easy way to recover the text, small
> though it may be.

I don't consider this 'a rich resource for good articles'. There may certainly
be a number of titles that are worth of being made into an article quickly,
but there are a large number in between that are deleted because they are
simply a mis-spelling that has been corrected, or a 'redirect making place
for a move'. My own method if I want to look for non-existing articles to
write about, is to go to page 10 or so of the 'Wanted pages', and scan it.
It has the advantage that everything will indeed be linked-to, non-existing
pages, and the format makes quick scanning a lot easier.

Then again, I should of course not be putting you down for having different
preferences, and if there would be a way to get those old lists for you to
scan, it would be good.

> >And I find coming to Wikipedia and seeing an article called "Bronx Zoo"
> >with as its text "the zoo in the bronx" quite unpleasant.
> 
> A close case...the Bronx Zoo will be an article, but much more extensive
> than that.

Well, my point here is: There might well be a 'real' article on the Bronx
Zoo on Wikipedia once, but if so, whoever makes it will probably do so by
replacing rather than extending this sub-stub. I would have reacted exactly
the same (although in this case it wasn't me who did the deletion, I just
chose the example because it was very recent and showed in my opinion clearly
what I meant) when it had been "the McDonald's in the bronx" at "Bronx
McDonalds" (an obvious non-article) but also when it had been "the second
king called Sargon" at Sargon II (which is high at the mostwanted list at
the moment).

> Many deletions are of titles that will never make an article, I
> would probably prefer titles that will remain, but we all have talked
> extensively of that, I think without any real referent in experience other
> than anecdotal, thus unconclusively. I guess what would suffice is to
> ensure that somewhere, for example, in this case, in perhaps the article on
> New York City, an empty link remains to [[Bronx Zoo]], just as a pointer to
> encourage an article.

Well, in that respect you can sleep quietly - there are _three_ links
remaining to Bronx Zoo - from "List of zoos", "American bison" and "Bronx".

Andre Engels