I agree that we are fighting a battle for the soul of Wikipedia, but [[WP:N]] is not it. ([[WP:V]], specifically what counts as a valid [[WP:RS|reliable source]], and the role of the Wikimedia Foundation board members and WP's de facto God-King Jimbo Wales, are where the battle rages, in my opinion.)
The Economist article is wrong on at least the following points.
[[Solidarity]] is a decent article. It could be much better, but anyone hoping to get an introduction to the movement can get the big picture from WP article and follow the links therefrom.
The number of Pokemon character articles is far from 500. Read [[WP:POKEMON]] for the current thinking on the "Pokemon test" of notability. Also note the inapplicable rationale that because some nn fanwankery has historically existed in WP that any new fancrud is excusable.
[[WP:NOTPAPER]], far from being a rallying cry of the inclusionists, is the first item of one of WP's core principles. I doubt anyone seriously argues that WP's content policies should be just like other paper encyclopedias. Let me quote an important and usually misunderstood sentence from it: [T]here is an important distinction between what technically can be done, and what reasonably should be done.
The biggest fault with the article is that it just does not understand WP's deletion process. With few exceptions, things like the manuals of style ([[WP:MOSMAC]] or [[WP:PEACOCK]] from the article) cannot be used as rationales to delete. In fact, even straight citations of [[WP:N]] are considered poor !votes on [[WP:AfD]]. Instead, the vast majority of deletions happen because of the failure to meet specific policies and guidelines such as [[WP:BIO]], [[WP:V]] and [[WP:NOT]]. These policies and guidelines state WP's (at least WP circa 2008's) standards. One can (and many do) argue about the quality of these standards, but it is lunacy to suggest that because some inclusion standards are faulty that we should do away with all inclusion standards. In any case, most of these standards are gradually getting more and more liberal --- and that is a good thing!
WP's criteria for speedy deletion are specific. They don't include such criteria as "delete all new (sub)stubs", as the Economist claims. As somone who regularly adds short stubs on various things to WP, my articles almost never get speedied. The article simply has to assert a plausible notability and provide a verifiable source or two. These are not high standards; almost any halfway decent reference will require at least these.
[[WP:MW]] does not list primarily people who have left because of the content inclusion policies. The overwhelming majority have left because of interpersonal conflicts or simple lack of continuing interest.
In any event, the Inclusionist/Deletionist divide is really ancient history. Almost no one is purely one or the other these days, except the occasional troll who gets off on nominating dozens of articles on AfD.
Here's my revolutionary advertising proposal: Word of Mouth (WoM). It works as follows:
First inject n clones of your favourite salesman
into the populace. They tell people in bank lines, movie theaters,
public laundromats, etc. about how good their product is and how it
has changed their lives. Nothing is more convincing than an earnest approval of a fellow citizen. (This process is called "recruitment").
Afterwards, the recruited people spread the word with some exponential
decay. (This process is called "spread"). Eventually a sufficiently
large section of the population knows about your product, and others
are forced to start using it to remain hip. (This process is called
"pressure"). In the final stages, remove all creativity from the
development process, fire all the salesmen, increase production
a thousandfold and rake it in. (This process is called "preserving
the status-quo").
Now please excuse me, I have to go make some money.
That question has now been answered. If the NSA can develop quantum computers, if this, if that, if somebody figures out a way to factor prime numbers... something might destabilize this new environment in a deep way.
Indeed, this does defy description. I am continually surprised at the lifetime of this annoying factoring prime numbers meme.
Ideally we would discuss the merits of W1.953125K versus "Linux," but since you seem to be more interested in discussing the article itself...
But, I digress. Mistrust articles like these: these little "opinion" columns are just paying lip service to whatever hype happens to the popular one at the moment.
I disagree. Opinion columns can be very original.
Go back and search for "push technology", or even earlier to the Macintosh and the windows 3.0 days... it's all the same: the pundits say what their readers want them to say. I have to ask: are you a pundit?
...Boil it all away and you're left with one thing - and it isn't the truth.
Tut, tut. Remember Tarski's theorem? "Truth" cannot be defined. Besides, you called it an opinion column; surely you were not expecting it to be "true!"
What I find disquieting about your response is that you are telling people to stop reading such articles because they have to potential to misguide the reader (correct me if I am wrong). You don't seriously mean that, do you?
The Internet is chunked up according to business boundaries when ideally it should be organised along geographic boundaries. Are there any existing business models for Internet "services" that are also compatible with geography?
