Wikipedia talk:Deletion and deletionism

Views of other AfD regulars, correcting typos

I was passing by The Tranhumanist's talk page, and I noticed this. Hope you don't mind me adding this comment. I have participated in a number of AfDs, though I'm not a regular there. I might sit in on this classroom as it could be interesting. Have you or TH considered getting the views of other AfD regulars, such as Uncle G?

About editing the page, can we correct typos? :-) Carcharoth 00:23, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Correct away! As for getting the views of others, I am unsure of the neutrality of their viewpoints. :/ --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 14:59, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Ways to improve articles

Yeah, I stumbled onto this page the same way - it made for a very interesting read, I like your work. One question - I like the fact that you emphasize "In many cases, an article can be improved by adding sourced, rewriting, or other corrective measures rather than deletion." I think that another way an article can be improved is by deleting questionable sections of it, since these sections bring down the credibility of the whole article. I've seen a couple of instances where an article with good and bad sections gets deleted due to a stack of "Delete, contains X" !votes, and some good material ends up being lost in the process.

The way I see it, "contains OR/copyvio/etc" shouldn't be a criteria for deleting the whole article - it should be a criteria for deleting the revelant sections. After that, the article can be re-evaluated, based on its size:

• If there's still enough good material left to justify an article, leave it. (The remaining material might need work, as you've suggested above, but it can be improved.)

• If there's only one or two short paragraphs left, not enough to justify an article, a merge & redirect to a "higher topic" article would by my suggestion, e.g. merge "Bob Doohickey (character)" into "The Doohickeys (TV family)" If enough good material on Bob turns up in the family article to warrant spinning him off onto his own article again, great.

• If the article is practically nothing but OR/copyvio/POV rants, then the whole article should be deleted, so the next editor can have a fresh start.

I'm still making this up as I go, to be honest, but I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts on the matter. Quack 688 22:46, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Copyright violations

THe problem with copyvios is the editing history. Since it has to remain, and since it still contains the copyvios, the liability remains. What I prefer to do is save any parts that aren't copy vio, get the thing deleted, and create a fresh stub with sources for expansion. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 13:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I believe there should be a difference between an article that is expanded from a copyright stub, versus one which contains a copyright section. The one based on copyright might carry "traces" of copyvio all the way through, "fruit of a poisoned tree" and all that, and might need the full wipe. But imagine a comprehensive article on Bob, which contains a copy-vio paragraph about his pet goldfish. This copy-vio's been sitting there for a year and no-one's noticed, but no-one's used it elsewhere in the article.

According to this section from WP:CV, we don't have any liability problems just from having a copyvio in a page's history:

Revert the page to a non-copyrighted version if you can

The infringing text will remain in the page history for archival reasons unless the copyright holder asks the Wikimedia Foundation to remove it.

I still think it's a waste to revert a year's work on the Bob article just to get that one copy-vio out. As I understand it, this is necessary right now because the copy-vio paragraph might have been referred to elsewhere in the article. But copyright works can still be listed as a source, right? If so, can't we just change the copy-vio paragraph, and add the original source of that copy-vio paragraph as a reference?

Also, all those legal issues only apply to copy-vios. Do you have any objection to my "amputating an article in order to save it" idea for things like OR and POV? Quack 688 00:15, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup

One other question - I was doing the tourist thing, browsing through a few policy pages when I found WP:CLEANUP. By its description, it was originally intended for formatting or clarity issues, but quite a few of the nominations there are for articles that need more significant problems fixed.

Putting something on AfD certainly generates a lively discussion, but I think it'd be good for both "sides" if some articles that need significant work, but are about a notable topic, were listed on WP:CLEANUP instead of straight on AfD. Inclusionists caould have a chance to improve on the articles without getting paranoid about the "deletionist cabal out to destroy them (and their kittens)". If no-one bothers improving it for a while, then it can be taken to AfD, and the nominator can show that they've put out a good faith call to improve the article, but no-one picked up the phone. Would you consider mentioning its existence somewhere in your essay? Are there other versions of this list somewhere for more serious problems that might deserve a mention? If not, would you support using this list as a prelude to AfD, or do you believe it should be kept just for formatting/clarity issues, and a new "fix this now or it's going to AfD" list should be created instead? Quack 688 06:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem with WP:CLEANUP is the backlog. A lot of stuff goes in there and never gets touched. A good deletionist is also usually an immediatist, someone who judges reality as it is now, not potentiality as it might be at some unspecified point in time. There are too many backlogs, too many new articles being created that really don't belong and people keeping them just on the off chance that they can be improved. I think that if an article can be QUICKLY cleaned up then you should do so. I did that yesterday, a book called Postcards from the Grave was up for deletion, sourceless and nonnotable. So I found evidence of notability, sourced it, added a photo, and voila, all good. Took 5 minutes. If you can fix it like that, why bother putting it off? It's just , to me, hypocracy from some people who can't be bothered to fix anything yet expect someone else to do so.

