Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wikicide

wikipedia is not a dictionary, much less a dictionary of made-up jargon! someone add this to VfD please -- Tarquin 20:03 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I didnot mean to say the page could not be edited when listed on vfd. I meant to say that the deletion that was proposed was the page with the initial content. Hence, the suggestion that editors see the real content of the page, rather than a link to meta.

We do things like this all the time. Probably half of the listings on VFD are changed beyond recognition before being peacefully removed. It's just the standard way of dealing with such things. It's generally considered courteous to add a note of explanation to VFD, so that the discussion there can adapt to the change. -- Tim Starling 03:27 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

If the editors answer is "delete the page", shall we delete the current content, but keep the link to meta, or shall we delete the page, and break the link to meta. I think the difference between these two options imply that the current content be kept till the editors decide for one or the other on the deletion list.

It doesn't imply that. What we usually do is someone says "it's now been changed to a redirect". Then someone else says "I still think it should be deleted". And then another 3 people come along and say "no, it's fine as a redirect, just leave it there." Then we wait for a couple of days, there's no more discussion, so someone removes the entry. -- Tim Starling 03:27 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Meanwhile, I *don't* think keeping the original content of this page for a week is gonna hurt wikipedia in any sense. Don't you think ? User:anthere

You must want it deleted very badly. What we usually do is fix an article first, and then discuss deletion of the fixed article. This leads to lots of articles being fixed, and not many being deleted. By suppressing the testing of other options, you're forcing the discussion towards the deletion option. -- Tim Starling 03:27 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

do you think so ? Well, I'll put back the redirect if you think that is the best way. ant

Too late. -- Tim Starling 00:35 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

what does that mean too late ? I put it back 12 hours ago. Was not that article supposed to be 7 days on votes for deletion ? What is that s**** Anthère 01:00 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Blame Eloquence. -- Tim Starling 01:17 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Who undeleted this page? It is quite obviously completely useless. Undeleting useless pages is as much an abuse of sysop privileges as deleting useful ones. If you want to link to Wikicide so badly, you can use m:Wikicide, which is much shorter than Wikipedia:Wikicide. --Eloquence 01:54 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Erik. I will just say I do not appreciate your comment I am abusing sysop powers. I personnaly never had the undelicacy to say you were doing so (and I don't think you were). The Wikicide article has nothing to do in the article space, but the wikipedia:wikicide could very well exist as a redirect to meta. I think most people would have accepted that. Now, if you consider for some reason GrahamN is one of these aside wikipedians who has special rights (or rather special unrights) such as Michael and co, you just needed to tell me so. However, I seem to remember an email of you where mention of Wikipedia:votes for undeletion was, where I thought I understood you admitted it was one of these necessary places, where non-sysop people could get the feeling they were regular users. I also had the feeling you were someone respecting procedures. I am not so sure now. What does count more ? that non-sysop users feel welcome and loved or that a not-so important article be deleted immediately rather than after a few days ? How much image and respect does count there ? How much for the feeling procedures written at the top of admin pages are important and should be respected ? How much against the feeling a non-sysop user has no right to peep the content of a deleted article, no right to ask for its deletion, no right to speak up for it ? This was a non-important article, but what you set is an important case. I hope you can understand how unhappy you make me feel. Because if wikicide has no right to be there, you set a wikipedia:wikilove and even wikilove exist in the article page. Why so ? What you did and what you just said was very un wikilove.

as for my crime, undeleting two times a page, a first time because someone ask for its undeletion, the second time because it was redeleted against the rules set at the top of the page were it was listed, and if this is enough crime to grant an unsysoping, you know the place. Either you go straigth to the base and unsysop me or you do it properly, set a User:anthere/unsysop and follow people opinion. You know perfectly well why I agreed for being sysop, mostly to have the ability to see and retrieve lost articles. Because *you* opposed (for reasons I agreed with in the end) regular users the right to see deleted articles. Well, if this type of activity is not welcome and me not welcome here for trying to provide a *little* bit of balance and trying to maintain a semblance of equality, just unsysop me. And please no one complain if votes for deletion is not respected by some users. Wht should it when even developers don't respect it ? It is a bit easy to say people should be banned when one does not agree with another editor action, or to say people should be unsysop when one does not agree with another sysop action. With other good people such as Martin equally stopping to do these kind of good things, I think you prepare a difficult place. Can't people here just say "I disagree with what you wrote" or "I disagree with what you did as a sysop" ? This is perfectly ok. Why do they have to immediately throw, more or less nicely "ban her" or "that is a case a abuse of sysop power". ICould perhaps people look at their own action before immediately falling on others with aggressivity and unlove ? Now, next time I do something, it will be looked upon with suspicion. Just because *someone* else (not me) said you abused your power. If you have a problem with that, go talk to GrahamN and set your disagreement you both, please just stop avoiding talking to him to jump on me instead.

