Editing Encyclopedia:Colloquium/archives/December 2006 (section)

== Page deletions ==

I think that we should reconsider when we should use the {{[[Template:main_welcome|main_welcome]]}} template. For the most part, pages with this tag are not getting any extra attention and have no content as it is. I think that such pages should be deleted because many of these pages are not being expanded and will not. I think that this template should be reserved for pages with limited content, but not no content. Pages with no content should be deleted within x amount of days. This is not to say that we should not follow the assume good faith principle, just not use the template so liberally on blank and empty pages. -- [[User:J.Steinbock|J.Steinbock]] 06:00, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
:"Pages with no content should be deleted within x amount of days." <-- Why?<br>"just not use the template so liberally on blank and empty pages" <-- Sometimes a new editor starts a page and then is unable to add anything useful. Often such pages are for valid topics and there is no need to delete them....someone will just create the page again.<br>"pages with this tag are not getting any extra attention and have no content as it is" <-- [[:Template:main welcome]] was created for use on pages with no content. [[:Template:Welcome and expand]] was created for pages with a small amount of content created by a new editor. These templates are not attempts to draw extra attention to pages. If you want to make and use stub templates in order to try to "call attention to" pages with little content, go ahead and do so. All of out "School:" and "Topic:" pages function as content-development projects for subject areas and topics. At Wikipedia it is common practice for WikiProjects to mark pages that are of interest to their participants with stub templates, making it easy for participants in those projects to find pages that need help. --[[User:JWSchmidt|JWSchmidt]] 19:27, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
::"Pages with no content should be deleted within x amount of days." For example, the page [[Kincachoo]] was created on November 1 and does not have any educational content. My point is that a blank page that does not have an established direction is not a very good representation of Wikiversity and should be deleted if no one contributes to it within a certain period of time. I am not saying that pages should be deleted immediately and I certainly do not want to delete pages that are going to be contributed to within the near/distant future, but there are pages that have not had any edits to their name for one or two months. "These templates are not attempts to draw extra attention to pages" <-- By inviting the community to these pages, we are "calling attention" to them. Not a lot of attention, but we place them within the empty pages category and draw a small level of attention to them. To summarize everything, I think that pages which meet the following criteria should be deleted within '''X''' amount of days/weeks/months: 
::* No educational content is added within X days/weeks/months.
::* The page does not have an established direction. 
::* The page does not have the interest of the Wikiversity community (No contributors). 
::* The page does not seem like it will be beneficial to Wikiversity in the future. (For instance, [[Precalculus]] is an empty page that will be of use in the future.)
::I place my trust in your judgment as you have been contributing to Wikiversity far longer than I. -- [[User:J.Steinbock|J.Steinbock]] 20:39, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
:::So far, Wikiversity has only a few ways to deal with blank pages. Some pages are created as acts of vandalism and such pages are are generally deleted as soon as they can be brought to the attention of a custodian (see [[:Template:Delete]]. If there is doubt about the possible future need/development of a page it can be listed at [[Wikiversity:Requests for Deletion]] where there is supposed to be 5 days of discussion. If it seems likely that a page should exist at Wikiversity but content has not yet been added then [[:Template:main welcome]] can be added to the page. Judging by the edit history of [[Kincachoo]], the creator of that page decided that the page was a bad idea. I find it hard to imagine that Wikiversity will ever need such a page. If someone wanted to discuss this creature they would most likely do so on another more general page. [[User:Guillom]] marked it with [[:Template:main welcome]] so if someone wanted to delete [[Kincachoo]] they could leave a note on the talk pages of [[User:Guillom]] and at [[User talk:Jopuppy988]] asking if there is any reason to keep the page. I think the main problem with the 4 criteria listed above centers on potential differences of opinion about things like "established direction" and "The page does not seem like it will be beneficial to Wikiversity in the future". In my experience, many wiki participants either do not make a good faith effort to see the value in short pages or do not understand a subject area well enough to understand the future likelihood of the page being developed. One development path to a good, full-sized wiki page is for one person to start the page and other editors to slowly add more content until the page is mature. It runs against the wiki spirit to set artificial deadlines on the steps in this distributed editing process. "a blank page that does not have an established direction is not a very good representation of Wikiversity" <-- In my opinion, such a page can be a good representation of the wiki process. A blank page in a wiki website acts as an invitation for participants to edit the page. Such an invitation does not hurt a wiki. Some editors recognize that a page should exist, they create the page and try to edit it and find that they are unable contribute anything useful. Why must there be a rush to delete such pages? We could certainly experiment with a new template that would be used to hold a blank or very stubby page for a set duration; if nobody contributes to the page within a certain time then the page could be deleted. Rather than focus on deleting such pages I think we should focus on trying to leave a helpful note on the talk page of people who start pages and do not add useful content. Rather than rush to delete pages we could all pitch in to place them in categories, link them to other pages and add a bit of content. --[[User:JWSchmidt|JWSchmidt]] 00:11, 20 December 2006 (UTC)