User:Elaragirl/Deletionism

NOTE: This essay has evolved from snarky commentation to deeper thinking. Please do not go nitpicking through the history, but read what is presented. It cannot be read shorn of it's sarcastic tone, but there is thinking here.

I created two articles today, with sources. What the fuck did you do? Saved a list of masturbation positions for hermaphrodites. Out-fucking-standing.

Look, this band is notable to the people who listen to them. Go apply your stupid policys somwhere else, and stop stiflign creativity.

On Wikipedia, there is a giant conspiracy attempting to have articles agree with reality

Before you start : This kind of shit is why I hate inclusionist thinking

Terms you should be comfortable with :


 * Immediatism - Concept that articles should be judged as they are NOW
 * Exclusionism - Concept that articles that are included should be above standards
 * Deletionism - Concept that articles that don't meet standards NOW should be deleted
 * Inclusionism - Concept that anything goes, including original research and garage bands.
 * The First Pillar : What WP is not - What Inclusionists ignore

Overview and Introduction
(Note: If you are reading this POV screed after having one of your article deleted, you are in the wrong place. PLEASE visit WP:AFD for more information about the actual deletion process.)

What is Deletionism? It is an ideal, really. Deletionism is the concept that articles that fail to meet Wikipedia's policies on what makes an acceptible article should be deleted, immediately.

Many people dislike this ideal, for several reasons. These include:


 * They worry new people will get their articles deleted, get fed up, and leave.
 * They feel that deletion does not improve the Wikipedia.
 * They feel that many of the policies are so vague that any article could concievably be deleted.
 * They feel that many non-notable figures/artists/places/things deserve space in Wikipedia.

The purpose of this essay is a tongue in cheek evaluation of Deletionism. Please do not take offence at anything within, unless you are an Inclusionist, in which case you can ... never mind.

Code of Deletionism
This is a semi-serious code that I try to adhere to when looking over articles, deciding whether or not to vote, or AfD, or speedy tag, or prod.

1.Thou shalt not create an article that knowingly violates WP:V, WP:OR, or WP:NPOV.


 * This is the important one, the Prime Directive, the UberLaw. You should never create an article that you KNOW can't be verified, uses original research, or is partisan screed. EVER. No sources? Fine. Controversial? Fine. Doesn't meet a substrata of notablity? Can be dealt with, maybe. But far too many people fail to make this first, critical check. IF all articles ensured they met this before they were even created, Deletionism would be completely unneeded.

2.Thou shalt not delete an article that consensus admits fulfills WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:NPOV.


 * This is the flip side of the coin. If an article meets the basic standards of encyclopedic content -- it's verifiable, no original research, and NPOV -- and this is uncontested, you should be EXTREMELY reluctant to delete it. "Cruft" is not a fucking deletion criteria. I don't like Pokemon. I hate Star Trek shit. But damn me, those two series have some excellent fucking articles, and there's not a damn thing wrong with most of them. Special cases are biographies of living people (who can sue you) and subtypes (music, software) that have additional notability requirements -- but if I can't be sure they utterly fail those I often won't vote, or will vote keep.

3.Thou shalt not apply thy banhammer to newbies, but attempt to guide them to Articles for Creation.


 * AfC is a great place for a new person to go. There are all kinds of resources there to guide them through the process of making good articles. Biting newbies is despicable, and speedy deleting their pages on NP patrols for such things as not having sources is also silly. Guide them. Help them to become good writers and editors.

4.Thou shalt not hesitate to apply the Speedy Deletion Tag, but only after making damn sure the article you are tagging REALLY fits the criteria.


 * For fucks sake, people need to read CSD more carefully. Each speedy deletion criteria is CAREFULLY laid out..and 90% of the contentious bullshit we see at XfD stems from improper tagging. Stop masturbating wrong tags over stubs! Fix it.

5.Thou shalt not bite the newbies, even if they are creating for-shit articles, for they are the future.


