What policies/procedures/guidelines on en:wp strike you as just awful? Please list and elaborate.
This could be in any of purpose, current wording, ineffectuality or just being a completely bad idea. Or anything else that makes it just awful.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
What policies/procedures/guidelines on en:wp strike you as just awful? Please list and elaborate.
This could be in any of purpose, current wording, ineffectuality or just being a completely bad idea. Or anything else that makes it just awful.
A7 and G11 continue to chap my behind. They go against what we'd normally use for a CSD, and the high number of poor uses (yes, I know it generally works the way it's allegedly supposed to, but too many other things get caught in the crossfire) make it more of a pain than anything else. And that's not even getting into the WP:BITE considerations.
WP:IAR should really be historical at this point. Did it have use back in the day? Maybe so, but we have enough admins and useful policies and guidelines at this point where there really isn't ever a need to do so anymore, and is really just trotted out by people who know better these days.
I don't think the off-wiki personal attack addition was a bad one in retrospect, but it would sure be nice to see some consistent application of it.
</bitching>
-Jeff
On 11/3/06, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
What policies/procedures/guidelines on en:wp strike you as just awful? Please list and elaborate.
This could be in any of purpose, current wording, ineffectuality or just being a completely bad idea. Or anything else that makes it just awful.
A7 and G11 continue to chap my behind. They go against what we'd normally use for a CSD, and the high number of poor uses (yes, I know it generally works the way it's allegedly supposed to, but too many other things get caught in the crossfire) make it more of a pain than anything else. And that's not even getting into the WP:BITE considerations.
Once upon a time there was a vote about "criteria for speedy deletion". I thought it was needlessly bureaucratic, and best to be ignored. Since then, a whole language has developed "A7", "G11" and the criteria have multipled like crazy. Once upon a time I ignored it because I thought it was needless bureaucracy - now I ignore it because it is impenetrable bureaucracy, and quite frankly, if I wanted to deal with crap like that I would have gone to law school.
WP:IAR should really be historical at this point. Did it have use back in
the day? Maybe so, but we have enough admins and useful policies and guidelines at this point where there really isn't ever a need to do so anymore, and is really just trotted out by people who know better these days.
While IAR is often abused as a reason to be disruptive, the truth is that it's the last defense against insanity in many cases, specifically becausewe have too many useless guidelines and policies. When we have too many people who don't understand the difference between guidelines and policies, and who wikilawyer guidelines into "absolute truths"... we have a problem.
IAR is good, but when done intentionally.
I don't think the off-wiki personal attack addition was a bad one in
retrospect, but it would sure be nice to see some consistent application of it.
Yep - to begin with, in IRC
Ian
I don't really object to either A7 or G11, but the idea that these bits of jargon justify a deletion is a problem. Especially since when new criteria are added, A7 may become A8, leaving anyone looking at the deletion log in future very confused. Most people wanting to know why something was deleted will have no idea what these codes mean and it gives a bad impression that you need to understand this sort of thing to get involved with the project.
Blocking people for having usernames in non-Latin characters is the worst policy I've seen on Wikipedia. It's going to become even worse when we have single login and people from the wikis that use other alphabets find they need to log out before editing or risk a permanent block of their username.
Other policies are sometimes fine, but their application is inconsistent which gives an appearance to unfairness, so perhaps the application of these ought to be looked at - not just the policies themselves.
Angela.
Angela wrote:
I don't really object to either A7 or G11, but the idea that these bits of jargon justify a deletion is a problem. Especially since when new criteria are added, A7 may become A8, leaving anyone looking at the deletion log in future very confused. Most people wanting to know why something was deleted will have no idea what these codes mean and it gives a bad impression that you need to understand this sort of thing to get involved with the project.
Absolutely!
Blocking people for having usernames in non-Latin characters is the worst policy I've seen on Wikipedia. It's going to become even worse when we have single login and people from the wikis that use other alphabets find they need to log out before editing or risk a permanent block of their username.
Single login? Is it really going to happen? Otherwise a good point. It will probably need to be abandoned with single login.
Other policies are sometimes fine, but their application is inconsistent which gives an appearance to unfairness, so perhaps the application of these ought to be looked at - not just the policies themselves.
True again. The problem here is also the large mass of rules which people seem to want to forever expand under the guise of clarification. This pprocess of imagining everything that could go wrong and providing a rule for that eventuality is counterproductive. When we have too many laws we just stop reading and understanding them. Even those who purport to enforce those laws have kimited time available and will tend to enforce only those laws which they personally think to be important.
Ec
On Sat, 04 Nov 2006 08:34:31 +0100, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
I don't really object to either A7 or G11, but the idea that these bits of jargon justify a deletion is a problem. Especially since when new criteria are added, A7 may become A8, leaving anyone looking at the deletion log in future very confused. (...)
<snipped>
Actualy when new criterea gets added they tend to be given a higher number, also when criterea are removed or merged a placeholder is left spesificaly with links/references from the deletion log in mind (see for example Criterea 4 and 6 for articles).
I do agree that writing just "a7" or "g11" and such in the deletion summary should be strongly discouraged though. It's just plain lazy and extremely confusing to people who are unfamiliar with CSD jargon. Most browsers have various types of auto complete or other ways to insert pre-prepared verbose "boilplate" text into web forms (I particularly love Opera's "notes" feature) with just a few keystrokes, and even without that typing 2-3 words (even if it's just "blatant advertising" or "non notable band" or whatever) or at least typing [[WP:CSD#A7]] rater than just a7 so people can at least follow the link to the actual criterea doesn't take *that* much longer. Maybe creating a "warning" template simmilar to {{Summary2}} to remind admins of this might be in order.
On 11/3/06, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
WP:IAR should really be historical at this point. Did it have use back in the day? Maybe so, but we have enough admins and useful policies and guidelines at this point where there really isn't ever a need to do so anymore, and is really just trotted out by people who know better these days.
I think in the cases of most good applications of "ignore all rules", it isn't invoked by name. People simply do the right thing instead of the rules-bound thing.
The flipside of IAR is also useful. If you do a stupid thing, "but I followed all the rules!" doesn't excuse it, and doesn't mean that the stupid thing can't be fixed.
-Matt
Matthew Brown wrote:
On 11/3/06, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
WP:IAR should really be historical at this point. Did it have use back in the day? Maybe so, but we have enough admins and useful policies and guidelines at this point where there really isn't ever a need to do so anymore, and is really just trotted out by people who know better these days.
I think in the cases of most good applications of "ignore all rules", it isn't invoked by name. People simply do the right thing instead of the rules-bound thing.
You're not the first person to claim this, but I've also never seen it to be true. It's a constant battle, and one I know I'm losing.
-Jeff
Jeff Raymond wrote:
Matthew Brown wrote:
On 11/3/06, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
WP:IAR should really be historical at this point. Did it have use back in the day? Maybe so, but we have enough admins and useful policies and guidelines at this point where there really isn't ever a need to do so anymore, and is really just trotted out by people who know better these days.
