The writer of the article makes a good point. While most of the rules for deletion can be followed by any numbskull. To determine if someone or something is notable, the people making the decision need to have at least some expetrise in the field or be able to show they did some pretty thourough research. Without a name, I can't comment on the first entry, but deleting Sonia Greene. She would at the every least be notable for being one of the few femaele publishers of her time if the author is right. Just because se was married to Lovecraft doesn't make that the only important thing about her.
Mgm
On 6/6/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.sfbg.com/printable_entry.php?entry_id=3803
- d.
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MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
The writer of the article makes a good point. While most of the rules for deletion can be followed by any numbskull. To determine if someone or something is notable, the people making the decision need to have at least some expetrise in the field or be able to show they did some pretty thourough research.
When I read the article I thought that the author was trying to repudiate the entire concept of "notability". And indeed I strongly agree with the author. In fact, even Wikipedia policy agrees with me: Notability is not and has never been a policy or rule; it's a _guideline_ - unfortunately, one that is misapplied or misinterpreted too regularly.
The relevant _policies_ we have are Verifiability, Reliable Sources, and NPOV. Neither of the two states that obscure people shouldn't have an article. Quite to the contrary, the first two seem to imply that people/things/concepts should have an article if there is enough verifiable information about them in reliable sources, _no matter_ how "unnotable" they are.
Thus, instead of stating that someone should have expertise to judge if something is "notable", I would rather state that nobody should judge anything as "notable" or "non-notable" at all. It doesn't tell you anything about whether an article should be deleted.
Timwi
Timwi wrote:
When I read the article I thought that the author was trying to repudiate the entire concept of "notability". And indeed I strongly agree with the author. In fact, even Wikipedia policy agrees with me: Notability is not and has never been a policy or rule; it's a _guideline_ - unfortunately, one that is misapplied or misinterpreted too regularly.
The relevant _policies_ we have are Verifiability, Reliable Sources, and NPOV. [...]
This brings up something that has been troubling me for months. And doubly so now that I'm handling speedy deletions and the like. What is this "notability" thing and why does it matter beyond V, RS, and NPOV?
It's especially hard for me in that I used to understand it. I used to feel that it mattered a lot. Sometimes, I can almost get it again--and then it's gone. It's very frustrating. Although I'm glad to enforce community standards when I put on my admin hat, it bothers me that I don't have a deep understanding of it.
Is there a good exposition of it somewhere beyond WP:N? Or perhaps better, an examination of it?
Thanks,
William
On Wed, June 6, 2007 9:33 am, William Pietri wrote:
It's especially hard for me in that I used to understand it. I used to feel that it mattered a lot. Sometimes, I can almost get it again--and then it's gone. It's very frustrating. Although I'm glad to enforce community standards when I put on my admin hat, it bothers me that I don't have a deep understanding of it.
Is there a good exposition of it somewhere beyond WP:N? Or perhaps better, an examination of it?
Somewhat ironically, the setup w/Wikipedia:Notability is what's probably made "notability" untenable, especially with the adoption of Uncle G's "On Notability" essay, which, while well written, completely missed the point.
Notability started out as a good way of saying "We want articles on X, but not all articles on X, so we talked about it and decided that we can have an article on this aspect of X if it does A, B, and/or C."
The new focus on sources (not entirely a bad thing) put the concept of notability into a Wikipedia-only facet for a short time, where people decided that notability wasn't what a subject did, but whether a subject was discussed in the mainstream. All well and good in theory, but it a) misunderstood notability, and b) expanded the concepts of our verifiability policy beyond what it even required.
So, at that point, even if an article's subject was verifiable, if it wasn't verifiable *enough*, it stopped being notable. And this was somehow preferable.
We've reached a tenuous stalemate of sorts at WP:N - the guideline no longer requires source counting and instead discusses the quality of coverage, while pointing people to the long-standing guidelines that actually understand notability for topics, but it's still not perfect.
As The Cunctator said, notability being abandoned for deletion purposes would probably be a great idea in theory, except that a) what do we do with non-notable material, and b) how can we keep that from being abused in terms of notable material?
-Jeff
On Wed, 06 Jun 2007 09:33:10 -0700, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
This brings up something that has been troubling me for months. And doubly so now that I'm handling speedy deletions and the like. What is this "notability" thing and why does it matter beyond V, RS, and NPOV?
It's a shorthand. Something which has verifiable, neutral, non-trivial, independent sources and rises above the level of a directory entry ([[WP:NOT]]). I recommend [[User:Uncle G/On notability]] as a way of understanding what proponents of a notability guideline think.
In the end, we are all both deletionists and inclusionists. If we did not want to include content, we would not be here but we all decide that some things are too trivial to have an article, despite the fact that they can be verified (the bus stop at the end of my road, for example, has at least three separate sources for its existence, but is utterly unremarkable in every meaningful respect).
In the differences between personal definitions of what is "too trivial" lie the great wars of AfD.
Guy (JzG)
On 11/06/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
In the end, we are all both deletionists and inclusionists.
Only if you're redefining those two terms away from how they're commonly used.
On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 14:08:39 +0100, "James Farrar" james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
In the end, we are all both deletionists and inclusionists.
Only if you're redefining those two terms away from how they're commonly used.
Not really, no. I think it's a false dichotomy. The continuum has extremes, but most people lie away from the extremes.
Guy (JzG)
On 11/06/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 14:08:39 +0100, "James Farrar" james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
In the end, we are all both deletionists and inclusionists.
Only if you're redefining those two terms away from how they're commonly used.
Not really, no. I think it's a false dichotomy. The continuum has extremes, but most people lie away from the extremes.
Right, but the terms describe the extremes. Representing those in the middle as belonging to both extremes is absurd.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512
- -----Original Message----- From: wikien-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of James Farrar Sent: Monday, June 11, 2007 10:14 AM To: English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Spam:Re: Deletionism fails to serve the readers
On 11/06/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 14:08:39 +0100, "James Farrar" james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
In the end, we are all both deletionists and inclusionists.
Only if you're redefining those two terms away from how they're commonly
used.
Not really, no. I think it's a false dichotomy. The continuum has extremes, but most people lie away from the extremes.
Right, but the terms describe the extremes. Representing those in the middle as belonging to both extremes is absurd.
I think we're getting close to playing semantics. Labeling as one or the other is likely unwise. But still in the middle, a person can sometimes act in either a deletionist or inclusionist mode. So in that sense, Guy is right.
_______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 6/11/07, J. Bryant Evans bryant40@bellsouth.net wrote:
But still in the middle, a person can sometimes act in either a deletionist or inclusionist mode. So in that sense, Guy is right.
I don't know. Can we trust people who apply "I know it when I see it" standards to AFDs rather than policy based ones like verifiability, NPOV...
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Fascinating.
—C.W.
Charlotte Webb wrote:
On 6/11/07, J. Bryant Evans wrote:
But still in the middle, a person can sometimes act in either a deletionist or inclusionist mode. So in that sense, Guy is right.
I don't know. Can we trust people who apply "I know it when I see it" standards to AFDs rather than policy based ones like verifiability, NPOV...
Life would be much easier if we could, but unfortunately it tends to be used by people who really don't know it.
Ec
On 6/11/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/06/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 14:08:39 +0100, "James Farrar" james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
In the end, we are all both deletionists and inclusionists.
Only if you're redefining those two terms away from how they're
commonly used.
Not really, no. I think it's a false dichotomy. The continuum has extremes, but most people lie away from the extremes.
