"John Lee" wrote
But recall, in this case, how would you salvage the article's content? What useful article could be made out of the content contributed?
I don't accept the framing. As far as I'm concerned, a deletion is an assertion that the topic is unwelcome. In other words that no useful stub can be made. Not that _no useful stub can be made out of the words on the page_. I'm sure we used to be better at this.
As I said, in this case we aren't working to establish whether we deserve an article on this particular topic, but whether this particular article as it stands would be a useful article at all (or could be made into one), assuming this topic should be covered. In this case, reading the original revision, I don't see how we could salvage it.
You are working with the narrow version of "salvage", basically copy-editing only. That is why I think the approach shown is blinkered. That is why I think systemic bias is the background. As I say, we used to be better at welcoming new articles as prompts to create something.
Charles
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On Thu, 8 Nov 2007 7:41:31 +0000, charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
I don't accept the framing. As far as I'm concerned, a deletion is an assertion that the topic is unwelcome. In other words that no useful stub can be made. Not that _no useful stub can be made out of the words on the page_. I'm sure we used to be better at this.
Maybe we did, back when we had fewer than two million articles and fewer than a million users, and were not a top-ten site making us an essential part of any vanity, spam or POV-pushing campaign.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Thu, 8 Nov 2007 charles.r.matthews wrote:
I don't accept the framing. As far as I'm concerned, a deletion is an assertion that the topic is unwelcome. In other words that no useful stub can be made. Not that _no useful stub can be made out of the words on the page_. I'm sure we used to be better at this.
Maybe we did, back when we had fewer than two million articles and fewer than a million users, and were not a top-ten site making us an essential part of any vanity, spam or POV-pushing campaign.
Why should our behaviour as a top-ten site change from the behaviour that got us there? The faults that you list did not suddenly spring-up when we became a top-ten site. They have all scaled up very well, but that was always predictable.
Ec
On Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:56:10 -0800, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Maybe we did, back when we had fewer than two million articles and fewer than a million users, and were not a top-ten site making us an essential part of any vanity, spam or POV-pushing campaign.
Why should our behaviour as a top-ten site change from the behaviour that got us there? The faults that you list did not suddenly spring-up when we became a top-ten site. They have all scaled up very well, but that was always predictable.
I wonder if Judd Bagley would have gone to such lengths two years ago?
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Thu, 08 Nov 2007 Ray Saintonge wrote:
Maybe we did, back when we had fewer than two million articles and fewer than a million users, and were not a top-ten site making us an essential part of any vanity, spam or POV-pushing campaign.
Why should our behaviour as a top-ten site change from the behaviour that got us there? The faults that you list did not suddenly spring-up when we became a top-ten site. They have all scaled up very well, but that was always predictable.
I wonder if Judd Bagley would have gone to such lengths two years ago?
That's what scaling is all about. If someone like Bagley is a 1 in 1,000,000 shot we can probably expect that there's another on like him around. When we were smaller we were likely completely off his radar. This doesn't mean that we don't deal with these problems when they arise. We do avoid elaborate mechanisms for catching them when the cost of those mechanisms is considerably greater than the potential damage.
Ec
On Thu, 08 Nov 2007 12:16:28 -0800, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I wonder if Judd Bagley would have gone to such lengths two years ago?
That's what scaling is all about. If someone like Bagley is a 1 in 1,000,000 shot we can probably expect that there's another on like him around. When we were smaller we were likely completely off his radar. This doesn't mean that we don't deal with these problems when they arise. We do avoid elaborate mechanisms for catching them when the cost of those mechanisms is considerably greater than the potential damage.
But is it worth the effort for a website at Alexa rank 1,386,489? I'd say not. Whereas we know form bitter past and current experience that is sure as hell is worthwhile playing the long game, doing your damndest to undermine the community and get your message across, for a top ten website.
Yes, I know that things scale, but I think the attractiveness of the target, and the prominence your message can get if you manage to weasel it in, makes the one in a million much more likely to come to Wikipedia than before.
Guy (JzG)
On Nov 8, 2007 2:41 AM, charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
"John Lee" wrote
But recall, in this case, how would you salvage the article's content?
What
useful article could be made out of the content contributed?
I don't accept the framing. As far as I'm concerned, a deletion is an assertion that the topic is unwelcome. In other words that no useful stub can be made. Not that _no useful stub can be made out of the words on the page_. I'm sure we used to be better at this.
Ah, this is where we have to agree to disagree then. Over time I think I've become much more inclusionist than I used to be, but fundamentally, I see nothing wrong with deleting useless content; to me, it's the same thing as removing useless content from an existing article. If the article is useless, and I can't write a better one which the topic deserves, then there is nothing wrong with deleting the article. What ever happened to the idea of red links encouraging article creation?
