I'd like to propose a simple approach to dealing with article subjects of questionable notability, which may represent a solution to many of the conflicts surrounding such articles. I apologize if this has been debated before; if so, please point me to the relevant thread(s)/page(s). Our policy is simple: We demand reliable evidence for the notability of a subject. While the scope of such evidence will certainly continue to evolve, the principle is not negotiable. We delete articles that fail to establish notability. Deletion hides revisions from everyone but admins, a very small percentage of our user base. Importantly, it even hides them from the authors of the article. As an alternative to hard deletion, I propose that we redirect a set of articles, to be defined below, to a page "Wikipedia:Removed article (notability)" or sth. similar. This page would explain our basic notability principles, the procedure for adding sources, and how to go back to the original article and retrieve an older version from the history to edit. By using a redirect, we prevent such pages from being counted as articles. We also force anyone trying to look at the article to read the notice we put on the page -- which could be much more effective than user talk messages. We also make the process of restoring the previous version somewhat non-obvious, which should reduce the number of instant reverts. The redirects should be liberally semi-protected if they do become a problem, which still allows for open history review, debate, and editing by regular users. The set of articles that would be treated this way would _exclude_: - vanity articles (gushing style, created by the subject, utterly obvious non-notability ..) - anything that is not following the established encyclopedic format - anything that is remotely problematic in content (legal risks, ethics) The set would, however, include the typical non-notable computer program, webcomic, journalist etc. Many of these articles are fairly detailed when they get deleted, and in my opinion, soft deletion would be a real alternative to allow people to continue to review the content. == Advantages == * Reduces AfD workload and admin burn-out; involves more people in deletion * Allows open review and discussion of soft-deleted articles * Engages people who are "hit" by deletion rather than putting them in AfD hell * Encourages actual improvement when such improvement seems possible, but inclusion is not yet justifiable * Makes it easier to systematically track re-creation of non-notable articles * Avoids the process wonkery of undeletion when notability can be established and reduces the risk of the risk of duplicated effort (nn article deleted=>someone else re-creates, now with more sources, but as a non-admin they do not have access to the original text) == Possible problems == * Could be used where it is not appropriate. Response: By redirecting to a page which gives a _specific_ policy reason -- Wikipedia:Removed article (notability) -- we would implicitly whitelist the cases where soft deletion can be used. If the risk of it growing out of hand is nevertheless perceived too great, we could limit it to a specific test category at first, e.g. web comics. * People can still link to non-notable material by linking to old revisions. Response: This is already possible -- any revision from any article can be linked to, regardless of the content it contains. The only exception are revisions deleted for legal reasons. It hasn't been much of an issue so far, and I doubt it will become one. If it does, we can make the "old revision" notice at the top more prominent. * Could lead to constant edit warring over non-notable topics. Edit warring is usually quickly dealt with, and reverting redirects without cause could be considered a bad faith act even without an actual edit war taking place. In practice, it is unlikely to be a very different problem from the re-creation of articles once they have been deleted. * Red links become blue. If the subject is not notable, why is it linked to in the first place? :-) Thoughts? -- Peace & Love, Erik DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees. "An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open, free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic