Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Deletionism

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Contents 1 Initial Project Outlines 1.1 Problems 1.2 Issues 1.3 Analysis 1.4 Solutions 1.5 Thoughts by NeoFreak

[edit] Initial Project Outlines

First of all, I want to stress : This is not the Deletionist Cabal. That's down the hall, to the right.

Secondly, and seriously, I created this project because I feel right now Wikipedia has three problems. The first is that POV is increasingly beginning to affect deletion efforts. There is increased deletion of pro / anti articles on everything from alleged massacres and torture allegations to abortion to political figures and 9/11 consipiracies. Several administrators have been stripped of their power, and dozens of long-standing users and editors have left the project forever. POV has the potential to truly make deletion a cabal, and we cannot allow that to happen.

There are other problems, and unfortunately, no one is trying to fix them. There is too much reliance on civility, and gentle consensus, and passing around the buck, to be fucking bold. No one is asking WHY these problems exist.

I will list the outline of my thinking out, and I would like feedback from anyone who wants to do so. Please state your thoughts in a sectioning started with "thoughts by User" .

[edit] Problems

• The political infection of POV into deletion debates, and in deletion rationales.
• The effects of continual reverts and alterations to articles that weaken their quality and nature, and the resulting degradation in sourcing, until a once well sourced article becomes disjointed and seemingly OR.
• The long-term effects of minor edits and so-called "clarifications" to WP:N, WP:V, and WP:RS, that continue to further mudddy the water rather than actually clarify

[edit] Issues

• Deletion has become a complete partisan battleground between the roughly 800 or so active members of the Inclusionist-Deletionist War. Outsiders who do not consistantly take a positition do not take part in enough XfD to realize the only people consitantly voting on deletions are the two camps (Inclusionists and Deletionists) who probably shouldn't be voting on them.
• Deletion policies are coming under increasing outside pressure as external media mocks and belittles Wikipedia's exclusivity and resistance to original research, with the result that the consensus for looser, weaker deletion policy may result over time.
• Deletion review has a huge upswing in participation since more and more admins are not relying on policy to close debates.

[edit] Analysis

• The primary problems we need to analyze are the effect of policy changes on deletion. Does adding new notability guildlines like WP:SCHOOL lead to better articles, or just more deletion? Are increased deletions wiping out things that shouldn't be?
• There is a complete fucking lack of any initiative to source and expand articles. I can literally hit the random article button ten times and be guarnateed to find an article I could get deleted. This is ridiculous. Deleting these articles won't help, too many new ones keep pouring in.
• There is a need for better automated tools to identify, classify, tag, and sort articles that meet deletion criteria.

[edit] Solutions

• We must find a way to augment policy to maintain the spirit of verifiability, notability, NPOV, and no original research while resisting the POV attempts of people to use deletion as a way to remove the opinions of their enemies.
• We must find a way to turn deletion into a tool to encourage expansion and sourcing of articles so that the number of eyes we have doing NP Patrol and Speedy Deletion Patrol can also be a Sourcing Patrol and Wikifying Patrol.
• We must find a way to automate both the way we can look at deletion information and process deletions, as the volume of crap being put on the Wiki is beyond the capacity of even a human gestalt like Wikipedia to analyze. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 23:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thoughts by NeoFreak

• Admins that are either unfamiliar with or apathetic about the application of policy while closing an AfD. Admins often simply look at a "vote tally" to close an AfD is unacceptable. Standards for adminship need to go way up; they are the public face and the keepers of wikipedia and its policies.
• The very nature of open source. Any time any one can add anything at the snap of a finger that then requires a lengthy process to remove results in a back log of crap. Only registered users should be able to edit.
• Sources tags: they're all bark and no bite. Placing a problem tag helps attract a little attention and serves as a notice to parties interested in the article but they don't actually do anything. Any article that has a sources/notability/etc tag because the article is totally lacking in those categories for a specific amount of time, with no fixes, should be subject to a speedy deletion. Otherwise everyone's time is wasted fighting protective editors or explaining policy over and over again in a unneeded AfD.
• Subjects with only internet sources: they are a huge problem esp with subcultures, trends, obscure sexual inclinations and the such. People need to get serious about WP:V and WP:RS and delete these articles on sight. Even though they no doubt exist in some form they are not verifiable by encyclopedic standards and need to go. NeoFreak 14:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)