From: "K P" kpbotany@gmail.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 15:01:30 -0800 To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] editorial oversight, re: afd, fac, etc.
On 1/12/07, Keitei nihthraefn@gmail.com wrote:
On Jan 12, 2007, at 16:11, Kirill Lokshin wrote:
I suppose now might be a decent time to trot out an old idea: what about giving WikiProjects a greater role in the deletion process? They are already (for the most part) the natural gathering places for people with some interest in a particular topic (and, by association, some degree of knowledge of it); presumably, we could therefore expect that the consensus of participants in a WikiProject would thus be a little more informed on topics within that project's scope than the consensus of randomly selected editors.
I wonder if holding deletion debates within WikiProject space would be a feasible or good idea. The idea would be creating consensus over whether something was notable/verifiable enough among those familiar with the topic, so as to create a more nuanced debate. A time limit would probably be not such a great idea, but once consensus was reached, deletion could be requested. Of course there isn't a WikiProject for every topic, and not every nominator knows where to find relevant WikiProjects. However, this would curb uninformed drive- by votes and make deletion discussions hopefully more debate and less polling. It'd also be a huge reform to deletion process, which is entirely unwanted if I read community feeling correctly. Oh well.
I find the WikiProjects feel they own the articles and don't want to delete anything in their area. This can be problematic also.
A couple of times when articles have come up for discussion in areas in which I have a lot of expertise, the other editors agreed with what I suggested by done based on this.
The problem, imo, is the number of seriously contentious editors who know nothing about a topic, but want the article deleted because there were few google hits or they didn't understand the article. Google simply isn't the source for everything, especially in the sciences. One concept with few google hits was a major climatic term. Another issue that arrises is that contentious editors want poorly sourced or unreferenced articles deleted for OR rather than tagged requesting it be references properly (Rock climbing being the extreme of that one). One article on a major topic was up for discussion because the editor posting the AfD had never heard of the term. He/she didn't bother to do a Google search and get the 1.2 million hits, apparently.
Yes, it seems that there are a lot of editors with limited knowledge who consider that anything they haven't heard of should be deleted. Someone was arguing on a page today/yesterday that because he had never heard of Lech Walesa, Walesa might not be very notable.
There are just too many uninformed drive-by votes for me to continue in AfD, though, it's too contentious, the guidelines are ignored, editors make up reasons for deletion, and well-sourced articles on major topics are liable to be deletely simply because a small group of editors have never heard of some obscure world-leader Nobel laureate.
KP Botany
Don't forget the human factor involved here. When a person finds they actually have a voice in a crowd, they may use it simply to be heard; and to call attention to the fact that they are there.
Marc Riddell
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