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I recently came across a very contentious Afd having to deal with the movement to impeach George W. Bush. The discussion was overwhelmed with vote-stacking. I caught two users doing it and temporarily blocked them, but was reverted by an admin who says it's "not in policy" that we can block for that. I've also since discovered a third person who was vote-stacking.
Vote-stacking is wrong, it is harmful to Wikipedia, and it needs to be discouraged and stopped. The simple way to do this is to block users who are doing this. If it's not in the policy now, it should be.
I heard the argument, "Well, if you're just informing other users, that's not vote-stacking." That's wrong on two counts. First of all, all of this vote-stacking going on here was specifically encouraging people to come to the Afd and vote a specific way. And, even if the message is "neutrally worded", it's still vote-stacking unless I'm sending it out to a random sample of Wikipedians. Do you think these vote-stackers were using a random sample? No. They were sending the messages to people they know already vote their way. In this case, it appears to be a combination of a What links here on the {{User republican}} userbox and an examination of which ways people voted on the previous Afd, and then selectively sending the message to just the people who previously voted in agreement with the vote-stackers views.
We cannot put up with these attempts at gaming our consensus-based system. Consensus doesn't work when it just becomes a numbers game of who can recruit the most votes. And trying to make a rational decision about the merits of an article when a bunch of sheeple are coming in mindlessly on both sides and voting without even considering the issues is absurd. We need to deal with this problem. We need to modify our policy so that it IS a blockable offense to vote-stack and game the system.
- -- Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")
~ Sub veste quisque nudus est ~
On 5/4/06, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
We cannot put up with these attempts at gaming our consensus-based system. Consensus doesn't work when it just becomes a numbers game of who can recruit the most votes. And trying to make a rational decision about the merits of an article when a bunch of sheeple are coming in mindlessly on both sides and voting without even considering the issues is absurd. We need to deal with this problem. We need to modify our policy so that it IS a blockable offense to vote-stack and game the system.
Way way way to subjective. RFC and arbcom would probably be a better option.
-- geni
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geni wrote:
On 5/4/06, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
We cannot put up with these attempts at gaming our consensus-based system. Consensus doesn't work when it just becomes a numbers game of who can recruit the most votes. And trying to make a rational decision about the merits of an article when a bunch of sheeple are coming in mindlessly on both sides and voting without even considering the issues is absurd. We need to deal with this problem. We need to modify our policy so that it IS a blockable offense to vote-stack and game the system.
Way way way to subjective. RFC and arbcom would probably be a better option.
That would take weeks, and by then the vote-stackers have long gotten away with it. And I don't think vote-stacking is too subjective. If you see someone recruiting votes, deal with them. It's pretty simple.
As an update to the situation, the two users I blocked have been unblocked, but hopefully they are not going to keep on vote-stacking. Meanwhile, a third user has already started vote-stacking the DRV so I blocked him ... I imagine the same admin is going to revert me on that too, though. This is getting ridiculous. Our very system of how we make decisions is under attack and I'm trying to do something about it and meeting resistance.
- -- Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")
~ Sub veste quisque nudus est ~
On 5/4/06, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
That would take weeks, and by then the vote-stackers have long gotten away with it.
Eventualism has much to recomend it.
And I don't think vote-stacking is too subjective. If you see someone recruiting votes, deal with them. It's pretty simple.
Great so AFD becomes the sole relm of those who hang out there all the time. I think not. By the sandard you have just used I should have been blocked for informing people about arbcom elections.
As an update to the situation, the two users I blocked have been unblocked, but hopefully they are not going to keep on vote-stacking. Meanwhile, a third user has already started vote-stacking the DRV so I blocked him ... I imagine the same admin is going to revert me on that too, though. This is getting ridiculous. Our very system of how we make decisions is under attack and I'm trying to do something about it and meeting resistance.
Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")
That would be becuase you are attacking the way we make decisions. I'm sure you know how to propose new policy.
-- geni
I'd think this counts as a disruption of the normal workings of afd and is blockable on those grounds. Isn't this exactly why we were so concerned about userboxes - to prevent this sort of thing from happening?
On 5/4/06, Rob gamaliel8@gmail.com wrote:
I'd think this counts as a disruption of the normal workings of afd and is blockable on those grounds. Isn't this exactly why we were so concerned about userboxes - to prevent this sort of thing from happening?
That would depend on which set of claims you belived.
In any case it appears at least one of the people used a list compiled from past AFD votes.
-- geni
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geni wrote:
On 5/4/06, Rob gamaliel8@gmail.com wrote:
I'd think this counts as a disruption of the normal workings of afd and is blockable on those grounds. Isn't this exactly why we were so concerned about userboxes - to prevent this sort of thing from happening?
That would depend on which set of claims you belived.
In any case it appears at least one of the people used a list compiled from past AFD votes.
Well, specifically, a list of all of the people who had voted Delete in the previous vote. That user made no attempt to notify any of the Keep voters. It's this kind of selective voting recruitment (aka vote-stacking) that is so harmful to Wikipedia. When I canceled that Afd it was leaning heavily towards Delete, but that was only because two Delete vote-stackers had been out campaigning heavily and there was only one Keep vote-stacker who had just begun operations. The end result would've just been another no consensus once both sides were "properly" marshaled.
The kind of actions I'm describing here are pretty clearly disruptive and work against the policies we have in place for deciding issues. It's extremely harmful. Note that the ArbCom has already come out against vote-stacking, in one form or another, in three separate instances:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/IZAK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Guanaco%2C_M... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jason_Gastri...
In the past many blocks have been issued to deal with these issues. Yet suddenly we're running into a lot of resistance from people who are saying it isn't explicitly listed in policy. Well, since policy is simply a written-down version of what happens in practice, we need to modify policy. The only single diehard policy is "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia", and it's pretty clear that these vote-stacking campaigns I've been describing go against that ultimate goal of making the best encyclopedia we can.
- -- Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")
~ Sub veste quisque nudus est ~
Nothing wrong with informing previous voters, as long as you inform ALL of them, not just the ones that vote "your way". Selectively notifying people is disruptive (and in my opinion blockable already). No need for additional policy there.
Mgm
On 5/4/06, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
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geni wrote:
On 5/4/06, Rob gamaliel8@gmail.com wrote:
I'd think this counts as a disruption of the normal workings of afd and is blockable on those grounds. Isn't this exactly why we were so concerned about userboxes - to prevent this sort of thing from happening?
That would depend on which set of claims you belived.
In any case it appears at least one of the people used a list compiled from past AFD votes.
Well, specifically, a list of all of the people who had voted Delete in the previous vote. That user made no attempt to notify any of the Keep voters. It's this kind of selective voting recruitment (aka vote-stacking) that is so harmful to Wikipedia. When I canceled that Afd it was leaning heavily towards Delete, but that was only because two Delete vote-stackers had been out campaigning heavily and there was only one Keep vote-stacker who had just begun operations. The end result would've just been another no consensus once both sides were "properly" marshaled.
The kind of actions I'm describing here are pretty clearly disruptive and work against the policies we have in place for deciding issues. It's extremely harmful. Note that the ArbCom has already come out against vote-stacking, in one form or another, in three separate instances:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/IZAK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Guanaco%2C_M...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jason_Gastri...
In the past many blocks have been issued to deal with these issues. Yet suddenly we're running into a lot of resistance from people who are saying it isn't explicitly listed in policy. Well, since policy is simply a written-down version of what happens in practice, we need to modify policy. The only single diehard policy is "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia", and it's pretty clear that these vote-stacking campaigns I've been describing go against that ultimate goal of making the best encyclopedia we can.
Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")
~ Sub veste quisque nudus est ~ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (MingW32)
iD8DBQFEWXu4vCEYTv+mBWcRAqgAAJ4pPgSisQ5o0mfG0Wo9kkYKuUPmmQCeOZJ7 LOyAO2gEHeqEqPH2w0SokrA= =dLw8 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
Nothing wrong with informing previous voters, as long as you inform ALL of them, not just the ones that vote "your way". Selectively notifying people is disruptive (and in my opinion blockable already). No need for additional policy there.
The problem is that some people (e.g. John Tex) are saying that the blocking shouldn't be allowed because it isn't explicitly mentioned in policy. I'm with you; we shouldn't have to codify something so obvious; but John Tex and others seem to want it, so we have to.
- -- Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")
~ Sub veste quisque nudus est ~
On 04/05/06, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
The problem is that some people (e.g. John Tex) are saying that the blocking shouldn't be allowed because it isn't explicitly mentioned in policy. I'm with you; we shouldn't have to codify something so obvious; but John Tex and others seem to want it, so we have to.
That vote stacking is bad is obvious. That vote stacking is blockable is not obvious. How long would you block for?
Steve
On 5/4/06, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
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geni wrote:
On 5/4/06, Rob gamaliel8@gmail.com wrote:
I'd think this counts as a disruption of the normal workings of afd and is blockable on those grounds. Isn't this exactly why we were so concerned about userboxes - to prevent this sort of thing from happening?
That would depend on which set of claims you belived.
In any case it appears at least one of the people used a list compiled from past AFD votes.
Well, specifically, a list of all of the people who had voted Delete in the previous vote. That user made no attempt to notify any of the Keep voters. It's this kind of selective voting recruitment (aka vote-stacking) that is so harmful to Wikipedia. When I canceled that Afd it was leaning heavily towards Delete, but that was only because two Delete vote-stackers had been out campaigning heavily and there was only one Keep vote-stacker who had just begun operations. The end result would've just been another no consensus once both sides were "properly" marshaled.
And the problem with that is?
The kind of actions I'm describing here are pretty clearly disruptive and work against the policies we have in place for deciding issues. It's extremely harmful. Note that the ArbCom has already come out against vote-stacking, in one form or another, in three separate instances:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/IZAK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Guanaco%2C_M... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jason_Gastri...
Arbcom can to a large degree do what it likes. Votestacking is hard to define. If I post a notice to the rational skecpticism wikiproject about a AFD of some alt med article is that vote stacking?
In the past many blocks have been issued to deal with these issues. Yet suddenly we're running into a lot of resistance from people who are saying it isn't explicitly listed in policy. Well, since policy is simply a written-down version of what happens in practice, we need to modify policy. The only single diehard policy is "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia",
Wrong. NPOV is hard policy.
and it's pretty clear that these vote-stacking campaigns I've been describing go against that ultimate goal of making the best encyclopedia we can.
Nah not really. They tend to nullify themselves quite effectively.
-- geni
I've seen this vote stacking.
On 5/4/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/4/06, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
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geni wrote:
On 5/4/06, Rob gamaliel8@gmail.com wrote:
I'd think this counts as a disruption of the normal workings of afd and is blockable on those grounds. Isn't this exactly why we were
so
concerned about userboxes - to prevent this sort of thing from happening?
That would depend on which set of claims you belived.
In any case it appears at least one of the people used a list compiled from past AFD votes.
Well, specifically, a list of all of the people who had voted Delete in the previous vote. That user made no attempt to notify any of the Keep voters. It's this kind of selective voting recruitment (aka vote-stacking) that is so harmful to Wikipedia. When I canceled that Afd it was leaning heavily towards Delete, but that was only because two Delete vote-stackers had been out campaigning heavily and there was only one Keep vote-stacker who had just begun operations. The end result would've just been another no consensus once both sides were "properly" marshaled.
