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While your first point may have merit, lets just consider your second point for a second. You say that it's ridiculous that to revert a community decision on a

While your first point may have merit, lets just consider your second point for a second. You say that it's ridiculous that to revert a community decision on a major international knowledge resource, someone should have to learn about their policies. Is it really that 'retarded'? I actually went and followed the instructions while actually paying attention, and I found that the header of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review fully explains the situation, and within 2 clicks you can be instructed on what to do and where to do it. This process is only opaque or difficult if your attention span is such that reading two paragraphs is a strain. Given that the writer of the original article didn't even bother to read the email he was sent then I think we can assume that the fault lies there.

tptacek 15y ago
And, again: he could simply have clicked on the highlighted name of the admin who deleted the article, prominently displayed on the Wikipedia landing page for the deleted article, and then, like a human being, asked what to do next. He would have gotten a straight answer.
philwelch 15y ago
It's not insurmountable, and if the stated purpose of the project is to exclude the input of insufficiently dedicated contributors then it's even a good idea. But if your tagline is "the free encyclopedia anyone can edit" and you allow anonymous edits from people who don't even have user accounts, you should at least have some type of clear venue for someone to suggest relevant facts and provide relevant sources and citations for, say, the "notability" of deleted article subjects. Then the insiders could judge those facts and sources and handle the bureaucracy themselves, or else explain the rationale, rather than shuffling him around the system with a thick instruction manual and a "do it yourself". Or you could have a deletion policy that's less complicated in itself. When I was a heavy contributor to Wikipedia and actually knew all these dumb policies, people argued that notability shouldn't be a criteria and verifiability was the only truly necessary criterion for including content. I find it hard to argue with that.

tptacek 15y ago

And, again: he could simply have clicked on the highlighted name of the admin who deleted the article, prominently displayed on the Wikipedia landing page for the deleted article, and then, like a human being, asked what to do next. He would have gotten a straight answer.

philwelch 15y ago

It's not insurmountable, and if the stated purpose of the project is to exclude the input of insufficiently dedicated contributors then it's even a good idea. But if your tagline is "the free encyclopedia anyone can edit" and you allow anonymous edits from people who don't even have user accounts, you should at least have some type of clear venue for someone to suggest relevant facts and provide relevant sources and citations for, say, the "notability" of deleted article subjects. Then the insiders could judge those facts and sources and handle the bureaucracy themselves, or else explain the rationale, rather than shuffling him around the system with a thick instruction manual and a "do it yourself". Or you could have a deletion policy that's less complicated in itself. When I was a heavy contributor to Wikipedia and actually knew all these dumb policies, people argued that notability shouldn't be a criteria and verifiability was the only truly necessary criterion for including content. I find it hard to argue with that.