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It's hard to talk about "what users want" when none of the cited past discussions seem to end in agreement. The "accepted" answer on this question is not the popular favourite... By a very long way.

It appears to be a battle between:

• A small, tight band of Deletionists. People who would uphold every single founding rule of SE, regardless of the community's view, with tools that allow them to edit, delete and track nearly-deleted posts.
• Preservationalists who manually have to check what's being destroyed, who can't counter-vote until it's frankly too late, and when they do find something, they need to find other people who feel the same. The "recently deleted" list is usually full of moderator deletions so no, that doesn't help them.
• People who would rather be answering things but constantly get sucked into meta squabbles about why we should be deleting something or tagging something sideways this week.

The fight isn't fair. It's much easier to delete something you want to delete than it is keep it alive... And I think that's a real shame given the effort that has gone into some of these posts.

What you're suggesting is:

• A load of work.
• Harder to maintain.
• Doesn't rank at all (the point of SE)
• Detrimental to the site metrics... Lots of views equals lots of new users. We're nothing without new blood.
• Is rather consistently against the popular point of view.

###More than anything, these just aren't a problem.

People constantly cite them as broken windows but I see no evidence of that.

These aren't our problem at all. Not processing a high enough proportion of new questions is our sticking point. These aren't contributing to that at all.

Yet we seem destined to spend at least another five eternities debating whether or not something valuable to the site (at least on utilitarian metrics) should be deleted or not.
Why can't we just leave Britney alone and answer something?

It's hard to talk about "what users want" when none of the cited past discussions seem to end in agreement. The "accepted" answer on this question is not the popular favourite... By a very long way.

It appears to be a battle between:

• A small, tight band of Deletionists. People who would uphold every single founding rule of SE, regardless of the community's view, with tools that allow them to edit, delete and track nearly-deleted posts.
• Preservationalists who manually have to check what's being destroyed, who can't counter-vote until it's frankly too late, and when they do find something, they need to find other people who feel the same. The "recently deleted" list is usually full of moderator deletions so no, that doesn't help them.
• People who would rather be answering things but constantly get sucked into meta squabbles about why we should be deleting something or tagging something sideways this week.

The fight isn't fair. It's much easier to delete something you want to delete than it is keep it alive... And I think that's a real shame given the effort that has gone into some of these posts.

What you're suggesting is:

• A load of work.
• Harder to maintain.
• Doesn't rank at all (the point of SE)
• Detrimental to the site metrics... Lots of views equals lots of new users. We're nothing without new blood.
• Is rather consistently against the popular point of view.

More than anything, these just aren't a problem.

People constantly cite them as broken windows but I see no evidence of that.

These aren't our problem at all. Not processing a high enough proportion of new questions is our sticking point. These aren't contributing to that at all.

Yet we seem destined to spend at least another five eternities debating whether or not something valuable to the site (at least on utilitarian metrics) should be deleted or not.
Why can't we just leave Britney alone and answer something?

It's hard to talk about "what users want" when none of the cited past discussions seem to end in agreement. The "accepted" answer on this question is not the popular favourite... By a very long way.

It appears to be a battle between:

• A small, tight band of Deletionists. People who would uphold every single founding rule of SE, regardless of the community's view, with tools that allow them to edit, delete and track nearly-deleted posts.
• Preservationalists who manually have to check what's being destroyed, who can't counter-vote until it's frankly too late, and when they do find something, they need to find other people who feel the same. The "recently deleted" list is usually full of moderator deletions so no, that doesn't help them.
• People who would rather be answering things but constantly get sucked into meta squabbles about why we should be deleting something or tagging something sideways this week.

The fight isn't fair. It's much easier to delete something you want to delete than it is keep it alive... And I think that's a real shame given the effort that has gone into some of these posts.

What you're suggesting is:

• A load of work.
• Harder to maintain.
• Doesn't rank at all (the point of SE)
• Detrimental to the site metrics... Lots of views equals lots of new users. We're nothing without new blood.
• Is rather consistently against the popular point of view.

###More than anything, these just aren't a problem.

People constantly cite them as broken windows but I see no evidence of that.

These aren't our problem at all. Not processing a high enough proportion of new questions is our sticking point. These aren't contributing to that at all.

