[WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion policy needed

Fri Oct 24 22:17:39 UTC 2003

Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Jake Nelson wrote:
>
>> The Cunctator wrote:
>>
>>> The tone on Wikipedia seems to be degenerating.
>>>
>>> Not that I'm surprised VfD is a nest of hornets. I've thought it a bad
>>> idea from the start.
>>>
>>> It's also disturbing that pages that aren't offensive or illegal are
>>> being listed on VfD. There is *no need* to delete stub entries. We have
>>> methods of indicating them as stubs, which is much more constructive
>>> than simply deleting them.
>>>
>> Agreed. Very few of the pages listed have any particular reason to be
>> deleted. I still believe an altogether moratorium on deletions for a 
>> period
>> of time would do wonders. Making it so that blanked pages produced 
>> red links
>> would probably help shoot down one of the arguments for deletion, as 
>> well.
>>
> This has my support.  VfD seems to have become a nest of control 
> freaks determined to invent newer, more complicated and more 
> unworkable rules. It's managing to suck in more and more useful 
> contributors just to watch these people who are obsessed with 
> maintaining our bodily humours.

I'm not sure I really see that.  There are surely quite a few 
contentious issues, but the vast majority of articles are plain nonsense 
that *should* be deleted, and generally there is no opposition to their 
deletion.  Things like self-aggrandizement (someone listing their own 
resume, an ad for their website, etc.), just plain factually wrong 
information (made-up characters in non-existent books), and so on.  I 
spend a good deal of time clearing out the resolved issues from VfD 
every day or two, and the vast majority of the stuff I clear out of 
there is completely non-controversial; the only reason it needs to be 
listed at all is to make sure the lister didn't make a mistake 
(occasionally something gets listed as self-aggrandizement, for example, 
but turns out to be about someone who is notable in some way or 
another).  But most of the time it turns out to be some graduate 
student's resume, in which case after the 7 days deletion is perfectly 
reasonable.

-Mark