I think in the cases of most good applications of "ignore all rules", it isn't invoked by name. People simply do the right thing instead of the rules-bound thing.
You're not the first person to claim this, but I've also never seen it to be true. It's a constant battle, and one I know I'm losing.
That may depend on where you are applying it. If the article is already contentious your edits of that kind will most certainly attract attention. My experiences are more like Matthew's.
If you use the rule like bait on the end of a trolling line you are bound to get attention that you don't want.
Ec
Jeff Raymond wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
What policies/procedures/guidelines on en:wp strike you as just awful? Please list and elaborate.
This could be in any of purpose, current wording, ineffectuality or just being a completely bad idea. Or anything else that makes it just awful.
A7 and G11 continue to chap my behind. They go against what we'd normally use for a CSD, and the high number of poor uses (yes, I know it generally works the way it's allegedly supposed to, but too many other things get caught in the crossfire) make it more of a pain than anything else. And that's not even getting into the WP:BITE considerations.
WP:IAR should really be historical at this point. Did it have use back in the day? Maybe so, but we have enough admins and useful policies and guidelines at this point where there really isn't ever a need to do so anymore, and is really just trotted out by people who know better these days.
I have no idea what you mean by A7 and G11. The other three abbreviations are repeated often enough for me to remember them, but there is still a need to explain your jargon when you initiate it in a thread.
Ec
On 11/3/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
What policies/procedures/guidelines on en:wp strike you as just awful? Please list and elaborate.
This could be in any of purpose, current wording, ineffectuality or just being a completely bad idea. Or anything else that makes it just awful.
Parts of Wikipedia:Username
"Names that can be confused with other contributors" tends to be overused. It is common practice on the net for people when a user name is taken to use the user name followed by some number. We need to accept this.
Wikipedia:Sock puppetry
just seems to be rather long
Wikipedia:Ownership of articles
Should be Wikipedia:Ownership of content. I tend to feel we have a problem if people are asking permission to edit images.
CSD G12 is getting better but still suffers from having undergone two different rapid changes with little discussion
Office Actions:
Not happy with DCMA take down stuff being dealt with through normal deletion rather than oversight deletion. I don't like the idea that I could accidentally restore stuff deleted due to DMCA notices.
On 11/3/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Not happy with DCMA take down stuff being dealt with through normal deletion rather than oversight deletion. I don't like the idea that I could accidentally restore stuff deleted due to DMCA notices.
I didn't even notice that... but yeah, that sounds like a bad idea. If there's a DMCA or other external reason for things, it should be made clear to everyone...
On 03/11/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/3/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
What policies/procedures/guidelines on en:wp strike you as just awful? Please list and elaborate.
This could be in any of purpose, current wording, ineffectuality or just being a completely bad idea. Or anything else that makes it just awful.
Parts of Wikipedia:Username
"Names that can be confused with other contributors" tends to be overused. It is common practice on the net for people when a user name is taken to use the user name followed by some number. We need to accept this.
Random anecdote: some years ago, my then-girlfriend's little sister got an email address. It was on Hotmail, I think - she took something like "nickname43" as the username. On being asked - what, was "nickname" not available? - she told us that she thought *everyone* had a number at the end of their names on the internet...
Office Actions:
Not happy with DCMA take down stuff being dealt with through normal deletion rather than oversight deletion. I don't like the idea that I could accidentally restore stuff deleted due to DMCA notices.
On the other hand, it's very handy to see the page *was* deleted, so admins can handle queries about it, and if you oversighted all the revisions this might not be the case.
Would it be simpler just to delete it and say "DMCA takedown" in the deletion summary? You'd be hard pressed to restore something without having read the delete log...
...alternately, if we don't want to make the exact details of "copyright holder used actual legal methods" widely public, but are happy with explaining things to admins only, it could be worthwhile to blank the article and write a brief explanation on the newest revision before deleting the page, then refer to this in the edit summary. If nothing else, it flags up an immediate problem if you restore the old version without looking - because you'll have a discussion page not an article.
On 11/3/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On the other hand, it's very handy to see the page *was* deleted, so admins can handle queries about it, and if you oversighted all the revisions this might not be the case.
The problem is that the deleted stuff isn't being cleared from time to time any more with the result that many artices have deleted stuff. This makes it hard to do selective deletes and has the risk of stuf being acidentaly undeleted. This is a risk best not taken with DMCA stuff.
geni wrote:
On 11/3/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
What policies/procedures/guidelines on en:wp strike you as just awful? Please list and elaborate.
This could be in any of purpose, current wording, ineffectuality or just being a completely bad idea. Or anything else that makes it just awful.
Parts of Wikipedia:Username
"Names that can be confused with other contributors" tends to be overused. It is common practice on the net for people when a user name is taken to use the user name followed by some number. We need to accept this.
Except that "on the rest of the interwebs" people with usernames of the form (word)(number) where (word) is common don't tend to run into each other; on Wikipedia they *do*.
Wikipedia:Ownership of articles
Should be Wikipedia:Ownership of content. I tend to feel we have a problem if people are asking permission to edit images.
Actually it's "best practice" to not upload a modified version of an image over the original unless the modifications are lossless and trivial.
geni wrote:
Office Actions:
Not happy with DCMA take down stuff being dealt with through normal deletion rather than oversight deletion. I don't like the idea that I could accidentally restore stuff deleted due to DMCA notices.
My objections about the ambiguity of whether edits by User:Danny were "office" or not has recently been resolved, but I'd still like to see a more intuitive username for the office action account than "Dannyisme". I suggest "User:Office Actions" as the obvious choice.
Bryan Derksen wrote:
geni wrote:
Office Actions:
Not happy with DCMA take down stuff being dealt with through normal deletion rather than oversight deletion. I don't like the idea that I could accidentally restore stuff deleted due to DMCA notices.
My objections about the ambiguity of whether edits by User:Danny were "office" or not has recently been resolved, but I'd still like to see a more intuitive username for the office action account than "Dannyisme". I suggest "User:Office Actions" as the obvious choice.
Having "OFFICE" in all capitals would make it even more obvious.
Ec
David Gerard wrote:
What policies/procedures/guidelines on en:wp strike you as just awful? Please list and elaborate.
This could be in any of purpose, current wording, ineffectuality or just being a completely bad idea. Or anything else that makes it just awful.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:State_route_naming_conventions_poll and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_%28U.S._state_highway...
David Gerard wrote:
What policies/procedures/guidelines on en:wp strike you as just awful? Please list and elaborate.
This could be in any of purpose, current wording, ineffectuality or just being a completely bad idea. Or anything else that makes it just awful.
Why do I think that there is something masochistic to that question? :-)
I would personally prefer a complete review of all policies and guidelines, but I can also recognize dreams as what they are.
