Template talk:Story

This template was considered for deletion on 2006 October 11. The result of the discussion was "to keep.".

Case for deletion

The template is firmly grounded in no Wikipedia policy or guideline. (A direct request was made to its creator for the basis on which it was written. There was no response. A check of user contributions indicates that the author has not been active on Wikipedia for a month.) Obviously, many virtues of the good story and, particularly, of the good essay are identical to those of a good encyclopedia article: clarity, precision, structural logic, narrative flow. The primary distinction is that a Wikipedia article must be written from a neutral point of view, particularly on controversial matters—there are many existing templates that more clearly flag that issue. This template seems best geared to promote sterile, lifeless writing. In order to gauge how it is actually applied, the first ten articles tagged with the template (as listed on the its "What links here" page) were examined. In eight out of ten cases, there is not a single word of discussion on the article's Talk page supporting the tag; in the other two, a single sentence refers the reader to a third Talk page that talks generally about a set of articles, without offering any specific evidence of a problem or guidance on its solution. The template is thus virtually useless in actual practice, clearly redundant even where it might be useful, and counterproductive in spirit. It shoud be deleted.—DCGeist 17:34, 11 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Follow-up: In fact, when the Tfd was filed, the template's author responded in short order on the "Wikipedia:Templates for deletion" page. Please see there for the full discussion.—DCGeist 21:34, 11 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]