This is not the first assignment of its type. There have been more than 40 such projects; there are at least 10 more in progress. The students and the professors need to be aware of the "No original research" policy. Many university-level assignments involve original research, and Wikipedia is not the right place for publishing original research.
Here are some of the articles created as a part of the assignments we're talking about:
But that one requirement basically removes all discussion of creative works.
This requirement has been decided by majority of the Wikipedia community. It has not been imposed by the founders or the admins. The notability guidelines have changed over the years, and will change in future as well.
Currently, most of the contributors believe that a subject should be deemed notable enough, only if it finds non-trivial mentions in independent and reliable sources, such as newspapers, magazines and journals (Lolcat, for example, finds mention in several newspapers that are considered as independent and reliable sources). Of course, the notability guidelines are guidelines, and therefore not applied evenly. There will always be disagreements over issues like whether a mention is "non-trivial" or not, whether a source is reliable or not etc. Therefore, the issue of notability is dealt with on case-to-case basis.
The contributors who are not comfortable with present guidelines, are always free to fork the project. Citizendium is a good example: they disagreed with several policies, such as allowing anonymous editing, not giving any weight to the expertise of the editor etc.; so, they formed a new project, and are doing pretty well.
And this is bad because...? The Beatles were once a newly-formed band. Wouldn't it be historically interesting to read an article written about them during that first week?
It would be very interesting to read an article like that, but Wikipedia is not a place for publishing original research . Not that original research is bad, but it's out of the project's scope.
Suppose, you come up with a new, extraordinary, 100% accurate scientific theory. An academic journal, and not Wikipedia, is the right place to publish that theory. Similarly, if you find a newly-formed band promising, your blog, your newspaper column, or a magazine is the right place to write about that. Original research falls out of scope of a project like Wikipedia.
Should scope of Wikipedia be broadened, then? Some people say "Yes!". But, a vast majority of the contributors believe that the answer is "No". Instead, they believe that content not accepted on Wikipedia should go to alternative outlets. That's what led to formation of sister projects like Wikiquote, Wikinews, WikiBooks etc.
An encyclopedia should not be, particularly when there are no physical limitations saying that it doesn't need to be. The Encyclopædia_Britannica was formed in a time when it needed to be physically transportable. Wikipedia was formed in a time when storing and transmitting human-consumable text is almost trivially easy. The same standards need not apply to both of them.
Every project has a well-defined scope, and Wikipedia's scope is limited to produce informative articles on topics that have already gained notability. Transportability is not the only criteria adopted by Britannica for inclusion. Britannica is also available online these days, and they'll also find it easy to store and transmit content. So, do they start creating an article on every YouTube video with a million views, or an article on a school band that won accolades at the annual function? No, because that falls outside of Britannica's project scope.
Wikipedia as a project, too, has a limited scope. Majority of its contributors feel that notability filters are important to prevent it from becoming an indiscriminate collection of information. The problem is that "notability", by its nature, is subjective; it leads to disagreements in Wikipedia community, as well as criticism from outside. The users whose content gets deleted or removed are obviously the ones who are most disappointed. However, if you study the problem closely, you'll
I'm a Republican and not interested in the Democratic candidates next year; maybe I should delete their article.
It's not marked for deletion because the nominator doesn't like it. I think the nominator summed up his/her rationale for deletion quite well: "Unlikely reliable sources can be found to indicate notability. Fails WP:FICT."
I don't know much about this thing, and I don't have an opinion on whether it should be deleted or not.
The issue here is not "I like it" or "I don't like it". The issue is notability, and the person who nominated the article believes that this particular fictional virus is not notable enough to deserve a separate article. Those who voted delete agree, those who voted keep disagree.
If it's not costing Wikipedia a lot to host minor pages on diverse subjects, then why not?
Several other people have put forward similar arguments. But, if you start going through the new pages created every day, you'll realize why "notability" is so important. People keep creating articles on all sorts of things -- the band they formed in school yesterday, their pet cat, the 10-minute flash movie they created today and uploaded to YouTube...
There has to be a notability criteria for a project like Wikipedia. The problem: different people have different ideas of notability. For person A, a list of nursery schools in New York might be notable, while person B might opine that such information should go to a directory (which Wikipedia is not).
What makes matters worse for Wikipedia is that Wikipedia community consists of thousands of editors, and there can never be a 100% agreement on what's notable, and what's not. The Wikipedia community has therefore created some guidelines -- a few general points that most editors agree upon. Note that these guidelines were not dictated by Jimmy Wales, Larry Sanger, or the admins.
The person who nominated the article "Rage (fictional virus)" for deletion thinks that the article doesn't pass the criteria specified by the notability guidelines. It's not as if the nominator has some personal enmity with the creator of the article, or a dislike towards subject of the article. If several people disagree with the nominator, and explain why the virus deserves an article of its own, the article survives (just like the article on the "Lightsaber combat" did). If several people agree that it doesn't pass the notability criteria, it gets deleted.
Consider an analogy: you are a Reddit user who submits a story about Ron Paul. It doesn't make to the front page because several people mod it down (just like several people voted delete for the Wikipedia article). What do you do? Do you start criticizing Reddit? No! You go to Digg, where the story makes it to front page.
