[WikiEN-l] deletionism in popular culture

[Charles Matthews]

Steve Bennett wrote:
> Ok, here's a hypothetical. Let's say out of any twenty given AfD's
> that close as "delete", it turns out we get one "wrong". Is that
> acceptable? Deletion is hardly the end of the world in itself...
>
>   
If this is someone who is on TV in 2009 and (it turns out) by 2010 is a 
has-been, it only matters vaguely. I mean, there are respectable reasons 
for collecting "ephemera". But it seems to me that this is not 
Wikipedia's task. If it is in the class where much more good source 
material becomes available next year, then it is mildly unfortunate that 
there will probably be people saying (in 2010) that "we deleted this in 
2009, what has changed?" (to which there is an answer), and probably 
more unfortunate that it will presumably have to survive a speedy (G4 
IIRC) bringing up the issue. Which ought to get addressed with a 
{{hangon}}; and probably should be pre-empted with a talk page message. 
If it is in the class of somewhat notable topics that aren't clearly 
notable, I think it doesn't matter much (that said, I'd find it annoying 
if the deletion was by some people saying "I'm not interested" when I was).

The usual argument that it matters tends to be that this becomes a 
"precedent". Which of course is a bad argument, in itself. My main 
concern is that a potentially good contributor could well get 
discouraged by a low-grade debate.

Charles