From: "Joshua Griisser" JDGRII8338@NGCSU.EDU Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny
I'm almost speechless with rage at Jimbo's unilateral deletion of the encyclopedia article [[Brian Peppers]] - not to mention his locking (via [[User:Danny]] and [[WP:OFFICE]]) of [[Harry Reid]] for *five days*.
As I feared, userboxes have proven to be the canary in the coal mine. Now it's articlespace that is being jerked around.
Wikipedia ultimately must decide whether it wants to be Jimbo's personal fiefdom, or be "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". The two are clearly mutually exclusive at this point.
1) It's still free, isn't it?
2) Wikipedia is still an encyclopedia, isn't it? Surely you can have an encyclopedia without an article on Brian Peppers in it. Many other encyclopedias get by without such an article.
3) Anyone can still edit Wikipedia, can't they?
4) If this deletion was made "unilaterally" then who are the twenty or so other sysops who also deleted the page? Are they all Jimbo's sockpuppets?
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
- Wikipedia is still an encyclopedia, isn't it? Surely you can have
an encyclopedia without an article on Brian Peppers in it. Many other encyclopedias get by without such an article.
Nice straw man. Let's make that a new CSD while we're at it - "This article not covered in other encyclopedias."
- Anyone can still edit Wikipedia, can't they?
Not regarding Brian Peppers, apparently.
What really worries me is the bad precedent this sets. The (very condensed) facts are:
1) This article survived its last AfD. Some people voted delete, but it survived.
2) A short time later, a phony email was sent to wikipedia by someone *claiming* to be a relative of Brian Pepper. The article was immediately deleted. It was later shown that this almost undoubtedly was not sent by a relative, but by someone sending fake notes to Wikipedia and to other sites.
3) DR, AFD, mailing list arguments, wheel warring, and finally a deus ex machina ends with the article, for all practical purposes, being even more deleted than at the end of step 2.
I know there is a lot of middle stuff in part 3, and the arguments expanded well beyond the legal worries raised in 2 (although quite a few people calling for deletion continued to cite them), but it is really disheartening to to note that, in effect, a prankster just succeeded in having an article removed from Wikipedia.
- -- Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200602220819 http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8
On 2/22/06, Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com wrote:
I know there is a lot of middle stuff in part 3, and the arguments expanded well beyond the legal worries raised in 2 (although quite a few people calling for deletion continued to cite them), but it is really disheartening to to note that, in effect, a prankster just succeeded in having an article removed from Wikipedia.
That's not disheartening, we have nearly a million others. The precedent set is more of a worry, if anything.
Steve
Greg Sabino Mullane wrote: <snip>
What really worries me is the bad precedent this sets. The (very condensed) facts are:
- This article survived its last AfD. Some people voted delete, but
it survived.
- A short time later, a phony email was sent to wikipedia by someone
*claiming* to be a relative of Brian Pepper. The article was immediately deleted. It was later shown that this almost undoubtedly was not sent by a relative, but by someone sending fake notes to Wikipedia and to other sites.
- DR, AFD, mailing list arguments, wheel warring, and finally a deus
ex machina ends with the article, for all practical purposes, being even more deleted than at the end of step 2.
I know there is a lot of middle stuff in part 3, and the arguments expanded well beyond the legal worries raised in 2 (although quite a few people calling for deletion continued to cite them), but it is really disheartening to to note that, in effect, a prankster just succeeded in having an article removed from Wikipedia.
The potential for damage is greater than the amount of information we have lost. If someone really wants to find out about the guy, they can use Google. I see this as a page which if it were recreated, would most likely have to be permanantly protected to prevent the reinsertion of the material which caused it's removal in the first place.
On 2/22/06, Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com wrote:
- Wikipedia is still an encyclopedia, isn't it? Surely you can have
an encyclopedia without an article on Brian Peppers in it. Many other encyclopedias get by without such an article.
Nice straw man. Let's make that a new CSD while we're at it - "This article not covered in other encyclopedias."
I'm sorry, but you are making a straw man here. His point is that Wikipedia is still an encyclopedia, with or without a Brian Peppers article. That's patently true.
I know there is a lot of middle stuff in part 3, and the arguments expanded
well beyond the legal worries raised in 2 (although quite a few people calling for deletion continued to cite them), but it is really disheartening to to note that, in effect, a prankster just succeeded in having an article removed from Wikipedia.
A cursory review of this case seems to indicate that Jimbo didn't intend for his deletion to be the final word on the subject.
01:40, 22 February 2006 Jimbo Waleshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jimbo_Walesdeleted "Brian Peppers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Peppers" (We can live without this until 21 February 2007, and if anyone still cares by then, we can discuss it)
The page says it should not be recreated "until February 21" at the earliest. It is now February 22. I think that now is a good time to keep our [[WP:COOL]] and talk this out rather than run around screaming about how the sky is falling and how Jimbo is ruining our wiki.
Every controversial issue is going to generate many different views about how it ought to be dealt with. The important thing for all sides to remember is that (A) the views held by other people are held in good faith even if they seem wrong, so they deserve consideration and respect and (B) our own views might actually be the wrong ones, and the only way to find out whose idea is best is to discuss it calmly and rationally, without any hightened emotions or committment to proving others wrong and winning the argument. Whenever you approach another editor who has a differing view, your attitude should be "We disagree, so let's talk this out until we find out which of us is wrong so that we can both be better off".
Practically every major controversy could have been dealt with smoothly had everyone remembered these principles. I confess that I've forgotten them myself on more than one occasion. It's easy to view someone with a wrong idea as basically a vandal who is trying to destroy your precious wiki that we've worked so hard to improve. But the reality of the situation is that pretty much everyone here -- including AFD voters, userbox editors, pedophiles, and Jimbo -- is editing because they want to help make Wikipedia better. Some of them may be misguided about how to do it, but they have that fundamental good will at heart, and that means that they don't deserve to be stomped on or treated like villains. Ever.
Ryan
Ryan Delaney wrote:
The page says it should not be recreated "until February 21" at the earliest. It is now February 22. I think that now is a good time to keep our [[WP:COOL]] and talk this out rather than run around screaming about how the sky is falling and how Jimbo is ruining our wiki.
A small nitpick: note the year "2007" in Jimbo's delete summary. :)
On Feb 22, 2006, at 3:40 AM, Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
- Anyone can still edit Wikipedia, can't they?
That hasn't been true for years, if ever. Many people are blocked or banned from editing Wikipedia.