On 01/05/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
On 01/05/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On *fD, <foo>cruft is shorthand for 'articles about <foo> that are below my personal notability threshold'. Thus its application is generally tautological and only serves to denigrate the subject matter.
And/or discredit the person using the term. It really is a pretty offensive term, but I don't know if most people using it realise that.
Some people use 'cruft' (me, for example) in the original sense - it's the word for that dust and fluff you pull out from under furniture. It is, outside of Wikipedia, most commonly applied to badly written and messy programming. Back in Wiki context, the term (when used in this sense, at least) makes no assertion of notability, but rather suggests that the article is in need of a major rewrite and/or cleanup.
So 'listcruft' implies a poorly-written list, probably in need of a loving Wikipedian to take it in and foster it back to full health. However, some 'cruft' is beyond redemption, and the best remedy for that is a brand new stub to take its place.
Can you tell I don't regularly take part in AfDs?
--Sam