I understand what you mean with the idea of a 'fix or it's going to AfD' but that is why AfD lasts five days. If you can't fix it in five days it ain't getting fixed. I think making lists of things to fix before AfD is adding a step that will only get backlogged, and putting off the problem. I would rather see an end to votes like "keep and cleanup" since the cleanup is never actually done. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 13:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I guess it depends on why an article's being brought to AfD. I don't think a major rewrite can always be done in five days, especially if it's part of a mass-nomination. However, a fair proportion of AfD articles I've seen are there for notability or sourcing issues - if you can't show something's notable in five days, or find some proper sources, I agree that it should be deleted.

Re: lists like WP:CLEANUP - The policy page WP:DELETE provides two great lists on problem articles where deletion may be needed and problem articles where deletion may not be needed, and they specifically mention several alternate places to send questionable material:

Wikipedia:Copyright problems

Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English

Wikipedia:Cleanup

Wikipedia:Pages needing attention

Both "sides" should share some responsibility for not using lists like these, IMHO. Deletionists know that the fastest way to get what they want is with with a "fix this now or it's gone" approach. Meanwhile, inclusionists can forget about articles listed on cleanup lists, since they're not currently facing deletion, and as long as the article's online, inclusionists get what they want.

I suppose I should ask what you want this essay to become. Is it an outline of current policy, or is it an argument for ditching some broken policies and adopting a more immediatist approach? If it's an argument for change, that's fine, you can argue your case as much as you want, but then it's not exactly NPOV. If it's an outline of policy (which it seems to be), it shouldn't point out ways to go around existing policy - at the very least, those two lists from WP:DELETE should be mentioned in step one of your five step process, since the examples given directly reflect what the current policy is. Quack 688 00:15, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

It was designed for the Transhumanist's Virtual Classroom. The main reason I don't list those pages is that this is not an article about alternatives to deletion. I plan to write a second article about undeletion, cleanup, and alternatives. A secondary reason I don't write about it is that there are serious backlogs on those lists, particularly translations and cleanup. Nine times out of ten, when people say Keep and Cleanup you can't clean the article up. It has no good sources, it's not verifiable and it needs to go. Trust me, I've tried. Sometimes you can, and sometimes you can't, but most articles that get to AfD with this kind of problem are better off gone no matter if you belive in deletionism or inclusionism or immediatism or eventualism or whatever. I think that there are a lot of articles where deletion isn't the answer, but I think ther are also equally lots of issues where deletion IS and instead the article is simply allowed to rot. I'm trying to present all the deletion stuff here and save alternatives for the alternatives article. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 16:45, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, I'm looking forward to seeing that second article. There could be quite a bit of duplication if you structure it the same way as this one, though. What if you split up the topic into three separate articles:

1: IntroToXfD - Provides an outline on how the deletion process works, how to conduct yourself honourably throughout the process, and, most importantly, how to decide if a questionable article should be improved or deleted.

2: DeleteArticle - If you've decided an article should be deleted, this gives some real world advice on how to use each of the tools listed in Problem articles where deletion may be needed. Also includes any other methods available to delete articles (including DRV).

3: ImproveArticle - If you've decided an article should be improved, this gives some real world advice on how to use each of the tools listed in Problem articles where deletion may not be needed. Also includes any other methods available to keep and improve articles (imcluding DRV and userfication).

(PS. Any other thoughts on what I mentioned previously re:amputating dodgy bits from an article to save it?) Quack 688 07:30, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Some comments

• This is just too long still and too much detail.
• I would suggest a very short and punchy introduction with links to lower in the page.
• I would suggest that it be reorganized with methods for getting things undeleted above methods for getting things deleted. People are more likely to come to these pages to get stuff undeleted than deleted. Only experts are interested in deletion. Newbies who are new to Wikipedia will probably encounter this policy first in trying to keep things from getting deleted or get them undeleted.
• I will try to move it to another page and maybe edit it a bit for your inspection.--Filll 04:32, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

A rough draft

That shows some of what I am suggesting is at User:Elaragirl/DeleteArticle2. There are three main pieces to the article:

• an overview (abstract)
• an outline of deletion: This in very short point form describes the content of the article and hopefully familiarizes the reader with the terminology
• the detailed description:I just cut and pasted your text in. I think it is too long and confusing however.

I also would suggest using <ref> and </ref> tags and and make footnotes using <references/>to put some important caveats and tips in footnotes so they do not break up the flow of the text. I also think that instead of just linking to the instructions for putting an article up for AfD/XfD, also include a very stripped down set of steps such as 1. 2. 3. for what to do. Then the reader already can understand the procedure before they have to fight their way through the excess verbiage. It always helps to understand the procedure before you try to learn it in detail. Otherwise it just seems like a blizzard of crap. Actually even with this it will still seem like a blizzard of crap, but I hope it will make i seem a little clearer this way. --Filll 05:40, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Thoughts from Moreschi

Bellissima Elara! - sorry, I've got Giulio Cesare on the CD player! I think it should be explained that it is pretty pointless whacking a PROD tag on top of an article a newbie has just created. If you can't speedy it, then in practice - even if it is egregiously promotion for someone semi-notable, then take it to AFD, bypassing PROD, as the newbie will be guaranteed to fight tooth and nail and remove the prod. Nobody likes having their stuff deleted, least of all newbies.