And the problem with that is?
The kind of actions I'm describing here are pretty clearly disruptive and work against the policies we have in place for deciding issues. It's extremely harmful. Note that the ArbCom has already come out against vote-stacking, in one form or another, in three separate
instances:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/IZAK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Guanaco%2C_M...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jason_Gastri...
Arbcom can to a large degree do what it likes. Votestacking is hard to define. If I post a notice to the rational skecpticism wikiproject about a AFD of some alt med article is that vote stacking?
In the past many blocks have been issued to deal with these issues. Yet suddenly we're running into a lot of resistance from people who are saying it isn't explicitly listed in policy. Well, since policy is simply a written-down version of what happens in practice, we need to modify policy. The only single diehard policy is "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia",
Wrong. NPOV is hard policy.
and it's pretty clear that these vote-stacking campaigns I've been describing go against that ultimate goal of making the best encyclopedia we can.
Nah not really. They tend to nullify themselves quite effectively.
-- geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- Joe Anderson
[[User:Computerjoe]] on en, fr, de, simple, Meta and Commons.
geni wrote:
This is getting ridiculous. Our very system of how we make decisions is under attack and I'm trying to do something about it and meeting resistance.
That would be becuase you are attacking the way we make decisions. I'm sure you know how to propose new policy.
Now, now, geni, be nice. He is pointing to a very real problem. With you, I am not persuaded this his solution is the right one, but the problem is real, and you should not accuse him of attacking the way we make decisions when he is trying to defend it.
Ben McIlwain wrote:
That would take weeks, and by then the vote-stackers have long gotten away with it. And I don't think vote-stacking is too subjective. If you see someone recruiting votes, deal with them. It's pretty simple.
I am, again, very much in sympathy with you, but now think about my bridge example. A bridge is placed on AfD. It looks like it is about to be deleted, let's suppose, because idiots are voting on the premise of "Well, I have never heard of it, so: nn, delete."
A bridge expert knows that it *is* an important bridge.
Now, the right thing to do here, and what used to work, is that our bridge expert writes a few sentences: "This is an important bridge, and part of an ongoing project we have in the bridges area to flesh out articles on the top 1,000 longest bridges in the world. This one is currently ranked 797. May not seem important to you, but we have verifiable sources and are planning to fill these stubs in over the next 6-9 months. Thanks."
THEN, some admin comes along and says, gee, the vote is 27-3 to delete, but frankly, this bridge guy knows what he is talking about, so I am going to close it with a keep.
In today's environment, the admin doing that better be prepared for a massive firestorm from process wonks.
So, what's our bridge guy to do? Well, one thing he can do is go around to all the other bridgipedians (great word, huh?) and point it out to them. Vote stacking? Maybe, but don't we prefer that these bridge people come in and have a say?
On 5/4/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
THEN, some admin comes along and says, gee, the vote is 27-3 to delete, but frankly, this bridge guy knows what he is talking about, so I am going to close it with a keep.
Not going to happen. There is no way you are going to get 27 people who care enough to vote delete. With they way AFD is currenly set up any significant minority can have the articles they want kept kept in most cases.
So, what's our bridge guy to do? Well, one thing he can do is go around to all the other bridgipedians (great word, huh?) and point it out to them. Vote stacking? Maybe, but don't we prefer that these bridge people come in and have a say?
He could contact the other people who voted on the AFD. Most of them will be prepared to listen to reason.
-- geni
geni wrote:
On 5/4/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
THEN, some admin comes along and says, gee, the vote is 27-3 to delete, but frankly, this bridge guy knows what he is talking about, so I am going to close it with a keep.
Not going to happen. There is no way you are going to get 27 people who care enough to vote delete. With they way AFD is currently set up any significant minority can have the articles they want kept kept in most cases. So all of those "nn, delete" pile-ons are simply a figment of my imagination?
So, what's our bridge guy to do? Well, one thing he can do is go around to all the other bridgipedians (great word, huh?) and point it out to them. Vote stacking? Maybe, but don't we prefer that these bridge people come in and have a say?
He could contact the other people who voted on the AFD. Most of them will be prepared to listen to reason.
You are obviously aware of AfD discussions which have simply escaped my notice.
Please provide links to AfD discussions which contain reasonable arguments like those suggested which are not then countered by piled-on "nn, delete" entries; even better would be a "nn, delete" replaced with a "keep" as a result of listening to reason. I would like to sooth my tortured soul with a bit of good-natured discussion...
G'day Phil B,
Please provide links to AfD discussions which contain reasonable arguments like those suggested which are not then countered by piled-on "nn, delete" entries; even better would be a "nn, delete" replaced with a "keep" as a result of listening to reason. I would like to sooth my tortured soul with a bit of good-natured discussion...
I've already provided a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Jonathan_Smith_%28games_programmer%29
Joffa Smith's article is nominated for deletion because his full name doesn't get many Google hits. We see a bunch of regrettable pile-on "nn d"-type comments, plus a weird (and bloody stupid) "delete, self-nom" (!). Then we get some experts appearing, one of which is an anon but who obviously knows what he's talking about, and they say "but he won the Nobel Prize, Anthony!"
To this day I don't know the numerical tally. There's no reason why I shouldn't, it's a short discussion and it would be easy enough to count the bold words. If feeling adventurous, I could even write a script to do it. But *it doesn't matter*, so I've never got 'round to it. I suspect, however, that if we had a silly vote-counting sod attempt to close it, they may well be tempted to close it as a "delete" because of some irrelevant magic number (50%, 60%, 66%, 67%, 70%, 90%, whatever). Fortunately, our admins are *not*, in the main, silly vote-counting sods, and the Use Common Sense movement hasn't yet been wiped out.
On 5/5/06, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:
So all of those "nn, delete" pile-ons are simply a figment of my imagination?
No but they don't reach 27. 20 would be unusal. A lot of deletion debates are "pile-ons" becuase delete is the right descision
You are obviously aware of AfD discussions which have simply escaped my notice.
Please provide links to AfD discussions which contain reasonable arguments like those suggested which are not then countered by piled-on "nn, delete" entries; even better would be a "nn, delete" replaced with a "keep" as a result of listening to reason. I would like to sooth my tortured soul with a bit of good-natured discussion... -- Phil --
Well at random [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dust bunny]] has people changeing thier mind from delete. Now where are these "nn, delete" "pile-ons"?
-- geni
Phil Boswell wrote:
geni wrote:
On 5/4/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
THEN, some admin comes along and says, gee, the vote is 27-3 to delete, but frankly, this bridge guy knows what he is talking about, so I am going to close it with a keep.
Not going to happen. There is no way you are going to get 27 people who care enough to vote delete. With they way AFD is currently set up any significant minority can have the articles they want kept kept in most cases. So all of those "nn, delete" pile-ons are simply a figment of my imagination?
So, what's our bridge guy to do? Well, one thing he can do is go around to all the other bridgipedians (great word, huh?) and point it out to them. Vote stacking? Maybe, but don't we prefer that these bridge people come in and have a say?
He could contact the other people who voted on the AFD. Most of them will be prepared to listen to reason.
You are obviously aware of AfD discussions which have simply escaped my notice.
Please provide links to AfD discussions which contain reasonable arguments like those suggested which are not then countered by piled-on "nn, delete" entries; even better would be a "nn, delete" replaced with a "keep" as a result of listening to reason. I would like to sooth my tortured soul with a bit of good-natured discussion...
It's old now, but I'm proud of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Shooting_Fish
Steve Block steve.block@myrealbox.com wrote:
Phil Boswell wrote: > >> On 5/4/06, Jimmy Wales wrote: >>> THEN, some admin comes along and says, gee, the vote is 27-3 to delete, >>> but frankly, this bridge guy knows what he is talking about, so I am >>> going to close it with a keep.
> Please provide links to AfD discussions which contain reasonable arguments > like those suggested which are not then countered by piled-on "nn, delete" > entries; even better would be a "nn, delete" replaced with a "keep" as a > result of listening to reason. I would like to sooth my tortured soul with
It's old now, but I'm proud of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Shooting_Fish
First, it doesn't surprise me that finding a case is so difficult. This case, however, doesn't really fit here as an example: 1. They changed the content significantly, essentially an article about a different subject now with only some loose ties. 2. The admin decision was still based on the majority vote.
I'd be interested in a case where the content didn't have to undergo any extreme changes and the admins action was opposite of the majority. It doesn't have to be 27-3, but a 15-5 would still be an odd case.~~~~Pro-Lick
--------------------------------- How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messengers low PC-to-Phone call rates.
On 5/7/06, Cheney Shill halliburton_shill@yahoo.com wrote:
Steve Block steve.block@myrealbox.com wrote:
Phil Boswell wrote:
On 5/4/06, Jimmy Wales wrote:
THEN, some admin comes along and says, gee, the vote is 27-3 to delete, but frankly, this bridge guy knows what he is talking about, so I am going to close it with a keep.
Please provide links to AfD discussions which contain reasonable arguments like those suggested which are not then countered by piled-on "nn, delete" entries; even better would be a "nn, delete" replaced with a "keep" as a result of listening to reason. I would like to sooth my tortured soul with
It's old now, but I'm proud of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Shooting_Fish
First, it doesn't surprise me that finding a case is so difficult. This case, however, doesn't really fit here as an example:
- They changed the content significantly, essentially an article about a different subject now with only some loose ties.
- The admin decision was still based on the majority vote.
I'd be interested in a case where the content didn't have to undergo any extreme changes and the admins action was opposite of the majority. It doesn't have to be 27-3, but a 15-5 would still be an odd case.~~~~Pro-Lick
This decision is on Deletion Review for a 14-4 decision.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_Apri...
Peter
Peter Ansell ansell.peter@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/7/06, Cheney Shill wrote: > I'd be interested in a case where the content didn't have to undergo any extreme changes and the admins action was opposite of the majority. It doesn't have to be 27-3, but a 15-5 would still be an odd case.~~~~Pro-Lick
This decision is on Deletion Review for a 14-4 decision. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_Apri...
Thanks, Pete. It looks like Tim! actually followed deletion policy. The delete nom and votes weren't tied to any specific violation, "fancruft" being the closest, and that wasn't supported very well by the delete voters. The only error I see is Tim writing there was "no consensus". Tim! seems to view consensus in different terms than most admins.~~~~Pro-Lick
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On 5/4/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
A bridge expert knows that it *is* an important bridge.
Then again, loving bridges, he may not find it in is heart to delete _any_ article about them that has sources. Which, to a certain extent, is fine with me, but it does have the potential to significantly change the whole "deletionism/inclusionism" balance. Imagine the same concept applied to Star Trek experts. "Tribble Rebellion of 2280? SPEEDY KEEP!"
Topical AfD is not a bad idea as long as these subcommunities are as open as the general AfD, and the only process by which they distinguish themselves is one of self-selection. That is, my opinion on a topical AfD should not count less because I have not worked in that topical AfD before.
