[WikiEN-l] Proposed: stop all deletes for 6 months, then reconsider

[Alex Rosen]

> The ''deletionists'' 
> against ''inclusionists'' argument is utterly bogus. It is a case of
those 
> who take the idea that wikipedia as an encyclopedia seriously and
basic 
> standards below which an article is deleted and those who see
wikipedia as 
> some sort of scribblebox where any sort of rubbish, not matter how
bad, has 
> a 'right' to be left undisturbed.

Watch it - you've just said that me, Jimbo, and a lot of other people
don't take Wikipedia seriously as an encyclopedia. That's not true, and
I think you know it. Here are some other reasons that people have for
their anti-deletionism stance, other than they don't "take the idea that
wikipedia as an encyclopedia seriously":

- They think that an Internet encyclopedia can and should cover much
more ground as compared to a paper encyclopedia, so more things should
be included. It's a legitimate argument - what would Funk & Wagnalls
include if it didn't have any space constraints?
- The job of the current Wikipedia is not to be a perfect encyclopedia,
but to be a source for the great "1.0" version. That version will weed
out everything that doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. Until then, it's
counterproductive to actively delete everything that's not perfect,
because it'll drive off too many people and will cause too much argument
and strife. (This has nothing to do with anything having a "right" to be
left undisturbed, it's just a pragmatic thing.)

I'm in the second camp; I think Jimbo subscribes to both of these
philosophies.

The second half of your argument, about the scribblebox, is just
hyperbole of course. Nobody is arguing for that. Everyone wants to
delete pure rubbish. It's the stuff that's not rubbish, but also not
"notable" or "important", that's we're really arguing about.

Alex