On 7/14/07, Eugene van der Pijll eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
AfD really is about deletion: at least 75% (I don't know the exact percentage) of the articles brought to AfD are deleted. Naming it anything but "Votes for Deletion" misrepresents what is happening. That could lead to new contributors missing the point of the nomination, and that may lower the probability that the article is improved. (At least, that was an objection the last time this was proposed.)
Eugene
But it's not about improving the article. Oftentimes when I improve an article that has been up for deletion, the person who nominated it doesn't even notice the improvements, instead still proposing deletion based upon faults that have been corrected. The most recent time this happened the nominator did, when I pointed this out, go back and reread the article, agree it had been greatly improved, and removed the AfD tag. But, not until after he had responded to my vote for keep with a comment about how poorly written the article was, that showed he clearly was not watching improvements to the article.
Articles nominated for deletion are often there simply because, for whatever reason, someone is trying to get them deleted. This is creating things like the guy who edited the page, then nominated it for deletion because it was missing what he edited out, nominating Rock Climbing and Society for Creative Anachronism for deletion, nominating things for deletion in an an area where the nominator knows nothing about the area.
I keep thinking there must be a barnstar for most articles deleted that people are going after.
I don't think that missing an opportunity for improvement is going to be an issue, because it seems that articles are being nominated by people who are not willing to see any improvement in the first place.
KP