Gareth Owen wrote:
Are you seriously suggesting that the late Mr. Bowman, Eagle Scout and computer specialist is a reasonable target for an article in an encyclopedia.
Jimbo replied: In wikipedia, I would say 'yes, unquestionably, absolutely'. Wiki Is Not Paper. In wikipedia 1.0 for print/dvd, etc., then we will face constraints that we don't face on wikipedia proper.
I wouldn't have much interest in working on such an article, but I see absolutely no problem with it.
I am flabbergasted. Those articles are so far from the principles of encyclopedic content as to be mindboggling. I am more than a little surprised that Jimbo could see /any/ justification /whatsoever/ for keeping them. The absence of paper is nothing to do with it. There are certain things that are utterly and completely irrelevant to encyclopedias. Follow Jimbo's argument about paper and should a medical book about colon cancer also include articles on Manchester United, a biography of George Bush also mention mosquitos, a non-paper book on Napoleon's sex life mention DW's edits of sports pages on wikipedia?
Would they do so? Of course not. A medical book or a biography only can contain what is relevant, irrespective of whether there is room to contain something else. Ditto with encyclopedias. The above articles have no relevance to encyclopedic content. Normal coverage of atrocities don't even mention each individual victims, let alone give them /individual/ biographical entries that tell us they were a disco-dancer. What next? Include details of how long Tsar Nicholas like to grow his nail on his left big toe? Give details of who made Eamon de Valera's glasses? Discuss the weaving pattern used to make Mother Teresa's garments. Come of it. That approach would be to encyclopedias what the Muppet Show is to studying animal husbandry.
If so, then there is such little common ground between what we think belongs in an encyclopedia, that further discussion is worthless. I'd be intrigued to see the opinions of others.
O.k., there's mine. :-) But I hope that further discussion is not really worthless.
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On 11/6/03 5:32 PM, "James Duffy" jtdire@hotmail.com wrote:
There are certain things that are utterly and completely irrelevant to encyclopedias. Follow Jimbo's argument about paper and should a medical book about colon cancer also include articles on Manchester United, a biography of George Bush also mention mosquitos, a non-paper book on Napoleon's sex life mention DW's edits of sports pages on wikipedia?
Would they do so? Of course not. A medical book or a biography only can contain what is relevant, irrespective of whether there is room to contain something else. Ditto with encyclopedias. The above articles have no relevance to encyclopedic content. Normal coverage of atrocities don't even mention each individual victims, let alone give them /individual/ biographical entries that tell us they were a disco-dancer. What next? Include details of how long Tsar Nicholas like to grow his nail on his left big toe? Give details of who made Eamon de Valera's glasses? Discuss the weaving pattern used to make Mother Teresa's garments. Come of it. That approach would be to encyclopedias what the Muppet Show is to studying animal husbandry.
Your assertion that you know the bounds of the ideal encyclopedia is presumptive. An encyclopedia is a *comprehensive, inclusive* reference. It should include information about colon cancer, Manchester United, George Bush, mosquitos, Muppets, animal husbandry, Napoleon's sex life, who made Eamon de Valera's glasses, the weaving pattern used to make Mother Teresa's garments, etc.
If it only included the length of Tsar Nicholas's toenails it would be a farce. But when it includes that information as one element of millions, it starts to resemble an encyclopedia.
One of the great flaws with the traditional approach to history is its bias towards the narrative of the hero--that the current world is best understood as a single dramatic storyline with a few important protagonists and antagonists. Perhaps you believe that is a complete and accurate representation of the world, but I don't. I believe that the world, society, etc. are best understood as products of the interaction of billions of individuals. To gain a perfectly accurate picture of the world, we'd need to know all of their stories. The closer we come to that the better.
Of course, one would want to start with those that are collectively accepted as pivotal.
But we should not exclude knowledge in the pursuit of understanding.
I haven't had much time for Wikipedia stuff lately, but I've been watching the lists... the main reason I've refrained from several-day-delayed responses has been that Cunctator has said it better than I could. With this thread, it's very good to see Jimbo reminding people of the principles at work here.
I've seen a distinct slide downward with VFD lately... a couple weeks ago, I decided that I would no longer vote 'delete' on any article. Which doesn't mean I voted keep on everything... only for those I felt had distinct value. I abstained from otehrs simply because there's already so many delete votes that will automatically appear for practically anything on VFD...