Erik
On Thu, 4 May 2006 19:42:16 +0200, you wrote:
Topical AfD is not a bad idea as long as these subcommunities are as open as the general AfD, and the only process by which they distinguish themselves is one of self-selection. That is, my opinion on a topical AfD should not count less because I have not worked in that topical AfD before.
I support this idea in that it is more likely that interested parties will review the article and arguments in detail, because there will be fewer of them, but it has the weakness of an inherent bias towards keeping what for want of a better word we call fancruft.
Guy (JzG)
On 5/4/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/4/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
A bridge expert knows that it *is* an important bridge.
Then again, loving bridges, he may not find it in is heart to delete _any_ article about them that has sources. Which, to a certain extent, is fine with me, but it does have the potential to significantly change the whole "deletionism/inclusionism" balance. Imagine the same concept applied to Star Trek experts. "Tribble Rebellion of 2280? SPEEDY KEEP!"
I don't see the problem? Wikipedia works because autonomous persons and communities can work on their areas of expertise without having to go layers of bureaucracy. Except for a few global rules; Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, Wikipedia is not paper, it is those communities and their ability to work autonomously that is shaping Wikipedia. That work process scales very well and is the reason why Wikipedia contain millions of articles. Centralized processes (like AFD) does not scale very well at all. Therefore I think it makes sense to avoid centralized processes.
The more decentralized, the less people involved, the more easy it is to form consensuses. So if there is a consensus among the group of Wikipedians working on Star Trek articles that "Tribble Rebellion of 2280" should be kept, then that is what should be done. I think it is perfectly clear that those who work in the topic area knows best what articles belong in it. The last thing THEY need is a centralized process involving clueless opinionated people interfering in their business.
Topical AfD is not a bad idea as long as these subcommunities are as open as the general AfD, and the only process by which they distinguish themselves is one of self-selection. That is, my opinion on a topical AfD should not count less because I have not worked in that topical AfD before.
In theory yes. In practice, people are more likely to listen to someone who has credentials.
-- mvh Björn
On 5/5/06, BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
The more decentralized, the less people involved, the more easy it is to form consensuses. So if there is a consensus among the group of Wikipedians working on Star Trek articles that "Tribble Rebellion of 2280" should be kept, then that is what should be done. I think it is perfectly clear that those who work in the topic area knows best what articles belong in it.
Following this principle, probably all content on Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki edited by Star Trek experts, would be acceptable on Wikipedia. This is, however, currently not the case. For instance, Memory Alpha has individual articles about Star Trek DVDs which would probably be merged or deleted on WP.
My belief is simply that Star Trek experts are often Star Trek fans, and Star Trek fans will not like to delete content that is verifiable and sourced only because it is not "notable" enough. Essentially, the criterion of notability strikes me as difficult to sustain under such conditions -- _unless_, instead of talking about Star Trek experts, we're talking about television experts, or entertainment experts. Then you have more diversity (and a certain healthy amount of animosity).
Splitting AfD into _broad_ topical categories might be a viable approach to achieve consensus more frequently without significantly altering the balance of inclusion vs. deletion. Then again, if we could do Boolean category intersections, we could simply offer diferent views on AfD. I think there's a toolserver tool for that already, isn't there?
No matter how we organize, I am of course opposed to excluding people from any AfD page because they are not "experts". Any reorganization should merely be aimed at improving the "social flow".
Erik
On 04/05/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Now, the right thing to do here, and what used to work, is that our bridge expert writes a few sentences: "This is an important bridge, and part of an ongoing project we have in the bridges area to flesh out articles on the top 1,000 longest bridges in the world. This one is currently ranked 797. May not seem important to you, but we have verifiable sources and are planning to fill these stubs in over the next 6-9 months. Thanks."
Wouldn't it be better for this guy to add a couple of sentences *to the article* explaining the significance of the bridge? Anyone can recognise that "3rd largest bridge in the county of Borkshire" is at least somewhat notable. All the claims that you make above should be made in the article, or at the very least in a related Wikiproject. I don't think it's reasonable to expect AfD voters to carry this kind of meta Wikipedia content in their heads - it ought to be recorded for it to count somewhere.
And yes, I feel bad for disagreeing with you, Jimbo :)
Steve
On 5/3/06, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
Way way way to subjective. RFC and arbcom would probably be a better option.
That would take weeks, and by then the vote-stackers have long gotten away with it. And I don't think vote-stacking is too subjective. If you see someone recruiting votes, deal with them. It's pretty simple.
Vote stacking is bad. But telling other people about things they might be interested in participating in is not -- in fact it is often a good way to combat vote stacking (people post things to this list, for example, when it is clear that a small but organized POV minority is trying to change things for the worst). The line between the two? Blurry, quite subjective.
If you can come up with a policy which could be used to make a clear distinction between the two practices, feel free to propose it. But simply saying that vote stacking should be against the rules doesn't quite get us there. There cannot be a rule which would prohibit people talking to other editors about decisions taking place on other pages, in fact our mediation process recommends people do just that.
FF
Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
We cannot put up with these attempts at gaming our consensus-based system. Consensus doesn't work when it just becomes a numbers game of who can recruit the most votes. And trying to make a rational decision about the merits of an article when a bunch of sheeple are coming in mindlessly on both sides and voting without even considering the issues is absurd. We need to deal with this problem. We need to modify our policy so that it IS a blockable offense to vote-stack and game the system. - -- I've read both your and geni's responses. I'd agree if the solution were to eliminate consensus from the system. As it stands, there are plenty of problems with or without vote blocking and consensus: *Anybody can vote stack easily enough outside Wiki (email, IRC, etc.). Blocking doesn't fix that. In fact, they can still use the built in user email with compiling AFD lists and userboxes. *Contributors that only follow the article occasionally (less than once a week) need to be informed. Blocking them and the notifier would be unfair. This applies to the ongoing discussion regarding biographies, too. Should everyone that contributes to an article be expected to follow it every day or even every week? If they don't, the AFD will be closed in a week (maybe 1 in 1000 go much beyond a week). *Sooner or later, groups are going to realize they can meet and decide the fate of an article without even discussing it on Wikipedia. A politically active college group with members at many colleges could easily AFD many articles. Short of Jimbo picking up a clue bat, they could take over Wiki with an extended effort. *With consensus, regardless of whether you block for stacking or not, you are turning the content on Wiki into an original research project. Instead of verifiability/notability, AFD uses a pole, violating 2 policies in favor of a guideline that's intended for "working with others" not content.~~~~Pro-Lick
--------------------------------- Blab-away for as little as 1¢/min. Make PC-to-Phone Calls using Yahoo! Messenger with Voice.
On Wed, 03 May 2006 20:32:12 -0400, you wrote:
I recently came across a very contentious Afd having to deal with the movement to impeach George W. Bush. The discussion was overwhelmed with vote-stacking. I caught two users doing it and temporarily blocked them, but was reverted by an admin who says it's "not in policy" that we can block for that. I've also since discovered a third person who was vote-stacking.
It is wrong per policy, it is disruption. If done off Wikipedia it is meatpuppetry. On the whole it is good to attract more people to a debate, but bad to select only those people who are known in advance to support your view.
Also, no admin should revert the actions of another admin without discussion, preferably at the noticeboards. On the other hand using admin tools - whether to block or to revert blocks - in disputes where you are involved is a Bad Thing. And yes, I have done it too, we are but human.
If a particular debate is becoming a cesspit it may be better to close it and get all parties involved to a dispute resolution process. You are right that in many cases personal preference is allowed to trump policy. And in some cases the Google hit count is taken in lieu of reliable sources. But AfD is not a vote, and the closing admin has some discretion in weighing the arguments.
Guy (JzG)
On 04/05/06, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
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I recently came across a very contentious Afd having to deal with the movement to impeach George W. Bush. The discussion was overwhelmed with vote-stacking. I caught two users doing it and temporarily blocked them, but was reverted by an admin who says it's "not in policy" that we can block for that. I've also since discovered a third person who was vote-stacking.
Vote-stacking is wrong, it is harmful to Wikipedia, and it needs to be discouraged and stopped. The simple way to do this is to block users who are doing this. If it's not in the policy now, it should be.
I heard the argument, "Well, if you're just informing other users, that's not vote-stacking." That's wrong on two counts. First of all, all of this vote-stacking going on here was specifically encouraging people to come to the Afd and vote a specific way. And, even if the message is "neutrally worded", it's still vote-stacking unless I'm sending it out to a random sample of Wikipedians. Do you think these vote-stackers were using a random sample? No. They were sending the messages to people they know already vote their way. In this case, it appears to be a combination of a What links here on the {{User republican}} userbox and an examination of which ways people voted on the previous Afd, and then selectively sending the message to just the people who previously voted in agreement with the vote-stackers views.
We cannot put up with these attempts at gaming our consensus-based system. Consensus doesn't work when it just becomes a numbers game of who can recruit the most votes. And trying to make a rational decision about the merits of an article when a bunch of sheeple are coming in mindlessly on both sides and voting without even considering the issues is absurd. We need to deal with this problem. We need to modify our policy so that it IS a blockable offense to vote-stack and game the system.
Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")
The entire concept of voting as used in Wikipedia for decisions like deletion is very flawed. It's not particularly representative, and even if it were, suggests that the majority view is always right *.
If anything, having users interested in the subject area informed of votes perhaps improves the situation.
It's still a mess though - yet another one of Wikipedia's mechanisms that performs very poorly.
Zoney
*It suggests that it's up to majority to decide what is fact. Expertise and authority are completely disregarded (and if you don't use that system, you're only left with Wikipedia's nonsensical relativism). NPOV is well and good, but it's really only useful for *presenting* things in a neutral fashion. The concept of what "things" are allowed (i.e. what is true information, even if it's a matter of "is this verifiable information about a view we can say that some people hold").
-- ~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
Ben McIlwain wrote:
Vote-stacking is wrong, it is harmful to Wikipedia, and it needs to be discouraged and stopped. The simple way to do this is to block users who are doing this. If it's not in the policy now, it should be.
I am with you in spirit, but it seems quite difficult to define "vote stacking" in a way that won't be the source of endless horrible fights.
I have been thinking lately about some radical solution to AfD woes. Here are some thoughts.
1. Consensus works when there are a small number of people who have reputations with each other who are willing to work for compromise and positive progress. The importance of social capital in the process (earning it and spending it) can not be overemphasized.
2. As we get to be a larger community, consensus still works well on individual articles and areas of interest, because there are subcommunities in negotiation there who know each other.
3. Certain global processes, though, have turned quite bitter and sour, likely because it is increasingly hard to have a process of reputation and social capital when you have tons of people who don't know each other.
4. The solution to this may well be to attempt to move the "locus of control" for deletion decisions into subcommunities.
--------
I have an example, based on a nice dinner conversation I had with Sam Wantman. Sam knows a lot about bridges, and there is a subcommunity of people who know each other and work on bridge articles. Super. This is why our stuff on bridges is super excellent.
