Jim Hayes
March 12 at 9:49am
10 out of 12 new articles from editathon nominated for deletion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Regina/ArtAndFeminism_2016/University_of_Regina

Ramzy Muliawan Make AfD Weak Again

Rob Fernandez Time to canvas...I mean respond as a completely uninvolved random editor.
	Jim Hayes hey i took exception to some of that deletion rationale, i'm sure lots of folks take exception to my off wiki antics
Siebrand Mazeland Sad.

Andrew Lih The massive growth of the Art+Feminism edit-a-thons in the US is remarkable and encouraging, but it may have outpaced our ability to set them up for success. Many of these meetups are happening completely independent of experienced local Wikipedians, with mixed results post-editathon.
I'm wondering whether we need to have an emergency project to train folks on notability to try to avoid this. Perhaps an interactive quiz/flowchart to challenge new editors to ensure they're putting in the right key references and phrases to assert a person's notability. In that sense, editing a BLP as a first-time editor is sub-optimal.
Rob Fernandez We need to train established editors about notability. Most of these seem perfectly fine.
	Jim Hayes frankly, the hair trigger nominations are discouraging
we've made notability a battleground rather than a collaboration, so more training sure, but also new culture
	Tim Davenport Jim Hayes Notability standards are not a "collaboration," they are a fairly simple set of criteria by which we with reasonable objectivity decide what is or is not suitable for inclusion in WP. Put succinctly, as follows: "A topic meets the General Not...See More
	Jim Hayes yeah nytimes obit ? bullshit. it's all "i don't like it": those art+feminism people are having too much fun; let's piss on all their work.
	Tim Davenport By having a set of more or less firm standards for inclusion (with a set of Special Notability Guidelines for individuals or topics for which the one-size-fits-all does not necessarily fit) we avoid the whole "I don't think it's important" vs. "seems i...See More
	Liam Wyatt I've seen some editathons, in particular art+feminism event in Sydney last year, where the glam didn't bother to involve the local community and chose their subjects based on the fact that there wasn't much written about those people anywhere and that ...See More
	Andrew Lih Liam Wyatt Unfortunately, we've seen a number of the same types of cases in NYC, and other US locales.
	Rob Fernandez Liam Wyatt You're right, but I think systemic bias is perpetuated on Wikipedia by editors whose definition of reliable sources does not encompass a lot of perfectly valid sources in fields they are unfamiliar with. And the case of the AFD below with the NYT obit, there are editors who are going to AFD topics based on IDONTLIKEIT and not sources.
	Tim Davenport Rob Fernandez Certainly a number of nominations, not just here, but in general, have "I don't like it" as a motivation for nomination, but if you watch AfD for a long time, you will be impressed with the stability and honesty of the institution to deliver fair results.
	Rob Fernandez Tim Davenport Sure, in general, I agree. AFD works for the most part. I'm no rabid inclusionist. But in this particular area, AFD (and AFC for that matter) have long been points of friction between new editors and established veterans. It's long past time to address that if we are going to recruit new editors.
	Andrew Lih Jim Hayes I don't think the AfD folks are looking to intentionally piss on edit-a-thon participaints. But I do think that LAZY + CALLOUSNESS is indistinguishable from malice.
	Rob Fernandez Yes, many many many times I've seen inexperienced editors interpret that as malice. We can't write them all off as paranoids. We need to realize that this is creating a problem of perception, regardless of the purity of our intentions.
	David Craven I was in the middle of making a decent notability flowchart, I'll post it here to get some feedback when it's done.
	Tim Davenport Rob Fernandez Of course you are right that there is constant friction between the institution of AfD and the desires of newcomers to write about anything that pops into their head. This is why the notability process needs to be THE VERY FIRST THING dis...See More
	Rob Fernandez I agree with you that organizers should carefully select proposed topics to avoid these kinds of situations and perhaps this group did not do that. But lots of organizers like Alice Backer of AfroCrowd are telling us that notable topics are getting flagged for deletion anyway.
