[WikiEN-l] Deletion policy needed (Buffer)

Thu Oct 16 01:55:07 UTC 2003

*Buffer*
Strange that nobody's mentioned the
[[Wikipedia:Cleanup]] page that Cimon had the good
sense to start up.  I dislike the layout that Cimon
chose as well as the "required anonymity" but other
than that it seems to be on its way to working
--particularly to take a load off of VFD. And its
getter far more ATTN than the clumsily titled
Wikipedia:Pages needing attention ... (which Ive never
seen on RC )

For those NITK, Cleanup was designed to be a buffer
for everything.  If youre a newbie, or just not in the
mood to do deal with VFD you can throw it there, and
someone else can deal with it.  Its not just for VFD
-- its there because the binary notion that an article
needs thumbs up/thumbs down only applies to the
minority.  Most cases VFD is more akin to a
battleground for NPOV disputes, or to get the
attention of the person who didnt spend enough time on
it. Usually these are anons, and rough VFD treatment
is not a pleasant experience for a newbie. <strange
analogy> You dont make your new hotel guests through
the kitchen and by the trashbin to get to their
rooms.</strange>

But the fundamental flaw of VFD --I'll point it out
now: It takes a certain mentality to deal with VFD
--Deletionists love VFD, and hang out there all the
time.  Anti-Deletionists tend to like to actually deal
with articles, and as such dont have time to check VFD
to make a defense for a particular article that
someone wants to chop.  As such, there may be a
problem mentality associated with a thumbs up/down
approach if its not mitigated by the use of a clearing
house.

A placement on Cleanup can mean that the article gets
some consensus attention *before* its submitted to the
Ugnauts at VFD.  <metaphor-analogy>Instead of sending
something straight to the Scrapyard, you let people
try to sell it at the Thrift Store first.</meta>

*Limits of Wiki*
To me the fact that the Pump and VFD would get too
crowded all seems quite basic, and is just the tip of
the iceberg when it comes to finding out the limits of
traditional post-it style wiki to keep up to speed.

Wiki may work in the general sense, but for high-use
pages like the Pump and such, wiki is far too slow --
I like someone's suggestion of using a chat forum like
they have on craigslist.  But this may be too easy
--and does not deal with the problem of making a
document of the discussion --though this may not be
necessary for the Pump anyway.

In short, I think that for the pages that people might
scramble to beat someone else to the submit button
--there needs to be something better.  It may be wiki
or not.  If something is not done about this in the
next several months, this *may negatively affect the
30% upward curve Wikipedia has on Alexa.

~S~

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