If a bridge is listed on AfD, the result is of course likely to be a horrific mess. People who don't know anything about bridges are likely to vote based on pre-existing battles going on there between inclusionists and deletionists. If someone cares deeply about the issue, they can campaign for random other friends to come and vote. The admins who go through and clean it up will find it very difficult to figure out what to do, having little idea of the reputations of the various parties, and therefore have no choice to follow the disastrously bad rule of "one user account, one vote" ... even though this includes the votes of trolls, newbies, sockpuppets, meatpuppets, idiots *and* people who know what they are talking about and should be the ones deciding.
Wouldn't it be better in this case to say, you know what, we actually have bridge experts, people who know about bridges, and these people ought to be the ones deciding, not random people on AfD.
So how should this work in practice?
On 5/4/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Wouldn't it be better in this case to say, you know what, we actually have bridge experts, people who know about bridges, and these people ought to be the ones deciding, not random people on AfD.
So how should this work in practice?
One possibility would be to work from the existing WikiProject infrastructure. They already function as the default gathering place for editors working in a particular subject area; why not simply allow them (within reason) to conduct their own deletion discussions?
The major problem here has always been the fact that there's no barrier to creating new projects. We want _established_ communities of people working on a topic making these decisions; at the same time, merely deciding to create WikiProject Controversial Articles shouldn't automatically give someone the ability to control deletion discussions. The obvious suggestion would be to have some manner of community screening process that would determine whether a particular project was in decent enough shape to run a deletion forum responsibly; but there are probably other approaches that could work as well.
Kirill Lokshin
G'day Jimmy,
<many snips/>
If a bridge is listed on AfD, the result is of course likely to be a horrific mess. People who don't know anything about bridges are likely to vote based on pre-existing battles going on there between inclusionists and deletionists. If someone cares deeply about the issue, they can campaign for random other friends to come and vote. The admins who go through and clean it up will find it very difficult to figure out what to do, having little idea of the reputations of the various parties, and therefore have no choice to follow the disastrously bad rule of "one user account, one vote" ... even though this includes the votes of trolls, newbies, sockpuppets, meatpuppets, idiots *and* people who know what they are talking about and should be the ones deciding.
Ah, ah, ah! Bit disappointed to see this misconception spread by Jimbo Wales, of all people. AfD is not "one user account, one vote": new user accounts obviously registered in an attempt to influence an AfD "I'm a member of the web forum you're talking about on this here Wokupeja and I say keep" are discounted all the time; the opinion of experts, even if they don't have accounts, can be and is taken into account (although not as often as it should be).
See for instance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Jonathan_Smith_...
Wouldn't it be better in this case to say, you know what, we actually have bridge experts, people who know about bridges, and these people ought to be the ones deciding, not random people on AfD.
So how should this work in practice?
Some wikiprojects and the like keep track of deletion debates; I know Australian wikipedians like to keep informed of whenever, because of ignorance, a good Australian article is about to be deleted or a crap Australian article kept, and show up and spread soothing knowledge like a balm unto the AfDers in question at the appropriate time. I suppose you could turn the decision over to them altogether?
But this leads to two issues: a) some Wikiprojects are formed by excellent Wikipedians who share a particular interest. Others are formed by tragics who haven't got the faintest clue what an encyclopaedia is and wouldn't care if they did, they just want to write instruction manuals and walkthroughs and tourist travel guides and ... is that general enough that I don't seem to be talking about anyone in particular? Good. In any case, a Wikiproject formed by people without any sense of self-control would not lead to nearly as much informed decision making as one hopes.
b) Wikiproject members have better things to do than go over their content looking for stuff to delete, anyway!
Cheers,
On 5/4/06, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
b) Wikiproject members have better things to do than go over their content looking for stuff to delete, anyway!
With the recent explosive growth of article rating programs (as pushed by the WP:1.0 people), a number of projects are doing just that. (Not necessarily looking for things to delete in particular; but those tend to drop out naturally when going through articles to grade.)
Kirill Lokshin
On 5/4/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/4/06, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
b) Wikiproject members have better things to do than go over their content looking for stuff to delete, anyway!
With the recent explosive growth of article rating programs (as pushed by the WP:1.0 people), a number of projects are doing just that. (Not necessarily looking for things to delete in particular; but those tend to drop out naturally when going through articles to grade.)
Article rating programs? Can you point me towards some of them? Thanks
Ian
On 5/4/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/4/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/4/06, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
b) Wikiproject members have better things to do than go over their content looking for stuff to delete, anyway!
With the recent explosive growth of article rating programs (as pushed by the WP:1.0 people), a number of projects are doing just that. (Not necessarily looking for things to delete in particular; but those tend to drop out naturally when going through articles to grade.)
Article rating programs? Can you point me towards some of them? Thanks
[[WP:WVWP]] should have pointers to most of them; off the top of my head, the Tropical cyclones, Military history, Chemistry, and Beatles WikiProjects are ones I've recently had experience with, but many of the more active projects have them at this point.
Kirill Lokshin
Kirill Lokshin wrote:
On 5/4/06, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
b) Wikiproject members have better things to do than go over their content looking for stuff to delete, anyway!
With the recent explosive growth of article rating programs (as pushed by the WP:1.0 people), a number of projects are doing just that.
What are these and how do they work.
Steve Block
On 5/4/06, Steve Block steve.block@myrealbox.com wrote:
Kirill Lokshin wrote:
On 5/4/06, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
b) Wikiproject members have better things to do than go over their content looking for stuff to delete, anyway!
With the recent explosive growth of article rating programs (as pushed by the WP:1.0 people), a number of projects are doing just that.
What are these and how do they work.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WVWP for the exhaustive details, but briefly:
1. A group of people (WP:1.0 team) decided to pick out good articles for a potential hardcopy release of Wikipedia; one of the approaches they took was asking individual WikiProject to evaluate articles in their area and report on the suitable ones. 2. Simultaneously, one WikiProject (Chemistry, if I recall correctly) hit on the idea of automating this via a "worklist", where articles would get recorded with an accompanying grade. The grades eventually developed into a more-or-less standard system of Stub - Start - B-Class - A-Class - FA, although some groups have introduced variations into the system. 3. Other WikiProjects asked to evaluate articles (per point 1) began to create their own worklists (per point 2). Each WikiProject adopted its own system for assigning the grades, though, depending on its own needs.
We're now seeing some prototype support for automatically constructing worklists from tags on article talk pages, which should make this sort of thing easier.
Kirill Lokshin
On 04/05/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
I have an example, based on a nice dinner conversation I had with Sam Wantman. Sam knows a lot about bridges, and there is a subcommunity of people who know each other and work on bridge articles. Super. This is why our stuff on bridges is super excellent.
If a bridge is listed on AfD, the result is of course likely to be a horrific mess. People who don't know anything about bridges are likely to vote based on pre-existing battles going on there between inclusionists and deletionists. If someone cares deeply about the issue, they can campaign for random other friends to come and vote. The admins who go through and clean it up will find it very difficult to figure out what to do, having little idea of the reputations of the various parties, and therefore have no choice to follow the disastrously bad rule of "one user account, one vote" ... even though this includes the votes of trolls, newbies, sockpuppets, meatpuppets, idiots *and* people who know what they are talking about and should be the ones deciding.
Wouldn't it be better in this case to say, you know what, we actually have bridge experts, people who know about bridges, and these people ought to be the ones deciding, not random people on AfD.
Replace "bridge" with "Pokemon character" and you'll see the problem :)
Steve
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Jimmy Wales wrote:
Ben McIlwain wrote:
Vote-stacking is wrong, it is harmful to Wikipedia, and it needs to be discouraged and stopped. The simple way to do this is to block users who are doing this. If it's not in the policy now, it should be.
I am with you in spirit, but it seems quite difficult to define "vote stacking" in a way that won't be the source of endless horrible fights.
Can we at least get a policy on mass-spamming of user talk pages then? I'm willing to put up with a mass-spammed Rfa thanks, as that isn't trying to influence anything whatsoever, or Esperanza mailing lists or whatever. But a single user taking it upon themselves to identify a specific group of people and notifying them selectively about a consensus-seeking issue currently ongoing - that is wrong.
I have been thinking lately about some radical solution to AfD woes. Here are some thoughts.
- Consensus works when there are a small number of people who have
reputations with each other who are willing to work for compromise and positive progress. The importance of social capital in the process (earning it and spending it) can not be overemphasized.
- As we get to be a larger community, consensus still works well on
individual articles and areas of interest, because there are subcommunities in negotiation there who know each other.
- Certain global processes, though, have turned quite bitter and sour,
likely because it is increasingly hard to have a process of reputation and social capital when you have tons of people who don't know each other.
Indeed! Consensus simply fails to work on certain global processes. Luckily we have ArbCom to deal with user conduct issues, otherwise trying to deal with some particular users would be unworkable.
- The solution to this may well be to attempt to move the "locus of
control" for deletion decisions into subcommunities.
I like this. I was actually musing about AfdCom on #wikipedia-en-admins two days ago. Basically it'd be a Committee of trusted people who would decide on extremely contentious Afd situations. The way we have it right now, with dozens of people piling on from both sides, is untenable. The AfdCom members would be well-trusted Wikipedians who have an excellent grasp of article inclusion policy. You could even have an "evidence gathering" phase where experts (like the aforementioned bridge experts) have their say. This would be much better than the current situation which consists of a bunch of people yelling at each other and no one in particular, trying in vain to get their points made, when the vast majority of voters haven't really put much thought into the issue at all.
As for the specifics of AfdCom, I think it should be small, lightweight, and fast. ArbCom is good for what it does, but we don't need a process that takes weeks during which a bad article could stay in limbo. My version of AfdCom would be made of five members, any three of which can close a matter on a given situation. The AfdCom members would be appointed, NOT elected. I don't even want to think of how messy a voting situation would be ... many, many votes would be based on members' past decisions on specific subject area Afds rather than an actual objective analysis of the merit of that person.
Most Afds would run as normal, but there would be a special application process users could go through to bring an article to AfdCom. First, there would have to be a non-trivial number of people on both sides, and then AfdCom would have to decide whether to accept or reject the case, kind of like ArbCom. This also very handily eliminates any vote-stacking concerns. Any issue going to AfdCom is going to be decided on by a maximum of five people, and those people are not going to be subject to recruitment :-D
I have an example, based on a nice dinner conversation I had with Sam Wantman. Sam knows a lot about bridges, and there is a subcommunity of people who know each other and work on bridge articles. Super. This is why our stuff on bridges is super excellent.
If a bridge is listed on AfD, the result is of course likely to be a horrific mess. People who don't know anything about bridges are likely to vote based on pre-existing battles going on there between inclusionists and deletionists. If someone cares deeply about the issue, they can campaign for random other friends to come and vote. The admins who go through and clean it up will find it very difficult to figure out what to do, having little idea of the reputations of the various parties, and therefore have no choice to follow the disastrously bad rule of "one user account, one vote" ... even though this includes the votes of trolls, newbies, sockpuppets, meatpuppets, idiots *and* people who know what they are talking about and should be the ones deciding.
Wouldn't it be better in this case to say, you know what, we actually have bridge experts, people who know about bridges, and these people ought to be the ones deciding, not random people on AfD.
So how should this work in practice?