Right, but the terms describe the extremes. Representing those in the middle as belonging to both extremes is absurd.
There are middle ways which is why there is such a term as mergists and that association with the incredibly long name I have an infobox for. I'm particularly careful not to fall into extremes.
Mgm
James Farrar wrote:
On 11/06/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 14:08:39 +0100, "James Farrar" wrote:
In the end, we are all both deletionists and inclusionists.
Only if you're redefining those two terms away from how they're commonly used.
Not really, no. I think it's a false dichotomy. The continuum has extremes, but most people lie away from the extremes.
Right, but the terms describe the extremes. Representing those in the middle as belonging to both extremes is absurd.
That's an extreme interpretation. While I am primarily inclusionist by temperament, that doesn't mean that there is absolutely nothing that I would not delete. I tend to regard the statement as tautological.
Ec
On 6/11/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/06/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 14:08:39 +0100, "James Farrar" james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
In the end, we are all both deletionists and inclusionists.
Only if you're redefining those two terms away from how they're commonly used.
Not really, no. I think it's a false dichotomy. The continuum has extremes, but most people lie away from the extremes.
Right, but the terms describe the extremes. Representing those in the middle as belonging to both extremes is absurd.
It's rather interesting looking at the culture. Yesterday I came across an account created to participate in AfDs.
We're all everything, which makes us nothing, and conveniently does away with all categories on Wikipedia.
KP
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
In the end, we are all both deletionists and inclusionists. If we did not want to include content, we would not be here but we all decide that some things are too trivial to have an article, despite the fact that they can be verified (the bus stop at the end of my road, for example, has at least three separate sources for its existence, but is utterly unremarkable in every meaningful respect).
In the differences between personal definitions of what is "too trivial" lie the great wars of AfD.
Fair enough, but the lack of patience and social skills by some editors also plays a big role in this. If you begin the deletion process for that bus stop by calling the contributor an idiot or innundating him with bureaucratic links you are bound to get a negative reaction. There then follows a flood of wasted debate.
If there is any expectation that the editor will be around it is worth starting a personal dialogue. If he is a flash in the pan who happened to add something on a momentary impulse and be gone in a short time, waiting a while to remove trivial but harmless material will help to avoid the most pointless arguments.
Ec
On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 09:15:33 -0700, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
If there is any expectation that the editor will be around it is worth starting a personal dialogue. If he is a flash in the pan who happened to add something on a momentary impulse and be gone in a short time, waiting a while to remove trivial but harmless material will help to avoid the most pointless arguments.
The biggest problem is single-purpose accounts, who will endlessly request deletion review of blatant spam.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 09:15:33 -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
If there is any expectation that the editor will be around it is worth starting a personal dialogue. If he is a flash in the pan who happened to add something on a momentary impulse and be gone in a short time, waiting a while to remove trivial but harmless material will help to avoid the most pointless arguments.
The biggest problem is single-purpose accounts, who will endlessly request deletion review of blatant spam.
It doesn't take long for that lot to stand out in a crowd with their evident bad faith. Blatant spam may not even be harmless. You can start by giving them the benefit of the doubt, but with a little patience the lack of doubt is soon apparent.
Ec
G'day Ray,
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 09:15:33 -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
If there is any expectation that the editor will be around it is worth starting a personal dialogue. If he is a flash in the pan who happened to add something on a momentary impulse and be gone in a short time, waiting a while to remove trivial but harmless material will help to avoid the most pointless arguments.
The biggest problem is single-purpose accounts, who will endlessly request deletion review of blatant spam.
It doesn't take long for that lot to stand out in a crowd with their evident bad faith. Blatant spam may not even be harmless. You can start by giving them the benefit of the doubt, but with a little patience the lack of doubt is soon apparent.
(I assume you meant "Blatant spam may even be harmless")
AfD and RC Patrol and Wikiproject Spam and those CVU people and so on seem to have taken a different view of spam. Remember when we had biased articles and said, "Time to rewrite this to be more neutral"? Remember when we said to those who wanted to have articles about their companies or whatnot in Wikipedia and we said, "Good authors are always welcome, just don't step out of line, punk"?
Now we say, "There's a minor chance, if I reverse the polarity of the neutron flow, that the subject of this article may approve of its presence in Wikipedia! We'd better take off and nuke the entire site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure!"
On Sun, 17 Jun 2007 15:14:56 +1000, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
AfD and RC Patrol and Wikiproject Spam and those CVU people and so on seem to have taken a different view of spam. Remember when we had biased articles and said, "Time to rewrite this to be more neutral"? Remember when we said to those who wanted to have articles about their companies or whatnot in Wikipedia and we said, "Good authors are always welcome, just don't step out of line, punk"?
Yup. You know what changed? Two million plus articles and a top ten ranking. Now we are the target of choice for vanity, spam and all manner of self-serving crap, and we are not so short of articles or editors that we get much back from the transaction.
Guy (JzG)
On 6/17/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Sun, 17 Jun 2007 15:14:56 +1000, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
AfD and RC Patrol and Wikiproject Spam and those CVU people and so on seem to have taken a different view of spam. Remember when we had biased articles and said, "Time to rewrite this to be more neutral"? Remember when we said to those who wanted to have articles about their companies or whatnot in Wikipedia and we said, "Good authors are always welcome, just don't step out of line, punk"?
Yup. You know what changed? Two million plus articles and a top ten ranking. Now we are the target of choice for vanity, spam and all manner of self-serving crap, and we are not so short of articles or editors that we get much back from the transaction.
We've always been a target for vanity, spam and all manner of self-serving crap. See BJAODN.
(Not to say that things don't change when you're in the top of nearly every Google search, just that people have feared and fretted over vandals and barbarians from day one.)
On Sun, 17 Jun 2007 18:25:19 -0400, "The Cunctator" cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
We've always been a target for vanity, spam and all manner of self-serving crap. See BJAODN. (Not to say that things don't change when you're in the top of nearly every Google search, just that people have feared and fretted over vandals and barbarians from day one.)
Difference: the reward is now greater, and with it the determination. I think people like Jason Gastrich have showed us this.
Guy (JzG)
On 6/19/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Sun, 17 Jun 2007 18:25:19 -0400, "The Cunctator" cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
We've always been a target for vanity, spam and all manner of self-serving crap. See BJAODN. (Not to say that things don't change when you're in the top of nearly every Google search, just that people have feared and fretted over vandals and barbarians from day one.)
Difference: the reward is now greater, and with it the determination. I think people like Jason Gastrich have showed us this.
Of course one of the thing that people consistently fail to recognize as they get into an arms race is that if you build walls and locks and passcodes and mazes people will find that a lot more interesting game to play than if it's just change and be changed back.
Soft Security is better than Hard Security.
The Cunctator wrote:
On 6/19/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Sun, 17 Jun 2007 18:25:19 -0400, "The Cunctator" cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
We've always been a target for vanity, spam and all manner of self-serving crap. See BJAODN. (Not to say that things don't change when you're in the top of nearly every Google search, just that people have feared and fretted over vandals and barbarians from day one.)
Difference: the reward is now greater, and with it the determination. I think people like Jason Gastrich have showed us this.
Of course one of the thing that people consistently fail to recognize as they get into an arms race is that if you build walls and locks and passcodes and mazes people will find that a lot more interesting game to play than if it's just change and be changed back.