Also, pardon me if I missed this, but one should always notify the creator if you PROD or AFD an article, and usually for CSD as well. Is this mentioned? There are plenty of appropriate templates. Mind you, if someone creates something you just tagged with db-nonsense or db-vandal, then - others may disagree - there is little point in wasting your time on what is basically a glorified vandal. Cheers, Moreschi 15:37, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

To the first, that's why I put in Tips for Prods ": Prods are best used on articles that haven't been edited in several months, have a single editor, and appear inactive. An active article that is inappropiate for Wikipedia should be taken to AfD instead, since a prod can be undone legally by removing the tag." To the second, I left a thingy stating "ALWAYS make sure you leave the user notice when you speedy delete. Since speedy deletion can happen quickly, not doing so leaves you open to charges that you are not following process correctly." I shoud add it to AfD, too , I guess, but I usually don't for AfD. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 16:45, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Deletionism vs inclusionism

I think the section on inclusionism and deletionism is a pretty skewed depiction of the state of affairs. Take for instance the statement "Deletionists bitterly dislike the principle of rules like WP:IAR and statements that Wikipedia is not Paper". That's simply not the case and is a fairly lame way to present the issue. This is not so different than saying inclusionists bitterly dislike the principle that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information because it prevents Wikipedia from really being the sum of all human knowledge or that they loathe the guidelines on reliable sources because it leads to removal of content.

In any case, nothing is to be gained by presenting the issue as if deletionists or inclusionists are acting like ideological crusaders who spend all their time on AfD without reasoning. Not only is that counter-productive, I also find it to be completely out-of-touch with reality. I have a deletionist userbox on my user page (which by the way, or so I learned, is enough to disqualify me as a potential admin) yet this simply represents the way I tend to lean on in AfDs in which I choose to participate. There is no Great Struggle of Inclusionism vs Deletionism. There are simply different editors, with various thresholds in mind of what they consider as acceptable and valuable content on Wikipedia, they are all acting in good faith and they all have the best interests of the project at heart. That section is ruining an otherwise interesting page. Pascal.Tesson 06:41, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I think you're wrong. I had another person on an AfD today claiming that deletionists were evil, lazy, and only out to destroy other people's work. Certainly deletionists do not see the issue as anything but how to include articles, but more and more inclusionists are turning this into some kind of stupid crusade. WP:IAR was intended to stop bureaucracy and WP:NOTPAPER was there to allow for non-mainstream but notable articles, and both of these have been very badly twisted out of their original intent. And yes, I have seen more than one inclusionist say that things like notability and even RS need to be rewritten or even removed. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 17:42, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Well there's always the occasional wacko who believes he has a superior understanding of the project's goals. Also I think that people that want an article deleted and see it kept tend to shrug it off as a bad decision. People who think an article should be kept and see it get deleted are often (and not so surprisingly) bitter and angry. Most of them know how to cool down but it can't be reasonably expected that all will. With all due respect (and in fact the same applies to myself) it's also likely that since you lean towards deletionism, the lame arguments of rabid inclusionists strike you as lamer than the lame arguments of rabid deletionists. :-) Pascal.Tesson 17:58, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I think there are various problems with this section; the criticisms of both inclusionists and deletionists are essentially stupid ones (although they are indeed common ones), and the statistics as to the number of both inclusionists and deletionists are not remotely accurate. Every Wikipedia editor falls somewhere along the Inclusionist-Deletionist continuum, even if many don't know the terms, we all have our own attitudes and beliefs as to what our policies should be and what should or shouldn't belong. And, from what I've observed in the WP:IAR talk page, it is the inclusionists, in fact, who dislike IAR, at least at the moment. --Xyzzyplugh 00:09, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't fully understand this dichotomy

