Please pardon me if any of this is redundant as I've just recently joined in here. I'm here absorbing the discussions as well as continuing to study elements of the site, freshly after enduring some measure of frustration due to the atmosphere I've discovered exists on the site.
One observation I've made is that for a good part, the editors who regularly review content seem to look down upon many different types of sources online -- and while there are "real world" sources that aren't online, they don't seem happy unless they can easily click on something. They are dismissive of the IMDb, of YouTube, even smaller newspapers they haven't heard of, they'll question "reliability" of the source -- and of course anyone blogging information would be a big no-no as well. But the thing is -- the popular internet is largely comprised of these types of sources! When most of it is "citizen media," and when there are many "reliable sources" whose content stands behind a paywall -- it seems that there ought to be at least some relaxing of standards as much as can be done within fair reason.
Actually the site seems to profess an element of relaxation -- however as there are many who only relate to "rules," then much room for argument exists. And they seem to happen all too often, leading to much frustration. I'll then invite you to review one very interesting argument in progress, relating to the article "List of Apple Inc. slogans":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_Apple_I...
It really gets my hackles up to read through this -- one person actually said that EVERY item mentioned ought to be sourced! One fellow who valiantly struggles there to get them to consider "the wiki way" (if one might call it that), seems to face major oppression there from these deletionist completionists.
Part of the damage here could be, if left unchecked -- fault could be found with virtually ANY article if one wishes to find it. This shouldn't be the point! To me, this is the perfect type of article I'd like to find on Wikipedia. Yet it faces being deleted because of this particular attitude which seems to be growing there. Further, let's suppose that Apple is either a contributor or even just a well-wisher of the site -- if they were aware of their work being discussed as "non-notable" in any regard -- what could the repurcussions be? Maybe that is not for consideration in these arguments -- but establishing goodwill all around is certainly relevant. The more little articles that people worked hard to create that are deleted within this environment -- the more likely you have people proferring complaints about the site all around.
I've also noticed that these "articles for deletion" are posted in one place, and there also seems to be a nice batch of people who make it their business to weigh in on each one -- usually those with the deletionist perspective. And if "consensus" is weighed by votes -- even if it shouldn't be but no doubt IS -- then most articles presented for deletion won't stand a good chance. And at least some of this goes back to "sourcing" again, as so many possible sources just "aren't good enough" for the perfectionists batting away at these.
Jon
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:08:04 +0100 From: FT2 ft2.wiki@gmail.com Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Another sourcing problem To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: AANLkTim1l3wDbbD8e3TDb4NM7x45rC1tMyGRqkeOcKuf@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
This is a point comon to all codification.
For those who have clue about wiki, yes. For the many who don't, are learning, do not want to be bitten, might be over-aggressive in adding/criticising/removing, or want clearer guidance, we have detailed policies that capture key points.
So while ideally IAR does the trick in practice for mass editing it could help. Especially where it interacts with our core content policies (and RS -> Verifiability -> core to encyclopedic quality) the guidance may help a lot in the cases it comes up.
Expanding SELFPUB from an anomalous exception to a principle will help.
The wider principle is that if the originator of an online post is able to be confirmed (author is not spoofed, publication on own website or one controlled by him/her, etc), and has some kind of position to speak to the point (salience, significant to article or NPOV), then we have enough to say "X says Y" and the fact that X chose to say Y on a blog or self pub website is not really an impediment.
FT2
Jon Q wrote:
<snip>
One observation I've made is that for a good part, the editors who regularly review content seem to look down upon many different types of sources online -- and while there are "real world" sources that aren't online, they don't seem happy unless they can easily click on something. They are dismissive of the IMDb, of YouTube, even smaller newspapers they haven't heard of, they'll question "reliability" of the source -- and of course anyone blogging information would be a big no-no as well. But the thing is -- the popular internet is largely comprised of these types of sources! When most of it is "citizen media," and when there are many "reliable sources" whose content stands behind a paywall -- it seems that there ought to be at least some relaxing of standards as much as can be done within fair reason.
We do have a "problem" with sourcing from web pages. Which is that no permissive definition of what a _reliable_ online source is will work out for us. We have to be aware that there is little enough posted on the Web that is actually authoritative. I expect we'll have to adjust the criteria as time passes.
I'll then invite you to review one very interesting argument in progress, relating to the article "List of Apple Inc. slogans":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_Apple_I...
This AfD discussion is now closed, with no consensus to delete
It really gets my hackles up to read through this -- one person actually said that EVERY item mentioned ought to be sourced! One fellow who valiantly struggles there to get them to consider "the wiki way" (if one might call it that), seems to face major oppression there from these deletionist completionists.
Actually, complete sourcing for lists is not in itself a bad idea. It is certainly not applied uniformly across the site (nor should it be). But it is going to pick up errors and exclude "original research" in some cases. And it can be interesting (the list in [[Lord President of Munster]] taught me a great deal about the history).
