Debating "Deletionism" At Wikipedia

Hmm... by freyyr890 · 2008-09-21 13:40 · Score: 5, Funny

So that's like... meta-deletion?

Re:Hmm... by omeomi · 2008-09-21 14:09 · Score: 5, Insightful

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. There are too many deletion-happy admins at Wikipedia speedy deleting way too many pages that people have put a lot of effort into. And the deletion review process is a crock. The people who regularly check in on deletion review pages are the same people who delete as many pages as they can, so they will almost always vote for a page to stay deleted. Anybody else who speaks up in support of a page will get ignored because they're not one of the group, and if they're not an active Wikipedia member, they'll get labeled a sock-puppet, whether or not there's any evidence whatsoever that they are not a real person. And in my experience, the admins consider online-sources to be non-notable, and print sources to be too difficult to track down, so it's a catch-22. It makes creating pages on Wikipedia far more effort than it's worth.

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Re:Hmm... by AtariKee · 2008-09-21 14:24 · Score: 4, Insightful

Wikipedia has long ceased to be an accurate source of information, and more of an elitist bureaucracy. 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.

After that ridiculous incident, I stopped relying on Wikipedia for anything substantive. Its accuracy can not be assured due to the bureaucratic toolboxes that moderate the site.

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Re:Hmm... by hahafaha · 2008-09-21 14:25 · Score: 3, Interesting

Though I generally agree, I feel that the notability guidelines are broken for other reasons.
Consider, for instance, a Wikipedia article on basically any random public high school. As long as there is a website, you can make a reasonable (and arguably useful) article, with lots of information regarding classes offered, policies, etc. A public high school is usually going to be the only school in the town, maybe one of a few. The result of this is that the town newspaper is going to mention it. Most towns have newspapers, and as long as it's not *too* rural of a town, the newspaper will be online. That basically meets the criteria (it's mentioned in a printed source, which everyone has access to, and facts included are verifiable).
Is some random high school notable? I'd say not. Now, one can make the other argument that it doesn't matter, because the point is to be a useful source of information. I'd agree with that -- the information is of limited use, but it's going to be useful to the population of that town, which, if only numbering in the couple of thousand, is still substantial. However, it's certainly not "notable".
Re:Hmm... by zappepcs · 2008-09-21 14:44 · Score: 3, Interesting

I believe that there is a reason why what you say is more important than you know. Wikipedia gives a rough uniformity to the presentation of information. Using that and a few software tools, it's possible to glean more information than simply what was put into the wiki page. Deleting information too briskly will lead to a diminution of the value of both the wiki page information, reference veracity of the site, and the value of any information based on combinatorial information.
Using an example offered by someone else, if it is known that there are 123,000 high schools in the USA, and 75% of them are listed on Wikipedia. You can draw some reasonably credible information about high schools in the USA from scanning the wiki pages. Yes, Google indexes the Internet/www but the trouble is that information on the Internet is hardly presented in conformal manner. That is one of the benefits of Wikipedia, or could be.
There are lots of ideas about how to best organize the information on the Internet, but all of the require voluntary compliance by the authors of the information. That is the one very cool thing about Wikipedia. Perhaps, someone will suggest a semantic web version of how to publish pages of information on the Internet so that the combined reality of such pages IS a living encyclopedia. Using something like the single sign-on and security schemes, it is possible for vetted reviewers to rate each such site so that when you view it in your browser, those ratings are available for you to see. If the information on the site you are viewing is only rated 2 out of 10, then you know whether it is trustworthy information and whether you need to seek corroboration.
This deletion thing is sad in the respect of what it means, of what will not happen. Wikipedia is a good thing as an idea. It is even more valuable as a information repository or data warehouse. At least it could be... sigh

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Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · 2008-09-21 15:02 · Score: 5, Insightful

Notable to you no. Notable to someone who lives in the town, yes. Wikipedia isn't to be judged by how it relates to your own small world. If it is irrelevant to you then leave well alone, rather than trying to force others to conform to your own standards.
If the size of Wikipedia reduces it usefulness to you then the problem is that the search engine you are using is broken. Don't fix a broken search engine by slashing and burning the target of the search until it fits within the engine's limitations. Fix the search algorithm instead.
Re:Hmm... by Teancum · 2008-09-21 15:05 · Score: 5, Insightful

There seems to be a group of folks who like to "purify" a community website, and to be honest I don't even know what makes these kind of folks tick.
I tend to be an inclusionist/separatist in my attitude toward wiki projects and content. By this I mean that content ought to be given time to develop, even if it seems crazy and off the wall. By being a separatist, I think the mergist viewpoint is full of logical errors and that most calls to merge two articles together are mainly a variant of deletionists who think that such petty articles about obscure topics need to go... but with the "good vibes" that somehow the topic will be covered in some huge all-encompassing article.
There are some things that do need to go on occasion, but I've also seen some of the most creative applications of Wiki technology get developed when somebody pushes the edge of a project and develops something way out of bounds. Indeed some of these extreme projects have become out right independent Wikimedia projects of their own, including things like Wikibooks, Wikinews, and even Wiktionary that all had their origins on Wikipedia until some deletionist decided to kick them off.
This phenomena unfortunately isn't even limited to Wikipedia and the WMF sister projects either, but is widespread in nearly any wiki project I've been involved with. Indeed, I've found that the relatively flat peer-editing model of Wikipedia tends to keep the worst of these issues in check as opposed to much worse sorts of community editing models like the Open Directory Project.
Re:Hmm... by sailingmishap · 2008-09-21 15:10 · Score: 5, Insightful

Deleting ANYTHING from wikipedia is stupid. If something is PROVEN to be inaccurate, then that's another story.
Prove it's true. Otherwise it gets deleted. That's not deletionism, that's not fanaticism, it's intellectual honesty. If it's good enough for the last two centuries of scientific and historical academia, it's good enough for me. I don't want an article on how the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe just because no one can prove it's not true.
Re:Hmm... by Jane_Dozey · 2008-09-21 15:27 · Score: 5, Insightful

I've written a couple of articles about places of interest in a notable city in England. They've been deleted each time as the "moderators" don't know the city and think the places are of little note. Talk to the residents and visitors though and it's a different story. While there are submissions worthy of deletion it should *not* be up to the elite, and quite often uninformed, few to judge this.

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Re:Hmm... by geniice · 2008-09-21 15:54 · Score: 2, Interesting

Did you provide reliable third party sources to back up your claims? And who would you suggest should make decisions as to deletion?
Re:Hmm... by mybadluck22 · 2008-09-21 16:03 · Score: 4, Insightful

Did you even read what he wrote? He was for keeping it in wikipedia.

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Re:Hmm... by Starayo · 2008-09-21 16:05 · Score: 4, Funny

I don't want an article on how the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe just because no one can prove it's not true.
And I don't want all the bloody articles on the bible, but if they stay I'll be eaten by a grue before I let someone remove the FSM pages without a fight.

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Ezekiel 23:20
Re:Hmm... by Tangent128 · 2008-09-21 16:21 · Score: 2

I don't get these charges of people using Wikipedia for "promotion". Considering it's a reference source, people aren't even going to come across the article for "Mikey and Sally's Garage Rock-AHZ!" unless they were looking for it in the first place- and if somebody finds something worth looking up, is that not notable?
Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · 2008-09-21 16:31 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.
It's the Lord of the Flies of reference.
Re:Hmm... by Miseph · 2008-09-21 16:40 · Score: 2

It wouldn't make sense except that, once they have an article they can slap links to it on the articles of things which are vaguely similar and people actually care about. Perhaps nobody will stumble across your crappy band's article on it's own, but if you then list your band as being heavily influenced by, say Bad Religion, people reading that article might find you.
Of course, what this doesn't explain is why it's anything more than a nuisance, let alone why Wikipedia moderators are getting delete happy.

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Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · 2008-09-21 16:54 · Score: 4, Informative

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.
Re:Hmm... by infonography · 2008-09-21 17:11 · Score: 5, Funny

The neutrality of this section is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.
Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved.

