Wikipedia:WikiProject Conservatism/News/November 2011
By Lionelt
On October 7, WikiProject Conservatism was nominated for deletion by member Binksternet. He based his rationale on what he described as an undefinable scope, stating that the project is "at its root undesirable". Of the 40 participants in the discussion, some agreed that the scope was problematic; however, they felt it did not justify deletion of the project. A number of participants suggested moving the project to "WikiProject American conservatism". The overwhelming sentiment was expressed by Guerillero who wrote: "A project is a group of people. This particular group does great work in their topic area[,] why prevent them from doing this[?]" In the end there was negligible opposition to the project and the result of the discussion was "Keep". The proceedings of the deletion discussion were picked up by The Signpost, calling the unfolding drama "the first MfD of its kind". The Signpost observed that attempting to delete an active project was unprecedented. The story itself became a source of controversy which played out at the Discuss This Story section, and also at the author's talk page.
Two days after the project was nominated, the Conservatism Portal was also nominated for deletion as "too US-biased". There was no support for deletion amongst the 10 participants, with one suggestion to rename the portal.
In other news, a new portal focusing on conservatism has been created at WikiSource. Wikisource is an online library of free content publications with 254,051 accessible texts. One highlight of the portal's content is Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke.
October saw a 6.4% increase in new members, bringing the total membership to 58. Seven of the eight new members joined after October 12; the deletion discussions may have played a role in the membership spike. Mwhite148 is a member of the UK Conservative Party. Stating that he is not a conservative, Kleinzach noted his "lifetime interest in British, European and international politics." Let's all make an effort to welcome the new members with an outpouring of Wikilove.
Click here to keep up to date on all the happenings at WikiProject Conservatism.
By Lionelt
Timeline of conservatism, a Top-importance list, was nominated for deletion on October 3. The nominator stated that since conservatism in an "ambiguous concept", the timeline suffers from original research. There were a number of "Delete", as well as "Keep" votes. The closing administrator reasoned that consensus dictated that the list be renamed. The current title is Timeline of modern American conservatism.