Yet we seem destined to spend at least another five eternities debating whether or not something valuable to the site (at least on utilitarian metrics) should be deleted or not.
Why can't we just leave Britney alone and answer something?

It's hard to talk about "what users want" when none of the cited past discussions seem to end in agreement. The "accepted" answer on this question is not the popular favourite... By a very long way.

It appears to be a battle between:

• A small, tight band of Deletionists. People who would uphold every single founding rule of SE, regardless of the community's view, with tools that allow them to edit, delete and track nearly-deleted posts.
• Preservationalists who manually have to check what's being destroyed, who can't counter-vote until it's frankly too late, and when they do find something, they need to find other people who feel the same. The "recently deleted" list is usually full of moderator deletions so no, that doesn't help them.
• People who would rather be answering things but constantly get sucked into meta squabbles about why we should be deleting something or tagging something sideways this week.

The fight isn't fair. It's much easier to delete something you want to delete than it is keep it alive... And I think that's a real shame given the effort that has gone into some of these posts.

What you're suggesting is:

• A load of work.
• Harder to maintain.
• Doesn't rank at all (the point of SE)
• Detrimental to the site metrics... Lots of views equals lots of new users. We're nothing without new blood.
• Is rather consistently against the popular point of view.

###More than anything, these just aren't a problem.

People constantly cite them as broken windows but I see no evidence of that.

These aren't our problem at all. Not processing a high enough proportion of new questions is our sticking point. These aren't contributing to that at all.

Yet we seem destined to spend at least another five eternities debating whether or not something valuable to the site (at least on utilitarian metrics) should be deleted or not.
Why can't we just leave Britney alone and answer something?

It's hard to talk about "what users want" when none of the cited past discussions seem to end in agreement. The "accepted" answer on this question is not the popular favourite... By a very long way.

It appears to be a battle between:

• A small, tight band of Deletionists. People who would uphold founding rule of SE with tools that allow them to edit, delete and track nearly-deleted posts.
• Preservationalists who manually have to check what's being destroyed, who can't counter-vote until it's frankly too late. No, the "recently deleted" list is full of moderator deletions. that's little use.
• People who would rather be answering things but constantly get sucked into meta squabbles about why we should be deleting something or tagging something sideways this week.

The fight isn't fair. It's much easier to delete something you want to delete than it is keep it alive... And I think that's a real shame given the effort that has gone into some of these posts.

What you're suggesting is a load of work to move something off the site to a place that makes it harder for our users here to maintain properly... That's certainly a solution to a problem but I don't think its ours on either swing.

I think the biggest issue I have with doing anything is that these just aren't a problem. People constantly cite them as broken windows but I see no evidence of that. These aren't our problem at all. Not answering (or being able to answer) a high enough proportion of new questions is our sticking point.

Yet we seem certain to spend at least another five eternities debating whether or not something valuable to the site metrics should be deleted or not. Why can't we just leave Britney alone and answer something?

It's hard to talk about "what users want" when none of the cited past discussions seem to end in agreement. The "accepted" answer on this question is not the popular favourite... By a very long way.

It appears to be a battle between:

• A small, tight band of Deletionists. People who would uphold every single founding rule of SE, regardless of the community's view, with tools that allow them to edit, delete and track nearly-deleted posts.
• Preservationalists who manually have to check what's being destroyed, who can't counter-vote until it's frankly too late, and when they do find something, they need to find other people who feel the same. The "recently deleted" list is usually full of moderator deletions so no, that doesn't help them.
• People who would rather be answering things but constantly get sucked into meta squabbles about why we should be deleting something or tagging something sideways this week.

The fight isn't fair. It's much easier to delete something you want to delete than it is keep it alive... And I think that's a real shame given the effort that has gone into some of these posts.

What you're suggesting is:

• A load of work.
• Harder to maintain.
• Doesn't rank at all (the point of SE)
• Detrimental to the site metrics... Lots of views equals lots of new users. We're nothing without new blood.
• Is rather consistently against the popular point of view.

###More than anything, these just aren't a problem. 

People constantly cite them as broken windows but I see no evidence of that. 

These aren't our problem at all. Not processing a high enough proportion of new questions is our sticking point. These aren't contributing to that at all.

Yet we seem destined to spend at least another five eternities debating whether or not something valuable to the site (at least on utilitarian metrics) should be deleted or not.
Why can't we just leave Britney alone and answer something?