See above :-D
- -- Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")
~ Sub veste quisque nudus est ~
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Ben McIlwain wrote:
Vote-stacking is wrong, it is harmful to Wikipedia, and it needs to be discouraged and stopped. The simple way to do this is to block users who are doing this. If it's not in the policy now, it should be.
I am with you in spirit, but it seems quite difficult to define "vote stacking" in a way that won't be the source of endless horrible fights.
I have been thinking lately about some radical solution to AfD woes. Here are some thoughts.
- Consensus works when there are a small number of people who have
reputations with each other who are willing to work for compromise and positive progress. The importance of social capital in the process (earning it and spending it) can not be overemphasized.
- As we get to be a larger community, consensus still works well on
individual articles and areas of interest, because there are subcommunities in negotiation there who know each other.
- Certain global processes, though, have turned quite bitter and sour,
likely because it is increasingly hard to have a process of reputation and social capital when you have tons of people who don't know each other.
- The solution to this may well be to attempt to move the "locus of
control" for deletion decisions into subcommunities.
I have an example, based on a nice dinner conversation I had with Sam Wantman. Sam knows a lot about bridges, and there is a subcommunity of people who know each other and work on bridge articles. Super. This is why our stuff on bridges is super excellent.
If a bridge is listed on AfD, the result is of course likely to be a horrific mess. People who don't know anything about bridges are likely to vote based on pre-existing battles going on there between inclusionists and deletionists. If someone cares deeply about the issue, they can campaign for random other friends to come and vote. The admins who go through and clean it up will find it very difficult to figure out what to do, having little idea of the reputations of the various parties, and therefore have no choice to follow the disastrously bad rule of "one user account, one vote" ... even though this includes the votes of trolls, newbies, sockpuppets, meatpuppets, idiots *and* people who know what they are talking about and should be the ones deciding.
Wouldn't it be better in this case to say, you know what, we actually have bridge experts, people who know about bridges, and these people ought to be the ones deciding, not random people on AfD.
So how should this work in practice?
Remind admins that closing afd's is not a matter of vote counting, and that if in doubt don't delete means that if someone establishes doubt in your mind on deleting a topic, close as keep or no consensus and note the doubt in your closing remarks. I wonder if it mightn't be wise to allow afd's to play out for a longer period, perhaps extend afd to ten days with the proviso that after five days anything with a 100% swing either way can be closed. Too many discussions seem to get started just as they are closed. Maybe comments from people who don't go on to discuss the issue if circumstances change should be disregarded? I don't know what I'm edging towards, but I think it's that admins should be clear on the responsibilities involved in closing afd discussions. I know I've got a bias on unreferenced articles, which is why I won't close such discussions; I'd rather argue the case and allow someone else to work out how the discussion flows. That's me tossing stuff out, anyway.
Steve Block
On 04/05/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
- Consensus works when there are a small number of people who have
reputations with each other who are willing to work for compromise and positive progress. The importance of social capital in the process (earning it and spending it) can not be overemphasized.
- As we get to be a larger community, consensus still works well on
individual articles and areas of interest, because there are subcommunities in negotiation there who know each other.
- Certain global processes, though, have turned quite bitter and sour,
likely because it is increasingly hard to have a process of reputation and social capital when you have tons of people who don't know each other.
- The solution to this may well be to attempt to move the "locus of
control" for deletion decisions into subcommunities.
It's funny that you see the problem with AfD and RfA as being their "globalness". With RfA at least, I see the reverse: the fact that a subcommunity ("regular RfA participants") has formed, with its own norms, culture, convetions and so forth. If you randomly selected any Wikipedian, pointed them at the policy for selecting admins, and asked them to vote on a given candidate, you would get a result very different to what happens at RfA.
I've heard similar stories about AfD - that there is a small group that frequently votes, occasionally interrupted by vote stacking or interest from outside parties.
Perhaps the real problem is that "locus of control" should not be self-selecting. The trouble is that the people who vote on RfA the most are the ones who *enjoy* voting on RfA, apparently because they (or some of them) enjoy exerting power over candidates, by making them jump through hoops.
I don't want to propose an elected committee to do RfA's or AfD's. But do you agree that a) there exists a "locus of control" already, and that b) it is self-selecting?
Steve
It's funny that you see the problem with AfD and RfA as being their "globalness". With RfA at least, I see the reverse: the fact that a subcommunity ("regular RfA participants") has formed, with its own norms, culture, convetions and so forth. If you randomly selected any Wikipedian, pointed them at the policy for selecting admins, and asked them to vote on a given candidate, you would get a result very different to what happens at RfA.
I've heard similar stories about AfD - that there is a small group that frequently votes, occasionally interrupted by vote stacking or interest from outside parties.
Perhaps the real problem is that "locus of control" should not be self-selecting. I don't want to propose an elected committee to do RfA's or AfD's. But do you agree that a) there exists a "locus of control" already, and that b) it is self-selecting?
I think that you are right but missing the real problem. There will always be a "locus of control" and unless you want to impose elections for those who should vote on AfD, that group will always be self-selecting. I think that the real problem is that the group which controls which Star Trek articles (for example) that should be included and deleted from Wikipedia is a different group than those who are interested in Star Trek. A group of people on Wikipedia is interested in writing and improving Star Trek articles, another group is interested in deleting Star Trek articles. That arrangement obviously causes friction. It would be much better if it could be arranged so that those people who write Star Trek articles also are in charge when it comes to deleting Star Trek articles.
-- mvh Björn
On 5/5/06, BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
I think that you are right but missing the real problem. There will always be a "locus of control" and unless you want to impose elections for those who should vote on AfD, that group will always be self-selecting. I think that the real problem is that the group which controls which Star Trek articles (for example) that should be included and deleted from Wikipedia is a different group than those who are interested in Star Trek. A group of people on Wikipedia is interested in writing and improving Star Trek articles, another group is interested in deleting Star Trek articles. That arrangement obviously causes friction. It would be much better if it could be arranged so that those people who write Star Trek articles also are in charge when it comes to deleting Star Trek articles.
Again, replace Star Trek with Pokemon (my favourite punching bag, for no real reason). Would you really entrust Pokemon fans with deciding which Pokemon articles are notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia? Surely your proposal simply leads to vastly greater inclusion rates.
Summary: People who know nothing about a topic are more likely to vote delete, even for an arguably notable topic People who are experts on a topic are more likely to vote keep, even for a topic of little interest to the broader community
Agree?
Steve
Steve Bennett-4 wrote:
Again, replace Star Trek with Pokemon (my favourite punching bag, for no real reason). Would you really entrust Pokemon fans with deciding which Pokemon articles are notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia? Surely your proposal simply leads to vastly greater inclusion rates.
But if all of those articles were of good quality and well referenced, who could possibly object? Those articles are still subject to fearless editing from anybody who wants to fix the often egregious grammar and spelling (as is common elsewhere I should add :-). Also WP:NOT paper, remember? It's not as if those articles on Pokemon are taking up space which would otherwise be available for your own pet subject.
Also, that knife cuts both ways: you could set up your own WikiProject(s) to cover your areas of interest. Would you want armies of Pokemon fans hammering your articles because they don't think they're notable?
Actually, come to think of it, doesn't it seem interesting that you don't often see a Pokemon fan trying to have huge swathes of articles on other subjects removed because they don't recognise the subjects? Maybe some people could learn a bit of tolerance from their example...
On 5/5/06, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:
But if all of those articles were of good quality and well referenced, who could possibly object? Those articles are still subject to fearless editing from anybody who wants to fix the often egregious grammar and spelling (as is common elsewhere I should add :-). Also WP:NOT paper, remember? It's not as if those articles on Pokemon are taking up space which would otherwise be available for your own pet subject.
I'm assuming, perhaps unfairly, that Pokemon voters will keep to vote anything related to Pokemon, good quality and well referenced or not. If they would actually behave like ideal model AfD voters, then this discussion is moot.
Similarly, if you want to argue for the removal of notability as criteria for in Wikipedia, then that's a different discussion entirely.
Also, that knife cuts both ways: you could set up your own WikiProject(s) to cover your areas of interest. Would you want armies of Pokemon fans hammering your articles because they don't think they're notable?
WP:OWN, there's no such thing as "my articles" :p
Actually, come to think of it, doesn't it seem interesting that you don't often see a Pokemon fan trying to have huge swathes of articles on other subjects removed because they don't recognise the subjects? Maybe some people could learn a bit of tolerance from their example...
Maybe they do, we don't have a foolproof method for detecting Pokémon fans.
(what's more surprising is no one has yet objected to my merciless Pokemon-bashing)
Steve
On May 5, 2006, at 7:17 AM, Phil Boswell wrote:
Again, replace Star Trek with Pokemon (my favourite punching bag, for no real reason). Would you really entrust Pokemon fans with deciding which Pokemon articles are notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia? Surely your proposal simply leads to vastly greater inclusion rates.
But if all of those articles were of good quality and well referenced, who could possibly object? Those articles are still subject to fearless editing from anybody who wants to fix the often egregious grammar and spelling (as is common elsewhere I should add :-). Also WP:NOT paper, remember? It's not as if those articles on Pokemon are taking up space which would otherwise be available for your own pet subject.
Undue weight. It's absurd for Pokemon to have 10,000 times more coverage within Wikipedia as, for instance, 19th century philosophy.
Philip Welch wrote:
On May 5, 2006, at 7:17 AM, Phil Boswell wrote:
It's not as if those articles on Pokemon are taking up space which would otherwise be available for your own pet subject.
Undue weight. It's absurd for Pokemon to have 10,000 times more coverage within Wikipedia as, for instance, 19th century philosophy.
{{sofixit}}: rather than bitching that there are too many articles about something you don't like, try writing more articles about something you do.
In the meantime, who's going to want to write new articles in an environment which is at times actively poisonous towards newbies?
If you can get jumped with an AfD notice before you're finished writing a simple Pokemon article, who will want to invest the effort writing a complex article which will have "nn, delete" and "yah, boo, you're expertize meanz nothing to us, you elitist pig!!11!!" plastered over it before the virtual ink has dried?
We need to move towards an environment which will nurture the current generation of Pokemon writers and help them mature into 19th-century-literature writers at their own pace, rather than drive them away to their own little Pokepedia and lose them forever.
On May 5, 2006, at 2:21 PM, Phil Boswell wrote:
It's not as if those articles on Pokemon are taking up space which would otherwise be available for your own pet subject.
Undue weight. It's absurd for Pokemon to have 10,000 times more coverage within Wikipedia as, for instance, 19th century philosophy.
{{sofixit}}: rather than bitching that there are too many articles about something you don't like, try writing more articles about something you do.
It's not about someone (me) liking one thing or another. It's about objective importance and notability. Pokemon's influence even within contemporary popular culture is minimal outside a devoted community of fans.
We need to move towards an environment which will nurture the current generation of Pokemon writers and help them mature into 19th-century-literature writers at their own pace, rather than drive them away to their own little Pokepedia and lose them forever.
I have high doubts that such editors are likely to mature. It's more likely that they'll turn us into Pokepedia, with only slight coverage of the real world (appended, always, by every single reference to such real world occurrences in TV shows and Flash cartoons).