	Tim Davenport Rob Fernandez If that is so, I have faith in the AfD process to render Keep results. There is plenty about WMF and WP that is dysfunctional, but it is one thing that really works. Just make sure there are three good sources showing in the footnotes and life is good.
	Stuart Prior Tim Davenport the issue is many of these shouldn't be going through AfD in the first place.
Knee-jerk deletionism is the biggest killer of a new editor's enthusiasm.
	Tim Davenport Stuart Prior List 'em up... Which ones exactly are GNG passes? I've looked at two, one was a clear Delete and the other a narrow Keep.
	Jim Hayes well, we may be beyond dead enthusiasm, the art+feminism folks may be to the keilana stage of grim determination
	Jim Hayes Tim Davenport i have no faith in the AfD process (or AfC process) it's all broken battleground. the community could not design a process to save it's life.
	Tim Davenport Jim Hayes I don't know that Keilana has had any trouble with AfD. I rather doubt it, in fact. The problem in this case isn't any inherent defect of AfD or anything the patrollers did, it's a failure to vet topics for newcomers or alternatively to instruct them from the top of the deletion process.
	Jim Hayes the "inherent defect of AfD" is the asshole way to deleting others work. you and i may like the battleground, but it directly leads to editor decline. it is only by off wiki organizing that groups are adding content to address systemic gaps 
& we have a new generation of newbies who will only edit at editathons, they can't be bothered the rest of the time.
	Tim Davenport Jim Hayes Here is what I think we more or less agree upon: having one's first work run through the AfD wringer is not conducive to building editor longevity. It is to be avoided. The easiest way to to do this is to make sure that there are three good s...See More
	Jim Hayes who is responsible for the mess: the newbie, or the community? when will the community grow up? is it too late, is it already wikinews?
	Tim Davenport The entire topic of "Are Editors Made or Born?" is another matter altogether. So far evidence suggests that protracted college classroom assignments can produce groups of decent articles but generate few if any long term volunteers and that Editathons ...See More
	Tim Davenport Jim Hayes "Who is responsible for the mess?" -- Very simple: the organizers of the event, who failed to vet the suggested topics or who alternatively failed to instruct participants as to notability doctrine. It is nothing that the participants did and it is nothing that the community is doing. It is a failure of local leadership, one that hopefully will be learned from moving forward.
	Jim Hayes we do agree about the AfD battleground
	we do not agree about responsibility. wiki-culture is so inscrutable, and so off-putting, it's a wonder that anyone wants to engage. if the community does not make it easier to engage and collaborate on content e...See More
	Jon Beasley-Murray I agree with Tim. And I'd add that this is also (if anything, even more so) a perennial failing of educational projects; lousy choice of topics by students and teachers alike who don't understand what an encyclopedia is.
	Jim Hayes fine, blame the newbies; the good ones will go elsewhere, and you will be stuck with perpetual vandals
	Jon Beasley-Murray Jim Hayes Tim and I, at least, are not blaming the newbies, but the organizers.
	Stuart Prior Jon Beasley-Murray  So, punish the newbies, blame the people actually doing outreach for their mistakes, but don't question the processes, policies and decisions of the existing community?
	Jim Hayes Stuart Prior yeah, this is why i've curtailed my editing for friendlier wkis, they forget nothing and they learn nothing. 
you want to know why editor decline, this is why.
and you want to know why viewer decline, this is why. people and search engine ...See More
	Jon Beasley-Murray Stuart, I have no problem questioning the processes etc. of the community. But in this case, no, I don't think that AFD is particularly broken. And none of this has to do with "punishment."
	Andy Mabbett If it's not AfD (or PROD), it's excessive, fly-by tagging.
	Stuart Prior Andy exactly. It's not that AfD is broken, it's that many new articles have to pass AfD rather than get an opportunity to be improved.