How could I "jump on you" if I did not even know that it was you who undeleted the page? Of course, you were one of the prime suspects. We should get one thing perfectly clear: There is no policy to wait 7 days before deleting useless pages. You are not following a rule to the letter by undeleting such pages, you are ignoring a rule we have -- the Wikipedia:Policy on permanent deletion of pages explicitly states that "if the page contains no useful content or history, this step may be skipped." This is what I did in the case of the "Wikicide" article.

That article was created by User:Harry Potter, who has created lots of pages about words he made up, such as "New World Negationism", in spite of having been repeatedly asked not do so. Because these contributions were removed or edited, he was apparently pissed off and created the "Wikicide" page out of hostility towards a supposed "cabal". Trolls like Graham obviously love pages like this, because they can use them to troll other users: "Look, XY committed Wikicide!" Note the connotations with genocide and homicide.

Your repeated comparisons of the Wikicide page with Wikipedia:WikiLove are entirely off-base. WikiLove is a concept that was first popularized by Jimbo Wales, and now forms one of the foundations of Wikipedia. It is a good idea, as long as it is not falsely interpreted to mean "anything goes". True, both words are made up, and that's why they should not be in the article namespace. But "Wikicide" does not belong in the Wikipedia: namespace either. It is a word that, because it is so highly emotionalized, cannot be used in accordance with WikiLove. This (and its lack of any actual content beyond the pseudo-definition) makes it completely useless, justifying immediate deletion. I would support removing it from Meta as well. Unfortunately, the rules on Meta are much less strict than on Wikipedia proper, and a lot of useless junk is tolerated there. At least we have now the basic rule that material there must be related to wikis or Wikipedia -- that rule itself was initially met with resistance.

Having a link or redirect to the meta page in the Wikipedia namespace effectively condones the use of the "Wikicide" phrase, which is completely in contradiction with WikiLove and Wikiquette. I don't think you would make any such argument for a page called "Wiki-faggots" or "Wiki-niggers". But fundamentally, the same arguments to delete apply to the Wikicide page. This is why the page should stay removed and kept removed. Repeatedly undeleting it and arguing about it brings trolls out of the woodwork -- they love such debates, where they can get lots of feedback to their trolling (remember that the primary motivation of the troll is to be fed).

Your concerns about the deletion process are completely unjustified, as I have already explained -- there is no rule which was not followed. Sysops can delete pages even from the "Votes for deletion" page before the time has passed if they contain no useful content. This has been the consensus for as long as I can remember. If you want to make WikiLove your WikiReligion, you should recognize that one of the most important aspects of love is trust -- and I think you have a fundamental problem trusting people. While I generally condone the "Votes for undeletion" page, we must be careful that it is not used to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about Wikipedia. An atmosphere of fear and paranoia about non-existent abuses will only alienate sysops from non-sysops, and make real abuses more likely. Undeleting useless content is always wrong; undeleting it without discussion is also rude towards the person who originally removed it. It would probably be a good idea to make it a requirement to talk to the sysop who deleted a page before utilizing the "Votes for undeletion" page. Sysops are trusted contributors who usually have valid reasons for what they do, whereas pages listed on "Votes for deletion" are typically written by anons or newbies.

