On 12/1/05, Alex Schenck linuxbeak@gmail.com wrote:
I will copy what I wrote to David here...
That's right!
I want to ask for your opinion here. I was feeling brave this morning and decided to see if I could make a dent in Category:Wikipedia backloghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_backlog. After looking at about 25 articles with the wikification tag attached to them, and being so disgusted with the lot as to be unable to make a *single* change, something major hit me.
We need to, as one might say, flush the crap down the toilet. Allow me to explain.
A LOT of the articles in Category:Articles that need to be wikifiedhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Articles_that_need_to_be_wikifiedare so poorly written and so obscure that they have *no possible use, worth or value to anyone!* Jimbo himself made it clear in that interview that although Wikipedia does have some gems of articles (ie our Featured Articles), there is a rather poor signal to noise ratio. We all know that backlogs need to be cleared out, but no one is going to be able to do it without a.) time that reaches beyond time itself, b.) unlimited patience and c.) endless knowledge. In other words, to clear out the backlogs would be akin to an act of God.
I know you know what I'm thinking, David. I want to nuke a ton of articles in the backlog. Things like thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help_the_Agedmay have a place on Wikipedia, but *not* in their current form. If these things are important enough, they can be tagged as such and someone can be given it to work with. But I want to delete a lot of articles.
I know I'm going to get a lot of flak from other users concerning this. They will kneejerk to "OMG ABUSIVE ADMIN LALALALLA" and "DELETIONIST! OMG DELETIONIST!". But, we *need* to do something about the absolutely wretched backlogs.
Get back to me on this. Thanks. Alex Schenckhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Linuxbeak(that's Linuxbeak http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Linuxbeak to you) 16:40, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Now, with that said, I need feedback. Please provide.
--Linuxbeak
I think these articles are perfect for the pure wiki deletion process. They're somewhat useful as starting points for articles, but a lot of work still needs to be done. It'd be nice if there were a place to keep them until they get more fleshed out, but not bless them as an actual article worthy of Wikipedia. PWD allows for that.
Of course, moving all the crap to the talk page and replacing the mess with a really short stub would work too. That solution probably wouldn't stick, though. For one thing, ripping out lots of information is often reverted, and for another lots of people like to turn short stubs into redirects (which tend to create circular links and not be expanded due to this and other technical issues).