[WikiEN-l] Re: The heart of the deletion problem

Mon Dec 12 08:26:35 UTC 2005

Michael Snow wrote:

> <snip>
> The real heart of the problem is that people are laboring under the 
> misapprehension that they're looking at or working on something like a 
> final version of the encyclopedia. So they get themselves in a 
> lather/snit/tizzy (pick your idiom) over a transient state of affairs, 
> or they try to force permanence where consensus for it is lacking. 
> Disputed deletions are in the latter category.
>
> And it's very easy to give people the wrong idea when we don't have a 
> final or even a stable version of anything. Considering that Wikipedia 
> has been going for five years, I think we're ready to start. Stable 
> versions, even more than article ratings, are a feature we need. In 
> fact, I think setting up article ratings before stable versions is 
> completely backwards, because it's the stable versions we should be 
> asking people to rate.
>
> Stable versions that feed into development versions, with the latter 
> clearly identified as such (in David Gerard's words, 1995-style yellow 
> and black "Under Construction" GIFs), would do quite a bit to defuse 
> these problems, I think. In particular, I don't think the urge to 
> delete would be nearly as strong, and the concern about harm to 
> Wikipedia's image from be minimized. The time to provide stable 
> versions has come.
>
> --Michael Snow

Strong agreement here.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])