On 9/13/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Michael Turley wrote:
On 9/13/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Michael Turley wrote:
I suggest we consider adding an optional "hidden from casual browsers" flag to Wikipedia article records, so that we would have a two level deletion system: complete crap gets speedied, bad articles get deleted as usual, good articles get kept as usual, and questionable articles are shuffled off to limbo where they can be further developed before being put back into the main articlespace. (I'm not even sure how much I like this idea myself, but thought I'd throw it out there.)
TINC.
I don't see how that applies here. Please explain what you mean.
How do we decide what is visible to which editors? Should they be visible only to sysops, or only to logged in editors? Or only editors with a certain number of edits? Or accounts which are not in the newest 1% (a la page moves)?
Well, I'm open to other ideas, but the way I envisioned it, it would be a separate article space that is open to everyone, but not immediately visible from the front page, nor included in searches unless explicitly included.
Call it "article limbo" or "marginal articles" or "not quite encyclopedic enough to suit the general public, but this is a pretty close try articles" if you will, but I wouldn't lock the content away from anyone. Instead, just put it in a virtual cupboard, away from casual view where editors who are interested can work the articles without the timeline and "reconvince the delete voters" pressure, and then later appeal to have them brought into the main articlespace when they're ready.
We'd have the more scholarly, enforced to traditional standards Wikipedia that would keep the articles suitable for print versions, and the second level Limbopedia where editors are somewhat more free to pursue their own interests and share more localized, more specific knowledge without accusations of "cruft" and "not notable enough". Maybe most stubs would reside there, maybe not, I don't know. An internal fork, to make the main project more aligned with its goals, with the daughter project serving as an additional development area. Or maybe we should fork upward, with a brand new empty space to nominate our best articles into...
I still see room for argument, but since there would be more middle ground for resolution, I think we'd see more people finding middle ground.
(And speaking personally about an issue I care deeply about, I'd expect almost all school articles to reside in limbo, even though we almost always keep them now, and even though I think they almost always belong in the main article space... I should shut up before someone thinks this is a good idea...)