You're right, the majority of users find obscure maths
and computing subjects more interesting than real
places. This would be fine if they simply ignored what
they were interested in, but when a minority of people
who are interested in real places start writing
articles, and the majority of geeks insist on deleting
them (while keeping articles about Tolkein places) it
seems destructive. Carrying out this culture war on
vfd is extremely disruptive.
Mark
--- John Lee <johnleemk(a)gawab.com> wrote:
But apparently the rest of Wikipedia doesn't mind
these American geeks
deleting them. And if you're going to claim that the
rest of Wikipedia
are made up of American geeks, I must disagree. Do
geeks make up a
substantial amount in our community? Yes. However,
the ratio of geeks to
non-geeks has been going down in the past few years.
While it's based mostly on opinion, I think most
people would agree that
our goal of building an encyclopedia is not
drastically hurt by the
deletion of school articles. Hopefully, eventually
we will be able to
have more school articles, but Wikipedia exists to
serve our audience,
which does not appear to mind the lack of school
articles much, if at
all. Currently, few people are really worried about
school articles.
That may change in the future, but until it does, we
must work with the
community, even if you think it's an unreasonable
one.
John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])
Mark Richards wrote:
The problem boils down to one of POV. No, I
don't
care
about a school in west nowhere, and I don't
care
about
a foreign handbag company. I care about Pokemon
characters, I don't care about Indian villages.
Slashdot jokes are in, high schools are out.
Obscure
varients of Linux are in, obscure Hong Kong
companies
are out.
The question is not 'are people within their
"rights"'
to delete things that don't interest them, but
does
it
serve the creation of a neutral and wide scope
encyclopedia. We are removing content simply
because
(mostly) American techies think it is
unimportant.
That's what really bothers me.
Mark
--- John Lee <johnleemk(a)gawab.com> wrote:
>I believe in one of my more recent mails, I quoted
>[[What Wikipedia is
>not]] stating that it is not an exhaustive list by
>any means.
>
>In any case, Mark, while there is no consensus to
>delete schools, there
>is none to keep them either. Thus, I'd say those
who
>are listing them
>are acting within their rights, because schools
>aren't covered by any
>policy; thus we decide them on a case-by-case
basis.
>Democracy is always
>unfair to someone, but if there was a real
>miscarriage of justice, how
>come much of the community doesn't care we're
>deleting oh so important
>articles on Hong Kong handbag companies or high
>schools? (Of course,
>there's the issue of whether there was true
>consensus; in quite a few,
>there hasn't been any.)
>
>It so happens that most people on VFD are
>deletionists. Inclusionists
>argue this is unfair as important articles are
>unfairly deleted.
>However, this calls to mind a recent post to this
>list by, if I'm not
>mistaken, Dpbsmith: Most people ARE a "strong
>neutral" on these; they
>don't care whether these articles stay or go. I am
>of the same opinion.
>If they really felt the system is unfair, they'd
>either pack up and
>leave (those who have done this are so few, I
doubt
>their existence) or
>complain. So far the only people complaining are
>those from the extreme
>inclusionist camp. Therefore, much of the
community
>couldn't care less
>about the fate of school articles. Delete all
>articles with the word
>"green"? If they found out, they'd almost
certainly
>be livid. Delete all
>school articles? Lots probably would care (I mean,
>would you delete an
>article on [[Eton]] or one of those posh prep
>schools?). Delete an
>article on, say, [[Allerton High School]]? Most
>wouldn't and don't care.
>
>The community is fine with the current practice,
>whether it's in line
>with policy or not. Remember, policy and VFD exist
>to serve the
>community. They are the means to an end. Not an
end
>in themselves.
>
>John Lee
>([[User:Johnleemk]])
>
>
>
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