Soft Security is better than Hard Security. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Unless people are doing it for money, and not as a game. If you were trying to rob Fort Knox, and 99% of the time you grabbed a gold bar a guard caught you and made you put it back, but 1% of the time they had their back turned and you could get away with it, and you could do this any number of times, robbing Fort Knox would become a very popular pastime indeed, lack of fun aside. So, instead, they use guards, and locks, and bars, and searchlights, and if you get caught (which you almost certainly will) you go off to jail for a long, long time.
The main problem now is not the "let's replace this article with profanity and see how long it takes someone to notice" vandals, it's the "let's try and slip a link to my site in here or an article advertising my product" ones. "Soft Security" doesn't stop those a bit, they may be getting -paid- to do that, whether they personally find it fun or not.
On 19/06/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Sun, 17 Jun 2007 18:25:19 -0400, "The Cunctator" cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
We've always been a target for vanity, spam and all manner of self-serving crap. See BJAODN. (Not to say that things don't change when you're in the top of nearly every Google search, just that people have feared and fretted over vandals and barbarians from day one.)
Difference: the reward is now greater, and with it the determination. I think people like Jason Gastrich have showed us this.
I'm not sure. I think the effect could just be numbers - i.e., there's a certain proportion of persistent nutters who just can't be told, and we get more readers, so we get more editors, so we get more nutters.
- d.
As we get bigger and bigger, the reward gets bigger and bigger as well, period. POV pushers are often able to be around for a very long time, as long as they don't vandalise. We should be much more severe against Single Purpose Accounts. I've seen people edit nothing else than one subject (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Rhode_Island_Red) and still be treated as a regular editor.
SPAs have no place in Wikipedia. Once it is noticed that 90%+ of a certain contributor's edits are on promoting one view on a subject, whether it may be well-written, sourced etc, I don't think we should tolerate this. It is SO easy to use WP to promote a particulars opinion right now.
-Salaskan
2007/6/20, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
On 19/06/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Sun, 17 Jun 2007 18:25:19 -0400, "The Cunctator" cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
We've always been a target for vanity, spam and all manner of self-serving crap. See BJAODN. (Not to say that things don't change when you're in the top of nearly every Google search, just that people have feared and fretted over vandals and barbarians from day one.)
Difference: the reward is now greater, and with it the determination. I think people like Jason Gastrich have showed us this.
I'm not sure. I think the effect could just be numbers - i.e., there's a certain proportion of persistent nutters who just can't be told, and we get more readers, so we get more editors, so we get more nutters.
- d.
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I've noticed the replies to the favorite articles question at RfA. Increasingly, even the best editors have worked almost entirely on one particular page or set of pages.
On 6/21/07, Skander - shinywater@gmail.com wrote:
As we get bigger and bigger, the reward gets bigger and bigger as well, period. POV pushers are often able to be around for a very long time, as long as they don't vandalise. We should be much more severe against Single Purpose Accounts. I've seen people edit nothing else than one subject (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Rhode_Island_Red) and still be treated as a regular editor.
SPAs have no place in Wikipedia. Once it is noticed that 90%+ of a certain contributor's edits are on promoting one view on a subject, whether it may be well-written, sourced etc, I don't think we should tolerate this. It is SO easy to use WP to promote a particulars opinion right now.
-Salaskan
2007/6/20, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
On 19/06/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Sun, 17 Jun 2007 18:25:19 -0400, "The Cunctator" cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
We've always been a target for vanity, spam and all manner of self-serving crap. See BJAODN. (Not to say that things don't change when you're in the top of nearly every Google search, just that people have feared and fretted over vandals and barbarians from day one.)
Difference: the reward is now greater, and with it the determination. I think people like Jason Gastrich have showed us this.
I'm not sure. I think the effect could just be numbers - i.e., there's a certain proportion of persistent nutters who just can't be told, and we get more readers, so we get more editors, so we get more nutters.
- d.
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On 6/21/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
I've noticed the replies to the favorite articles question at RfA. Increasingly, even the best editors have worked almost entirely on one particular page or set of pages.
It's inevitable, I suppose - as the encyclopedia grows, people specialize.
On the other hand, editing a restricted subset of pages isn't a bad thing as long as NPOV is followed.
-Matt
I have to say that the whole notion of an SPA is weird. If we had a noted expert on lichens editing, we wouldn't object to him editing solely in that field. And if we had someone who had extensively studied lesbianism in Edwardian England (a far more controversial subject) it would be reasonable for her to concentrate her efforts on such articles. There are obviously people who are on Wikipedia on A Mission, but some of those missions are appropriate, even when some people feel that they are POV (which can just mean that the current article is badly biased). It's dangerous to one's neutrality to do that, of course, but it isn't necessarily wrong.
Mark Gallagher wrote:
G'day Ray,
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 09:15:33 -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
If there is any expectation that the editor will be around it is worth starting a personal dialogue. If he is a flash in the pan who happened to add something on a momentary impulse and be gone in a short time, waiting a while to remove trivial but harmless material will help to avoid the most pointless arguments.
The biggest problem is single-purpose accounts, who will endlessly request deletion review of blatant spam.
It doesn't take long for that lot to stand out in a crowd with their evident bad faith. Blatant spam may not even be harmless. You can start by giving them the benefit of the doubt, but with a little patience the lack of doubt is soon apparent.
(I assume you meant "Blatant spam may even be harmless")
:-[
AfD and RC Patrol and Wikiproject Spam and those CVU people and so on seem to have taken a different view of spam. Remember when we had biased articles and said, "Time to rewrite this to be more neutral"? Remember when we said to those who wanted to have articles about their companies or whatnot in Wikipedia and we said, "Good authors are always welcome, just don't step out of line, punk"?
This nostalgia brings tears to one's eyes.
A few days ago in this list someone made reference to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#Unusual_univers... I sometimes wonder what drives the anti-spam attitude of some people; they seem to have lost all ability to recognize the stuff. It suggests a kind of insular or siege mentality that regards anything from beyond their narrow world as some kind of hostile inroads. If this were happening only on Wikipedia it would be bad enough, but it strikes me as though some deeper social dynamics are at work. These are reflected in the distant but over-protective ways in which some children are raised, and those effects may only become visible in Wikipedia 15 to 20 years from now.
Now we say, "There's a minor chance, if I reverse the polarity of the neutron flow, that the subject of this article may approve of its presence in Wikipedia! We'd better take off and nuke the entire site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure!"
Reversing the polarity at the receiving end, without consulting those at the transmitting end could conceivably have a ballistic effect on the communications links.
Ec
On 6/11/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
I recommend [[User:Uncle G/On notability]] as a way of understanding what proponents of a notability guideline think.
Not all proponents of "notability" guidelines are as rational and intelligent as Uncle G. Not by a long shot.
—C.W.
On Mon, June 11, 2007 12:34 pm, Charlotte Webb wrote:
On 6/11/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
I recommend [[User:Uncle G/On notability]] as a way of understanding what proponents of a notability guideline think.
Not all proponents of "notability" guidelines are as rational and intelligent as Uncle G. Not by a long shot.
It's also worth noting that this essay has very little support in the community, with many noting that it doesn't appear to actually address notability in a realistic way.
-Jeff
On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 12:54:14 -0700 (PDT), "Jeff Raymond" jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
On Mon, June 11, 2007 12:34 pm, Charlotte Webb wrote:
On 6/11/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
I recommend [[User:Uncle G/On notability]] as a way of understanding what proponents of a notability guideline think.
