[WikiEN-l] deletionism in popular culture

[David Goodman]

If the topic had been referenceable, initially, it is misusing a
feature to delete the article, rather than source it. The proper use
of the feature is to delete articles that cannot be sourced at the
time.

Articles partially sourced are more likely to be sourced further if
they remain visible. The best way to discourage work on a potentially
sourceable topic is to delete it.


David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG



On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 5:46 AM, Charles Matthews
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
>> On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 16:48:53 +0000, Carcharoth wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Some people think junk isn't junk. Or rather, one's person's junk is
>>> another person's treasure. Not that obscure articles that can be
>>> rescued are really treasure, but you get the point.
>>>
>>
>> Yes... case in point, when you do a New York Times archive search for
>> "comic books" in the range 1851-1980, you turn up this article from
>> 1955:
>>
>> NORWICH, Conn., Feb. 26 (UP) -- The American Legion Auxiliary carried
>> out a "very successful" two-hour drive today to rid the city of
>> objectionable comic books...
>>
>> and right next to it, this one from 1972:
>>
>> Yale Students Feast on Rare Comic Books Under Glass
>> NEW HAVEN, May 12 -- The display of an extensive collection of comic
>> books from the nineteen-thirties through the fifties has unexpectedly
>> proved to be the most popular exhibition within recent memory at Yale
>> University....
>>
>> (Other articles on the first page of results vary from ones
>> describing comic-book burnings in the 1940s and 1950s to ones
>> describing comic book conventions and the escalating value of rare
>> comics in the 1960s and 1970s.)
>>
>>
> A propos, let's not lose sight of one key factor in deleting/reviving
> articles. If the topic as a whole lacks good references, the attempted
> article may rightly be deleted; and then when there are better
> references a proper article may be created, at some later point. This is
> _not_ an argument that the article should not have been deleted in the
> first place. It is a feature, not a bug, in other words.
>
> Charles
>
>
>
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