User:Jdclevenger

My name is Jason Clevenger. My primary interest is in articles on food and restaurants. I also make contributions to philosophy articles and to the Washington University in St. Louis article.

Articles that I have created

 * Austin Leslie
 * Almondine/Amandine
 * Country Captain
 * Crab boil
 * Éclade des Moules
 * Lowcountry cuisine
 * Meuniere sauce
 * John M. Olin
 * John T. Edge
 * Oysters en Brochette
 * Persillade
 * Pimento cheese
 * Pompano en Papillote
 * Rational Animal
 * Seafood boil, Frogmore Stew, Beaufort Stew
 * Steen's cane syrup

Articles that I have notably contributed to
hello wik i m back treehugger
 * Antoine's
 * Beignet
 * Bordelaise sauce
 * Cocktail sauce
 * Cuisine of the Southern United States
 * David Chalmers
 * Galatoire's
 * Gourmet
 * Vertamae Grosvenor
 * Gumbo
 * Fried green tomatoes (food)
 * Food critic
 * Hot Sauce
 * Howard Mitcham
 * Jambalaya
 * King Cake
 * Louisiana Creole cuisine
 * Meditations on First Philosophy
 * Pain perdu
 * Persian (roll)
 * Pistou
 * Po'boy
 * Red beans and rice
 * Remoulade
 * Steak
 * Talk:Shrimp
 * Washington University in St. Louis

Wikiprojects I am involved in

 * WikiProject Food and drink
 * WikiProject Philosophy
 * WikiProject Philosophy of Mind
 * WikiProject Categories
 * WikiProject New Orleans

Wikiosophy
For a while after I started contributing, I was pretty much unaware of the Wikiwars going on just under the surface. This changed when an article I had gone to several times had an deletion AfD notice on it. Why would anyone want to delete an article that other people go to? I still have not found a good answer to this question. But I did learn about the alphabet soup of policeies and guidelines: WP:N, WP:V, WP:Not and all the rest. I began to get involved in the WP:AfD process, usually in support of keeping an article. I have strong inclusionist tendencies, but it is also clear that there are plenty of articles that come into Wikipedia everyday that should be deleted. Anyone doubting this should dip a bucket into the river of New Pages. But of course the question is how to draw a line between what stays and what goes. That is what the inclusionism/deletionism tension is about. And since I have chosen to get involved I should provide a sketch of my principles.
 * There is no room for malice. I have never had much patience with the, "it was just a joke" defense of prima facia cruelty.
 * Wikipedia is a project to produce a free content encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone. (see History of Wikipedia) This openness is an essential feature and for me it implies a fundamental populism in deciding what shape it should take. The AfD battles that I weigh in on usually revolve around the 'worthiness' of a topic for inclusion in an encyclopedia. If there are people who want to create and edit an article and then come to see it, the presumption should be that it belongs here. Reality TV shows are an example of this kind of debate. I happen to think that most Real/TV is dreck. But that doesn't matter. Lots of people enjoy it and some of them want to create articles about these shows and the people on them. But many of these get swept up into the AfD process on the grounds of a lack notability (WP:N).
 * There are five particular policies that help flesh out the essential nature of Wikipedia and as such should should be the grounds (in the usual cases) for deciding that an article should be removed: Verifiability WP:V, Neutral Point of View WP:NPOV, No Original Research WP:NOR, Copyright Violations WP:CV, and What Wikipedia is Not WP:NOT.
 * There are also a number of guidelines (not official policy) that are used in evaluating these policies: examples are WP:NN, WP:BIO, and WP:CB. They are in effect tools that can be used in deciding whether or not polices are violated.
 * Too often AfD debates are not about policy; instead they are about the status of a particular tool. A common example is 'notability' WP:NN. The rationale for notability as a guideline for deletion is that Verifiability, Neutral Point of View, and No Original Research are less likely to be violated when the subject has a minimum level of notability. Not unreasonable. But too often AfD debates involving notability are really debates about whether a given topic is 'encyclopedic' enough.
 * The worst kind of debates, in my mind, are the cruftwars. Two essays (not policy, not guidelines), Fancruft WP:CRUFT and Listcruft WP:LC, are invoked as reasons for deletion. The rational for this is taken from WP:NOT: 'Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of items of information' and 'Wikipedia is not a directory'. But in practice, the charge of 'cruft' is quite often a POV statement about whether or not the material is worthy of being in an encyclopedia.

People who I respect who have differing views:
 * User:Ohconfucius
 * User:Peter Isotalo