Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Sharkface217/Award Center

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was keep — withdrawn by nominator. Consensus is against me, and I'll respect that by withdrawing this. Best of luck to those who participate in the center. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 01:32, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] User:Sharkface217/Award Center

This may have been a good idea in theory, but in practice it has failed woefully. It tells us that it fosters the improvement of articles, and yes, there is a long area of the table of contents that lists article tasks. However, it seems like nobody is actually performing them, so the whole thing is running rather stale in the regard.

My main concern, though, is with tasks like Welcome 1000 Users (we've rejected welcoming bots for a reason), "Have 50 members join Wikiproject Boston Celtics, and get 2 barnstars" (what're the odds that nobody will start sockpuppeting this one?), "make 10000 edits" (it's even titled Editcountitsis...that thing we try to avoid), "participate in 50 AFD's" (an area that's getting shitted on with drive past participation), and my personal favourite, The Deletionist challenge (no comment).

Someone will inevitably say that this page still encourages people to contribute to the project. Considering how much time is wasted with it, how some people are so overly devoted to it (as seen in MFC's recent RfA), I don't think it's worth it. We have collaborations, we have WikiProjects, we have peer review, we have a stack of more productive and less distracting ways to improve the encyclopedia and help others do the same, without expecting a barnstar in return. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 02:41, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

• Keep. People do things here on Wikipedia for nothing, but it's nice to get something back for them. Users are not forced to edit articles at the Award Center, it's completely volunatry. This page simply gives an award, a little pat on the back, for helping out the Wikipedia Project. Challenges such as get X amount of edits are helpful to Wikipedia for obvious reasons, and we should assume good faith in believing that 50 legitimate users were recruited for "Wikiproject Y." If users wish to edit for a 1000 kb award that costs nothing, I say that we let them. Also keep in mind that the Wikipedia:Reward board gives out money for editing, which goes almost against what this project is: A free encyclopedia, but it is not nominated for deletion. Malinaccier (talk) 03:00, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
• Speedy Strong Keep last I heard User pages were supposed to facilitate and aid the editing community of Wikipedia. That is exactly what this page is doing. I am right as we speak writing a List of Basic Cell Biology Concepts at Wikipedia:WikiProject Lists of basic topics/Draft/List of basic cell biology topics. So the argument that no one is writing useful articles because of this page is just plain wrong. [[User:Dihydrogen Monoxide|Dihydrogen monoxide] has no actual policy reasons for deleting this page other than he doesn't personally like it, this AFD should be closed. Like all things at Wikipedia, if users don't like a project or something else that clearly serves and fits the mission of Wikipedia (like this page) they should simply not participate and go find something else to do.Earthdirt (talk) 18:07, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
• Keep This is an idea that has a possibility of doing something good and it does result in work being done. Certainly is a page that is contributing to the improvement of the encyclopedia. Seddon69 (talk) 00:43, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.