 * Corollary to 3. Yelling at people for making bad articles doesn't get them to write good articles. It just drives them off. You want MORE people writing GOOD articles so they get HOOKED and want to CONTRIBUTE EFFECTIVELY. Simple common sense.

6.Thou shalt not tolerate an Inclusionist to include worthless screed, lest we become fucking Uncyclopedia.


 * Inclusionists mean well. But they have no sense of discrimination or concern for the long-term effects of their actions. Blind to the results, they are sometimes hypocritical in their thundering denunciations of deletionist activity. The problem is that often in such zealotry they'll defend articles that would shame a garbage dump. Don't let them. Destroy crap. Don't let medocrity and status quo fill Wikipedia with shit like Cleveland Steamer. We want good articles.

7.Thou shalt not tolerate an Eventualist to put off deleting a sourceless, badly written, original research laden article about a garage band's guitarist simply because they scream WP:IGNORE.


 * Similarly, Eventualists feel that since everything COULD be notable SOMEDAY, everything should be included. This particular kind of psychosis is excreable, and must also be opposed. If it can't meet policy, it needs to go away to the big burny place in the sky.

8.Thou shalt not be a WP:DICK to prove your WP:POINT, but that doesn't mean you can't stand up for what is Holy and Proper to be Deleted.


 * If the Forces of Light stubbornly defend an article that's a copyvio of a copyvio with no sources, 145 non-free images, and paragraphs of original research, you may have a hard time keeping cool. Don't blow up. Don't be an asshole or do something rash to get the point across. Stick to your guns, cite the policies, and take the pile of shit to Deletion Review.

9.Thou shalt not ever ressurect, recreate or reanimate that which has been deleted. It has failed and burns now forever in Bad Article Hell, profane not our Wikipedia with such again.


 * When things die, let them stay dead. Even if it's YOUR article. Don't recreate deleted content unless you plan to make SIGNIFICANT changes.

Inclusionists
To understand Deletionists, you have to understand inclusionists. Inclusionists believe that articles should not be deleted but rather improved and expanded on. They tend towards beliefs that almost anything has a place on Wikipedia since it strives to be a repository of all human knowledge.

There are two branches of Inclusionists. The first is the Loose or Benign Inclusionist branch, of which User:Spawn Man is a good example, are reasonable. They believe that articles should be given a chance. They will vote delete on crap, but they want to keep a borderline article. They feel (perhaps rightly) that too many articles that could be improved to become good articles are never given a chance to do so. They typically do not even get involved in XfD unless and until they see something they think can be kept. These are, for the most part, rational men and women who you can converse with. They also have a point : too many good articles are deleted for minor failings, and these could be easily fixed.

The other branch is the whackaloon inclusionists, who want to list EVERYTHING. Naming names would get me in trouble, but their Prince of Insufficient Radiance could be construed as a poorly worded bohemian with delusions of taste. (Good luck figuring out who I'm talking about.) They hate the idea of limits, or policy, or verifiability -- if it exists, or might exist, it should be here. and they sneer at the idea of an encyclopedia. They seek to game the system to allow anything possible in, for no other reason than their own personal beliefs about 'audiences'. These people are quite possibly insane. This statement is not hyperbole, sarcasm or exaggeration. I am totally and deadly serious. Whackaloon Inclusonists feel that deleting a non-notable garage band "betrays fans and our audience", that "no one has a right to remove articles from Wikipedia for any reason", that "you people who vote delete should go to hell" and much, much worse.

Do I sound bitter? Do you think I exaggerate? Did you read that brain-damaged screed at the top of the page? Wait, better example: once upon a time some Whackaloon Inclusionist wrote something called the Wikipedia:The "real" guide to creating articles. It was nothing more than a way to game the system, belittle process, and get whatever crap article you wanted past deletion. And it was openly dismissive of anyone who wanted to follow policy correctly. Little POV problem there, buddy? My favorite quote is this one, since it points out just how goddamned insane these people are:

"'Deletionists are Wikipedians who believe Wikipedia is a better encyclopedia when its information is limited, factual and encyclopedic.'"