	The Erin Gee (Multimedia Artist) article that was deleted....See More
	Jim Hayes is it a distinction without difference? if you have a battleground culture, will it not taint, every theoretically working process? every process this community touches is broken: it is the bull in the shop. (except for teahouse or editathons, and it is trying there)

Tim Davenport Hey, here's a thought -- if you're gonna have an editathon with a crowdsourced list of planned articles to write, make sure that they all meet the notability criteria BEFORE the event, not after the writing is done. "Carmen Robertson is an Associate Professor who wrote a book" isn't gonna fly.

Rob Fernandez AFD comment "Seems to have been a recent mass-creation of similar articles on artists from the same institution/area by several different SPA accounts" yes, it's called an EDITATHON. What's wrong with us when engaged new editors are "SPAs"?
	Stephen Gold If the purpose of the editathon were to promote a business, that would be a problem, right?

Jim Hayes just apart from notability, which the veterans can coach, living artists are notoriously hard. we don't have enough veterans to lead all the events 
and i've seen macarthurs nominated and new york times obits nominated, so what notable list are you thinking of ?
the community's propensity to gang up on good faith newbies is broken and disappointing

Rob Fernandez Now I'm pissed. A lot of these are borderline but one is at AFD with an NYT obit AND an encyclopedia entry in an academic reference work.

Jim Henderson Must be worked from both ends. Newbie organizers seem to be trying to follow advice written for veterans. They need advice appropriate to what they know. For example, participants must write a user page with link to the event page. No tricky things like new BLP unless they have studied the issues thoroughly, which they pretty much cannot. Like that.

	Rob Fernandez It's difficult to avoid BLPs, though, as living people will be what a lot of newbies will want to write about.
	Tim Davenport Rob Fernandez There is truth to that. It is one reason for event organizers to look to the past for their topic lists. Jim Hayes's comment above that living artists are hard to source out has truth to it, the same is true of journalists, by the way. If...See More
	Jim Hayes the problem is newbies want to create new articles, edit existing not so much. we can pivot them to providing references, but referencing is harder. there are few veterans producing good articles
altho there was a 1lib1ref event, but the newbies hit the 3 external link filter, so the community doesn't like that either.
	Tim Davenport Jim Hayes Newbies WANT to create new articles, but should they? It's certainly the most fulfilling kind of editing, but it is also fraught with peril. Patrollers and Manual of Style obsessives and AfD, oh my. There are unwritten biographies out there w...See More
	Aleta Turner That speaks to needing good leadership of the events, by veteran Wikipedians, often in collaboration with other GLAM folks who want to set up such events. The onus is on the experienced folks to help the new ones.
	Jim Hayes fine, raise the bar to autoconfirmed, it won't stop the problem, just as AfC did not. the spammers will route around your hurdles.
and as we see from this editathon it's not friends and family, it's community interest. we need to engage with the expert editors to make good content, not battle with them after the event.
we've tried traing at glam-camp, but we do not have enough veterans, and some veterans prefer to tag, and adversive leadership

Sarah Stierch Yes...this is why I just talk about notability and sources for the entire duration of my lectures. I don't show people how to edit - I teach them what to write and what not to write, and happy to say we haven't had an article deleted in quite a long time. More emphasis on a policy...
	Jim Hayes i think that may be the stierch effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_H._Hasse
	Sarah Stierch Jim Hayes yeah after that shit I learned to change my technique
	Sarah Stierch Yesterday everyone edited, everyone did a great job - all the people who came last year came and helped the newbies and it was inspiring. But...hey, what does this 10 year old has been broad of an editor know 
	Jim Henderson Some of these sessions have one or two leaders, who have neither written a new article nor contributed to a BLP. Our online guidance does not help those.
	Julie Farman I was just going to comment on the Ms. Fembot editathon that Sarah Stierch led yeseterday. She enphasizes notability and what *not* to do.
	Jim Hayes and that was lessons learned by trial and error / school of hard knocks. it's not in the policy. it does not have to be this way.
	Sarah Stierch I appreciate so many people who are newer editors taking the reign and hosting events, but it isn't the same has having experienced editors with the social skills needed (I love my Wikipedians but I know how introvert and shy we can be sometimes!) to educate. And my presentation....again, policy policy policy. Not "open your visual editor..l
	Sarah Stierch Jim Hayes but the policy got us here. Showing people how to use that policy is critical. I try to do that. I don't even let people start new articles until they get 2 or more sources and I review them. Micromanagement? Yes. Does it work? Hell yes.
	Jim Hayes yeah, but we should have a way for people to grow in sandbox. should not have to rely on stierch effect everywhere. we need a wikipedia adventure article creation expansion game.
and the 2 sources is not that clear in policy, and did not help here: once the wolf pack is scavenging, it was deletion frenzy
	Sarah Stierch I agree Jim!
	Jim Hayes pst and i think one of yours got tagspammed, lol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suad_Joseph

