Wikipedia talk:How-to (historical)/delete

Wikipedia:How-to was proposed for deletion. The result of the debate was NO CONSENSUS TO DELETE.

Apologize if this isn't proper process, but this seems like a reasonable venue for the discussion anyway. In VfD discussions, it is often stated that "How-To" articles do not belong in Wikipedia; it's usually suggested that they be transwikied to Wikibooks. If this is true, then something needs to be done about Wikipedia:How-to. This page positively encourages the creation of how-to articles. The clear inference is that such articles are acceptable in Wikipedia.

If such articles "do" belong in Wikipedia then let's vote to keep Wikipedia:How-to—and also stop citing "it's a how-to" as a reason to transWiki or delete.

On the other hand, if these articles do not belong in Wikipedia, then this article's contents should be transwikied to Wikibooks and replaced with an explanation and a link. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 19:50, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• Transwiki to Wikibooks ASAP. Suggest blanking the page until then. --Improv 20:37, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • I have taken the liberty of refactoring the page to suggest howto creation on Wikibooks instead. --Improv 20:42, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Is Wikipedia:How-to the one you meant to list? I think it makes sense to keep that, since it is part of the Wikipedia namespace. If you are talking about How-to and the articles it links to, I vote to transwiki all of those linked articles, and keep the main how-to article, with a link to Wikibooks. -- WOT 20:46, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • I meant to list Wikipedia:How-to because our defacto policy is that how-to's belong in Wikibooks and therefore we shouldn't have an article that encourages them to be created in the Wikipedia ("A how-to on Wikipedia should include:....") What should be done with the how-to's we already have and the article that links to them is a related issue, but not the issue I'm raising. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 21:13, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. This is the wrong place to use for attempting to change Wikipedia policy. If you'd like to try to change how to policy, discuss it on the policy page. People are free to say they want something to be deleted because it's a how to article. That doesn't mean deleting them is policy - it means they don't like how to articles. Jamesday 03:35, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Obviously, no matter what the policy on how-tos is, this page should exist to house that policy. VfD is not a place to establish or change Wikipedia policy. Gentgeen 05:42, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:How-to does not seem to me to state a policy, but to implicitly assume a preexisting policy that encourages the creation of how-tos in the WIkipedia namespace and describes how to create them. My reason for choosing to discuss it in VfD is a) since I don't know where the relevant policy page is, I don't know any other place to discuss it, and b) a very frequent application of what people say is policy regarding how-to's is in VfD, and therefore this is where would expect to find knowledgeable and interested discussants. Should this be discussed in Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_policy? Or where? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 15:06, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Supplemental notes

Jamesday reverted my rewrite to the page, noting that this was a change in policy without a vote. I thought I had read somewhere that it had been explicitly decided that howtos are not for wikipedia but are for wikibooks, so my rewriting of this page was based on the idea that this page simply had never been updated to agree with that consensus. I'm going to double check on it -- it's late where I am, and I'm about to head to bed, but sometime tomorrow I'll see if I can find the policy I thought I read. If it's there, we should probably reapply my changes, if not, we should definitely keep the old version unless said conclusion is strongly implied, and then we'll have a discussion, and in either case I will apologise for my error in thinking it decided. --Improv 07:46, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like other '/delete' pages is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion or on the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.