Not all proponents of "notability" guidelines are as rational and intelligent as Uncle G. Not by a long shot.
It's also worth noting that this essay has very little support in the community, with many noting that it doesn't appear to actually address notability in a realistic way.
For values of "very little support" which amount to "this is what most notability deletions boil down to". Sorry, Jeff, but your understanding of consensus and community support has by now been demonstrated to be distinctly idiosyncratic.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
For values of "very little support" which amount to "this is what most notability deletions boil down to". Sorry, Jeff, but your understanding of consensus and community support has by now been demonstrated to be distinctly idiosyncratic.
Which is why the essay isn't mentioned anywhere but in Uncle G's userspace.
Yup, sounds about right.
-Jeff
On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 18:41:48 -0400, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
For values of "very little support" which amount to "this is what most notability deletions boil down to". Sorry, Jeff, but your understanding of consensus and community support has by now been demonstrated to be distinctly idiosyncratic.
Which is why the essay isn't mentioned anywhere but in Uncle G's userspace.
And [[WP:N]]. But that's missing the point. It describes what is done at AfD and why, pretty much.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
And [[WP:N]]. But that's missing the point. It describes what is done at AfD and why, pretty much.
As a small essay promoting one rejected point of view.
And no, it doesn't, but that will come around soon enough.
-Jeff
On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 20:05:29 -0400, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
As a small essay promoting one rejected point of view.
For some values of rejected. I think you must by now have realised that your inclusion standards are well off in the long tail.
Guy (JzG)
On 6/12/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 20:05:29 -0400, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
As a small essay promoting one rejected point of view.
For some values of rejected. I think you must by now have realised that your inclusion standards are well off in the long tail.
I don't think so. He is relatively focused on not seeing more articles unnecessarily deleted, but not really an extremist.
Guy (JzG)
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
On Tue, June 12, 2007 7:07 am, Gabe Johnson wrote:
On 6/12/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 20:05:29 -0400, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
As a small essay promoting one rejected point of view.
For some values of rejected. I think you must by now have realised that your inclusion standards are well off in the long tail.
I don't think so. He is relatively focused on not seeing more articles unnecessarily deleted, but not really an extremist.
Indeed. While what I want and what I accept are different, my standards for discussion's sake are hardly extreme, simply strongly bonded to policy.
Compare that to, say, Guy's nomination of [[Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon]] for deletion.
-Jeff
I'm finding that I'm spending most of my time on Wikipedia either editing articles that get deleted, or someone tries to delete, or fighting the deletion of an article.
Let's just say it's dramatically reducing my enjoyment of contributing to Wikipedia.
On 6/6/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.sfbg.com/printable_entry.php?entry_id=3803
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Add-on -- people should give up on the notability excuse for deletion.
On 6/6/07, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
I'm finding that I'm spending most of my time on Wikipedia either editing articles that get deleted, or someone tries to delete, or fighting the deletion of an article.
Let's just say it's dramatically reducing my enjoyment of contributing to Wikipedia.
On 6/6/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.sfbg.com/printable_entry.php?entry_id=3803
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 06/06/07, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
Add-on -- people should give up on the notability excuse for deletion.
A thought that struck me whilst I was ranting angrily the other day.
We go to a deletion debate, and say "keep, notable" (or vice versa). Is the unspoken rider to that:
a) "keep, notable [and thus we are permitted to have an article on this topic]" b) "keep, notable [and thus we are entitled to have an article on this topic]" c) "keep, notable [and thus we *ought* to have an article on this topic]"
(and conversely for "delete, not notable")
On 6/6/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 06/06/07, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
Add-on -- people should give up on the notability excuse for deletion.
A thought that struck me whilst I was ranting angrily the other day.
We go to a deletion debate, and say "keep, notable" (or vice versa). Is the unspoken rider to that:
a) "keep, notable [and thus we are permitted to have an article on this topic]" b) "keep, notable [and thus we are entitled to have an article on this topic]" c) "keep, notable [and thus we *ought* to have an article on this topic]"
(and conversely for "delete, not notable")
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
Oftentimes I'm voting keep because the nominator FOR deletion didn't bother to offer a real and valid reason it should be deleted. This did lead to a couple of articles being kept that I felt should be deleted, but I'm not giving the deletionists any ground.
Sometimes I really don't know whether or not an article should be kept, even after I've done research (which is never done by the deletionists), or even when it's an article on a topic in my area. If it's an area I know, and the deletionist doesn't even know what the article is about, why are they nominating it for deletion in the first place?
Other times it is clear to me than an article should be kept ([[Rock climbing]], my all time favorite deletionist nomination) or not.
I think AfD and CfD are a waste of time and controlled entirely by deletionist who are changing Wikipedia's way of doing things without community support (particularly in the case of CfD where everything is being moved from categories to lists by deletionists who can't explain what either a category or list is or does).
KP
On 6/6/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
If... the deletionist doesn't even know what the article is about, why are they nominating it for deletion in the first place?
You have just answered your own question.
—C.W.
On Wed, June 6, 2007 9:17 am, The Cunctator wrote:
I'm finding that I'm spending most of my time on Wikipedia either editing articles that get deleted, or someone tries to delete, or fighting the deletion of an article.
Let's just say it's dramatically reducing my enjoyment of contributing to Wikipedia.
I'd say it was a good year of my service to Wikipedia at one point. I stopped getting into it as much when things seemed to finally settle down, but it's been heating up more and more lately, even before the BLP lunacy set in.
-Jeff
On 0, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com scribbled:
http://www.sfbg.com/printable_entry.php?entry_id=3803
- d.
"And then, while I was at it, I re-created another entry recently deleted for not being notable enough — that of Sonia Greene, a pulp fiction writer and publisher of the 1920s who was briefly married to H.P. Lovecraft. Of all the insulting things to have happen, her entry had been erased, and people searching for her were redirected to an entry on Lovecraft. How's that for you, future scholars? Looking for information about a minor pulp fiction writer? Too bad she's not notable — but we can redirect you to an entry on a guy she was married to for two years. (A guy, I might add, who pissed her off so much that she burned all his letters when they divorced.) Yuck."
Dammit, I *hate* it when people mis-characterize the [[Sonia Greene]] thing. Like I told the Wired guy as well, Valrith didn't blank and redirect to H. P. Lovecraft because Sonia wasn't notable, he did it because the entire article was a tissue of multiple copyvios and there wasn't any material to be preserved or anything else that could be done (neither he nor I were Greene experts).
-- Gwern Inquiring minds want to know.
Who is this "Wired guy" you told? I'm the person who wrote about Sonia Greene on Wired. Are you talking about me?
If the problem was copyvio, then why were readers redirected to H.P. Lovecraft? Shouldn't the article have just have been left blank? I remain convinced that there's something a little heinous about blanking out a writer's page and then redirecting people to the page of a guy she was married to for two years. Seems like it doesn't serve the community very well at all, because it makes it appear that Wikipedia considers Greene important only because she's an appendage of HP Lovecraft.
Think of it this way: if you found copyvio problems in the page of William Wordsworth, would you blank it and redirect readers to the page of his sister Dorothy Wordsworth? Probably not. You'd blank it, list the reason as copyvio, and hope that somebody would come along and write something original. That's what should have been done with Sonia Greene too.
Annalee
Gwern Branwen wrote:
On 0, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com scribbled:
http://www.sfbg.com/printable_entry.php?entry_id=3803
- d.