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Re:Hmm... by Dr.+Hellno · 2008-09-21 17:17 · Score: 3, Interesting

The article on the bible is pretty okay. It should be, given the regular pruning it must take from a (rightly) indignant atheist community. There's nothing wrong with your spaghetti monster page either, in fact I found it quite informative.

I suspect that parent was saying the burden of proof must be on the editor who posts the article, otherwise we'll have articles for both jesus and the flying spaghetti monster, each stating as fact that the deity of choice created the universe in a fit of pique after discovering him/her/itself unable to microwave a burrito so hot that he/she/it couldn't eat it
Re:Hmm... by BitZtream · 2008-09-21 17:23 · Score: 2, Insightful

Wikipedia has long ceased to be an accurate source of information
... because at some point it was an accurate source of information ... right ...
I've learned the best thing to do with Wikipedia is use it to get a general idea about something, and use that to find the facts yourself elsewhere.

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Re:Hmm... by philspear · 2008-09-21 17:30 · Score: 5, Funny

After that ridiculous incident, I stopped relying on Wikipedia for anything substantive. Its accuracy can not be assured due to the bureaucratic toolboxes that moderate the site.
We really do need that perfectly moderated and unbiased information website which provides you with the complete truth and is never wrong. I hear the Chinese government is working on one, but in the meantime there's this news channel called Fox which is fair and balanced. I mean, that's their catchphrase, so you know it's true!
Re:Hmm... by mqduck · 2008-09-21 18:06 · Score: 3, Insightful

I have to agree with you and the GP poster. Although it would be opposed by most, possibly even including myself, it might do good to have one's record of deletion/non-deletion votes in previous battles be indicated.
As, as I've already said on Slashdot, I can't understand the thinking of someone who would want to limit the amount available.
Further, Wikipedia has decided to prefer the bias of Western media over a search for the truth - including from 0those I agree with (eg the President of Cuba) and from those I disagree with (eg the President of Iran).

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Property is theft.
Re:Hmm... by Nazlfrag · 2008-09-21 18:38 · Score: 4, Insightful

I think he agrees with you, in that the notability guidelines are next to useless. If a perfectly useful and valid in all other respects page can be made, who cares if it is notable at all? One could argue that anything meeting the requirements for a source is notable, as the source proves someone somewhere finds it a topic worthy of being notable.
Re:Hmm... by Daltorak · 2008-09-21 18:53 · Score: 4, Informative

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.
Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · 2008-09-21 19:35 · Score: 5, Insightful

Garbage.
Article history and talk page history are oddly prone to being reset. Particularly by petty admins. Or, let's be honest, moderators.
>Also, there are no "mods" on Wikipedia. There are Administrators, but they don't moderate content except in very unusual circumstances
Read it. Then think about what you just wrote. You know, there is a reason why GP got a +5 and you rate at most a +3.
Re:Hmm... by Hognoxious · 2008-09-21 20:14 · Score: 4, Funny

because at some point it was an accurate source of information ... right ...
Yes, if you go back far enough: "This site under construction".

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Re:Hmm... by BrokenHalo · 2008-09-21 20:56 · Score: 3, Insightful

I belive there exists a technical solution - a notability scale. Every article would have number from 1-7 about how much it is notable.

While this is of course feasible, it leaves a lot of openings for abuse by administrators (or moderators or whatever you want to call them). Its very nature is entirely subjective, in that what is notable to one person might be less so to another.

Even a vanity article is capable of being useful and informative, particularly if it happens to point to useful sources. There's nothing in Wikipedia's policy that defines a particular number of people to whom the article must be of interest.

I would prefer to see a system where nothing is deleted without VERY good reason. The actual policy as I understand it is in general not bad as it stands, but if pages are being deleted capriciously, there needs to be some method of oversight.
Re:Hmm... by TheRaven64 · 2008-09-21 21:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

Not necessarily. Notability could be based on number of citations by other wikipedia pages, by external pages (check the referrer) and number of visits by distinct IPs. I've seen a page on Wikipedia deleted that I used to regularly give out to people for background information on the subject (I actually created my account specifically to vote against deletion - when the vote failed, there was another vote two weeks later saying 'ignore all of the people who voted against, they're sock puppets!' which then passed since no one who voted against the first time was allowed to vote the second). To my mind, any page that is useful to someone other than its creator should not be deleted unless it contains material that it is illegal or unethical for Wikimedia to host.

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Re:Hmm... by mdwh2 · 2008-09-21 22:36 · Score: 2, Insightful

I love it - people criticise the reliability of Wikipedia, but are quite happy to believe random hearsay posted anonymously on Slashdot.
Re:Hmm... by mdwh2 · 2008-09-21 22:42 · Score: 3, Interesting

Deleting ANYTHING from wikipedia is stupid.
I recommend anyone criticising Wikipedia to actually go and look at Deletionpedia. Go on, do it - click on random a few times. I've never seen so much crap.
If people are seriously thinking Deletionpedia is some kind of argument against Wikipedia's deletion process, either they haven't actually looked at it, or if they really think that material should be on Wikipedia, they've got a strange view of what an encyclopedia should look like.
If something is PROVEN to be inaccurate, then that's another story.
Wait, wait, wait - so on the one hand, people criticise Wikipedia when it has information found to be false, but now you want it to have any information people put there until proven false? Which is it?
Wikipedia can't win - as with many issues, there are always two groups of people (or sometimes the same people) who criticise it from opposite viewpoints, and it's impossible to satisfy both of them. And where it tries to be sensible and compromise between two extremes, that just means both sides whine about it!
Besides, I don't HONESTLY know of anywhere that I can quote wikipedia and be taken seriously. Encyclopedia Brittanica, et al, don't have that problem.
You shouldn't be quoting any encyclopedia as a reference, and if people will accept that, they're still fools. As with any encyclopedia, you follow the refences quoted by the encyclopedia article.
Furtherfore, this comment is absurd, given your earlier comments - do you think the Britannica editors have a policy of "We should allow any old crap written by anyone about anything, even if it has no sources"? And do you think their stance on this helps or harms their reputation as having reliable information?
This is another perfect example of criticising it from both sides: you complain the Wikipedia removes unsuitable articles, and then complain that it isn't like Britannica.
Re:Hmm... by mdwh2 · 2008-09-21 22:52 · Score: 2, Insightful

I second the call for links. It's funny how people whining about Wikipedia never cite their source.
I bet most the people complaining are the sorts of people who write some nonsensical or unsourced article, or one that does not even assert why it's important, and then whine about Wikipedia that it got deleted. For all we know, the creator of List of films with monkeys in them is on here, complaining how crap Wikipedia is that his masterpiece of an article got deleted.
The sad thing is that elsewhere, people are also criticising Wikipedia because "It contains so much crap", because of the very articles that the former set of people write. It wouldn't surprise me if there have been edit wars, which result in both sides of the argument getting annoyed and complaining "Wikipedia is full of idiots who rv anything I write" and "Wikipedia is full of idiots who write complete rubbish"...
Re:Hmm... by mdwh2 · 2008-09-21 23:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

Let's take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deletionpedia&diff=next&oldid=239175544 . Firstly, with only one short sentence, this is not an example of "pages that people have put a lot of effort into". Secondly, it got proposed for speedy deleted due to not asserting importance. You don't have to prove it, or even show it - just assert it. That's not much to ask, and helps trim out pages that people write about themselves or their pet cat. Even if that short sentence article had got deleted because it didn't meet it, who cares - there's nothing stopping someone writing a proper article that follows the simple rules. Thirdly, as you can see from my link, the admin soon realised his mistake, and took down the speedy delete request. So no problem. And now after the AfD, the decision has been to keep the article - so it looks like the system's working fine.
There's also nothing odd about how quick it happens - people can view new pages at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:NewPages , so they can be reviewed quickly.
And since you think this is a bad idea, perhaps you should take a look at some of the new pages. At a glance, I see the article Dj_harry. Are you going to complain about the proposal for speedy deletion on this article? (Perhaps someone can also complain that Wikipedia isn't as serious as Britannica ... funny, maybe it's got something to do with the fact that Britannica doesn't have articles on "Dj harry"?)
So some nerdy high school kid is allowed to nominate articles for deletion within seconds of them been created.
And you think that many of these pages aren't created by nerdy high school kids?
Re:Hmm... by Dogtanian · 2008-09-22 01:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

I tend to be an inclusionist/separatist in my attitude toward wiki projects and content. By this I mean that content ought to be given time to develop, even if it seems crazy and off the wall. By being a separatist, I think the mergist viewpoint is full of logical errors and that most calls to merge two articles together are mainly a variant of deletionists who think that such petty articles about obscure topics need to go...
I find that splitting off articles into what would essentially end up as stubs (*)often removes the context that would make the information more useful, without providing any significant benefit.

