User:Tisane/Allow viewing of deleted articles
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The rule prohibiting
People say that if we allowed people to view deleted articles, it would defeat the whole point of deleting them (the point of deleting them being to limit Wikipedia's content to that which passes muster with our
One might rebut that point by saying, When people view old versions of Wikipedia pages, a warning notifies them that it is out-of-date content, so it's not really damaging the integrity of the project. Well, in that case, why don't we allow viewing of deleted pages too (with the exception of copyvios and other illegal stuff), accompanied by a warning that the deleted content being viewed is for archive purposes only and is not part of the latest version of Wikipedia?
But, if it's too much to ask that everyone be allowed to view deleted articles, a compromise is also possible. We could limit it to logged-in users, who are a small percentage of the overall Wikipedia readership. We already allow viewing of those pages by one set of users - i.e., administrators. Why not expand it to a larger group? It's a difference of degree, not of kind.
See also
- WP:Pure wiki deletion