"And then, while I was at it, I re-created another entry recently deleted for not being notable enough — that of Sonia Greene, a pulp fiction writer and publisher of the 1920s who was briefly married to H.P. Lovecraft. Of all the insulting things to have happen, her entry had been erased, and people searching for her were redirected to an entry on Lovecraft. How's that for you, future scholars? Looking for information about a minor pulp fiction writer? Too bad she's not notable — but we can redirect you to an entry on a guy she was married to for two years. (A guy, I might add, who pissed her off so much that she burned all his letters when they divorced.) Yuck."
Dammit, I *hate* it when people mis-characterize the [[Sonia Greene]] thing. Like I told the Wired guy as well, Valrith didn't blank and redirect to H. P. Lovecraft because Sonia wasn't notable, he did it because the entire article was a tissue of multiple copyvios and there wasn't any material to be preserved or anything else that could be done (neither he nor I were Greene experts).
-- Gwern Inquiring minds want to know.
On 6/6/07, Annalee Newitz annalee@techsploitation.com wrote:
Who is this "Wired guy" you told? I'm the person who wrote about Sonia Greene on Wired. Are you talking about me?
If the problem was copyvio, then why were readers redirected to H.P. Lovecraft? Shouldn't the article have just have been left blank? I remain convinced that there's something a little heinous about blanking out a writer's page and then redirecting people to the page of a guy she was married to for two years.
Redirects are commonly used to handle topics that don't (yet) merit their own page but are covered somewhere else.
They're a bit overused, but the Sonia Greene article was not deleted. Redirects are almost invariably considered preferable to blank entries.
For a number of what I hope should be obvious reasons, many people don't like leaving blank entries on Wikipedia.
I sympathize with your preference for blank pages, being something of an atomist as opposed to an agglomerationist, but it's just not the Wikipedia way.
Think of it this way: if you found copyvio problems in the page of
William Wordsworth, would you blank it and redirect readers to the page of his sister Dorothy Wordsworth?
If Dorothy Wordsworth were considerably more famous than William Wordsworth, then yes.
You seem to be seeing this through a gender-relations lens. I hope I'm incorrect.
Please believe me; I've been through battles about whether or not less-famous people should get their own entries or just exist as redirects. As is standard on the internets, you're not discovering a new issue. It's been hashed out.
I would have been more irked if content had been deleted, and I LOVE supporters fighting the system, but you seem to have been having some classic newbie troubles.
Which implies that the help system/documentation should be better. I certainly am willing to believe that.
On 6/6/07, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
On 0, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com scribbled:
http://www.sfbg.com/printable_entry.php?entry_id=3803
- d.
"And then, while I was at it, I re-created another entry recently deleted for not being notable enough — that of Sonia Greene, a pulp fiction writer and publisher of the 1920s who was briefly married to H.P. Lovecraft. Of all the insulting things to have happen, her entry had been erased, and people searching for her were redirected to an entry on Lovecraft. How's that for you, future scholars? Looking for information about a minor pulp fiction writer? Too bad she's not notable — but we can redirect you to an entry on a guy she was married to for two years. (A guy, I might add, who pissed her off so much that she burned all his letters when they divorced.) Yuck."
Dammit, I *hate* it when people mis-characterize the [[Sonia Greene]] thing. Like I told the Wired guy as well, Valrith didn't blank and redirect to H. P. Lovecraft because Sonia wasn't notable, he did it because the entire article was a tissue of multiple copyvios and there wasn't any material to be preserved or anything else that could be done (neither he nor I were Greene experts).
-- Gwern Inquiring minds want to know.
This is quite common on AfD, though, that articles are deleted because they are too short or stubs. Truthfully, I doubt there are many other editors who are deleting stuff to make sure they are too short then nominating them for deletion, but there are organism and botany articles that I have written or watch that are a single line of text. Was there really no material to preserve after the copy vios were deleted? Could folks who edit pulp fiction have been asked? Could it have been left alone after the copy vios were deleted if you simply didn't know enough about the topic?
KP
On 0, K P kpbotany@gmail.com scribbled:
This is quite common on AfD, though, that articles are deleted because they are too short or stubs. Truthfully, I doubt there are many other editors who are deleting stuff to make sure they are too short then nominating them for deletion, but there are organism and botany articles that I have written or watch that are a single line of text. Was there really no material to preserve after the copy vios were deleted? Could folks who edit pulp fiction have been asked? Could it have been left alone after the copy vios were deleted if you simply didn't know enough about the topic?
KP
1) I didn't see anything - the H.P. Lovecraft was literally more comprehensive than any non-copyvio stuff. (Besides, wouldn't the non-copyvio stuff be tainted as a derivative work?) 2) I don't know anyone who works on pulp fiction. I know of a Fiction WikiProject, but that's about it. 3) As a blank page or sub-stub at best, I guess. Doesn't sound appealing.
-- Gwern Inquiring minds want to know.
Gwern Branwen schreef:
On 0, K P kpbotany@gmail.com scribbled:
Could it have been left alone after the copy vios were deleted if you simply didn't know enough about the topic?
- As a blank page or sub-stub at best, I guess. Doesn't sound appealing.
Blank pages are easier to edit for new contributors, who might be knowledgeable about the subject, but not about wiki-formatting, than redirects. If you suspected that the person might be notable, but that the article was a copy-vio, a blank page would probably have been better.
(On the other hand: since anonymous page creation was switched off, perhaps substubs are even more desirable.)
If the copyvio did not suggest that it would be desirable to have a page on the subject, redirects are of course fine.
Eugene
On 0, Eugene van der Pijll eugene@vanderpijll.nl scribbled:
Gwern Branwen schreef:
On 0, K P kpbotany@gmail.com scribbled:
Could it have been left alone after the copy vios were deleted if you simply didn't know enough about the topic?
- As a blank page or sub-stub at best, I guess. Doesn't sound appealing.
Blank pages are easier to edit for new contributors, who might be knowledgeable about the subject, but not about wiki-formatting, than redirects. If you suspected that the person might be notable, but that the article was a copy-vio, a blank page would probably have been better.
That's possible. I suspect you may be overestimating the competency/boldness of new contributors - if they see a blank page, for what reason would they think "This is a blank page, and I should obviously write something in it" and not "Hmm. Can one *really* edit? How the heck does one edit anyway?", "Uh-oh. Looks like some vandalism or something special going on here. Better stay away since I don't understand what's going on and why there isn't a stub or *anything at all*, not even a nice stub template encouraging me to contribute.", or even "Huh. Looks like a bug." Forgive my skepticism, but my days on Helpdesk-l taught me not to demand or expect too much of new people.
(On the other hand: since anonymous page creation was switched off, perhaps substubs are even more desirable.)
If the copyvio did not suggest that it would be desirable to have a page on the subject, redirects are of course fine.
Eugene
-- Gwern Inquiring minds want to know.
Eugene van der Pijll wrote:
Gwern Branwen schreef:
On 0, K P kpbotany@gmail.com scribbled:
Could it have been left alone after the copy vios were deleted if you simply didn't know enough about the topic?
- As a blank page or sub-stub at best, I guess. Doesn't sound appealing.
Blank pages are easier to edit for new contributors, who might be knowledgeable about the subject, but not about wiki-formatting, than redirects. If you suspected that the person might be notable, but that the article was a copy-vio, a blank page would probably have been better.
(On the other hand: since anonymous page creation was switched off, perhaps substubs are even more desirable.)
If the copyvio did not suggest that it would be desirable to have a page on the subject, redirects are of course fine.
