ZineWiki:Deletion Policy discussion

Deletion Policy discussion

This article will serve all discussion related to the Deletion Policy. Before we can set hard and fast rules for deleting articles, I think we need to first define:

• what falls into good articles for ZineWiki
• what falls into bad articles for ZineWiki
• and how broad or narrow we want to focus ZineWiki

Replying

I’ve started a section for each question below. Please leave your opinions in the proper sections with new replies going at the bottom of each section.

Also, when you reply, it helps visually if you begin with a succession of colons, one more than the entry above yours. ZineWiki will automatically format this to indent your reply, making the discussion much easier to read. Remember to place the same number of colons before each new paragraph of your reply. For example, typing this:

I think that’s a great idea. –Bob

:I agree, we should use that. –Rob

::But you guys are forgetting the point I made earlier. –Sob

:::Oh, you’re right. Perhaps we should discuss it some more. –Bob

Formats like:

I think that’s a great idea. –Bob

I agree, we should use that. –Rob

But you guys are forgetting the point I made earlier. –Sob

Oh, you’re right. Perhaps we should discuss it some more. –Bob

Good Articles for ZineWiki

I think the most important articles on ZineWiki are, obviously, the ones about zines - followed by articles on Zinesters, then probably Events, Distros and then online zines. After those top five come all the articles not specifically about zines, but that somehow relate and/or are of interest to zinesters. This lowest level of importance is where I would put entries about corporate books about zines, books former zinesters wrote, videos made by former or current zinesters, etc.

Below even those articles, I would place the production technique articles. Those defining photocopier or saddle stitch, etc. Alan Fall of Autumn 08:59, 2 October 2006 (EDT)

Bad Articles for ZineWiki

Any article that does not relate directly to zines. For example, this could include articles about Stephen King (I doubt anyone would be creating an entry for the zine his brother, David, and he made in third grade called ‘’Dave’s Rag’’), Fall Out Boy (I don’t care how long they were on an indie label, or that the band the members were in previously fought against ‘privilege’ and stood for DIY ethics, etc.) or articles debating the necessity of wearing pants (trying to catch TIS before he registers).

To sum that up, any article that doesn’t relate, clearly, to zines is probably just taking up space. Now, yes, it’s true that our encyclopedia is not written on paper – however – unlike Wikipedia, my server has a limit. Currently, ZineWiki is at 7% of its full capacity. Which may not sound like much, but take into consideration, that’s only with 600 articles and only a third of those have images. I’d eventually like to have images at 100% for the articles, and at that rate, we would max out somewhere around 4 or 5,000 articles. (unless we can do some sort of fundraiser and Al can buy additional servers) Alan Fall of Autumn 08:59, 2 October 2006 (EDT)

I like the criteria you've started to spell out and would probably expand it something like: "All articles should be directly related to zines, zinesters or the zine community." For other types of media beyond actual zines and other types of resources, it has become evident we need to spell things out a little more. I'm just gonna throw out ideas for people to start thinking about:

Events- Should be zine-related and feature zinesters or zines.

Distros- Should distribute zines.

Retail Stores- Should sell zines or regularly host zine readings or events.

Chapbooks- Should be published by someone that has previously published a zine or the content directly relates to zines.

Magazines- Content should be directly related to zines or zinesters (examples- Punk Planet features dozens of zine reviews each issue, covers the zine community, and is mostly written by zinesters. Clamor is done by a fairly prominent zine publisher and reviews zines. Bitch began as a zine and covers zines regularly.)

Soundfiles- Should be directly related to zines (Example: Zinester Podcasts).

Online Zines- Total gray area, not only does it bring up the zine vs. e-zine debate, but there are thousands, they can disappear or stop getting updated almost as soon as they have something written about them, they also could dilute the focus of the Wiki away from print zines. I think we need to explore some criteria here.

Music- Should be directly related to zines (contain lyrics referring to zines).

Movies- Should feature significant content about zines or feature zinesters (Example: zine documentaries).

Books- Should be about zines or the content directly relates to zines. If they don't mention zines at all, they aren't appropriate.

Since books were recently the hot topic for discussion and created the need for clarifying what content isn't appropriate for ZineWiki, I'd like to follow up on this. Tom Musea recently posted a long book review as an article, when it was questioned by Alan, then later me, he argued that we should include full articles for every indie book written by someone somehow associated with the zine community, regardless of the content. I think this is too broad and will both lose the focus of this Wiki on zines and open the door for indie book publishers and authors to add hundreds of non zine-related book listings and reviews. I would suggest for non zine-related books written by previous zine publishers, that info is more appropriate for the zinester's bio, rather than full articles. See: Jim Goad and Sasha Cagen for examples of how we are currently doing this. Instead of listing a bunch of books that are not directly related to zines, create a bio for the author listing all their zine and non-zine related writing, and then create seperate articles only for their zine-related publications. I think this approach would work accross the board, not just with books. (Music Example: Prominent zinester Aaron Cometbus was in the band Pinhead Gunpowder, rather than writing a seperate article about his band, that info should be included in his bio. Movie Example: Seth Friedman was featured in the movie "Capturing the Friedmans," this info should be included in his bio, not as a seperate article.) dan10things 13:40, 2 October 2006 (EDT)

Broad or Narrow

All the above taken into consideration, I don’t want to limit our scope too much. We should attempt to be as inclusive as possible. But already there are too many promotional articles that need editing, too many articles that are barely a sentence more than “available at this distro and here’s my email address and and…” – that info all changes and that’s not what an encyclopedia is about. Articles should be factual and should read just as well five years from now as they do today. Alan Fall of Autumn 08:59, 2 October 2006 (EDT)

Deleting Articles

I think before deleting an article, we should put it to vote. To nominate an article that you believe should be removed, edit the page and place {{Delete}} (to see a preview, click here) at the top of the page. We could then put it to vote on the Talk page and decide whether to keep or delete based on majority rule, with voting lasting for exactly one week. Thoughts? Alan Fall of Autumn 11:30, 2 October 2006 (EDT)