[WikiEN-l] Re: Why is this a problem

Mon Oct 17 01:13:29 UTC 2005

> From: Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] VFU is utterly beyond hope
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Message-ID:
>     <605709b90510161417w70cb1b4ar952c22ee9564458 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On 10/16/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 10/16/05, Brian Haws <brian at bhaws.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I agree, this insistance on process and instruction over common  
>>> sense in VFU is very disheartening to me. And the proposed  
>>> Deletion Review doesn't seem to be concerned about this, the goal  
>>> seems to be making it as easy as possible to keep things deleted.
>>
>> well yes the alturnative is that any AFD that decides to delete will
>> be listed on VFU by it's supporters.
>
> Why is this a problem?

It's not a problem if you believe that articles are being deleted too  
quickly and easily and generally favor slowing the process or making  
it more difficult.

HYPOTHETICALLY, because nothing like this is happening in practice: IF

--there were general agreement that arguments on the merits of the  
article were completely appropriate for VfU

--every article closed for deletion in AfD were systematically taken  
to VfU

then the result would be that an article could not be deleted unless  
it had basically been voted for deletion TWICE: once in AfD by 2/3
majority, then a second time in VfU by simple majority. In most  
cases, of course, _all things being equal,_ an article getting a 2/3  
majority in AfD would be expected to get a simple majority when re- 
argued.

Unless the rules for VfU and AfD are asymmetrical, than VfU becomes a  
pointless waste of time.

Discussion of the merit and content of the article should not be  
mechanically excluded from VfU. But it should be limited to cases  
where it can convincingly be shown _something has changed_ between  
AfD and VfU that would lead one to believe that the people taking  
part in AfD would probably have voted otherwise had they had known.

Articles that are _genuinely_ and _substantially_ rewritten just  
before close of AfD (e.g "delete, delete, delete, delete, delete,  
delete, delete, delete, comment: rewritten, keep, keep") would be one  
example.

Or "Har Gobind Korhana is so kewl! I love his lecutres" followed by a  
string of delete, non-notable prof", closed for deletion, someone  
points out that it's a misspelling of Har Gobind Khorana who won a  
Nobel prize.

Whatever the rules and practices are, VfU should be _different_ from  
AfD and involve _different_ considerations. It should not just be   
mechanical re-run of AfD to see whether the percentage of people who  
think Jenny MacNabb is notable will turn out to be different.

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/