I think the whole deletionism-inclusionism debate is a false dichotomy. Wikipedia, as a non-paper encyclopedia, ought to include all established and verifiable human knowledge. This clearly excludes incoherent pages, spam, things made up in school one day, and bands that have released no albums; at the same time, it clearly includes things like webcomics, bit-part actors in films, and minor fictional characters, all of which I have seen nominated for deletion. The problem is that the 'deletionist culture' is becoming too prevalent; I now spend more time on XfDs and speedy deletes than I do actually writing articles, as it's now virtually impossible to write anything without someone slamming it as original research or fancruft, while deletion nominations seem to be welcomed with open arms. At the moment, sadly, it seems to be that the burden of proof is on the author of an article to prove that their contributions are worth keeping, rather than on the would-be deleter to prove that their contributions are invalid/a waste of space. As a result, the encyclopedia is poorer. I wouldn't call myself an inclusionist: I spend a lot of time tagging nonsense pages for speedy deletion, nominating AfDs, and reverting vandalism, and all of these things are valuable (the encyclopedia needs to be 'pruned' at times). But we need to get back in sight of the goal of Wikipedia; to be a resource that contains as much information, albeit organised, sourced and well-written, as possible. Walton monarchist89 16:15, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I know the above completely contradicts what I stated on the Village pump yesterday. I'm allowed to change my mind. Walton monarchist89 16:15, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Be careful when you talk about "deletionist culture" as if is was blatantly contradicting policy. Wikipedia is not paper, sure, but it's also an encyclopedia and not a directory. It's not IMDb, it's not a provider of free advertising and so on. The spectrum of attitudes towards deletion, which more or less ranges from rabid inclusionists to rabid deletionists corresponds to the various ways of balancing the respective weight of Wikipedia is not paper and Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. You might find that your own preferred balance does not correspond with rough consensus adopted by the community but it doesn't mean that you understand policy and the rest of the community does not. Pascal.Tesson 17:50, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Contradiction is fine, but allow me to retort. When I can go clicking on random article and find things like Free Spirit Gathering, PC Abe Lyttleton, and Sumpak, I worry. It is very easy to claim that the encyclopedia should be the sum of established and verifiable human knowledge. That's a catchphrase. It's not going to be a reality. We can't verify and organize most of what we already have in place. To you, things like bit part actors need to be included. To me, it's a matter of importance. I don't want to read about Bob's Webcomic, which is made in MS Paint and has a readership of 300. It's important to Bob. It may be important to Bob's readers. But I'd rather spend my time trying to fix up Economics rather than creating non-sourced stubs. No one is ever going to spend hours looking up Bob's Webcomic. The entry will sit there, uselessly. It's not an encylcopedic topic. An encyclopedia should educate you , or be used as a reference for information. The sum of all human knowledge is NOT , I repeat, NOT an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is a limited, factual collection of mutually agreed upon definitions and explainations for a large number of notable, verifiable topics of importance. People need to change the name from Wikipedia. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 17:51, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I kinda like that last idea. How about spinning off a WikiSumOfAllEstablishedVerifiableKnowledgeAndFactoids? :-) Pascal.Tesson 18:01, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I apologise if I came across as implying that I understand policy and the rest of the community does not - this was not my intention. Rather, I was trying to suggest that the policy itself is wrong and should be changed. Please don't interpret this as an attack on the rest of the community, or deletionists in particular - I'm sorry if it seemed that way. I also understand what User:Elaragirl is saying about the relative importance, or unimportance, of certain pages, and I absolutely agree that Economics is more important than Bob's Webcomic, and that expert editors should focus their time on editing and improving the most important articles. I just don't necessarily think there's a contradiction between the two priorities. Wikipedia is unlimited in physical size, i.e. there is no limit to the number of articles that can be included; so if "Bob" (or his real-life equivalent) really wants to create an article on his webcomic (as it may, quite plausibly, be the only thing he has expert knowledge about), where's the harm in that? I totally agree that it would be a waste of time for expert editors to spend their life categorising/stubmarking/extending articles such as "Bob's Webcomic". But isn't it just as much of a waste of their time to AfD/prod/speedy delete "Bob's Webcomic", when they could, as you say, be improving Economics or another major article that people actually read? (Sorry I keep repeating your theoretical examples, but I don't have the imagination to do otherwise). Once again, I'm sorry if my ideas came across as arrogant/an attack; that wasn't the idea, and I don't necessarily think that I'm "right" and everyone else is "wrong". I try to be open minded; I recognise that some other users have been working here a lot longer than I have, and if other people put forward good points, I'm quite willing to modify my opinion. Nor am I seeking to force anyone else to agree with me. Walton monarchist89 19:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Well I'm sorry if my own reply came off as more aggressive than it was meant. The problem I see with your analysis is that the argument relies on the notion that the only limit to Wikipedia is disk space. That is clearly unlimited. However editor's time is not and many routine time consumming tasks are made much worse by the bloating of Wikipedia with fringe stuff-o. It's also true that such additions have already rendered a number of categories utterly useless. Every minute we spend categorizing, referencing, cleaning up, protecting from vandalism Bob's webcomic is a minute wasted and the fact is that none of the 300 fans of Bob's webcomic will do that work. Moreover, Wikipedia's reputation suffers when it appears to be not the sum of all human knowledge but the directory of everything known to exist on earth. Just my 0.02$. Pascal.Tesson 19:56, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

That's true, and I think you make good points. In doing newpage and recent change patrolling, I see the worst levels to which Wikipedia can at times sink, and I certainly wouldn't advocate relaxing some policies (for example, one does get tired of business spam pages, with phrases such as "we are a dynamic and forward-thinking, fast-growing company", etc.). Not to mention the considerable effort we all devote to reverting vandalism (for heaven's sake, why does anyone think it's funny to replace articles with random profanity and references to the male anatomy? This is what happens when 13-year-olds gain access to unmetered broadband Internet access). But, to give you an example of my point, take a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Space warfare in fiction. Admittedly the article is mediocre, but the title is absolutely valid. What I loved about Wikipedia when I first arrived here was that it did include articles like that, where a paper or CD encyclopedia wouldn't. This article is not comparable to "Bob's Webcomic". It isn't junk, nor is it about an obscure topic. And many users probably read and enjoy it on a regular basis; I discovered it long before it was AfD'd. Obviously, I would have to admit to some bias, in that I'm interested in military stuff and am a huge fan of all sci-fi; but I would make the same statement about comparable articles in other fields. Sorry I've taken so long to get to the point; I suppose what I'm trying to say is that both doctrinaire "inclusionism" and "deletionism" are detrimental to the encyclopedia. The problem I experience when I'm doing AfDs, for instance, is that all too often, regular editors will speedy-delete an article that ought to have been given a chance at life. My own tendency, on the other hand, is to give an article a chance with the formal AfD process, even when it has a 95% chance of being complete junk (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Luke sagar). Would you say I'm applying policy incorrectly, and should be more prepared to use speedy-delete? (I do speedy-delete-tag a lot of new pages, in fact, but obviously they don't show up on my editcount once they're deleted.) Walton monarchist89 20:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, Space warfare in fiction has now been deleted, against the will of a significant number of contributors to the AfD - an example of how admins exercise arbitrary power. Walton monarchist89 21:26, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