I remember suggesting a way to systematically deal with the rules a long time ago, but that would have required more discipline than what is standard here.
Ec
[[WP:DRV]]. Allegedly set up to hear procedural cases, it has become a court of appeal whereby procedure is considered sporadically, and more often, where decisions that are unpopular among the main clique that watches DRV get overturned with no further chance of appeal. It has become one of the worst examples of a de facto committee on en, and is far past the point where any of its decisions should be considered binding.
All of our notability guidelines, which fit together to provide a completely ludicrous overall picture. (It's far easier to get onto Wikipedia as a pornographic actor than as a webcartoonist. Or, if you want to ) These are a mess of kludges created to sort out a momentary instance where six or seven articles of a given topic got AfDed in a short time period, leading to a guideline, usually written primarily by the people who wanted the articles deleted. We have, meanwhile, no generalizable criteria for notability, and thus no useful end in sight for these guidelines.
[[WP:RFA]], which, like notability, lacks any consensus anymore on what the overall standards should be, and has thus degenerated into utter madness.
[[WP:FA]] and to a lesser extent [[WP:GA]], which, like RFA, suffer from such a wildly disparate set of standards that the process of passing them is more a process of politics than of actual quality.
[[WP:RS]] still stands, due to the lack of passage of [[WP:ATT]]. It's still as big a problem as ever.
Best, Phil Sandifer sandifer@english.ufl.edu
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
On Nov 3, 2006, at 11:43 AM, David Gerard wrote:
What policies/procedures/guidelines on en:wp strike you as just awful? Please list and elaborate.
This could be in any of purpose, current wording, ineffectuality or just being a completely bad idea. Or anything else that makes it just awful.
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 11/3/06, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
[[WP:DRV]]. Allegedly set up to hear procedural cases, it has become a court of appeal whereby procedure is considered sporadically, and more often, where decisions that are unpopular among the main clique that watches DRV get overturned with no further chance of appeal. It has become one of the worst examples of a de facto committee on en, and is far past the point where any of its decisions should be considered binding.
"Overturned with no further chance of appeal"? Nothing to stop you from listing it on AFD other the the risk of large amounts of drama.
All of our notability guidelines, which fit together to provide a completely ludicrous overall picture. (It's far easier to get onto Wikipedia as a pornographic actor than as a webcartoonist.
Hmmm it would be quite odd to see a study that backed that claim up. By easier do you mean "amount of effort expended" or percentage of people in a certian area covered.
Pornographic actors tend to be better known and there are more publications out there writeing about them.
These are a mess of kludges created to sort out a momentary instance where six or seven articles of a given topic got AfDed in a short time period, leading to a guideline, usually written primarily by the people who wanted the articles deleted. We have, meanwhile, no generalizable criteria for notability, and thus no useful end in sight for these guidelines.
Mulitple independent sources.
[[WP:RFA]], which, like notability, lacks any consensus anymore on what the overall standards should be, and has thus degenerated into utter madness.
People have been saying that for rather a long time. Shouldn't it have exploded or something by now?
On Nov 3, 2006, at 4:48 PM, geni wrote:
"Overturned with no further chance of appeal"? Nothing to stop you from listing it on AFD other the the risk of large amounts of drama.
Except that keeps are frequently being overturned to deletes (Or simply overturned unilaterally and then upheld on DRV). There remains the fundamental imbalance that articles can be AfDed three, four, five, etc times, but that undeletion is a one-shot deal. This problem, while not the whole of the problem with our deletion system, underscores the bulk of the flaws.
Hmmm it would be quite odd to see a study that backed that claim up. By easier do you mean "amount of effort expended" or percentage of people in a certian area covered.
Pornographic actors tend to be better known and there are more publications out there writeing about them.
Though I should note, popularity is hardly the only concern of an encyclopedia, hence the coverage of academic topics in more detail than their popularity would imply. I should think it is not an excessively insane view to point out that in terms of "value to the world" (Which is really what we mean by notability, let's face it) pornographic actors rank far, far below many areas we are far more selective about. Even a Pokemon is more exceptional than someone who's claim to fame is mostly that they have had sex.
Mulitple independent sources.
A great guideline, so long as you're willing to ignore all but the most pathological of articles. Unfortunately, that's a bad way to approach the topic.
People have been saying that for rather a long time. Shouldn't it have exploded or something by now?
Unlikely - with several hundred admins, it could well be a very long time before problems promoting new ones move to the realm of explosion.
-Phil
On 11/4/06, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Except that keeps are frequently being overturned to deletes (Or simply overturned unilaterally and then upheld on DRV). There remains the fundamental imbalance that articles can be AfDed three, four, five, etc times, but that undeletion is a one-shot deal. This problem, while not the whole of the problem with our deletion system, underscores the bulk of the flaws.
Ever read [[WP:CSD#G4]]?
Any re-creation that isn't heavily based on a previous version can't be speedied.
Though I should note, popularity is hardly the only concern of an encyclopedia, hence the coverage of academic topics in more detail than their popularity would imply. I should think it is not an excessively insane view to point out that in terms of "value to the world" (Which is really what we mean by notability, let's face it) pornographic actors rank far, far below many areas we are far more selective about. Even a Pokemon is more exceptional than someone who's claim to fame is mostly that they have had sex.
Pokemon is setting the bar rather high. Other than perhaps playboy I doubt there is much in the field of porn better know than pokemon.
You have ignored my second point. People write about porn. It is after all where the word comes from.
A great guideline, so long as you're willing to ignore all but the most pathological of articles. Unfortunately, that's a bad way to approach the topic.
Not really. You just follow the standard aproach that they only need to be produced when their existance is challanged
Unlikely - with several hundred admins, it could well be a very long time before problems promoting new ones move to the realm of explosion.
-Phil
There were rather fewer when people started complaining. Things change adminship is a bigger deal than it used to be (so is editorship for that matter).
geni wrote:
On 11/4/06, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Though I should note, popularity is hardly the only concern of an encyclopedia, hence the coverage of academic topics in more detail than their popularity would imply. I should think it is not an excessively insane view to point out that in terms of "value to the world" (Which is really what we mean by notability, let's face it) pornographic actors rank far, far below many areas we are far more selective about. Even a Pokemon is more exceptional than someone who's claim to fame is mostly that they have had sex.
Pokemon is setting the bar rather high. Other than perhaps playboy I doubt there is much in the field of porn better know than pokemon.
You have ignored my second point. People write about porn. It is after all where the word comes from.
The one difference between these two topics is that Pokémon is a fairly recent phenomenon, and it's easier to confine all that could be reasonably said about it. Porn has been around much longer to the point that some would even consider the Book of Ruth in the Bible to be pornographic. This makes it a lot more difficult to determine what porn is notable. None of us would exist without sex, and that could have the effect that naming someone's parents is inherently pornographic. :-) Even I would admit that simply saying that someone had sex is not normally notable, but having sex publicly or on film could alter that parameter.
