Wikiquote:Votes for deletion/Anthony Burgess

Anthony Burgess
Although undoubtedly notable enough, this page is a mess and has had a cleanup tag posted for over two years, without the necessary cleanup being performed. It requires major trimming and reformatting, and unless this is done, the current page should be deleted. If the cleanup and trimming are done, the page could stay. — UDScott 15:27, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Vote closes: 16:00, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete, unless severely trimmed and the formatting is cleaned up. ~ UDScott 15:28, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep, now that the page has been cleaned up - thanks Ningauble! ~ UDScott 15:45, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * STRONG KEEP : Other than nominations of clearly non-famous subjects, I don't agree with most of the nominations for deletion that occur, even of the most stupid of shows, electronic games, wrestlers or other sports and entertaiment figures: simply because I and most other regular editors here have little or no interest in such inanities as many promote doesn't mean I, or anyone else should be the absolute arbiter or tastes of those who do. This, however, is the most blatantly aggressive and presumptive vfd nomination I have seen in a long time — sure the page is a mess and needs MUCH work to get it anywhere close to the generally approved formatting standards — but the page obviously has been worked on extensively by someone, and simply because whoever was interested enough to do it was casually disregarding many of the formatting trivialities insisted upon by others does not mean their work should just be casually eliminated. I say: Keep the page — actually do WORK on formatting it if it bothers you that much — and toss out many of the SCREWED UP presumptions you are operating under: like that if a page doesn't meet some gradually arrived at formatting standards it should be immediately eliminated. I myself probably won't have the time to work on the page much within the next week, but I will probably give a try at starting on it within a few days. ~ Achilles † 16:11, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment: I'm not sure why you feel my nomination is so aggressive or presumptive. I do not want to see the page deleted, but in its current state it most likely represents some copyright violation (since lengthy portions of some of the author's works are on the page) and its chaotic state makes it hard to verify quotes. The nomination is not about "formatting trivialities" as you state (although the page is obviously not formatted properly), but about the fact that the page has not been improved since the cleanup tag was placed there two years ago. As for other nominations - most of the time it is not about formatting, but about whether or not a page meets notability standards, both for the subject or for the quotes in question. Is it your intention to have a site with no policies or guidelines, such that people can post whatever quotes they wish? That is not my impression of what this site is all about. If it were, it would be like any of the myriad of fan sites available. I believe the intent is to have a site with some established guidelines and some rules. You also complain about the rules being "insisted upon by others" that shouldn't be the basis for judging a page, but isn't that the point of having a community-based site? The community decides what is acceptable and what isn't - which is exactly why pages such as this are brought to a vote. I am fine with the decisions reached here at VFD, but if troubled pages are not discussed here, they will likely never be changed.One last comment: you suggest that instead of complaining, I should clean up the formatting myself if it bothers me so much. To this I say that part of my role as an admin (in my opinion) is to help others learn how wikiquote works - I do not feel it is my role to be the one to clean up every mess, but rather to show others how to do so, hopefully resulting in less fix-it projects in the future. That is why I often will tag a page as needing cleanup, rather than just doing the cleanup myself (since the tag points the user to the preferred templates as a guide). That is my intent here - to start a discussion about this page that will hopefully lead to a much better final product. When I first started here, I did just this as I was learning, resurrecting several pages that had been nominated for deletion. ~ UDScott 16:48, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep and clean up. I am going to "trim" the article, using a chainsaw on content that violates established policy, and using a machete for some of the more obviously unquoteworthy parts. It will surely need further cleanup and improvement, but ought not be deleted. ~ Ningauble 16:24, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment:I actually agree that this is the correct approach, but I worry that when we say that a page should stay if it is trimmed, it often does not happen. See Macedonia (region) as an example of one where the consensus was to keep the page, but most said it should be trimmed - this has yet to happen and I doubt that it will. ~ UDScott 17:01, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Alas, our project is so small that we don't have a lot of grunt-workers investing substantial time in cleanup, especially where mediation of content disputes is needed. Cleaning up that certain topic whose very name the subject of dispute is on my procrastination list, and I hope somebody else will tackle it before I am in a sufficiently masochistic mood to do so. For this article I hold some hope that, while literary topics can be contentious as well, interested parties might have more of a shared perspective on such notions as "quotability" and be amenable to reasonable compromise without unreasonable effort. ~ Ningauble 19:51, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep thanks to the work that Ningauble has been doing on this page. - InvisibleSun 19:56, 26 April 2009 (UTC)