User talk:Fresheneesz/Don't Destroy

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Contents 1 History preserving delete? 2 There ain't no such thing.... 3 I Agree 4 Information vs Knowledge

[edit] History preserving delete?

Is there any facility deleting an article but preserving its history? It seems that many contentious deletes could be handled this way, so that those who care about the article can still view it in the history and (perhaps) copy it off somewhere to fix it. This would be less destructive (histories would be accessible to ordinary users) but would still achieve the goal of removing questionable material.

For sensitive cases like WP:BIO violations, destructive deletion would still apply.

I'm guessing this could be done with page blanking and/or redirect, with page protection if someone tries to revert the blanking. Is there a reason why this isn't done today? Just curious. ATren 04:06, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

That's called Pure wiki deletion, but apparently no one likes it. I really don't understand why. 66.82.9.81 06:21, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me 66.82.9.81, are you impersonating a user, or are you actually a user not logged in? Just wondering. Yuser31415 06:41, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, that was me, and I remind you to please assume good faith. -- Chris is me 07:36, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

At first glance, this looks quite promising. I would think it could solve a lot of problems, as a sort of middle ground between delete and keep. ATren 08:04, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Genius. I like it. Fresheneesz 10:06, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] There ain't no such thing....

as an inclusionist or a deletionist. Just different degrees of inclusionism. Anyone who thinks they are an inclusionist and anybody who nominates articles for deletion is a deletionist, should spend some time at Special:Newpages and CAT:CSD. The number of articles deleted with absolutely no controversy whatsoever outweighs those where there is legitimate debate by, in my estimation, at least an order of magnitude. Top of the newpages list when I posted this: Mejda: The word mejda is Maltese for table. Enough said. Guy (Help!) 16:10, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I got Jake Oliver - "Jake Oliver (born November 25, 1987) is an English hero and stoner." I've gotta start checking Newpages more often! -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:33, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the different degrees of inclusionism. However, this essay wasn't suppost to advocate no deletions. But it is supposed to advocate no deletions of content that is legitimately argued for keep. Fresheneesz 04:21, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, sure; that's what everyone thinks. We just have different meanings for "legitimately argued for keep". Surely you don't think someone's advocating ignoring arguments that they consider legitimate? -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:02, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

There are the easy keeps, and the easy deletes. And then there are the fringe cases, maybe 5-10% or less, that cause the most trouble. Even the most ardent "inclusionist" wouldn't argue that British stoner/hero Jake Oliver deserves an article, but I don't think this essay is targeted at the Jake Olivers. It's focus is the articles that people have spent a lot of time on, that maybe aren't 100% perfect (or perhaps lie on the fringes of notability), but which are nevertheless subject to the same blanket treatment as the Jake Oliver article.

Now, this is not my essay, and I'm not going to make massive changes to it, but what I take to be the "spirit" of the essay is that destructive delete should not be the blanket solution; that many of those fringe cases should be treated less destructively. Perhaps that means that the deletion debate has other options, Blank or Stub, either of which would preserve the history for those who wish to continue development of the article to the point where it's better sourced or less advertorial (or whatever). ATren 18:05, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

The spirit of the essay, as I understand it, is that it's better to look at an article and think, "how can I improve this?", rather than thinking, "can I get this deleted?" That's an excellent suggestion.

The trouble is the choice of words. Characterizing the idea negatively, in terms of what not to do, generates negativity. In particular, saying "Don't destroy" calls a bunch of people destroyers, and that's no way to open a dialogue. It's a good way to shut doors and burn bridges.

Chances are, a "deletionist" doesn't think of herself as a destroyer. She feels she's helping keep the 'pedia clean and useful by removing junk. Lots of the time, she's right, as in the case of Jake Oliver. The goal, I would think, is to get people to appraise articles more carefully, and to give questionable cases more benefit of the doubt, to the point of investing a little bit of work in them. That's a great goal.

The best way to achieve that goal doesn't start out by characterizing anybody's good-faith work as "destruction". Diplomacy is everything here. -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:54, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I can't disagree with anything here. I'm all for a more constructive approach. I think Fresheneesz comes from a strongly held belief, and his wording may have been unintentionally strong. But the sentiment holds. It certainly struck a chord with me and others (see some of the comments in the deletion debate).

But, yes, certainly a more constructive approach would be better. That's why I had changed the nutshell line to "Focus on improvement, not deletion" (why was that deleted?) because that's a more constructive way of saying "don't destroy". ATren 19:20, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I put the nutshell back. BTW, feel free to edit this essay AS YOU WISH. I would love help on this essay as much as anything else. The only thing I will object to is a change of course in terms of the point of this essay (like what happened to WP:STRAW). I would also be very much open to changes of the name of this page and any other anti-demonizing that people suggest. Fresheneesz 00:08, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I posted some thoughts at User talk:Fresheneesz/Focus on improvement. -GTBacchus^(talk) 07:30, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I Agree

Fresheneesz, I agree with you. Deletionists should really spend their time creating rather than destroying. If they are really bothered by certain articles, maybe they should just ignore those articles. Instead, they have to piss on the work of others. Obviously, they have nothing better to do with their time. I'm glad you were able to put this into more diplomatic terms than I care to take the time to. --Nelson Ricardo 20:03, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Information vs Knowledge

The essay currently says:

• However, more content means potentially more useful information - and thus Wikipedia is more useful with more content.

This fails to address the difference between information and knowledge. A telephone directory contains a lot of information, but it is more encyclopaedic to have fewer people but with useful information about each of them - ie knowledge. By adding arbitrary information, it could make it more difficult to root out the useful or relevant information, thus making the encyclopaedia less useful as an encyclopaedia.

The improvements from pruning are only visible when lots of low level information has been pruned, whereas each deletion causes pain at the point of deletion. So pruning, which meets the long term goal of keeping the knowledge concentrated, creates more antagonism than letting all the weeds grow - after all, what harm does a single weed cause?

Although the essay does mention deleting some forms of content, I feel that some mention of what end goal inclusionists have, and why they differ from deletionists goals, would improve the essay. Stephen B Streater 19:12, 20 January 2007 (UTC)