A great guideline, so long as you're willing to ignore all but the most pathological of articles. Unfortunately, that's a bad way to approach the topic.
Not really. You just follow the standard aproach that they only need to be produced when their existance is challanged
I'm glad to see you mellowing with age.
Unlikely - with several hundred admins, it could well be a very long time before problems promoting new ones move to the realm of explosion.
There were rather fewer when people started complaining. Things change adminship is a bigger deal than it used to be (so is editorship for that matter).
That's sad. As flaky as the leaves may seem they owe their life to the roots.
Ec
On Nov 5, 2006, at 2:46 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
The one difference between these two topics is that Pokémon is a fairly recent phenomenon, and it's easier to confine all that could be reasonably said about it. Porn has been around much longer to the point that some would even consider the Book of Ruth in the Bible to be pornographic. This makes it a lot more difficult to determine what porn is notable. None of us would exist without sex, and that could have the effect that naming someone's parents is inherently pornographic. :-) Even I would admit that simply saying that someone had sex is not normally notable, but having sex publicly or on film could alter that parameter.
But on the other hand, and this is something we ought not be ashamed of, we are an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias have standards. That's not to say we should "censor," but, well... encyclopedias value some topics over others. Nobody would argue that Jacques Derrida is more known than Pokemon, but Britannica has an article on him, and not one on Pokemon. The judgment of notability is more than a judgment of popularity. It's a judgment, ultimately, of worth. Obviously, Wikipedia is not paper. We can set the bar lower.
I don't think it's an overly controversial thing to point out, though, that the bar exists, and exists in a way that is a bit snobbish. It should be easier to get an article as an academic than as a comic. It should be easier to get an article as a piece of art or mainstream culture than as a pornographic actor. Because, well, that's the judgment call respectable encyclopedias make.
But our notability standards, being stitched together on a case-by- case basis, are in no real position to engage in this sort of thought.
Best, Phil Sandifer sandifer@english.ufl.edu
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
On 11/5/06, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
But on the other hand, and this is something we ought not be ashamed of, we are an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias have standards. That's not to say we should "censor," but, well... encyclopedias value some topics over others. Nobody would argue that Jacques Derrida is more known than Pokemon, but Britannica has an article on him, and not one on Pokemon. The judgment of notability is more than a judgment of popularity. It's a judgment, ultimately, of worth. Obviously, Wikipedia is not paper. We can set the bar lower.
Britannica is only one opinion. An encyclopedia of childrens toys would probably come to a different conclusion.
But our notability standards, being stitched together on a case-by- case basis, are in no real position to engage in this sort of thought.
Most legal systems are based to a far degree on president. This works better than you might expect.
On Nov 5, 2006, at 4:46 PM, geni wrote:
Britannica is only one opinion. An encyclopedia of childrens toys would probably come to a different conclusion.
Yes, but we're a general encyclopedia, not a subject encyclopedia, and not a compendium of subject encyclopedias. This is a very important point - especially for popular culture articles.
-Phil
Phil Sandifer wrote:
On Nov 5, 2006, at 4:46 PM, geni wrote:
Britannica is only one opinion. An encyclopedia of childrens toys would probably come to a different conclusion.
Yes, but we're a general encyclopedia, not a subject encyclopedia, and not a compendium of subject encyclopedias. This is a very important point - especially for popular culture articles.
I don't agree with that at all---I think we should be precisely a compendium of subject encyclopedias, albeit woven together in a way that the general reader can navigate from general to specific articles and back again in a reasonable manner.
-Mark
On Nov 5, 2006, at 4:51 PM, Delirium wrote:
I don't agree with that at all---I think we should be precisely a compendium of subject encyclopedias, albeit woven together in a way that the general reader can navigate from general to specific articles and back again in a reasonable manner.
I think there are some major problems with that, not the least of which being that this mindset is why many of our popular culture articles are written in an in-universe perspective.
-Phil
Phil Sandifer wrote:
On Nov 5, 2006, at 4:51 PM, Delirium wrote:
I don't agree with that at all---I think we should be precisely a compendium of subject encyclopedias, albeit woven together in a way that the general reader can navigate from general to specific articles and back again in a reasonable manner.
I think there are some major problems with that, not the least of which being that this mindset is why many of our popular culture articles are written in an in-universe perspective.
Well I was thinking in terms of subject matter treated, not necessarily wording. What I had in mind with the "woven together" is to make things more accessible and fit in better with the rest of the encyclopedia.
Look at our math articles, for example---surely lots of them have no business being in a general-purpose encyclopedia. Some do, but as you drill down to more and more specific things, the language gets more and more technical and the content approaches that of a specialist mathematics encyclopedia.
-Mark
On 05/11/06, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, but we're a general encyclopedia, not a subject encyclopedia, and not a compendium of subject encyclopedias. This is a very important point - especially for popular culture articles.
Er, we arguably do encompass quite a lot about subject encyclopedias, although you'd need to whack context on the front before cut'n'pasting.
- d.
Phil Sandifer wrote:
On Nov 5, 2006, at 4:46 PM, geni wrote:
Britannica is only one opinion. An encyclopedia of childrens toys would probably come to a different conclusion.
Yes, but we're a general encyclopedia, not a subject encyclopedia, and not a compendium of subject encyclopedias. This is a very important point - especially for popular culture articles.
I disagree, I see no reason why Wikipedia can't be considered a compendium of subject encyclopedias. Wikiprojects already treat it that way in a lot of regards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Highways springs to mind, I would normally expect to find this sort of thing only in a specialist collection.
On Nov 5, 2006, at 7:13 PM, Bryan Derksen wrote:
Phil Sandifer wrote:
On Nov 5, 2006, at 4:46 PM, geni wrote:
Britannica is only one opinion. An encyclopedia of childrens toys would probably come to a different conclusion.
Yes, but we're a general encyclopedia, not a subject encyclopedia, and not a compendium of subject encyclopedias. This is a very important point - especially for popular culture articles.
I disagree, I see no reason why Wikipedia can't be considered a compendium of subject encyclopedias. Wikiprojects already treat it that way in a lot of regards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Highways springs to mind, I would normally expect to find this sort of thing only in a specialist collection.
I think this is a big misconception, though an understandable one. Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia of limitless depth. Due to that, it covers material that would be too esoteric for a paper general collection. But it's approach to all of its topics is that of a general encyclopedia. So even when we have an article on, say, Vermont State Highway 26, the approach is that of a general encyclopedia, not a specialist one. This is a VITAL distinction in terms of understanding what the content of an article should be.
WikiProjects, on the other hand, are social phenomena among editors who want to work on particular areas - equivalent, say, to those editors of an encyclopedia assigned to manage the physical sciences.
