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I was surfing Wikipedia the other day, and at one point, I had to use
VfD. My experience makes me shudder. But that's not my point.
In my opinion, the VfD is now beyond elegant implementation without
hardwired software help. As of now, Wikipedia:Vfd is simply a page with
lots of policy and lots of problems.
HERE ARE SOME INSTANCES OF THE DEBATE ON THE TALK PAGE:
Lotsofissues wrote:
1/4 MB load - This no longer make sense. This page
should only
contain links to individual day pages. Please voice your agreement
Litefantastic wrote:
The VfD is so bogged down with junk articles that
it's no longer
possible to edit without extreme patience. When I started (Nov 2003)
there was only about one-third the VfDing that there is today. I
think the VfD page has simply become outmodled: it wasn't designed
for this level of traffic.
Since the WP is broken up in topics itself (Science, History,
Culture, etc.) why ddoesn't someone break up the VfD so that it
simply links to a bunch of VfD subpages, one for each major topic.
Someone with regular access to broadband.
The overall speed rate would go back up to something approaching
usefulness, and the ease of use would suffer only slightly. We'd have
to fix all the VfD templates, too, but let's look at the positive
aspects just now. For the sake of sanity.
True... but:
Rossami wrote:
his gets suggested about once a quarter - and rejected
every time. I
will again voice my unambiguous opposition. DO NOT STOP LISTING THE
ENTIRE WEEK. Users who don't like it now have lots of options. But
some of us (many?) view it as a responsibility to follow the VfD
discussions in order to see if new evidence has been presented which
should cause us to change a vote. The most efficient way I have to
fulfill that obligation is to load the entire page (which admittedly
takes some time) and then use the find function to skim through the
list looking for my own username. Yes, other people have proposed
other techniques. None of them work for me. Further, I think that it
is essential that at least some people do review the entire list in
order to identify common trends and patterns. Those observations are
used to propose policy changes, improve the instructions and
generally benefit Wikipedia in all sorts of subtle ways.
And there are some proposed solutions:
- From Wikipedia:Categorized Deletion
Otherwise, these category pages behave exactly like
VfD currently
does, with the same time limits, the same criteria for deletion or
keeping, etc. However, they serve the purpose of bringing together
similar (in terms of field of knowledge) entries on VfD. Essentially,
these category pages are WikiProject pages, but used for
standardization of deletion instead of standardization of page
layouts.
The majority of pages listed for deletion on VfD will still continue
to go on the VfD page; only those pages fitting specific, narrow
categories will be listed on the category VfD pages instead.
- From Wikipedia:Countdown Deletion
Countdown deletion (CD) is intended to be an
additional tool for
deletion. It would not supplant or modify Wikipedia:Votes for
deletion or Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion in any way, except
for prohibiting VfD on an article already undergoing CD.
Yet none of these ideas address the fundamental problem. The first tries
to solve the problem by diverting entries from the page, while the
second tries to stop entries from getting to VfD in the first place. But
as volume increases, this will all but prove to be futile.
In my humble opinion, the fundamental problem is that Wiki pages were
never meant to support *this* sort of process. Talk pages are already a
stretch: they aren't exactly ideal. Workable, but not ideal.
VfD is simply a magnification of this problem. All we have is a wiki, a
bunch of templates, and a lot of policy.
It is time for software, the wiki, to lend a helping hand.
HOWEVER...
This path will not be without resistance and major road blocks. Many
things one must consider:
* These policies are not set in stone. How do we create a software
solution that helps the process while not fixating the process on one
implementation. This leads to:
* How do we implement this? What exactly will the software *do* in
order to help solve the problem?
Because any changes that would suggest some sort of rules are going to
be deeply frowned upon, here's what I'd propose.
VfD becomes divided into several sections that all tap into the same
"database" of VfD articles. This allows users to draw several versions
of the page, including:
* All with all comments
* All active debates with all comments on them
* All with only links
* Only links for all active debates
* Only links for today
The process of adding VfDs to the database is ported to another
completely different page, with a detailed procedures for adding VfD,
and integrated checks to make sure the procedures are followed? (This
may not be a good idea, but it should be clear that you should be able
to Add without having to Read, and if you want to Casually browse, you
don't have to read everything).
This way, we:
* Give something for everyone
* Trim down the page for those who want it, and keep it that way for
those who don't (after all, there are some people who like have a
megabyte of information to browse)
The negative is:
* This puts a greater strain on Wikipedia servers with the parsing and
output of these pages (which may require an entirely different sort of
caching system). It probably will come down to only a few possible ways
of viewing VfD to keep caching manageable.
Soooo...
*WHAT DO YOU THINK?*
- --
Edward Z. Yang Personal: edwardzyang(a)thewritingpot.com
SN:Ambush Commander Website:
http://www.thewritingpot.com/
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