The differences over several issues (such as "notability") are bound to develop in any project that involves multiple users. If you don't like the notability guidelines of Wikipedia, consider getting them changed. If most people disagree with you and you fail in your endeavor to bring about a change, you can always fork the project (the content is licensed under GFDL).
The only way forward for wikipedia is to remove all admins -- all of them. Even the best of them.
So, who deletes an article stating "WX03 is the most awesome band evar! It consists of three teenagers called Tim, Harry and Joel."? Who blocks the a vandal, who keeps inserting "9/11 was an inside job" in every article?
They are self-appointed
They're not self-appointed. They're elected by the users (you don't need to be an admin to vote).
It's predominantly admins that are running amok through the articles and setting them up for deletion. If it's not Dragonfiend purging comics articles, it's Improv deleting all the articles on brand names. Dragonfiend is not an admin, and has never deleted a page. Improv last deleted an article in 2006.
yet 12 year olds are free to get themselves voted into the clique by ingratiating themselves with other admins and doing nothing but minor edits. If they actually knew the effort needed to research, source, verify and compose an article, perhaps they'd be less eager to delete it.
All admins are elected by the Wikipedia users. Any user (not just admins) can support or oppose the candidacy. One of the most important questions in a Request for Adminship is "What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?" Several users get oppose votes if they've no articles to their credit. All the admins I know have made major mainspace contributions to Wikipedia. Even the non-admin user you talk of has created a substantial number of articles. In short, it's ignorant of you to believe that everybody who deletes an article, or votes delete in a discussion, has never made any significant contributions to Wikipedia.
And when they run rampages on Wikipedia, abusing their position either to delete or force particular content into an article, they usually get away scot-free. If they're admonished, they're usually free to leave and come back under another name. Nobody knows who they really are. The people who do the same thing without becoming admins first are labeled "vandals" and indefinitely banned.
Abusive admins don't go scot-free. If your article gets speedy deleted for non-notability or lack of references, drop a note on the admin's talk page. Ask him/her to restore the article to your userspace -- you can add references to it and move it back to mainspace later. If an admin blocks you unfairly, contact unblock-en-l. If an admin tries to use administrator privileges, file an RfC.
As for coming back "under another name", even non-admins can do that -- "nobody knows who they really are". I don't see your point there.
Of course, I'm not saying that there are no rogue admins. But, it's silly to blame everything on administrators. There are a 1,368 administrators on Wikipedia, and you can easily find one willing to help you out. However, If your article gets deleted after a discussion (AfD) and deletion review, there is nothing an admin can do about it. The "notability" guidelines are not decided by the admins.
Both encyclopedias would be wrong if that is the only definition, as that only defines one form of Tennis.
Wikipedia article says, "For other uses, see Tennis (disambiguation)." Citizendium will take some time to catch up; hopefully, you'll see articles on other forms of Tennis in a few days.
Slashdot Mirror
This is not the first assignment of its type. There have been more than 40 such projects; there are at least 10 more in progress. The students and the professors need to be aware of the "No original research" policy. Many university-level assignments involve original research, and Wikipedia is not the right place for publishing original research.
Here are some of the articles created as a part of the assignments we're talking about:
But that one requirement basically removes all discussion of creative works.
This requirement has been decided by majority of the Wikipedia community. It has not been imposed by the founders or the admins. The notability guidelines have changed over the years, and will change in future as well.
Currently, most of the contributors believe that a subject should be deemed notable enough, only if it finds non-trivial mentions in independent and reliable sources, such as newspapers, magazines and journals (Lolcat, for example, finds mention in several newspapers that are considered as independent and reliable sources). Of course, the notability guidelines are guidelines, and therefore not applied evenly. There will always be disagreements over issues like whether a mention is "non-trivial" or not, whether a source is reliable or not etc. Therefore, the issue of notability is dealt with on case-to-case basis.
The contributors who are not comfortable with present guidelines, are always free to fork the project. Citizendium is a good example: they disagreed with several policies, such as allowing anonymous editing, not giving any weight to the expertise of the editor etc.; so, they formed a new project, and are doing pretty well.
And this is bad because...? The Beatles were once a newly-formed band. Wouldn't it be historically interesting to read an article written about them during that first week?
It would be very interesting to read an article like that, but Wikipedia is not a place for publishing original research . Not that original research is bad, but it's out of the project's scope.
Suppose, you come up with a new, extraordinary, 100% accurate scientific theory. An academic journal, and not Wikipedia, is the right place to publish that theory. Similarly, if you find a newly-formed band promising, your blog, your newspaper column, or a magazine is the right place to write about that. Original research falls out of scope of a project like Wikipedia.
Should scope of Wikipedia be broadened, then? Some people say "Yes!". But, a vast majority of the contributors believe that the answer is "No". Instead, they believe that content not accepted on Wikipedia should go to alternative outlets. That's what led to formation of sister projects like Wikiquote, Wikinews, WikiBooks etc.
