Wikipedia talk:Give an article a chance
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[edit] Meh
It's easier and less painful to delete junk while it's fresh. The last thing we want is people spending lots of time an articles that are only going to be deleted. Friday (talk) 00:37, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
- The point is, if you don't know anything about the subject you have no way of knowing it's "junk"--give people a chance to edit the article to include the (unnecessary) assertion of notability, or to list sources. Kurt Weber 19:23, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
- My own question with this argument is, what's the rush to create an article? It's not a time urgent "do it or lose it" situation at wikipedia. I have seen so many hurriedly created articles that say so little that they serve no purpose; they're little more than a Title at the top of a blank sheet of paper if the article doesn't even describe anything notable about the subject. Hasty article creation is as pointless at wikipedia as "reserving a front row seat". Why not create the article when a bit of worthwhile content is ready. I guess I don't understand how anything is lost by holding off on article creation until some basic information is ready to go in it. What value is there to a reader to find an article that says nothing worthwhile yet? Professor marginalia 23:28, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
- love the sinner, hate the sin- don't bite the newbie, but clean up after him. There are places to build articles other than on the mainspace (I'm doing that now with a couple of unimportant projects). How would this work? Would articles have a week? A month? It seems to me much better to take the barely-existing article, move the contents to the user's page to work on (tell them why) and then delete the article from the mainspace without prejudice. Epthorn (talk) 11:47, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
- I think a lot of editors (e.g. me) have a writing style of starting out with a minimal stub and then gradually expanding it as they think of more stuff to add. Another editor might add something to the stub, and then that inspires me to add something else, and over weeks, months or years it becomes a pretty good article. A nomination for deletion is annoying because it forces the issue; and speedying it is especially annoying because then it's necessary to argue about how CSD was applied incorrectly and/or get an admin to retrieve the deleted article text so the article can be reworked. Sometimes I'll be focusing on a larger project and will create a few stubs to clean up redlinks; the intention is to finish the project and then return to those stubs later. A stub is better than no article at all because at least it's a starting point. Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Heavy_metal_umlaut&oldid=832727 . That substub really sucked when it was first added. Should we have speedied it? Sarsaparilla (talk) 13:09, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
- Sarsaparilla is right. Epthorn, what you're suggesting goes against the whole concept of a wiki. On a wiki, articles grow organically. One person starts it with a bit of basic information; other people see it and add what they know, and so on and so forth. Moving it to one's userspace, where almost no one else will see it, makes this collaborative editing and organic growth impossible. Give an article a chance; let a wiki be a wiki. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 15:49, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] The problem with this essay
We really, really need the criteria for speedy deletion to stop the encyclopedia filling up with crap and non-notable stuff. A7, in particular, is vital. Still, if there's even a slight chance of notability, an AfD should be carried out.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 11:53, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
- And in cases where there's no assertion of importance (such that it would fall under the current A7), why not just hit it with a PROD or perhaps some template saying that an assertion of its importance is needed, rather than summarily CSD'ing it. Give an editor a little more time to come up with evidence of importance. The distinction between A7 and notability, by the way, seems kinda blurry. Sarsaparilla (talk) 13:55, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
- There seems to be a lot on Wikipedia that is badly written and only of interest to fans of baseball, American football and professional martial artists (e.g see DAB page for surname "Milligan"). However I don't attempt to get rid of it, as I don't know its significance. Why do some people feel they have a right and duty to delete other people's faltering work, on topics in which they have no knowledge or interest and are unable to evaluate their notability or crucial position in a network of connected articles? Vernon White . . . Talk 14:26, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
- Perhaps we should be looking at coordinating this with other policy pages, and upgrading it to a guideline. But remember its hard to distinguish between absolute junk, and what one or two editors think is absolute junk. DGG (talk) 04:05, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
- Not really. If it's blatant nonsense, or if its existence cannot be verified, then it's absolute junk. Otherwise, it's perfectly acceptable. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 06:14, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
- Perhaps we should be looking at coordinating this with other policy pages, and upgrading it to a guideline. But remember its hard to distinguish between absolute junk, and what one or two editors think is absolute junk. DGG (talk) 04:05, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
- There seems to be a lot on Wikipedia that is badly written and only of interest to fans of baseball, American football and professional martial artists (e.g see DAB page for surname "Milligan"). However I don't attempt to get rid of it, as I don't know its significance. Why do some people feel they have a right and duty to delete other people's faltering work, on topics in which they have no knowledge or interest and are unable to evaluate their notability or crucial position in a network of connected articles? Vernon White . . . Talk 14:26, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Criteria for Stubs
I saw this quote in the Community Portal: "Stubs should only be deleted when there is no reasonable hope that they will ever cease to be stubs." For what it's worth, I'm not sure every encyclopedia article needs to be lengthy. I've written a number of stubs that (I humbly think) are notable, but will never be more than stubs. For instance Albinus was an important Platonist philosopher who belongs in an Encyclopedia, but we simply don't know more than two paragraphs about him. Jonathan Stokes (talk) 07:43, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Article Security Advisory System Color Chart
In the interests of article security, it is important that new articles progress through these levels as rapidly as possible. Indeed, given the threat posed by new page patrollers armed with Twinklified speedy deletion templates, it may be advisable to work on new articles offline and post them to Wikipedia only when they are fully ready for successful FA candidacy.
Collaboration schmollaboration.
| Label | Threat Level | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Stub {{Stub-Class}} |
Severe | Severe risk of deletionist attack. |
| Start {{Start-Class}} |
High | High risk of deletionist attack. |
| B {{B-Class}} |
Elevated | Significant risk of deletionist attack. |
 GA{{GA-Class}} |
Guarded | General risk of deletionist attack. |
| A {{A-Class}} |
Guarded | General risk of deletionist attack. |
 FA{{FA-Class}} |
Low | Low risk of deletionist attack. |
Synthesized from Homeland Security Advisory System and Template:Grading scheme.
Chin Chill-A Eat Mor Rodents (talk) 16:49, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
