[WikiEN-l] Verifiability equating to notability

[Sam Pointon]

On 01/05/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 01/05/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On *fD, <foo>cruft is shorthand for 'articles about <foo> that are
> > below my personal notability threshold'.  Thus its application is
> > generally tautological and only serves to denigrate the subject
> > matter.
>
> And/or discredit the person using the term. It really is a pretty
> offensive term, but I don't know if most people using it realise that.

Some people use 'cruft' (me, for example) in the original sense - it's
the word for that dust and fluff you pull out from under furniture. It
is, outside of Wikipedia, most commonly applied to badly written and
messy programming. Back in Wiki context, the term (when used in this
sense, at least) makes no assertion of notability, but rather suggests
that the article is in need of a major rewrite and/or cleanup.

So 'listcruft' implies a poorly-written list, probably in need of a
loving Wikipedian to take it in and foster it back to full health.
However, some 'cruft' is beyond redemption, and the best remedy for
that is a brand new stub to take its place.

Can you tell I don't regularly take part in AfDs?

--Sam