An encyclopedia should not be, particularly when there are no physical limitations saying that it doesn't need to be. The Encyclopædia_Britannica was formed in a time when it needed to be physically transportable. Wikipedia was formed in a time when storing and transmitting human-consumable text is almost trivially easy. The same standards need not apply to both of them.
Every project has a well-defined scope, and Wikipedia's scope is limited to produce informative articles on topics that have already gained notability. Transportability is not the only criteria adopted by Britannica for inclusion. Britannica is also available online these days, and they'll also find it easy to store and transmit content. So, do they start creating an article on every YouTube video with a million views, or an article on a school band that won accolades at the annual function? No, because that falls outside of Britannica's project scope.
Wikipedia as a project, too, has a limited scope. Majority of its contributors feel that notability filters are important to prevent it from becoming an indiscriminate collection of information. The problem is that "notability", by its nature, is subjective; it leads to disagreements in Wikipedia community, as well as criticism from outside. The users whose content gets deleted or removed are obviously the ones who are most disappointed. However, if you study the problem closely, you'll
It's not marked for deletion because the nominator doesn't like it. I think the nominator summed up his/her rationale for deletion quite well: "Unlikely reliable sources can be found to indicate notability. Fails WP:FICT."
I don't know much about this thing, and I don't have an opinion on whether it should be deleted or not.
The issue here is not "I like it" or "I don't like it". The issue is notability, and the person who nominated the article believes that this particular fictional virus is not notable enough to deserve a separate article. Those who voted delete agree, those who voted keep disagree.
If it's not costing Wikipedia a lot to host minor pages on diverse subjects, then why not?Several other people have put forward similar arguments. But, if you start going through the new pages created every day, you'll realize why "notability" is so important. People keep creating articles on all sorts of things -- the band they formed in school yesterday, their pet cat, the 10-minute flash movie they created today and uploaded to YouTube...
There has to be a notability criteria for a project like Wikipedia. The problem: different people have different ideas of notability. For person A, a list of nursery schools in New York might be notable, while person B might opine that such information should go to a directory (which Wikipedia is not).
What makes matters worse for Wikipedia is that Wikipedia community consists of thousands of editors, and there can never be a 100% agreement on what's notable, and what's not. The Wikipedia community has therefore created some guidelines -- a few general points that most editors agree upon. Note that these guidelines were not dictated by Jimmy Wales, Larry Sanger, or the admins.
The person who nominated the article "Rage (fictional virus)" for deletion thinks that the article doesn't pass the criteria specified by the notability guidelines. It's not as if the nominator has some personal enmity with the creator of the article, or a dislike towards subject of the article. If several people disagree with the nominator, and explain why the virus deserves an article of its own, the article survives (just like the article on the "Lightsaber combat" did). If several people agree that it doesn't pass the notability criteria, it gets deleted.
Consider an analogy: you are a Reddit user who submits a story about Ron Paul. It doesn't make to the front page because several people mod it down (just like several people voted delete for the Wikipedia article). What do you do? Do you start criticizing Reddit? No! You go to Digg, where the story makes it to front page.
The differences over several issues (such as "notability") are bound to develop in any project that involves multiple users. If you don't like the notability guidelines of Wikipedia, consider getting them changed. If most people disagree with you and you fail in your endeavor to bring about a change, you can always fork the project (the content is licensed under GFDL).
So, who deletes an article stating "WX03 is the most awesome band evar! It consists of three teenagers called Tim, Harry and Joel."? Who blocks the a vandal, who keeps inserting "9/11 was an inside job" in every article?
They are self-appointedThey're not self-appointed. They're elected by the users (you don't need to be an admin to vote).
All admins are elected by the Wikipedia users. Any user (not just admins) can support or oppose the candidacy. One of the most important questions in a Request for Adminship is "What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?" Several users get oppose votes if they've no articles to their credit. All the admins I know have made major mainspace contributions to Wikipedia. Even the non-admin user you talk of has created a substantial number of articles. In short, it's ignorant of you to believe that everybody who deletes an article, or votes delete in a discussion, has never made any significant contributions to Wikipedia.
And when they run rampages on Wikipedia, abusing their position either to delete or force particular content into an article, they usually get away scot-free. If they're admonished, they're usually free to leave and come back under another name. Nobody knows who they really are. The people who do the same thing without becoming admins first are labeled "vandals" and indefinitely banned.Abusive admins don't go scot-free. If your article gets speedy deleted for non-notability or lack of references, drop a note on the admin's talk page. Ask him/her to restore the article to your userspace -- you can add references to it and move it back to mainspace later. If an admin blocks you unfairly, contact unblock-en-l. If an admin tries to use administrator privileges, file an RfC.
As for coming back "under another name", even non-admins can do that -- "nobody knows who they really are". I don't see your point there.
Of course, I'm not saying that there are no rogue admins. But, it's silly to blame everything on administrators. There are a 1,368 administrators on Wikipedia, and you can easily find one willing to help you out. However, If your article gets deleted after a discussion (AfD) and deletion review, there is nothing an admin can do about it. The "notability" guidelines are not decided by the admins.
Wikipedia article says, "For other uses, see Tennis (disambiguation)." Citizendium will take some time to catch up; hopefully, you'll see articles on other forms of Tennis in a few days.