Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/AfD

What a ridiculous thing this is. As an inclusionist, I don't vote in a kneejerk fashion about anything, and I consider myself somewhere in the center on the school issue (I abstain from most cases; if I vote, I prefer that articles on small schools get deleted and large ones kept). This RFC is generalizing to the point of absurdity, and even if it wasn't generalizing, it'd still be absurd, because everyone has a right to express an opinion in the debates even if you think they're voting for the wrong reason. Everyking 14:00, 25 September 2005 (UTC) This is not just about schools. It's about any article where people vote to keep/delete simply because they are an inclusionist/deletionist. Doing so prevents proper thought being put into the discussions, and as such, disrupt AfD to the point where it is unusable. Alphax &tau;&epsilon;&chi; 05:39, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree with you wholeheartedly (even though I consider myself a deletionist) and encourage you to post those comments on the main the page. Soltak | Talk 23:32, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

This has to be the single most pointless page I have ever seen posted on Wikipedia. While it's true that there are too many people who go around calling themselves "deletionists" or "inclusionists" in order to eliminate any original thought in the deletion process, I've always found that it's a better policy to ignore such pointlessness than to get all Joseph McCarthy on their ass. — Phil Welch 06:00, 26 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I've always thought of AIW and AFD as some kind of wikihumor, not to be taken seriously. It's pointless since the fact that people like to call themselves such or such won't change the issue that they will be voting the way they do, even if they're forbade to do so. So i'm a little confusing: there's nothing from stopping users calling themselves the way they want, so if that's the issue, I agree it's pointless. If the issue is that AfD is broken because there are people voting in different ways, I see no problem with that, people will think differnet and have different opinions on what's worth and what not, so I think that RFC was more like another subtle attempting to get away with AfD. It's not like deletionist or inclusionists are indeed acting in concert with the only purpose of disrupt AfD, that's simply not true. Some self-called deletionists even vote keep and some inclusionist vote away. I think I lean on the deletion side, but when I see a wronglly tagged speedy, instead of taking advantage and deleting it, I remove the tag andpresent the case to Afd (or if I don't htink such case exists, simply removing the tag). And I think that most people voting don't act in a mechanical fashion as if they were in a war. -- ( &#x263A; drini &#x266B; | &#x260E; ) 06:22, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

While I agree with some of the sentiment, this RfC is a bit of a joke. We all know AfD has problems. Many of us have issues with organised attempts at pushing an agenda through AfD as well. This is not, however, being done through either the AIW or the ADW - two organisations which have been inactive for months and never did much in the first place (and which, at least in the case of the ADW, were never intended to). There are most certainly issues here, but this broad-based attack on everyone involved with the process is silly. Ambi 15:18, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

It seems fairly silly to me also. Perhaps this should be sent to Afd. ;-) Friday (talk) 15:28, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Schools
If this isn't just about the schools, please provide evidence from AfDs not pertaining to articles about schools. Ac e  tic  ' Acid  03:26, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Done. Alphax &tau;&epsilon;&chi; 04:02, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Ac  e  tic  ' Acid  21:06, 1 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I would still suggest that this dispute is rather limited in scope. Deletionists and inclusionists don't fight over every article and the things you have discussed are certainly not in evidence in every, perhaps not even in a majority, of AfD debates. Schools are certainly contentious at the moment, as are certain roads and the like, but this isn't an epidemic or systematic problem. Soltak | Talk 21:35, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Comments from a "Disciplined Deletionist"
I placed this here because I am neither "outside" (as a self-confessed member of m:Association of Deletionist Wikipedians), nor do I feel that I can speak for Deletionists as a whole.

And that brings me straight to my main point, which is that this RFC paints with far to broad a brush. If there are specific Inclusionists or Deletionists who are problematic &mdash; and I'll be he first to admit that such users exist, as I've butted heads with a few self-proclaimed Inclusionists on my own and other's AFD's myself on occasion, and seen equally misguided Deletionists in action &mdash; then those specific users should be the subject of their own RFCs, whether or not they claim membership in any meta-organization.

As evidence of the overbroadness of this RFC, I humbly submit myself. I track my own AFDs publicly on my AfD page for transparancy, and while I am more likely to cast a delete vote to remove policy-violating articles, I have cast non-delete votes when appropriate as well (see Redir Articles for deletion/Femtillion, Speedy Redir Articles for deletion/Bonny M), one of which was even a Keep vote for a school. Further, if one of my own AFDs is kept, I continue to watch and contribute to the page, because I believe that if it can't be discarded, it must, at a minimum, not suck (see Articles for deletion/Goth slang, the article, and its history).

You may rightly note that i have cast very few Keeps, perhaps only one; the reason for this is that most AFDs which I think are misguided already have sufficient Keep votes to at least force a no-consensus Keep by he time I see them: i.e., the process works, by and large. For myself, I favor Deletionism over Inclusionism because I find the rallying cry to Wikify the sum total of human knowledge misguided at best, and a violation of policy at worst. It has seemed to me from the beginning that obvious violation of WP:NOT should be deleted; I have chosen so far to focus on "slang and idiom guide" as I feel that if that topic is to be covered at all, it should be handled by Wiktionary (where I am also a user). Is that disruptive? I submit that it is not, and challenge anyone to show me how it is without using the word "censorship."

In short (too late) both Inclusionists and Deletionists come in numerous degrees and with varying agendas. If one on either side becomes disruptive, such as by hanging around AFD and voting consistently to keep or delete regardless of the merits of the article in question, by all means bring action against that user. This guilt-by-association tactic smells strongly of a violation of WP:FAITH itself, or perhaps merely shoddy research into user histories. I suggest that it be retracted or reformulated to address a specific issue, rhather than an ideological phantom. --Kgf0 00:55, 2 November 2005 (UTC)