On 10/2/05, Daniel P. B. Smith <dpbsmith(a)verizon.net> wrote:
From: Michael Turley
<michael.turley(a)gmail.com>
If we have three "levels" of Wikipedia, we can have a whole lot more
middle ground for the deletionists and inclusionists to meet on.
If they want to meet.
The thing is, eventually there's going to be no choice. I'm surprised the
system lasted this long.
Users browsing the encyclopedia can set a default
level of viewing on
arrival, but bottom level articles are, by
default, not included.
Ideological pure-Wiki advocates might suggest that by putting these
article on the bottom level you were preventing people from seeing
them and improving them.
It's unclear what it means for bottom level articles to be "not included".
Not included in search and in random page are obvious*, but there would
almost certainly be a link there for anyone who typed in the exact term. We
already have a link that says "View X deleted
edits<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Brian_Torby>?&quo…
For bottom level articles, you'd actually be able to view those edits by
clicking on that link (the text of which would probably be rephrased).
In that sense "deletion wars" would become a thing of the past, because
simply editing a bottom level page would not in itself promote the page.
There would thus be no more need for the kludge of creating a blank page and
protecting it. I suppose this depends in part on whether or not
promotion/demotion would be an admin task, though. If it were kept simple,
for instance a "{{non-notable}}" link at the top of the page, then there
might be some revert warring involved.
I can only see two real arguments against it. The first can be fixed, the
second can't. The first argument is that it's complicated. This is
especially true if more than three levels are implemented, and personally
I'd argue for two. The second argument is that it doesn't wipe "bad
content/crap/cruft/whatever" off the face of the earth.
* Actually, I just checked, and even deleted articles are already included
in search.