-Phil
On 06/11/06, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
I disagree, I see no reason why Wikipedia can't be considered a compendium of subject encyclopedias. Wikiprojects already treat it that way in a lot of regards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Highways springs to mind, I would normally expect to find this sort of thing only in a specialist collection.
I think this is a big misconception, though an understandable one. Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia of limitless depth. Due to that, it covers material that would be too esoteric for a paper general collection. But it's approach to all of its topics is that of a general encyclopedia. So even when we have an article on, say, Vermont State Highway 26, the approach is that of a general encyclopedia, not a specialist one. This is a VITAL distinction in terms of understanding what the content of an article should be.
Concur entirely.
Our articles should be written from the standpoint of a general reader; in the unfortunate but rare event the topic is sufficiently obscure that the general reader isn't going to be able to understand it, we should have the decency to frame it in a way that still says "we are a general enyclopedia", to make it clear what it's a subset of and what knowledge you need for it to make sense.
So this will mean we restate "the obvious" a lot of times; we define or avoid jargon; we talk about things in a wide context rather than keeping within a purely biographical remit, or a purely legal remit, or a purely historical remit, or so on; and, if in doubt, we assume we're the first thing they've ever seen about the field and they need a decent and comprehensible primer on it *now*.
We shouldn't be assuming a common subject-related context from our users, which a specialist encyclopedia can afford to do; this is, when you think about it, just a corrolary of another of our basic principles, that we don't assume a cultural or national context on behalf of our readers. We are an international encyclopedia, not a compendium of an American one and a British one and an Irish one and an Indian one (&c, &c) - and, likewise, we are a general encyclopedia, not a compendium of a historical one and a biographical one and an engineering one and a legal one and an art one and (&c, &c).
----
As an aside, I have an encyclopedia on the shelf which - whilst general-purpose - is sufficiently thorough in dealing with Matters Imperial to have entries somewhat resembling (from memory): "'Powerful'. First-rate cruiser launched in 1895. Currently in the Mediterranean Fleet."
I would be curious to know what the most obscure entry anyone else has found in a general-purpose work is...
Phil Sandifer wrote:
I think this is a big misconception, though an understandable one. Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia of limitless depth. Due to that, it covers material that would be too esoteric for a paper general collection. But it's approach to all of its topics is that of a general encyclopedia. So even when we have an article on, say, Vermont State Highway 26, the approach is that of a general encyclopedia, not a specialist one. This is a VITAL distinction in terms of understanding what the content of an article should be.
Well, yeah, all of the articles are subject to the same policies, guidelines, style guides, etc.. It's actually one of my major annoyances when subgroups of articles try to come up with their own special standards to live by. When I talk of "compendium of specialist encyclopedias" I'm thinking just of what subjects actually get articles, not the form those articles take.
WikiProjects, on the other hand, are social phenomena among editors who want to work on particular areas - equivalent, say, to those editors of an encyclopedia assigned to manage the physical sciences.
But the end result of those associations are that those particular areas of knowledge often wind up with uniform and tightly integrated coverage, with elaborate category structures and templates binding them together. You could take many of those subject groupings out of Wikipedia and have them stand alone as an "Encyclopedia of Pokemon" or whatever with only modest modifications.
geni wrote:
But our notability standards, being stitched together on a case-by- case basis, are in no real position to engage in this sort of thought.
Most legal systems are based to a far degree on president. This works better than you might expect.
At the risk of breaching Wikiquette I think you mean "precedent" rather than "president". ;-)
I basically agree. Precedent allows for some flexibility in distinguishing between cases because often unexpected differences in circumstances. Trying to legislate the result of a precedent setting decision destroys that flexibility, and too easily makes the new rules apply in unintended places.
Ec
On 11/5/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
The one difference between these two topics is that Pokémon is a fairly recent phenomenon, and it's easier to confine all that could be reasonably said about it.
Fan faction could potentialy make that problimatical.
Porn has been around much longer to the point that some would even consider the Book of Ruth in the Bible to be pornographic. This makes it a lot more difficult to determine what porn is notable. None of us would exist without sex, and that could have the effect that naming someone's parents is inherently pornographic. :-) Even I would admit that simply saying that someone had sex is not normally notable, but having sex publicly or on film could alter that parameter.
There is an industry with awards and journalists writeing about it. This means there is information that tends to be fairly availible that we can cite. There are secondary sources. This gives us a starting point to work from. Pokemon once you get outside the big obvious stuff seems to be rather short of cites.
I'm glad to see you mellowing with age.
Never.
That's sad. As flaky as the leaves may seem they owe their life to the roots.
But inevitable. There is a difference between editing an article that will only be read by tens of people and editing an article that will be read by tens of thousands.
Speedy deletion criterion A7, which states: "Unremarkable people, groups, companies and web content. An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject. If the assertion is controversial or there has been a previous AfD, the article should be nominated for AfD instead. Note: Avoid the word "vanity" in deletion summaries since it may be insulting."
I've just removed the tag from articles about a Hollyoaks actress, a Compuserve Vice President and a band broadcast on the BBC. Someone beat me to the line in removing a tag from an article on a bloke who had written number one singles. I'm staggered at what some people think is not an assertion of importance or significance. The criterion has to go. It was proposed as "An article about a real person that does not assert that person's importance or significance - people such as college professors or actors may be individually important in society; people such as students and bakers are not, or at least not for the reason of being a student or baker. If the assertion is disputed or controversial, it should be taken to VFD instead." which at least gave some examples, but they quickly fell out. Most of us who opposed this felt it would prove to be ambiguous, but the majority had their head. If our CSD truly are supposed to be limited, this has to be bashed with stick. Repeatedly. Ah well, rant over.
Steve block
On 07/11/06, Steve Block steve.block@myrealbox.com wrote:
Speedy deletion criterion A7, which states: "Unremarkable people, groups, companies and web content. An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject. If the assertion is controversial or there has been a previous AfD, the article should be nominated for AfD instead. Note: Avoid the word "vanity" in deletion summaries since it may be insulting."
I've just removed the tag from articles about a Hollyoaks actress, a Compuserve Vice President and a band broadcast on the BBC. Someone beat me to the line in removing a tag from an article on a bloke who had written number one singles. I'm staggered at what some people think is not an assertion of importance or significance. The criterion has to go. It was proposed as "An article about a real person that does not assert that person's importance or significance - people such as college professors or actors may be individually important in society; people such as students and bakers are not, or at least not for the reason of being a student or baker. If the assertion is disputed or controversial, it should be taken to VFD instead." which at least gave some examples, but they quickly fell out. Most of us who opposed this felt it would prove to be ambiguous, but the majority had their head. If our CSD truly are supposed to be limited, this has to be bashed with stick. Repeatedly. Ah well, rant over.
Steve block
I totally agree, it is feature creep---and unnecessary at that---to claim that some assertions are too dubious to be worth a discussion.