An important question is what good is the life of a terminally demented child. Say, we are talking about infants who have no hope of recovery (with current standards of medicine), and will probably remain dysfunctional for the rest of their lives. These infants cannot think -- we can demonstrate that they do not think by means of any number of tests for neural activity. The question to ask is whether such a life is worth anything to the fuzzy cloud of Humanity. The child certainly would not mind if he were (painlessly) removed -- he would barely know that he was being killed. The parents certainly, in spite of their terrible sorrow, might not want to be burdened by a child that denies them all the pleasures of parenthood. Is the child any better than any other anthropomorphic living dead, for example a brain-dead accident victim? We do not seem to mind the fact that many brain-dead people are unplugged all the time; should we really have a different standard for brain-dead babies?
Of course this classification of "mentally-useless" is a dangerous one. I understand fully well the implications of a mis-classification, even one caused by a lacking in our current state of knowledge.
I am sorry, however, I cannot easily dismiss Singer's viewpoints as entirely invalid.
(Notice that few of us have any ethical problems with purging brain-dead programs like Microsoft's operating systems...)
Slashdot Mirror
The Economist article is wrong on at least the following points.
In any event, the Inclusionist/Deletionist divide is really ancient history. Almost no one is purely one or the other these days, except the occasional troll who gets off on nominating dozens of articles on AfD.
Here's my revolutionary advertising proposal: Word of Mouth (WoM). It works as follows:
First inject n clones of your favourite salesman into the populace. They tell people in bank lines, movie theaters, public laundromats, etc. about how good their product is and how it has changed their lives. Nothing is more convincing than an earnest approval of a fellow citizen. (This process is called "recruitment"). Afterwards, the recruited people spread the word with some exponential decay. (This process is called "spread"). Eventually a sufficiently large section of the population knows about your product, and others are forced to start using it to remain hip. (This process is called "pressure"). In the final stages, remove all creativity from the development process, fire all the salesmen, increase production a thousandfold and rake it in. (This process is called "preserving the status-quo").
Now please excuse me, I have to go make some money.
That question has now been answered. If the NSA can develop quantum computers, if this, if that, if somebody figures out a way to factor prime numbers... something might destabilize this new environment in a deep way.
Indeed, this does defy description. I am continually surprised at the lifetime of this annoying factoring prime numbers meme.
Explosive power doubles every 133 years?
Ideally we would discuss the merits of W1.953125K versus "Linux," but since you seem to be more interested in discussing the article itself...
But, I digress. Mistrust articles like these: these little "opinion" columns are just paying lip service to whatever hype happens to the popular one at the moment.
I disagree. Opinion columns can be very original.
Go back and search for "push technology", or even earlier to the Macintosh and the windows 3.0 days... it's all the same: the pundits say what their readers want them to say.
I have to ask: are you a pundit?
Tut, tut. Remember Tarski's theorem? "Truth" cannot be defined. Besides, you called it an opinion column; surely you were not expecting it to be "true!"
What I find disquieting about your response is that you are telling people to stop reading such articles because they have to potential to misguide the reader (correct me if I am wrong). You don't seriously mean that, do you?
The Internet is chunked up according to business boundaries when ideally it should be organised along geographic boundaries. Are there any existing business models for Internet "services" that are also compatible with geography?
An important question is what good is the life of a terminally demented child. Say, we are talking about infants who have no hope of recovery (with current standards of medicine), and will probably remain dysfunctional for the rest of their lives. These infants cannot think -- we can demonstrate that they do not think by means of any number of tests for neural activity. The question to ask is whether such a life is worth anything to the fuzzy cloud of Humanity. The child certainly would not mind if he were (painlessly) removed -- he would barely know that he was being killed. The parents certainly, in spite of their terrible sorrow, might not want to be burdened by a child that denies them all the pleasures of parenthood. Is the child any better than any other anthropomorphic living dead, for example a brain-dead accident victim? We do not seem to mind the fact that many brain-dead people are unplugged all the time; should we really have a different standard for brain-dead babies?
Of course this classification of "mentally-useless" is a dangerous one. I understand fully well the implications of a mis-classification, even one caused by a lacking in our current state of knowledge.
I am sorry, however, I cannot easily dismiss Singer's viewpoints as entirely invalid.
(Notice that few of us have any ethical problems with purging brain-dead programs like Microsoft's operating systems...)