Uncyclopedia:What VFD is not

From Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Blue check.svg This page is considered a policy on Uncyclopedia.

It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that everyone should follow, unless they don't want to, in which case they are free to ignore it so long as they're not being a dick. Please make use of the standing on one knee position to propose to this policy.

What Uncyclopedia:Votes for deletion (VFD) is, is a place of worship where we frequently appease the gods by sacrificing an irreparably crappy article. The name speaks for itself; we vote to decide whether to delete an article. Unfortunately, new users and a couple of veterans use the page for other purposes, doing awful things like talking and cracking jokes.[1] So let's also state what VFD is not:

A fight club[edit]

Don't do this.
This either.

VFD is one of those places that just seems to attract arguments. I know that jerk who voted delete on your article really deserves to be told to go to hell, and that if you were the one lucky person to tell him that the world would be a better place. But here's the thing, nobody cares. It may also get you a ban.

So if you've never read Uncyclopedia's three rules, why don't you go take a look at the second one? Exercise that while you're on VFD and you should be all right.

A talk page[edit]

In Uncyclopedia's first decade, the fashion was for everyone to be ostentatiously funny, all the time.[2] Unfortunately, this made ballots too-long-to-read, which started to turn into too-long-to-vote, and certainly too long for the moderator to figure out what the Keep/Delete totals were. Your vote in a VFD ballot should not include the following:

  1. Excerpts from the article (or from any other pages). If you need people to read something to understand your vote, a link would suffice, but it would be even better to state your position in a way that doesn't require external text at all. If you have written a substitute, you are welcome to provide a link to that and ask voters to decide whether it is better than the current article.
  2. Rebuttals. You vote your way, and I'll vote my way, and we each give our justification and someone adds up the totals while we're down th' pub. You need not also give your opinion on each point that I made (unless I'm in error). If you need to persuade other voters, go to their talk pages.[3]
  3. Bickering. If there is a rebuttal, it must not lead to a back-and-forth. Take it to your talk page. Don't be surprised if an Admin does so for you.
  4. Planning. The article's talk page is the right place for Uncyclopedians to discuss how to fix it. The ballot is not, except in the most general terms. As always, it is acceptable to try to improve an article while we are voting on its deletion, and its talk page is the right place to debate those edits.

A place to nominate VFD for VFD[edit]

A nail bat, for reference.

Are we tired of that joke! In the words of the VFD rules themselves:

Please don't nominate Main Page or Votes for Deletion; that joke has been done so many times we might just beat you with a nail bat before we tear our hair out in frustration.

—The VFD rules themselves

Truer words have never been typed into a keyboard in all of history.

Of course, it's not limited to VFD and the Main Page, a lot of pages that you don't really want deleted, and that you don't expect will really be deleted, you shouldn't nominate (QVFD, features, the dump, etc.). So when nominating pages for VFD, fight back the urge to amuse other people, and especially to amuse yourself by costing other people needless work.

Otherwise, if you get in trouble, don't be a smart-ass and say, "Well, there's no rule that says I'm not supposed to." We just wrote one. Just say you're sorry, and move on.

References[edit]

  1. What do they think we are? A humor wiki?
  2. You can still get away with this at the Village Dump.
  3. Some Uncyclopedians have regarded it as pestering or stalking that an opposing voter came to their talk pages for further debate. No one ought to; if you offer your opinion, where the result might lead to an article's deletion, you ought to be willing to defend it. Just not inside the ballot.