I'm quite active at speedy deletion and often decline overenthusiastic tags, but I would disagree with making it compulsory to improve a good faith article one tags for deletion (though I'd be happy with something that encourages this).
Bad faith I take as attack pages, vandalism and hoaxes
But other stuff that merits speedy deletion ranges from autobiographies to biographies of pet guinea pigs. I count myself as quite inclusionist but I really don't see the point of trying to improve everything before its deleted. And even though there is a proposal on the strategy wiki to allow autobiographies http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:People_should_be_allowed_to_crea... , I think most people would accept that very few household pets are important or significant outside their own kennel, fishtank or stick insect vivarium.
Where I do think we can improve things is in giving guidance to over enthusiastic new page patrollers, and in insisting that authors be informed. I agree it would be overkill to template someone 12 times in an hour to tell them that not one member of their pub's football team merited an article. But it does concern me at CSD when I spot that the author of a good faith article has a redlinked talkpage.
I also think that many of our speedy tags and templates should be rewritten to be less bitey and more welcoming.
WereSpielChequers
Maybe we can make up a rule that says "Unless the page was obvisouly written in bad faith, you have to improve upon it before tagging it for speedy or prod deletion. Otherwise, your nomination will be rejected."
Emily
I'm quite active at speedy deletion and often decline overenthusiastic tags, but I would disagree with making it compulsory to improve a good faith article one tags for deletion (though I'd be happy with something that encourages this).
I suggested this mostly for public relation reasons. "Well, we tried to improve it ourselves, but it still doesn't meet our standards. Sorry, but the article has to be deleted."
I also think that many of our speedy tags and templates should be rewritten to be less bitey and more welcoming.
While it shouldn't say "Welcome to Wikipedia!" for obvious (to me) reasons, I agree wholeheartedly.
Emily On Sep 18, 2009, at 5:04 PM, WereSpielChequers wrote:
I'm quite active at speedy deletion and often decline overenthusiastic tags, but I would disagree with making it compulsory to improve a good faith article one tags for deletion (though I'd be happy with something that encourages this).
Bad faith I take as attack pages, vandalism and hoaxes
But other stuff that merits speedy deletion ranges from autobiographies to biographies of pet guinea pigs. I count myself as quite inclusionist but I really don't see the point of trying to improve everything before its deleted. And even though there is a proposal on the strategy wiki to allow autobiographies http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:People_should_be_allowed_to_crea... , I think most people would accept that very few household pets are important or significant outside their own kennel, fishtank or stick insect vivarium.
Where I do think we can improve things is in giving guidance to over enthusiastic new page patrollers, and in insisting that authors be informed. I agree it would be overkill to template someone 12 times in an hour to tell them that not one member of their pub's football team merited an article. But it does concern me at CSD when I spot that the author of a good faith article has a redlinked talkpage.
I also think that many of our speedy tags and templates should be rewritten to be less bitey and more welcoming.
WereSpielChequers
Maybe we can make up a rule that says "Unless the page was obvisouly written in bad faith, you have to improve upon it before tagging it for speedy or prod deletion. Otherwise, your nomination will be rejected."
Emily
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The best PR we can do is to improve the improvable articles, and explain to the authors of the others why the subjects are not suitable for Wikipedia, or why the subjects might be, but the submitted articles are not capable of being used even as a base for rewriting.
Sometimes when I find a totally impossible article (such as complete copyvio) on an important subject that interests me, I will decide to write what amounts to a new article on that subject--and I call it an improved version--but that's a polite fiction. I am actually writing an article using the original of the copied page as a source. True, at this point I am more likely to do that than to write an article of my own choosing, but I can't see any think they are obliged to do this.
Spending time rewriting the best article possible on altogether unencyclopedic subjects that will inevitably be deleted does not help build the encyclopedia--rather the authors should be guided towards more fruitful subject matter.
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 6:15 PM, Emily Monroe bluecaliocean@me.com wrote:
I'm quite active at speedy deletion and often decline overenthusiastic tags, but I would disagree with making it compulsory to improve a good faith article one tags for deletion (though I'd be happy with something that encourages this).
I suggested this mostly for public relation reasons. "Well, we tried to improve it ourselves, but it still doesn't meet our standards. Sorry, but the article has to be deleted."
I also think that many of our speedy tags and templates should be rewritten to be less bitey and more welcoming.
While it shouldn't say "Welcome to Wikipedia!" for obvious (to me) reasons, I agree wholeheartedly.
Emily On Sep 18, 2009, at 5:04 PM, WereSpielChequers wrote:
I'm quite active at speedy deletion and often decline overenthusiastic tags, but I would disagree with making it compulsory to improve a good faith article one tags for deletion (though I'd be happy with something that encourages this).
Bad faith I take as attack pages, vandalism and hoaxes
But other stuff that merits speedy deletion ranges from autobiographies to biographies of pet guinea pigs. I count myself as quite inclusionist but I really don't see the point of trying to improve everything before its deleted. And even though there is a proposal on the strategy wiki to allow autobiographies http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:People_should_be_allowed_to_crea... , I think most people would accept that very few household pets are important or significant outside their own kennel, fishtank or stick insect vivarium.
Where I do think we can improve things is in giving guidance to over enthusiastic new page patrollers, and in insisting that authors be informed. I agree it would be overkill to template someone 12 times in an hour to tell them that not one member of their pub's football team merited an article. But it does concern me at CSD when I spot that the author of a good faith article has a redlinked talkpage.
I also think that many of our speedy tags and templates should be rewritten to be less bitey and more welcoming.
WereSpielChequers
Maybe we can make up a rule that says "Unless the page was obvisouly written in bad faith, you have to improve upon it before tagging it for speedy or prod deletion. Otherwise, your nomination will be rejected."
Emily
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 4:29 AM, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
The best PR we can do is to improve the improvable articles, and explain to the authors of the others why the subjects are not suitable for Wikipedia, or why the subjects might be, but the submitted articles are not capable of being used even as a base for rewriting.
Sometimes when I find a totally impossible article (such as complete copyvio) on an important subject that interests me, I will decide to write what amounts to a new article on that subject--and I call it an improved version--but that's a polite fiction. I am actually writing an article using the original of the copied page as a source. True, at this point I am more likely to do that than to write an article of my own choosing, but I can't see any think they are obliged to do this.
Spending time rewriting the best article possible on altogether unencyclopedic subjects that will inevitably be deleted does not help build the encyclopedia--rather the authors should be guided towards more fruitful subject matter.
Absolutely.
Just to get back to the question of speedy tags and PRODs for a minute, I have seen some people edit an article to "improve" it by cutting bits out, and editing it down (sometimes quite legitimately), and then, because there is not much left of the article, nominating it for speedy, or PROD. My feeling is that the processes should be separated somewhat. If you get involved to the extent that you prune and edit the article, you should wait for a reaction to that, rather than going stright to PROD. Or ask another editor to review the editing and decide on whether PROD/speedy is needed. At the very least, the admin who reviews the PROD or speedy tag should be aware that such editing has taken place by the person who nominated the article.
Sometimes articles genuinely need editing down and stuff removed, and what is left should be PRODed, but at other times it can be a way to game the system and fool an admin into thinking that an article should be speedied or PRODed.
Carcharoth