	Sarah Stierch Jim Hayes easy to fix. And it was an expansion I think?
	Jim Hayes yes that was an old tag (i don't take down tags either) maybe we should start messaging taggers to see if they want to take their tag down?
	Sarah Stierch Jim Hayes I just do it!
	Sarah Stierch Jim Hayes I just do it!
	Ziko van Dijk And still there are Wikipedians who ask newbies to start editing without any preparation.
	Deb Heaphy Had no clue, Sarah you coordinated an education. Please keep me in the loop.

Stuart Prior Literally just run one, nothing created didn't deserve to be on WP. We shall see...
Alex Stinson Really unfortunate - closed one of them that was a ready to close.
Chris Sherlock They were pretty much all nominated by one editor. And I see that there are some questionable edit summaries (one accused the article of a copyright violation for two sentences). 
I'm not saying that anyone is targeting these articles, but it seems a bit suspicious to me.

Stephen Gold In my single experience with an editathon, the orientation was minimal and focused on the mechanics of creating an account and making simple edits. Participants were not informed about WP's criteria for new articles. They were not told about the sandbox. They were not taught what "notability" means in this context or what constitutes a reliable source. They were not advised about plagiarism or copyright. As a result, about 100 hours of effort went into edits which probably had little value to the project.
	Viswa Prabha Most often our editing workshops with fresh editors are affected by the same limitations. By the time they are introduced to the interface itself, that is a mouthful to digest in one go. And then we run out of time and passion. Thereafter, lectures abo...See More
	Stephen Gold It sure is complicated!
	Raul Veede So, in the end, editathons are a widespread effort to find people who might want to create new articles on Wikipedia and give them an experience that would hopefully keep them from doing it. Wonderful.
	Viswa Prabha grin emoticon
	Viswa Prabha Realizing that, better strategies, methodologies and work plans could be adapted.
	Raul Veede Well, if we took the same stand for our own, there would be only a smoking crater at 149 New Montgomery St in SF.
	Raul Veede Perhaps we should just start organizing deletathons, where everyone would identify a weak article and offer arguments for its deletion? We could bring a new generation of bright new trolls into Wikipedia.
	Viswa Prabha In our community (ml), we have (well, used to) two self-recruited armies. One for {[Delete}} the stubs, onelines and poorly-cited, and the other for {{keep}}. And we fight for a final decision with consensus per article. Those who want to keep, must e...See More
	Raul Veede In et.wp, nobody deletes anything. Ever. Once I deleted about a dozen articles that had been marked for deletion some 6 or 7 years ago, and some people were quite annoyed. Of course, nobody also improves anything, There's a long list of articles that h...See More
	Victor Hamilton Grigas I'm working with pine to make some video tutorials, the scripts will be in meta so anyone can translate and make their own version when they are done.\

Jim Hayes yep, there is very little training in how to run an event. there's some cobbled together at GLAM, but it's word of mouth, & trainers who have done it before. the community prefers tl:dr to actual training, and the WMF has historically had low support.
so it's no wonder newbies try it on their own initiative, and make mistakes

