G'day Steve,
On 2/23/06, John Lee <johnleemk(a)gawab.com>
wrote:
If people refused to AfD anything they didn't
know anything about (who
can really say they know anything about my local garage band?), we would
be deleting a lot less crap, if less good articles. It's all a question
of trading off false positives for false negatives. I have rarely seen
an ignorance-based debate that didn't end up getting closed as a keep,
or being overturned by DRV.
An excellent argument for why AfD should never be democracy-based (or
believed to be that way). In these situations, you almost need someone
to step up, say, "Look, I actually know something about entomology. I
believe this insect is notable", wipe all the existing votes, and say
"now, does anyone actually disagree?"
It also seems to me that "ignorance-based debates" are not in
themselves harmful, provided that there are mechanisms such that they
don't drown out the informed. Everyone's worst nightmare is the 10
pokemon fans drowning out the tenured professor in his own field. But
does it actually happen?
At least half the battle is having a closer who is on their toes. One
who believes "it's not my place to creatively interpret the discussion",
or "I can't buck consensus" (with "consensus" defined numerically)
is
likely to enable votes-cast-out-of-ignorance. One who knows that AfD is
not a vote and therefore that the ignorant can't cast a single bloody
thing and may as well sit at home nibbling on their own toenails is far
less likely to encourage AfD to do damage. Admittedly, there's a good
chance we could be *wrong*, and then we look much sillier than Mr
Tally-is-King, but you can't have everything.
My personal brush with out-of-control rogueness is at[0], and I note
with some pride (in Wikipedians, not myself) that it hasn't even been
nominated at DRV, let alone overturned.
[0]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Jonathan_Smith…
<snip />
--
Mark Gallagher
"What? I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse
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