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Philip Welch wrote:
On May 5, 2006, at 2:21 PM, Phil Boswell wrote:
It's not as if those articles on Pokemon are taking up space which would otherwise be available for your own pet subject.
Undue weight. It's absurd for Pokemon to have 10,000 times more coverage within Wikipedia as, for instance, 19th century philosophy.
{{sofixit}}: rather than bitching that there are too many articles about something you don't like, try writing more articles about something you do.
It's not about someone (me) liking one thing or another. It's about objective importance and notability. Pokemon's influence even within contemporary popular culture is minimal outside a devoted community of fans.
We need to move towards an environment which will nurture the current generation of Pokemon writers and help them mature into 19th-century-literature writers at their own pace, rather than drive them away to their own little Pokepedia and lose them forever.
I have high doubts that such editors are likely to mature. It's more likely that they'll turn us into Pokepedia, with only slight coverage of the real world (appended, always, by every single reference to such real world occurrences in TV shows and Flash cartoons).
I really don't understand why people have so many problems with Pokémon articles. If you're not interested, you don't have to read it. I'm not interested in the thousands of articles about random small towns, but I'm not saying they should be deleted. There's a bar for notability that Pokémon presumably meets. Each individual Pokémon is certainly verifiable from any number of sources. I agree with the other Phil ... don't let the Pokémon piss you off, just ignore it and focus on writing articles on other stuff you think is more important.
- -- Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")
~ Sub veste quisque nudus est ~
On 5/6/06, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
I really don't understand why people have so many problems with Pokémon articles. If you're not interested, you don't have to read it. I'm not interested in the thousands of articles about random small towns, but I'm not saying they should be deleted. There's a bar for notability that Pokémon presumably meets. Each individual Pokémon is certainly verifiable from any number of sources. I agree with the other Phil ... don't let the Pokémon piss you off, just ignore it and focus on writing articles on other stuff you think is more important.
This approach I don't agree with. Everytime we cite the fact that Wikipedia has 1,000,000 articles, we ascribe value to each of those articles. Every time we allow crud that we would be ashamed to speak of to remain in the article, we diminish the value of those articles.
For exactly the same reason I think it is very poor for us to have 900,000 (or more?) inactive user accounts. They don't harm us directly - but they do vastly misrepresent the actual state of the project.
Speaking for myself, the existence of Pokemon is not directly a problem. But Wikipedia would certainly be better off if somehow all the effort that was expended on Pokemon articles was somehow invested in other ways.
Steve
On 5/6/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
This approach I don't agree with. Everytime we cite the fact that Wikipedia has 1,000,000 articles, we ascribe value to each of those articles. Every time we allow crud that we would be ashamed to speak of to remain in the article, we diminish the value of those articles.
For exactly the same reason I think it is very poor for us to have 900,000 (or more?) inactive user accounts. They don't harm us directly
- but they do vastly misrepresent the actual state of the project.
Every free internet forum has the same issue.
Speaking for myself, the existence of Pokemon is not directly a problem. But Wikipedia would certainly be better off if somehow all the effort that was expended on Pokemon articles was somehow invested in other ways.
Steve
Pokemon are massive. How many pokemon can you name? How many uk canals (my area) can you name?
-- geni
On 5/6/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Every free internet forum has the same issue.
Yes...but not very relevant. The number of contributors to Wikipedia is quite interesting and relevant to many people, but no reliable figure is readily available.
Speaking for myself, the existence of Pokemon is not directly a problem. But Wikipedia would certainly be better off if somehow all the effort that was expended on Pokemon articles was somehow invested in other ways.
Steve
Pokemon are massive. How many pokemon can you name? How many uk canals (my area) can you name?
Zero. Now, if all the people who had put 20 hours into Pokemon articles had instead put 5 hours into Pokemon articles, and 15 hours into cleanup of random articles, don't you think Wikipedia would be better off?
Steve
On 5/6/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/6/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Every free internet forum has the same issue.
Yes...but not very relevant. The number of contributors to Wikipedia is quite interesting and relevant to many people, but no reliable figure is readily available.
[[WP:1000]] would be the closest. The are various problems with trying to figure out the number of people who have contributed at least once.
Zero. Now, if all the people who had put 20 hours into Pokemon articles had instead put 5 hours into Pokemon articles, and 15 hours into cleanup of random articles, don't you think Wikipedia would be better off?
Steve
Perhaps but that isn't going to happen. The best we can hope for is that we don't have to worry about the quality of the pokemon articles too much.
-- geni
Steve Bennett wrote:
Zero. Now, if all the people who had put 20 hours into Pokemon articles had instead put 5 hours into Pokemon articles, and 15 hours into cleanup of random articles, don't you think Wikipedia would be better off?
I doubt it, because I suspect most of them would put the 5 hours of Pokemon-writing in and then spend the next 15 hours somewhere other than Wikipedia. The fact that they spent 20 hours writing about Pokemon and no hours doing random cleanup is a strong indication that they really do like writing about Pokemon, and really _don't_ like doing random cleanup.
Myself, I love random cleanup. I spend some days on Wikipedia doing nothing but random-paging around, tidying categories for subjects I care nothing about, formatting references, etc. If I was told on one of those days that I had to write ten kilobytes of text about the movie "Barbie: Mermaidia" instead, I'd probably just go build new shelving for my room or something. So it's a good thing there are people on Wikipedia with a wide variety of interests, and provided the articles conform to our basic policies (NOR, NPOV, etc) I will never denigrate those interests even if they don't match my own.
On Sat, 2006-05-06 at 01:44 +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
On 5/6/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Pokemon are massive. How many pokemon can you name? How many uk canals (my area) can you name?
Zero. Now, if all the people who had put 20 hours into Pokemon articles had instead put 5 hours into Pokemon articles, and 15 hours into cleanup of random articles, don't you think Wikipedia would be better off?
Yes. Any suggestions how to achieve this? I don't think that "Delete most of the Pokemon articles" would help with this goal.
Carl
geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/6/06, Steve Bennett wrote: > For exactly the same reason I think it is very poor for us to have > 900,000 (or more?) inactive user accounts. They don't harm us directly > - but they do vastly misrepresent the actual state of the project.
Every free internet forum has the same issue.
Few free interent "forum"s are encyclopedias.
> Speaking for myself, the existence of Pokemon is not directly a > problem. But Wikipedia would certainly be better off if somehow all > the effort that was expended on Pokemon articles was somehow invested > in other ways.
Pokemon are massive. How many pokemon can you name? How many uk canals (my area) can you name?
I agree with Steve. My solution would be as I stated in "pedia split". Both groups would be happy. Both would have admins interested and dedicated in them. It's really not a question of what's huge at the moment. It's more a question of WP:NOT and how they fit into the sum of the world's knowledge. I'm sure there are elements of Pokemon that still deserve coverage by an encyclopedia, such as story and animation techniques and its impact on children, the economy, etc. Leave that here. Move the rest to Wikipop or whatever brand name you'd like to give it. If nothing else, 99% of the disputes over whether [insert 15-minute celebrity is encyclopedic or not would go away. That seems like a significant enough benefit to pursue.~~~~Pro-Lick
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On 5/6/06, Cheney Shill halliburton_shill@yahoo.com wrote:
geni geniice@gmail.com wrote: On 5/6/06, Steve Bennett wrote: > Speaking for myself, the existence of Pokemon is not directly a > problem. But Wikipedia would certainly be better off if somehow all > the effort that was expended on Pokemon articles was somehow invested > in other ways.
Pokemon are massive. How many pokemon can you name? How many uk canals (my area) can you name?I agree with Steve. My solution would be as I stated in "pedia split". Both groups would be happy. Both would have admins interested and dedicated in them. It's really not a question of what's huge at the moment. It's more a question of WP:NOT and how they fit into the sum of the world's knowledge. I'm sure there are elements of Pokemon that still deserve coverage by an encyclopedia, such as story and animation techniques and its impact on children, the economy, etc. Leave that here. Move the rest to Wikipop or whatever brand name you'd like to give it. If nothing else, 99% of the disputes over whether [insert 15-minute celebrity is encyclopedic or not would go away. That seems like a significant enough benefit to pursue.~~~~Pro-Lick
Strangely enough that idea sounds great. There are many people who are willing and able to develop articles. I am opposed to deletion simply because of its negative impact on people possibly staying on with wikipedia to do the massive number of editorial tasks that are needed by any large scale literature project.
By keeping their interest in developing they may move from the "pop" pedia to the more focused "professional" looking pedia which has a spectrum of topics which have developed to the point where people can actually quote them. Right now I would NEVER suggest to anyone that they quote wikipedia in any sort of scholarly work. This is because of the huge lack of control over which articles are at a post-draft stage. By separating articles by maturity, it would be clear which articles have been verified enough to provide a sufficient level where they are able to be quoted.
Of course, my rant above does not put any time limitations on the above. But I think that a decision about such issues as a lack of scholarly respect for the encyclopedia currently should be a factor in the time frame of any proposal.
Peter
On 5/5/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
This approach I don't agree with. Everytime we cite the fact that Wikipedia has 1,000,000 articles, we ascribe value to each of those articles. Every time we allow crud that we would be ashamed to speak of to remain in the article, we diminish the value of those articles.
Hmm. I'd doubt many people in the world believe we've reached a million articles without handling a lot of trivia. Do you really think that anyone would be surprised by the fact that a good portion of that million are on such subjects?
For exactly the same reason I think it is very poor for us to have 900,000 (or more?) inactive user accounts. They don't harm us directly
- but they do vastly misrepresent the actual state of the project.
I don't think we tend to boast about our numbers of user accounts, do we? User accounts unused for <x> months and with no undeleted contributions should be pruned though, I think, simply from a manageability point of view.
I've noticed people mentioning our active user count and our admin count more often than the total.
-Matt
On 5/6/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I don't think we tend to boast about our numbers of user accounts, do we? User accounts unused for <x> months and with no undeleted contributions should be pruned though, I think, simply from a manageability point of view.
Why? I can show you accounts that could fit your description that should not be deleted (most of the first page of [[special:listuser]] for a start)
-- geni
On 5/6/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
Hmm. I'd doubt many people in the world believe we've reached a million articles without handling a lot of trivia. Do you really think that anyone would be surprised by the fact that a good portion of that million are on such subjects?
Well, of course, but at the same time, we're totally missing articles on some actual genuinely interesting and notable subjects. I was shocked to find that there are some Châteaux in the Loire Valley that don't have an article.
I don't think we tend to boast about our numbers of user accounts, do we? User accounts unused for <x> months and with no undeleted contributions should be pruned though, I think, simply from a manageability point of view.
I seem to recall having seen a few references to our user count in newspaper articles. Wildly differing figures of course.
I've noticed people mentioning our active user count and our admin count more often than the total.
Probably true. Not that our "admin count" is particularly meaningful either, of course.
Steve
On 5/6/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
Well, of course, but at the same time, we're totally missing articles on some actual genuinely interesting and notable subjects. I was shocked to find that there are some Châteaux in the Loire Valley that don't have an article.
