On Fri, 5 Aug 2005, Stephen Bain wrote:
On 8/4/05, neil klopfenstein <rebrane(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
The worst thing about VfD, in my opinion, is that
once an article is
listed, it "can't" be merged/redirected/whatever else. It seems like
the majority of the articles on VfD are either no-brainer speedies or
no-brainer merges.
My idea for a comprehensive VfD reform: create a 'problem article' tag
which replaces {{vfd}} and {{d}}. Admins can delete these articles if
they're problematic, editors can remove the tag if they substantially
rewrite the article or redirect it. Anything that keeps the problem
article tag for a week gets deleted.
Someone could tag an article {{vanity}}, for example, and an admin
could delete it on sight, just like articles tagged {{delete}}, as
long as it was clearly a vanity page. The ambiguous ones (and there
are relatively few of those) could be shuffled off elsewhere, and
dealt with on an individual basis.
You've just described how the present works -- in theory. Vanity
pages, spam, articles with negligible content all get listed as
Speedy Delete. The rest go to VfD.
VfD will always be a contentious forum, if for no other reason than
we are discussing whether to knife someone's baby; in effect, a
vote to delete an article can be perceived by its original contributor
as a criticism that their work is "unimportant." Add to that the
diverse philosophies present on Wikipedia, & that the size of the
Wikipedia community has grown to the point where cliques or factions
have begun to emerge, & Wikipedia has come to the point where VfD will
always be a hotly controversial topic unless we agree to accept all
articles that do not meet the criteria of a Speedy Delete -- in effect,
removing it entirely.
Although it wouldn't help to streamline the process for actually
deleting an article; last time I looked at the instructions, I found
them so intimidating that I gave up & went back to just contributing
material.
Geoff