An experiment I won't make because I hate when people do stupid things to prove a point, and I fear the point'd be proven: List everything on Brilliant Prose on VFD. See how many delete votes you get. It'd likely be a rather large number, with anything under 32K decried as a "useless stub" and "unencyclopedic", and over 32K as a "long and pointless ramble".
Now, there's been discussion on [[Wikipedia_talk:Deletion policy]] about criteria for valid voting. This is discussed in a few ways, but there is a valid point that if there are going to be votes, there needs to be something to oppose "sock puppets"... now that the edit-count barrier dropped from 100 to 25, and the account is only required to have existed for one week, I don't have a particular problem with it. The 2/3s majority for deletion bothers me a lot, even if (as has been pointed out to me) there are very few articles that end up with votes in the range between 2/3 and 3/4 (which I consider much more sensible). The trouble is, there are relatively few people pushing for rules that restrict deletion- the majority of opinions on the matter seem to be interested in reducing barriers to deletion as fast as possible, putting the burden of proof on those defending an article... the second most vocal faction (and it's become disturbingly factionalized there) is those saying that it should all be a consensus thing, that any voting is evil, that one person should be able to block any action. Which I don't find terribly helpful.
I've seen a lot of dodging of the "what does it hurt?" question, the most I've seen is "it DOES hurt" or "it doesn't belong in an encyclopedia". The first response isn't an answer, and begs the question to be repeated. As to the second... what do you define an encyclopedia as? LKWR is the only one I've seen outline criteria (back on 10/31), 4 of which describe Wikipedia excellently, and I disagree with the other 2. The issue is that when people say "encyclopedia" they tend to be referring to "paper encyclopedia", which is effectively all that's existed to date- all the big encyclopedias have CD and 'net versions these days, but they're just the paper with lots of pictures and some sounds and movies here and there: the people who work on those versions are specifically told not to put work into any text that won't go into the paper version (I have this from a friend who worked on Grolier's online edition, who informs me that the others do the same.). Wiki Is Not Paper. I strongly oppose use of things like "that's not what an encyclopedia is", because what are you using as a standard? F&W, Britannica, Grolier, something like that, yes? They're designed around what fits in paper- there's massive size constraints. A full print copy of Britannica is really, really big.
(This is getting a bit long.) I'm going to propose again what I proposed once before: a temporary moratorium on deletions. Let's say two weeks. Copyvios will be the only exception. Blanking can be used if there's felt to be no value at all to the content, but if there's verifiable information in it, leave it. Let's try it and see what happens, hmmm?
-- Jake
At 07:06 PM 11/6/03 -0600, Jake Nelson wrote:
(This is getting a bit long.) I'm going to propose again what I proposed once before: a temporary moratorium on deletions. Let's say two weeks. Copyvios will be the only exception. Blanking can be used if there's felt to be no value at all to the content, but if there's verifiable information in it, leave it. Let's try it and see what happens, hmmm?
Unless *just about everyone* disagrees with me, I'm going to continue to delete new pages that consist of obvious nonsense--asdfghjkl or the equivalent--rude grafitti, and "you should have an article here".
Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
At 07:06 PM 11/6/03 -0600, Jake Nelson wrote:
(This is getting a bit long.) I'm going to propose again what I proposed once before: a temporary moratorium on deletions. Let's say two weeks. Copyvios will be the only exception. Blanking can be used if there's felt
to
be no value at all to the content, but if there's verifiable information
in
it, leave it. Let's try it and see what happens, hmmm?
Unless *just about everyone* disagrees with me, I'm going to continue to delete new pages that consist of obvious nonsense--asdfghjkl or the equivalent--rude grafitti, and "you should have an article here".
Understandable, and not the sort of thing I really oppose... but for the duration of such a period, I'd prefer we try just blanking... or redirecting to [[Wikipedia:Dead End]] or somesuch, as was proposed once. Maybe replace with "(There is currently [[Wikipedia:Dead End|no text]] in this page)"? Page can be named whatever, I'm just going with a name someone used once before as an example. The idea being that whatever that page is, we can use the "What links here" afterwards and evaluate what of that should be deleted as junk.
-- Jake
Please explain to those of us who are "deletionist" idiots (gee, isn't it nice how you can just pigeonhole all of the people who make frequent use of VfD into ONE category?) what useful purpose all of these steps serve.
