Mitar

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--Alexmar983 (talk) 05:53, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

About your question on deletionism

See Grants:Learning patterns/New users are afraid of doing something wrong.

I can show you how to find lists of to-do articles that noone would probably delete if created. --Alexmar983 (talk) 10:55, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

But I would like to create pages I care about, not what others care about. :-) And I am not afraid of doing something wrong. I just do not like spending time on work which gets then deleted for some archaic reasons. Mitar (talk) 20:56, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

I read your mail right now, what you say it is in my experience all known since years, on various platforms, on different contests. Just to give you an example on itwikipedia a rule states that you cannot leave a deleted article in a draft space. That has no practical sense and it is also confusing because for example most of the time you can leave the draft before publishing but the quality or the relevance is not great as well. There is no difference with that and a discarded article who may need improvement or just time to be more relevant. If you speak with everyone offwiki they all agree the rule is rigid, so I scrolled the history of the page: it was introduced without a real public discussion at 3 a.m, in the night. On one help page, but the other ones do not make clear reference to it so it is quite confusing to learn. Since sometimes it is proposed to move to sandbox during deletion procedures I at least suggested a specific template to propose that so to avoid this rigid output. I was harassed. Do you want to see the links? I show them a lot, they a very nice example on how things (do) not work.

Rules sometimes are not created by ns0 editors but by people who play a "role". One rigid but badly written rule less, one role you can't play. Actually two roles you can't play. So the bad cop erase everything and (s)he is praised because is "on the first line", the good cop move to the draft namespace and (s)he is praised because (s)he "so help newbies", than the bad cop and the good cop after a while never contradict themselves in public so they can share their roles. Or they can play both roles, if they (don't) like someone or if they have a NNPOV, they go one way or the other. Of course the editors pay a huge price, but people who enjoy the systems will always be in the public talk to states that whoever poses a doubt is not experienced enough, is a troll, has to work more on ns0 or that "rules are enough" or whatever.

So when you work with newbies you can show them this reality, and you are criticized because you are not "positive" enough, or you show them how to avoid it as much as possible so they can enjoy and learn.

In any case it is much easier for composite community to find a balance point, so if you want to open a real discussion on enwiki I hope you succeed. It is possible that a simple strategy of moving to draft space will be accepted, because there is a defined draft space there. What is missing, as far as i know, is an efficient control of draft space pages so they do not grow too much, but that can be fixed. You state that an unpublished and unedited draft page can be proposed for deletion. this way all users that spend their time deleting half-decent articles will delete old abandoned drafts. It is still a rule, but if applied rigidly makes much less potential damage. And moving mediocre articles to draft pages will actually increase the quality: you are not throwing things away, so you can be even more rigid because you are only removing them form ns0 in order to give them a second chance, which is not bad. A newbie can get this message.--Alexmar983 (talk) 05:40, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

BTW: it is good that you've asked a public question on the ML. If you had left a message in talk, there would have been a lot of generic principles stated but no real change. Also this debate between deletionism and inclusivism is IMHO a theatre that many people like because they can play the same role again and again. I am much closer to a "deletionist" that has a coeherent position and agree that, in a general framework, rules are not clear than an "inclusivist" that deny there is an issue on a specific discussion if (s)he can use a vague rule or an ambiguity to "save" some content.--Alexmar983 (talk) 07:51, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for these comments. I agree. The simplest would be moving to drafts and then you would have automatic deletion of drafts after a month of inactivity and this is it.Mitar (talk) 07:59, 26 June 2016 (UTC)