My preference is to split potential sub-articles into subsections and if necessary let them grow. Eventually, when and if there's enough information to make a good article and/or the size of the subsection is too in-depth and long for the main article, *then* it can be split off and the subsection summarised with a "main article" link at the top. I've done this to several excessively-long articles myself.

My dislike of excessive splitting is that (I get the impresion that) some people seem to do it because they want to do it for reasons of emphasis (of the sub-topic) or importance or for reasons of ego, rather than whether or no it's the best way to present the information. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

(*) And, more importantly, what will likely never be any more than stubs.

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Re:Hmm... by m50d · 2008-09-22 01:15 · Score: 2, Informative

... because at some point it was an accurate source of information ... right ...
It was, back before there was any power in it. When it was all just people trying to make the best articles they could. Sure it had mistakes, but so would anywhere you look.

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Re:Hmm... by Poltras · 2008-09-22 01:20 · Score: 2, Funny

First the articles, next the summary... now we have to read the comments before replying? /satire

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Of Code And Men
Re:Hmm... by thePowerOfGrayskull · 2008-09-22 01:21 · Score: 2, Insightful

Fuck you, you self centered douchebag.
And this is what passes for 'insightful'?
Re:Hmm... by IndustrialComplex · 2008-09-22 01:23 · Score: 4, Interesting

Hell, I changed the capitalization of a word in the article regarding the Bill of Rights, (People to people), and it was marked as vandalism. Turned me off to editing on Wikipedia right off the bat.

I probably wouldn't have minded it that much if I hadn't used a photograph of the actual document and the transcript from the National Archives as the reference. When something can get marked as vandalism, and you are tidying up an entry and using the freaking original in the Archives as a source... just pissed me off.

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Re:Hmm... by jagdish · 2008-09-22 03:31 · Score: 2, Insightful

and yet they retain plot synopsis of every episode of every sitcom. Weird huh?
Re:Hmm... by Tom · 2008-09-22 04:57 · Score: 3, Insightful

Exactly.
A lot of deletion discussions are a bunch of unemployed americans with nothing better to do discussing whether or not some monument, palace or person in some country they wouldn't find on a map, is "notable" or not.
And that's mostly because most of the adults don't chime in on a topic they know absolutely nothing about, so the whole "delete" supporters who essentially say "never heard of it, not notable" just in slightly veiled words, are the only voice speaking up.
"Notability" is a broken concept, because you can not falsify it. You can not prove that something is not notable. You can only prove that it is notable by citing evidence. But absence of evidence isn't proof of non-notability. Just because nobody who happened to stumble upon the AfD page in that particular week lives in Peru doesn't mean that the topic in question isn't on TV in Peru regularily, for example.

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Deletionism? by DirtySouthAfrican · 2008-09-21 13:42 · Score: 5, Funny

The politically correct term is "Intelligent Unpublishing".

Re:Deletionism? by Anonymous Coward · 2008-09-21 13:45 · Score: 2, Funny

There are many words for the mods at Wikipedia, and (NSFW) "intelligent" isn't one of them.
Re:Deletionism? by owlnation · 2008-09-21 14:07 · Score: 2, Funny

The politically correct term is "Intelligent Unpublishing".
I don't think the word "intelligent" means what you think it means. It is the last word that could ever be applied to the actions (or reactions, in fact) of wikipedia's admins.

Book burning by any other name.
Re:Deletionism? by Nazlfrag · 2008-09-21 18:45 · Score: 4, Insightful

You're not taking that analogy literally enough. Think of the point behind book burnings - to destroy and censor information deemed unfit to be in print or published. Deleting web pages fits this perfectly.
Re:Deletionism? by trytoguess · 2008-09-21 21:35 · Score: 2, Insightful

Book burning are conducted because the material is morally offensive to a group. Wiki deletions happen becuase someone or a group thinks a topic isn't worth remembering on wikipedia. The analogy is far too simplistic since the motives and vitriol are completly different.

Easy. by Chairboy · 2008-09-21 13:43 · Score: 5, Informative

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.

Re:Easy. by Zironic · 2008-09-21 19:00 · Score: 2, Informative

It has been mentioned in several newspapers but the deletionist faction likes reading "non-trivial" as "major".
Re:Easy. by oblivionboy · 2008-09-22 00:47 · Score: 2, Interesting

Dude! You are the problem at wikipedia! This is why me and a bunch of other people don't even bother to take our time to edit anymore. Go hang yourself, digitally speaking.

Sounds like Wikipedia needs competition by NotQuiteReal · 2008-09-21 13:43 · Score: 4, Insightful

To keep it in check. Maybe two or three.

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This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.

Re:Sounds like Wikipedia needs competition by DanielLC · 2008-09-21 13:59 · Score: 3, Informative

Do you mean like forks like Wikinfo, or unrelated, but similar, sites like Everything2, h2g2 and Knol?
Re:Sounds like Wikipedia needs competition by owlnation · 2008-09-21 14:16 · Score: 5, Insightful

Wikipedia has competition. The problem is pagerank. Google calculates pagerank on the basis of the site, not individual pages. Wikipedia has a ridiculously overinflated page rank -- especially when you consider many individual entries are total crap.

In most cases there are better quality pages available, however the Wikipedia page will be in the top 10 of search results, no matter how good or bad it is.

It's Google that needs competition. That will stop monopolies in a number of areas -- not just Wikipedia.
Re:Sounds like Wikipedia needs competition by Darkness404 · 2008-09-21 14:28 · Score: 4, Interesting

What I think the poster meant was for there to be a site like Wikipedia that was A) A Wiki and B) Had information about all kinds of things, while still being C) Somewhat serious. And there really isn't any other place. Granted, there are a lot of good Wikis for various things, just about every major game has one, and I use LyricWiki (whenever it isn't down) to check for lyrics. But there isn't one good place to get all kinds of information that is freely editable except for Wikipedia. Also, compared to most other sites Wikipedia is fast to load and doesn't have all the ads.

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Re:Sounds like Wikipedia needs competition by Merusdraconis · 2008-09-21 16:07 · Score: 4, Interesting

I had high hopes for Citizendium, but wikis thrive on drive-by editing, and I don't think Citizendium allows that. It sure hasn't gotten anywhere much in the year it's been running, and it's woefully incomplete.
Re:Sounds like Wikipedia needs competition by DerekLyons · 2008-09-21 16:34 · Score: 4, Insightful

Wikipedia has competition. The problem is pagerank. Google calculates pagerank on the basis of the site, not individual pages. Wikipedia has a ridiculously overinflated page rank -- especially when you consider many individual entries are total crap.

In most cases there are better quality pages available, however the Wikipedia page will be in the top 10 of search results, no matter how good or bad it is.
Amen.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - you couldn't design a site to spam Google better than Wikipedia. Lots of offsite links, rapid updates, constant changes, and highly internally linked via keywords.

Even if, according to Google itself, the page isn't linked to from offsite - it still receives a high PageRank score.
Re:Sounds like Wikipedia needs competition by flyingsquid · 2008-09-21 18:15 · Score: 3, Informative

Your mention of Citizendium made me curious so I stopped by and checked out a few articles. I came across this one for 'Dinosaurs':

Dinosaurs were a widely distributed and diverse group of large reptiles that were once quite dominant on Earth. Many believe that they were wiped out by a meteor's collision with the planet around 65 million years ago, while others believe they are simply the name given by modern science to dragons, whose co-existence with human beings is attested to by the Bible[1]."
The sole reference is to "Answers in Genesis", a creation "science" organization. Wow. Just... wow, that's just sad.
Re:Sounds like Wikipedia needs competition by TheRaven64 · 2008-09-21 21:59 · Score: 2, Insightful

The problem with drive-by editing is that it should be editing not writing. An editor does not (usually) produce content, they produce comments on content. The writer then merges these back in to the text. None of the online Encyclopaedias I've seen permit this (or even make the distinction between editors and writers).