It shouldn't be about what is enjoyable to read, that is the point of Wikia. The article had no sources, and just because people vote keep doesn't mean that the article meets policy. That isn't arbitrary. It's the policies. If you like, I'll rewrite the thing myself, but I'll do it with sourcing.--Elaragirl^Talk|Count 22:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I kind of agree with you on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Space warfare in fiction and I think its straight deletion was indeed a case where the closing admin did a poor job. My own preference was to stubify the article so as to remove the original research but to incite editors to contribute. Of course, the risk then is that it gets expanded to OR again but I've always thought that stubifying was a good way to deal with OR on valid topics. In cases like Luke sagar though, I think speedy is the way to go because there's really nothing to be gained on AfD but I think PROD is a pretty good option when you have doubts: if the article is valuable, chances are someone will remove the prod and make the article barely good enough. Also comment for Elaragirl: I honestly think that you would make a number of people happy by recreating the Space warfare in fiction article as a decent, well-referenced stub. Pascal.Tesson 00:26, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, please do recreate the article. Pascal.Tesson, thanks for explaining the purpose of deletion; as a result of your comments, I have now somewhat changed my view of deletionism, as I recognise that there are issues other than disk space that affect the retention of articles. I previously thought deletionism was all about aggressive deletion of articles that the majority of users were uninterested in; but from what you're saying, it seems that the position of deletionism is more along the lines of "it's better to have, say, 1 million well-written and accurate articles that people will actually read and use, rather than 5 million articles consisting mostly of unsourced statements, obscure webcomics, spam, fancruft and other assorted WikiFluff (did I just make that word up?) that no one ever reads, which also reduces readers' confidence in the overall quality of the encyclopedia." Anyway, I now see your point (assuming I've understood it correctly) and will, hopefully, use the deletion process better in future. Walton monarchist89 09:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of good articles

(Question copied here from The Transhumanist's user page, since it is relevant to this topic):

I have seen you around here on Wikipedia and have noted that you are among the more intelligent of Wikipedians (your work with virtual classroooms is outstanding). I've had this issue bugging me for a while but I wasn't sure who I could talk to about it. After reading your profile, I think you might know how to deal with this issue.

Recently, it seems that many high-quality articles are up for deletion quite often. Yes, there are the dozens upon dozens that are blatant advertising or spam, but now a large number a day seem to be up for deletion. I'm not sure what I (or anyone) can do about this.

Lost and confused, S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 01:48, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

It's censorship

It comes in two basic forms on Wikipedia...

The most prevalent form of censorship on Wikipedia currently is deletionism, which is the Wikiphilosophy that holds that if an article isn't complete (or good) enough, it isn't ready to be displayed on Wikipedia. In the face of the vast number of stub articles on Wikipedia, and the fact that many of our volunteers make small contributions at a time, this approach is rather absurd. One argument for deletionism is that Wikipedia is mirrored all over the internet, such as on http://answers.com, and therefore it should hold to professional publishing standards and only provide finished (polished) product.

One counter argument is that Wikipedia is a work in progress being constructed by volunteers (that is, it relies entirely on volunteers to build it), therefore it should take advantage of any work (contributions) which volunteers make, regardless of how small. When additions are removed, they aren't there for others to work on and build upon (or for others to read!), so in this sense, it's taking a step backwards; but more significantly, it harms Wikipedia by disallowing collaboration.

Collaboration on Wikipedia for the most part consists of multiple users contributing to an article, but this becomes difficult if articles are removed for insufficient content - you can't build upon what isn't there! The easiest way for editors to find each other to collaborate is by going to the article they are interested in. Many may not know about draft hosting nor know how to find a draft hosted in someone's userspace. Deletionism unbuilds Wikipedia. It's like there's an unwritten rule that if you don't give a certain amount of material at one time (a whole article), you can't give at all.

Noteworthiness is another major issue for deletionists, in which they favor the mainstream. So if an article isn't noteworthy in the general sense even though it may be noteworthy in the field to which it pertains, it may have some trouble getting past the deletionists. Fortunately, the deletionists are opposed by the inclusionists and incrementalists... and by the vast number of contributors to Wikipedia - currently, there are just too many people adding material to Wikipedia for the deletionists to keep up with. See meta:Conflicting Wikipedia philosophies, meta:Deletionism and meta:Inclusionism.

The second and more insidious form of censorship on Wikipedia is information suppression. This is when users delete articles they don't agree with or because the articles don't support their agenda. It is akin to book banning (and burning). It's harder to spot, because the censors don't cite the real reasons why they are trying to delete the articles. From what I have observed, it appears that the policy used the most as the basis for such deletions is Wikipedia:Verify. Since citing sources is policy (mandatory), and because most of Wikipedia doesn't cite sources (and is therefore in violation of policy by default), WP:VER is the most readily available weapon for censors. The only effective defense against this argument for deletion is to provide references (that is, actually do the research, find, and post the references in the article). See: Wikipedia:Censorship and WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not censored.

