Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

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 discussion was: keep. (without prejudice to interested parties performing further cleanup as discussed) kingboyk (talk) 19:10, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:WikiProject St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador[edit]

Inactive since 2013, and an extremely narrow topic for a Project. No history on the talk page worth preserving. BLAIXX 00:23, 3 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. No valid reason to delete. Already tagged "defunct", which is sufficient for all problems mentioned. MfD is not for WikiProject management, even if it is now for Portal management. WikiProjects are backroom resources and unlike Portals they offer no dangers for any reader, the stakes are negligible. Leave it as it is. If it were single-authored, it can be userfied. Multi-authored as it is, it should not be deleted, merely archived. Another option is to weave into a bigger WikiProject. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:48, 3 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, no content worth retaining. The articles in this project are already covered by much wider-scope projects such as WP:CANADA. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 03:30, 3 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - A city is not necessarily a narrow scope for a Project. More importantly, projects are normally marked as historical rather than deleted, and this has already been marked as defunct. No need to delete. Not outside-facing. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:55, 3 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Robert McClenon: Why should it be marked historical if there is literally nothing worth keeping? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 00:28, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
There is not literally nothing worth keeping. There is the history of people signing up. There is the record of editors thinking a range of related topic deserved concerted attention. There is the start of efforts to coordinate concerted attention. This is not nothing. Deletion of it reduces it to nothing, and is very rude to the volunteers involved, and has zero benefit to any reader. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:34, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and the project space is a place to coordinate the improvement of the encyclopedia. I appreciate the effort of the editors who tried to create a discussion space in August 2011 and February 2012, but ultimately there was very little activity after creation. The being said, I don't think preserving the history of people signing up, or protecting the feelings of Wikipedia volunteers is a good reason to keep. In it's current state, the WikiProject is little more than the default WikiProject template and could easily be recreated if there is a demand (which I find unlikely). BLAIXX 10:56, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I think random third parties deciding that old work is not worth keeping and asking the community to agree and permanently scrub the records is easily and by far a net negative. Why is deletion of this any more important than any of another ten thousand non productive initiatives? Why do any of them need a formal deletion? What if there is a one percent chance that you are wrong about its uselessless? Have you read WP:Editors matter? Can you improve the article busywork. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:24, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is not a free host of anyone's content and will always need venues like WP:AFD where "random third parties" decide which pages should be deleted. If I am wrong about this projects "uselessless", then the community should reach consensus to keep, that's the point of having a discussion. If the community decides to delete and is wrong, it would be relatively simple to recreate this project, as I mentioned above.
My goal here is not to be destructive. I have just seen a number of these micro-project pages which were created close to a decade ago and then immediately abandoned, which would be better served by existing, larger projects. I think the better proposal here would be to merge this project into WP:Newfoundland and Labrador (currently inactive) and redirect all (sub-)pages to preserve history. This would not delete anything and would give the combined project the best chance of becoming active again. BLAIXX 12:24, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Now that’s a good idea. You investigate, and you do the cleanup, no need for a full Mfd to review. And in the unlikely event that you make a mistake, and then someone cares, they can undo it. If someone opposes you, and you remain in disagreement, then come to MfD for the formal discussion. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:35, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Intend to withdraw nomination and pursue redirection. Per withdrawal policy, since another editor has supported deletion I cannot yet withdraw. @TenPoundHammer: if you support the proposed redirection, please strike your delete !vote with comment. If you still support deletion, the discussion will run its course. BLAIXX 12:53, 6 June 2019 (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.