--
I am TheRaven on Soylent News

Paradox! by JackassJedi · 2008-09-21 13:46 · Score: 5, Interesting

But what if an article should ever be deleted from Deletionpedia?

I sense the LHC is becoming redundant here!

--
Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.

Easy...to game by smittyoneeach · 2008-09-21 13:46 · Score: 5, Interesting

So you're saying that all you have to do is pass some 'notability' threshold, or buy the necessary media coverage (don't bore me with claims of journalistic integrity), and you're done?
Great. We all know what kind of site Wikipedia has evolved into, we just haven't settled on the price.

--
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear

Re:Easy...to game by Free+the+Cowards · 2008-09-21 13:48 · Score: 3, Interesting

Don't even have to buy it. From doing a Google News search, it looks to me like the controversy over deleting the Deletionpedia entry is going to make it notable even if it didn't start out that way.

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If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
Re:Easy...to game by at_slashdot · 2008-09-21 13:54 · Score: 2, Interesting

I guess if you can buy the necessary media coverage you are notable enough, seems OK to me.

--
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
Re:Easy...to game by smittyoneeach · 2008-09-21 14:17 · Score: 2, Interesting

Yep. Money is pretty much the only metric upon which most agree.
Are we allowed to chuckle at the drift away from Wikipedia's original, relatively anarchist philosophy?

--
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Re:Easy...to game by Hal_Porter · 2008-09-21 16:29 · Score: 4, Interesting

Are we allowed to chuckle at the drift away from Wikipedia's original, relatively anarchist philosophy?
I've always found anarchists to be a bit naive about the way the world works. Historically the state of anarchy in countries has been the excuse some 'strong leader' needed to take over, or have turned into mob rule or domination by an abusive oligarchy.
If you look at the founders of the US, the reason for all the rules and checks and balances was to try to stop this happening. They, quite rightly, knew that 'mere democracy' was a dangerous thing.

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echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;

Unfortunately Wikipedia is going to the dogs by syousef · 2008-09-21 13:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

I really love Wikipedia and I sure hope I'm wrong, but I think we've seen Wikipedia at it's peek. As with many ventures that become successful they move from innovation to stability and with that become widely popular which creates new pressures and brings in other interests, and then in turn leads to the degradation of the service as people squabble about how things should be done. I've seen this with special interest groups and clubs of all kinds. It can be particularly difficult to counter. An organisation either survives these things and becomes stronger for the learning the members have done, or else it succumbs to the storm of shite and fades into insignificance.

--
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer

Re:Unfortunately Wikipedia is going to the dogs by wiredlogic · 2008-09-21 15:40 · Score: 4, Interesting

In fact, the English Wikipedia does appear to be just past it's growth peak right now.

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I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.

I did that by Geoffrey.landis · 2008-09-21 13:50 · Score: 3, Interesting

Yeah, I did that.

I just was too amused by the idea of an article on Deletionpedia, a listing of articles deleted from Wikipedia, in the Wikipedia

Although, actually, it really is notable enough to deserve an article.

--
http://www.geoffreylandis.com

Self-criticism essential in community encyclopedia by Morgaine · 2008-09-21 13:51 · Score: 5, Insightful

Shortly thereafter, the Industry Standard again turned its attention to Deletionpedia, reporting that deletion of the article in Wikipedia about Deletionpedia was itself under discussion, suggesting that the article was not being considered for deletion based on "insignificance of the site" but rather "due to perceived criticism of Wikipedia itself."

If the highlighted phrase is true, then it indicates that the high priests at Wikipedia are totally beyond control and beyond the pale.

There is no more important function in a community encyclopedia than self-criticism. It is part of its foundation, a self-referential examination of its integrity and transparency.

I am really hoping that that line from TFA is false, and that the discussion about deleting the Deletionpedia page from Wikipedia is unambiguously declared invalid by WP editors.

--
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra

Delete it by russotto · 2008-09-21 13:53 · Score: 5, Funny

It needs to be deleted, just to ensure that it ends up in Deletionpedia.

Wikipedia editors deleting open source projects by Foofoobar · 2008-09-21 13:53 · Score: 3, Interesting

Wikipedia editors have also started deleted popular open source projects which don't have book or magazine articles by anyone aside from projects maintainers or contributors. This does not surprise me that they would be also be deleting other things that show their deletion records as well especially when they are going completely overboard with their deletions.

--
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.

Nope. by ubernostrum · 2008-09-21 14:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

Wikipedia's notability guideline (note it's not actually an official policy) has all sorts of loopholes built in to it to allow a clique of editors to kill something they don't like. In this case, they would argue that Deletionpedia was not really notable in and of itself, but was only notable because of some notable incident which might be worthy of having a separate article (but that article would likely never be written, or would itself be deleted on some other grounds).

Re:Nope. by smittyoneeach · 2008-09-21 14:19 · Score: 3, Funny

The question is: can Wikipedia become a sufficiently elitist snob-club to give Brittanica a chance for a comeback?

--
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Re:Nope. by lysergic.acid · 2008-09-21 15:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

i actually find all this scorn for Wikipedia and its mods/admins quite amusing.
there are lots of accusations of personal biases, clique-mentality, elitism, and other very human traits. but i wonder if those making these complaints ever bothered to ask themselves whether these problems are endemic to the Wikipedia community or if they're problems which are inherent with any editorial process and that it's only because of Wikipedia's community-driven nature that these problems of objectivity are actually exposed and open to public scrutiny & debate.
i guess with any kind of progressive movement there will be rearguard reactions to oppose it. however, in this case i think that the complaints being leveled are actually quite valid. it's just that Wikipedia is being unfairly singled out simply because of its open/collaborative nature.
if you only have 20-30 person conventional editorial staff these problems would be a non-issue simply because the people who disagree with the company's official editorial opinion would simply be fired or probably just would not have been hired in the first place. all of the editorial politics are handled behind closed doors and any issues would be solved by a simple executive decision from the chief editor.
but once you involve the public in the editorial process then you're opening it to infinitely many viewpoints and a greater diversity of opinions. this invites open discussion and eliminates the risk of corporate politics influencing editorial decisions. but the same virtues that make Wikipedia a great alternative to the largely consolidated mainstream media also give rise to controversy as its open nature is more likely to draw public criticism.
the more people that take part in a debate, the more disagreements will arise, and the harder it will be to satisfy everyone involved. but i don't see this as a flaw with collaborative publishing. it reveals an often missed (or concealed) dimension to print publishing, particularly that of reference works.
Re:Nope. by Splab · 2008-09-21 17:43 · Score: 2, Insightful

There is a huge difference between editing some online thing like Wikipedia in your spare time and paying for the roof over your head and food on your table with your job editing lexica.
Also; Wikipedia admins carry quite a lot of power, usually changing the history of a country was reserved to the ruling elite - now it can be accomplished by a disgruntled admin.
Re:Nope. by Eskarel · 2008-09-21 18:31 · Score: 5, Insightful

There is an aspect of humanity to Wikipedia's problems.
It's also true that that sort of thing is present in all editorial processes.
My biggest complaint with Wikipedia(aside from the fact that there seems to be no official method of discouraging the worst of this behavior) is really that there seems to be a core group of Wikipedians who have a vision for what they think Wikipedia ought to be, and that this vision is completely at odds with what people actually use Wikipedia for.
Wikipedia is never going to be an on-line version of Britannica. This is mostly because the world doesn't need an on-line version of Britannica, and that if it did, Britannica would be perfectly capable of doing it themselves.
What the world needs is a place where you can look up all the stuff that doesn't get into encyclopaedia's. A lot of this stuff is trivial and non-notable, and of course there's some issues with reliability and truth, but that's what the citation system is for.
Wikipedia can be that place where you can find out all the alternate points of view, look at what they use as citations(if anything) and judge them. It can do this because realistically it doesn't cost them anything to host information no one looks at and any information people are interested in is fundamentally notable by the very definition of the word.
Wikipedia can, and should, host pages on pretty much everything that can't be proven false. Anything that also can't be proven true, should be marked as such, but there is no harm, and possible a lot of good in it being there.
Certainly some things ought to be deleted, or at least sidelined, but that should mostly be about crap writing as opposed to something not being important. If someone sends something in which is totally unreadable, and no one is sufficiently interested in updating it, by all means delete it, but if someone puts together a well written, well thought out article about something that you think doesn't matter, let it lie.
Re:Nope. by smittyoneeach · 2008-09-21 21:22 · Score: 5, Interesting

really a social experiment that's going into uncharted territory
What part of basic organizational behavior do you find so uncharted?
An orthodoxy evolves, controlled by a core group, and heretics are pilloried.

--
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Re:Nope. by krilli · 2008-09-21 21:33 · Score: 2, Funny

i actually find all this scorn for Wikipedia and its mods/admins quite amusing.
there are lots of accusations of personal biases, clique-mentality, elitism, and other very human traits.

The point is that Wikipedia used to be more fun before the red tape took over. (Yes yes, I need a citation for that, I know.)
IMO - The personal biases, elitism and clique mentality used to fuel the article content itself: e.g., I am biased towards Ducati motorcycles; In the good old days, that means I'd write an article about Ducati motorcycles. These days I'd campaign to have the Triumph motorcycle page deleted.

--
Jag pratar lite svenska.
Re:Nope. by vadim_t · 2008-09-22 03:58 · Score: 2, Informative

Sounds like a nice test. I decided to try. Here are my opinions based on 10 loads of the link:
Club. Would keep.
Actor. Would expand and keep.
Company. Would expand and keep.
Rock band. Would keep it.
Some company. Should be improved, but would keep it.
Rock group. Would keep it.
Association. Would keep it. If such an association exists I don't see why not document it, however fringe it might be.
Self care. Would agree with deletion based on original research, though the concept is probably documented somewhere and could be fleshed out.
Pianist, with no useful data. Probably least worthy of keeping of the bunch.
Dancer. Lacks sources, but assuming the real world claims are true, I'd keep it
Of the 10, I'd only delete two of them, one for not containing anything useful (Khatia), and one for being original research. Wouldn't hurry with the deletion of any of them, I'd wait a couple of weeks to see if the article improves.
No articles on some random person, their cat, webpage, bad poetry, or a "List of Slashdot users with the letter 'i' in their name" so far.

speed deleting by Joe+the+Lesser · 2008-09-21 14:04 · Score: 3, Interesting

One problem I feel is that a page should have considerable time of protection. As you can see, the buzz of deletionpedia is still growing, so it is actively becoming notable. If articles that were correct could have 30 days to build their cases that would at least be some improvement.

--
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)

Better solution... by Afecks · 2008-09-21 14:07 · Score: 3, Funny

Just redirect it to here.

Why not fork it? by Anonymous Coward · 2008-09-21 14:11 · Score: 5, Funny

Make an Includopedia and a Deletepedia. That way everyone is happy.

The debate is over, article will not be deleted by Kethinov · 2008-09-21 14:12 · Score: 5, Informative

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!

Re:The debate is over, article will not be deleted by ninjapiratemonkey · 2008-09-21 14:49 · Score: 5, Informative

Technically, the result of the debate was "no consensus", which means that they won't delete it. But it's not that they decided to keep it, it's that they couldn't agree enough to delete it.

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01110000 01010111 01101110 00110011 01100100
Re:The debate is over, article will not be deleted by TheSpoom · 2008-09-21 16:04 · Score: 2, Interesting

Which is bullshit, when you look at the actual votes. (Or "non-votes", as I'm sure someone will bring up.)
It should have been given a "keep".

--
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

Re:Ugh. by FishWithAHammer · 2008-09-21 14:15 · Score: 3, Insightful

Why doesn't it? The WP administration has said that space is not a concern, so what's the harm?

--
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."

Re:Ugh. by Darkness404 · 2008-09-21 14:17 · Score: 4, Insightful

The problem with deleting articles on Wikipedia is that as long as it isn't spam it should honestly have a place in Wikipedia. When it comes down to it, a few kilobytes of information even on every single SourceForge project is unlikely to amount to more than a terabyte or two. I'm all for deleting spam but even small 200-500 word articles on something that isn't spam should be kept. And unlike a print encyclopedia where a few more pages could really add up, I doubt that even a terabyte of HD space or a gigabyte of bandwidth more is going to make much of a difference.

--
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.

Re:something to say != something relevant by MrMista_B · 2008-09-21 14:27 · Score: 5, Insightful

People like you are why Wikipedia is a failure if what it had intended to be.

How many people have to find something relevant or useful in order to stop it from being deleted from Wikipedia?

A hundered? A thousand? A million?

Nothing like that. Wikipedia is controlled by those what get off on deleting the work of other's, ignoring 'notability' or 'value' or 'usefulness' or 'relevance' entirely. If these few high priests of Wikipedia deem an article, whether it's about Pokemon or CNN, to be something they have a personal bias against, it will be deleted.

Frankly, it seems like Wikipedia has about as much credibility these days as Fox News.

So, that might be an interesting question: Given the fact that Wikipedia is controlled by a very few people with a very narrow view of what's notable, and use that to control what information is contained in Wikipedia, regardless of the truth, veracity, or notability of that information, should Wikipedia be regarded as a source of useful information, or as a propaganda machine to be avoided at all costs?

It's a painful question to have to ask - at one time, I espoused Wikipedia as, well, one of the best examples of the strengths of the internet.

More and more, however, I'm finding that, given the nature of those in control of Wikipedia... I just don't know anymore.

Deleting Deletionpedia... by Geoffrey.landis · 2008-09-21 14:27 · Score: 4, Funny

Don't even have to buy it. From doing a Google News search, it looks to me like the controversy over deleting the Deletionpedia entry is going to make it notable even if it didn't start out that way.

In fact, the fact that the controversy over deleting the deletionpedia page is itself notable makes me very tempted to write a Wikipedia article "Deletionpedia Deletion Controversy"...

On the other hand, I guess that might be pushing it a little too far, though.

--
http://www.geoffreylandis.com

Re:Deleting Deletionpedia... by Nazlfrag · 2008-09-21 18:56 · Score: 5, Funny

This just in: New Wikipedia 'Deletionpedia Deletion Contorversy' deletion controversy erupts as the Wikipedia Deletionpedia Deletion description is nominated for deletion. Delegates describe dangerous double dealings during dastardly deceptive deletions.

Re:Self-criticism essential in community encyclope by interiot · 2008-09-21 14:28 · Score: 3, Insightful

It's a totally orthogonal issue. If you're suggesting that Wikipedia hides information critical of itself, that's not true, there are many examples in project space. For article space though, it's proper to stick to the same criteria that's used for every other article. Otherwise you're arguing that Star Wars should mention how much it sucked in the movie itself (i.e. in its primary product) rather than just discussing it in the DVD extras.

Those articles have been deleted... by lazy_nihilist · 2008-09-21 14:32 · Score: 5, Funny

We apologise again for the fault in the deletion. Those articles mentioning the deletion of the articles that have just been deleted, have been deleted.

Interesting suggestion in the AfD comments by danaris · 2008-09-21 14:33 · Score: 4, Interesting

One thing I noticed in the AfD comments that seems like a pretty good idea was to have any Wikipedia articles that get deleted be instead transwikied to Deletionpedia.

Naturally, that's not as good as not deleting them from Wikipedia in the first place...but it seems to me that at least it solves the problem of the work being lost entirely when the AfD finishes and the article is sent into the aether.

Dan Aris

--
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.

Re:I'm a confirmed WP deletionist by Darkness404 · 2008-09-21 14:36 · Score: 5, Insightful

The problem with that is, what does that gain Wikipedia? Nothing. It loses facts. Granted, they might be badly written, or some might be poorly-researched, but deletion doesn't gain Wikipedia anything. Granted, deleting obvious spam written like an advertisement gains Wikipedia something, but deleting articles gains Wikipedia nothing

Ok, I'll admit, it might save them a few kilobytes of bandwidth or a gigabyte of storage, but honestly, bandwidth and storage are dirt cheap these days.

--
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.

Re:Deleting ANYTHING? Really? by Anonymous Coward · 2008-09-21 14:37 · Score: 5, Informative

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.

Re:something to say != something relevant by owlnation · 2008-09-21 14:39 · Score: 4, Interesting

Frankly, it seems like Wikipedia has about as much credibility these days as Fox News.

Hmmm, actually Fox News has more credibility.

The bias on Fox is overt and wholly transparent. The bias on Wikipedia is covert and secretive, though it is of course even more biased and manipulated than Fox.

Re:I'm a confirmed WP deletionist by Anonymous Coward · 2008-09-21 14:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

Well... it's not your statue, remember it.

Re:I'm a confirmed WP deletionist by Anonymous Coward · 2008-09-21 14:42 · Score: 4, Insightful

Deletionist: "Bah, this statue you people created has too many rocks sticking out..."
*Snap*
Artist: "But... those were arms..."
Deletionist: "NO U SUXORS I MAKE BETTR."

A good wiki with a bad version control system by pfunes · 2008-09-21 14:46 · Score: 5, Interesting

The whole debate is caused - IMHO - by having a bad versioning system as the Wikipedia's backend. Deleting and undeleting whole articles should be as transparent and open as deleting and undeleting paragraphs within an article. The history feature provides such transparency. Currently, instead, deleted articles are zapped: inaccesible, unreadable, unrecoverable. Allowing history access (and an option in "advanced search") for deleted articles would make this issue a lot simpler.

Re:A good wiki with a bad version control system by BitZtream · 2008-09-21 17:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

Uhm, I've not dealt with a deleted article on Wikipedia, but we use media wiki on our intranet site and accessing a deleted article will allow you to view its history and restore it with little effort.
I used that feature just a few days ago to restore an article on our Intranet that I had previously deleted.
For example the deletion log for a page I created and deleted:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/delete&page=A_Deleted_Article_Example
You'll have to wait for an editor to come along and delete it, but give it an hour or so and it'll probably be killed.
The point to all this is, I think you are pretty much completely wrong.

--
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager

entropy by bcrowell · 2008-09-21 14:53 · Score: 4, Insightful

I agree with you 100% that Wikipedia has peaked. The quality of most articles is dropping over time, because anybody halfway sane doesn't want to pore autistically over a watchlist of cherished articles to make sure they don't succumb to entropy.

On the other hand, that doesn't mean that every dispute on WP is pointless, or that either side could be right on every issue. One bogus argument that's always posed by people who don't want their articles deleted is that it's not a paper encyclopedia, so there's no reason to keep the whole thing under a certain page count. Well, suppose Fred creates an article on his high school band, Fredsband, which only actually consisted of himself and his golden retriever. Every single time a user searches for "golden retriever," one of the hits is going to be the article on Fredsband. Also, when you have an article that's non-notable, it tends not to be linked to any other articles, and you get these little disjoint subsets of WP that are unhealthy. They can become havens for crackpots, or honeypots for spam links.

--
Find free books.

Re:entropy by Tangent128 · 2008-09-21 16:37 · Score: 5, Insightful

The existence of, members of, and list of songs by Fred's garage band are all facts, yet you won't see them in the Britannica, as most people wouldn't consider them worth looking at.

But! Say the council of Anytown decides to compile a local encyclopedia. Fred may well make it in, being of local interest.

For both the Britannica and the Anytown-pedia, space was a limiting issue. What made Wikipedia so promising was the idea that it didn't have such space limitations- you could include articles on anything. Sadly, they seem to have decided that some objective standard of notability exists, and define it rather narrowly at that.
Re:entropy by blind+biker · 2008-09-21 19:30 · Score: 2, Insightful

Every single time a user searches for "golden retriever," one of the hits is going to be the article on Fredsband.
So what? The hits are listed by relevance, I don't think Fred's little garage band is going to confuse anyone.

--
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.

There was once a time... by Darkness404 · 2008-09-21 14:55 · Score: 5, Insightful

There was once a time that Wikipedia was thought up. The professors laughed at the idea, looking down from their leather chairs and fancy bookcases and said that nothing would be accomplished. That nothing would be accurate, that the wisdom of crowds would never produce an encyclopedia. And thus, Wikipedia was born. Built as a modern day Library of Alexandria, it had mottoes of be bold and to ignore all rules. And for a while it thrived, it took the professors by surprise, it became a haven for knowledge, a temple for facts. It grew quickly and spread into almost every written language. And then, the changes started to happen. The moderators who had so loudly proclaimed to ignore all rules had started to become much like the professors that had previously laughed at their attempts. What had started to destroy censorship now was slowly increasing its spread. Moderators turned on users and banned them for the most silly of reasons, users tried to correct errors and were banned for vandalism. And soon it became impossible to tell who were the editors of Wikipedia or who were the bureaucrats running the print encyclopedias.

I will end this post with a quote from George Orwell's Animal Farm

Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

--
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.

Re:There was once a time... by MindlessAutomata · 2008-09-21 15:06 · Score: 2, Interesting

Your grandiosity aside, professors laughed at wikipedia because of credibility issues citing random sources.
And they are quite right.
Re:There was once a time... by Darkness404 · 2008-09-21 15:10 · Score: 3, Insightful

Because we all know that all the "primary" sites your teachers always want you to go to never ever have misleading information and are always cited. Honestly, there are a lot of articles, particularly about technology, that Wikipedia is the best source for. Now, I'm not sure if I would write a 100 page book about American History based on Wikipedia, but a paper about most software Wikipedia is going to give you the most information short of talking to the actual developer (because most of the time the project's site is no good and man pages only tell you the flags you can use)

--
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Re:There was once a time... by MindlessAutomata · 2008-09-21 18:29 · Score: 2, Interesting

This doesn't even have anything to do with professors being accurate and honest. The simple fact is is that the peer reviews on a wikipedia page may also include weirdos with no scientific knowledge whatsoever. Having once edited wikipedia I saw that firsthand, too.

Mike Wooten by michaelmalak · 2008-09-21 14:58 · Score: 3, Interesting

By coincidence, I happened to just now look up Wikipedia's entry on Mike Wooten, the trooper of Palin's Troopergate, to find out the cause of the divorce.

It's marked for deletion!

Re:Mike Wooten by tylerni7 · 2008-09-21 15:37 · Score: 4, Informative

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.)

Funny Story... by Rutefoot · 2008-09-21 15:07 · Score: 5, Funny

A couple years ago a wiki page was created about a friend of mine who ran a website, in addition to a wiki page about the website itself. It appeared to have been made by some fan who never made themselves known.

It wasn't long of course before these deletion-happy admins nominated it for speedy deletion. The decision was proving to be unanimous. And, I for one didn't blame them. A wiki page for an administrator of a website seemed rather silly.

My friend agreed. He didn't feel that he really should be on the site and decided to go to the deletion page and weigh in on the issue. He told the wiki admins who he was and that he wanted the page deleted thinking this would solidify the consensus that had for the most part already been reached. I think the quote was something along the lines of "I don't want to be on your gay-ass site, so I'd appreciate it if you just hurried up and deleted it before I leave you all with a fist-sized, mushroom-shaped bruise on all of your faces."

Not surprisingly, all of the admins had a change of heart and all decided they wanted to keep the page.

Re:Funny Story... by ymgve · 2008-09-21 17:56 · Score: 5, Funny

"A couple years ago a wiki page was created about a friend of mine who ran a website, in addition to a wiki page about the website itself. It appeared to have been made by some fan who never made themselves known.
It wasn't long of course before these deletion-happy admins nominated it for speedy deletion. The decision was proving to be unanimous. And, I for one didn't blame them. A wiki page for an administrator of a website seemed rather silly.
My friend agreed. He didn't feel that he really should be on the site and decided to go to the deletion page and weigh in on the issue. He told the wiki admins who he was and that he wanted the page deleted thinking this would solidify the consensus that had for the most part already been reached. I think the quote was something along the lines of "I don't want to be on your gay-ass site, so I'd appreciate it if you just hurried up and deleted it before I leave you all with a fist-sized, mushroom-shaped bruise on all of your faces."
Not surprisingly, all of the admins had a change of heart and all decided they wanted to keep the page."
[citation needed]
Re:Funny Story... by robthebloke · 2008-09-21 23:45 · Score: 5, Funny

References:

1. ^ "A couple years ago a wiki page was created about a friend of mine who ran a website". Rutefoot, 2008

Persistence pays off by fortapocalypse · 2008-09-21 15:09 · Score: 2, Informative

I once got an article deleted that was fairly obscure, but relevant and worth a place in wikipedia nonetheless. After several months someone nominated it for speedy deletion, and it got deleted! I disputed the deletion with an explanation of why it was relevant, and got it reinstated; at the same time, I left a comment on the page's discussion (a reply back to the guy that deleted it) very professionally and unemotionally defending the article. Although I could tell he was a little peeved, he ended up letting it go and has since not tried to delete it or any other of my further articles.

original research by commodoresloat · 2008-09-21 15:18 · Score: 2, Insightful

Another reason for deletion is articles that constitute original research rather than encyclopedia articles. I have advocated the deletion of several articles that are really an original synthesis of ideas from unrelated sources. Such articles can be very interesting and perhaps there should be an originalresearchopedia for their bloody carcasses after a successful deletion, but they don't belong on an encyclopedia.

Re:something to say != something relevant by sailingmishap · 2008-09-21 15:27 · Score: 2, Insightful

How many people have to find something relevant or useful in order to stop it from being deleted from Wikipedia?

If these few high priests of Wikipedia deem an article, whether it's about Pokemon or CNN, to be something they have a personal bias against, it will be deleted.

It sounds like you're unfamiliar with Wikipedia's notability guidelines. They're clearly spelled out here. If you read a deletion debate, you'll find that it's this guideline being used to judge articles.

Do you have an example of an article with multiple, reliable independent sources that got deleted? That has been the threshold for inclusion since day one. If you can find an article that got deleted despite meeting the criteria, it would prove your conspiracy theory. Otherwise, you'll have to accept that it's a simple, clear-cut standard that has been applied since the site's inception.

In effect, editors delete by davidwr · 2008-09-21 15:44 · Score: 3, Insightful

When "Articles for Deletion" discussions work the way they should be, editors delete, admins only implement the will of the people. The major exceptions are borderline cases and cases when there is very little discussion.

I'm not saying things always work the way they should, just that when Wikipedians follow their own rules, the admin that does the deleting rarely gets to be a party to the decision.

Sure, there is that grey area between "delete" and "no consensus" and the occasional discussion where the "!vote count" does not match the strength of the arguments and the closing admin has to make a real judgment call on the strength of the arguments for keep vs. delete in light of policies and guidelines. It's these cases that separate a so-so admin from a good admin: A good admin will explain why he is deleting or not deleting and do so in a way that leaves most people satisfied.

--
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.

Deletionist - a new 21st century occupation? by Ron+Bennett · 2008-09-21 16:23 · Score: 2, Interesting

Just registered deletionism.com, and then on second thought realize that deletionist.com was likely the far more valuable one...

"Deletionist" sounds like a new 21st century occupation, involving one or more of the following:

* Spam filtering and deletion
* Extranous information removal (ie. the wikipedia sections being discussed)
* Sanatizing information stores
* On-line reputation management

Regardless, IMHO, "Deletionist" is highly brandable - intiutive name for a website offering deletion related services. Welcome thoughts.

Ron

the problem with wikipedia by Anonymous Coward · 2008-09-21 16:24 · Score: 5, Interesting

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 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.

Re:the problem with wikipedia by Anonymous Coward · 2008-09-21 23:20 · Score: 3, Insightful

looking at the users profile page is sickening. zero contributions, just deletions. I think deletion powers should only be granted to those who have significantly contributed to wikipedia previously. the linked to scumbag has done NOTHING to make wikipedia more useful

Re:I'm a confirmed WP deletionist by SurturZ · 2008-09-21 16:34 · Score: 2, Interesting

A sprawling article of 350KB does no-one any good. Wikipedia articles should be concise summaries of the topic. Too many articles on WP are bullet point lists of referenced facts, with no overall narrative structure. Keeping a high signal-to-noise ratio requires filtering out all the noise. Too many wikipedians believe that a mention in a reliable source means something is notable. Newspaper quotes are the worst - newsworthy is not the same as noteworthy.

"garage bands" by globaljustin · 2008-09-21 17:05 · Score: 4, Insightful

Leave those new band wikipedia entries alone.

I'm a music writer, and I'm also section editor of an online music/movie reivew website. The section I edit is the "new artist" section (we call it FIND).

My job is to find all the information I can about new bands. Here's the problem:

1. often press releases are insufficient or leave out pertinent, possibly negative information (understandable, that's what p.r. people are for)

2. band websites are often run by labels. labels don't give each artist the same ammount of attention, and often really good bands fall through the cracks because of it. many 'official' band websites are 'under construction' for years

3. myspace is unreliable...it's good to hear some tracks and keep up with show dates but like press release, sometimes important info that a journalist needs to know is left out

wikipedia is an invaluable starting point for the research I do...save the 'indie' band entries!

--
Thank you Dave Raggett

Re:"garage bands" by FireFury03 · 2008-09-22 00:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

Wikipedia is not a repository of things that are useful
Why not? In a paper encyclopedia, there must be some criteria to keep the size down, but Wikipedia doesn't need such restrictions. If a page is well written and accurate, who cares if it meets some notability criteria - it's probably useful to someone, even if it it isn't useful to you.
I'm afraid I've seen far too many really useful pages be blown away for being "non-notable" over the years - so much so that I don't bother to contribute to Wikipedia these days. Why should I spend the time contributing to improve the articles and make them really useful if someone who isn't interested in the subject matter is just going to declare them to be non-notable and blow them away?
My experiences of AfDs is that the only people who participate in the discussions are the deletionists, the people who wrote the article and *very occasionally* a few of the readers of the article. The views of the people who wrote the article are usually swiftly discounted because they are seen as having a vested interest in keeping it around and the readers of the article are usually called out as sock-puppets, because as readers, rather than contributors, they usually have very little edit history.
Wikipedia was a nice idea, but it is slowly being destroyed by petty politics and posturing.

--
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Re:"garage bands" by globaljustin · 2008-09-22 07:49 · Score: 2, Informative

why would a band that wants to be known want to put itself on a 'wikia' and not on wikipedia itself? that makes no sense whatsoever.
Look, here's how journalism is done. If I do all the research I can for an upcoming artist interview, and find that the wikipedia entry for the band says that the band will have a new album out in 2008, but there is no citation, I can either email the band's publicist or ask the band directly in the interview to confirm that information. If I do get confirmation, then I get a scoop. Then I can go back and edit the wikipedia entry to cite my own article, because I have confirmed the information.
I can understand wikipedians who are annoyed when a bunch of 8th graders make up a band and put up a wikipedia article about it. But how often does that really happen? And, how many of your favorite bands started out as a bunch of 8th grader wannabes?
wikipedia nazis need to balance themselves and realize that wikipedia has been successful beyond their wildest dreams and that with that success comes some side-effects. No need to get crazy.

--
Thank you Dave Raggett

Wikipedia reader? by iteyoidar · 2008-09-21 17:31 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'm surprised someone hasn't attempted to make some sort of wikipedia-reader yet. It seems like you could have a firefox extension or seperate program or whatever that could merge articles between wikipedia, deletionpedia, that star wars opedia, conservapedia, whatever else you felt like was appropriate for your 'pedias that would bypass some of the deletion problems. It would probably get complicated as hell when dealing with identical pages and things like that but it would be interesting to see how it worked out,.

Re:I'm a confirmed WP deletionist by Bieeanda · 2008-09-21 17:38 · Score: 4, Insightful

Aside from being laughably pretentious, that's ignoring the fact that there are clear guidelines for making the parts that don't look like encyclopedia entries, into the same.

