User:J 1982

This user is a member of the Association of Inclusionist Wikipedians

This user, under the aegis of the AIW's motto Conservata veritate ("With the preserved truth") fights for improvement, freedom and preservation of Wikipedia, until no knowledge would be lost as a result.

Association of Inclusionist Wikipedians
Association of Inclusionist Wikipedians

My own opinions about Wikipedia and its sister projects

I'm an inclusionist and separatist Wikipedian, and I've as long as I've known and edited Wikipedia and its sister projects been tired of arguments like "Wikipedia isn't that and Wikipedia isn't that!" being used as arguments and support for deleting or merging articles and other information. Deletionism exists because of people's preconceptions of what an encyclopedia is and can only include, dated from old days. It worked fine, 25 years ago in the days of the paper encyclopedia when everyone, so I also, would laugh at people saying an encyclopedia can include every little village on Earth or every little hill on Pluto. But the Internet becoming mainstream by the mid-1990's has changed so much in society and the world in general that we soon can't remember much how our own lives were when it came to media back in 1993 (except when deletions and deletionism reminds us), if you were even born back then!

Anyway, I came here after being impressed of Wikipedia growing in every language and topic, from the biggest town to the smallest village. Just take a look at Wikimedia Commons, even if I don't support the idea of articles of private perople or every single little house on Earth on Wikipedia, it shows how much of the world in picture can actually been added. Wikipedia should be like the same, but with the world in written words instead of described in picture.

There are several things I'm not interested in, but instead of calling for article deletion or merging, I just don't read those articles (and try to save the article when people call for deletion or merging). I write for those who need information. Of course, POV-pushed articles shall be rewritten, but it's no deletion argument!

Deletionism fights the entire concept of Wikipedia. Wikipedia's highest ambition should be becoming the place for all knowledge in the world (except the very most private things as I mentioned above). Here we have the chance to create the encyclopedia that has never been around ever in world history before. Why let that chance end up... deleted?

When articles are deleted or merged, especially in popular culture like comic books but even other, people go to other theme-based fan-Wikis (like one for He-Man, one for Star Wars, another one for Star Trek or something). Do you have time, or really want to be active on all those, when it all can be here, under the same roof? This can split up Wikipedia, reducing the number of contributors. There is also a Deletionpedia where deleted articles may end up instead, if Wikipedia keeps on deleting or even merging articles.

Imagine yourself reading an paper encyclopedia, but someone tears out pages for you while telling you what's interesting and not! How fun would that be?

Disappointed over the deletions, I've stopped adding new articles (except maybe some categories, disambiguation pages, restorations and templates), first in English (around late-March 2015), then also in Swedish (mid-January 2016). But I'll not leave the project totally. Instead, I'll continue improving already existing articles, and add sources, making it more difficult to ask for deletions or mergings. When articles are picked up for deletion or merging, I'll instead be there to defend them.

I also oppose a lot of mergings. Even if we aim for longer articles at the end, a short and well-written article with sources also has its strength, especially since it's easier to discover article vandalism.