The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Keep. This is an essay, and reflects the views of many editors. It is not a policy or guideline, and if being argued as such in other debates that should be pointed out. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:13, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Fancruft[edit]

The contents of this ESSAY are being taken too seriously resulting in articles becoming hollow shells. See Llama man's recent edits to Mario Parties to see what I mean. Henchman 2000 19:20, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete: The articles that fall victim to this essay become worthy of deletion themselves. These edits are not constructive contributions but are instead mass blanking. Cruft is just used as a lame excuse. Bowsy 19:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep: If an essay is being treated as policy by some, that is not the fault of the essay and not a reason for deleting a point of view that clearly is shared by many WP editors. Nareek 19:41, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Lesbian Delete, NN-vanispamwikipedofancruft... Ah, who am I kidding? This is too useful and common a thought to be deleted. Extreme Keep (for reals!). --Gwern (contribs) 19:58 8 January 2007 (GMT)

"Lesbian Delete"? Bwithh 03:10, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Google "Extreme Lesbian Support RFA Wikipedia"... Titoxd^(?!?) 01:26, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Cruft isn't just a lame excuse. If we allowed more and more cruft into Wikipedia articles, then it would look like GameFAQs before too long. –Llama man^{sign here} 21:04, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong keep. It's important and necessary, even if one doesn't always agree with it. The Crow 22:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Speedy keep. It's an essay, for crying out loud, and one with a long history on Wikipedia. — BrianSmithson 22:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Week keep I have to agree that editors all too often cite this essay as if it a policy or guideline. However, the essay does make some important points about excessive information that shouldn't should be deleted outright. So instead, I recommend that administrators start discounting comments such as "Delete as *cruft" in AfD discussions if no additional policy or notability based arguments are made. Also, the essay should have a section about how to deal with "cruft" in articles in a more productive way. --Farix (Talk) 23:08, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep, however remember this. Daniel.Bryant ^{[ T · C ]} 00:28, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's clearly marked as an essay, not a policy, please don't cite it =) =) =) --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 11:49, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep and if you disagree with the essay, edit it! BreathingMeat 01:29, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep as above Bwithh 03:10, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong keep So what if the pages are becoming "shells." If the subject matter is nothing more than just fanboy/fangirl crap, maybe the subject doesn't even deserve its own article. Groink 03:22, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong keep beyond bad faith nom. JuJube 07:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep I don't agree with everything it says, but I don't go around blanking essays just because I disagree with what their contents. However, I agree with Farix and Daniel.Bryant that people shouldn't be citing it as policy at AfD. We have lots of existing policies like WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:OR, and WP:NOT, to name a few, and they're pretty good. If an article violates one of them, then describe exactly how it does so. Don't just throw around vague allegations of "fancruft". Quack 688 07:46, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep but add a big warning on the top saying it's not policy. Fancruft should be a way people edit, not a way people delete. I think we need to enforce that. -Ryanbomber 12:22, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  I doubt that any amount of warnings on the essay itself will fix the problem with editors treating it as if it were policy. What is needed is more people calling the "Delete as *cruft" for the empty arguments that they are and for closing admins to declare them as not better then WP:ILIKEIT and WP:IDONTLIKEIT arguments. --Farix (Talk) 16:27, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  Heh!, I just look at my own wikilinks to find that the "Delete as *cruft" argument is the very example of the WP:IDONTLIKEIT argument. --Farix (Talk) 16:33, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep yes this is a very good essay, just don't cite it as a policy (yes I did on accident) — Arjun 19:27, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Essays taken too seriously? Heck, sometimes we take policies too seriously too, but that's not the reason to delete them, now is it? I see no reason why we should ban citing essays as such, because their viewpoints are often based on general consensus and the accepted policies and content guidelines. Fancruft essay is based on a reasonable, widespread opinion ("proper encyclopaedias are meant to give a good overview, and not go in excessive detail that interests only hardcore fans", and explains how it relates to policies). It's an essay meant to clarify existing rationales. However, if you created an essay titled "Please don't use contractions", and started citing that in deletion debates, it'd be unlikely that it'd be productive because it's not clarifying a big point in WP:MOS (and style issues aren't deletion issues anyway). Essays don't kill articles. People do. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 11:49, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per WWWwolf, and expand per Farix with "closing admins may discount 'cruft' arguments if not backed with more specific references to policies and guidelines". Barno 16:09, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong keep. If there's one pervasive, injurious problem on this encyclopedia, it's that we're overwhelmed with junk trivia. Deleting this excellent essay would reduce our ability to fight the cruft infection. —ptk✰fgs 20:52, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep: Acceptable essay setting forth an oft-found point of view, which does not mean that I necessarily agree with every word of it. Appropriately, labelled as being an essay, not a policy or a guideline. Userfication is not an option because it has had multiple contributors. Newyorkbrad 21:57, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong keep. This is only slightly better than attempting to ram Articles for deletion through MfD because your article was deleted. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 00:07, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Disagreeing with an essay is not grounds for deletion. Sandstein 21:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per all above. Bucketsofg 21:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Speedy keep, I don't like this essay either but it's a definite WP:POINT nom here. --tjstrf talk 03:08, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep a useful essay. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information and this essay applies it well. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 06:54, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete—"fancruft" has a long and painful history of being used in contradiction of policy and to denigrate other editors and their work. It goes beyond being a mere expression of an opinion to being a genuinely harmful thing. Everyking 09:16, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Two problems with that. One, the fact that it can be misused is not justification to delete it, and two, why do you think deleting the essay will stop anyone from using the argument? -Amarkov ^blah_edits 15:18, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep... I hate this with a passion, and how it is abused, but that’s not enough reason to delete it. So keep it, but replace the {{essay}} boilerplate with a specialized one reading, for example, “This is an essay. It is not a policy or guideline, and should not be regarded or cited as one, nor used as justification for edits or deletions.” -- WikidSmaht (talk) 18:30, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Except that it can be used as a justification, it's just important to remember that you can't defend your actions with "Well, WP:CRUFT says so, and you have to change it before we can do anything". -Amarkov ^blah_edits 19:02, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong keep. Like some others who have contributed to this debate, I favor keeping most so-called "fancruft" articles, but we need this essay as a definition of "fancruft", and as a way of stating the viewpoint and arguments behind that word, even if we ultimately wind up rejecting them vehemently. "Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion" (approximate quote from Francis Bacon). In a cooperative wiki project, even those who advocate misguided positions deserve credit; the need to oppose their viewpoints can lead to insight that would otherwise be lacking. We also need clearer recognition of the differences among policies, guidelines, and essays, but that's a separate issue. Policies and guidelines should not cite essays in a way that implies that they are authoritative (many currently do). In particular, "see also" sections in policies and guidelines should strictly segregate links to essays from links to other policies and guidelines (this should itself be made an official guideline!). —Neuromath 08:19, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong keep. It's an essay! and a good one at that. --Larry laptop 11:32, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.