Ironic, isn't it? Deletionists want *gasp* an encyclopedia that is LIMITED, FACTUAL, and ENCYCLOPEDIC. By definition, then, our opponents, the Whackaloon Inclusionists, want a mess that is UNLIMITED, NONFACTUAL, AND UNENCYCLOPEDIC.

Yes, that's a stirring platform to work from to make Wikipedia a better place. To me, this is the heart of the problem. Some people feel anything that can be improved -- however ephemerial the chance, however asinine the topic -- should be allowed unlimited time to do so. Deletionism is all about LIMITING what goes in so that it is FACTUAL and so that you learn something from it, which is what an ENCYCLOPEDIA is supposedly ALL ABOUT.

Some might consider Eventualists, Mergists, and those guys at Integration as Inclusionists as well, but their primary motivations seem to be based on WP:ILIKEIT, so I could give a fuck what they think. They're sideliners at best.

Deletionists
There are not very many pure Deletionists, since most people try to swing towards the center. Probably the most rabid deletionist was User:Improv at one time, but he has changed over years. A pure deletionist is someone who feels an article that cannot meet every possible criterion constantly should be deleted and salted. This class of Deletionist is called the Old Guard, and they are indeed a dying breed.

The second rank is often sneeringly referred to as the Deletionist Cabal. I consider myself a member of this group. They want to apply policy uniformly to determine what articles should stay and go, and they want something close to immediatism as a guideline of when this should be done. That being said, the primary difference between the Old Guard and the Deletionist Cabal is that the Old Guard is just as reactionary as the Whackaloon Inclusionists. Improv (Our Dark Lord of Deletion) once obliterated dozens of pages on cookies to make a point. No Cabalist would try a stunt like that, since many of the articles were good contributions.

The final sort of deletionist is the weak deletionist, or the cruftist. I don't particularly care for this kind. They are the ones who are always voting "delete, cruft", without recourse to policy. Unlike the other kinds of Deletionists, they only want to destroy fancruft, or anything particularly non-encyclopedic. This strikes me as mentally lazy....but safe.

All three branches of Deletionism argue vehemently over the proper scope, focus, and process of deletion. NO ONE wants to delete good articles, or to delete any articles really, if they would just meet policy. We only want a wikipedia that is limited, factual and encyclopedic.

The problem
Now, HERE is the problem:

There is a certain class of wikiperson who feels EVERYTHING has a place in Wikipedia. There is another class of wikiperson who feels that only THINGS THAT MEET POLICY have a place in Wikipedia. The two 'sides' cannot agree.

The problem can be summed up as such:


 * Value of Wikipedia is : X
 * Value of Articles Deleted from Wikipedia is Y
 * Component of Deleted articles that are proper for Wikipedia is Yx
 * Component of Deleted articles that are improper for Wikipedia is Z.
 * Value of Deleted articles that are improper for Wikipedia is Zy

Deletionists suggest that Yx is the only valid measurement, and that anything else is basically screed.

Inclusionists set Zy to a high value to try to game the system into recovery.

If Wikipedia has a value of 100, and the articles deleted from Wikipedia comprise 5% of it's value, then Yx is 5. That is, I'm assuming that the articles that are being deleted properly from wikipedia comprise maybe 5% of it's content.

Z is a different ball of wax. It's totally subjective. Let's assume Z is 25%. Then we have 5% of 25%, which is 1.25%. The inclusionists feel that 1.25% of the articles that are deleted from Wikipedia should really still be here, and that Deletionists are slowly destroying the wiki.