What's the solution? The solution is: Vigilance...

Deletionism is easy to deal with. The deletionists love Wikipedia every bit as much as the rest of us. They're not against additions to Wikipedia per se, just additions that aren't up to their standards. The solution for articles which aren't complete enough is to complete them. The solution for non-noteworthy articles is to provide references of their noteworthiness; failing that, save them off-line or in your userspace until they become noteworthy.

Information suppression is harder to deal with. Censorship isn't allowed on Wikipedia, so if someone really is purging material from Wikipedia due to some bias or special interest, then an RFC can be started once enough evidence of policy violation is gathered concerning his or her behavior. But that is a lengthy process. In the meantime, more damage is being done, and has to be opposed directly. The only way to solve the problem of censorship is to fight it at every level...

In the deletion debates, you've got to address whatever the reasons given for deletion are and fix the article so that they no longer apply. Once done, make sure you place a note at the top of the deletion debate for the closing admin pointing this out. Otherwise, the admin might just count the votes and not even check the article. If everyone's concerns are met, then the consensus is to keep.

Beyond the debates, articles which aren't "salted" (protected) can be re-created (that is, rewritten) from scratch.

Material may be relevant in other articles, so the parts that are can be included in those articles. But to re-use information in such a way, it is of paramount importance TO SAVE A COPY OF THE ARTICLE BEFORE IT IS DELETED.

Articles can also be revived, fixed, and submitted to Wikipedia:Deletion review. In support of this effort, you can save the original article off-line, or in your userspace. If you don't make it in time, don't panic -- you can request that an admin make a copy of the article to your userspace for draft purposes (admins have access to Wikipedia's deleted articles). This can be a pain, so it's best to make a copy beforehand. Once the article has been approved for reinsertion into the encyclopedia, contact an admin to restore the original article along with its complete history. To adhere to the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, the license under which Wikipedia content is created, each page in Wikipedia must be attributed to its authors (and they, along with their contributions, are all recorded in a page's history). To keep a page's history intact you've got to get the original back out of the deletion graveyard, and that's done through Deletion Review. This shouldn't be a problem if you've addressed all the objections posed in the page's deletion debate, and fixed each problem.

At the risk of sounding redundant, the best defense against censorship/deletion is to save a copy. So if there is an article you are worried about, save a copy of it right away. If you put it off too long, you may be caught off-guard by a red-link. If you do come across a red-link for which you know there was a good article there before, look up its deletion debate to see if you can do anything about it. If fixable, edit the article, and submit it to Deletion review.

While there may be nothing you can do to keep censors off of Wikipedia, it is your duty as a Wikipedian to fight censorship wherever you find it on Wikipedia. The only way to beat censorship is to fight it, and that means get the word out. Be ready to repost the information in some form somewhere. Also don't let censors operate in a vacuum. Bring their activities, or the material in question, to the attention of others. There are forums all over Wikipedia for this. See: Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Request comment on articles, Wikipedia:Requests for feedback, and Wikipedia:Third opinion.

I hope this helps. Go get 'em!

Sincerely,   The Transhumanist   05:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Bone to pick with deletionists

(copied to here from user pages, by --The Transhumanist)...

Hey Pascal,

For some reason, many deletionists have really be egging me lately. You are one of the few self-proclaimed deletionists who goes out of his way to make Wikipedia a better place and you don't seem to fit the deletionist stereotype, as I've seen you try to save several articles.

Anyway, after spending a few months here on Wikipedia and many hours in WP:XFD, I've come to think that many deletionists are just too lazy to contribute by adding new information. I don't know whether this opinion is misguided or not (and if I ever ran for RFA, I'm sure this will come back to bite me), but it seems that many of those who claim they are deletionists would rather just stay in WP:AFD and !vote "delete" down much of the list instead of adding new information to Wikipedia. To mask their laziness, they use the guise of the Wiki-philosophy Deletionism. Why improve an article when you can point out its faults and then delete it?

Confused and in need of advice,

S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 03:16, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Deletion and deletionists and some thoughts...

Hello Sharkface. I think you first have to assume that everybody involved around AfD and other Wikiplaces believes that they are working for the good of the project. Of course there's enough vagueness in the whole concept of Wikipedia that it's just normal to find that people are sometimes pulling in different directions. Sometimes (actually oftentimes) you get the feeling that the community's decision is mistaken but overall anyone has to admit that the whole thing is fairly successful.

A while back, I spent quite a bit of energy arguing for the deletion of Category:Terrorists. As it turns out, the category was kept and I still believe this to be a mistake (look at the debate if you want to know why, but that's not really relevant here) and it left me with the sad feeling that too many editors were not taking enough time to think things through. But I accept the consensus not because I believe that it always ends up being the best choice for the encyclopedia but because it allows the project as a whole to run smoothly. The only thing I can do when I find I'm in disagreement with the majority is to make my point as clearly as I can and hope that this will sway opinion. If it doesn't happen, well so be it, I move on and continue to do my bit to help

A similar situation arose around the time I was up for RfA: I argued for keeping List of hookers with hearts of gold and as you may remember this had people screaming bloody murder and frankly people that argued that I was bringing up ILIKEIT arguments were either acting in bad faith or had not read that debate. This is how Wikipedia works: you make your point, you respect others' opinions and when all is said and done you go with the flow, even when you feel the decision is ill-advised.

