[WikiEN-l] Why Turn of AFD?

Fri Dec 9 22:08:28 UTC 2005

On 12/9/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> I disagree that it's not possible to come up with objective criteria
> for deletion.  I disagree with the sentiment that "Deletion will
> create ill-feelings no matter how they are dealt with", because some
> methods of dealing with it causes much more ill-feelings than others.
> I don't think showing contested articles to a larger public for less
> than a week is beneficial.  If it's that important, the public will
> find it anyway.  If it's not that important, then it's no big loss,
> especially if the action can be reversed a month, two months, three
> years later.
I didn't say it was impossible to come up with objective criteria,
just hard to find some everyone agrees with for some types of
articles.

Correction: We can't make everything that needs to be deleted
speediable. Some things need interpretation and thus discussion. (I
said anything)

People are not online all the time so Recentchanges and Watchlists
aren't going to cover everything they care about that is nominated for
deletion. I for one, would hate to trawl through hours of edit logs
when you can just have them all neatly logged in one place. For
example, I wouldn't have noticed Emerson Spartz being nominated for
deletion. That was important to me and it would've made it hard for me
to find if AFD wasn't centralized. We shouldn't make people search for
debates just because they hurt someone's feelings.

> I don't think it's necessary to keep "nominations" from
> hiding in obscurity.  Again, if it's important, someone will notice it
> and reverse it.  If it isn't, then it doesn't matter anyway.  This is
> especially true because we already point out that an article has been
> deleted when someone actually tries to read that article.
Speedy deletion nominations aren't permanently logged in a central
place, only in the edit history. They disappear from the directory as
soon as the tag is removed. Have you got any idea how often speedy
tags are removed? Just because I don't notice them being removed,
doesn't mean it's not important.

> Furthermore, how many people actually look at AfD every single week to
> check if any articles they care about are being deleted?  I'd imagine
> it's not many.  The time that articles are kept on AfD is already far
> too short to expect that many objectors will notice in time.
What point of mine was this aimed at?