One thing to consider is that notability and copyvio are separate issues. If both apply both need to be mentioned from the beginning. If an article passes the notability test, and it's only then that the copyvio issue is raised, especially by the same person it begins to look like that person is looking for an excuse to get rid of an article he doesn't like.
The other matter that arises from this is what is meant by a "suspected" copyvio. The very least that a person making a copyvio allegation should be doing is saying exactly what is being violated. Simply saying that the contributor cannot write well enough to say things that way is not evidence of a copyvio. Anything else leaves the contributor in the impossible position of trying to prove that something doesn't exist.
Ec
On 6/6/07, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
On 0, K P kpbotany@gmail.com scribbled:
This is quite common on AfD, though, that articles are deleted because they are too short or stubs. Truthfully, I doubt there are many other editors who are deleting stuff to make sure they are too short then nominating them for deletion, but there are organism and botany articles that I have written or watch that are a single line of text. Was there really no material to preserve after the copy vios were deleted? Could folks who edit pulp fiction have been asked? Could it have been left alone after the copy vios were deleted if you simply didn't know enough about the topic?
KP
- I didn't see anything - the H.P. Lovecraft was literally more comprehensive than any non-copyvio stuff. (Besides, wouldn't the non-copyvio stuff be tainted as a derivative work?)
- I don't know anyone who works on pulp fiction. I know of a Fiction WikiProject, but that's about it.
- As a blank page or sub-stub at best, I guess. Doesn't sound appealing.
-- Gwern Inquiring minds want to know.
I see lots of ways around this, like popping a sentence in the article, or asking the Lovecraft editors to look it over, or a dozen other things that would have taken less collective Wikipedia work than an AfD.
Another problem, imo, is that there ARE deletionists. That's why SCA and Rock climbing get nominated in the first place, and many other credible topics, simply because some editors are looking for something to delete. Then we get nominations like idon'tknowanythingaboutitsoitcan'tbenotable..
There is seldom a single nomination among the ones I look at that is compliant with AfD procedures--they're nominated for the wrong reasons, they're nominated by people who don't know anything about the topic, they're nominated because they're stubs (stubs aren't disallowed on Wikipedia), they're nominated because the nominator thinks it might not be notalbe (it is Articles For Deletion).
It is frustrating, and it's degenerating and getting worse.
KP
On 0, K P kpbotany@gmail.com scribbled:
On 6/6/07, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
On 0, K P kpbotany@gmail.com scribbled:
This is quite common on AfD, though, that articles are deleted because they are too short or stubs. Truthfully, I doubt there are many other editors who are deleting stuff to make sure they are too short then nominating them for deletion, but there are organism and botany articles that I have written or watch that are a single line of text. Was there really no material to preserve after the copy vios were deleted? Could folks who edit pulp fiction have been asked? Could it have been left alone after the copy vios were deleted if you simply didn't know enough about the topic?
KP
- I didn't see anything - the H.P. Lovecraft was literally more comprehensive than any non-copyvio stuff. (Besides, wouldn't the non-copyvio stuff be tainted as a derivative work?)
- I don't know anyone who works on pulp fiction. I know of a Fiction WikiProject, but that's about it.
- As a blank page or sub-stub at best, I guess. Doesn't sound appealing.
-- Gwern Inquiring minds want to know.
I see lots of ways around this, like popping a sentence in the article, or asking the Lovecraft editors to look it over, or a dozen other things that would have taken less collective Wikipedia work than an AfD.
Another problem, imo, is that there ARE deletionists. That's why SCA and Rock climbing get nominated in the first place, and many other credible topics, simply because some editors are looking for something to delete. Then we get nominations like idon'tknowanythingaboutitsoitcan'tbenotable..
There is seldom a single nomination among the ones I look at that is compliant with AfD procedures--they're nominated for the wrong reasons, they're nominated by people who don't know anything about the topic, they're nominated because they're stubs (stubs aren't disallowed on Wikipedia), they're nominated because the nominator thinks it might not be notalbe (it is Articles For Deletion).
It is frustrating, and it's degenerating and getting worse.
KP
There's something I don't understand about your recent emails. You keep mentioning AfDs and listing things which would've been easier than an AfD, but I can't figure out what an AfD has to do with matters - there was never an AfD associated with Sonia Greene, just a redirection (which is certainly easier than an AfD, I am not disputing :).
-- Gwern Inquiring minds want to know.
On 6/6/07, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
On 0, K P kpbotany@gmail.com scribbled:
On 6/6/07, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
On 0, K P kpbotany@gmail.com scribbled:
This is quite common on AfD, though, that articles are deleted because they are too short or stubs. Truthfully, I doubt there are many other editors who are deleting stuff to make sure they are too short then nominating them for deletion, but there are organism and botany articles that I have written or watch that are a single line of text. Was there really no material to preserve after the copy vios were deleted? Could folks who edit pulp fiction have been asked? Could it have been left alone after the copy vios were deleted if you simply didn't know enough about the topic?
KP
- I didn't see anything - the H.P. Lovecraft was literally more comprehensive than any non-copyvio stuff. (Besides, wouldn't the non-copyvio stuff be tainted as a derivative work?)
- I don't know anyone who works on pulp fiction. I know of a Fiction WikiProject, but that's about it.
- As a blank page or sub-stub at best, I guess. Doesn't sound appealing.
-- Gwern Inquiring minds want to know.
I see lots of ways around this, like popping a sentence in the article, or asking the Lovecraft editors to look it over, or a dozen other things that would have taken less collective Wikipedia work than an AfD.
Another problem, imo, is that there ARE deletionists. That's why SCA and Rock climbing get nominated in the first place, and many other credible topics, simply because some editors are looking for something to delete. Then we get nominations like idon'tknowanythingaboutitsoitcan'tbenotable..
There is seldom a single nomination among the ones I look at that is compliant with AfD procedures--they're nominated for the wrong reasons, they're nominated by people who don't know anything about the topic, they're nominated because they're stubs (stubs aren't disallowed on Wikipedia), they're nominated because the nominator thinks it might not be notalbe (it is Articles For Deletion).
It is frustrating, and it's degenerating and getting worse.
KP
There's something I don't understand about your recent emails. You keep mentioning AfDs and listing things which would've been easier than an AfD, but I can't figure out what an AfD has to do with matters - there was never an AfD associated with Sonia Greene, just a redirection (which is certainly easier than an AfD, I am not disputing :).
-- Gwern Inquiring minds want to know.
The title of this thread is "Deletionism fails to serve the readers" Not "Redirectionists fail to serve readers."
Again, like all the folks who tell me Aritcles FOR Deletion isn't about deletion, I get confused when titles say one thing and content is supposed to be something else I'm not necessarily privy to. I assumed it was posted as another example in response to the thread about deletionists--again, using the title of the thread as a clue.