RickK
Jake Nelson jnelson@soncom.com wrote: Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
At 07:06 PM 11/6/03 -0600, Jake Nelson wrote:
(This is getting a bit long.) I'm going to propose again what I proposed once before: a temporary moratorium on deletions. Let's say two weeks. Copyvios will be the only exception. Blanking can be used if there's felt
to
be no value at all to the content, but if there's verifiable information
in
it, leave it. Let's try it and see what happens, hmmm?
Unless *just about everyone* disagrees with me, I'm going to continue to delete new pages that consist of obvious nonsense--asdfghjkl or the equivalent--rude grafitti, and "you should have an article here".
Understandable, and not the sort of thing I really oppose... but for the duration of such a period, I'd prefer we try just blanking... or redirecting to [[Wikipedia:Dead End]] or somesuch, as was proposed once. Maybe replace with "(There is currently [[Wikipedia:Dead End|no text]] in this page)"? Page can be named whatever, I'm just going with a name someone used once before as an example. The idea being that whatever that page is, we can use the "What links here" afterwards and evaluate what of that should be deleted as junk.
-- Jake
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Rick wrote:
Please explain to those of us who are "deletionist" idiots (gee, isn't it
nice how you can just pigeonhole all of the people who make frequent use of VfD into ONE category?) what useful purpose all of these steps serve.
Funny, I don't think I used the word deletionist anywhere in what I wrote (the subject has it, but that's because I don't change subject lines in replies). I'm trying to avoid it. All of these steps? I proposed a few different possible actions, but under the one I currently favor, this is all the steps: 1. redirect to [[Wikipedia:Junk page]] 2. Check the 'What links here' on that page periodically to see if you see anything to be rescued. 3. post-moratorium, check the 'What links here' on that page and decide what to get rid of.
I think that's equal to or less than adding it to VFD, adding a VFD notice to the page, and then dealing with VFD discussion.
-- Jake
Jake Nelson wrote:
Rick wrote:
Please explain to those of us who are "deletionist" idiots (gee, isn't it
nice how you can just pigeonhole all of the people who make frequent use of VfD into ONE category?) what useful purpose all of these steps serve.
Funny, I don't think I used the word deletionist anywhere in what I wrote (the subject has it, but that's because I don't change subject lines in replies). I'm trying to avoid it.
I have unapologetically used the word "deletionist", but not in conjunction with the word idiot. I've also used the term "inclusionsit" to refer to the other side in the debate. For me these represent general tendencies rather than any kind of absolute positions.
If someone has better terms, I can adapt.
Calling them "abortionists" for what they do to baby articles might not be suitable ;-)
Rick wrote:
Please explain to those of us who are "deletionist" idiots (gee, isn't it nice how you can just pigeonhole all of the people who make frequent use of VfD into ONE category?) what useful purpose all of these steps serve.
Did someone call you or anyone else an idiot? If so, I want to strongly urge against that. And if no one said anything of the sort, and you implied it anyway, I want to strongly urge against that.
For the record, I don't intend the labels "deletionist" or "completionist" to be pejorative in any way, nor do I think that we should use them in such a fashion as to fail to acknowledge significant differences among advocates of either side.
--Jimbo
Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
Unless *just about everyone* disagrees with me, I'm going to continue to delete new pages that consist of obvious nonsense--asdfghjkl or the equivalent--rude grafitti, and "you should have an article here".
I don't think anyone disagrees with those deletions. I don't, anyway.
--Jimbo
Except for those who say nothing should be deleted for six months.
RickK
Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com wrote: Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
Unless *just about everyone* disagrees with me, I'm going to continue to delete new pages that consist of obvious nonsense--asdfghjkl or the equivalent--rude grafitti, and "you should have an article here".
I don't think anyone disagrees with those deletions. I don't, anyway.
--Jimbo _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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Jake Nelson wrote:
[...] I'm going to propose again what I proposed once before: a temporary moratorium on deletions. Let's say two weeks. Copyvios will be the only exception. Blanking can be used if there's felt to be no value at all to the content, but if there's verifiable information in it, leave it. Let's try it and see what happens, hmmm?
I think this would be an interesting experiment; gives hardcore deletionists an incentive to think about other ways to control junk, like creating [[Junk Article]] and making bad articles redir to it - moves debate from VfD to the talk pages where it should be in the first place. Notify on VfD, then protect it; and as Vicki mentions, still allow instant deletion of the asdfasdf stuff.
After two weeks, if [[Junk Article]] has a thousand redirs pointing to it, deletionists can see "see, we told you so."
