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Latest Wikipedia Uproar Over 'Superprotection'
metasonix writes: As if the problems brought up during the recent 2014 Wikimania conference weren't enough, now Wikipedia is having an outright battle between its editor and administrator communities, especially on the German-language Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation, currently flush with cash from its donors, keeps trying to force flawed new software systems onto the editor community, who has repeatedly responded by disabling the software. This time, however, Foundation Deputy Director Erik Moeller had the bright idea to create a new level of page protection to prevent the new software from being disabled. "Superprotection" has resulted in an outright revolt on the German Wikipedia. There has been subsequent coverage in the German press, and people have issued demands that Moeller, one of Wikipedia's oldest insiders, be removed from his job. One English Wikipedia insider started a change.org petition demanding the removal of superprotection."
bigger is better and all that.
> Superprotection mandate
Call it Ex Cathedra and get it over with.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
It's almost like the idea of letting everyone edit something actually does in fact turn into a crooked, biased shitstorm and wikipedia was wrong and everyone else in the world was right.
I stopped following what goes on with wikipedia and editing a few years ago. I was not as much annoyed that my edits would not survive long, it just started feeling a useless endeavor when I saw so many topics I would search to read about were deleted. I mean, if I and a few others search for something without having any connection to it, it is "notable" by definition isn't it? Otherwise I can just delete "Nigeria". Sure, a lot of people would like to look it up, but I, as a wikipedia editor and supreme being, think that country is not notable.
So I recently heard about a programming language called Nimrod. It's relatively new, but it's very capable and even the venerable Dr. Dobb's Journal featured it recently.
I wanted to get a broader overview of it, so I thought I'd check out Wikipedia's article about it. After all, it's a language I'd managed to hear about, and I don't keep up to date with developments in the field very much these days. It was even featured by a widely read publication. So that should make it notable enough to have a Wikipedia article, right? Nope.
I quickly found out that the notability idiots over at Wikipedia have repeatedly chosen to target it for elimination.
I tried reading some of their justification for deleting the article, but it made absolutely no sense. It's a perfectly good topic to cover, and clearly I and others want to read about it! Yet these totalitarian shitbags feel the need to censor, censor, censor and then censor some more.
The harm these monsters do by getting rid of useful articles far, far outweighs any harm that could ever be done by having allegedly "non-notable" articles exist uncensored. I'd totally rather than the article about Nimrod stay, and anyone who doesn't like it can fuck off and visit some other web site.
To be fair, Agile can be freaking awesome. I worked at a devotedly Agile shop and it was a developerocratic utopia. After the few meetings we had, all participants walked away with legitimate action items. You didn't just get called in to listen to something that didn't concern you - if you were invited, it's because you were specifically needed.
I've also worked in places where Agile was a stultifying cover story for "actually waterfall but that doesn't sound as cool so we'll never admit it". That might be the kind of /dev/hell you found yourself stuck in. But that's not Agile Done Right, and shops that Do Agile Right really do exist.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I really don't get the uproar. The crux of the issue seems to be that an update to the software running all the various instances of Wikipedia enabled a new slideshow viewer by default, and removed the ability for site admins to disable it by default (but users still can individually choose their preference).
Tempest in a teapot?
the person from a century ago might not be as notable to people today
That's not how it works. Something becomes notable when unaffiliated reliable sources have covered it. This notability, if established, does not decrease over time. Such a decrease would require the existing reliable sources to stop existing. The reason Wikipedia has a notability requirement in the first place is that an article about a non-notable subject has no reliable sources that it can cite about anything.