Deletionists, like me, tend to view deletion as something less than catastrophic and are worried that articles on extremely fringe topics, almanach-like trivia, vanity or fan-boyish biographies, etc, end up costing Wikipedia a considerable amount of editing time and are skewing its reputation. Consequently, they end up voting for deletion in a lot of AfD debates. Save for the occasional wacko, they don't do so out of lazyness: they believe that some articles are not worth saving. I take it you disagree with that position and that's fine with me. Just remember that people on the other side of the fence also believe they're defending Wikipedia's best interests. When you feel that deletion of a specific article is particularly problematic, take the time to argue your point, take the time to expand the article and demonstrate its worth, take the time, if need be, to ask deletion supporters to expand their arguments. If that does not work, then just accept that you disagree with the majority and work on something else. Surely, you won't lose much sleep if Mongolian Barbecue Great Place to Party is deleted but even in cases that you feel more strongly about, don't be bitter when you see the decision not going your way.

Well, ok that was a bit of a longish reply, sorry... Cheers, Pascal.Tesson 04:27, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Wow, Sharkface, that's an excellent way to insult a lot of people. I happen to be a very strong deletionist, yet I have created 20 + sourced, complete articles; massively contributed to at least 20 more; hundreds of minor contributions; started a wikiproject to review deletions, and various other activies. Oh, and I wrote this article on deletion. Yeah, I'm 'lazy.

If anything, I'd say more often than not it's inclusionists who fit your definition of lazy. They have no problems with adding "information" to the Wiki, but they don't think it's important that this information be sourced, verifiable, or that it's even important to anyone. Some of them feel that if it's important to anyone it should exist. When asked to source, they don't. When they vote to keep and cleanup an article, they don't. If you call them on it, they tell YOU to do it since it bothers you. And so forth.

Quite frankly, when I hear someone is "frustrated" with "deletionists" I see contributions that are marginably notable, conflicting, or don't have good sources along with editors who seem to think they are the only ones acting in good faith and that anyone who ever votes to delete their article, even if it's completely made up, is evil. So much for assuming good faith.

Contributors like you make me wonder why I even bother with Wikipedia. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 08:44, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Elara, while I admit that the once pseudo-private discussion between me and Pascal (who I have have regard for as a fine editor and consider to be a person who I certainly look up to) isn't really assuming good faith on the part of "deletionists", I'd like to note that you're not assuming that I have good faith. My apologies if my question to Pascal offended you. Admittedly, I was a bit tired that day after browsing through WP:AFD (although I know that is no excuse for the incivility of my question) and I certainly didn't mean that question to Pascal to be as inflamitory as you made it out to be. Honestly, I was just having a bad day and I needed some advice. I did not expect the conversation to be taken here (although I guess I must assume that in the future all my work will be under the microscope, more so than now). If anything, I would ask that you not reply to my question to Pascal (what I assumed to be a question between fellow editors) and instead reply to my question to The Transhumanist, found in the discussion above this one. I was much more civil in asking that question and less inflamitory. Again, I am sorry if I offended you and I hope to be more civil in the future. S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 20:29, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Oops. Sorry about that. You've been marked for deletion. Now 200 deletionists will be rabidly hunting you! My fault. But you're not alone, man. I've had the same impression of AfD'ers from time to time. It can be rather frustrating when you are trying to save a savable article and nobody will lift a finger to help (and in one sense all typing is is lifting, and dropping, fingers). And you watch helplessly while everyone there simply votes to kill the article. It's easy to pronounce sentence on something... much harder to actually work on it -- and that goes for deletionists and inclusionists both. But that's the way Wikipedia is set up. Just be glad that only a select and trusted few have the ability to remove articles from Wikipedia. Imagine what it would be like if we didn't have the deletion debates. Anarchy. Wikipedia would be like an unguarded sandcastle on the beach.

On the bright side, the way Wikipedia is set up is rather smart (and cool)... because there is no policy that an article can't be re-created. So, if an article is deleted for lack-of-quality or incompleteness reasons, you can rewrite or revise the article and repost it. As long as you have addressed (and fixed) all of the concerns in relevant AfDs, there shouldn't be a problem with the re-created page. Unless of course the article is on a topic that is deemed inappropriate for Wikipedia (where the subject matter itself violates policy, like an article on a non-notable author), then you really shouldn't be trying to re-create such a page.

I believe the most painful deletion experience is when a page you've written (or worked on a lot), or one that you really like, gets axed without your knowledge, and you discover it only when you try to go there and it just ain't there anymore. For newcomers that can be especially traumatic, since they don't know that they may be able to resurrect the page, first by looking up the deletion debate to see why it was deleted and whether or not it is fixable, second by requesting of an admin that he or she copy it (from the deletion graveyard) to their user page for repair/editing, and third by fixing it.

