On 1/23/06, John Lee johnleemk@gawab.com wrote:
Seriously. [[TomorrowNow]] is a valid subject; its CEO plainly isn't.)
You know a couple of days ago we were discussing this kind of thing on wikien-l and there was this feeling that if there were crap AfDs we should be prepared to discuss what to do about the article in the broader sense, not just deleting it. I accordingly closed the AfD and invited all interested parties to discuss what to do about the article.
Somebody re-opened the AfD, some more people voted delete and it was closed as a delete. While annoying, this obviously wasn't the end of the thing precisely because there was so much agreement that the company is important and so much material in the deleted revisions.
Oh sure there were a couple of odd moments. A history undeletion that I made was speedied, the Seth Ravin page was protected from recreation, and so on. I was accused of all kinds of crimes against process (good!) Minor stuff. But the solution was easy to implement, the new version took only a small amount of research and rewriting, and I'm reasonably proud of the result.
Yes, I'm satisfied with the end result. But you will notice that I had to fight *against* encrustations of process every single step of the way. An attempt to implement good ideas suggest here was rebutted, the AfD was closed without due notice being taken of the feeling that the company was important enough for an article, and a straightforward history undeletion was nearly capsized. All because the process has been fetishized and the use of thought deterred and marginalized. One chap even put a note on my take page suggesting "you're angling for another undeletion". As if this was a *bad* thing in the circumstances! Of course I was anglng for undeletion! We do not delete good material from the encyclopedia.
But the problem is that I had to do it. There is no process to support what I did, the process that we have deters it, and many of those committed to that process actually think people shouldn't be allowed to do it and are probably abusing their editing and administrator powers when they do.