Stan
Stan Shebs wrote:
I think this would be an interesting experiment; gives hardcore
deletionists
an incentive to think about other ways to control junk, like creating [[Junk Article]] and making bad articles redir to it - moves debate from VfD to the talk pages where it should be in the first place. Notify
on
VfD, then protect it; and as Vicki mentions, still allow instant deletion of the asdfasdf stuff.
After two weeks, if [[Junk Article]] has a thousand redirs pointing to it, deletionists can see "see, we told you so."
Heh, that's almost exactly what I just wrote in reply to Vicki. Great minds think alike, eh? (ignoring the fact that the second half of that expression is "and fools seldom differ." for now)
Maybe [[Wikipedia:Junk Article]].
-- Jake
Why can't you just indicate on VfD why you think the article is valid? Why would we want to keep blank articles around?
RickK
Jake Nelson jnelson@soncom.com wrote: I'm going to propose again what I proposed once before: a temporary moratorium on deletions. Let's say two weeks. Copyvios will be the only exception. Blanking can be used if there's felt to be no value at all to the content, but if there's verifiable information in it, leave it. Let's try it and see what happens, hmmm?
-- Jake
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Rick wrote:
Why can't you just indicate on VfD why you think the article is valid?
VFD is a nasty sucking void of attention. It seems like there's almost always at least two lists on it, for no other reason than that they're lists. Things like that. Looking at it today, it's not as bad as last week, though. Still, there's some things that just keep coming up. I want to try stopping it altogether for a couple weeks or so to give everyone a break from it and do other things... and to see what really happens. I'm not proposing an end to deletion, just that we try not doing it for a period and observe results. What's the harm?
Why would we want to keep blank articles around?
Blanking is a much more equal thing than deletion- anyone can do it, and people can still see histories if it's just blank. And deleted articles are "kept around", as well... just not where normal users can see them.
-- Jake
Rick wrote:
Why can't you just indicate on VfD why you think the article is valid?
Because it requires us to spend time at VfD when we could be doing something useful. The most useful contributors are busy contributing. Hurrying them to improve the article in question within seven days means they have to take time away from what they do best. If they are interested in the subject matter they'll deal with it according to their own timetables, and not when some deletionist tells them to.
Some of us like to consider our votes carefully. If it takes five minutes each to consider each of a dozen articles that might appear on VfD on a given day that's an hour of time spent just deciding on votes, and the article itself is still unchanged. Even when the result of a vote is unquestionably in favour of deletion, and the article is deleted, we are no further ahead; we're just back at the point where we were before that article was written.
We are all limited in the amount of time that we can contribute. Consider even some of our most severe edit wars, and I would suggest that at any given time the number of people directly involved is fairly small.
If somebody who is considering an article to be added to VfD instead took 15 minutes to half an hour researching and improving that article, it would save everybody's time, and Wikipedia would end up with a something rather than a nothing.
Ec
Are you saying that those of us who think that VfD is useful are not contributing anything useful? What about people like Lir, who feel that those of us who want to add things to VfD should instead make the article somehow "bedtter" instead of garbage? Isn't that "taking time away" from what we do best?
I'm sick and tired of being attacked as if what I'm doing on Wikipedia is somehow of lesser quality thatn what you and other people do. Am I not worth keeping around? Should I go away?
RickK
Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote: Rick wrote:
Why can't you just indicate on VfD why you think the article is valid?
Because it requires us to spend time at VfD when we could be doing something useful. The most useful contributors are busy contributing. Hurrying them to improve the article in question within seven days means they have to take time away from what they do best. If they are interested in the subject matter they'll deal with it according to their own timetables, and not when some deletionist tells them to.
Some of us like to consider our votes carefully. If it takes five minutes each to consider each of a dozen articles that might appear on VfD on a given day that's an hour of time spent just deciding on votes, and the article itself is still unchanged. Even when the result of a vote is unquestionably in favour of deletion, and the article is deleted, we are no further ahead; we're just back at the point where we were before that article was written.
We are all limited in the amount of time that we can contribute. Consider even some of our most severe edit wars, and I would suggest that at any given time the number of people directly involved is fairly small.
If somebody who is considering an article to be added to VfD instead took 15 minutes to half an hour researching and improving that article, it would save everybody's time, and Wikipedia would end up with a something rather than a nothing.
