Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a spelling checker

 __NOINDEX__
 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the discussion was:  no consensus. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 13:58, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a spelling checker

 * – (View MfD)

A now-banned editor created this essay in October of 2016 and cited it twice in the following days; he never linked to it again, and no other editor has either. I only stumbled on it through a search suggestion while looking for something else. Between the essay's obscurity and its somewhat idiosyncratic slant, this would seem like a strong candidate for userfication, but, given that its sole author has been banned, I propose deletion unless someone would like to take over responsibility for it, so to speak, and have it put in their userspace. -- Tamzin (she/they) &#124; o toki tawa mi. 23:09, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. A sensible project-related essay. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:16, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete or userfy, highly eccentric essay whose ideas will almost certainly never be implemented; should not clutter up search suggestions in the Wikipedia namespace and does not deserve to be there. Graham 87 08:30, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Graham, since you said "highly eccentric", I just had to take a look, and you're right. I have to say, I think I support deletion, though I also agree with the editor--when I checked the history and saw the creator's name it all made sense, haha. But says keep--and SmokeyJoe is no fool. SmokeyJoe, what do you think, given the comments that followed yours? Drmies (talk) 23:15, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I did not examine the technical details argued by the essay. It seems technical, won't hurt anyone who cares, sounds like a productive idea even if it needs to be discussed and heavily refined.  I can come back and look again later.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:19, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I have read the essay slowly, and I disagree that it is highly eccentric, and moreso disagree that it is improper for it to be in Project Space. I have a similar argument, I argue that more redirects like this, likely typos and likely spelling mistakes, like Wikipedians' guess what readers really want when they search for something, should not exist, and that the Wikipedia internal search engine should be allowed to do its function.  These redirects hijack the reader from the better serving internal search engine.  The history of this is that in the early few years, Wikipedia had a terrible search engine.  Redirects rescued readers from the poor search engine.  With the dramatic improvement of the internal search engine, the culture of redirects to help searchers has persisted.  Right now, I consider the search box to be a perversion, it is not "search" but a java suggesting autocomplete, and it takes some effort to go to the bottom of the list to access the read search engine. Also, the author was topic banned, but this was not a ban on writing projectspace essays on redirects.  There is therefore no "banned" argument for deleting.  At worst, this could be userfied noting that we do not delete useressays of blokced editors.  He is probably past his urge of legal threats and probably would be welcomed on return.  I support this essay as a valid opinion relevant to the project, it belongs in projectspace.  It is not idiosyncratic to its author.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:00, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, I wasn't arguing that the essay was a TBAN violation or anything; regardless of the ban's scope, it came after the essay was written. I brought it up only because of the question of whether it makes sense to userfy to a banned user's userspace. -- Tamzin (they/she) &#124; o toki tawa mi. 06:12, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Sure. Deletion of a page created in violation of a TBan is something that crossed my mind and I checked that it doesn't apply.  I don't think that anything bad comes from userfying banned author's essays to their userspace.  Many banned users contributed greatly to the project and their userpages remain valuable resources.  Banning does not mean disappearing.  And his ban is a very soft ban.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:21, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete as this would never be implemented per WP:CREEP. While there are essays out there which act as helpful advice from other editors, this one appears to suggest a policy or guideline change. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 21:38, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete in view of how the essay is closely related to why the editor was banned.
 * The author is saying that redirects for misspelling should not be included as redirects, which, as noted, is an eccentric view.
 * Normally we are tolerant of eccentric views, but essays that are 'too eccentric' belong in user space and not project space.
 * However, the author was first topic-banned from RFD for being a nuisance about redirects.
 * The author then disregarded the topic ban and had to be site-banned, basically for being toxic about redirects.
 * It is not our job to second-guess whether the community was justified in site-banning the editor. We should assume that the community considered the facts better than we are doing.
 * Therefore we should assume that the community was correct in deciding that this editor was all wrong about redirects.
 * Moving anything into the user space of a banned user is silly.
 * So this essay should follow its author into a null device.
 * That is just the way it is. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:05, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Weak keep under the position that essays are explicitly inclusive of minority positions and so deleting one for such sets poor precedent -- but with significant sympathy towards Robert McClenon's arguments. It's a complicated one, and I would userfy without hesitation if it were viable. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 05:28, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep - it's an argument against redirects from misspellings. No objection to it being renamed, but it seems ok for project space. The thing about projectspace essays is anyone can edit them, so if it's too far off-base or if it needs some "no but seriously, we allow this -- what you're reading is just one person's eccentric opinion," then anyone can go in and add [something like] that. I don't think a general argument highlighting possible downsides of redirecting from misspellings is a problem. &mdash; Rhododendrites  talk \\ 22:30, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.