Keep in mind that mirrors of Wikipedia don't get updated right away, so that a deleted article may still be displayed on other websites on the internet for days or even a week or more after it has disappeared from Wikipedia. So you can save a copy for yourself from a mirror, or even use it as the basis for a new draft (as long as you follow policy -- blatantly reposting policy-violating content can get you in trouble). One such mirror is http://answers.com. You can use google to find others (by doing a search using the article's name), or wade through Wikipedia's list of mirrors. If you have any doubts about whether you can repost a fixed page, submit a proposal to Wikipedia:Deletion review including a link to the fixed page (in your userspace).

Deletion isn't quite as tragic as it first appears to be. So don't panic, and don't let it get you down. And remember, when in doubt, ask an admin, or post your question on one of Wikipedia's help forums (like WP:HD). I hope these tips help.   The Transhumanist    12:13, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Teacher-Student Advice - Deletion "Cliffsnotes"

Good evening (GMT time); I was wondering if there is a policy and guideline resource you actively refer to when XfDing, or if you reccommend any sure-fast resources that can be used to justify your opinion at a XfD?

Kind regards,
anthonycfc ^[talk] 00:21, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Deletion-related motives are closely associated with one's Wikiphilosophy. I'm an incrementalist, for instance. So many of my arguments come from that philosophy.

The rest of the arguments pertain to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Those two links have brief summaries of each one (and serve as memory boosters). For a firm grounding in the reasons for deletion, you should be familiar with all the policies and guidelines in the deletion and content sections of those two pages.

I hope that helps. The Transhumanist   06:10, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

'Delete per nom'

I disagree that one shouldn't post brief "delete per nom" or "delete per policy" votes. Frequently deletion is the obvious choice, and the nominator has already thoroughly explained why. However, AfD debates frequently end up getting relisted because they didn't get enough responses, or consensus wasn't reached. If only one person votes Delete along with the nominator, article may get relisted, so even one additional "delete per nom" can save the trouble of relisting. In addition, if there are only two delete votes, and someone comes along and just types "keep" with no reasoning, article could get relisted. "Delete per nom", while being a bit lazy, can be useful. --Xyzzyplugh 23:59, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Why do articles get deleted?

Comment: Note that most articles do not (yet) have references included. This brings up the obvious questions "Why haven't they been deleted?" and "Why were they allowed to be placed on Wikipedia in the first place, without references?" The simple answer is "Wikiprudence".

Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. If article submissions were somehow blocked for lack of references, then far fewer people would submit new pages to Wikipedia because tracking down references is a lot harder than simply writing what you know about a subject from memory. Plus, there is no easy way to automatically check articles for appropriate references - that takes humans to do.

To require human screening of new articles would create a huge bottleneck which could significantly delay the display of new pages, which might also discourage participation. So, new pages without references are allowed to be added to Wikipedia by default, even though they are in violation of Wikipedia's verification policy. Any such page is subject to deletion at any time, but the deletion process provides the opportunity for fixing any problems before a final decision is made, so it's not as bad as it sounds.

So far, most pages that lack references have never been nominated for deletion, because it isn't typical for a user to nominate an article that seems plausible or conforms to what the user already knows about the subject. This is mostly because there are so many other more important things to do on Wikipedia with one's scarce resource of time, such as delete articles which are blatantly false. So many editors prefer to tag an article with requests for reference citations, or to track down and provide the references themselves, rather than nominate such articles for deletion. --The Transhumanist 02:11, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• Correction: the only policy governing content is verifiability, original research (none is allowed) and What Wikipedia Is Not, to keep this an encyclopedia. There is no requirement for references or "notability". Dan100 (Talk) 12:33, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Notability is in practice a requirement for "high" or "strict" verifiability, and articles are regularly deleted through all deletion mechanisms for being non-notable. —Centrx→talk • 07:32, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment - when considering criteria for deletion such as "Original research, violates WP:NOR policy", it is worth remembering that "Article contains original research (commonly abbreviated to OR)" and "Article is OR" are two completely different things.

• "Article contains OR" is not a criterion to delete an entire article, just to remove those sections. The remaining material should then be judged on its own merits. (Example: an article about zoos in general, which also includes "My trip to the zoo last Friday".)

• "Article is OR" should be used when the vast majority of the article's content is OR, or the article's very topic is OR. In such cases, the article is a valid candidate for deletion. (Example: an article solely about "My trip to the zoo last Friday".)

However, even an article that is mostly OR might contain some well-sourced material. This material might be suitable to be merged into a "parent topic" article. For example, an article about a music single might contain a large amount of OR. The OR can be removed, and any sourced information remaining can be merged into an appropriate article - one about the album that single comes from, perhaps. Once any useful content like this has been salvaged, the article can be deleted. Quack 688 01:27, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment

: Unsourced articles are kept even after screening because editors assume good faith that these details can become sourced. Most of the unsourced materials that get kept are those which do not include overwhelmingly weird claims and personal experience, just factual information which are verifiably correct (not the sense of "verifiable" in WP:V, but the sense that one can repeat the experiment and get the same result). If the writer can put the information here, he can also publish the same information elsewhere. By then it is quite likely that the information can become sourced. --Deryck C. 18:20, 14 March 2007 (UTC)