Alex Stinson Jim Hayes and Stephen Gold: To what extent is this a "we don't have a best practice in the community" problem, or a "we don't train new facilitators often enough" problem? To me it seems like the later, but I have been doing editathons since they became popular as part of GLAM, and like Sarah Stierch have a pretty down pat model for making sure stuff sticks
	Rob Fernandez This is a good thing. Wikipedia was created by people who had no idea what they were doing. Time for some new editors to make some mistakes too.
	Jim Hayes i think it's both. we have the best practices and we did GLAM-camp, and we have your efforts, but we need to do much more. 
it's hard to find the good stuff, we depend on ad hoc favorite tools and slides, need to make documentation easier;
and more fun...See More
	Alex Stinson Art+Feminism has a great toolkit, but frequently people run the events without consulting the toolkit extensively, in part because it exhaustive.
	Alex Stinson I am really looking for some of the decisions being preempted by the Program and Events Dashboard (Floor Koudijs is leading on that development). Once that happens, I would love to get some GLAM-Wiki leaders together to design a good "Design the best framework" for an editathon -- together.
	Jim Hayes yes, and wiki-ed has the same problem, with educators "just doing it" & being bold, maybe we should revise that to "be bold and prepared"
	Alex Stinson I think there is more of a balance around what we ask people to do as well. For instance, part of the success of #1lib1ref is that we didn't ask for people to write articles, but instead to work on an under-supported backlog with a pretty simple solution: https://meta.wikimedia.org/.../The.../1Lib1Ref/Learnings
	Alex Stinson We also need to design for more forgiving community reactions to poor content as well.
	Stephen Gold Alex Stinson I'm not sure which community you're referring to: editathon organizers, editathon participants, AFD participants, or WP editors in general?
	Jim Hayes yes, 1lib1ref was good because you targeted a group who had the skills and inclination, and you made it fun. (and still hit a filter)
we should think about doing it for editathons, editathons by being on the ground, can get the paper references.
	Alex Stinson Stephen Gold I know certainly not the general editing community, I am thinking more that if people want to organize an event, they can find good documentation somewhere to run it with only a minimum amount of "beginners mistakes". I think the rise of editathons and efforts like Afrocrowd, indicate that the documentation is easy enough if run by a bold enough person willing to try again, while learning from mistakes.
	Alex Stinson Jim Hayes Yep. We are going to try something similar with the Education program in the fall -- having an early meeting next week to work on design and I think I know what the "simple" intervention is -- but I haven't quite figured out what the "obviou...See More
	Stephen Gold Alex Stinson: I think anyone organizing an editathon ought to have a track record of successfully creating new articles. Or else focus the event on improving existing ones, in which case they should have a track record of making edits stick.
	Jim Hayes yes, event dashboard would be big help. we need some tools for expert editors. make it and GLAM will use it wink emoticon
we should not have to rely on the shrinking supply of active editors to improve content.
	Alex Stinson Stephen Gold That artificially limits the community's growth of new editors. Most of the most successful editathon runners have no substantial editing history -- and don't like editing, they like organizing people and helping them start research.
	Stephen Gold Or else have new editors team up with experienced ones.
	Stephen Gold Setting new editors up for failure will give editathons a bad rep.
	Jim Hayes this is the ambassador model. the problem with your throttling, is that editor decline makes your requirement impossible
	Stephen Gold I spent my entire editathon working solo, even though I had 7+ years experience.
	Jim Hayes editathons already have a bad rap with the deletionist crowd as we saw in this example. SPA's indeed.
	Alex Stinson Jim Hayes & Stephen Gold That and most of our "natural editors" are not extroverted or have significant teaching/event organizing skills to be effective editathon runners. I have been to enough events where a very competent editor -- who I admire for on-wiki contributions, fails dramatically at running an event with newbies.
	Stephen Gold If I want to work solo, I can do that from home and supply my own cookies. I don't need to drive an hour to do it at an editathon.
	Jim Hayes we need to be open to alternate editing styles. it's just the introverts insist on imposing their work style upon others, or considering alternates "suspect"
it's a new generation who will only edit at editathons, the basement crowd is dying off / leaving
don't knock the cookies: will edit for t-shirts and food
	LiAnna Davis Wiki Ed sends every instructor through our orientation (they have to do it before they can create a course page), and every student is automatically assigned training modules that are relevant to what their course page says their assignment is. Then we...See More
Wiki Education Foundation Dashboard
Wiki Education Foundation dashboard for Wikipedia editing projects
	Alex Stinson LiAnna Davis When we get the Programs and Events dashboard up and running, I think I am going to sit down with you (and Sage Ross?) to probe your thoughts on event organizer training for editathons.
