[WikiEN-l] Pointless deletions

Wed Jan 18 19:56:30 UTC 2006

On Jan 18, 2006, at 9:13 AM, Tony Sidaway wrote:

> No. Guidelines are a substitute for thought.  Use your noggin and
> nothing much bad will happen.

Tony,

I recently advocated, both on this list and on AN/I, for a long-time  
editor who had been permanently blocked.  I had never spoken with  
this editor before, but we carried on a conversation off-list in my  
hopes that we could eliminate the issue that led to his block in the  
first place.

I attempted to make it clear that Wikipedia has guidelines and  
policies that must be followed by all of its editors, so that clutter  
and cruft can be eliminated and we can get to work on writing an  
encyclopedia.  I also encouraged him to bring up his problems with  
those policies and guidelines on the respective talk pages in order  
to effect change in Wikipedia.

Now I (and he) see a longtime administrator and respected editor  
making a liar out of me, completely ignoring the processes that  
volunteers long before I arrived worked to hammer out in order to  
make this encyclopedia the best it can be.

For the record, I completely agree that this article should not have  
been deleted, as do most people on this list.  But your complete  
disregard for anyone with a differing opinion is astonishing.  How  
much effort did explaining this undeletion and enforcing it require  
with regard to its reward (one article is undeleted that should not  
have been deleted)?  Wouldn't this time have been better spent  
advocating a change in the written policy that led to its deletion,  
so that your work can benefit thousands of similar articles?

The user I worked with had very strong views that he had thought out  
quite well, although they were contrary to policy.  He used his  
noggin just fine.  Unfortunately, just using your noggin and ignoring  
the noggins of other people (otherwise known as consensus) is not how  
Wikipedia was built, and it's not how it will be built in the  
future.  You know that as well as I do.

Warmest regards,
[[en:User:Bbatsell]]
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