On Wednesday 25 September 2002 08:24 am, Fred wrote:

Yes [Andre] you make many deletions, as I see from the log, most of which are fully justified. I only found one or two deleted entries that seemed interesting to me. (Although some substantial topics I'm not aware of the significance of may be there). [[infant

mortality (computer)]], fascinating topic although it ought to be

expanded to include all devices. [[Abermud]], the father of them all, although not the grandaddy, that was Adventure. I guess I want to see interesting topics remain, even if undeveloped.

Since many others think that undeveloped topics should remain edit links then why don't write decent stubs for the topics that interest you yet are placed in the deletion log?

Since [the deletion log] is such a rich resource for good articles perhaps it might extend back beyond 3 weeks and include an easy way to recover the text, small though it may be. .... A close case...the Bronx Zoo will be an article, but much more extensive than that.

In 90% of the cases, the entire text is placed in the deletion summary. Simply copy this and start from there (or query the database and read the history as Brion has suggested).

Although it would be a waste of time to copy "the zoo in the Bronx" since an actual very short stub would look something like;

The '''Bronx Zoo''' is a world famous [[zoo]] in [[Bronx]] [[New York]]. It opened on [[November 8]], [[1899]] with 22 exhibits and 843 [[animal]]s and with the goal to "advance the study of [[zoology]], protect wildlife, and educate the public.

==External link== http://wcs.org/home/zoos/bronxzoo/

Now that is a decent definition and could serve as the foundation of an actual article. "the zoo in the Bronx" is useless crap and if I saw that amongst 20 other similarly useless microstubs I would probably have deleted it rather than spend a few minutes creating a short and still pathetic stub. But if I did do this, then what about the other 19? Aren't they also deserving? Time ain't cheap.

When many of these things enter the database each day it is not possible to spend even 3 minutes on each of these microstubs that took the original submitter 10 seconds to write. Furthermore, WIkipedia is not a dictionary so I tend to not create such short stubs unless they serve a specific purpose. It takes me 10 minutes to create a decent stub on a topic I know nothing about. But at the same time I don't delete decent definitions submitted by others; I add to the definitions.

Simply bookmark the deletion log and use it as a place to get ideas on starting new articles.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)