I would be more inclined to generally support you if you would be worried about the real problems we have -- people being banned because they have the wrong IP address, concerns that every new user is Michael or DW, witchhunts officially proclaimed by Jimbo, etc. Instead you insist on following rules which do not exist and unilaterally intervene when you shouldn't. Trusting people and discussing disagreements in 1:1 talks before making them public would help a lot in contributing to a more positive working atmosphere. You will find few people as concerned about real abuse of privileges as myself, and I am often the first to act when I see something like that happening. I know many online communities that have been driven to the ground by abuse of powers and very real cabals. Take a look at Everything2, where pages are deleted arbitrarily by "Pseudo-Gods", and all you get is an anonymous notification that your page is gone. I don't want to see something like that happening here. But I also don't want to see a community infested by trolls, with constant paranoia, accusations and "deletion wars". Let's keep an eye open for real abuses, so that when we speak up, people will listen. --Eloquence 22:49 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I answered privately to your public statement.

• Wikicide - Jargon. -- goatasaur 18:29 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)
  • Agenda-driven junk. Delete. Evercat 18:35 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)
  • Google shows that the original contributor is just mad because some admins tried to ban him. --Menchi 13:37 29 Jun 2003 (UTC)
  • I vote to keep it but to re-name it "Wikipedia:Wikicide". I think this could become a very handy term for the labours of those who work tirelessly in various ways to make the Wikipedia project fail. For example, somebody might say "I wonder who's funding the concerted campaign of wikicidal vandalism that we have labelled "Michaelism"?. Or they might say "Somebody tried to ban Harry Potter? Blimey. The wikicidal thought police are really getting into gear now." GrahamN 03:35 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)

• Wikicide listed on Wikipedia:votes for undeletion. See discussion there. Anthere
  • Moved to meta -- Tim Starling 15:46 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • Bring it back please. Can we do it properly just this once? Just to humour me? If the consensus is still for deletion after it has been up on this page for seven continuous days, then it should be deleted. GrahamN 16:05 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • Totally made-up word by User:Harry Potter, presumably for a personal agenda. A search for the word "wikicide" in all talk, user, wikipedia, and article namespaces turns up only this article and its associated talk page. A Google search for same turns up only two links to Wikipedia. I would support its permanent deletion, and support User:Eloquence's decision to delete it without waiting the requisite week, as it seems to me little more than vandalism. If an anonymous contributor came here and posted a new article defining the word "Blibbityblabbity", would we wait for a week to delete it? -- Wapcaplet 17:46 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • Yes we would, if we respected the democratic nature of this place and respected other people's right to express themselves. As I think I said before, personally I think the concept of "Wikicide" is a useful one, although the article should have been named Wikipedia:Wikicide, and the current page should be changed to a redirect,as with countless other made up words such as WikiLove, Wikiquette, Wikipedian, etc. However I don't care that much about it, and I seem to be in a minority of two, so I do not object to the page being deleted (or moved to meta, which amounts to the same thing) after it has been up on this page for a week. What I do object to very strongly is administrators acting like an autocratic elite and taking it upon themselves to make these kinds of decisions on the spot and without consultation. GrahamN 22:45 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)
    • What do you mean "bring it back please"? Do it yourself, fool! This is a wiki! The previous revision is still saved, just revert my edit! I don't need to list a page for a week on "votes for typo fix" before I fix a typo, and nor do I have to wait a week to move a page to meta. As for moving it to Wikipedia:Wikicide, the Wikipedia namespace is for policy and documentation. If you have a look at Wikipedia:Meta-Wikipedia, you'll find that this is precisely the kind of content Meta-Wikipedia is intended for, and if you head on over to meta:Main Page you'll find that's where material such as this has accumulated. -- Tim Starling 23:04 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • The fact that GrahamN thinks that an article called "Blibbityblabbity" should be listed for a week before being deleted speaks volumes about his role in this and other debates. He is just pushing a nonsensical fanatical policy that is not based on wiki rules but on his own agenda. No wonder he drove User:Zoe away. It seems to have escaped his attention but we are not creating a place for people "to express themselves", we are creating an encyclopædia!!! This is not a place for playacting and posting, but supposed to be a serious endeavour. Is Wikicide encyclopædic? No. Is it a valid dictionary term? No. Is it an agenda-driven makey-up term, yes!! If it belongs anywhere it is on the meta, nowhere else. FearÉIREANN 23:20 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • Eh ! Wikilove everyone ! (a totally made up word as well). Anthère