Peter Ansell
Phil Sandifer wrote:
[[WP:DRV]]. Allegedly set up to hear procedural cases, it has become a court of appeal whereby procedure is considered sporadically, and more often, where decisions that are unpopular among the main clique that watches DRV get overturned with no further chance of appeal. It has become one of the worst examples of a de facto committee on en, and is far past the point where any of its decisions should be considered binding.
I think the thing that continues to bother me about DRV is that, as much as we harp about not being a democracy and not voting, it's the msot blatant vote counting mechanism out there. Someone can point out five problems with a deletion, and as long as the people in favor of deletion can dredge up one more person than you, it stays. Patently absurd.
[[WP:FA]] and to a lesser extent [[WP:GA]], which, like RFA, suffer from such a wildly disparate set of standards that the process of passing them is more a process of politics than of actual quality.
I haven't found that so far, but I'm relatively new to the world of FA. I'm also highly critical, so maybe I'm part of the problem as opposed to the solution.
-Jeff
On Fri, 03 Nov 2006 17:40:25 -0500, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
I think the thing that continues to bother me about DRV is that, as much as we harp about not being a democracy and not voting, it's the msot blatant vote counting mechanism out there. Someone can point out five problems with a deletion, and as long as the people in favor of deletion can dredge up one more person than you, it stays. Patently absurd.
The best way to deal with this is to reduce the overall temperature by not opposing every single deletion of every single piece of Internet crap.
Guy (JzG)
On Fri, 3 Nov 2006 16:35:26 -0500, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
[[WP:DRV]]. Allegedly set up to hear procedural cases, it has become a court of appeal whereby procedure is considered sporadically, and more often, where decisions that are unpopular among the main clique that watches DRV get overturned with no further chance of appeal.
Rarely. Few are overturned and deleted, I think slightly more are overturned and undeleted, but in most cases it seems to me to be people bitching about deletion of fundamentally unverifiable articles.
All of our notability guidelines, which fit together to provide a completely ludicrous overall picture. (It's far easier to get onto Wikipedia as a pornographic actor than as a webcartoonist. Or, if you want to ) These are a mess of kludges created to sort out a momentary instance where six or seven articles of a given topic got AfDed in a short time period, leading to a guideline, usually written primarily by the people who wanted the articles deleted. We have, meanwhile, no generalizable criteria for notability, and thus no useful end in sight for these guidelines.
Again, I think this is nonsense. Most of them seem to be written by the people who want the crud *included*, which is why we have such a farcically low bar to porn "stars".
[[WP:RFA]], which, like notability, lacks any consensus anymore on what the overall standards should be, and has thus degenerated into utter madness.
Yup.
[[WP:FA]] and to a lesser extent [[WP:GA]], which, like RFA, suffer from such a wildly disparate set of standards that the process of passing them is more a process of politics than of actual quality.
Never managed to get an article to either, mainly I think because it needs a number of interested editors who are determined to see their article in lights; not many people are interested in [[Giovanni Punto]].
[[WP:RS]] still stands, due to the lack of passage of [[WP:ATT]]. It's still as big a problem as ever.
What, people's refusal to find decent sources? Sure is.
Guy (JzG)
On Nov 3, 2006, at 5:45 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Fri, 3 Nov 2006 16:35:26 -0500, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
[[WP:DRV]]. Allegedly set up to hear procedural cases, it has become a court of appeal whereby procedure is considered sporadically, and more often, where decisions that are unpopular among the main clique that watches DRV get overturned with no further chance of appeal.
Rarely. Few are overturned and deleted, I think slightly more are overturned and undeleted, but in most cases it seems to me to be people bitching about deletion of fundamentally unverifiable articles.
I can usually find one absolutely god-awful deletion a day on it that is getting inadequate consideration for reasons that have nothing to do with any useful definition of verifiability. Today's is [[Girly]], which I just went ahead and undeleted on the grounds that there was no point in sitting through a charade on DRV.
Again, I think this is nonsense. Most of them seem to be written by the people who want the crud *included*, which is why we have such a farcically low bar to porn "stars".
It tends to be, specifically, an uneasy and crappy consensus of the people who want to delete all of them and the people who want to include all of them, with an understandably but unfortunately low amount of input from the people who really don't care very much about porn stars. As a result every notability guideline tends to be a roughly halfway point between delete all/include all such that there is no consistency across topics.
What, people's refusal to find decent sources? Sure is.
That and a complete lack of understanding of what a decent source is. The latter is increasingly more prevalent than the former - citation of something to a mediocre source, particularly when nobody seriously doubts the accuracy of the information, is a far more preferable outcome than deletion of things that are sourced to completely reliable sources that fail to meet some editor's desire for a test that can be operated by a robot.
-Phil
On Sat, 4 Nov 2006 17:36:07 -0500, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
I can usually find one absolutely god-awful deletion a day on it that is getting inadequate consideration for reasons that have nothing to do with any useful definition of verifiability. Today's is [[Girly]], which I just went ahead and undeleted on the grounds that there was no point in sitting through a charade on DRV.
In other words, there was consensus to delete, a strong majority to endorse deletion, but you "know better". Maybe you do, but doesn't it strike you as just the *teensiest* bit arrogant?
Seems to me that when DRV endorses the process because it's valid then DRV is "broken", but when it overrides AfD supermajority it's "broken". I've been watching DRV for a while, most of them seem pretty uncontentious, I am having trouble finding the brokenness. AfD is, without doubt, problematic, but the issue there is essentially that it doesn't scale properly to encompass the sheer volume of crap articles being created. I personally feel that an article tagged for cleanup as unsourced should be deleted if not fixed within 14 days, that would remove a lot of the problems.
Again, I think this is nonsense. Most of them seem to be written by the people who want the crud *included*, which is why we have such a farcically low bar to porn "stars".
It tends to be, specifically, an uneasy and crappy consensus of the people who want to delete all of them and the people who want to include all of them, with an understandably but unfortunately low amount of input from the people who really don't care very much about porn stars. As a result every notability guideline tends to be a roughly halfway point between delete all/include all such that there is no consistency across topics.
That's compromise, not consensus. Compromise on which everyone can agree, that's consensus. And in the end, what's so wrong? We see with [[WP:SCHOOLS]] what happens when people *refuse* to compromise: pain, absurdity. PORNBIO sets the bar too low, I guess others might be too high, but I see no real informed dissent form the view that there should be some significance bar to inclusion. Debate on where the bar lies is, of course, perfectly legitimate.
What, people's refusal to find decent sources? Sure is.
That and a complete lack of understanding of what a decent source is. The latter is increasingly more prevalent than the former - citation of something to a mediocre source, particularly when nobody seriously doubts the accuracy of the information, is a far more preferable outcome than deletion of things that are sourced to completely reliable sources that fail to meet some editor's desire for a test that can be operated by a robot.
Maybe, but that's a pendulum thing. In the end the best result for the project is if people talk about stuff, rather than hurling accusations of wanting to delete "everything" or keep "everything".
