User:Graymornings/This is Armenian Radio

This is Armenian Radio
This is Armenian Radio; our listeners asked us: "Is it true that Akopian won a hundred thousand rubles in the state lottery last Sunday?"

Yes, it is true. Only it was not last Sunday but Monday. And it was not Akopian but Vagramian. And not in the state lottery but in checkers. And not a hundred thousand but a hundred rubles. And not won but lost.

Often, at AfD, we get this kind of !vote: Which brings us to the Armenian Radio. If you have to rename an article, change its topic, and completely rewrite it in order to make it Wikipedia-worthy, it's better just to delete it. The article you'll be creating by participating in this rigamarole is a completely different article on a completely different subject, and often not a very good one.
 * Keep but rename, change the topic to something more neutral, clean up, rewrite, add sources, wikify. —Armenian Radio Fan

Sometimes our Wikipedia-sense gets the best of us. The subject, per the AfD, might be [ non-notable/non-neutral/a POV fork/a hoax ], but we want to save it. We want, in other words, to move Akopian lottery win to Vagramian checkers loss. We want to wikify, neutralize, expand, rename, et cetera.

This can lead to trouble when the article we wish the original article was seems to be, well, not the same article. It's often best to delete the old one and create a different article. In doing so, we'll


 * Avoid useless (and possibly POV) redirects
 * Avoid lending keep-type legitimacy to an otherwise-worthless articles
 * Avoid encouraging vandals or POV editors from creating this type of page, and
 * Give the new page a chance, free from the stigma of the old article.

There's a certain type of editor that just doesn't want to delete—that, often, is opposed to deletion on principle. This editor will take an article called My cat was in the movies once (with the text "lol its true he was in the opening scene of Castaway haha") and !vote to keep it on AfD, rename it Pets in film and television, rewrite it, change the topic, and wikify it. That's great. Creation of material is always great. But what did it have to do with the original article? This is especially bad if the editor doesn't take the initiative and rewrite the article.

What the Armenian Radio is not
The Armenian Radio is not an excuse to delete an article that could otherwise be saved. Often, a rename and a bit of editing will work wonders for a troubled article. Sometimes, AfD pages take on a life of their own as centers for the revitalization of an article. We should never discourage the salvation of potentially good material! Nor should we discourage editors from broadening the scope of an article or tweaking its topic.

The Armenian Radio is also not an excuse to treat AfDs lightly; in other words, we should never say, "Oh, hell, we can always recreate a [neutral/notable/factual] version later." Go ahead and do it now—if you don't, who's going to do it?

 Graymornings (talk) understands. He listens diligently to the Armenian Radio.