In some of my chosen subjects, the red-link count is rather high. E.g. the lists of historic railroad companies in the US is probably only half-populated, and I doubt we have all of them even on the lists yet. The red links include some pretty notable systems indeed, of significant historical importance.
At the same time, I'm quite aware that many people might consider an article on a Pokemon more interesting and relevant than one about an obscure 19th century railroad company. I choose, mostly, to avoid making judgments on the worth of subjects, only their verifiability.
-Matt
On 5/7/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
At the same time, I'm quite aware that many people might consider an article on a Pokemon more interesting and relevant than one about an obscure 19th century railroad company. I choose, mostly, to avoid making judgments on the worth of subjects, only their verifiability.
If I can offer one comment on the "worth" of having a Wikipedia article on a topic, it's that for your obscure 19th century railroad companies, Wikipedia might be the *only* readily accessible source on that topic. That is, for someone without access to a library, all their info might come from Wikipedia. For Pokemon, the reverse is the case - almost everything in our articles is likely to have come from the internet, if it was sourced at all.
Steve
On 5/6/06, Philip Welch wikipedia@philwelch.net wrote:
It's not about someone (me) liking one thing or another. It's about objective importance and notability. Pokemon's influence even within contemporary popular culture is minimal outside a devoted community of fans.
How objective can even a group of people be? They will all bring to a debate their preconceptions to both importance and notability. It is possible that some would say that any but the most popular nineteenth century musical composers have had little influence outside of the classical music arena. However, it would seem silly not to allow articles on more than just the top four or five composers from the nineteenth century simply because they haven't had mainstream impact. I think that an encyclopedia should document more then just the majority subjects in society. What practical harm is there to an online encyclopedia having articles which are well written and detail verifiable facts about the less well known aspects of "devoted communities"?
Peter
My view is that unless we try we will never know... The great think about WP, is that it has not be tried before. It came to birth under the right conditions, and only time will tell if the project is successful or not. Yes, we are experiencing birth pains, but that is only proof that the project is alive. Yes, we are attracting criticism, but that only shows that we are doing something right...
So, I would not put too many limitations. Let it happen. Let people contribute, trivia or not. Let time be the judge.
-- Jossi
On May 6, 2006, at 3:03 AM, Peter Ansell wrote:
How objective can even a group of people be? They will all bring to a debate their preconceptions to both importance and notability. It is possible that some would say that any but the most popular nineteenth century musical composers have had little influence outside of the classical music arena. However, it would seem silly not to allow articles on more than just the top four or five composers from the nineteenth century simply because they haven't had mainstream impact. I think that an encyclopedia should document more then just the majority subjects in society. What practical harm is there to an online encyclopedia having articles which are well written and detail verifiable facts about the less well known aspects of "devoted communities"?
Peter
On 5/7/06, jf_wikipedia@mac.com jf_wikipedia@mac.com wrote:
My view is that unless we try we will never know... The great think about WP, is that it has not be tried before. It came to birth under the right conditions, and only time will tell if the project is successful or not. Yes, we are experiencing birth pains, but that is only proof that the project is alive. Yes, we are attracting criticism, but that only shows that we are doing something right...
So, I would not put too many limitations. Let it happen. Let people contribute, trivia or not. Let time be the judge.
-- Jossi
People are becoming disillusioned by the current process which is liable to vote stacking, as described in the following link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:RGTraynor&diff=51630...
Rather ironically the same person votes on AfD's that I have participated in with Delete per nom, ignoring the current discussion that has developed.
Peter
On 5/5/06, Philip Welch wikipedia@philwelch.net wrote:
It's absurd for Pokemon to have 10,000 times more coverage within Wikipedia as, for instance, 19th century philosophy.
You probably need to find a better example. According [[User:Carnildo/The 100]] and [[User:Carnildo/The 100 Biography]], we don't have any articles on either. On the other hand, we've got 4,535 articles on Digimon characters, 40,814 Rambot-created stubs, 4,535 biographies of saints, 15,872 articles on schools, 2,267 articles on episodes of television series, and 2,267 copyvios on [[The Elf Queen of Shannara]].
This abuse of statistics has been brought to you by the letters σ and ϕ, and by the number e.
-- Mark [[User:Carnildo]]
On 5/5/06, Mark Wagner carnildo@gmail.com wrote:
You probably need to find a better example. According [[User:Carnildo/The 100]] and [[User:Carnildo/The 100 Biography]], we don't have any articles on either. On the other hand, we've got 4,535 articles on Digimon characters, 40,814 Rambot-created stubs, 4,535 biographies of saints, 15,872 articles on schools, 2,267 articles on episodes of television series, and 2,267 copyvios on [[The Elf Queen of Shannara]].
This abuse of statistics has been brought to you by the letters σ and ϕ, and by the number e.
Seriously, where did those figures come from? 4,535 articles on digimon characters? huh?
Steve
On 5/5/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/5/06, Mark Wagner carnildo@gmail.com wrote:
You probably need to find a better example. According [[User:Carnildo/The 100]] and [[User:Carnildo/The 100 Biography]], we don't have any articles on either. On the other hand, we've got 4,535 articles on Digimon characters, 40,814 Rambot-created stubs, 4,535 biographies of saints, 15,872 articles on schools, 2,267 articles on episodes of television series, and 2,267 copyvios on [[The Elf Queen of Shannara]].
This abuse of statistics has been brought to you by the letters σ and ϕ, and by the number e.
Seriously, where did those figures come from? 4,535 articles on digimon characters? huh?
The two article surveys cited include 493 still-existent articles. At the time I started mangling statistics, Wikipedia had 1,117,850 articles. So, it was simply a matter of multiplying the article counts in the surveys by 2,267.44 and rounding to the nearest integer.
-- Mark [[User:Carnildo]]
Mark Wagner carnildo@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/5/06, Steve Bennett wrote: > Seriously, where did those figures come from? 4,535 articles on > digimon characters? huh?
The two article surveys cited include 493 still-existent articles. At the time I started mangling statistics, Wikipedia had 1,117,850 articles. So, it was simply a matter of multiplying the article counts in the surveys by 2,267.44 and rounding to the nearest integer.
Using google, excluding pages that have the word "talk", "user", or "archive", Digimon still gets about 18,500 en.wikipedia results. Pokemon gets about 30,100. About 643 for the category "american porn stars". If we can get porn stars more coverage, they are MASSIVE after all, I might compromise on splitting pop culture into a separate pedia.~~~~Pro-Lick
--------------------------------- How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messengers low PC-to-Phone call rates.
On 5/6/06, Cheney Shill halliburton_shill@yahoo.com wrote:
Mark Wagner carnildo@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/5/06, Steve Bennett wrote: > Seriously, where did those figures come from? 4,535 articles on > digimon characters? huh? The two article surveys cited include 493 still-existent articles. At the time I started mangling statistics, Wikipedia had 1,117,850 articles. So, it was simply a matter of multiplying the article counts in the surveys by 2,267.44 and rounding to the nearest integer.Using google, excluding pages that have the word "talk", "user", or "archive", Digimon still gets about 18,500 en.wikipedia results. Pokemon gets about 30,100. About 643 for the category "american porn stars". If we can get porn stars more coverage, they are MASSIVE after all, I might compromise on splitting pop culture into a separate pedia.~~~~Pro-Lick
Most of our porn star articles contain copyvios.
-- geni
On 5/5/06, Philip Welch wikipedia@philwelch.net wrote:
Undue weight. It's absurd for Pokemon to have 10,000 times more coverage within Wikipedia as, for instance, 19th century philosophy.
It's an interesting idea, but applying this criterion you would end up with a Diana Moon Glampers encyclopedia, where nobody would dare to write an article on a popular subject lest he incur the wrath for the Handicapper General for unbalancing it.
The *embarasse de richesse* with regard to Pokemon characters doesn't directly hamper the use of the encyclopedia by those wishing to read about the likes of Hegel and Schopenhauer and the Mills.
It might be said, perhaps, that at most the quantity of Pokemon articles might drive away people who might otherwise contribute serious content on another subject.
Then again, there's nothing stopping the compilers of a specialist encyclopedia on, say, philosophy, taking the Wikipedia content and placing it on a wiki (or other content editing system) of their own where it may be extended by those who would be repelled from Wikipedia, or those who would simply not find the philosophy articles amid the clutter. They could apply their own rules, provided the resulting content was made available under a GFDL-compatible license.
Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/5/06, Philip Welch wrote: > > Undue weight. It's absurd for Pokemon to have 10,000 times more > coverage within Wikipedia as, for instance, 19th century philosophy.
It's an interesting idea, but applying this criterion you would end up with a Diana Moon Glampers encyclopedia, where nobody would dare to write an article on a popular subject lest he incur the wrath for the Handicapper General for unbalancing it.
The *embarasse de richesse* with regard to Pokemon characters doesn't directly hamper the use of the encyclopedia by those wishing to read about the likes of Hegel and Schopenhauer and the Mills.
I definitely agree with this, but Phil is right about the coverage (although not about the application of undue weight which is for NPOV determination). It seems like all this pop-culture stuff (which also includes the likes of the Britneys of the world and wrestling entertainment) could be dumped, umm, I mean reorganized, into another wiki project, such as Mediapedia, Wikipop, or WikiStuffNobodyWillCareAbout100YearsFromNow. I think it would be better, for both groups to have admins dealing with the type of content they are dedicated to and interested in. I see a lot of inactive admins and it would be interesting to see how many have decided to take an indefinite leave of absence because they spend 90% of their time dealing with content and user disputes involving articles they have no interest in.~~~~Pro-Lick
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On 5/6/06, Cheney Shill halliburton_shill@yahoo.com wrote:
I definitely agree with this, but Phil is right about the coverage (although not about the application of undue weight which is for NPOV determination). It seems like all this pop-culture stuff (which also includes the likes of the Britneys of the world and wrestling entertainment) could be dumped, umm, I mean reorganized, into another wiki project, such as Mediapedia, Wikipop, or WikiStuffNobodyWillCareAbout100YearsFromNow. I think it would be better, for both groups to have admins dealing with the type of content they are dedicated to and interested in. I see a lot of inactive admins and it would be interesting to see how many have decided to take an indefinite leave of absence because they spend 90% of their time dealing with content and user disputes involving articles they have no interest in.~~~~Pro-Lick
I have no interest in either 18th century philosophers or pop culture. Admins can steer clear of stuff that doesn't interest them if they want to. The pop culture section appears to be one of our most popular so it stays. Other than the copyvios there I can ignore it for the most part.
-- geni
On 06/05/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/6/06, Cheney Shill halliburton_shill@yahoo.com wrote:
I definitely agree with this, but Phil is right about the coverage (although not about the application of undue weight which is for NPOV determination). It seems like all this pop-culture stuff (which also includes the likes of the Britneys of the world and wrestling entertainment) could be dumped, umm, I mean reorganized, into another wiki project, such as Mediapedia, Wikipop, or WikiStuffNobodyWillCareAbout100YearsFromNow. I think it would be better, for both groups to have admins dealing with the type of content they are dedicated to and interested in. I see a lot of inactive admins and it would be interesting to see how many have decided to take an indefinite leave of absence because they spend 90% of their time dealing with content and user disputes involving articles they have no interest in.~~~~Pro-Lick
I have no interest in either 18th century philosophers or pop culture. Admins can steer clear of stuff that doesn't interest them if they want to.