Ec
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Rick wrote:
Are you saying that those of us who think that VfD is useful are not contributing anything useful? What about people like Lir, who feel that those of us who want to add things to VfD should instead make the article somehow "better" instead of garbage? Isn't that "taking time away" from what we do best?
So what you are saying is that adding things to VfD is what you do best? .... and a half-hour of your time is worth more than the one hour of combined time of other people? Lir is right about this.
I'm sick and tired of being attacked as if what I'm doing on Wikipedia is somehow of lesser quality thatn what you and other people do. Am I not worth keeping around? Should I go away?
I'll interpret these as rhetorical questions that do not require an answer
Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Rick wrote: > Why can't you just indicate on VfD why you think the article is valid? > Because it requires us to spend time at VfD when we could be doing something useful. The most useful contributors are busy contributing. Hurrying them to improve the article in question within seven days means they have to take time away from what they do best. If they are interested in the subject matter they'll deal with it according to their own timetables, and not when some deletionist tells them to. Some of us like to consider our votes carefully. If it takes five minutes each to consider each of a dozen articles that might appear on VfD on a given day that's an hour of time spent just deciding on votes, and the article itself is still unchanged. Even when the result of a vote is unquestionably in favour of deletion, and the article is deleted, we are no further ahead; we're just back at the point where we were before that article was written. We are all limited in the amount of time that we can contribute. Consider even some of our most severe edit wars, and I would suggest that at any given time the number of people directly involved is fairly small. If somebody who is considering an article to be added to VfD instead took 15 minutes to half an hour researching and improving that article, it would save everybody's time, and Wikipedia would end up with a something rather than a nothing.
Jake Nelson wrote:
I've seen a lot of dodging of the "what does it hurt?" question, the most I've seen is "it DOES hurt" or "it doesn't belong in an encyclopedia". The first response isn't an answer, and begs the question to be repeated. As to the second... what do you define an encyclopedia as? LKWR is the only one I've seen outline criteria (back on 10/31), 4 of which describe Wikipedia excellently, and I disagree with the other 2.
My main question is that it makes Wikipedia look ridiculous, and makes information harder to find. If I search for "Michael Jordan" and get 4,000 results consisting of every person who has ever been named "Michael Jordan", that's *much* less useful than the current state, and a bit laughable. Wikipedia is not a geneological database after all.
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
My main question is that it makes Wikipedia look ridiculous, and makes information harder to find. If I search for "Michael Jordan" and get 4,000 results consisting of every person who has ever been named "Michael Jordan", that's *much* less useful than the current state, and a bit laughable. Wikipedia is not a geneological database after all.
Hm, there seems to be two arguments on what makes Wikipedia look bad: 1. Junk, false info, random gibberish, poorly spelled types of entries 2. True but not terribly noteworthy entries.
I'd say #1 is an issue, but one that's less and less of one- there's a lot of people that watch RC and keep an eye on what gets added... a lot of junk pages I've seen are either old (often around the end of '02, IME) or very very new... just new enough for me to see them before someone gets to them.
As for #2, I disagree that minor info really hurts us.
To respond to your example, [[Michael Jordan]] should have the header we use for this sort of thing, which is something like ''This article is about Michael Jordan, the basketball player. For others by this name, see [[Michael Jordan (disambiguation)]].'' (I might be misquoting the standard text, but you get the point.), and that article should come up first in a search.
-- Jake
Delirium wrote:
My main question is that it makes Wikipedia look ridiculous, and makes information harder to find. If I search for "Michael Jordan" and get 4,000 results consisting of every person who has ever been named "Michael Jordan", that's *much* less useful than the current state, and a bit laughable. Wikipedia is not a geneological database after all.
For the record, I want to say that even though I don't agree with these two arguments, I think it's appropriate to say that these are good, non-straw-man arguments on the deletionist side.
1. Article on 'eternal ephemera' make Wikipedia look ridiculous
2. Articles on 'eternal ephemera' may make it harder to find the real articles
I think that both of these can be answered, but that they are valid concerns.
My essential answer is that articles on truely irrelevant topics are not likely to be seen by very many people anyway, and that if and when we have a problem with the search engine returning too many results, not properly prioritized, we can start to research ranking algorithms to ensure that well-linked mainstream articles show up first.
