Chris Wood wrote

A good number of people may and do vote "delete" on inappropriate listings. A cadre of deletionists aren't always right.

While this may be true, an equal number of inclusionists vote to keep whatever falls out of someone's pocket. I'm very discouraged by the deletionist-bashing I've seen here the last few. For the most part, it has been divisive and mean-spirited. Deletionists are part of the natural spectrum of editorial consciousnesses we see at Wiki, and help to ensure that my dog Spot does not have an article of his own.

A comment was made that the number of articles voted for deletion has soared in the past few months. I have noted the same, but I have also noted that, relative to six months ago, the number of articles arriving which are personal vanity pages, joke pages, and advertising pages has also soared. I would suspect that a numerical analysis would show no greater percentage of pages being deleted than before. I find it much harder to work on VfD these days exactly because of all the personal crud I must plow through - it seems that the disclaimer on the Create and Article page only encourages people to try to get their own sad history onto Wiki.

The deletionist argument is a red herring. I'm sure most people here do as I do - try to ensure a healthy balance between votes to keep and votes to delete, which are based on a careful read of the article before a decision is reached. Or am I too optimistic?

Denni

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"The opinions expressed here are entirely those of the author, though the management has been paid to keep its mouth shut if he says something they don't like."