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Saving Geek Lore and Other Wikipedia Castoffs
Ian Lamont notes an Industry Standard feature on Deletionpedia — a collection of 63,559 deleted Wikipedia pages that range from "vanity entries" or obscure points of reference to heavily edited topics that Wikipedia editors eventually deemed fan fiction, inadequately sourced, or otherwise lacking. Looking through the collection of removed articles, it's apparent that entertaining minutiae are often the target of Wikipedia editors: "Geek lore seems to be a particular target for deletion, with the deleted page of the month a comprehensive guide to 'Weapons of the Imperium (Warhammer 40,000)'. Deletionpedia provides links back to the Wikipedia deletion discussions, which are a lesson in magnification of minutiae; the Warhammer page was removed due to philosophical disagreements over what can be considered credible source material, while a page listing every chalkboard gag in The Simpsons opening credits spent 691 days on the site before being deleted as 'fancruft.'" Note that while Deletionpedia uses MediaWiki, it doesn't have wiki functionality — readers can't alter or update archived entries.
if it uses mediawiki, it has wiki functionality. just not for you
also. i think it's slashdotted.
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There, fixed that for you.
I honestly don't get the whole hate that Wikipedia seems to have against sci-fi and geeky topics... I think it's an attack by people who figure that if they have too much of it that Wikipedia won't resemble an old media encylopedia. This argument is pretty stupid, given the nigh-unlimited space in their database (Wikipedia themselves have said not to worry about performance).
Somoene's going to come in here and say that the problem isn't the topic, it's that the articles are either original research, aren't verifiable, or aren't "notable" (the latter is the worst argument I've heard), but IMNSHO there is a definite bias, especially among admins, against these types of articles.
Oh, and tell the Wikitruth.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
a page listing every chalkboard gag in The Simpsons opening credits
Sad, that's actually a useful list! And surely socially and culturally relevant too.
I find it childish of Wikipedia to actually delete articles that would be interesting to some people at least.
This is not a normal encyclopedia where having an entry takes up literal space on a page, and technically slows you down when finding the article you're actually looking for. This is the internet, where if you don't care about the many variations on the RX-78 Gundam, you don't have to ever see them. Unless wikipedia is running their fucking site off of an old 20 gig IDE hard drive, there's no reason to be deleting entries that are well-written and useful to someone.
Deletionism is just one big stupid power trip.
Other than attacks, racism, unverifiable information and such (which are already banned under other Wikipedia guidelines), what real effect would it have on the encyclopedia other than another record in the database that nobody other than the author would ever access?
For one thing, giving too many details about fiction may infringe the copyright in said fiction. Rowling v. RDR Books.
I'm amazed that so many people have responded to the OP without even glancing at any of Wikipedia's policies. They are very, very clear and explicit about just what policies are in place and why.
Wikipedia's notability guideline:
So, here are my questions for all of the poor, oppressed sci-fi trivia cataloguers out there, so mercilessly attacked by the cruel deletion fanatics:
Let's look at the OP's article, "Weapons of the Imperium (Warhammer 40,000)".
This leaves 1 source, in the entire article, which meets the "independent of the subject" guideline. It, however, is a commercial web site, dedicated to the sale of Warhammer 40,000 models, with dubious editorial control.
This article, despite its massive breadth and deep emotional investment, did not contain one single citation to a reliable source that was independent of the subject. That is why it was deleted.
The onus of explanation is not on Wikipedia's administrators, who are following very simple guidelines. It is up to the creators of this article, who failed to find one - one - reliable source about the topic, who clearly did not even attempt to read the requirements for inclusion on Wikipedia, to explain why the creators of Wikipedia should simply stand back and let people decide their rules for them.
Wikipedia is revolutionary. No site of its calibur of innovation has ever existed. It is supremely boneheaded to decide that just becaus
See if that doesn't convince you of the soundness of Wikipedia's judgments (which, perhaps I should say, are not made by administrators, but hashed out in group discussions to which all Wikipedia editors may contribute).
"Sean Cragg is the coolest dude alive. he thinks. And he sneezes like he is Vomiting :P"
"Normo: A derogatory term to refer a person (Normal) who fears people with mental disabilities"
"Josh Himberg the man. He runs the NHS like its his bisnuss."
These are buried treasure?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
What really gets me about wikipedia is stuff like I Am Rich. Nominated for deletion, the consensus wound up being to keep it. Not to redirect it but to keep it. Then, the nominator, having failed in his attempt to delete it, merges it, despite consensus to the contrary, into App Store. Later, another user comes along and deletes it, saying it's not important".
But wait - it gets better! The same guy nominates Heavy Metal (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) for deletion and fails in his attempt. So what does he do? Merges every episode, save that one, into Talk:List of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles episodes. You see - this user knows he couldn't get consensus by an AfD so he engages in backroom deals to gain support.
Of course, none of this tops Torchic. A front page featured article with 20 paragraphs and 46 citations now reduced to redirecting to a list of pokemon, with 2-3 paragraphs (depending on whether or not a one sentence paragraph counts) and no citations. Amazing stuff.
Basically, the admins of Wikipedia are trying to make WP into a 'legitimate' encyclopedia. Unfortunately, no high school or college prof in their right mind is ever, ever going to allow Wikipedia as a source in any sort of assignment. WP is useful for a quick lookup of something but considering it's about as reliable as Tom Cruise's sanity, anyone who relies on it is getting what they asked for.
