[WikiEN-l] deletionism in popular culture

[Ray Saintonge]

David Goodman wrote:
> Come join the talk at deletion review if you think its so easy to
> restore articles. People cant even se ethem to work on  without asking
> an administrator. (though there are some, including myself, who will
> always userify for a good faith editor).
>
> I think it's more likely that of the 20, not 1, but 10 could be
> rescued--and some have already been, in some cases by merging. Of the
> contested afds, I think that's probably the proportion. since we keep
> fewer than half of the contested ones, we are losing the potential for
> 50 articles a day, 18,000 a year.
>
> I do not consider that trivial. The deletion of improvable articles
> because the small number of participants at AfD  who are interested
> and willing to rescue them is one of the reasons for people losing the
> interest in Wikipedia. Who after all actually wants to come to
> articles for deletion, but those who want to delete articles.
>
>   
Fixing an article involves a lot more work than deleting it. The firemen 
who would do that are further discouraged by the crowd that is hurling 
rocks from the rooftop.

An editor may very well have the reference material at his fingertips, 
but it could take him a long time at solid work to bring the article 
into shape.  On top of that he will likely also need to spend time 
defending his resuscitation of the article. The ones who are really able 
to do this are quickly discouraged by a confrontational atmosphere.

Rampant deletion makes Wikipedia less reliable because it leaves capable 
people unwilling to make needed corrections because they want top avaid 
fights.

Ec