The last thing we need is a group of specialists who actually care about what kinds of articles are encyclopedic, and fall within Wikipedia's mandate and policies, and what kinds are not?
The problem is not that they "care", but that they're the ones who are _deciding_.
And a VfD that's justified with the code "NN, D" is clearly not the work of someone who cares, IMO. The fact that such VfDs aren't removed out of hand is what makes me so concerned with the current system.
Who aren't actually emotionally tied up in the subject matter, but instead are able to view the topic with dispassionate reason?
Who don't actually know anything about the subject matter, but instead come up with a vote based on a moment's thought about whether they've heard of it before?
I'm not going to go through and state the flipside of every point you make, hopefully this is sufficiently illustrative. Different people have very different views on what's "good", and a heck of a lot of people (myself included) are voicing views that the current system is ungood. In the spirit of consensus-building, please at least consider that maybe things will have to change to satisfy the complainers, but that perhaps there's some system to change to that we will all like. This doesn't have to be adversarial. _______________________________________________
That's what I see as a good thing. By involving people in the discussion who are not emotionally attached to the subject being discussed we can get views from outside the field of "fanatics" (sorry for not knowing a better word here).
I always try to back up my vote with some point of policy or research (see the photographer on AFD today). More people should base their votes off facts instead of "Keep, X is good/encyclopedic/verifiable". They should address the policy point that's being addressed. I.e "What do you mean not-notable? They were the main guest on Oprah last week and they have a top 100 Amazon sales rank." instead of "Writers are notable".
You could change the deletion process a thousand times, but if people put their own feelings of what should be included in the discussion (and preferably immediately). We'd agree on stuff a lot easier.
For example whether a substub should've been deleted wouldn't even be up for discussion if someone started with a larger article.
We should adress the source of the ill-feelings and not the symptoms.
--Mgm