[WikiEN-l] The deletion paradox

[Kirill Lokshin]

On 1/30/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> [originally sent yesterday but didn't seem to get through the
> moderator, perhaps due to my mail server?]
>
> Hi all,
>  This is the deletion paradox as I see it:
>
> 1) Wikipedia has nearly a million articles. A very large number of
> them are crap. The more articles we delete, the better.
> 2) Deleting articles causes unhappiness and tension. The more articles
> we delete, the more unhappiness and tension.
>
> Anyone have a solution?

I would modify point 1 slightly: "... The more articles we get rid of,
the better." and add point 3: "A high proportion of articles (72% is
the last figure I'm aware of) are not watched by anybody."

The solution is pretty obvious, then: redirect (possibly after merging
any useful information) the crap articles with abandon.  I'm
surprised, for instance, that we don't simply redirect each vanity
band entry to [[Garage band]]; most of the authors won't be back to
check, I suspect.

Kirill Lokshin
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