--Jimbo
On 11/7/03 3:23 AM, "Delirium" delirium@rufus.d2g.com wrote:
Jake Nelson wrote:
I've seen a lot of dodging of the "what does it hurt?" question, the most I've seen is "it DOES hurt" or "it doesn't belong in an encyclopedia". The first response isn't an answer, and begs the question to be repeated. As to the second... what do you define an encyclopedia as? LKWR is the only one I've seen outline criteria (back on 10/31), 4 of which describe Wikipedia excellently, and I disagree with the other 2.
My main question is that it makes Wikipedia look ridiculous, and makes information harder to find. If I search for "Michael Jordan" and get 4,000 results consisting of every person who has ever been named "Michael Jordan", that's *much* less useful than the current state, and a bit laughable. Wikipedia is not a geneological database after all.
This is a straw man argument.
The Cunctator wrote:
On 11/7/03 3:23 AM, "Delirium" delirium@rufus.d2g.com wrote:
My main question is that it makes Wikipedia look ridiculous, and makes information harder to find. If I search for "Michael Jordan" and get 4,000 results consisting of every person who has ever been named "Michael Jordan", that's *much* less useful than the current state, and a bit laughable. Wikipedia is not a geneological database after all.
This is a straw man argument.
You are incorrect.
-Mark
From: Delirium The Cunctator wrote:
On 11/7/03 3:23 AM, "Delirium" delirium@rufus.d2g.com wrote:
My main question is that it makes Wikipedia look ridiculous, and
makes
information harder to find. If I search for "Michael Jordan" and
get
4,000 results consisting of every person who has ever been named "Michael Jordan", that's *much* less useful than the current state,
and
a bit laughable. Wikipedia is not a geneological database after
all.
This is a straw man argument.
You are incorrect.
Actually, I'm not. Delirium claimed that "it" makes Wikipedia look ridiculous, without any definition of what "it" is. If he's arguing that the thousands of articles on Wikipedia about every person who has even been named Michael Jordan are what makes Wikipedia look ridiculous, then that argument is a straw man argument, because those thousands of articles *do not exist*.
Or to make it briefer: I'm not proposing making Wikipedia into a geneological database. Noone is. Delirium pointed out how ridiculous it would be if Wikipedia, under its current technology, were a geneological database.
That argument is a non sequitur.
Again with the "straw man" attack. This is worthless as an argument, and all it does is to make any discussion worthless.
RickK
The Cunctator cunctator@kband.com wrote: On 11/7/03 3:23 AM, "Delirium" wrote:
This is a straw man argument.
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Re: a moratorium on deletions.
I propose instead we continue on the current path: list stuff that can be cleaned up on Wikipedia:Cleanup, and list stuff that should be deleted on VfD. Given that only a small minority of users have expressed opposition to "deletionism", this seems like the best way to go.
-Mark
Delirium delirium@rufus.d2g.com wrote in part:
I propose instead we continue on the current path: list stuff that can be cleaned up on Wikipedia:Cleanup, and list stuff that should be deleted on VfD. Given that only a small minority of users have expressed opposition to "deletionism", this seems like the best way to go.
-Mark
The current path is not to keep doing what we have been doing before, but to continually improve our ways and means. To that end, I propose the following plan, which incorporates some features of suggestions made by (in alphabetical order--apologies to those who this always discriminates against): AndrewA, Angela, Jake, JamesDay, Jimbo Wales, Stevertigo, TakuyaMurata, Viajero (I know I am missing some folks.)
Core-rules: 1. Wikipedia:Cleanup be separated into 7 weekday-specific files. 2. Each such file have subheaders indicating which week the listings are from. 3. No article be listed on VFD *before* it has spent *at least* three weeks on Cleanup. 4. No article be listed on Cleanup *longer* than 12 weeks. 5. No article be blanked without the content being moved to talk.
Subsidiary recommendations: 1. Articles on Cleanup declared deletable include link to [[Wikpedia:threatened]]. 2. Articles on Cleanup declared stubby include link to [[Wikipedia:stub]]. 3. Articles on Cleanup declared otherwise troubled include link to [[Wikipedia:attention]]. 4. Articles on VFD include link to [[Wikipedia:endangered]]. 5. Articles on PNA include link to [[Wikipedia:difficult]] 6. Cleanup-Listings have score starting at -4; users can add or decrease the score by 1. 7. Listings also have deletability-score starting at +4; users adding or decreasing by 1.
Fair warning, I may reply to my own message to annotate, expand etc. the above.
Respectfully (as ever):
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen (aka Cimon Avaro)
Two words: too complicated.