• Wikipedia:Wikicide listed on Wikipedia:votes for undeletion (I left aside the wikicide which had nothing to do in the article space)
  • I am awfully procedurial (?) sometimes. I think if some people ask that a decision made by a sysop be reconsidered, they should be given a right to speak their opinion and be involved in the process. The article previously deleted was undeleted after request. It was deleted again after 2 days on this list. I think this is wrong. The top of this page is talking of 7 days, s

o 7 days it should be. If 7 days is too long, then the rules should be changed. But right now, it is 7. Boudiou ! This is getting stupid !Anthère

• 03:19 30 Jun 2003 Eloquence deleted "Wikicide" (idiosyncratic junk)
  • It had only been up on "votes for deletion" for two days. People who demonstrate that they can't be trusted to follow the rules should be struck off as administrators, in my opinion. GrahamN 04:07 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)
    • "Wikicide is the malicious destruction of wikipedia pages in pursuit of imposing some sort of absolute frame of reference one-sidedly seen as 'neutral' point of view." This meets my definition of "no useful content"; see Wikipedia:Policy on permanent deletion of pages. --Eloquence 04:47 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)
      • I fully accept that it meets your definition of "no useful content", but there are at least two wikipedians who disagree (Harry Potter and me). The policy doesn't say that the "votes for deletion" stage can be skipped if a single administrator thinks the article contains no useful content. The way we make decisions here is by consensus. As it turns out, almost certainly your opinion is the consensus opinion, but that has to be demonstrated. The way to do that is to put it up on votes for deletion for a week and to let all-comers have their say. GrahamN 17:42 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • To Graham: you mean struck off as developer, I think. Eloquence is one of the 6 highly trusted users with a developer account, and the only one who is also an active editor. -- Tim Starling 04:51 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)
    • This is the "don't-you-know-who-I-am?" defence, as invoked by corrupt politicians and drunk-driving policemen. Sorry, pal, but I don't care if you are the King of America, you are no more important than the rest of us and you must abide by the rules. GrahamN 16:29 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)
      • You replied to my strawman but you forgot to reply to the comment of mine which deals with the actual issue. See below. -- Tim Starling 07:18 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)
        • But this is the actual issue! Administrators who habitually overstep the limits of their authority (especially those who appear not to understand or respect the reasons for those limits being there), should be slapped down very hard indeed. As for the page itself, personally I think what you say below is about right, but any decision must be made by consensus, not unilaterally by a single wikipedian, no matter how well respected. Do you agree? GrahamN 01:53 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • Forgot to say: the proponents of this idea can resurrect it in meta or in the user namespace -- those are the proper places for personal views about the nature of Wikipedia. There's not much point in undeleting it when you have the entire text quoted above. -- Tim Starling 06:29 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)
  • This is GrahamN's traditional argument. He sees the deletion of any page by a sysop if it has not been listed for the full week (to the second) as an abuse of power. Would someone please explain the rules to him about deleting junk, and also how non-sysops who cannot automatically delete junk on sight (as is the rule) put it on the VfD page, where it is picked up by a sysop and deleted. GrahamN's tantrums on this issue are getting tedious and seem more connected to his paranoid "abuse of power by people who have it" conviction than anything else. FearÉIREANN 02:46 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • I think it's more important to ensure continued trust between sysops and other users than it is to save a few bytes on VfD. If there is a dispute about something being taken off VfD after less than a week, why not just put it back on? It's really not worth having a row about. -- Oliver P. 06:42 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • The continued trust between sysops and other users is not at stake here. This is just one whinging user among 800 Wikipedians. GrahamN: if Wikipedians are oppressed by a "vocal minority", where are your supporters? I don't see any.
