[WikiEN-l] Why Turn of AFD?

Fri Dec 9 21:11:31 UTC 2005

Granted, the post I made in the other thread contained an opinion, but
so did the Concutator's.

I think the people who are suggesting to shut off AFD as an experiment
are trying to solve a problem by addressing the wrong symptoms. So
with this post, I'll try to dig up the motives behind the idea.

1. Deletion is a neccesary evil. Even Kappa, who is considered
extremely inclusionist by a lot of wikipedians, occasionally uses AFD
to list something, so there's clearly deletions by policy that need to
happen yet are not covered by speedy criterions. AFD is the only
recourse which allows all Wikipedians to have their say on the issue
in an ordered manner right now and has additional benefits I list
below. (Cuncatator, would you agree with this?)

2. Speedy criterions need to be objective which is why formulating
them is so hard. It's simply impossible to make anything that should
be deleted speediable, because deletion policy requires
interpretation. There's almost always exceptions to the rule.

3. Deletion will create ill-feelings no matter how they are dealt
with. People who created the article or care about the subject of one
may feel 'bitten'. Regardless whether we use Pure Wiki Deletion,
Uncontested Deletion, AFD, Speedy or any other matter.

4. AFD show contested articles to a larger public and often lead to
evidence being produced which wouldn't otherwise been found and the
saving of an article which would otherwise have been deleted. Any
method like Pure Wiki Deletion would require you to dig through your
watchlist and Recent changes on a daily basis to see if any articles
you care about have a deletion discussion going.

5. Central listing avoids nominated articles from hiding in obscurity
if disgrunted editors or vandals remove a template something which
cannot be done with categories or any other method I've heard
suggested so far.

6. It's not the fact that all the deletion discussion are listed at
AFD that is causing the ill-feelings but the actions and reactions of
certain editors. Discontinuing AFD for any length of time would not
address these feelings.

All these points (facts as far as I can tell) indicate, to me, we
should be focussing on how people act on AFD and how authors of
deleted content take it rather than get rid of the process itself.

Could any of the people suggesting turning off AFD say which of the
facts I list here, they don't agree with. I would also like to see
some facts countering my points and tell me why AFD should stop (even
temporarily) rather than adjusted or refined.

Mgm