On 21 Jul 2006 at 17:58, Mark Gallagher wrote:
> Funnily enough, there's a case on RfD of the inverse of that --- an
> article was AfDed, and someone came along later and created a redirect
> where the article used to be. The redirect is now up before the full
> panel of RfD, facing charges of ignoring consensus with malice
> aforethought. One hopes it'll receive a fair trial, but early reports
> indicate that General Melchitt has already been approached to write the
> majority opinion.
Unfortunately, there are a number of different possible logical
interpretations of what an AfD deletion outcome means, and no
shortage of anal-retentive wiki{judge|lawyer|executioner}s determined
to enforce any and all of them in the most draconian possible way.
The two main conflicting interpretations are:
1) That a particular bunch of text should be deleted from Wikipedia
and not allowed to resurface anywhere in the site;
2) That a particular article title should be removed, and not allowed
to have any article at that title for any reason or with any content;
People voting to delete might actually mean either or both or neither
of these, but once the outcome is in favor of deletion there are
those who insist that neither the text nor the title of the article
ever be allowed to come back in any context. Thus, when an article
on a traffic circle in New Jersey was deleted as unworthy of an
article in its own right, some admins took it onto themselves to
remove any text mentioning it in other articles such as the one on
the township it was in, on the basis of "enforcing the AfD outcome."
And, when an article on an unreleased independent film was deleted,
admins made a stand for a while not only against recreation of the
article on the film a few months later when it had been released and
won a film-festival award, but even against creation of an article on
an urelated album that happened to have the same name.
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
Dear all,
Does anyone know how to send an email which has already approached my email
programme as an attachment? I mean the way that the list sends emails to
users choosing the 'digest' mode. Those emails will provide users the mails
of the day in attachment form. I wonder how to do this.
>From B.C.
Garion96 wrote:
> A counter example. I recently requested a source on the fact that a
> person
> (living person) is blind. (Not Stevie Wonder). But it was deemed so
> obvious
> that it was ixnayed. Correct or wrong? My sentiment is that even if it
> is so
> obvious, why not source it anyway.
The fact that the person is blind may be common knowledge, but it's
inadequate information. A proper treatment would need to address whether
they were born blind, or how they became blind. That kind of detail
needs a source, and it follows that it also serves as a source for the
more general fact.
If all you've got is obvious information that doesn't require a source,
then you haven't got an encyclopedia article.
--Michael Snow
The following is a proposal that I would like to set forth.
Based on phone calls to the office and OTRS, it seems to me that one of our
biggest problems remains Living People. This has several sides to it:
1. People who have nonsense added to their articles.
2. People who have articles but shouldn't.
3. People who want their articles deleted.
4. People insisting that we create articles about them.
5. PR agencies adding crud to articles about their clients.
6. Other.
RC Patrol is doing a phenomenal job, but the fact is that the task is
overwhelming. We are getting close to 2 edits a second, i.e., over 100 edits a
minute, and we are still growing. While it is possible to remove the obvious
crap, more subtle problems may be sneaking in.
I would therefore like to suggest a separate division of the RC Patrol
called The Living People Control. They would be charged with tagging new articles
in Recent Changes with Living People when appropriate (and removing people
when dead), and for reviewing the Living People category specifically
[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Recentchangeslinked&targe…
ALiving_people here].
Obviously, this is only a suggestion. I would like to know what people think.
I have also created a page about this at [[Wikipedia:Living people patrol]]
Danny
Hi,
There is one thing I don't really quite understand, and I was wondering
if someone could explain this to me in very simple and easy-to-follow
terms...
Basically, I seem to be making the following two recurring observations:
(1) Users who are unhappy with some admin action or other post to the
mailing list - sometimes angrily, sometimes rationally, but always
making explicit that they are annoyed - complaining about what they
perceive to be "admin abuse".
(2) Admins sometimes defend their actions by using the argument, "If
you've managed to piss off several admins, chances are you've done
something wrong."
Given that this massive influx of annoyed complaints plainly
demonstrates that users are much more commonly and much more seriously
the ones that get annoyed, and supposing that the argument #2 is
applicable, doesn't it follow plainly obviously that the admins are
doing much more significant wrongs?
The only ways out of this dilemma appear to be either to admit that a
larger proportion of users are right in their "cabal" accusations than
is widely assumed, OR... to accept that argument #2 is invalid.
If we accept that argument #2 is invalid, then it must logically follow
that admins getting annoyed is no indication of user behaviour being
wrong. If that is so, then what sort of non-wrong behaviour gets them
pissed off and why?
Timwi
"The defining moment for Sergey, however, was when he met future
co-president of Google, Larry Page. Sergey was assigned to show Larry
around the university on a weekend tour. Reportedly, they did not get on
well to begin with, arguing about every topic they discussed, and even
throwing a few pies at each other."
Is that true? Is it not true? As a reader of Wikipedia, I have no easy
way to know. If it is true, it should be easy to supply a reference.
If it is not true, it should be removed.
I really want to encourage a much stronger culture which says: it is
better to have no information, than to have information like this, with
no sources. Any editor who removes such things, and refuses to allow it
back without an actual and appropriate source, should be the recipient
of a barnstar.
--Jimbo
--
#######################################################################
# Office: 1-727-231-0101 | Free Culture and Free Knowledge #
# http://www.wikipedia.org | Building a free world #
#######################################################################
Hi-- I wonder if a few experienced folks might be willing to take a
look at an article I nominated for deletion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Quackpotwatch
It does not appear to be notable per [[WP:WEB]], and it exists solely
as an attack site against a notable website, Quackwatch.com.
My reason for asking here is that I have an article featured on
Quackwatch.com (which I have noted for a long time on my user page). I
don't want it to seem like my reasons are solely because I disagree
with Quackpotwatch. It just doesn't seem notable or reliable
regardless of my POV, and I can't find any published sources that cite
it. The only citations are other websites that dislike Quackwatch.
Thanks!
Jokestress
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I have a handful of public-domain instructional videos (moving diagrams)
that I'd like to upload, but they are in SWF format. Can someone
contact me directly, off-list, to help me convert them to an acceptable
format?
Thanks!
- --
Sean Barrett | Back off, man, I'm a scientist.
sean(a)epoptic.com | --Dr. Peter Venkman
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The Encyclopaedia Britannica As We Know It has existed from, say, the
ninth edition (1889) to the present, and is probably in sharp decline
now. Let's say it's had about a 150-year life. I don't think it has
another twenty years in it. And I don't think the Boston Globe will
be available as smudgy ink on pulp paper delivered to front porches
in twenty years, either...
The slide rule as we know it--as a working tool for engineers--lasted
from about 1860 into the 1970s... a bit over a century.
Carbon paper... didn't really come into its own until the invention
of the typewriter... it's lasted a bit over a century, too.
"New media" though, have had a shorter life.
The text adventure game: Colossal Cave, early 1970s, to about 1990
and the folding of Infocom. About twenty years?
The soap opera: 1930 to present. The _radio_ soap opera, though,
obviously had a much shorter life. Thirty years?
Wikipedia is much harder to predict, though, because it is changing
over time and will continue to do so. I'd give good odds that ten
years from now there will be a recognizable "website" on something
called the "Internet" named "Wikipedia" that will be an online
encyclopedia, but I wouldn't bet that its culture and policies will
be closely similar to those in existence today.