Deletion on Wikipedia necessarily centres around the notability of a topic, and to some extent policies such as BLP. In this essay I will attempt to argue that an important, yet rarely considered, aspects of deletion are those of good editorial organisation and "article value".
Editorial value edit
What I am trying to talk about here is the process of logically and consitently organising our material in ways that are helpful to the reader.
So, merging related (but short) topics together. Or removing very short articles where the bulk of interesting material exists elsewhere.
Mergers and acquisitions edit
OK, so the obvious rebuttal to the above is that "deletion is not about merger". However, often this is simply not true. "Articles for Deletion" really is more of a discussion forum.
The idea is that an AFD is not a vote (that being anathema to the community, of course) and yet we are expected to resolve to an outcome of keep/no consensus/delete.
In practice, of course, AFD's are more natural discussions; often the result is "merge".
An example edit
To help illustrate the problem I'll pick a recent example to discuss. Ilya Zhitomirskiy is am article that I voted to delete. Some backgound:
- Zhitomirskiy was one of four founders of Diaspora*, a social network startup that made some noise in tech media circles
- Recently he commited suicide
In those circumstances it isn't altogether surprising that the article was created. But the question that bothers me is "what value does the article have".
At AFD the biography was kept; primarily due to the fact that Zhitomirskiy recieved a full New York Times obituary. I don't really have a problem with that argument; a NYT obit is probably a good indicator of notability.
Notability ain't all that! edit
However, notability isn't our only consideration here. The article currently consists of:
- Brief detail of his early life
- Information about his work at Diaspora*
- The fact that he died
2 & 3 are covered already in the Diaspora* article, the only "new" information relates to his early life.
I question the usefulness or interest of this information in the long term.
Can't hurt edit
Of course, the natural response to such an argument would be to suggest that it can't hurt to have this information.
Equally it doesn't hurt to not have it. And on top of that, not having the detail streamlines the topic for our readers.