Re: [WikiEN-l] Cruft - WikiEN-l

3 May 2006

G'day Brian,

...
  On Wed, May 03, 2006 at 01:27:09AM -0700, Pete
Bartlett wrote:
  >Er. [[WP:OWN]]?  Images are an exception, as
nearly all images   are the 
  >work of one or two people at most.  Articles
are not.  Articles   can, 
  >and often are, watched.  Wikipedians ought to
pay attention to   their 
  >watchlists if they wish to express opinions
about their   contributions.> 
  The vast majority of AfDed articles are very new
and have just   one author.

 Indeed and it is likely that they are put off by having their gems
 described as "cruft". However, I think people are put off more by 
 otherthings:- 
I would make a distinction between "gems" and "articles that should not be
deleted".  Good articles are rarely put on AfD (an exception is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/TransLink_%28S…,
which I started myself and wholly acknowledge received a *lot* of effort; but which is not
an encyclopaedia article).  Articles that need work and could one day become real gems,
however, are put on AfD all the time, and this is a pity.

...
  1. General jargon of which cruft is just one. 
Absolutely true.

...
  2. Being put to AfD within hours or sometimes minutes
of starting the
 article. I think this is most offensive. New editors are finding their
 way. They are not obsessed with WP. They have a life. They will take
 time to develop the article. If someone thinks the article is bad, 
 theymake a note of it and follow it for a week or so, talk to the 
 editor on
 his talk page and perhaps the article talk page. It is sheer bad 
 mannersand certainly biting the newbie to push something to Afd so 
 quickly. There
 is no hurry. WP is not going to be perfect tomorrow if you speedy 
 deletea few articles. 
Indeed.  What's the rush?

...
  3. Comments on Afd like, "looks non-verifiable to
me", "seems
 non-notable" and other comments that show the nominator has not done
 enough homework before jumping to conclusions. I have seen quite a few
 AfDs withdrawn recently after the nom realises that the debate is
 showing they were quite wrong. Nominating something for deletion 
 has its
 responsabilities. 
For many people, nominating an article is no different from "voting" to delete. 
I've been sporadically trying, along with several others, over the past few months to
lift the quality of AfD nominations (the AfD nomination I link above, I would consider a
minimum standard).  An article nominated for deletion on the grounds of non-notability,
for example, should include the reasons the nominator believes the article is non-notable,
any steps he took to verify this (check history for number of editors, check "what
links here", check Google, and so on), relevant policy if any, and so on.  What it
should *not* include is any bolded recommendation
("'''Delete''' NN"), insults, or the word
"merge".

...
  4. Nominations which are basically "I do not
understand this, so lets
 see whether people want to delete it". We should want to improve and
 keep stuff, noit delete it. 
Absolutely.

...
  I could go on. AfD depresses me for several reasons
and the fact that
 most of the articles are so bad they deserve deletion is only one of
 them. It is the others that could be improved that leads to so much
 trouble. 
Fortunately there are very few of these, but those that crop up could be handled much
better.

...
   >> It is
amazing how often AfD debates
 >> do not benefit from the opinion of the original creator.  
 They may not have set their preferences so articles they edit
 automatically go on their watchlist. They probably do not yet 
 understandthe watchlist system. Welcome messages should advise 
 newbies on the
 watchlist. 
Uhh, *no*.  Welcome messages are long enough as it is --- I often wonder how many newbies
take the time to read the current crop of welcome messages, let alone an expanded
version.

Cheers,

-- 
MarkGallagher