[WikiEN-l] The deletion paradox

[Delirium]

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Delirium wrote:
>  
>
>>There's no reason to *delete* a 2-sentence unverified stub, merely to
>>make clear to our readers that it is in fact a 2-sentence unverified
>>stub, and so ought to be read accordingly.  Of course, an intelligent
>>reader already ought to be able to recognize that for themselves, but we
>>can help the rest along.
>>    
>>
>
>In many many cases there is a reason to delete a 2-sentence unverified
>stub.  We need to be extremely aggressive about doing so when the
>article in question contains negative claims about any living person or
>existing company.   Such articles may be examples of people using our
>site to attempt to libel others or they may just be hurtful to someone
>who is non-notable for no good purpose.
>
>I am always dismayed when I see a good editor wikifying and tagging an
>absolute crap article, rather than blanking/radically stubbing it (at a
>minimum) or deleting it (often would be better).
>  
>
That's not "in many cases"; that's "in almost no cases".  Take a look 
through our multiple hundreds of thousands of stubs; almost none of them 
are negative claims.  The vast majority are simple matter-of-fact but 
unsourced things, like "[x] is a commune in the French departement [y]".

I would accept a policy of "delete unverified claims that seem like they 
might be non-neutral, non-factual, or at least controversial", but 
that's quite different from "delete all unreferenced stubs".

-Mark