At least one person has privately expressed to me the opinion that my position on deletions is that nothing should be deleted. That's absolutely not true, and I thought that this misunderstanding might be widely enough shared that I should speak to it for a moment.

I think that the vast majority of deletions are perfectly fine. Deletions for vandalism seem to be pretty well not abused. Borderline cases, with a fairly open policy, are sent to VfD now, and that almost always works out just fine.

But I'm unhappy with some deletions (and redirections) that happen on VfD. I call the process broken by analogy with hypothetical (and virtually all real!) criminal justice systems that get the right answer most of the time, but for various procedural reasons sometimes do exactly the wrong thing.

But in no way am I saying anything even remotely supportive of the idea that vandals should be given free hand, nor that deletion or redirection should always be avoided at all costs. They are important tools, but we need to improve how we use them.

--Jimbo