Wonderful. Let's not delete things that don't meet the criteria for deletion! Mark
--- Simon Pulsifer se_pulsifer@yahoo.ca wrote:
I don't post to the mailing list much, but deletion has recently become an area of great interest to me.
First off I don't think VfD is "broken." I think it is wonderful and in an ideal world every article would be given as much scrutiny as those of VfD receive. At least 99% of deletion decisions are valid.
I do, however, see some worrying trends. My concern is over the issue of notability. In the past the articles listed on VfD were there because they were pure fiction, vanities, nonsense, or advertising. In recent months, however, an increasing number of articles are being listed because simply because they are seen as not being notable enough for an encyclopedia.
This is despite there being nowhere in What Wikipedia is not, Wikipedia:Deletion policy, or Wikipedia:Vanity articles where articles on non-notable things listed as being eligible for deletion. There is no consensus that things that are well-known but not notable should eligible for deletion.
Originally non-notable things and people were not deleted simply because they were not well known, but rather because articles on non-famous individuals, neologisms, garage bands, etc. are unverifiable and prone to bias. Over time "non-notable things should be deleted because they inevitably violate Wikipedia's goal of a neutral and high quality encyclopedia" was simplified to just "non-notable things should be deleted." With the original reasoning being lost the definition for what is not notable has increasingly been set by wholly arbitrary criteria. There are at least two users, for instance, who today vote to delete anything to do with fictional worlds and the only justification they feel is necessary is to declare these things "not notable" or "fancruft".
For the most part things that are well known, but considered by some not to be notable, do not get consensus for deletion. Those not getting deleted are also a problem because they clog VfD and waste everyone's time. Those occasional ones that do receive consensus for deletion are an even greater problem because content is being removed from Wikipedia counter to existing policy and against the consensus of all but the small VfD community.
There has been an attempt to add lack of notability as a reason for deletion (see [[Wikipedia:Importance]]). This effort seems to have failed and there is no current policy for deleting non-notable things, other than vanity articles.
I have recently been doing the majority of the removing of articles from VfD/Old. I am no longer going to delete articles that receive consensus for deletion purely because they are not notable. Rather I propose moving them to [[Wikipedia:List of articles awaiting a policy to be deleted]]. Articles that do not meet any of the 30 criteria listed on What Wikipedia is not and the Deletion policy page should be set aside. When and if new policies are worked out that provide a justification for deleting these articles they can then be quickly deleted.
- SimonP
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