The most frustrating thing for me is this: there is absolutely no shortage of places where you can find crap off "teh internets". I was attracted to Wikipedia because of the aspiration to be rather better than that; setting a higher standard than "I heard it on teh internets". Sure, people pick the low-hanging fruit, but much of the most contested stuff is well beyond low hanging and into well-rotted worm-ridden windfalls. Do we *really* need articles on every Flash cartoon and porn "star" on the planet? Or should that perhaps wait until we've taken the trouble to document those subjects which require a bit of work to find out about? Those where a Google search is not going to give an immediate and compendious answer? Every now and then we should actually take a trip to the library, to save someone else having to.
Guy (JzG)
On 05/11/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
In other words, there was consensus to delete, a strong majority to endorse deletion, but you "know better". Maybe you do, but doesn't it strike you as just the *teensiest* bit arrogant?
It may be worth pointing out that Phil is an academic expert in the area in question, so his opinion is actually worth more on the particular subject.
That is: this is plain expert undeletion, despite attempts by process defenders to claim their particular subprocess "owns" the decision.
- d.
On Sun, 5 Nov 2006 00:25:05 +0000, "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
In other words, there was consensus to delete, a strong majority to endorse deletion, but you "know better". Maybe you do, but doesn't it strike you as just the *teensiest* bit arrogant?
It may be worth pointing out that Phil is an academic expert in the area in question, so his opinion is actually worth more on the particular subject.
There are those who consider "academic expert on webcomix" to be an oxymoron. There are also others who claim expertise in DRV right now who support deletion.
We have an ongoing RFAR on pseudoscience where an expert has been pushing his novel theories. How am I supposed to ell if Phil is using a novel interpretation of what is significant? Secondary sources, not "I know better". And actually I trust Phil's judgment, just as I trust Tony Sidaway's, but Tony usually brings better arguments than "I know better".
Guy (JzG)
On Nov 4, 2006, at 7:42 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
How am I supposed to ell if Phil is using a novel interpretation of what is significant? Secondary sources, not "I know better". And actually I trust Phil's judgment, just as I trust Tony Sidaway's, but Tony usually brings better arguments than "I know better".
I've provided six separate claims for the notability of [[Girly]] on the DRV.
-Phil
On Sat, 4 Nov 2006 19:43:45 -0500, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
I've provided six separate claims for the notability of [[Girly]] on the DRV.
Some of which I think are a bit iffy. But the fact that the author makes appreciable money form it, and the availability of a print version from a non-vanity press, are certainly persuasive.
Guy (JzG)
On 05/11/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Sun, 5 Nov 2006 00:25:05 +0000, "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
In other words, there was consensus to delete, a strong majority to endorse deletion, but you "know better". Maybe you do, but doesn't it strike you as just the *teensiest* bit arrogant?
It may be worth pointing out that Phil is an academic expert in the area in question, so his opinion is actually worth more on the particular subject.
There are those who consider "academic expert on webcomix" to be an oxymoron. There are also others who claim expertise in DRV right now who support deletion.
To be specific, Dragonfiend is claiming expertise but singularly failing to substantiate said claim when asked directly several times; in the meantime conducting increasingly shrill personal attacks on Phil.
We have an ongoing RFAR on pseudoscience where an expert has been pushing his novel theories. How am I supposed to ell if Phil is using a novel interpretation of what is significant? Secondary sources, not "I know better". And actually I trust Phil's judgment, just as I trust Tony Sidaway's, but Tony usually brings better arguments than "I know better".
Well, yes. But does an expert count more than five people who know nothing about a field? I submit it does. Wikipedia is supposed to respect experts, after all, not say "fuck off, you were outvoted by us."
- d.
On Sun, 5 Nov 2006 01:27:20 +0000, "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
There are those who consider "academic expert on webcomix" to be an oxymoron. There are also others who claim expertise in DRV right now who support deletion.
To be specific, Dragonfiend is claiming expertise but singularly failing to substantiate said claim when asked directly several times; in the meantime conducting increasingly shrill personal attacks on Phil.
For sure. I have asked Dragonfiend to calm down, these comments are out of line. And I apologise to Phil for not doing that yesterday, because I certainly did notice.
We have an ongoing RFAR on pseudoscience where an expert has been pushing his novel theories. How am I supposed to ell if Phil is using a novel interpretation of what is significant? Secondary sources, not "I know better". And actually I trust Phil's judgment, just as I trust Tony Sidaway's, but Tony usually brings better arguments than "I know better".
Well, yes. But does an expert count more than five people who know nothing about a field? I submit it does. Wikipedia is supposed to respect experts, after all, not say "fuck off, you were outvoted by us."
Like I said, I trust Phil's judgment, but the style was excessively brusque.
Guy (JzG)
On 11/4/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 05/11/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote: It may be worth pointing out that Phil is an academic expert in the area in question, so his opinion is actually worth more on the particular subject.
Academic experts are uniquely qualified to judge the relative notability of subjects within their area of expertise. They are also, in general, probably not the people we would want to have judging the overall notability of their entire area of expertise. (I do not think I have ever known an academic whose estimation of his or her own field's importance was not substantially higher than the outside world's estimation of the same.) We should ask carefully which is occurring in any "expert judgement" scenario.
Phil Sandifer wrote:
[[WP:FA]] and to a lesser extent [[WP:GA]], which, like RFA, suffer from such a wildly disparate set of standards that the process of passing them is more a process of politics than of actual quality.
Fortunately, unlike the rest of the problematic policies and guidelines you mention it's easy and harmless to just do what I do and ignore the entire concept. I don't care whether articles I work on get the little star sticker or not, improvements to an article are worth making purely for their own sake.
I do the same thing with "stub sorting" these days. I added a bit of CSS to my skin to make stub templates vanish from my sight and let other editors waste their time as they see fit. :)
On 11/3/06, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
I do the same thing with "stub sorting" these days. I added a bit of CSS to my skin to make stub templates vanish from my sight and let other editors waste their time as they see fit. :)
I wish I could make them vanish from my watchlist, as well. Over three-quarters of the article edits on my watchlist fall into one of four categories: interwiki bots, stubwanking, vandalism, and vandalism reverts.
On Fri, Nov 03, 2006 at 04:35:26PM -0500, Phil Sandifer wrote:
[[WP:DRV]]. Allegedly set up to hear procedural cases, it has become a court of appeal whereby procedure is considered sporadically, and more often, where decisions that are unpopular among the main clique that watches DRV get overturned with no further chance of appeal. It has become one of the worst examples of a de facto committee on en, and is far past the point where any of its decisions should be considered binding.
