US National Archives Will Upload All Its Holdings To Wikipedia

An anonymous reader writes The U.S. National Archives has revealed to Wikipedia newspaper The Signpost that it will be uploading all of its holdings to the Wikimedia Commons. Dominic McDevitt-Parks told the Signpost that "The records we have uploaded so far contain some of the most high-value holdings ... However, we are not limiting ourselves ... Our approach has always been simply to upload as much as possible ... to make them as widely accessible to the public as possible."

Comments

Deleted

[wisnoskij]

If Wikimedia Commons works anything like Wikipedia, it will probably all be deleted in a week as "not important enough".

Re:Deleted

[Anonymous Coward]

Notability is the word you're looking for:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability

I created a page for my uncle who is a multi-platinum recording artist, and it was deleted for not being notable enough. This was the week after he was on three national talk shows.

Re:Deleted

[tepples]

I created a page for my uncle who is a multi-platinum recording artist, and it was deleted for not being notable enough.

To prove that a topic is notable enough for an article, you need to cite three different articles in three different reliable sources. Which sources did you cite in the now-deleted article?

Re:Deleted

[Mashiki]

I personally like it when editors remove fully sourced information that's contrary to their PoV, and then you get a assload of brigading on the topic because it's "contrary to popular opinion."

Re:Deleted

[Anonymous Coward]

I cited a couple of books including The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, two other Wiki pages that mentioned him, the band's web site, a couple of reviews, three local newspaper articles, two NY Times articles, an article on cmt.com, his label's web site, an allmusic.com review, and a page about him on answers.com. I spent a lot of hours working on the content so I was dismayed to see it get deleted and my account banned.

Re:Deleted

[wiredlogic]

Hey but you can learn about all the Pokemon and Transformers trivia you could ever want to know.

Re:Deleted

[Anonymous Coward]

I created a page for my uncle

OK, tell you what. Since we're dealing with anecdotal evidence here, let's just go ahead and put it on the table.

Tell us who your uncle is, which "multi-platinum" recordings he's made, and which "national talk shows" he was on and we'll decide if he's notable enough. Let the court of Slashdot public opinion, (aka "Judge Nerdy") decide. The People's Court, FTW!

Also, as someone else here has noted, cite three different articles in three different reliable sources about your uncle. That's Wikipedia's standard. You do that, and we'll make sure he gets in Wikipedia.

There has to be some cut-off, you know. I tried to create a Wikipedia page for my old dog, Smokey, who was beloved by dozens of people and about whom I have written numerous reliable blog posts on my blogspot page, as well as many Facebook and Google+ posts and a heart-rending essay when I was in the fourth grade. And that fucking Wikipedia tried to tell me it wasn't notable. So I fixed them, I found an article about Chinese opera in the 1920s and just inserted a few paragraphs about old Smokey. It's been up there for going on four months now.

So you see, I've got a very personal axe to grind with those selfish, leeching monsters who line their pockets working for Wikipedia and I would be happy to help you in your righteous cause to get your uncle a Wikipedia page so your aunt might write you into the will.

Re:Deleted

[BrookHarty]

Speaking of that, my favorite "contrary to public opinion" was the term MGTOW. Men going their own way
This MGTOW motto is the main motto picked up by most mens rights groups. The MGTOW page was deleted multiple times by feminists who said it wasnt notable, even though it was referenced in main stream press and published books and then the numerous websites and groups. But still deleted, over and over and over.
So what did the feminists do? They created page called MGTOW for maximum gross take off weight that is just a REDIRECT to mgtow. The actual term is MTOW in aviation, so why the redirect and fight in the talk page? Politics.

This was almost 10 years ago since this happened, and still happens today.

History only goes back to 2009, but this MGTOW war is good example of the feminists of wikipedia fighting mens rights. Lucky now that enough mens rights groups and non profits using the term, almost 600,000 websites returned with a simple google search.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Talk:MGTOW
Limited history due to many deletions. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maximum_takeoff_weight&offset=&limit=500&action=history

There are more wikipedia censoring going on than this one topic, but I'd say this is the perfect example of editors censoring. Also why I think they dont deserve government money with these oppressive and biased editors that seem to be backed by the foundation.