KP
It's not quite that bad: I find that about 80% of the articles that I know enough to tell and think ought to be kept are kept, and another 10% are debatable. 90% is doing rather well, by WP standards. The ones that get unfarly deleted are primarily the passable ones that nobody care to defend or improve, and I see no way to have a process that will protect in such cases. What we can do: 1/ is prohibit placing an article on Afd without notifying every editpr who has been substantially involved-- and similarly on sfd--everyone who has used a category or a template, or commented in a discussion on them.This can be done by a bot. 2/ prohibit nominating an article unless one has made at least a preliminary search, and found nothing usable--with a report of the search and a link to the results. 3/ to find a way to indicate approval of short articles. 4/ to prohibit placing a second AfD within at least 6 months after a keep decision and 3 after a no consensus, unless new negative evidence can be demonstrated at Deletion Review, and then to require individual notice to everyone present at the first AfD 5/ To require continuing the debate if fewer than 5 WPedians have participated; after two additional periods, to automatically make the closure no consensus 6/ to automatically restore history for examination on request to anyone who asks, and to the entire community during an XfD* 7/ to prohibit speedies during the discussion except by the concurrance of 2 admins. Everything that gets there should stay the full time.This will apply to speedy keeps too--those stupid enough to nominate them wil have their work visible. 8/ to track those repeatedly proposing deletions that are rejected, and display the results. 9/ to track those making closures overthrown at Deletion Review, and to post the results. 10/ to change the time period to 8 days to accomodate less frequent editors. and involving other processes: 11. that in cases of proven copyvio only the copyvio material be removed. If this leaves a page empty, that's a separate step. 12. The relevant parts of these provisions apply to speedies and prods as well, *with exceptions of true cases of blatant copyright violation, BLP, or other specific harm to individuals. The level of this should be the level required for office actions or oversight. I know a few of these have been rejected at various times.
This still leaves the basic problem of which KP complains--uninformed editors and stupid actions. Those will always be with us.
DGG
On 6/6/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/6/07, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
On 0, K P kpbotany@gmail.com scribbled:
This is quite common on AfD, though, that articles are deleted because they are too short or stubs. Truthfully, I doubt there are many other editors who are deleting stuff to make sure they are too short then nominating them for deletion, but there are organism and botany articles that I have written or watch that are a single line of text. Was there really no material to preserve after the copy vios were deleted? Could folks who edit pulp fiction have been asked? Could it have been left alone after the copy vios were deleted if you simply didn't know enough about the topic?
KP
- I didn't see anything - the H.P. Lovecraft was literally more comprehensive than any non-copyvio stuff. (Besides, wouldn't the non-copyvio stuff be tainted as a derivative work?)
- I don't know anyone who works on pulp fiction. I know of a Fiction WikiProject, but that's about it.
- As a blank page or sub-stub at best, I guess. Doesn't sound appealing.
-- Gwern Inquiring minds want to know.
I see lots of ways around this, like popping a sentence in the article, or asking the Lovecraft editors to look it over, or a dozen other things that would have taken less collective Wikipedia work than an AfD.
Another problem, imo, is that there ARE deletionists. That's why SCA and Rock climbing get nominated in the first place, and many other credible topics, simply because some editors are looking for something to delete. Then we get nominations like idon'tknowanythingaboutitsoitcan'tbenotable..
There is seldom a single nomination among the ones I look at that is compliant with AfD procedures--they're nominated for the wrong reasons, they're nominated by people who don't know anything about the topic, they're nominated because they're stubs (stubs aren't disallowed on Wikipedia), they're nominated because the nominator thinks it might not be notalbe (it is Articles For Deletion).
It is frustrating, and it's degenerating and getting worse.
KP
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On 6/6/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
It's not quite that bad: I find that about 80% of the articles that I know enough to tell and think ought to be kept are kept, and another 10% are debatable. 90% is doing rather well, by WP standards. The ones that get unfarly deleted are primarily the passable ones that nobody care to defend or improve, and I see no way to have a process that will protect in such cases. What we can do: 1/ is prohibit placing an article on Afd without notifying every editpr who has been substantially involved-- and similarly on sfd--everyone who has used a category or a template, or commented in a discussion on them.This can be done by a bot. 2/ prohibit nominating an article unless one has made at least a preliminary search, and found nothing usable--with a report of the search and a link to the results. 3/ to find a way to indicate approval of short articles. 4/ to prohibit placing a second AfD within at least 6 months after a keep decision and 3 after a no consensus, unless new negative evidence can be demonstrated at Deletion Review, and then to require individual notice to everyone present at the first AfD 5/ To require continuing the debate if fewer than 5 WPedians have participated; after two additional periods, to automatically make the closure no consensus 6/ to automatically restore history for examination on request to anyone who asks, and to the entire community during an XfD* 7/ to prohibit speedies during the discussion except by the concurrance of 2 admins. Everything that gets there should stay the full time.This will apply to speedy keeps too--those stupid enough to nominate them wil have their work visible. 8/ to track those repeatedly proposing deletions that are rejected, and display the results. 9/ to track those making closures overthrown at Deletion Review, and to post the results. 10/ to change the time period to 8 days to accomodate less frequent editors. and involving other processes: 11. that in cases of proven copyvio only the copyvio material be removed. If this leaves a page empty, that's a separate step. 12. The relevant parts of these provisions apply to speedies and prods as well, *with exceptions of true cases of blatant copyright violation, BLP, or other specific harm to individuals. The level of this should be the level required for office actions or oversight. I know a few of these have been rejected at various times.
This still leaves the basic problem of which KP complains--uninformed editors and stupid actions. Those will always be with us.
DGG
That's what you get when "Anybody can edit." But you also get something else, you get some damn fine articles.
3/ to find a way to indicate approval of short articles.
I have a hard time understanding why people think that "short" is a deletion criterion. I've created a good number of one-liner articles, and have never had a single article I've created put up for AfD--even my first one created almost as soon as I joined, when I a totally new editor, with a red-linked user and user-talk page, was only edited for style by another editor.
This is becoming one of my bigger pieves, the "too short" deletionists, second to the mysterious demand that titles not be what they are.
The first time I edited Wikipedia, by the way, people kept refering me to an article's talk page. I coudn't find it for the life of me, because the tab is called "Discussion." This drives me crazy--what's the point? To confuse folks who speak ESL?
It's rampant on Wikipedia, Jeff.
KP
K P wrote:
The first time I edited Wikipedia, by the way, people kept refering me to an article's talk page. I coudn't find it for the life of me, because the tab is called "Discussion." This drives me crazy--what's the point? To confuse folks who speak ESL?
An interesting point about something that most of us take for granted.
Ec
On 6/6/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
It's not quite that bad: I find that about 80% of the articles that I know enough to tell and think ought to be kept are kept, and another 10% are debatable. 90% is doing rather well, by WP standards. The ones that get unfarly deleted are primarily the passable ones that nobody care to defend or improve, and I see no way to have a process that will protect in such cases. What we can do: 1/ is prohibit placing an article on Afd without notifying every editpr who has been substantially involved-- and similarly on sfd--everyone who has used a category or a template, or commented in a discussion on them.This can be done by a bot.
Good idea, and already encouraged, but this should be made firmer.
2/ prohibit nominating an article unless one has made at least a preliminary search, and found nothing usable--with a report of the search and a link to the results.
Yes, but you won't find everything on Google.
3/ to find a way to indicate approval of short articles.
I don't exactly understand what this menas, can you elaborate or give examples?
4/ to prohibit placing a second AfD within at least 6 months after a keep decision and 3 after a no consensus, unless new negative evidence can be demonstrated at Deletion Review, and then to require individual notice to everyone present at the first AfD
Heck yes, but maybe shorten the periods *a bit*. But this is *desperately needed*. Also, we might need to make some exceptions for "messy" AFD's, like ones that are a mess of open proxies and sockpuppets.
5/ To require continuing the debate if fewer than 5 WPedians have participated; after two additional periods, to automatically make the closure no consensus
First part is already done; I have never seen a situation where the second part would be used, but I don't think it could hurt.