I've just been advised that non-admins and ex-administrators have no right to edit or make decisions about things on Wikipedia, nor advise other users or interact with teh Jimbo.
Clearly myself and several others are in violation of this and will need to be punished as soon as possible.
The pop culture section appears to be one of our most popular so it stays. Other than the copyvios there I can ignore it for the most part.
"...so it stays." Hm. Reflection of something's status in popular culture, as opposed to its status as a cult classic, for instance, would surely count as evidence of notability, no?
Rob Church
On 5/5/06, Cheney Shill halliburton_shill@yahoo.com wrote:
I definitely agree with this, but Phil is right about the coverage (although not about the application of undue weight which is for NPOV determination). It seems like all this pop-culture stuff (which also includes the likes of the Britneys of the world and wrestling entertainment) could be dumped, umm, I mean reorganized, into another wiki project, such as Mediapedia, Wikipop, or WikiStuffNobodyWillCareAbout100YearsFromNow. I think it would be better, for both groups to have admins dealing with the type of content they are dedicated to and interested in. I see a lot of inactive admins and it would be interesting to see how many have decided to take an indefinite leave of absence because they spend 90% of their time dealing with content and user disputes involving articles they have no interest in.~~~~Pro-Lick
Why don't we wait 100 years before we make that determination? I mean, we already do that for things from the 1800s or whatever, and it seems unfair to impose a higher standard on current things. I am no historian, but I imagine there are many, many things that have been derided as crap or pop culture or irrelevant by the generation which produced them, but later generations gleaned greater value from them than did their creators. (Off-hand, I'm thinking of Japanese romantic tales and novels in the Heian era, and fiction in European monasteries, and penny dreadfuls. No doubt others can adduce many other examples). To wax less prolix, we aren't in a very good position to determine what the future will find notable or not; all we can hope to do is filter out a decent portion of the crap.
~maru
maru dubshinki marudubshinki@gmail.com wrote:
To wax less prolix, we aren't in a very good position to determine what the future will find notable or not; all we can hope to do is filter out a decent portion of the crap.
Nor are we in a position according to you to determine what crap is. After all, what we believe is crap today may very well to turn out to be bio-fuel or natural gas tomorrow. I'm simply setting forth one principle for determining what crap is. Besides, the real point of my recommendation in this context regarding pop-culture items (Pokemon, pop-stars, etc.) is to give them a holding place outside the encyclopedia itself that is still part of Wiki until we have better knowledge about where on the crap continuum they belong. I'm not recommending a flush, simply a split, and anything can be moved back to the encyclopedia and is of course still accessible and editable like any other Wiki content.~~~~Pro-Lick
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On 5/6/06, Cheney Shill halliburton_shill@yahoo.com wrote: Nor are we in a position according to you to determine what crap is. After all, what we believe is crap today may very well to turn out to be bio-fuel or natural gas tomorrow. I'm simply setting forth one principle for determining what crap is. Besides, the real point of my recommendation in this context regarding pop-culture items (Pokemon, pop-stars, etc.) is to give them a holding place outside the encyclopedia itself that is still part of Wiki until we have better knowledge about where on the crap continuum they belong. I'm not recommending a flush, simply a split, and anything can be moved back to the encyclopedia and is of course still accessible and editable like any other Wiki content.~~~~Pro-Lick
Not at all. We are currently in a position to judge well old stuff- I can't remember the last time someone complained about "Ancient Greek-cruft" or "Renaissance-cruft", so while we certainly are still missing notable stuff from those areas, we don't seem to have a problem keeping out the non-notable crap stuff from that area. My argument was that we should try to filter out the lower levels of horrible speedyable obvious crap that it is really unlikely anyone will ever want, and leave the non-horrible crap that isn't harming anything for later time periods to judge the finer borderline cases. There's a practice in writing which is to bang out something and get it nice, and then just leave it alone, coming back much later with a fresh mind.
~maru
On 5/6/06, maru dubshinki marudubshinki@gmail.com wrote:
Not at all. We are currently in a position to judge well old stuff- I can't remember the last time someone complained about "Ancient Greek-cruft" or "Renaissance-cruft", so while we certainly are still missing notable stuff from those areas, we don't seem to have a problem keeping out the non-notable crap stuff from that area.
I can't recall the names of the articles, but there was a series of 16th-century samurai bios up for deletion recently on the grounds that they were "non-notable retainers" ;-)
Kirill Lokshin
On 5/6/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/6/06, maru dubshinki marudubshinki@gmail.com wrote:
Not at all. We are currently in a position to judge well old stuff- I can't remember the last time someone complained about "Ancient Greek-cruft" or "Renaissance-cruft", so while we certainly are still missing notable stuff from those areas, we don't seem to have a problem keeping out the non-notable crap stuff from that area.
I can't recall the names of the articles, but there was a series of 16th-century samurai bios up for deletion recently on the grounds that they were "non-notable retainers" ;-)
Kirill Lokshin
Whoa. Just goes to show that making generalizations in a place as big as Wikipedia is a perilous business.
~maru
On Sat, 6 May 2006 12:41:33 -0400, you wrote:
I can't recall the names of the articles, but there was a series of 16th-century samurai bios up for deletion recently on the grounds that they were "non-notable retainers" ;-)
Should have stuck them on a deck of Pokemon cards, they'd have been safe as houses then.
Guy (JzG)
"Cheney Shill" wrote
Besides, the real point of my recommendation in this context regarding pop-culture items (Pokemon, pop-stars, etc.) is to give them a holding place outside the encyclopedia itself that is still part of Wiki until we have better knowledge about where on the crap continuum they belong.
I don't know that there is much to say on this topic, that has not already been said often before.
What we know works is to look at
- articles that contain reference infomation, in the sense that some class of people are going to want to refer to it - and which can be categorised clearly - and which meet some minimum standards of writing.
We have never succeeded in defining encyclopedic knowledge more directly: notability is just a minefield, and everyone knows examples from popular culture where the stuff that has the high profile is the trash and the neglected or 'cult' is going to be what lasts. Everyone is entitled to the mental shift that designates Star Wars backstory pages as off-wiki as far as they are concerned. Why should we believe that finally drawing the line on inclusion is going to be possible? It's a theoretical issue for academics, really.
Charles
The point of Wikipedia is being an encyclopedia and stuff that's popular today should be covered. I personally don't care for Star Wars and Pokemon, but others obviously do. None of us are in the position to determine what people will care for in 100 years. For all we know Pokemon will remembered as the rage of the early 21st century. We simply can't know yet. And take a look at Doctor Who. It first aired in the 1960s which means the whole thing is nearly 50 years old. Well on its way to the 100 year guideline.
My point. Just because it's a piece of pop culture you don't care about doesn't mean it should be shunned from Wikipedia. We should try to be concise and make things into summary articles, instead of scores of stubs, but moving stuff off-wiki or deleting it altogether isn't an option.
Mgm
On 5/6/06, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
"Cheney Shill" wrote
Besides, the real point of my recommendation in this context regarding pop-culture items (Pokemon, pop-stars, etc.) is to give them a holding place outside the encyclopedia itself that is still part of Wiki until
we
have better knowledge about where on the crap continuum they belong.
I don't know that there is much to say on this topic, that has not already been said often before.
What we know works is to look at
- articles that contain reference infomation, in the sense that some class
of people are going to want to refer to it
- and which can be categorised clearly
- and which meet some minimum standards of writing.
We have never succeeded in defining encyclopedic knowledge more directly: notability is just a minefield, and everyone knows examples from popular culture where the stuff that has the high profile is the trash and the neglected or 'cult' is going to be what lasts. Everyone is entitled to the mental shift that designates Star Wars backstory pages as off-wiki as far as they are concerned. Why should we believe that finally drawing the line on inclusion is going to be possible? It's a theoretical issue for academics, really.
Charles
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On Sat, 6 May 2006 14:13:06 +0200, you wrote:
The point of Wikipedia is being an encyclopedia and stuff that's popular today should be covered. I personally don't care for Star Wars and Pokemon, but others obviously do. None of us are in the position to determine what people will care for in 100 years.
This is true. So we should have an article on Pokemon. But there are articles on, for example, online games, which add pretty much nothing at all to the FAQ from the game site itself, and there are articles on Pokemon related subjects which are of no conceivable interest to anyone who is not already into Pokemon. Is that good or bad? I don't know. It does seem that there is a tendency for fans to use Wikipedia as a sort of Myspace, building vast temples to their small gods.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Sat, 6 May 2006 14:13:06 +0200, you wrote:
The point of Wikipedia is being an encyclopedia and stuff that's popular today should be covered. I personally don't care for Star Wars and Pokemon, but others obviously do. None of us are in the position to determine what people will care for in 100 years.
This is true. So we should have an article on Pokemon. But there are articles on, for example, online games, which add pretty much nothing at all to the FAQ from the game site itself, and there are articles on Pokemon related subjects which are of no conceivable interest to anyone who is not already into Pokemon. Is that good or bad? I don't know. It does seem that there is a tendency for fans to use Wikipedia as a sort of Myspace, building vast temples to their small gods.
For an example, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Endless_Online_...
On Sat, 06 May 2006 22:23:31 +0100, you wrote:
For an example, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Endless_Online_...
Dear old Yuckfoo. Always so polite, and so predictable: "keep please, this is notable". Unverifiable, yes, unsourced of course, by common consent impossible to substantiate from any reputable independent source - but *notable*. Google 1, Policy 0.
Guy (JzG)
Easier to just ignore it (if it meets our liberal criteria for notability) than to try and sort it out. Purging it would take more energy, and create more problems, than just letting it coexist. There's no workable way to do it, and the benefits of doing so seem dubious at best.
FF
On 5/6/06, Cheney Shill halliburton_shill@yahoo.com wrote:
maru dubshinki marudubshinki@gmail.com wrote:
To wax less prolix, we aren't in a very good position to determine what the future will find notable or not; all we can hope to do is filter out a decent portion of the crap.Nor are we in a position according to you to determine what crap is. After all, what we believe is crap today may very well to turn out to be bio-fuel or natural gas tomorrow. I'm simply setting forth one principle for determining what crap is. Besides, the real point of my recommendation in this context regarding pop-culture items (Pokemon, pop-stars, etc.) is to give them a holding place outside the encyclopedia itself that is still part of Wiki until we have better knowledge about where on the crap continuum they belong. I'm not recommending a flush, simply a split, and anything can be moved back to the encyclopedia and is of course still accessible and editable like any other Wiki content.~~~~Pro-Lick
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On 5/5/06, Philip Welch wikipedia@philwelch.net wrote:
Undue weight. It's absurd for Pokemon to have 10,000 times more coverage within Wikipedia as, for instance, 19th century philosophy.
Yes, but that's not "undue weight", which afaik, only applies to coverage of topics within a single article. Excessive coverage of one topic wrt another is simply {{sofixit}}...
Steve