	LiAnna Davis Alex Stinson Absolutely -- although fair warning, I'm pretty sure the training was one of the things they stripped out as not being in the MVP for your version of our Dashboard.
	Alex Stinson LiAnna Davis Didn't know that was leaving the MVP. Despite that, I need to start thinking about what goes into design early -- when/if the mandate to work on it comes from community (or another affiliate works on it).
	Stephen Gold I thought the whole point of editathons was to bring people together to collaborate face to face. I'm as introverted as they come, but even I can see the value in face-to-face collaboration.
	Gordon Joly https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Training_the_Trainers
	Alex Stinson Stephen Gold The outcomes typically are more about literacy, individual confidence about Wikipedia knowledge and good will of the organizers actually -- most editathons don't create much content (though the content creation is often what motivates the ...See More
Wikipedia:Meetup/Bennington/ArtAndFeminism 2016 - Wikipedia,…
	Stephen Gold Alex Stinson If content isn't the goal, then why worry about AFD outcomes?
	Alex Stinson Gordon Joly Art+Feminism does something similar, but there ought to be a more decentralized way to do this-- which creates more spontaneous events, that don't require interface with experienced Editathon organizers -- which walk the new organizers through "success" steps like frontloading the research on potentially notable topics.
	Alex Stinson Stephen Gold Because, its the kind of community processes that alienate potential newcomers. If your first editing experience was fun at the editathon, but the article gets tagged for deletion its disheartening. This disheartening bit, makes it much le...See More
	Stephen Gold If I were leading an editathon, I would explain early on that creating a new BLP is an expert-level task. I would encourage new editors to work on easier tasks, ideally in collaboration with more experienced partners. Giving someone the idea that they can plug a hole in WP's coverage on their first day is setting them up for a disheartening experience.
	Jim Hayes no - engaging with wikipedia is a disheartening experience. not for the faint of heart - the fellowship of an event, that is the fun bit.
are you saying "anyone can edit" should be revised to "anyone who can find an expert editor to work with?"
	Alex Stinson Yeah, what Jim said. Also, BLPs and recent biographies aren't hard or disheartening if the pre-research is done right be the organizers, they are just "not your typical writing about popular topics".
	Stephen Gold It's disheartening if you come in with unrealistic expectations. It's disheartening if you expect to do glamorous work even though you have no prior experience. It's not disheartening if you start out by fixing typos, filling in [citation needed]s, cleaning up formatting, and organizing the existing articles. Which is how I got started.
	Jim Hayes & i understand that it is a heroic goal to make a knowledge management system that is so simple even an idiot can be productive in it - 
i would suggest it's better than "it's our way or the highway."
directive task micromanaging is a non-starter, you have to meet the editor where they are and help them do what they want, and make what they want encyclopedic
	Stephen Gold If expert editors are available, why not utilize them?
	Jim Hayes fine, stay in your very active editor walled garden; you realize that you have a 100 year backlog ? it's engage or die.
the expert editors won't touch this community "with a ten foot pole"
	Stephen Gold I wanted to engage. I went to an editathon.
	Jim Hayes you see in this case, the expert art history editors came and got called SPA's
	Stephen Gold Because nobody told them how to avoid that trap.
	Jim Hayes see - you and i can tell a good faith newbie expert, from a vandal, but the average NPP doesn't know or care.
we know how to coach experts, it's just the community can't be bothered, and everyone knows it. there is no incentive for experts to help us. they have better things to do. we need 100 Wadewitz's right now and no plan or practice to get or help them. (aside from alex)
	Stephen Gold You've lost me, Jim Hayes. I never claimed to be particularly good at NPP or coaching SMEs. I thought the existence of editathons was proof that WP does care about recruitment.
I remain puzzled by the way the event I attended was run. It seemed as if it were designed to dishearten new editors and discourage real collaboration. The results of the Regina meetup suggest to me that the problem may be widespread.
	Jim Hayes yep, the "cultural buzzsaw" is disheartening to newbies. it is good at editathons to be honest about the toxic culture. we can collaborate with the confines of our civil circle at editathons, but the average veteran says collaboration when he means dic...See More
	Stephen Gold Part of the reason the culture gets toxic is because editors (new and old) feel isolated and surrounded by hostility. If meetups gave the editor community a human face and helped to normalize positive collaboration, it would be a great service to the project.
	Jim Hayes yep. editathons are about building bridges and networking with other open knowledge institutions, new editor yield = 5% not so much. we don't really have a pipeline of editor development. it's all social darwinism