I think my favorite comment by an editor on wikipedia was "we dont have the room for a mens rights page, we cant have a page for everything". Amusing when every episode of very popular shows does.

The more you know!

Re:Deleted

[tepples]

Do you have a link to the discussion on Articles for deletion?

Re:Deleted

[Anonymous Coward]

Concur. Even as a feminist who thinks most mens' rights groups are utterly misguided, I still think they have the right to be represented fairly. Wikipedia is a horrible distortion of the truth because there is so much special interest wrangling going on - an MMORPG where the side with the most copious spare time wins. I like MMORPGs as much as the next geek, but I'd be very worried if people started using WoW as a source for information about the world.

Re:Deleted

[Frosty Piss]

Hey but you can learn about all the Pokemon and Transformers trivia you could ever want to know.

It's not "trivia", that's not allowed. It's "In Popular Culture". Much more encyclopedic.

Re:Deleted

[DG]

Where Wikipedia fails HARD though is the article deletion process.

There are people out there who get a weird thrill from deleting articles.

An article that has been in place for *10 years* can be snuffed out just because a motivated moderator decides it isn't "notable" and sets up a "speedy delete".

Notice 6 months after the fact, try and put it back, and the whole friggin' WORLD descends on you.

Wikipedia is ruled by a group of petty, self-nominated bureaucrats. And the system - as horribly broken as it is - cannot be reformed, because there are too many vested interests who want to see it STAY broken.

 

Re:Deleted

[alvinrod]

The problem is that it appears to be rather arbitrary. What objective criteria is used to determine what popular culture is popular enough to warrant a Wikipedia page and what popular culture isn't popular enough so everything must go? In reality I think it comes down to whether or not it is more liked or more hated by editors who hold the power there.

Re:Deleted

[eyrieowl]

Indeed, the system is structured such that the deletionists are far more likely to hold sway. I think the rules would have to be set up rather differently for the inclusionists to be able to win out. A shame, really. Why wikipedia would want to shackle itself to some definition for "encyclopedia" based on what was possible with dead trees is beyond me. It's a small minded parochialism which does the project and the world a disservice.

Re:Deleted

[Mashiki]

Wikipedia is built on a foundation which works "on average".

In other words, if it doesn't fit someone narrow view of what's acceptable, piss off. They'd be happier with their echo chamber filled with groupthink.

Re:Deleted

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet, Wikipedia is chock full of trivial facts about TV shows. As in a page for every single episode of some popular shows when there are already plenty of other sites with that info.

Re:Are they safe there?

[Anonymous Coward]

So far the comments have been nothing but ignorant.
Wikimedia Commons is a repository of free (as in freedom) media. Mostly photos, but lots of other stuff too.
The National Archives and Records Administration, according to Wikipedia, "is an independent agency of the United States government charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records and with increasing public access to those documents".

These are federal government records and documents, so automatically in the public domain. Wikimedia Commons is the perfect place to mirror them.

Re:why?

[fizzer06]

The NSA already snagged all the available server storage?

Re:why?

[bswarm]

In case their hard drive crashes like the IRS's did.

Re:why?

[tepples]

To use a US Government-created, pre-1923, or otherwise free image in a Wikipedia article, you need to upload it to Commons first. The National Archives doing this on its own will save people a step.

... at which point dickheads will vandalize it.

[EWAdams]

Why not put it on government servers that at least have to be hacked into rather than letting random Russian assholes trash it seconds after it goes up?

Re:why?

[nurb432]

Thanks for the only serious answer i got, to a serious question.

Re:why?

[rgmoore]

They do already host this on their own, but putting it on Wikimedia Commons makes it easily accessible to people who want to use it for articles in any of the Wikimedia sites (e.g. Wikipedia, Wikiquote, etc.). Also, by doing an official upload, they reduce the chance of somebody claiming the files are illegitimate. This is basically a courtesy to Wikimedia.

{{PD-USGov}}

[tepples]

I'm under the impression that a lot of the "holdings" are works of the United States Government, which enter the public domain upon publication. Works created by a government contractor still have a copyright, but I'm not sure to what extent the "holdings" include those.