Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Requests for expansion

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous 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 Historical - This process has apparently outlived its usefulness, if it ever was useful; however, as a Wikipedia process it should not be deleted but kept as {{historical}} so we can see what doesn't work and so if someday someone wants to really try to make this work again, they don't have start over from scratch. The consensus was overwhelmingly to tag as historical. Doug.(talk contribs) 02:32, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I'm getting some friction on IRC for this, but I'm just going to go ahead and be bold. This project is clearly obsolete and useless. It has a 14 month backlog that only gets bigger, and I see no effort to bring the backlog down besides my own effort (I did get The Brothers Flub expanded at least). Judging from the discussion on the talk page, this project almost never accomplishes its intended purpose of getting articles expanded, and seems to be a complete exercise in futility. Yes, I realize there are 8 zillion {{expand}} templates everywhere, but that's another issue; only a very, very small fraction of articles with "expand" templates are actually at RFE, and issues of expansion can be brought up on article talk pages instead. I therefore think that this project should either be deleted or, at least, tagged as historical to prevent the backlog from getting any more out of control. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • (Broken clamshellsOtter chirpsHELP) 20:43, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note: The expansion tags should definitely not be deleted WolterBot (talk · contribs) can use expansion requests as well as unreferenced tags in its WikiProject reports aimed at getting expert eyes. - Mgm|(talk) 11:15, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, unsurprisingly, per excessive immediatism. This is a potentially useful resource; underexposure to main contributors (I had never heard of it before tonight) does not justify deletion. Just because no one is using it presently does not mean that no one should be allowed to use it, ever. Further, tagging as historical would be largely useless, since the page would still exist and would be seen. This MFD should be closed, and RFE should be promoted as a useful tool to contributors looking to help out. GlassCobra 20:57, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unfortunately it probably wouldn't gain consensus. Perhaps have a bot to remove {{expand}} when it has been on an article for 6 months or so. If by then no one bothered to expand and remove the template it would show that the tag is not helpful for the article in question and can be removed. Garion96 (talk) 17:23, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, and delete all of the {{expand}} templates as well. This is one of several non-specific/unhelpful maintenance categories used in WP. Expansion of articles on this list slowed to a crawl around May, 2005 and now is practically non-existent. Editor time can be used much more productively in other areas. JimVC3 (talk) 02:07, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep the expand template is useful as an indication that someone has looked at an article and made the comment. Its appropriate to have a way of indicating that an article, although more than a stub, is generally inadequate. I don't see the practical point of listing them all, but i see no harm either. DGG (talk) 02:17, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Tag as historical. Marking articles that need expansion more than others with a template makes sense. A centralised place with suggestions doesn't. I found this page by accident, following a misleading link in the expansion tag for Doggerland which said there might be suggestions here. (There are none in the archive.) An alternative, standardised, mechanism supported by participating WikiProjects would be nice, though, and once it is in place this page could be revived as a central list of links to the various relevant project pages. --Hans Adler (talk) 11:34, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually, it has been misleading since January, as there were never any suggestions. If the number of expand template uses mentioned above (8 zillion) is exact, then this might be an indication that there are approximately 4.2 zillion such uses in which the link is misleading in the same way, give or take a few orders of magnitude. --Hans Adler (talk) 20:14, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Tag as historical - The {{expand}} template has enought instruction for its use without a need to have a WikiProject dedicated to tagging articles with the template. The WikiProject's efforts were question in 2004 and that still hasn't changed four years later in 2008. The WikiProject seems inactive and does not seem to have been successful in working to fix the expansion issue. -- Suntag 19:56, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or at least tag historical. It may have made some sense in 2003 for this project but it does not any longer. It makes far more sense to simply make the suggestions on the article's talk page, post requests to topic wikiprojects, and if it is important enough to request attention, tag it and have it show up in appropriate categories. DoubleBlue (talk) 20:06, 25 November 2008 (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.