If there are articles listed appropriately, then you, just like any other Wikipedian, have to right to vote "keep".

I do not agree that the author of the article should be responsible for explaining why it is relevant - I believe the would be deletor should have to prove why it fits the criteria for deletion.

I believe if we got some intermediary stage of deletion up, it would solve a lot of our woes regarding this. Basically it would be a condensed version of VfD - perhaps with a period of time lasting only two or three days. The moment an article gets a single keep vote, it goes to VfD. If by the time is up there has not been a single keep vote, then there's obviously no point in keeping it, is there? That way, we don't speedy dubious entries, we don't waste time and effort keeping obvious bunk entries on VfD for a full week, and everyone's happy. John Lee

John Lee wrote solve a lot of our - perhaps article gets a been a single keep way, we don't speedy entries on This could be a really good idea. But... what's the betting that someone will make it a policy to vote "keep" to *every* nomination? Almost certain I would say --sannse _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

On 22 Oct 2004, at 12:45, John Lee wrote: If I read you correctly you're proposing that the "middle road" semi-speedy deletion thing you're proposing there just lists nominated articles for a time and that no one actually should/need to vote to delete them there? I.e. delete votes are unnecessary as not-voted-on articles listed in that place would get deleted automatically and but a single "keep" vote would cause the case to be moved to VfD proper? I was initially opposed to yet another tool, but this one could actually work and take some strain off VfD. I've even got an idea what to call this thing: [[Wikipedia:Purgatory]]. -- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]] www.ropersonline.com _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Thanks for your work on this. :) As regards #2 of the proposal (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Preliminary_Deletion#Proposal ) however: I really think doing the same voting there as is done on VfD proper is rather bad idea. (If you're doing the same thing, then why not do it at VfD in the first place?) '''Since but a single Keep vote would move a case over to VfD, there is no point in anybody voting Delete.''' Thus, just: 10 List an item at Wikipedia:Purgatory. 20 WAIT a certain number of days (to be determined) 20 IF Nobody has voted Keep on the article THEN delete it. 30 ELSEIF move the case to VfD Does that not make more sense? I mean, what's the use in even a million users voting keep on a case at [[Wikipedia:Purgatory]] if but a single vote moves the case over to VfD anyway? It's just a wast of time at that stage. If and only if a case has moved to VfD proper, then it makes sense to vote on it.

I also ain't certain if "''Prelimiary'' deletion" is a good title, as the word could be seen to imply that things always got revised and/or undeleted later (when our aspiration should be that the fewest "Preliminary deletion" cases get promoted to VfD).

will, out of reflex, vote to keep any and every article ever written. He

I don't think that's the point Rick was making. I think he was just rightfully bitching about inclusionists, because they seem to have a damn lot of extremist followers, and Rick was showing an example. Inclusionists often use abrasive language, and to me (I don't know about anyone else; this is my own opinion) they sound like bitches more than half of the time. They seem to believe that "EVERYTHING HAS VALUE" and that "NOTHING SHOULD EVER EVER BE DELETED", and resort to stunts to prove their point, like screwing with the VFD structure. Come to think of it, they remind me a lot of Greenpeace and PETA.

I didn't deny that there are extremists in the deletionist camp such as Rick, but what's positively annoying are brats like Netoholic or Eric B. and Rakim, especially considering their vocality. For example, Eric B. and Rakim has made statements such as "There is no reason to delete any of the pages there [on VFD] at all", "Everyone using that page [VFD] to delete articles is sabotaging Wikipedia and should be blocked" and "The only way to fix vfd would be to allow people to cast the identical vote on range of articles listed there. Then you would be able to vote "keep doesn't hurt wikipedia" (or whatever) on each and every article".