So all these attempts to make Wikipedia a 'legitimate' information source are hilarious at best and sad at worst. Being a 'wikipedia admin' is not going to give you academia cred, ever, and it's not going to make for any sort of remotely useful e-peen. These deletions are just people trying, desperately, to make Wiki into something it never will be.
Whatever happened to Wikipedia being 'Everything about Everything?'
"I am an Adept of Tantric VAX."
Better check it fast, though-- within one minute of writing it, I notice it's tagged for Speedy deletion!
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
There's not even a compelling bandwidth argument. The notion of whether something is encyclopedic might make sense when drawing a cut line for a print edition, but sending an elaborate 404 page isn't much different than sending a narrow-interest article in terms of bandwidth.
Granted, the supporting media isn't a limiting factor on on-line encyclopaedia like it is on dead-tree version. *but* there is still a limiting resource : netizens with enough interests to maintain the article.
I don't see what Wikipedia loses by keeping around narrow-interest articles as long as they're factual and neutral. If I happen to catalog all of the chalkboard gags, that takes nothing away from anything else. {...} Wikipedia does lose when there's a large number of truly worthless or misleading articles. Those should get the axe. But those are worthless or misleading because their data is absent or inaccurate.
Well, that's exactly where there's a conflict.
If you're the only single person interested in writing a list of chalkboard gags for wikipedia, chance are there won't be anyone else to maintain it and make sure it stay accurate and correct.
When a subjet is *definitely* too narrow, it's best to only leave in wikipedia itself a short summary (as a standalone article or a section in the Simpson's article) explain *what* these gags are, and then reference this list through a link pointing a separate wiki which is specialised in Simpson (I'm not sure but there's bound to be one somewhere).
That's already the case for lots of other stuff, StarWars universe is only described superficially in wikipedia and everything more detailed goes in Wookipedia. Star Trek doesn't need a full standalone page for every single minor caracter ever mentioned in the show : those usually are better living on Memory Alpha.
Even "House M.D." episode are shortly summarized with links to external blog which go into deep exhaustive details criticizing the medical accuracy for absolutely every detail.
Writing an article that mostly nobody does give a damn about doesn't stop at the writing. There's a lot of subsequent maintenance that needs to be done : fixing vandalism, removing spam, keeping it up-to-dat, correcting mistake, etc.
If a subject isn't popular enough, the article is going to rot.
There are already thousand of ultra specialised wikis out-there maintained by hard-core fans that are suffisently dedicated and no-lifers to attend correctly to such article as those articles deserve.
That's also why Deletionpedia plays a capital role : as a temporary graveyard where to store such kind of too much specialised lists, which are too much details and not enough interest for wikipedia. But don't have yet an actively maintained copy somewhere on some hardcore-fan wiki.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
In my experience at Slashdot (and I have quite a bit, if you look at my user summary... I think I started in 2001 or 2002), if you present an argument against the general consensus in a way that is thought-out, well-spoken, and most importantly not insulting , you'll get modded up.
Here, though, I think you're missing the point, and that is that I posted in several threads, if not my initial comment (I was the OP), that a) there is a bias in what administrators will vote to delete even if they find other policy reasons to do so, and b) that verifiability itself needs to be opened up so that first-party sources like the ones in the Warhammer article are accepted as sources in certain circumstances.
Let's take a look at what you said.
Your first line exclaimed your shock that many people did not look at (or possibly even know about) Wikipedia policies, and were thus simply going along with the "Slashdot flow". You then proceeded to beat us over the head with it by copying in place the notability guideline.
I made it very clear in my initial comment that I knew about Wikipedia policies (by mentioning three of the most common reasons for deletion); I've also been a Wikipedia contributor for a long time, though not nearly as much as a Slashdot user. I'm fully aware of the varying guidelines that Wikipedia has in place. You made the assumption that I, and those who agreed with me, did not know about the guideline you posted.
This, in itself, is insulting, and probably why those who modded you down did so.
You then proceeded to call those interested in such 'fancruft' topics "poor, oppressed sci-fi trivia cataloguers."
You then went on for a while about how Wikipedia was the be-all and end-all of websites, and how dare we think differently from their policies? (Of course, you shaded this by making the straw man that we want Wikipedia to accept everything we type into it, which nobody in this discussion has said.)
And to finish up, you claimed that "the sobbing ignorance on this whole page is depressing," again insulting those who would argue with Wikipedia guidelines.
I never directly insulted anyone in my initial post, and made my assumption in a positive direction -- that most people reading this article already have a basic grasp of Wikipedia policies, and, like I do, may disagree with them.
In summary, when debating, if you want to win minds over, do not:
If you avoid these things, and present a well thought-out idea (which, if you had written things differently, your initial post could have been), the idea might actually contribute to the discussion, rather than being mixed in with insults and assumptions about those with whom it disagrees.
You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
The whole point of moderation is to keep a certain non-negative tone of discussion on Slashdot, which, IMHO, is why people keep coming back. For all its faults, the moderation system brings interesting, insightful posts to the forefront while keeping those posts that have degenerated into immature arguments from being seen. This is what has happened to you here.
(PS: It looks like your default posting karma has been taken down to -1. You could probably make a new account if you want to start posting at 1 again.)
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs