good points, all. Should we reconsider/clarify/expand on the policy?

kq

Lee wrote:

I'm probably a major offender here, so I'd like to argue that perhaps the policy needs to be changed or clarified. First, articles that have no content or history should be deletable with less formality. What we want to prevent is the loss of content.

Secondly, Wikipedia is dynamic in nature, and I don't think we should play by the same rules as static websites in terms of keeping old links alive. Certainly in some cases it's warranted; if someone moves "James Earl Carter" to "Jimmy Carter", and the old one has been around for a long time (not just a few days), then it's reasonable to expect that there may be external links to it and there's no reason not to leave the redirect. But if it is, say, a misspelling, I'd rather just delete it. We are under no obligation to keep our mistakes around forever, and if someone links to it and finds it broken, we have done him a service by forcing him to correct it. Likewise, if someone creates a page and I think it needs a different title, if I catch that error within a day or two and move it, I'll just delete the old title. There's not point in cluttering the database with a redirect that's just a mistake, and hasn't been around long enough to accumulate links.

And finally, anything outside encyclopedia namespace should be more freely deletable as well. Anyone who links to a talk page deserves what he gets.

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