Slashdot Mirror
Debating "Deletionism" At Wikipedia
Ian Lamont writes "In a strange turn of events, the Wikipedia entry for Deletionpedia — an online archive of deleted Wikipedia articles — is now being considered for deletion. The entry for Deletionpedia was created shortly after the publication of an Industry Standard article and a discussion on Slashdot this week. Almost immediately, it was nominated for deletion, which has sparked a running debate about the importance of the Wikipedia entry, Deletionpedia, and the sources that reference it. For the time being, you can read the current version of the Deletionpedia entry, while the Wikipedia editors carry on the debate."
Is the website notable? Has the mainstream media reported on it? Does it meet the requirements listed in WP:WEB, the guideline for website notability?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(web)
This should be all anyone needs to know to !vote on the issue. There is no 'special pass' for things that have been on Slashdot, or are about Wikipedia.
Do you mean like forks like Wikinfo, or unrelated, but similar, sites like Everything2, h2g2 and Knol?
The debate is over. The result of the discussion was keep. See talk page.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
If you saw some of the absolute crap that comes in as new articles on an hourly basis, you would quickly see the merit of deleting at least a few things. I've lost count of how many articles about garage bands that formed a month ago, childish "_____ is the coolest person ever!!!", vanity articles, and loony diatribes that I've marked for speedy deletion.
To be fair: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Public_Safety_Commissioner_dismissal is where the is supposed to be (I don't see a straight forward explanation of the cause for the divorce though). I guess the issue over the deletion is whether or not Mike Wooten needs his own article or not.
I don't think the Deletionpedia article should be deleted, but in this case, I think it's okay (although maybe an article merge would be a more accurate description of what should be done.)
Why does anyone even bother with wikipedia? No controls (except for a few politically driven, control freak, admins).
It is essentially an encyclopedia created and sustained through mob rule. Most universities won't allow it to be cited and woe be upon the scientist that cites it in a scientific paper. I suspect if anyone were to rely on it for business decisions, they'd be fired.
Just out of curiousity, were you citing any other Encyclopedias (Britannica, Colliers, Encarta) in your university papers? If so, please let me know where you went, so I can avoid sending any of my children there. Even in the tiny state school I went to, I'd have been laughed out of class if I cited encyclopedias. Encyclopedias aren't primary or secondary sources, they're tertiary sources. They're just summaries of other sources, sources you should find and read yourself.
Wikipedia is better than many encyclopedias in current or esoteric subjects, but beyond finding some links to real material, I wouldn't consider it useful in real research. But I doubt any cosmologists are looking up Hawking Radiation in Britannica, either.
I've rarely run into problems like that when I wrote decent stubs (at least a few sentences, ideally, say, two paragraphs) with footnotes to the sources I used, which were things other than geocities websites; for example, publications of the local government, or books published by the local historical society, or articles in at least semi-mainstream media.
Even then you occasionally run into someone who wants to delete it, but it really is much less frequent if your articles are solidly sourced.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The sole reference is to "Answers in Genesis", a creation "science" organization. Wow. Just... wow, that's just sad.
I had to call out one particular mod on his discussion page and on the Jonathan Ive page, because he considered my changing of the iMac's introduction from 1997 to 1998 "vandalism" (a change I had to make FIVE times), and it was FINALLY changed.
You know... you /say/ that here in a Slashdot comment, and have been rewarded a (5, Insightful) for it, but there's a bit of a fact shortage. The complete history of changes to the Jonathan Ive article, as well as the article's talk page (and its history) are publicly viewable to the world, and the events you described did not occur. At no time has the Jonathan Ive article claimed that the iMac was introduced in 1997 -- the fact that it was introduced in 1998 was added to the article in June 2005 and has remained there, uncontested, ever since. I'm not just some random person telling you this, either -- I've been monitoring the article on my watch list for two and a half years, and I would have noticed (and put a stop to) any sort of edit war over this.
So, AtariKee, my question to you is this: Are you intentionally lying for the sake of discrediting something you don't like, or are you merely confused about what you were doing on Wikipedia?
Also, there are no "mods" on Wikipedia. There are Administrators, but they don't moderate content except in very unusual circumstances -- that's everybody's collective responsibility.
The article on SUCS (the Swansea University Computer Society[1]) was deleted. Was it notable? It was the only computer society in the UK to have its own computer room, and was responsible for much of the TCP/IP code in Linux until a few years ago (it was credited on the boot screens of all kernels up until 2.5.66) when Alan Cox was a student. Other members of the society went on to work on projects like GNOME, Mono, GNUstep, LLVM, and several others. Its role in the early development of Linux is documented in several press interviews with Alan Cox, which sounds like it should meet your criteria.
The article was marked for deletion twice. The first time there was an overwhelming majority against. The second time, the person calling for the vote decided that all of the people who voted against were 'sock puppets' and so would have their votes ignored.
[1] Yes, I'm aware it's a terrible acronym.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News