6/ to automatically restore history for examination on request to anyone who asks, and to the entire community during an XfD*
Yes, but isn''t it already there during an XFD? Perhaps you meant DRV?
7/ to prohibit speedies during the discussion except by the concurrance of 2 admins. Everything that gets there should stay the full time.This will apply to speedy keeps too--those stupid enough to nominate them wil have their work visible.
Yeah, ok, but you won't have trouble finding 2 admins.
8/ to track those repeatedly proposing deletions that are rejected, and display the results.
Good idea, but how so?
9/ to track those making closures overthrown at Deletion Review, and to post the results.
Possibly, but maybe have that more as a warning to them personally.
10/ to change the time period to 8 days to accomodate less frequent editors. and involving other processes:
I think more like seven...
- that in cases of proven copyvio only the copyvio material be
removed. If this leaves a page empty, that's a separate step.
This should be done already. I think.
- The relevant parts of these provisions apply to speedies and prods as well,
*with exceptions of true cases of blatant copyright violation, BLP, or other specific harm to individuals. The level of this should be the level required for office actions or oversight.
Yes. That would be necessary.
I know a few of these have been rejected at various times.
So propose them, and link to the discussion-- I know I'll support most of it.
This still leaves the basic problem of which KP complains--uninformed editors and stupid actions. Those will always be with us.
Unfortunately, yes. ~~~~
DGG
On 6/6/07, Gabe Johnson gjzilla@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/6/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
It's not quite that bad: I find that about 80% of the articles that I know enough to tell and think ought to be kept are kept, and another 10% are debatable. 90% is doing rather well, by WP standards. The ones that get unfarly deleted are primarily the passable ones that nobody care to defend or improve, and I see no way to have a process that will protect in such cases.
Another suggestion -- allow people to blank the content of such entries, instead of deleting them.
Gwern Branwen wrote:
On 0, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com scribbled:
http://www.sfbg.com/printable_entry.php?entry_id=3803
- d.
"And then, while I was at it, I re-created another entry recently deleted for not being notable enough — that of Sonia Greene, a pulp fiction writer and publisher of the 1920s who was briefly married to H.P. Lovecraft. Of all the insulting things to have happen, her entry had been erased, and people searching for her were redirected to an entry on Lovecraft. How's that for you, future scholars? Looking for information about a minor pulp fiction writer? Too bad she's not notable — but we can redirect you to an entry on a guy she was married to for two years. (A guy, I might add, who pissed her off so much that she burned all his letters when they divorced.) Yuck."
Dammit, I *hate* it when people mis-characterize the [[Sonia Greene]] thing. Like I told the Wired guy as well, Valrith didn't blank and redirect to H. P. Lovecraft because Sonia wasn't notable, he did it because the entire article was a tissue of multiple copyvios and there wasn't any material to be preserved or anything else that could be done (neither he nor I were Greene experts).
-- Gwern Inquiring minds want to know.
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Now, don't go confusing the situation with facts. It's those evil deletionists at work. Why, we'd probably delete the Lovecraft article too if they'd let us get away with it.
Folks, -cutting is a normal part of the editorial process-. It's part of what good editors do. Does that mean it's always tremendously pleasant to watch a proofreader read your draft, that you thought was a shining gem, muttering "This bit's not that relevant, this part's editorializing, this paragraph makes no sense, this part goes on way too long about a minor point, this sentence needs to be in context, oh, yeah, and you forgot a comma here." Not necessarily. But it is a necessary part of the editing process.
As to a question above, "if a deletionist is submitting an article for deletion on a subject they don't know about...", let's have your attention for a moment please, to where the basis is for notability in policy. Core policy. As in, not just a guideline. You can find it at WP:V, and you'll find this paragraph in it:
"The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Material that is *challenged or likely to be challenged* needs a reliable source, which should be cited in the article. Quotations should also be attributed. If an article topic has no reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on it."
As soon as that deletion nomination goes up, in effect, the entire article is being challenged. It's -your responsibility- to then show that the challenge is not valid. And sometimes it is, sometimes there aren't any reliable independent sources! Now, that doesn't mean a person shouldn't do some looking for sources before making an AfD nomination, there's no need to waste everyone's time if that reveals plenty of source material. But if none is readily available, and none is cited in the article, it's pretty reasonable that someone will say "Well, does that sourcing we need even exist?"
Want to never again see an article you create nominated for AfD, or even see anyone think real loud about it? Put good, solid, independent sources into it from the -very first edit-. (You are using good, solid, independent sources, right? So just say what they are!)
Yes, I'm probably taking a bit of an irritated tone here, but I'm irritated at seeing "deletionist" thrown around as though it were an epithet. Part of an editor's job is to cut. Not everyone likes doing that, and that's fine, but we certainly don't need to vilify those who do. It's as necessary and healthy a part of the editing process as adding.
On 6/6/07, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
On 0, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com scribbled:
http://www.sfbg.com/printable_entry.php?entry_id=3803
- d.
"And then, while I was at it, I re-created another entry recently deleted for not being notable enough — that of Sonia Greene, a pulp fiction writer and publisher of the 1920s who was briefly married to H.P. Lovecraft. Of all the insulting things to have happen, her entry had been erased, and people searching for her were redirected to an entry on Lovecraft. How's that for you, future scholars? Looking for information about a minor pulp fiction writer? Too bad she's not notable — but we can redirect you to an entry on a guy she was married to for two years. (A guy, I might add, who pissed her off so much that she burned all his letters when they divorced.) Yuck."
Dammit, I *hate* it when people mis-characterize the [[Sonia Greene]] thing. Like I told the Wired guy as well, Valrith didn't blank and redirect to H. P. Lovecraft because Sonia wasn't notable, he did it because the entire article was a tissue of multiple copyvios and there wasn't any material to be preserved or anything else that could be done (neither he nor I were Greene experts).
Also there is the fact that blanking and redirecting is a lot different than deleting in Wikipedia norms. You'll generally get a lot less grief undoing a redirect than a deletion. Of course it's nicer to drop a line to the contributor first, but that's sometimes a fool's errand with people who haven't logged in.
On Wed, 6 Jun 2007 16:59:49 -0400, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
Dammit, I *hate* it when people mis-characterize the [[Sonia Greene]] thing. Like I told the Wired guy as well, Valrith didn't blank and redirect to H. P. Lovecraft because Sonia wasn't notable, he did it because the entire article was a tissue of multiple copyvios and there wasn't any material to be preserved or anything else that could be done (neither he nor I were Greene experts).
It would not be the first time someone had misrepresented the reason for removal of content on a subject they like.
Guy (JzG)
G'day Gwern,
Dammit, I *hate* it when people mis-characterize the [[Sonia Greene]] thing. Like I told the Wired guy as well, Valrith didn't blank and redirect to H. P. Lovecraft because Sonia wasn't notable, he did it because the entire article was a tissue of multiple copyvios and there wasn't any material to be preserved or anything else that could be done (neither he nor I were Greene experts).
When faced with a poor article, I tend to prefer it to be a copyvio than an original but dodgy work. Why?
Because if it's a copyright violation, then we have ready-made sources for rewriting! Yay! Of course, many people couldn't be bothered with that sort of thing, not when there's inappropriate speedies to tag and good edits to revert ...
On 6/6/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, notability is bollocks. I think we're going to have to reinvent what it is to be an encyclopedia, taking the best practice of existing encyclopedias and applying them, thoughtfully and without these silly robotic criteria, to our open editing model.