On 5/5/06, BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
I think that you are right but missing the real problem. There will always be a "locus of control" and unless you want to impose elections for those who should vote on AfD, that group will always be self-selecting. I think that the real problem is that the group which controls which Star Trek articles (for example) that should be included and deleted from Wikipedia is a different group than those who are interested in Star Trek. A group of people on Wikipedia is interested in writing and improving Star Trek articles, another group is interested in deleting Star Trek articles. That arrangement obviously causes friction. It would be much better if it could be arranged so that those people who write Star Trek articles also are in charge when it comes to deleting Star Trek articles.
Again, replace Star Trek with Pokemon (my favourite punching bag, for no real reason). Would you really entrust Pokemon fans with deciding which Pokemon articles are notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia? Surely your proposal simply leads to vastly greater inclusion rates.
Summary: People who know nothing about a topic are more likely to vote delete, even for an arguably notable topic People who are experts on a topic are more likely to vote keep, even for a topic of little interest to the broader community
Agree?
Steve