[WikiEN-l] Proposal: Soft deletion

[Erik Moeller]

I'd like to propose a simple approach to dealing with article subjects
of questionable notability, which may represent a solution to many of
the conflicts surrounding such articles. I apologize if this has been
debated before; if so, please point me to the relevant
thread(s)/page(s).

Our policy is simple: We demand reliable evidence for the notability
of a subject. While the scope of such evidence will certainly continue
to evolve, the principle is not negotiable.

We delete articles that fail to establish notability. Deletion hides
revisions from everyone but admins, a very small percentage of our
user base. Importantly, it even hides them from the authors of the
article.

As an alternative to hard deletion, I propose that we redirect a set
of articles, to be defined below, to a page "Wikipedia:Removed article
(notability)" or sth. similar. This page would explain our basic
notability principles, the procedure for adding sources, and how to go
back to the original article and retrieve an older version from the
history to edit.

By using a redirect, we prevent such pages from being counted as
articles. We also force anyone trying to look at the article to read
the notice we put on the page -- which could be much more effective
than user talk messages. We also make the process of restoring the
previous version somewhat non-obvious, which should reduce the number
of instant reverts. The redirects should be liberally semi-protected
if they do become a problem, which still allows for open history
review, debate, and editing by regular users.

The set of articles that would be treated this way would _exclude_:
- vanity articles (gushing style, created by the subject, utterly
obvious non-notability ..)
- anything that is not following the established encyclopedic format
- anything that is remotely problematic in content (legal risks, ethics)

The set would, however, include the typical non-notable computer
program, webcomic, journalist etc. Many of these articles are fairly
detailed when they get deleted, and in my opinion, soft deletion would
be a real alternative to allow people to continue to review the
content.

== Advantages ==

* Reduces AfD workload and admin burn-out; involves more people in deletion
* Allows open review and discussion of soft-deleted articles
* Engages people who are "hit" by deletion rather than putting them in AfD hell
* Encourages actual improvement when such improvement seems possible,
but inclusion is not yet justifiable
* Makes it easier to systematically track re-creation of non-notable articles
* Avoids the process wonkery of undeletion when notability can be
established and reduces the risk of the risk of duplicated effort (nn
article deleted=>someone else re-creates, now with more sources, but
as a non-admin they do not have access to the original text)

== Possible problems ==

* Could be used where it is not appropriate.

Response: By redirecting to a page which gives a _specific_ policy
reason -- Wikipedia:Removed article (notability) -- we would
implicitly whitelist the cases where soft deletion can be used. If the
risk of it growing out of hand is nevertheless perceived too great, we
could limit it to a specific test category at first, e.g. web comics.

* People can still link to non-notable material by linking to old revisions.

Response: This is already possible -- any revision from any article
can be linked to, regardless of the content it contains. The only
exception are revisions deleted for legal reasons. It hasn't been much
of an issue so far, and I doubt it will become one. If it does, we can
make the "old revision" notice at the top more prominent.

* Could lead to constant edit warring over non-notable topics.

Edit warring is usually quickly dealt with, and reverting redirects
without cause could be considered a bad faith act even without an
actual edit war taking place. In practice, it is unlikely to be a very
different problem from the re-creation of articles once they have been
deleted.

* Red links become blue.

If the subject is not notable, why is it linked to in the first place? :-)

Thoughts?
-- 
Peace & Love,
Erik

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