I have been working with Wikipedia for a very long time and something
that has disturbed me very much is the lack of transparency after an
article has been deleted. I think the following issues should be
resolved:
1) [Logged in] users should be able to view the deleted article, if it
was not deleted due to copyright or legal issues. I believe there are
many articles that are being deleted that are still very educational
to the public, and I don't think it is in the educational best
interest of our public to ban someone's right to view a deleted
article.
2) There should be direct links on the deleted page to the discussion
(and previous discussion if it was put up for AfD before), so people
can more easily understand why an article was deleted. Today, if a
newbie to Wikipedia comes to a deleted article, they are basically
told that the article went through a process and was deleted. I
imagine it would be very shocking for someone to return after a two
week vacation and discover that one of their beloved articles has been
put to the AfD without them even being notified.
3) Email auto-notification of articles on someone's watchlist of being
proposed for AfD. Many people do not visit Wikipedia for a week, but
still care very deeply about articles on their watchlist and may have
put a lot of work into the article at hand and would like to have a
say in the debate about whether an article should be deleted. These
users should at least be notified by email when an article is put up
for AfD review.
I think with these three reforms in place, Wikipedia will become a
much better place. I know a few people who don't edit Wikipedia in
English anymore, because they are afraid that their work will just be
removed by a delete-happy admin, even if a vote has more Keep votes
than Remove (which I have seen in the past).
Best wishes,
Chuck Smith
Eo Wikipedia founder
