There has been increasing frequency of persuading writers of clearly unsatisfactory items to blank them or as ask their deletion with {{db-userreq}} --Guy and KP do it, and many others. I have learned from them-- I tell the authors that withdrawing an obviously unsatisfactory article will be to their advantage when they write a good one, either on the same subject, or on another more notable one, & I'll often suggest a topic. I did not think of this myself; I learned it from the more experienced who were already doing it when I came. There are two good outcomes from an AfD: the article gets improved and the nomination withdrawn, or the article gets withdrawn (when appropriate, with a statement that there is no prejudice to re-writing of a proper article.) In spite of the work required for an AfD, AfD can still be the best way to do this--a person who does not accept this from myself may well accept it when several other people say the same. This is also part of the reason against single-handed Speedy deletions. If I can say that not just I, but another editor think it should undoubtedly be deleted, it deflects many a protest. The effect can also be seen at prod -- in many cases the author lets it be deleted. When I notify them, I suggest that if they do not have the opportunity to delete it now, such is the wiser course. The intelligent ones without too much invested COI understand.
Good deletions can lead to good inclusions. But deleting improvable articles via speedy without allowing a chance for improvement leads to justified resentment. And deleting borderline articles via speedy when the deletion is debatable rather than AfD can multiply the eventual work and leave bad feelings all around.
DGG
On 7/15/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/15/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 19:33:10 -0700, "K P" kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
I agree with the expedited cleanup. Sometimes there is dreadful crap that really needs to get off Wikipedia ASAP. Just because someone contests a PROD doesn't mean pure crap should be granted a 1 week reprieve, like that moron who decided to write a piece of crap article about beach chic to honor his bride (God help her), then contested the prod so the piece of crap would stay up for the week of his wedding.
Ugh. And in the past we have had issues when we speedy such crap and get oddballs calling it an "out of process deletion" at DRV. But let's not get started on that route, I think we are broadly in agreement that what is needed is a funnel of some sort, that problematic articles get fed in, and which then triages them into unambiguous crap for nuking, unambiguously good subjects for keeping, and the stuff in the middle that needs something between a complete rewrite and a bit of extra sourcing.
As much of an inclusionist as I am, compared to Guy certainly, there really is a lot of crap that gets a one week free ride, that I wouldn't mind seeing reduced to a 2 day free ride.
We are all inclusionists, otherwise we would not be here in the first place. The difference is just where we place the bar for inclusion - or perhaps our view of what constitutes an encyclopaedia or an encyclopaedic subject.
There is too much strife at present, and I don't know why. I suspect that the recent backlash against "tabloid" stuff is partly to blame, but I don't really know.
What I have noticed is that there are more people out there who are prepared to bolster trolls and shout from the sidelines. Maybe that's just the disputes I get involved in, but it does appear to me that there are more, and more aggressive, POV-pushers and trolls these days. Yes, my personal experience does inform this, I currently have a problem with some utterly baffling "overturn" advocates on a deletion review for a laundry list of grudges against me by an editor with fewer than 100 mainspace edits; the grudge list sat unedited in his user space for nearly six months, and no RfC is ever likely to be brought because his complaint is clearly and unequivocally baseless, but the troll-enablers are out in force. Which goes to reinforce my current disaffection with the whole project.
Guy (JzG)
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
There seems to be a lot of troll enabling at AfD AND a shocking number of accounts created to simply participate in one AfD. I keep stumbling over there and finding myself in a different cyber space than Wikipedia.
In the meantime, getting some sort of funnel that keeps the obvious crap from being kept for 7 days would be good, or any system that says, "look you moron, you could hardly be lamer, let's be decent to you and erase all evidence of your loserhood," would be great.
And what's with all the editors who tell me I can't clean up an article while it awaits the trash heap? If it's up for deletion, and it's going to be hanging around for another week as a certifiable piece of crap, the first thing I do is edit the article to the least offending version possible.
If we create a funnel, let's make sure it gives no indication that the article has to stay looking like crap all the while it's up for deletion, whether 2 days, or 1 hour.
I even edited 2 attack BLPs before I put the attack label on them. They were deleted in under 15 minutes, but no one needed an effortless view of the crap in those 15 minutes.
Yes, funnel.
KP
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