Tony Sidaway wrote:
I've found that listing an article on AfD, and the ensuing strong keep vote, is a pretty effective way of damping down deletion wars that sometimes result from undeletion. It's not ideal but it's probably all that can be done while people are ready to speedy delete stuff on purely procedural grounds.
Having said that, lately we're getting articles that are being undeleted by DRV and then listed on AfD when no real reason exists for wanting to delete them, and also cases where DRV is being used to endorse bad speedy deletions.
[[Brian Walters]]. Prominent Melbourne barrister and civil libertarian. Article stated as much, and it's easily checked. There were numerous votes on DRV to keep it deleted until I did a quick google, undeleted and expanded it. The person who originally speedied it could have done the google and saved himself the bother of deleting.
[[The Form of Preaching]] Nominated by someone who thought the article was OR (presumably didn't google either). A few sheep-votes sealed it deletion. The guy whose student created it came to DRV and pointed out that the piece was very important in medieval rhetoric. For some reason, although undeleted, it got listed on AfD *yet again*.
[[Mary Welsh Hemingway]], prominent international journalist who, after covering World War II, married Ernest Hemingway. Was undeleted and, for no real reason, relisted. Speedy keep of this article has been strongly resisted.
In all fairness Googling, then adding the information is a lot of work. That has been my experience at Wiktionary where I have been pushing people to cite sources. We've had the situation where an anon would add a new word of dubious parentage, then one of our more regular contributors would take up the cause, fix up the formatting, and argue to keep the word. The general rule has been that on our Requests for Deletion (RfD) something would stay for at least a week if there is anything to discuss. Even after deletion everything (including "speedys") stay for at least a week before being removed from the list. There is plenty of opportunity to have serious debate continued. It also helps that we do not equate stubs with some kind of criminal act; there are words where there is very little to say. Deleted ones can be easily reconstructed if the situation calls for it.
Complaints about deleting unsourced material resulted in a separate page called Requests for Verification (RfV) where supporters have a full month to find sources. After that, it *may* be deleted. I personally work on maintaining the RfD page, trying to find common ground, and making decisions in the tough cases. Some complaints are inevitable, but it never reaches the level of persistent rancour that flare up on the mailing list over AfD. I do not personally monitor RfV, and limit myself to occasional comments on specific items or particular nominations that I don't bother to track. The resulting division of labour has helped in a growing project.
I suppose too that I indirectly take advantage of this mailing llist for Wiktionary's administrative benefit. The kind of arguing that I see here makes me very conscious of what to avoid in Wiktionary. I suppose that that makes me grateful to those here whose ideas differ significantly from mine. :-)
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