Note that I'm framing this in a context where the choice is between useless article and no article; not useless article and semi-useful stub. If it is ever at all possible for you to create a useful article, whether based on the existing content or through your own research, you ought to do that. But because we don't live in an ideal world, I see nothing wrong with excising useless content if there is no alternative.
I'm not fond of deletions based on content alone. But sometimes they are an acceptable alternative if you don't know how to write a useful stub - and in such cases, the resultant red link will inform editors that this article still needs to be written.
As I said, in this case we aren't working to establish whether we deserve an article on
this
particular topic, but whether this particular article as it stands would
be
a useful article at all (or could be made into one), assuming this topic should be covered. In this case, reading the original revision, I don't
see
how we could salvage it.
You are working with the narrow version of "salvage", basically copy-editing only. That is why I think the approach shown is blinkered. That is why I think systemic bias is the background. As I say, we used to be better at welcoming new articles as prompts to create something.
Fundamentally the idea is to build off something; if the article provides no basis for improvement (i.e. there is no fundamental difference between the article as it stands, and a blank page), then where is the prompt to create new content? I'm extremely sympathetic to systemic bias issues because I frequently confront them, but it's not an excuse to tolerate content with no use whatsoever. There are times when we should alter our standards of content to account for systemic bias, but I'm not convinced that this specific example you're citing is one of them.
Johnleemk
John Lee wrote:
Ah, this is where we have to agree to disagree then. Over time I think I've become much more inclusionist than I used to be, but fundamentally, I see nothing wrong with deleting useless content; to me, it's the same thing as removing useless content from an existing article. If the article is useless, and I can't write a better one which the topic deserves, then there is nothing wrong with deleting the article.
One difference is that the deleted content from a retained article is still available through the article's history, though it might take some digging to find it. This is not the case with deleted articles. The flaw here is the highly personalized approach to uselessness. What ever happened to the argument, "If I can't write a better article, maybe someone else can."
Ec
On Nov 8, 2007 1:47 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
John Lee wrote:
Ah, this is where we have to agree to disagree then. Over time I think
I've
become much more inclusionist than I used to be, but fundamentally, I
see
nothing wrong with deleting useless content; to me, it's the same thing
as
removing useless content from an existing article. If the article is useless, and I can't write a better one which the topic deserves, then
there
is nothing wrong with deleting the article.
One difference is that the deleted content from a retained article is still available through the article's history, though it might take some digging to find it. This is not the case with deleted articles. The flaw here is the highly personalized approach to uselessness. What ever happened to the argument, "If I can't write a better article, maybe someone else can."
What would you propose we do with this: "Chaudhury was a good man from Gujrat Pakistan having distinguished son Shujat. Shujat having God gifted qualities espacially in speaking. No one can imagin what he is speaking, people only relize about his lips." These kinds of articles are often concerning good, worthwhile subjects, but don't contain any material of use for building upon. We're better off red-linking the article to make it clear we still need something written on the subject, IMO.
Johnleemk
John Lee wrote:
On Nov 8, 2007 1:47 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
John Lee wrote:
Ah, this is where we have to agree to disagree then. Over time I think I've
become much more inclusionist than I used to be, but fundamentally, I see
nothing wrong with deleting useless content; to me, it's the same thing as
removing useless content from an existing article. If the article is useless, and I can't write a better one which the topic deserves, then there
is nothing wrong with deleting the article.
One difference is that the deleted content from a retained article is still available through the article's history, though it might take some digging to find it. This is not the case with deleted articles. The flaw here is the highly personalized approach to uselessness. What ever happened to the argument, "If I can't write a better article, maybe someone else can."
What would you propose we do with this: "Chaudhury was a good man from Gujrat Pakistan having distinguished son Shujat. Shujat having God gifted qualities espacially in speaking. No one can imagin what he is speaking, people only relize about his lips." These kinds of articles are often concerning good, worthwhile subjects, but don't contain any material of use for building upon. We're better off red-linking the article to make it clear we still need something written on the subject, IMO.
As your quote says, "No one can imagin [sic!] what he is speaking " :-)
It is indeed a skeletal stub, but it has at least three statements which are potentially factual and useful: from Gujrat Pakistan, distinguished son Shujat and gifted orator. I refrain from suggesting what he was using his lips for. The article at least suggests that he is notable within some part of Pakistan.
If some people are working on Pakistani politicians they should at least have the opportunity to try to improve this, and speedy deletion would not provide that opportunity. I would suggest AfD if I felt that the people there were clever enough to recognize when an improvement to good stub status happened.
Ec