- A few weeks on one list, and three months on another? - Creation of three new classes? What is what? - Complex scoring system?
VfD is already quasi-Wiki, this seems to bring the state of affairs even further non-Wiki.
-Fuzheado
-----Original Message----- From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Jussi-Ville Heiskanen Sent: Friday, November 07, 2003 5:30 PM To: English Wikipedia Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fate of VFD: A humble suggestion incorporating manyothers.
Delirium delirium@rufus.d2g.com wrote in part:
I propose instead we continue on the current path: list
stuff that can
be cleaned up on Wikipedia:Cleanup, and list stuff that should be deleted on VfD. Given that only a small minority of users have expressed opposition to "deletionism", this seems like the
best way to go.
-Mark
The current path is not to keep doing what we have been doing before, but to continually improve our ways and means. To that end, I propose the following plan, which incorporates some features of suggestions made by (in alphabetical order--apologies to those who this always discriminates against): AndrewA, Angela, Jake, JamesDay, Jimbo Wales, Stevertigo, TakuyaMurata, Viajero (I know I am missing some folks.)
Core-rules:
- Wikipedia:Cleanup be separated into 7 weekday-specific
files. 2. Each such file have subheaders indicating which week the listings are from. 3. No article be listed on VFD *before* it has spent *at least* three weeks on Cleanup. 4. No article be listed on Cleanup *longer* than 12 weeks. 5. No article be blanked without the content being moved to talk.
Subsidiary recommendations:
- Articles on Cleanup declared deletable include link to
[[Wikpedia:threatened]]. 2. Articles on Cleanup declared stubby include link to [[Wikipedia:stub]]. 3. Articles on Cleanup declared otherwise troubled include link to [[Wikipedia:attention]]. 4. Articles on VFD include link to [[Wikipedia:endangered]]. 5. Articles on PNA include link to [[Wikipedia:difficult]] 6. Cleanup-Listings have score starting at -4; users can add or decrease the score by 1. 7. Listings also have deletability-score starting at +4; users adding or decreasing by 1.
Fair warning, I may reply to my own message to annotate, expand etc. the above.
Respectfully (as ever):
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen (aka Cimon Avaro)
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wik%3E ien-l
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote: <something obnoxiously complicated>
Gyahhh. I've been accused of coming up with obscure and complex procedures once or twice, and I've gotten used to them, but... gah. Sorry, but that's just not going to be readily explainable to people. I'll try to work out something, perhaps including bits...
-- Jake
Ok, that suggestion: Sort by what the problem is. [[Wikipedia:Cleanup]] -- lists the others, will probably be the misc dropoff [[Wikipedia:Cleanup/copyvio]] -- It's a possible copyvio. [[Wikipedia:Cleanup/foreign]] -- It's in a foreign language. [[Wikipedia:Cleanup/short]] -- It's not even a full paragraph. [[Wikipedia:Cleanup/rename]] -- The name is unworkable, and a better name is unknown or disputed. [[Wikipedia:Cleanup/odd]] -- Material seems idiosyncratic or unverifiable. [[Wikipedia:Cleanup/pov]] -- Such a POV rant, some would call it unfixable.
And last: [[Wikipedia:Votes for deletion]] -- Where an article goes if: 1. It's spent at least n (2 or 3) days on a Cleanup page, 2. At least three people have said "Delete" on said page, and 3. It hasn't changed significantly since those delete votes.
On VFD, it is listed for 5 days. If >= 75% have voted to delete at the end of that time, it goes.
Now, exactly what Cleanup looks like may need some work yet... the main reason I propose making things subpages of that is that it just seems the simplest name. Anyway, I don't much like day pages. Just thoughts on the matter...
-- Jake
This is unworkable and can't be maintained.
RickK
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen jheiskan@welho.com wrote: 3. No article be listed on VFD *before* it has spent *at least* three weeks on Cleanup.
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The Cunctator wrote:
One of the great flaws with the traditional approach to history is its bias towards the narrative of the hero--that the current world is best understood as a single dramatic storyline with a few important protagonists and antagonists. Perhaps you believe that is a complete and accurate representation of the world, but I don't. I believe that the world, society, etc. are best understood as products of the interaction of billions of individuals. To gain a perfectly accurate picture of the world, we'd need to know all of their stories. The closer we come to that the better.
Of course, one would want to start with those that are collectively accepted as pivotal.
But we should not exclude knowledge in the pursuit of understanding.
