[WikiEN-l] VFD goes completely pathological

[Kat Walsh]

On 8/1/05, Haukur Þorgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
> >> I'm tempted to just Be Bold and just go ahead and delete vfd. Just see
> >> if I don't!!
> >
> > Holy crap, he did.
> 
> Well, I never liked it anyway :)
> 
> It's always seemed to me like an awkard kludge,
> out of sync with the general wiki process.
> 
> Regards,
> Haukur

That it may be... it certainly has its problems, at least. When I
heard it was deleted, my first reaction was "hey, good show!" And if
we were all Wiki addicts who'd been around a bit it could proceed from
there just like that, and take discussion on while VfD was suspended
leaving a gaping hole in its place.

But we aren't, and I suspect more than one person was incredibly
confused. Think of all the pages that link to VfD, and how many
newbies stumble across it; all the policies that mention it.

Ed claims to have intended to leave a redirect there, which would have
improved matters. I could even see changing the page to be a
placeholder that mentions operation being suspended while discussion
proceeds. But it was a gaping hole; an off-putting and confusing one,
and one without a clear action to follow in its absence.

I love Ignore All Rules as much as anyone (frankly, if it were
abolished, I think I'd leave the project). But, well, if we're going
to get rid of VfD, we should at least take a bit of time to set up the
transition, no? And perhaps get a *little* more confirmation than one
mailing list post, which even most regulars haven't read?

(To quote my idol Douglas Adams here: "OK, so ten out of ten for
style, but minus several million for good thinking, yeah?")

-Kat
[[User:Mindspillage]]

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