[WikiEN-l] Improve AFD - require rationales (2-step process)

Tue Dec 13 15:18:26 UTC 2005

>From: Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com>
>
>But I see a lot more discussion about how bad AFD is and a lot less
>discussion about what we should replace it with, and why whatever system we
>choose to replace it will be any better. Defense of AFD seems to be getting
>quieter and quieter but I still don't see us making much progress toward
>enacting some actual improvements.

Defense of AfD is getting quieter for a number of reasons:

*defense of AfD, even if only to point out that it almost always makes 
reasonable decisions, and even when making unreasonable decisions, is no 
more error prone than any other human system, only seems to encourage 
further outbursts of dubious and unproven claims about its "brokenness", 
and, in some cases, near-hysterical rhetoric regarding it and those who 
defend it.
*defense of AfD only serves to continue discussion on a topic which is 
fairly unimportant when measured against Wikipedia's real problems (e.g. 
failing dispute resolution mechanisms, assaults on Wikipedia [abetted by the 
media] by increasingly vocal and threatening individuals regarding content 
about them that they don't like).
*defense of AfD, and the reaction to that, tends to make the atmosphere of 
this list far more "poisonous" than the "poisonous atmosphere" of AfD 
itself.

Jay.