Part of the damage here could be, if left unchecked -- fault could be found with virtually ANY article if one wishes to find it. This shouldn't be the point! To me, this is the perfect type of article I'd like to find on Wikipedia. Yet it faces being deleted because of this particular attitude which seems to be growing there.
I think that article is no longer under threat - it now is well referenced. Nomination to AfD just to get an article improved is a misuse of the site processes, however.
Further, let's suppose that Apple is either a contributor or even just a well-wisher of the site -- if they were aware of their work being discussed as "non-notable" in any regard -- what could the repurcussions be? Maybe that is not for consideration in these arguments -- but establishing goodwill all around is certainly relevant. The more little articles that people worked hard to create that are deleted within this environment -- the more likely you have people proferring complaints about the site all around.
We should actually disregard this kind of consideration, really. I imagine Steve Jobs has enough to do with iPhone 4, rather than worrying about geek-on-geek disputes about Apple slogans from the 1980s. But in any case we operate without fear or favour with respect to large corporations.
I've also noticed that these "articles for deletion" are posted in one place, and there also seems to be a nice batch of people who make it their business to weigh in on each one -- usually those with the deletionist perspective. And if "consensus" is weighed by votes -- even if it shouldn't be but no doubt IS -- then most articles presented for deletion won't stand a good chance. And at least some of this goes back to "sourcing" again, as so many possible sources just "aren't good enough" for the perfectionists batting away at these.
There are some bad arguments at AfD, certainly, and some may be presented by serial deletionists. In an ideal world - not the wiki we have - what is said at WP:BEFORE would be followed and the discussion there would be about the notability of the topic (in short, whether it belongs in Wikipedia). Too many people, in general, throw around considerations they say are policy, and which are in fact partial or slanted views, or mere sloganising. Certainly the process should always be case-by-case, and the wisdom "voting is evil" should be noted by the closing admin; people who are really saying "I hate the article as it stands" should be disregarded if they have no point to make.
You''l find David Goodman has similar views to your own.
Charles
On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 4:11 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Jon Q wrote:
You''l find David Goodman has similar views to your own.
Charles
And so I do.
But it doesn't take an ideal world to institutionalize BEFORE as a requirement. Just an approximately 2/3 majority at a discussion. We've come very close to it. There are many other desirable changes, such as the rewriting of NOT into a positive framework, such as WP DOES INCLUDE, but this is something that's simple and obvious.
The problem is that those supporting articles are normally only those who care about the particular article; those opposing it by and large do have a general agenda to make the encyclopedia more rigorously selective. The people who do not want that are much more dispersed and I have found it impossible to keep their interest long enough to do some good.
The worst thing we can do is to go case by case based on strength of arguments, for there is nobody qualified to judge the relative strength of competing arguments. Wikipedia is built on the general concept of the wisdom of the community, and even if the community is not always very wise, there is no equitable way to proceed except to assume that it is for the purpose of making decisions. . The only people here competent to judge conflicting content policies or how to interpret them are the interested members of the community as a whole, acting in good faith, and the only discretion of an admin is to remove those !votes that are not in good faith,as coming from single purpose accounts, or in complete disregard of policy. Any other view, and the decision is made by the whim of whichever admin gets there first--there is no general agreement among admins about the relative importance of different policies (except for some obvious generally agreed over-riding cases like BLP and copyright). Voting is not evil--it's the only way to work with large numbers of people, other than brute force or established authority.
I sometime wish i had kept quiet about my view on the broad inclusiveness desired in an encyclopedia until I had become an admin, because then I could counter the effect of those admins who have concealed or dissembled their tendency the other way--or who, in some cases, have managed to get appointed regardless through persistence. I know what I want, but I do not confuse it with what the community wants. To be perfectly frank, there are those who do, and every expression that individual admins can judge the quality of arguments supports them.
The insistence of sources is good and necessary, and I very strongly support the principle of WP:V. But the necessary source will depend upon the field, and not every field is reducible to what google indexes. We could get around this by redefining "Notability is not popularity" to read "Notability is not necessarily popularity," and accept that sufficient popular attention however expressed justifies inclusion, as long as we can document the basic facts somehow. Instead, we juggle with what we consider sources to maintain the fiction of the WP:GNG. For some types of articles we accept local or very specialized sources, for some we don't. If we really meant WP:GNG, every high school athlete would be notable, for even the high school paper is accurate enough & under sufficient editorial control to report the team statistics accurately. I wouldn't include them: they belong in local wikis only, but I'd justify this by a decision that they do not belong in Wikipedia, and not by quibbling about sources. In the other direction, we have accepted that every inhabited settlement is notable, and that comprehensive unselective primary geographic sources are sufficient for WP:V--when i came here, I recall making some tortured arguments about how such sources were actually selective and secondary. The arguments were accepted, because we wanted to include the places, not because the arguments really made sense.
It's not whether or not we want to go by rule. We want to go by those rules which actually do improve the encyclopedia, either by saying what we dod and do not want or by making a stable compromise when we cannot decide. Going purely case by case can destroy any compromise,whereas good reference works are stable and consistent.
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