Category talk:Articles with empty sections

Thread started at help desk and moved here

The user Theoprakt asked the following question at the help desk:

Is there a policy, guideline or recommendation, on how to deal with empty sections? In my opinion they are usually bad style, bloating articles with what are essentially work notes that don't contribute to the article. If an editor doesn't have the time to fill a section with content, they should also refrain from imposing a structure to future contributors. So if I were to go through Category:Articles with empty sections, starting with the oldest dates (currently 2008!), and start to remove a lot of them, would that be viewed as an improvement, or could it be viewed as destructive?

My recommendation to the editor is to ask the question here, and so I'm starting this thread. My personal feeling after reading a few of the oldest ones is to leave them. Like redlinks, it might impel someone down the road to create the content, but without them, it's less likely to happen. Otherwise, why create them in the first place? 12 years isn't a long time in the history of knowledge. Anyone care to make the case for keep or delete in a more eloquent way? TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 23:30, 26 February 2020 (UTC)