I disagree. The anon should have explained how it was relevant already, through the entry. If the entry shows no sign of notability, it should be VfDed. What frustrates me the most about the current process is the lack of an intermediary stage between speedy deletes and VfDs. We get articles which are 100% delete on VfD, so having them there is a waste of time, processor cycles, whatever. But if we speedy them, then anthony and the inclusionist gang whine up our asses to restore them, as deleting them wasn't in line with policy. And I agree. I only speedy the real crap, the real stuff that is 100% proven unencyclopedic, such as entries made up of phrases such as "i do pot", "i am in love with u", "green cheese", obvious user tests, etc. (contrary to what many inclusionists have claimed, there are *many* articles created everyday which are clearly unworthy of inclusion) I believe if we got some intermediary stage of deletion up, it would solve a lot of our woes regarding this. Basically it would be a condensed version of VfD - perhaps with a period of time lasting only two or three days. The moment an article gets a single keep vote, it goes to VfD. If by the time is up there has not been a single keep vote, then there's obviously no point in keeping it, is there? That way, we don't speedy dubious entries, we don't waste time and effort keeping obvious bunk entries on VfD for a full week, and everyone's happy. John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]]) Mark Richards wrote: there responsible the problem inapropriately, wrote: (one a _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Yeah, whatever. If the entry doesn't provide any way to easily validate its veracity, it's the same thing. Once again, the onus is on the contributor, not the hapless other editors who run into the article, to prove the article's worthiness. John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]]) Mark Richards wrote: _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

On Friday 22 October 2004 23:28, Mark Richards wrote: That's a Bad Thing (tm) IMO. sysops should delete only the pages that are useless (spam, tests, profanity) not a page which contains factual information, no matter how notable this info is, as long as you categorise the pages in categories according to their notability so that people can limit their search in notable articles only. -- NSK Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

On Saturday 23 October 2004 00:19, Mark Richards wrote: Yes it is. Even the most stupid and useless post may be considered as important or funny by some people. For example, I have accepted this: http://nerdypc.wikinerds.org/index.php/Trr_post This was posted at Wikipedia (not by me) and was deleted. However, I considered it interesting and funny; So I imported it in my wiki and I contacted the elYsiun community about it. See: http://www.elysiun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31298 If this thing was not posted on WP I would never learn about it. I still don't understand why it was deleted. If you search the elYsiun forum you will find much discussion about the Trr post. Surely some people consider it funny or interesting. In the same way, Quantum Gravity is considered as interesting by a small number of people, however you do have an article about it. In some way, WP could become a great forum for the publication of content not available elsewhere, but you limit yourselves in the "canon of knowledge". If you accept "nonnotable" articles and categorise them in a proper way (and hiding them from the main search), your reputation will not suffer. Good reputation does not necessarily means that "stupid" content shouldn't be allowed. The Guinness Records Book is full of content that I consider stupid or noninteresting to me ("the person with the longest nails! oh yeah... who cares?") but it's true, factual, useful for research and excitement and I know that many other people are considering this information as important. I do not think that GRB is a bad publication just because I am uninterested in part of its content: I just don't read this part. In the same way WP can become a great pool of trivia and "strange" information that could attract even more contributors who have specialised knowledge in areas totally unknown to most people. As long as you label this material as "trivia" or "just a joke page" or whatever, it's fine (of course the labelling should not be offending and should be NPOV). -- NSK Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

On Saturday 23 October 2004 00:19, Mark Richards wrote: Yes it is. Even the most stupid and useless post may be considered as important or funny by some people. For example, I have accepted this: http://nerdypc.wikinerds.org/index.php/Trr_post This was posted at Wikipedia (not by me) and was deleted. However, I considered it interesting and funny; So I imported it in my wiki and I contacted the elYsiun community about it. See: http://www.elysiun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31298 If this thing was not posted on WP I would never learn about it. I still don't understand why it was deleted. If you search the elYsiun forum you will find much discussion about the Trr post. Surely some people consider it funny or interesting. In the same way, Quantum Gravity is considered as interesting by a small number of people, however you do have an article about it. In some way, WP could become a great forum for the publication of content not available elsewhere, but you limit yourselves in the "canon of knowledge". If you accept "nonnotable" articles and categorise them in a proper way (and hiding them from the main search), your reputation will not suffer. Good reputation does not necessarily means that "stupid" content shouldn't be allowed. The Guinness Records Book is full of content that I consider stupid or noninteresting to me ("the person with the longest nails! oh yeah... who cares?") but it's true, factual, useful for research and excitement and I know that many other people are considering this information as important. I do not think that GRB is a bad publication just because I am uninterested in part of its content: I just don't read this part. In the same way WP can become a great pool of trivia and "strange" information that could attract even more contributors who have specialised knowledge in areas totally unknown to most people. As long as you label this material as "trivia" or "just a joke page" or whatever, it's fine (of course the labelling should not be offending and should be NPOV).