    • I do have this feeling sometimes :-). Certainly strong enough to support this page creation. I undeleted the wikicide, because I think it is perfectly ok that someone complains about a deletion, and ask that the right process be followed if he thinks it was not. For the record, I don't think this page is interesting to keep, and I think there was nothing wrong with Erik deleting it on sight. But, Graham has also the right to support the opposite. I think there will be more trust between regular users and sysops, if the regular users have the right to give their opinion, and see their opinion respected. User:Anthere
    • What she said. :) In addition, I think it's good that GrahamN is keeping an eye open for potential abuses of power, and I support his right to bring any which he suspects to our attention, whether I share his suspicions or not. However, I think that his suggestion that Erik's sysop powers should be removed is rather an overreaction. -- Oliver P. 10:35 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • I'm not "keeping an eye open". I'm really not here that much any more, and when I am I try not to look for abuses of power, because it just makes me cross and takes the fun out of this place. I have tabled a suggestion in Meta-Wikipedia at Talk:Deletion management redesign, which I think may have the potential to end all this kind of unpleasantness for good. I'd be interested in people's reactions. GrahamN 15:53 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • There are no abuses of power. Sysops are empowered to delete rubbish on sight, as all the relevant pages states unambiguously. Mistakes may be made, which is why the undeletion power exists. Only one person has produced any unpleasantness and that is GrahamN. Instead of saying 'I think this individual made a wrong judgment cal'l, in every case he has responded with a torrent of personalised abuse, accusing sysops of becoming mini-dictators when they do their job. The scale of his venomous abuse drove Zoe from wiki. His latest vicious attack was on Eloquence, when all Eloquence did was make judgment call, a correct judgment call in deleting an article that is not an encyclopædic entry but a POV agenda piece that has no justification for existance in an encyclopædia page; at best it could be on a meta page, but even that if highly questionable. The Votes for deletion page is for deleting articles on wiki that are of questionable accuracy or or dubious enclopædic content. Stuff that has no encylopædic content and is purely a bit of vandalism is always deleted on sight, it being no different to the article put on last night about someone's cat called Milli, , or many other such pages which were deleted on sight yesterday. Only pages which are open to the potential of becoming encyclopædic, etc go onto the VfD page. If every article had to be listed there, the page would hit 70K every week. Sysops have the responsibility, explicitly laid out in the rules, to keep an eyes out and sort out the the salvagable from the unsalvagable. The former go to the VfD page, the latter are deleted on sight. This page is here to deal with any mistakes that might inadvertently be made. But unless GrahamN stops trying to unilaterally to change the rules everyone else has no problem with, by slandering the motivation of hard working sysops, then then best contribution he can make to wiki is to quit altogether. His attempts to intimidate people out of doing their jobs, or in the case of Zoe intimidating her off wiki altogether, and nothing more than bullyboy behaviour of the sort practiced by DW and Michael. They got banned for it. FearÉIREANN 19:38 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • You are being completely ridiculous, as I am sure you know. I've made no "venomous personal attacks" (except once, maybe, under extreme provocation, and I regret that, even though it was nothing more than an honest reply to a direct question along the lines of "what have you got against me?"). As I said on my talk page, I've not driven anybody anywhere. Zoe asked me some direct questions and I gave her direct answers. If she didn't want to know, she shouldn't have asked. It's a shame she stormed off like that, but I don't feel the slightest bit responsible for it. I have certainly not uttered "torrents of abuse", nor intimidated anybody. On the contrary, I seem to be the one who is under personal attack from you and the other members of your gang. I've not tried to change any rules, I've just pointed out on a couple of occasions when I have happened to notice that administrators were disregarding a rule that already exists - the one about leaving things up on votes for deletion for a week before making a decision. GrahamN 22:30 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)
    • Graham's "direct answers" to Zoe are available for all to see at the top of Graham's talk page, but it seems appropriate to quote part of it here. After this was posted, Zoe's only further edit was made later that day. -- Tim Starling 01:52 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