So I take it you are proposing that we drop Wikipedia's long-held claim that it is not a geneological database? Everyone who has ever lived thus deserves to be included, as long as the facts are verifiable? Every event that ever took place deserves to be included? Should I upload a scan of my diploma (verifiable by contacting my university's registrar)? How about articles on about 75 of my relatives who were refugees from Turkey during the Greek-Turkish war (but were otherwise not notable)--verifiable by Greek government immigration records. How about a professor of mine who is currently on leave in Pennsylvania (also verifiable)? My neighbor, who once ran unsuccessfuly for school board (verifiable from the election records)? This just seems ridiculous to me.
-Mark
On 11/6/03 11:20 PM, "Delirium" delirium@rufus.d2g.com wrote:
The Cunctator wrote:
One of the great flaws with the traditional approach to history is its bias towards the narrative of the hero--that the current world is best understood as a single dramatic storyline with a few important protagonists and antagonists. Perhaps you believe that is a complete and accurate representation of the world, but I don't. I believe that the world, society, etc. are best understood as products of the interaction of billions of individuals. To gain a perfectly accurate picture of the world, we'd need to know all of their stories. The closer we come to that the better.
Of course, one would want to start with those that are collectively accepted as pivotal.
But we should not exclude knowledge in the pursuit of understanding.
So I take it you are proposing that we drop Wikipedia's long-held claim that it is not a geneological database? Everyone who has ever lived thus deserves to be included, as long as the facts are verifiable? Every event that ever took place deserves to be included? Should I upload a scan of my diploma (verifiable by contacting my university's registrar)? How about articles on about 75 of my relatives who were refugees from Turkey during the Greek-Turkish war (but were otherwise not notable)--verifiable by Greek government immigration records. How about a professor of mine who is currently on leave in Pennsylvania (also verifiable)? My neighbor, who once ran unsuccessfuly for school board (verifiable from the election records)? This just seems ridiculous to me.
Note the "one would want to start with those that are collectively accepted as pivotal."
I see the inclusion of the type of information you're discussing being something that eventually happens in the lifetime of Wikipedia, but not in any serious quantity any time soon; there would need to be improvements of the backend software, etc. E.g. when the Wikipedia at some point becomes self-aware and starts adding entries on its own.
I really do go back to the reasonableness criterion. I *trust* you that if you reasonably believe that there should be an entry on one of your relatives, that you should be able to make it.
A big control on all of this is that Wikipedia entries need to be linked from other entries.
For example, one of my relatives is an influential computer scientist. There's an entry in Wikipedia on him. Nothing exciting there. The more contentious issue would be that if (when) more information is added to the entry, it would indicate that he was strongly influenced and inspired by an older relative who is less famous. A good entry on that person could then be written, discussing his various accomplishments, etc., using information that is freely available elsewhere.
I understand that because everyone has parents, it would be "dangerous" to say that a mention of a person in Wikipedia is sufficient to allow an entry.
I'm not advocating that.
I am advocating trusting each other to be responsible in their efforts to contribute to Wikipedia, rather than try to erase each other's contributions and spin imagined scenarios of the imminent death of Wikipedia.
James Duffy wrote:
Follow Jimbo's argument about paper and should a medical book about colon cancer also include articles on Manchester United, a biography of George Bush also mention mosquitos, a non-paper book on Napoleon's sex life mention DW's edits of sports pages on wikipedia?
Medical books and biographies are not encyclopedias.
Would they do so? Of course not. A medical book or a biography only can contain what is relevant, irrespective of whether there is room to contain something else. Ditto with encyclopedias.
I agree, but you ask us to accept your definition of what is relevant, without argument, and without, as far as I can see, any details of how exactly you define it. You seem to be taking an "I know it when I see it approach", which is interesting enough, but we have to talk about procedures and policies, not outcomes.
Let me explain what I mean by that. We do get to choose our policies and procedures, within limits, but the outcomes of those policies and procedures flow naturally from them.
My view of what an encyclopedia ought to be is that an encyclopedia ought to be a comprehensive reference work. Comprehensive is something that our technology and social system allows us to do on a scale never before imagined or attempted.
We have often in the past compared ourselves favorably or unfavorably to Britannica. I still think that their work is superior to ours in many relevant aspects, but their days of supremacy are clearly numbered. And one of the reasons is that we can do so much more than they can even conceive of under a top-down centrally directed model.
--Jimbo