On Saturday 23 October 2004 10:54, csherlock(a)ljh.com.au wrote: I don't know this thread but if it was something unusual that attracted the interest of some people I might be interested to see it. I want to write some short articles on unusual online culture. What's the URL?

More links:

OK. I'm kinda interested what you write! I think your project has merit,

More pedanticism. You have completely missed my original point; that

contributors are supposed to indicate how the article they wrote deserves inclusion, and that they shouldn't be tripping up others who have to research the article just to bring it up to our standards.

There's no point in bitching about language at this point, because it's irrelevant. Regardless of what words I used, my point remains:

contributors are supposed to clarify through their articles how the latter articles are encyclopedic. The onus is on them to prove the topic is encyclopedic.

From what you've written below, you apparently have not read my earlier post dealing with this.

Whatever. That's not the point in this case. You all know what I mean; I

know what "notability", etc. mean on VFD. So what's the problem?

Hahaha...you have obviously not read my post earlier. Articles are supposed to be *self-proven*. In other words, 99.9% of our current articles have already proven themselves many times over. There is no need for authors to state how the topic is encyclopedic, unless they didn't make it clear when they first created the article in question.

I don't know what you're bumbling about, but considering how you've not read my earlier post explaining this...

The reason I used the word "notability" in the first place is because it implies to me that if something is notable enough for inclusion, it should be verifiable. Jimbo himself has clarified it on this list before; to him, the reason notability is used as a criteria is because anything notable enough to go into an encyclopedia should be verifiable. I thought we'd already ironed that out. I am not using "notability" in the same way it is normally used on VFD. John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]]) _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

More pedanticism. You have completely missed my original point; that contributors are supposed to indicate how the article they wrote deserves inclusion, and that they shouldn't be tripping up others who have to research the article just to bring it up to our standards. There's no point in bitching about language at this point, because it's irrelevant. Regardless of what words I used, my point remains: contributors are supposed to clarify through their articles how the latter articles are encyclopedic. The onus is on them to prove the topic is encyclopedic.

According to who? What self-respecting encyclopedia gives me the right to write an article on my deceased cat?

What puzzles me the most is: If the cat had an article written about it in the local newspaper, would it be verifiable? If an orbituary was published, would it then count as verifiable? That's what troubles me most about using "verifiability" as a replacement for "notability".

On Saturday 23 October 2004 13:36, Rebecca wrote: I see no reason why the online WP couldn't have such an article. Obviously the 1.0 paper edition couldn't, but if you have disk space and you flag the "non-encyclopedic" articles as such, there is absolutely no problem.

According to who? What self-respecting encyclopedia gives me the right to write an article on my deceased cat?

Learn respect? If I come in and graffiti all over your front door, do you then need to learn respect for yelling at me for doing so? Bah.

Ray Saintonge wrote: for deletion. It is not Kafkaesque process in an stuck-up elitist. supposition is based on respect. Hear hear!

John Lee wrote: Bullshit! Non-notability is not a valid excuse for deletion. It is not up to the contributor to be put through a Kafkaesque process in an attempt to satisfy the illusory standards of a stuck-up elitist. They're not trying to trip up anybody. Your supposition is based on nothing. The onus is on the deletionist to learn respect. Ec

<snip> However, while your concerns are valid, they have been addressed before. [[WP:DP#What_to_do_with_a_problem_page.2Fimage.2Fcategory]] [[Wikipedia:Verifiability]] If you'd like to *change* these processes, that's certainly something that can and should be discussed, but you don't seem interested in changing policy, rather you seem to be trying to institute new policy. I don't know if this is another communication breakdown or if you were not aware of existing policies.

