On Wed, May 03, 2006 at 01:27:09AM -0700, Pete Bartlett wrote:
Er. [[WP:OWN]]? Images are an exception, as nearly all images are the work of one or two people at most. Articles are not. Articles can, and often are, watched. Wikipedians ought to pay attention to their watchlists if they wish to express opinions about their contributions.
The vast majority of AfDed articles are very new and have just one author.
Indeed and it is likely that they are put off by having their gems described as "cruft". However, I think people are put off more by other things:-
1. General jargon of which cruft is just one. 2. Being put to AfD within hours or sometimes minutes of starting the article. I think this is most offensive. New editors are finding their way. They are not obsessed with WP. They have a life. They will take time to develop the article. If someone thinks the article is bad, they make a note of it and follow it for a week or so, talk to the editor on his talk page and perhaps the article talk page. It is sheer bad manners and certainly biting the newbie to push something to Afd so quickly. There is no hurry. WP is not going to be perfect tomorrow if you speedy delete a few articles. 3. Comments on Afd like, "looks non-verifiable to me", "seems non-notable" and other comments that show the nominator has not done enough homework before jumping to conclusions. I have seen quite a few AfDs withdrawn recently after the nom realises that the debate is showing they were quite wrong. Nominating something for deletion has its responsabilities. 4. Nominations which are basically "I do not understand this, so lets see whether people want to delete it". We should want to improve and keep stuff, noit delete it.
I could go on. AfD depresses me for several reasons and the fact that most of the articles are so bad they deserve deletion is only one of them. It is the others that could be improved that leads to so much trouble.
It is amazing how often AfD debates do not benefit from the opinion of the original creator.
They may not have set their preferences so articles they edit automatically go on their watchlist. They probably do not yet understand the watchlist system. Welcome messages should advise newbies on the watchlist.
Brian. [[Bduke]]
It is not amazing. Most people do not feel the need to continue to respond to questions about their contributions to Wikipedia after they have contributed them. This is unsurprising.
I throughly oppose a requirement to notify people who have expressed (through not using their watchlists) a desire not to continue discussing their contributions.
That is breathtaking arrogant Jesse. A sizeable proportion of AfDed articles are written by anonymous contributors. They don't even have watchlists!
Are you frightened that if contributors get involved we might actually have to keep some of the articles?!
Pcb21