      Yours was not the action of an honest and trustworthy person. I was wrong to trust you, and I won't make that mistake again. I now treat all your actions with suspicion, and I recommend others to do likewise. I have grave doubts about your real motives for hanging out here and making yourself so ostentatiously useful around the place.

  • Your utter inability to read and understand the rules remains astonishing. There is NO SUCH RULE that says items that items requiring deletion must be listed on the VfD page. There is a rule that says that stuff which is in effect salvageable and debatable must be listed for deletion for one week. Sysops are EXPLICITLY EMPOWERED to remove some stuff from wiki without putting it on the VfD page first. In addition some of the stuff that is put on the VfD page is stuff that should have been deleted straight away, but instead of being found by a sysop first was found by a non-sysop. Some people leave notes saying 'please delete this' on the talk page or summary box. Others put it only the VfD page. Sysops look down through the list of the VfD page to see are there things listed on there that should be deleted on sight. If there are, they are deleted. If they weren't the page would regularly exceed 32K and so could not be entered by IE browser users to debate genuinely debatable articles. Clogging the page up with articles about a cat named Milli because it happened to have been found by a non-sysop who to draw attention to it listed it on the VfD page is unworkable. The 'my cat is Milli' crap was found by sysops (2 of us, when the creator tried to put in on again) and automatically deleted. If it had been put on the VfD page by someone who could not instantly delete it, it would have been deleted by the first sysop that found it there, not left taking up space. (Similarly, some people who don't know about Michael, put his stuff on the VfD page. If it is found there it is immediately deleted, because it belongs to the 'delete on sight', not 'debate for a week before deleting' category. As to Zoe, you abused her relentlessly and called for her sysop powers to be removed because she supposedly "abused" her powers by deleting rubbish rather than listing the rubbish on the VfD page. About Eloquence for doing his job you wrote People who demonstrate that they can't be trusted to follow the rules should be struck off as administrators. That is typical of your rants against sysops, accusing them of abusing their powers when they are doing nothing of the sort. You just blindly refuse to accept the rules and like Alice in Wonderland think the rules mean what you think they mean and nothing else. You don't own the rules. You don't make up the rules and if you cannot understand the rules, that is a reflection on you, not on Zoe, Eloquence or everyone else. FearÉIREANN 22:59 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • Hmm, while JT is astonished, I think I can see how GrahamN might have got the wrong impression from the various relevant pages. I'll add the pages to my documentation "to do" list. Martin
    • I don't accept that I have got the wrong impression. The policy says: Pages (and images) to be deleted should be listed on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion before deletion takes place ... If the page contains no useful content or history, this step may be skipped. For example, a page containing only "xsfsfskfj", or "You've followed a link to a page that doesn't exist yet..." may be deleted. Whatever your opinion of its worth, Harry Potter's stub article on Wikicide made considerably more sense than "xsfsfskfj". The policy doesn't say that the stage can be skipped if in the opinion of one administrator it contains no useful content. Please see my response to Eloquence, above. Guidelines 1 and 2 say Use common sense and respect the judgment and feelings of Wikipedia participants. When in doubt, don't delete. I don't detect much respect here for the judgement and feelings of Harry Potter. Nor, come to that, for me. As for the article Zoe deleted that I objected to, that was an alleged copyright violation. The policy says explicitly that copyright infringement is not an example of this [no useful content]. So regardless of whether you think it was important, or whether you think I over-reacted, it is crystal clear that Zoe had exeeded her authority by deleting it out of hand. GrahamN 17:42 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • It is hoped that this page will be generally unused :-)

• 21:37 14 Jul 2003 Eloquence deleted Wikipedia:Wikicide ((non-)content of previously deleted article moved to meta)
  • article listed on votes for deletion for only 2 days instead of 7, while discussion was under way.
  • No. The article is not something that belongs on wiki, it belongs on meta. The rules on what belongs on wiki and what doesn't are straight forward. The Votes for Deletion page is about debating articles whose encyclopædic status is debatable or encylopædic articles that may have problems (copyright, language, etc). This article is not remotely within the definition of what stays on wiki and is in the same category as a MyDogHasFleas article, something removed on sight. A debate requires a possibility of two alternative decisions, to keep to delete. If the article is such that keeping is not an option, it is not supposed to be put on the VfD page to start of with. All it would be doing there is taking up space on a page that is limited to 32K. FearÉIREANN 01:18 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I totally agree that the vfd is too long and that one way or another, we should try to remove everything we can for better management. Copyrighted stuff for example could be listed somewhere else or deleted more quickly. Remember, though it is not the case anymore, I have spent 1 year and a half unable to edit pages over 32k :-)

(Let's move away from the problem of this article being in the article space, I think we all agree it does not belong there). However, where I do not agree with you Jt, is when you say, this article belongs to meta, so lets move it there. Problem : there are some meta-articles on "meta", and some meta-articles "here". You seem to imply that everyone agreed this one should be on "meta" and not *here*. Well...why ??? I see some articles here that could be moved to "meta" and some on "meta" that imho belong *here*. How is it decided to keep them here or to move them there ? Till now, it was decided on votes for deletion. How can the line be drawn if it is not welcome on vfd any more ? First opinion is the right opinion ? I have no problem for it to be discussed somewhere else to lighten vfd burden. But if the rules change, let's make it official. Let's not hit on the heads of those still unaware that rules have mysteriously changed. Still, it needs to be discussed somewhere. Perhaps on a common page, such as Wikipedia:votes to move to meta ?

