The Cunctator wrote:
It's also disturbing that pages that aren't offensive or illegal are being listed on VfD. There is *no need* to delete stub entries. We
have
methods of indicating them as stubs, which is much more constructive than simply deleting them.
There are plenty of things that are not offensive or illegal that are fine to list on VfD. "List pages that you believe will simply will never become encyclopedia articles. For example, articles that represent completely idiosyncratic non-topics, articles that could never be more than dictionary definitions, etc." says the deletion policy.
I agree that stubs should not be deleted, but "sub-stubs" should be. Whether something is a stub or a sub-stub is a matter of opinion of course.
Jake wrote:
Agreed. Very few of the pages listed have any particular reason to
be
deleted.
If you think that Wikipedia is for any kind of knowledge whatsoever, then you're right. If you think (as I do) that Wikipedia should only be for topics of a certain importance, then in fact most of the pages listed there should be deleted.
Again, I find it amazing that we have no policy on this. The deletion process cannot be fixed until we agree on the most basic criteria for deletion. We're supposed to delete pages that "will simply will never become encyclopedia articles", yet we have no basic agreement about what this means.
Alex
Alex Rosen wrote:
If you think that Wikipedia is for any kind of knowledge whatsoever, then you're right. If you think (as I do) that Wikipedia should only be for topics of a certain importance, then in fact most of the pages listed there should be deleted.
Again, I find it amazing that we have no policy on this. The deletion process cannot be fixed until we agree on the most basic criteria for deletion. We're supposed to delete pages that "will simply will never become encyclopedia articles", yet we have no basic agreement about what this means.
Thank you, Alex. I couldn't agree more; the process can't possibly get fixed until we agree in general terms on what should be deleted and what should be kept.
Louis
Alex Rosen wrote in part:
If you think that Wikipedia is for any kind of knowledge whatsoever, then you're right. If you think (as I do) that Wikipedia should only be for topics of a certain importance, then in fact most of the pages listed there should be deleted.
Again, I find it amazing that we have no policy on this. The deletion process cannot be fixed until we agree on the most basic criteria for deletion. We're supposed to delete pages that "will simply will never become encyclopedia articles", yet we have no basic agreement about what this means.
One reason that this hasn't been spelt out explicitly very much is that the notion that Wikipedia should limit itself to "important" topics has, IME, been at all popular only relatively recently (the past year). The old notion was that, since [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not paper|]], we could (potentially) include articles on every poker variation and every Simpsons character (I mention these examples specifically, since The Lord High Jimbo himself agreed to them on that meta page ^_^). But this idea is less popular now, as we strive to make Wikipedia look more professional. Personally, I wish Sifterpedia were professional (instead of almost nonexistent), Wikipedia remaining relatively expiremental.
One should also note the difference between /potential/ articles and stubs that probably won't go anywhere anytime soon. I definitely agree that /most/ Simpsons characters shouldn't have articles at the moment, since we don't have content for those articles. Thus they ought to redirect to a larger article like [[List of Simpsons characters]] (or whatever it's called). But /potentially/, somebody might come along and expand the material, thus creating articles on individual characters that didn't use to have them. That would be a Good Thing (IMO)! but it would also have some opposition now.
-- Toby
Toby Bartels wrote:
Alex Rosen wrote in part:
If you think that Wikipedia is for any kind of knowledge whatsoever, then you're right. If you think (as I do) that Wikipedia should only be for topics of a certain importance, then in fact most of the pages listed there should be deleted.
Again, I find it amazing that we have no policy on this. The deletion process cannot be fixed until we agree on the most basic criteria for deletion. We're supposed to delete pages that "will simply will never become encyclopedia articles", yet we have no basic agreement about what this means.
One reason that this hasn't been spelt out explicitly very much is that the notion that Wikipedia should limit itself to "important" topics has, IME, been at all popular only relatively recently (the past year). The old notion was that, since [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not paper|]], we could (potentially) include articles on every poker variation and every Simpsons character (I mention these examples specifically, since The Lord High Jimbo himself agreed to them on that meta page ^_^). But this idea is less popular now, as we strive to make Wikipedia look more professional. Personally, I wish Sifterpedia were professional (instead of almost nonexistent), Wikipedia remaining relatively expiremental.
One should also note the difference between /potential/ articles and stubs that probably won't go anywhere anytime soon. I definitely agree that /most/ Simpsons characters shouldn't have articles at the moment, since we don't have content for those articles. Thus they ought to redirect to a larger article like [[List of Simpsons characters]] (or whatever it's called). But /potentially/, somebody might come along and expand the material, thus creating articles on individual characters that didn't use to have them. That would be a Good Thing (IMO)! but it would also have some opposition now.
I see a lot of what's going on at VfD as causing a lot more problems than it's solving. It's leaving a lot of people uneasy, and that alone can't be good for Wkipedia and Wikilove. It can't be good when half of the population is on edge wodering what these loose canons are going to do next. It can't be good when our failure to participate at VfD is taken as a sign of consent. What ever happened to the possibility that people fail to participate in these votes because they have other or better things to do with their time?
It's all getting to the point where keeping articles on the Bouvier sisters looks more and more like the lesser evil. Taking anti-wiki action to get these people's attention becomes increasingly more attractive.
There is no doubt that the Sifter project, or the 1.0 project, or even Nupedia require more rigid standards on matters of deletion. Any of those projects would be a much better place for these compulsive deleters to spend their time.
Ec