On 2/6/08, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote:
The only reason is as a defense against deletion.
That's it. When deletion comes knocking it's hard to defend individual
articles but somewhat easier to defend these omnibus ones, so they get
rolled together even though there's not one whit of difference as far as
the actual _content_ is concerned.
Cases like these lend themselves to a sort of tag-team deletionism
(which may be conspiracy or coincidence -- neither would surprise me):
1. Those opposed to individual stubs are pacified by merging
everything to a list article
2. Then, those opposed to "list-cruft" are pacified by deletion of the
list article.
3. Then, those who would rather delete a "broken redirect" on sight
rather than checking for previous revisions containing a proper
article, well... nevermind.
Perfect crime if you think about it.
—C.W.