Perhaps it would help if someone deleted the
blueprint? Or, after everyone had agreed to use
bricks, someone started pulling them out, because a
small group of builders decided that, although bricks
were on the blueprint, they would rather not have
them.
Mark
--- John Lee <johnleemk(a)gawab.com> wrote:
What established policy do you mean? The deletion
policy? In any case, I
definitely agree. I don't know how anyone thinks
removing listings from
VFD is somehow furthering the building of an
encyclopedia. And in any
case, VFD operates on community consensus. If some
users want every
article with the word "green" deleted, they're free
to make the
frivolous listings, and make frivolous votes.
I think you people are going overboard with your
"what if"s. Remember
assume good faith? Remember our perennial optimism
in how the good users
will always outnumber the bad? That has to be
applied in this case.
Sure, lots of us avoid VFD. I got sick of it after
handling the deletion
of entries everyday (see my user page for why). But
if somebody was to
go around listing every article containing the word
"green" for
deletion, I'd vote "keep". I'd file a case with the
arbitration committee.
See, we all agree we want to build an encyclopedia.
But some of us
disagree on how to build it. Some think we should
use bricks of only one
colour. Some think we should take out a few
defective bricks and replace
them with better ones. Some think we should repair
the defective bricks
instead. Some think we shouldn't use bricks at all
and use old-fashioned
wood. The thing is, if we let anyone do what they
damn want, will the
encyclopedia be an architectual masterpiece?
Doubtful. It may not even
be an encyclopedia. But if we structure things
around a blueprint, and
have foremen to oversee the process, while still
allowing any Tom, Dick
and Harry to build the encyclopedia, things will
turn out far nicer.
My point? Maybe the builders can't agree on the
blueprint - is it
something to stick exactly to or something flexible?
In the case of
guidelines such as [[What Wikipedia is not]], it
does not claim to be a
definitive guide of what should be criteria for
inclusion - "Please feel
free to continue adding to this list as we discover
interesting new ways
of not writing encyclopedia articles." So I think
that this is why we
have VFD. If not covered by existing policy, VFD is
where we debate the
article's inclusion. I propose articles clearly
invalid under policy
should go onto the proposed Purgatory page (see
[[Wikipedia:Preliminary
Deletion]]) if it is agreed upon, or moved to
speedy deletes if it's a
clear candidate for such.
Just because an article doesn't fall under any
existing criteria in
policy for inclusion/deletion does not render it
invalid from deletion.
VFD exists to serve the community, not policy.
Policy and VFD are the
means to an end, not an end in themselves.
And if people really are committing mass
transgressions of policy, I see
no reason to huff and puff about it in private where
they can't hear us.
Explain to them directly how they are violating
policy - "Ok, while you
think an article having the word 'green' isn't
encyclopedic, the
article's topic is certainly listed under Policy X
as a valid
encyclopedic topic. Maybe we should discuss this on
the article's talk
page, but the usage of the word 'green' isn't an
excuse for utter
removal." That's how things should be going (IMO).
If they don't listen, bring it up on RFC, mediation
or arbitration. If
the word "green" really isn't an excuse for
deletion, there will be many
who agree with you.
In case my opinion of VFD isn't clear enough yet, I
think it's a
necessary evil. Sure, the whole community isn't
involved, but if there's
a spate of articles unfairly being deleted, there
will be an outcry, and
they will make themselves heard, and the whole
community will be up in
arms. That's one good thing about extremist
inclusionists - they have a
way of drawing people to something.
And for those who are constantly moaning about how
evil VFD is and how
we don't need it, I have one question - what do we
do with articles that
aren't obvious copyvios, speedies, etc.? Do we keep
a twenty-page long
article on George Washington's underwear? How do we
decide its worth for
inclusion? I do understand that these are few, but
they do exist (the
prime example being Eric B. and Rakim, who's been
surprisingly quiet
recently).
John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])
Nicholas Knight wrote:
Rebecca wrote:
> If VFD does not have the consensus support of the
community, then why
> not stop bitching here, and go write up a
proposal to get rid of it?
>
> And lets see how far it gets.
>
> Of course, you won't do that, because you know
what the odds of
> success are - which reflects the feelings of
the
community on this
issue.
Stop ascribing positions to me which I do not
hold. I don't want VFD
to go away, I want it to operate according to
ALREADY ESTABLISHED
policy. If anything, I want the extremists on
both
sides abusing it to
further their own agendas to go away so actual
work can get done.
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