These numbers are, in a lot of ways, crap. On both sides. The count of for-shit unsourced stubs could be much, much higher or lower. I know that out of 1500000 articles, 36332 have at least one unsourced statement. 5338 are claimed to be disputed and need verification. A total of 1268 pages were up for deletion, speedy, or prod at the time of this writing, and most of that is images.

More details can be found here.

Do's and Do Nots of Article Creation
These are taken from Article Creation Guide of an Inclusionist, but edited for sanity clarity.

Don't

 * Don't write articles about yourself, your friends, your company, or your creation. Unless you've been in the news. Then it's okay. Otherwise, ask yourself -- could you get this published in the newspaper? If you can't do that, then you definately can't get it here. For good reason.


 * Don't write articles about your views, ideas and advice. Who the fuck are you? Again, if you're famous, or have been in the news, or are notable (and I don't mean garage bands) then that's one thing, but the rest of the time, NO ONE ELSE CARES. GET OVER YOURSELF. (Feel free, however, to mentally defecate all over your userspace...much like I am now. I am many things but not a hypocrite.)

Websites must have either published reviews, an award or began content that someone else republished WP:WEB. Musicians must have either published reviews, an award, or TWO major album releases WP:MUSIC. Companies must have published mentions, a listing on indexes or have a share price used as a stock market index WP:CORP. Without them, your article WILL be deleted.
 * Websites, musicians and companies have inclusion guidelines.

People bitch about those three more than anything else, but they are SPECIFIC for a reason. How 'encyclopedic' is it to have a shitty, no sources 4 line article about some furry site? I'm sorry, but it isn't. It - just - isn't. You can shout inclusion to the high heavens, but there are MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of tiny companies, garage bands and websites that NO ONE AT ALL cares about. Why include then? Just to do it? No one is going to expand this shit. No one is going to read it. Why waste your time and mine?


 * Occult and non-traditional science need more reliable sources than usual should just find another fucking wiki.

Do
Here's my list of dos.


 * Do make the article in your own space before posting it. Dammit, do it right. Don't make 40 edits to a 1 paragraph article.


 * Do use the stuff at Articles for Creation.

delete it EVER. So do most deletionists.
 * Do reference and source your material. Frankly, if an article has 4 good refs, I stop looking to


 * Do tell anyone whining about Google hits to fuck themselves. Rectally. Google is not Wikipedia and I cannot stand this method of 'notability'.


 * Do avoid creating articles that have no room for expansion.

Do

 * Be fair. Never nominate or vote something for deletion based on how you feel about it. If you can't find a policy that supports deleting it, you must either vote keep or (better yet) stay out of the discussion.
 * Be bold. No matter how well established an article is, don't be scared to nominate it if and only if it truly fails a critical criteria. Sometimes you can nudge people to fix the article or fix it yourself, but if you can't, the threat of deletion will often work wonders in improving articles (and thus, the Wiki).
 * Be direct. Don't engage in ad hominem bullshit. Don't attack the motives of those people who vote to oppose you. Don't suggest cabals are behind the hate of the article. Alternatively, if you're voting to delete, don't suggest that anyone voting keep is a blind idiot. (Even if they are).
 * Be willing to admit you can be wrong. If someone improves the article, change your vote. If someone shows notability, offer to help fix the article up. Stay above petty namecalling and remember that immediatism looks at things right now. IF it's fixed right now, it should stay right now.

Don't

 * Don't treat AfD as a game. I never list out what articles I nominate for deletion. We aren't keeping score. It makes you look like an Old Guard Deletionist who would like to slay anything you can't find in a paper encyclopedia.


 * Don't badger people about their votes on their talk pages. It makes you look like an ass. It's made me look like an ass. Whether the articles lives or dies, tomorrow you'll still be editing the Wiki, and so will the person you're fucking with.


 * Don't assume the other side is ALWAYS wrong. Sometimes even Whackaloon Inclusionists get it right. Admittedly, a snowball has a better chance of surviving for a year in the Sahara while surrounded by men dying of thirst, but it could happen.