I note with a combination of amusement and horror but no surprise at all that almost if not all parties involved in that discussion aside from Rick are relatively new contributors (moreso at the time of the discussion). What we're seeing seems to be a result of the massive influx of new users who either don't understand Wikipedia or its long-standing policies and principles, or don't care.

...and compare this to disruptive new inclusionists, such as Netoholic, who either don't understand Wikipedia or its long-standing policies and principles, or don't care. Somehow, I think you'll find it's the deletionists who've generally been here longer, and done the hard yards of actually working on good articles, rather than spending their wiki time trying to turn Wikipedia into Wikijunkyard. -- ambi but no surprise at all discussion aside from the time of the result of the massive Wikipedia or its care. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

John Lee wrote: really. All I was it clear through an then the onus isn't on it. Mark Richards was their articles are is. The core concept isn't what I see as flawed (in fact it's almost tautological), it's the use of it as an excuse to delete things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:VfD-Ballerium from a recent post articles' deletion least Eric B. and the article have been "delete" was: "Let for another 6 months. after 6 months live, Isn't that a definition me how Ballerium topic having its article Wow, that's a perfect example of massive abuse of the VfD process. I see comments like "doesn't exist" (which it does and did), and statements about how beta software isn't worthy of an article, and they don't care how popular it is. I note with a combination of amusement and horror but no surprise at all that almost if not all parties involved in that discussion aside from Rick are relatively new contributors (moreso at the time of the discussion). What we're seeing seems to be a result of the massive influx of new users who either don't understand Wikipedia or its long-standing policies and principles, or don't care. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Bullcrap. Your characterizations are only in your own mind. If somebody can't be bothered to let us know why they care about an article, why should we? I constantly argue that all of the individual town and cities created by bot should be kept, despite repeated attempts at mass deletions. And I constantly vote keep for all articles about towns, even one line stubs. But where do we go on this path? I vote delete on schools, because from high schools we go to junior high schools, to elementary schools, to pre-schools. We have an article on every single company that has ever existed? We have an article on every single building that has ever existed? Do you seriously think that these are articles we should have in an encyclopedia?

I didn't say non-notability is a valid excuse for deletion (lots of people seem to read things into what I write that I didn't write). The contributor isn't put through a Kafkaesque process. All they have to do is show how the topic is *notable*. For example, let's say my friend Mike is an actor and is listed on IMDB. Which of the following articles is encyclopedic/demonstrates the topic's encyclopedia-worthiness? my fren Mike is an actor. he has acted in movies such as "some backyard indy movie nobody's heard of". OR Michael Gondrand is an independent actor. He has starred in "Some Backyard Indy Movie Nobody's Heard Of". [inline reference link to movie's website] *[link to IMDB entry] That's what I mean. They don't need to make a hubbub on VFD or whatever. All they have to do is to write the article up sufficiently so it is easy to see that the topic of the article is encyclopedic and verifiable.

I disagree. The anon should have explained how it was relevant already, through the entry. If the entry shows no sign of notability, it should be VfDed. What frustrates me the most about the current process is the lack of an intermediary stage between speedy deletes and VfDs. We get articles which are 100% delete on VfD, so having them there is a waste of time, processor cycles, whatever. But if we speedy them, then anthony and the inclusionist gang whine up our asses to restore them, as deleting them wasn't in line with policy. And I agree. I only speedy the real crap, the real stuff that is 100% proven unencyclopedic, such as entries made up of phrases such as "i do pot", "i am in love with u", "green cheese", obvious user tests, etc. (contrary to what many inclusionists have claimed, there are *many* articles created everyday which are clearly unworthy of inclusion)