[WikiEN-l] Deletion for its own sake (was MUD history)

[Philip Sandifer]

On Jan 11, 2009, at 8:56 PM, David Gerard wrote:

> Well, not really. If they don't believe a given item can have reliable
> sources - the sort of rabid nutters who brag about deletion tallies on
> their user pages - then they just won't accept anything. I speak here
> from observation of the phenomenon.

This has been one of the most toxic things I've seen in a long time,  
and it's a real problem. In the Threshold debate, I have seen, in all  
sincerity, the following.

1: The dismissal of a print source as "unverified"
2: The rejection of a source because of the possibility (with no  
evidence) that its author played the game in question.
3: The rejection of a third source because it allowed games to be  
submitted for review (even though it didn't review all games submitted)

And, most recently, the article has been the subject of a second AfD  
where the nominator flatly lies about the sourcing in the article,  
asserting that it is sourced to things it isn't, and ignoring sources  
it does have. That particular glory can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Threshold_(online_game)_(2nd_nomination)

Meanwhile, an actually promising proposal for fiction notability that  
had multiple parties, both inclusionist and deletionist, onboard is  
now being derailed by two or three people who are holding the "No  
retreat, no surrender, no loosening of standards for fiction" line  
with no willingness to compromise, openly saying they'd rather treat  
each article as a battleground than loosen standards to something that  
approximates the practical consensus on fiction. One person compared  
the keeping of fiction articles by the community to Jim Crow laws. In  
all seriousness.

I have spoken of the toxicity of deletionists, but this is beyond  
toxicicity. This is an active cancer - and one that the arbcom has,  
historically, been too chicken to take on.

Just how much commitment to removing content for the sake of removing  
content needs to be demonstrated before we can say that it violates  
policy and just block the idiots?

-Phil