User:Milowent/Essays/The Deletionist-Inclusionist Incentive Scale

Among the many reasons editors may choose to develop inclusionist or deletionist philosophies, one should not exclude from consideration the fact that most people are lazy, and would prefer to accomplish something with the least possible effort. In the field of Articles for Deletion, this results in non-optimal incentives for editors to nominate articles for deletion.

In terms of effort required, from most effort required to least effort required:

The Deletionist-Inclusionist Incentive Scale


 * #1: Improving an article on a subject you know little about. This is a difficult task, as you may need to learn a fair amount about a subject matter in order to add useful, verified, information to an article, with an understanding of the relative importance of the information.


 * #2: Improving an article on a subject you know lots about. Perhaps just as difficult as #1, because you may know too much.


 * #3: Nominating an article for deletion after following WP:BEGIN thoroughly. Other than nominating or prodding obvious spam, it can take significant effort to assure yourself that an article truly does not belong on wikipedia before nominating it for deletion.


 * #4: Voting "Keep" in an AFD - To recommend keep in an AFD generally requires an editor to read all the previous comments about the AfD in order for the !vote to have persuasive power.


 * #5: Nominating an article for deletion that "looks like crap to you" . Even the dumbest editor on wikipedia can succeed in having an impact on the project if they can locate a poorly written article in very little time and nominate it for deletion.  If they are lucky, the subject will be obscure and draw little attention aside from one or two other delete votes.  The article will be deleted.


 * #6: Voting "Delete" in AFD - what's easier than typing "Delete per nom"?

Thus, because people are inherently lazy, editors will often choose #5 and #6, and carry on in a merry ignorant way.