Tilman Bayer I would encourage anyone scandalized by this to read the talk page comment by Michael (User:Theredproject, one of the three founders and lead organizers of the Art+Feminism editathons), who does great job of putting things into perspective: https://en.wikipedia.org/.../Wikipedia.../ArtAndFeminism...
"Last year almost 1000 pages were created or improved. [...] At present, we have counted about 15 which were nominated, many of which have been improved and kept. [...] I want to encourage everyone to consider that a couple dozen out of well over 1000 articles is pretty good."
He also acknowledges that while they offer guidance and training materials, "Art+Feminism is rhizomatic, which means we can't control what any of the nodes do", and that there may well have been problems at this particular event.

Jonathan Cardy I think Id still encourage organisers of editathons to read the instructions first, but they have got a bit more bloated in the 18 months since I last went through them. https://en.wikipedia.org/.../Wikipedia:How_to_run_an_edit...

Raul Veede "This article was created as a part of this meetup: Wikipedia:Meetup/Regina/ArtAndFeminism 2016/University of Regina. The meetup seems to have produced a lot of articles of questionable quality/notability -- nearly all of them either have been deleted or have ongoing AfDs," said the guy who proposed the deletions. So, basically, you can nominate everything done on an editathon for deletion and then use that same nomination as an argument for deletion. If that kind of innovative approach is widespread, I doubt I want to do anything on English Wikipedia, or suggest it to anyone else.

Jim Heaphy Read the AfD debates, Raul Veede. In most cases, the nominator got shut down, experienced editors chimed in to say that these artists are actually notable, and most of the nominations have been withdrawn. The system worked pretty well in this case.

Raul Veede I looked some up. But I've seen this approach all too often: don't improve anything, just shoot it before it takes root. I've often saved articles from deletion by rewriting yet while it is relatively easy with 11+ years of experience, I can't do them all. And, of course, my home wiki is pretty much inclusionist, so the general picture there is quite different.
	Krzysztof Machocki Sadly, I've seen this hundreds of times on pl.wiki. At times fixing the articles would take less time than voting for their deletion in AfD, yet there's not enough fixers there. And the by-product of this notion is the fact that wiki is considered a hostile place for new people.
	Raul Veede Took just a little tour of the AfD discussions in en.wp. Another interesting tactics seems to be throwing in a handful of acronyms as reasons for deletion, probably hoping that no one knows them all and something might stick. And in case a deletionist ...See More
	Raul Veede Wow, lots of discoveries today. Didn't know there is a policy that all associate professors have to be deleted: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php...
	Jim Hayes yeah - associate prof is a delete me sign, even if you got a macarthur, no academic love here. no stop to consider if nauthor applies. you have a hair trigger delete button use it.
and "the system" did not work , because we wasted a lot of time schooling deletionists, when we could have improved articles. the time waste on nominated notable people to a dead weight loss to the project.
	Jim Heaphy Jim Hayes, if you think that Christina Stojonova is notable and ought to have a Wikipedia biography, then make the case. She is not a winner of a MacArthur Foundation grant, is she? And when you pointed out that one MacArthur recipient didn't have a bi...See More
	Jim Hayes having worked through the BLP backlog and BLP prod, i reflect that it was a huge waste of my time. picking up nickels in front of steamrollers is not worth the heartburn. when you have people refighting the last war over and over again, i can hardly be...See More
	Jim Heaphy "Picking up nickels in front of steamrollers" is a charming metaphor that has nothing whatsoever to do with this particular situation since it was the nominator who got "steamrolled" not the articles. If you choose not to try to improve the encyclopedia, then don't. Work on what you want to work on, but if you choose to comment, please do so accurately.