I'll be frank. I like meta. At some point I wanted to put a lot of french stuff in there. I could not because of the utf8 coding. I spent quite a while there trying to clean it up at some point. I think that is an important place. But you would not imagine the amount of stuff that is crudely disposed of there. Just because people are embarassed of it being *here*. So, to ease their mind, hop, "let's put it in that deep shaft that is meta". Trash-article : to meta; Pov rant : to meta; Delirium tremens crisis : to meta. Well, sorry, but I think Wikipedia:meta is not a waste basket. Worse, when moved there, some people just drop the stuff, poorly linking it to whatever they can find, or even making an orphan. Well, sorry, but I think Wikipedia:meta is not an attic. If something is totally irrelevant to Wikipedia, just delete it, if it is relevant to Wikipedia, I think people should have the opportunity to agree or not for it to be put on "meta" or "here". And they should also be offered the opportunity to say if they think any reference to wikicide should totally disappear here, or if it should stay here as a redirect to meta. My feeling of the consensus was that it could be a redirect to meta.User:Anthere

I do not see the point in undeletion, since nobody has made an argument in favour of keeping it, and I cannot see how such an argument could be made. Anybody who doubts this may peruse the article at User:Camembert/Wikicide. --Camembert

Well, see below. User:Anthere

There are no arguments in favour of keeping the page, either below or anywhere else. There is a lot of whining about supposed abuse of sysop powers, but nobody has ever suggested that the page has any worth and should be kept. --Camembert

Thing is Camembert, I absolutely agree with you. I think no one suggested to keep it. No one said it was worth keeping. No one said the content had *any* interest to make it worth keeping. No one. So...why was it moved to meta ?!? Ant (sorry, it was not you at all :-))

(end of moved text)

I just noticed there's a question there which is kind of addressed at me. I was very strongly against this article. I wanted it forgotten about ASAP, and I was prepared to take any action necessary to acheive that goal. I decided that a week-long listing on VFD, no doubt inspiring lengthy discussion, would likely give the article more publicity than it would ever acheive as an orphan redirect. The quickest death possible for this article, I decided, was if the issue was quickly resolved, and the link removed from VFD. I've seen many cases where an article has been replaced with a redirect, and the entry has been removed from VFD the same day. Unfortunately what came to be was precisely the opposite of what I was hoping: there was a large discussion on VFD, then Eloquence deleted it unilaterally prompting an even larger discussion on VFUD. -- Tim Starling 07:03 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I understand your position Tim. I noticed nobody commented what I wrote above. I insist "meta is not a waste basket". The article on meta is listed on votes for deletion. Anthère

In the course of this dispute I have been called "paranoid", an "asshole", a "fool", a "whinger", and a "troll". The first four are probably completely accurate and justified, but the last one is certainly not. Please believe me when I say my motives are pure. I don't get off on unpleasantness - quite the opposite, in fact. I'm sorry if my naturally combative style of discourse has upset some people - that really wasn't my intention. The reason I get so worked up is because I love Wikipedia. I love the way that it is written by and for real people, free from influence of governments or commercial interests. When I see something that makes me suspect that people are trying to destroy the very thing that I love about this place, then I'm afraid I get cross. I may be deluded (I hope I am) but I am not a troll. GrahamN 17:42 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Some belated responses to GrahamN:

I don't accept that I have got the wrong impression.

I think you drew a perfectly reasonable and logical conclusion from the various policy pages, as written. Current practice of some sysops (maybe even most?) differs from that conclusion. This is unfortunate, and we should change either current practice, or the policy pages, or both.

However, I think the approach you've taken - to criticise Eloquence on the basis of the letter of the policy pages - is too much of a legalistic approach. While the policy pages are an important part of what I might loosely call "Wikipedia Law", it's also important to consider common practice, historical precedent, and the results of discussion. Eloquence's broader interpretation of "no useful content" is not universally accepted, but it is quite common. Martin 12:42 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)