All of our notability guidelines, which fit together to provide a completely ludicrous overall picture. (It's far easier to get onto Wikipedia as a pornographic actor than as a webcartoonist. Or, if you want to ) These are a mess of kludges created to sort out a momentary instance where six or seven articles of a given topic got AfDed in a short time period, leading to a guideline, usually written primarily by the people who wanted the articles deleted. We have, meanwhile, no generalizable criteria for notability, and thus no useful end in sight for these guidelines.
[[WP:RFA]], which, like notability, lacks any consensus anymore on what the overall standards should be, and has thus degenerated into utter madness.
[[WP:FA]] and to a lesser extent [[WP:GA]], which, like RFA, suffer from such a wildly disparate set of standards that the process of passing them is more a process of politics than of actual quality.
[[WP:RS]] still stands, due to the lack of passage of [[WP:ATT]]. It's still as big a problem as ever.
OK, I passed on 4 of your [[WP:TLA]]s and failed on 2. Please write in english.
[[User:Bduke]]
Best, Phil Sandifer sandifer@english.ufl.edu
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
On Nov 3, 2006, at 11:43 AM, David Gerard wrote:
What policies/procedures/guidelines on en:wp strike you as just awful? Please list and elaborate.
This could be in any of purpose, current wording, ineffectuality or just being a completely bad idea. Or anything else that makes it just awful.
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I'd just like to throw in a few cents here:
1. Notability: Pathetic. Verifiability already keeps out junk, why do we need an icredibly subjective set of guidelines based on some old essay?
2. RFA: Don't expect any second chances here. Made a copyvio four years ago? Too bad. Don't use edit summaries 100% of the time? rejected. Don't vote on AFD? rejected.
3. Not written down, but the community isn't very forgiving for past policy violations or for little slips. If some admins out a bunch of pressure and provocation on a user, if they go a little batshit in response, then they can't wait to block them. This is also why RFA is bad: Genuinely good editors get rejected, bullies stay in.
On Sat, Nov 04, 2006 at 10:59:01AM -0500, Phil Sandifer wrote:
On Nov 3, 2006, at 9:39 PM, Brian Salter-Duke wrote:
OK, I passed on 4 of your [[WP:TLA]]s and failed on 2. Please write in english.
You could just type them into Wikipedia and see what comes out.
I did, but I should not have to. I have been around for 12 months on WP and I still do not know all of these. Using them all the time as on this mailing list excludes people, and we should not be doing that. Is it asking too much that people on this mailing list should take some effort to be clear what they are talking about? I have been guilty too on talk pages and I have resolved to improve.
Brian.
-Phil
On 03/11/06, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
[[WP:RFA]], which, like notability, lacks any consensus anymore on what the overall standards should be, and has thus degenerated into utter madness.
Seconded, of course, because it leads to some over-keen individuals creating loony things like [[Wikipedia:Admin school]]. I had the displeasure to just discover this prime example of instruction creep, which begins:
"Prerequisites and required reading... 1000 edits on Wikipedia encyclopedia articles and/or lists 1000 edits in the Wikipedia and/or Help namespace Familiarity with Help:Contents, 2-levels deep Familiarity with Wikipedia:Contents, 3-levels deep Familiarity with Wikipedia:Department directory, 2-levels deep."
(I'd never even heard of [[Wikipedia:Contents]] before, let alone [[Wikipedia:Department directory]].)
RfA seems to have assumed a near-cult-like status with a certain group of people, and has developed a toxic culture that is spreading outwards to choke other areas, much like kudzu. It needs to be killed at the root.
On 04/11/06, Earle Martin wikipedia@downlode.org wrote:
On 03/11/06, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
[[WP:RFA]], which, like notability, lacks any consensus anymore on what the overall standards should be, and has thus degenerated into utter madness.
Seconded, of course, because it leads to some over-keen individuals creating loony things like [[Wikipedia:Admin school]].
As if that wasn't bad enough!
[[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards]]
TL;DR and then some. Can you believe that this is actually *so long* that it had to be split into sub-pages? Ye gods, these people actually expect us to read all this crud before even applying to become an admin!
More tripe:
[[User:Legolost/Admin Assessment Scale]]
If writing stuff like this keeps you happy, feel free. Just don't expect me to read it.
On Nov 4, 2006, at 5:15 PM, Earle Martin wrote:
TL;DR and then some. Can you believe that this is actually *so long* that it had to be split into sub-pages? Ye gods, these people actually expect us to read all this crud before even applying to become an admin!
I am sorely tempted to add "Has displayed sufficient common sense as to have not read the inordinate amount of crap on this page and its subpages" as a criterion. As always, helping Wikipedia to demonstrate a point.
-Phil
On Sat, 4 Nov 2006 17:43:33 -0500, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
I am sorely tempted to add "Has displayed sufficient common sense as to have not read the inordinate amount of crap on this page and its subpages" as a criterion. As always, helping Wikipedia to demonstrate a point.
In this case we agree completely :-)
My admin criteria are, roughly: * Have seen them around, so I know them from a hole in the ground * Have seen nothing that scares me
As long as they have been around for a few months and I've actually had civil discussion with them somewhere (more or less anywhere) I will vote support.
It is a source of some annoyance to me that we rejected Stephen B Streater, especially, and also Jeff Raymond, both of whom I believe would have made excellent admins, and neither of whom would, in my judgment, be likely to damage the project by any ill-advised action. Stephen's RFA was the worst example of RFA utterly missing the point that I can recall.
This despite the fact that I can hardly recall a single occasion on which I've agreed with Jeff. Who needs another cabal?
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Sat, 4 Nov 2006 17:43:33 -0500, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
I am sorely tempted to add "Has displayed sufficient common sense as to have not read the inordinate amount of crap on this page and its subpages" as a criterion. As always, helping Wikipedia to demonstrate a point.
In this case we agree completely :-)
My admin criteria are, roughly:
- Have seen them around, so I know them from a hole in the ground
- Have seen nothing that scares me
That was initially my view, but as of late I've taken the more expansive view, and vote by: 1. Identifying votes on RFA which seem to be anything other than 90%+ in favor 2. Doing a quick spot check to see if the nominee in question seems reasonable 3. Voting yes if so
The only way to counter the process-wonk culture at RFA is for a number of non-process-wonks to consistently vote "yes" every time any of them try to vote "no" for some bullshit reason, after first checking that the nominee really isn't someone completely insane.
It's not like we're making any sort of lifelong commitment or appointing Wikipedia dictators. IMO, anyone who's been around Wikipedia for a few months and not done anything crazy should automatically get access to a few additional admin tools. If they turn out to misuse them, we can always de-admin them. Now that images can be undeleted, literally every single admin action can be undone, usually easily, so it's not really a problem.
-Mark
On Sun, 05 Nov 2006 06:37:34 -0500, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
The only way to counter the process-wonk culture at RFA is for a number of non-process-wonks to consistently vote "yes" every time any of them try to vote "no" for some bullshit reason, after first checking that the nominee really isn't someone completely insane.
Not a bad idea :-)
Guy (JzG)