Ziko van Dijk My students usually say on day 1 that they are concerned about the quality of Wikipedia and they ask who checks the pages. On the last day, confronted with the problematics of newbie recrution, they say: I would not edit, I don't like being judged, I don't like to learn all the rules. Not everybody understands when I point out a certain dilemma, the different view depending on whether you think of yourself as a reader or as a potential contributor.

Craig Franklin When this group was trying to hold events in Australia, they simply would not listen to our advice that a lot of the articles they wanted to create would be immediately shot down on notability grounds. A lot of volunteer time was wasted trying to get them not to tilt at windmills, with no positive result.

David Goodman I find living artists working in conventional media among the easiest group of people to check for notability. Eitherthey have works in major museums or they don't. If they don't then it is also very likely theat there is no substantial criticism of their work, nor are they at all likely to meet the other WP:CREATIVe requirements. (The one arguable question sometimes is what counts as a major museum).
(continuing) The notability situation is different for those working in non-coventional media,such as street art or performanceart, and such afd discussions as there have been about such people have yielded inconsistent results.

Rupert Thurner i only checked one of the new articles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Robertson
she is a writer, and not an artist. she should be wikipedian, not have an article on wikipedia. an editathon on the university of regina creating an article on an associate professor of this same university who writes about arts. she was herself there, and a book to promote is soon upcoming. uuuhm ...

Marcus Cyron Sorry, but no. This is too easy said. When articles too bad or about people who are really not that important, they will be deleted. Even they are written in an Edith-a-thon. Only because something is labeled as "feminism" or an article is about a woman, that not means this must be at Wikipedia. What is this for a kind of thinking?

Jim Hayes the fact that less than 5% are deleted shows that there are gaping holes in coverage. stand on the railroad tracks yelling stop, the feminist locomotive is coming.

Rupert Thurner Jim, i find the articles mostly ok. but can you tell me what an organizer has in her head who suggests an article about carmen robertson to be created, if she is in the room? and what carmen robertson has in her head if she accepts this? and organizers involve themselves in deletion discussions afterwards? what character is this ... damaging all involved persons reputation and wikipedias with it.
	Sarah Stierch It is a good point - I do observe it frequently, at events like this, and have to really monitor things myself (and remind people having a Wikipedia article is not always a "good thing") - but, I honestly don't think most of the organizers/persons invo...See More
	Rupert Thurner lol Sarah wikipedia does not think, its persons who think. dignity and character cannot be bought in a shop, and nobody will change that. why you do not vote to delete it?
	Sarah Stierch Delete the articles above? I Haven't even looked at them yet. I just completed a content donation from the edit-a-thon I hosted this weekend and I am cleaning up the articles we worked on now. I will be looking at the articles above when I have time.
	Rupert Thurner ha, no not all. only one. carmen robertson.
	Sarah Stierch I have other things to do wink emoticon
	Sarah Stierch (and thousands of Art + Feminism articles that need to be cleaned up after events... )
	Sarah Stierch there you go wink emoticon