Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 23:26, 18 May 2009

Yes, this is an ARS MFD.

The Article Rescue Squadron has become an isolated, exclusive project, following much the same path to decline as Esperanza before it. Like Esperanza before it, ARS has a useful purpose on its face. Improving articles up for deletion is a good thing; in fact, I defended the project for that very reason at its last MFD. It is beyond repair because it has little productive use; this project is not necessary for this work to be done. Instead, the project has grown into exactly the thing people feared it would become: a hostile, exclusive group that does little to improve articles. Because of this, I propose its tools ({{rescue}}, {{ARS/Tagged}}) be deleted and the project page be marked historical.

The harm

Its attitude has become poisonous, increasingly portraying "deletionists" (with various euphemisms and an increasing scope of what deletionist means) as enemies of the project.

Let me offer some examples of the attitude this project has engendered.

• You are a delitionists, someone who mindlessly tries to destroy things you don't like for whatever reason. Why are you even on this page? You naively believe you are helping the wikipedia by deleting articles that some would find interesting, which aren't hurting anyone by existing, and which no one would find unless they were searching for them to begin with. That sort of mentality is not compatible with what we are trying to do here. and ...we wouldn't have to work so hard to save articles, if people like him weren't trying so hard to destroy them, and to prevent a chance in the guidelines that would be fair and reasonable, to avoid most of the AFD altogether?
• Article Rescue Squadron is no different from any of the hundreds of wikiprojects, except for its scope. Some wikiprojects have a active delete agenda, you are welcome to search out these projects for support in your views.
• I think you're onto something. Deletionists of no special expertise hang out at "Articles for Deletion" because that function is in the name of AfD. But inclusionists of no special expertise have no 'Articles for Inclusion' to hang out at. That creates an imbalance of excess deletionism. Thus it's logical and beneficial for project neutrality to have a venue like Article Rescue Squadron for inclusionists of no special expertise.
• I think what is "perverse" and troubling ironic, is that the co-architect of many of the notabilty guidelines, which is the number one reason given for most of the deletions, is advising ARS on how ARS should or should not act. (Note that the "co-architect" here is Uncle G.)
• Users with inclusionist and "users against notability" userboxes were mass-invited to the project, as here

Also, watch the response to this MFD. I expect to see some attacks on my person for this nomination, describing me as a "long-time critic" of the project. Watch the comments carefully, and note the tone of defensiveness, as though this project were under attack by outside enemies. Look at (disjointed and disorganized) archives to see how criticism from Fram, or myself, or Uncle G, or Masem, or Randomran has been responded to. This attitude of "They are out to get us and destroy the project, and we must be vigilant and defend against them" is exactly the poisonous attitude this project engenders.

The project's scope has steadily crept outward as well, with various people stating that all aspects of deletion are related to the project.

• In wikiprojects editors with certain interests work together to further the goals of the project, this includes discussing all aspects of deletion.
• The project has been approved to assess the viability of content for the project and vote accordingly.
• Ikip is to be commended for recognising that the sheer scale of deletionists efforts against worthy topic areas needs a collective responce, and ideally a change to policy. (Also note the distinction between "ARS members" and everyone else in the edit summary.)

An RFC was suggested to deal with these problems, but a combination of complete hostility from the project and repeated archival of the RFC proposal by involved editors has scuttled it.

The lack of help

Now, the poisonous attitude and the scope creep are the harm. Conversely, the project just isn't doing any good. I'll let Uncle G's words explain this:

There is, in fact, an identifiable problem with the ARS' structure that I was going to bring up, here. It's exemplified by the recent red cunt hair (AfD discussion) débacle. The problem is that we have "members", who sign up at Misplaced Pages:Article Rescue Squadron/Members. One doesn't get to be an article rescuer by signing a page in the project namespace. One gets to be an article rescuer by rescuing articles. Nothing more, nothing less.

The RCH discussions are a striking example of what has, in recent months, gone seriously wrong with the ARS. There were two editors there who were real article rescuers, since they worked on the article to rescue it when it was at AFD. I worked on the draft (User:Chzz/Hair (unit of measurement)) when it was at Deletion Review. The two real article rescuers were LinguistAtLarge and Phil Bridger, both of whom have rescued articles in the past, and both of whom I've worked with on rescues in the past. (Heck, I'm working with LinguistAtLarge, discussing how to improve had had had had had had had had had had had (AfD discussion), now.) Neither of those people are ARS "members". I'm not myself. But we all three did some article rescue. In stark contrast, we had signed-up ARS "members" who contributed nothing to the actual rescue, but rather spent all of their time in the AFD discussions.

We seem to have a growing divergence between being an ARS "member" and being an actual, honest-to-goodness, article rescuer. And this divergence has been spurred on by the attempts of a few to turn the ARS into a battleground.

If this project isn't needed to rescue articles at AFD, what is it needed for?

In conclusion

I really do believe that, conceptually, this project is well-meaning in theory. Unfortunately, it is now well beyond repair. It has become the armed camp that people feared it would become, and now generates little more than policy evangelism and attempts to limit the policy evangelism. The remaining members of the project are hostile to any suggestion that the project has veered off course, to the point where any critic, regardless of editing history, is villified and rebuffed.

I want to see articles rescued. I cannot see this project in its current form doing anything to make that happen. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 23:26, 18 May 2009 (UTC)