You're shirking your responsibility as an editor to actually edit pages, in favor of lazily deleting out of hand. That, right there, is what's wrong with the Wikipedia.

you'll have better luck if you cite them by Trepidity · 2008-09-21 18:06 · Score: 3, Informative

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

Those who can... by GrahamCox · 2008-09-21 18:47 · Score: 2, Funny

Those who can, so. Those who can't delete. It's their way of feeling that they're "contributing", even if it is in fact in a negative way. I for one have long given up contributing anything to Wikipedia, because it's just too much of an uphill struggle to keep any article that I know anything about even remotely free from gradual erosion.

In the words of Monty Python: "Yes, well, that's the sort of blinkered philistine pig ignorance I've come to expect from you non-creative garbage. You sit there on your loathsome, spotty behinds, squeezing blackheads and not giving a tinker's cuss for us struggling artists. You excrement! You whining, hypocritical toadies with your color TV sets and your Tony Jacklin golf clubs. Well I wouldn't become a Freemason now if you got down on your lousy, stinking, purulent knees and begged me!"

Public narrative on Wikipedia: always the same by Carbon016 · 2008-09-21 19:56 · Score: 5, Insightful

10 WHY IS WIKIPEDIA SO INACCURATE
20 "Well, let me just delete all the unsourced material to leave it with a balanced summ-"
30 NO STOP DELETING STUFF KEEP IT IN I CANT BELIEVE YOU EVIL DELETIONISTS WANT TO DESTROY ALL MY HARD WORK
40 GOTO 10

I was an editor there for a while until I just couldn't deal with the constant rehashing of "these are the rules/guidelines, they are displayed prominently on all relevant pages" on every single AfD, as well as the stupid drama and the infinite patience the community had with clear vandals ("*USER* IS A FAGGOT NIGGER" = "Please do not make test edits outside of the sandbox"). Users whine about having their 5 page manuscript on their cat's behaviors deleted as a ten second destruction of all their hard work but show total disregard for the infinitely more people patrolling New Pages, AfD, PROD, etc's time being wasted. This is mostly because the system has been built up to have multiple levels of redundant band-aid processes. For example, there are three ways to delete an article:

If it meets certain criteria that apply to a lot of unsuitable pages, you can "speedy delete" it - since you're not supposed to tag anything if it doesn't clearly meet those criteria, deleting the tag itself is an act of vandalism, you're supposed to copy paste a {{hangon}} template and then justify your reasoning on the talk page. This never works: editors misapply the tag repeatedly, users don't bother to read the template or don't have enough time to write out anything detailed because the article will be deleted quickly.

Then you've got PROD, which is speedy-lite: you tag it, give a short justification, and if the thing isn't "challenged" by the article's creator or anyone else by removing it, it's deleted after a set period. If it is, you're supposed to always take it to AfD, but many people will just give up because nominating something for AfD is a 15 step process which involves collecting rare plants and taking them to seven pillars, then casting a spell and defeating a goblin in hand to hand combat. People don't browse the PROD queue, so the only people that end up taking off the tag are...surprise! The original creator of the article! PROD is essentially just a series of bets that the original creator won't delete the tag and take it to AfD before the time expires, and the admin isn't tired enough from deleting crap all day that they'll agree with the justification.

And then there's Articles for Deletion, which consists halfway of stuff that should be handled through either of the two above processes (if they worked properly), short vanity articles that end up having one or two "delete" comments and then are closed, or spiral into large debates in which each editor's opinion is supposed to not be a "vote", but if the closing admin rejects a pure tally, always seem to agree with toward the most simplified, spoon-fed argument. As mentioned above, nominating one is a rather tiring and complex set of edits which involves making three separate template changes on three separate pages, putting in a arbitrary "category" that is never useful to anyone, and writing a hopefully detailed summary of why it should go poof at the same time. This is "Web 2.0", right? Why can't I click a box or a dropdown? Is this a modified "security through obscurity" thing where deletionism is purposefully put through so many different steps that nominating a sequence of articles (never try to nominate more than once at a time, the syntax is a nightmare) is discouraged with the time-wasting complexity of it?

Plenty of this relies on templates and user-mediated process that would be made completely moot overnight if the MediaWiki developers got off their asses and started working on and implementing features that go beyond "flagged revisions" such as tagging articles for deletion via a tab and dropdown menu, then putting "speedy" articles in a queue where one or two other editors give it a check to make sure it's properly tagged and the article goes poof (without an administrator needin

Re:I'm a confirmed WP deletionist by SurturZ · 2008-09-21 19:57 · Score: 2, Informative

Poor quality articles do no good for anyone. Wikipedia is, at its heart, darwinian. Good text will remain. Deleted text can be re-added with the click of a button. It only stays deleted if it deserves to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Isomorphic/Essays/Deletionism/ is a good essay on the subject.

Re:then stick them on knol by fbjon · 2008-09-21 22:10 · Score: 2, Funny

Haha, if it's something you can put on Wikipedia, it's not your "content" in the first place!

--
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.

Re:something to say != something relevant by TheRaven64 · 2008-09-21 22:21 · Score: 3, Informative

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

Fascination with Rejection by 192939495969798999 · 2008-09-22 00:25 · Score: 2, Interesting

Back in the impressionist days in Paris, The Salon de Refuse was 10 times more popular than the salon for artwork. People are just fascinated to see what doesn't make the cut, since what does tends to look very self-similar because of the rules to "make the cut".

--
stuff |

Re:I'm a confirmed WP deletionist by Dogtanian · 2008-09-22 01:16 · Score: 2, Insightful

The problem with that is, what does that gain Wikipedia? Nothing. It loses facts. Granted, they might be badly written, or some might be poorly-researched, but deletion doesn't gain Wikipedia anything.

Here's the nub, and two salient points that people sometimes forget.

1) For those that claim that all information is important and worthwhile even if it's badly written and organised, they seem to forget that (a) we already have such a repository that can- and always will- beat Wikipedia hands down. It's the whole World Wide Web and a search engine!. Oh, and (b) this is where the vast majority of information on Wikipedia comes from anyway! Wikipedia's strength is that it organises information into a usable and readable form.

2) Wikipedia itself has *always* claimed that it's not meant to be an original source of information; therefore, its job is to collate and re-present information in a more useful format- see (1) above. Otherwise, what's the point?

I'm not a rabid deletionist by any means, but the problem with the more extreme "keep everything" viewpoints is that they're essentially trying to redo the whole web. I'll take a readable and useful WP article over one that's "complete" but no more useful than what I could find with Google anyday. It has nothing to do with saving a few pennies of space on a cheapass Seagate HDD.

--
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).

Same here, pissed off. by drewzhrodague · 2008-09-22 03:36 · Score: 3, Insightful

There were a bunch of entries I tried to add to Wikipedia. I went to repost the links to one of my projects (WiFiMaps.com) in the wardriving section, only to be deleted within seconds by some spam nazi. I tried to add an article about my grandfather (one of Duke Ellington's road managers), only to be deleted. Spelling corrections, link adjustments, and other edits quietly deleted, and my account being flagged as spam -- I've had accounts longer than some of these admins. They freaking deleted the article on spam nazis multiple times!

I am unable to contribute to Wikipedia because of this. Great idea, great resource, but it is no longer the Encyclopedia that Anyone can edit. I maybe have time and energy to do spelling corrections, fix links -- stuff like that. I don't' have the time and energy to fight some admin for weeks to have a link go to a (more appropriate) article, or add something that should already be up there. I don't bother anymore.

--
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.

Re:Deleting ANYTHING? Really? by Zeio · 2008-09-22 09:39 · Score: 3, Insightful

How does the Internet Meme "Happycat" which was deleted despite being very notable qualify as not notable.

There is a huge subjective component to notability. Sure, "x is the coolest person" is probably a good candidate for deletion, but time and time again I've seen these barnstar toting clowns delete perfectly good articles because they have pull and they think something isn't notable due to their unfamiliarity with a subject.

The same deletionists often have strange pet subjects , eg, an obscure record label of music they like.

Its basic: when a deletion causes an uproar its probably a notable subject.

--
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.

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