[WikiEN-l] Lock new article creation for three months

[John Vandenberg]

On 4/1/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 3/31/07, John Vandenberg <jayvdb at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Locking down new article creation while we do a cleanup is sensible;
> > Afd would be less like a sewerage drain and we could then judge the
> > status of the cleanup by the, hopefully diminishing, number of Afds
> > being raised.
>
> Or AfD could be shut off too, starting one week after article creation
> is shut off.

We have enough crap already to keep Afd going for quite a while.  My
preference is too keep Afd running because I'm concerned that in its
absence a lot of articles will be deleted using CSD.  Even when
justified, a prod type approach to deletion only notifies the existing
editors.  If the contributors who care are not regulars, the article
will slip down the drain.  WP:AFD has a sharp edge and related
WikiProject mechanisms such as delsorting are an effective way to
involve contributors that would not otherwise have been aware the
article existed.  It is that type of article that a cleanup effort
needs to cater for.

I don't see the point of creating another suitable system of doing
what AFD is intended to do: gathering consensus for deletion.  Turning
off the firehose will make AFD a happy place where we can take our
time and focus on researching odd articles, cleaning up unsourced
statements, and removing the articles that have no place on Wikipedia.

> > During this time, creation of new articles could be restricted to
> > admins, and non-admins could use WP:AFC.
>
> They could use it as a temporary storage place, but if you're going to
> let people submit new articles through WP:AFC and then have admins
> create new articles based on those submissions, it seems you're just
> redirecting efforts from one type of creation to another, and adding
> more work in the process.

In the event of a lock down, AFC could be restricted to a community
defined criteria for new articles that are considered necessary during
this period, e.g. current events.  The rest can be rejected out of
hand by ordinary editors before an admin needs to see it.

AFC would see more traffic, but it would be a pragmatic way to turn
the hose down to a well defined trickle that can be adjusted as
required to deal with new situations as they arise.

--
John